I had not gone far, however, before the hoarse voice of Solomon Sprent broke in upon my meditations.
'Hoy there! Ahoy!' he bellowed, though his mouth was but a few yards from my ear. 'Would ye come across my hawse without slacking weigh? Clew up, d'ye see, clew up!'
'Why, Captain,' I said, 'I did not see you. I was lost in thought.'
'All adrift and without look-outs,' quoth he, pushing his way through the break in the garden hedge. 'Odd's niggars, man! friends are not so plentiful, d'ye see, that ye need pass 'em by without a dip o' the ensign. So help me, if I had had a barker I'd have fired a shot across your bows.'
'No offence, Captain,' said I, for the veteran appeared to be nettled; 'I have much to think of this morning.'
'And so have I, mate,' he answered, in a softer voice. 'What think ye of my rig, eh?' He turned himself slowly round in the sunlight as he spoke, and I perceived that he was dressed with unusual care. He had a blue suit of broadcloth trimmed with eight rows of buttons, and breeches of the same material with great bunches of ribbon at the knee. His vest was of lighter blue picked out with anchors in silver, and edged with a finger's-breadth of lace. His boot was so wide that he might have had his foot in a bucket, and he wore a cutlass at his side suspended from a buff belt, which passed over his right shoulder.
'I've had a new coat o' paint all over,' said he, with a wink. 'Carramba! the old ship is water-tight yet. What would ye say, now, were I about to sling my hawser over a little scow, and take her in tow?'
'A cow!' I cried.
'A cow! what d'ye take me for? A wench, man, and as tight a little craft as ever sailed into the port of wedlock.'
'I have heard no better news for many a long day,' said I; 'I did not even know that you were betrothed. When thou is the wedding to be?'
'Go slow, friend--go slow, and heave your lead-line! You have got out of your channel, and are in shoal water. I never said as how I was betrothed.'
'What then?' I asked.
'I am getting up anchor now, to run down to her and summon her. Look ye, lad,' he continued, plucking off his cap and scratching his ragged locks; 'I've had to do wi' wenches enow from the Levant to the Antilles--wenches such as a sailorman meets, who are all paint and pocket. It's but the heaving of a hand grenade, and they strike their colours. This is a craft of another guess build, and unless I steer wi' care she may put one in between wind and water before I so much as know that I am engaged. What think ye, heh? Should I lay myself boldly alongside, d'ye see, and ply her with small arms, or should I work myself clear and try a long range action? I am none of your slippery, grease-tongued, long-shore lawyers, but if so be as she's willing for a mate, I'll stand by her in wind and weather while my planks hold out.'
'I can scarce give advice in such a case,' said I, 'for my experience is less than yours. I should say though that you had best speak to her from your heart, in plain sailor language.'
'Aye, aye, she can take it or leave it. Phoebe Dawson it is, the sister of the blacksmith. Let us work back and have a drop of the right Nants before we go. I have an anker newly come, which never paid the King a groat.'
'Nay, you had best leave it alone,' I answered.
'Say you so? Well, mayhap you are right. Throw off your moorings, then, and clap on sail, for we must go.'
'But I am not concerned,' said I.
'Not concerned! Not--' he was too much overcome to go on, and could but look at me with a face full of reproach. 'I thought better of you, Micah. Would you let this crazy old hulk go into action, and not stand by to fire a broadside?'
'What would you have me do then?'
'Why, I would have you help me as the occasion may arise. If I start to board her, I would have you work across the bows so as to rake her. Should I range, up on the larboard quarter, do you lie, on the starboard. If I get crippled, do you draw her fire until I refit. What, man, you would not desert me!'
The old seaman's tropes and maritime conceits were not always intelligible to me, but it was clear that he had set his heart upon my accompanying him, which I was equally determined not to do.