Do you hear me? cried Gil, impatiently, as he stamped his heavy foot upon the moss.
Hah! ejaculated Wat again. I was there on the watch.
Yes, yes; and what did you see?
Mas Cobbe come out soon after you had gone across the little bridge and pook it out of the way.
Yes, yes; go on.
Then I give you the signal two or three times before I could make you hear, and just then I heard another step and hid away, and fore I had time to do more in he went. You know.
Yes; but look here, Wat, how came you to be there?
I was there to save my skipper from being pooked, growled Wat, slowly and between puffs of his pipe. It was as if I had been sent on purpose.
Its a lie, cried Gil, angrily. Wat, you are an old trickster and a cheat. How dare you try to deceive me?
There, said Wat, quietly addressing a beech pollard before him; thats gratitude for watching over and saving him from being pooked.
Of course you saved me from danger, just as any brave man would try to save another, and more especially one of a crew, his skipper. There is no merit attached to that. Now look here, Wat, confess, for I am sure I know.
I dont know about no confessing, growled Wat; youre a skipper, not a priest. Spose I asked you what you were doing there? If the captain sets such an example, what can you spect of the crew?
Gil twisted his moustache angrily, and then turned sharply on his follower.
You were not watching me?
I arnt going to tell no lies. No.
You as good as say, then, that you were on the same errand as I?
I arnt going to sail round no headlands when theres a port right in front. I arnt ashamed. Yes, I were.
Look here, Wat Kilby, said Gil, after taking a step or two up and down in front of the old fellow, who calmly leaned back and gazed straight before him look here, Wat Kilby, you have been like a second father to me.
Hah! And then a puff of smoke.
And I would not willingly hurt your feelings.
Hah!
But I hold in great respect the people who dwell in yon house, and I will not have them in anywise annoyed.
Then I wouldnt go coming the Spanish Don, under their windows o nights, growled Wat.
Silence, sir, cried Gil.
As he spoke, the young mans face flushed with shame and mortification at being twitted with his amorous passages, but there was a look of command and an imperious tone in his voice that told of one accustomed to be obeyed, and the great lank muscular man, tanned and hardened by a life of exposure, shuffled uneasily in his seat and let his little pipe go out.
If it had been another man, Wat, continued Gil, I should have given him a week in irons for daring to go near the place.
What! after his skipper set an example? growled Wat.
Silence, sir, roared Gil, catching the old fellow by the shoulder. Bah! he continued, calming down, Why do you anger me, Wat? and he loosed his hold.
Oh, haul away, young un, growled Wat, with a grim smile, you dont hurt me. I like to see what a sturdy young lion youve grown. Thats your father, every inch of him, as did that. Hah! he was a one.
Let him rest, Wat, cried Gil impatiently. My father would never have looked over an act of folly or disobedience. Neither will I.
You never ordered me not to go, growled Wat.
Then I do now, sir! Look here. What does it mean? Are you not ashamed of yourself, carrying on these gallantries? There was that Carib woman out at Essequibo.
Hah! with a smokeless exhalation.
And the flat-nosed Malayan in the Eastern Seas.
Hah!
And that Chinese, yellow, moon-faced woman.
Hah!
And the black girl on the Guinea Coast.
Hah!
And that Portingallo wench, and the Spanish lass with the dark eyes, and that great Greek, and a score beside.
Hah!
Yes, skipper, said Wat calmly, Ive got an ugly shell, but the core inside is very soft.
Soft? Yes.
But youre going back a many years, skipper.
I need, cried Gil angrily. A man of your age, too! Why, Wat, youre sixty, if you are a day!
Sixty-four, growled Wat quietly, as he took out his flint and steel and screwed up his grim weather-beaten face.
Then its a disgrace to you!
Disgrace? Whats being sixty-four got to do with it?
Why youre an old man, sir!
Old man? Not I, captain. Im as young as ever I was, and as fond of a pretty girl. Im not old; and, if I was, I get fonder of em every year I live.
It is disgraceful, sir! cried Gil, angrily. You ought to be thinking of your coffin instead of pretty girls.
That touched Wat home, and he sprang to his feet with the activity of a boy.
No, I oughtnt, skipper, he cried, excitedly. And, look here, dont you say that there terrifying word to me again I hate it. When its all over, if you dont have me dropped overboard, just as I am, at sea, or even here at home in the little river, Ill come back and haunt you. Coffin, indeed! Talk about such trade as that! Just as if I hadnt sailed round the world like a man.
He reseated himself, and began once more to use his flint and steel, but this time viciously.
Once for all then, Wat, I will not have this sort of thing here. A man of your years hanging about after that great ugly dairy wench.