Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/79

Rh The work they had to do aboard the Lion's Whelp was, as we have said, not enough to keep them busy. They had no difficulty in obtaining leave to go ashore, on the rather curious pretext that the steward did not give them a full allowance, and that they were hungry, and wished to buy themselves a square meal, at one of the inns by the Point. They went ashore together in one of the boats, and soon found a tavern to their taste. Here they sat down to disport themselves "after the manner of sailors," with the "humming ale" and "virtuous sacke" of their heart's desires. Very presently, although it was early in the day, they became drunk. They began to "swagger," or bluster, and in their songs and oaths, and drunken talk, they seem to have let fall a few dark hints of their intentions towards the recusant. The recusant happened to be ashore in Portsmouth waiting for the tide, or buying necessaries. He saw "a ragged regiment of common rogues" rolling from inn to inn. He heard their oaths and menaces (or heard of them from some one he could trust), and became suspicious. Portsmouth was but a little town, and the presence of a drunken