Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/204

 an' such a picture as you never set eyes on, close-hauled within five points of the wind. First they gammoned me as she was a slaver, and then a sugar-merchant's pleasure-boat, and sometimes they said she was a privateer, with letters of marque from the king; but I didn't want to know much about that; King George or King Louis, it made no odds, bless ye; I warn't a goin' to turn sawbones, an' Captain Delaval was my master, that was enough for me! Such a master he was, too! No seaman—not he. His hands were as white as a lady's, an' I doubt if he knew truck from taffrail; but with old Blowhard, the master, to sail her, and do what the skipper called swabbing and dirty work, there wasn't a king's officer as ever I've heard of could touch him. Such a man to fight his ship was Captain Delaval. I've seen him run her in under a Spanish battery, with a table set on deck and a awning spread, and him sitting with a glass of wine in his hand, and give his orders as cool and comfortable as you and me is now. 'Easy, Blowhard!' he'd sing out, when old 'Blow' was sweating, and cursing, and stamping about to get the duty done. 'Don't ye speak so sharp to the men,' says he; 'spoils their ear for music,' says he. 'We'll be out o' this again afore the breeze falls, and we'll turn the fiddles up and have a dance in the cool of the evening.' Then he'd smile at me, and say, 'Slap-Jack, you little blackguard, run below for another pineapple; not so rotten-ripe as the last;' and by the time I was on deck again, he'd be wiping his sword carefully, and drawing on his gloves—that man couldn't so much as whistle a hornpipe without his gloves; and let who would be second on board the prize, be she bark, schooner, brig, galleon, or square-rigged ship, Captain Delaval he would be first. Look ye here, mates: I made two voyages with Captain Delaval, and when I stepped on the quay at Bristol off the second—there! I was worth a hundred doubloons, all in gold, besides as much silk as would have lined the fore-sail, and a pair of diamond earrings that I lost the first night I slept ashore. I thought, then, as perhaps I wasn't to see my dandy skipper again, but I was wrong. I've never been in London town but once, an' I don't care if I never goes no more. First man I runs against in Thames Street is Captain Delaval, ridin'