Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/64

46 spread a cloth and laid before them a good supper. But their guest was too unwell to eat, and was not unnaturally anxious lest the man should only have asked for delay in order to betray him. He was now, however, in their power, and it was useless to hesitate; so he merely asked for leave to lie down and sleep until the time to depart had arrived. The woman accordingly gave him a clean mattress in the room in which they sat; and here, worn out with a long day's walk, he wrapped himself in his cloak and slept.

At the appointed hour the fisherman awoke his guest, and bade him follow him. Sir Sidney started from his place and obeyed, and with a joyful heart stepped into the boat which lay waiting for them in a little cove. Feeling himself once more upon his native element, after so many wanderings, the gallant sailor drew his cloak around him with an involuntary gesture of satisfaction, which the man observed, but mistook its meaning. To Sir Sidney's surprise, he laid his hand upon his shoulder, and said, "Do not hide yourself, sir, from me, for I have known you all along." Sir Sidney was scarcely alarmed by this speech, for they were alone and he was armed. "If you indeed know me," he said calmly, "who am I?" "You are Commodore Smith," replied the man; "you more than once gave me a glass of spirits with your own hands, when I have come in my boat, the 'Diamond,' on wet nights, to sell fish to your crew, and I should be a scoundrel if I betrayed you."

In telling this anecdote to a friend, long afterwards, Sir Sidney remarked, "You see by this occurrence that no man can be aware how the most apparently trifling events may influence his future safety, nor how humble