Sartoris and Scarlett looked with astonishment at the suddenly infuriated man.
“As for his cursed port wine,” continued the Pilot, “let him keep it. I wouldn’t drink it.”
“In which case,” said the skipper, “if I’d ha’ got into port, I’d ha’ been most happy to have drank it myself.”
“I’d have lent you a hand, Captain,” said Scarlett.
“Most happy,” replied Sartoris. “We’d ha’ drank the firm’s health, and the reconciliation o’ these two brothers. But, Pilot, let me ask a question. What on this earth could your brother, Mr. Summerhayes, ha’ done to make you reject six cases o’ port—reject ’em with scorn: six cases o’ the best port as was ever shipped to this or any other country? Now, that’s what puzzles me.”
“Then, Cap’n Sartoris—without any ill-feeling to you, though I do disagree with your handling o’ that ship—I say you’ll have to puzzle it out. But I ask this: If you had a brother who was the greatest blackguard unhung, would you drink his port wine?”
“It would largely depend on the quality,” said the skipper—“the quality of the wine, not o’ the man.”
“The senior partner of your firm is my brother.”
“That’s right. I don’t deny it.”
“If he hadn’t been my brother I’d ha’ killed him as sure as God made little apples. He’d a’ bin dead this twenty year. It was the temptation to do it that drove me out of England; and I vowed I’d never set foot there while he lived. And he sends me presents of port wine. I wish it may choke him! I wish he may drink himself to death with it! Look you here, Sartoris: you bring back the anger I thought was buried this long while; you open the wound that twelve thousand miles of sea and this new country were healing. But—but I thank God I never touched him. I thank God I never proved as big a blackguard as he. But don’t mention his name to me. If you think so much of him that you must be talking, talk to my gal, Rosebud. Tell her what a fine man she’s got for an uncle, how rich he is, how generous—but I shall never mention his name. I’m a straight-spoken man. If I was to tell my gal what I thought of him, I should fill her with shame that such a man should be kindred flesh and blood.”