"It has: but you needn't to trouble about that. They can't escape that way, I promise you, having no boat alongside."
The little officer turned and whispered for a while with two of the soberest of his gang: and presently these whispered to two more, and the four of them marched away up the hill.
"'HANCOCK—TAILOR,'" reads out the officer aloud, stepping back into the roadway and peering up at the shop-front. "Very well, my man, you'll hear from us again——"
"I'm not askin' for any reward, Sir"
"So you've said: and I was about to say that, if this turns out to be a trick, you'll hear from us again, and in a way you'll be sorry for. And now, once more, take your ugly head inside. 'Tis my duty to act on information, but I don't love informers."
For the moment the threat made the tailor uncomfortable: but he felt pretty sure the sailors, when they discovered the trick, wouldn't be able to do him much harm. The laugh of the whole town would be against them: and on Regatta Night the press—unpopular enough at the best of times—would gulp down the joke and make the best of it. He went back to his bench; but on second thoughts not to his work. 'Twould be on the safe side, anyway, to be not at home for an hour or two, in case the sailors came back to cry quits: playing the lonely martyr, too, wasn't much fun with this mischief working inside of him and swelling his lungs like barm.[2] He took a bite of bread and a sup of cider, blew out the candle, let himself forth into the street after a glance to make sure that all was clear, and headed for the Fish and Anchor.
[2] Barm=yeast.
He found the bar-room crowded, but not with the usual Regatta Night throng of all-sorts. The drinkers assembled were either burgesses like himself or waterside men with protection-papers in their pockets: for news of the press-gang had run through the town like wildfire, and the company had given over discussing the race of the day and taken up with this new subject. Among the protected men his eye lit on Treleaven the hoveller, husband to Long Eliza, and Caius Pengelly, husband to Ann, that had pulled bow in the race. He winked to them mighty cunning. The pair of 'em seemed dreadfully cast down, and he knew a word to put them in heart again.
"Terrible blow for us, mates, this woman's mutiny!" says he, dropping into a chair careless-like, pulling out a short pipe, and speaking high to draw the company's attention.