‘There they come, sir; that’s the tramp,’ cried the woman; ‘there’s nothing for it now but to stay quiet and hope you ‘ll not be noticed. Take those knives up, will ye,’ said she, flinging a napkin towards me, and speaking in an altered voice, for already two figures were darkening the entrance, and peering down into the depth below, while turning to Santron she motioned him to remove the dishes from the table—a service in which, to do him justice, he exhibited a zeal more flattering to his tact than his spirit of resistance.
‘Tripped their anchors already, Mother Martin?’ said a large-whiskered man, with a black belt round his waist; while, passing round the tables, he crammed into his mouth several fragments of the late feast.
‘You wouldn’t have ‘em wait for you, Captain John,’ said she, laughing.
‘It’s just what I would, then,’ replied he. ‘The Admiralty has put thirty shillings more on the bounty, and where will these fellows get the like of that? It isn’t a West India service, neither, nor a coastin’ cruise off Newfoundland, but all as one as a pleasure-trip up the Mediterranean, and nothing to fight but Frenchmen. Eh, younker, that tickles your fancy,’ cried he to Santron, who, in spite of himself, made some gesture of impatience.
‘Handy chaps, those, Mother Martin; where did you chance on’em?’
‘They’re sons of a Canada skipper in the river yonder,’ said she calmly.
‘They aren’t over like to be brothers,’ said he, with the grin of one too well accustomed to knavery to trust anything opposed to his own observation. ‘I suppose them’s things happens in Canada as elsewhere,’ said he, laughing, and hoping the jest might turn her flank. Meanwhile the press leader never took his eyes off me, as I arranged plates and folded napkins with all the skill which my early education in Boivin’s restaurant had taught me.
‘He is a smart one,’ said he, half musingly. ‘I say, boy, would you like to go as cook’s aid on board a king’s ship? I know of one as would just suit you.’
‘I’d rather not, sir; I’d not like to leave my father,’ said I, backing up Mrs. Martin’s narrative.
‘Nor that brother, there; wouldn’t he like it?’