Riotous laughter greeted these noble sentiments, and Bluett, vaguely aware that the company laughed as much with the ancient as at him, departed to bed. He was staying at the “Golden Anchor” until his lodgment at Daleham should be ready for him.
CHAPTER II
Great confusion, shouting and swearing kept Robert Bluett wakeful for some time, and next morning he learned the reason of it. As he walked early upon the quay before breakfast, tried to master the intricate coast-line at a glance and longed to be afloat that he might get a wider and juster view of the red and honeycombed cliffs, a woebegone figure approached him—a bent and hobbling creature that crawled on two sticks, wore a three-cornered hat and had his right eye concealed by a big black patch. Only the flowing beard of Johnny Cramphorn proclaimed him.
“God save you, Master Bluett, or I should say ‘Cap’n Bluett,’” he began. “The very man I wanted for to see.”
“Who’s been clawing you?” asked the Excise Officer.
“Who but the Dowl’s own anointed? You heard the tantara in the tap-room? Well, ’twas upon an aged piece like me they varmints falled like heathen wolves. Look here!”
He lifted his patch and showed a pale blue eye set in a bruise as black as ink. Thus seen it suggested a jackdaw’s.
“Jonathan Godbeer’s hand done that—the Lord judge un! Wi’ his bullock’s fist he knocked me down, ’cause I withstood un to his face, like the prophet withstood David.”
“Ban’t no quarrel of mine,” said Mr. Bluett, “though if all I hear be true, me an’ Godbeer may fall out afore the world’s much older.”
“Ess—if you’m honest, you’ll fall out wi’ him. ’Twas honesty brought me these cruel bruises. When you’d gone, I rose in my wrath an’ axed un how he dared to lie to you so open; then he smote me.”