"Why, blamed if you abbun forgot me! I be Joe—Joe Noy comed back-along at last. My ivers! You, as doan't forget nothin', to forget me! Yet, maybe, 'tis the low light of the fire as hides me from 'e."
"You'm a mariner, I reckon?"
"I reckon so, if ever theer was wan. An' I'll be the richer by a mate's ticket 'fore the year's dead. But never mind me. How be you all—all well? I thot I'd pop in an' surprise 'e."
"Cruel fashion weather for pilchur fishin' us have had—cruel fashion weather. I knawed 'tweer comin', same as Noah knawed 'fore the flood, 'cause the Lard tawld me. 'Forty years long was I grieved wi' this generation.' But man tries the patience o' God these days. We'm like the Ruan Vean men: 'doan't knaw an' won't larn.'"
"Iss fay, mister, true 'nough; but tell me 'bout 'e all an'—an' my Joan. She've been the cherub aloft for me ever since I strained my eyes glazin' for the last peep o' Carnwall when us sailed. How be my lil Joan?"
The other started, sat up in his chair and gripped the left arm of it, while his right hand extended before him and he jolted it curiously with all the fingers pointing down.
"Joan—Joan? In hell—ragin', roastin' hell—screechin', I lay, like a cat in a bonfire. 'Tis lies they'll tell 'e 'bout her. She weern't drownded—never. The devil set sail 'pon auld Chirgwin's hayrick, so they sez, an' her sailed 'long wi' en. But 'theer rings, they was so high that they was dreadful, an' theer rings weer full o' eyes round about.' She'm damned, my son—called, not chosen. 'The crop o' the bunch' they called her—the crop o' the devil's bunch she was—no cheel o' my gettin'. Her'll burn for a million years or better—all along o' free-traadin'. Free-traadin'! curse 'em—why doan't they call it smugglin' an' have done?"
Joe Noy had fallen back. He forgot to breathe, then Nature performed the necessary act, and in a moment of the madman's silence his listener sucked a long loud breath.
"Oh, my gracious Powers, what's fallen 'pon en?" he groaned aloud.
"God's strong, but the devil's stronger, you mind. Us must pray to the pit now. 'Our devil which art in hell'—Ha! ha! ha! He hears fast enough, an' pokes up the black horns of en at the first smell o' prayer. Not but what my Tom's aloft, in the main-top o' paradise. I seed en pass 'pon a black wave wi' a gray foamin' crest. An' the white sawl o' my bwoy went mountin' and mountin' in shape o' a seabird. Men dies hard in salt water, you mind. It plays wi' 'em like a cat wi' a mouse. But 'tis all wan: 'The Lard is King an' sitteth 'tween the cherubims,' though the airth's twitchin', same as a crab bein' boiled alive, all the time."