“Then pray can you tell me why I was brought here?” replied Newton.
“Sure I can guess, bating you don’t know already. It was to sarve your king and your country, like a brave volunteer as you are.”
“Then I’m impressed?”
“You may take your Bible oath of it, my jewel, and commit no perjury. It’s a hard rap that ye got, any how; just a hint that ye were wanted: but plase God, if ye live and do well, ’twill be nothing at all to what we’ll have by-and-bye, all for the honour and glory of ould England.”
Newton, who during these remarks was thinking of his father’s situation, and the distress he would suffer without his assistance, and then of the state in which he had left his mother, again sank on the deck.
“Why he’s off again!” muttered Judy Malony; “he’s no countryman of mine, that’s clear as the mud in the Shannon, or he’d never fuss about a rap with a shillelah;” and Judy, lifting up her petticoats first, gained her feet, and walked away forward.
Newton remained in a state of uneasy slumber until daylight, when he was awakened by the noise of boats coming alongside, and loud talking on deck. All that had passed did not immediately rush into his mind; but his arm tied up with the bandage, and his hair matted, and his face stiff with the coagulated blood, soon brought to his recollection the communication of Judy Malony, that he had been impressed. The ’tween decks of the cutter appeared deserted, unless indeed there were people in the hammocks slung over his head; and Newton, anxious to obtain farther information, crawled under the hammocks to the ladder, and went up on deck.
About twenty sailors, well armed, were busy handing out of the boats several men whom they had brought on board, who were ordered aft by the officer in command. Newton perceived that most of them had not received much better treatment than he had on the preceding evening; some were shockingly disfigured, and were still bleeding profusely.
“How many have you altogether, Mr Vincent?” said the lieutenant to a stout master’s mate with a tremendous pair of whiskers, which his loose handkerchief discovered to join together at his throat.
“Seventeen, sir.”