“What, sir? Nonsense, sir! A little heavy and—er—short-winded perhaps, but never better or more full of fight in my life, sir. The scoundrels! Oh, if I had been there! But I feel hurt, Nic—cruelly hurt. You and that salt-soaked old villain, Bill Sally, hatch up these things between you. Want to make out I’m infirm. I’ll discharge that vagabond.”
“No, you will not, father. He’s too good and faithful a servant. He thinks of nothing but his old Captain’s health.”
“A scoundrel! and so he ought to. Wasn’t he at sea with me for five-and-twenty years—wrecked with me three times?—But you, Nic, to mutiny against your father!”
“No, no, father; I assure you I knew nothing whatever about it till I came down this morning.”
“And you’d have woke me if you had known?”
“Of course I would, father.”
“Thank you, Nic—thank you. To be sure: you gave me your word of honour you would. But as for that ruffian Bill Solly, I’ll blow him out of the water.”
“Better let it rest, father,” said Nic. “We escaped a bad fight perhaps. I believe there was a gang of fifteen or twenty of the scoundrels, and I’d rather they had all the fish in the sea than that you should be hurt.”
“Thank you, Nic; thank you, my boy. That’s very good of you; but I can’t, and I will not, lie by and have my fish cleared away like this.”
“There’ll be more as soon as the rain comes again in the moors, and these are gone now.”