“Stop on!” roared the founder. “Ay, stop on. Haven’t you just took another good order? Haven’t you got all that ’ood ready for the colliers; and haven’t you just got in a shipload of sulphur and Chinese salt? Lookye here, mas’, you don’t know, I s’pose, that if I left here every man and boy would go as well. No, master, we beant ungrateful, none of us; but we don’t like to see our young mistress sold, and him as should have had her thrown over.”
“And pray who is that?” cried the founder.
“Captain Culverin, mas’; that be the man she meant to have.”
“A wild adventurer—a man who murdered that wretch Churr.”
“Nay, master, there beant a man of us here who thinks that he did,” said the workman, sturdily; “and if Captain Gil was here you wouldn’t say it to he.”
“I am here, Tom Croftly,” said Gil, stepping into the big powder-shed, “and I thank you and your fellows for your good opinion. But take no notice of this. Master Cobbe here does not believe what he said.”
“But I do,” cried the founder, furiously.
“Tom Croftly,” said Gil, quietly, but with a flush in his cheek, “go, and leave me with Master Cobbe here. I want to talk with him.”
“All right, captain!” said the workman. “Bah!” he added to himself, “if he be’d the lad I thought him, he’d make no more ado but upset the whole of this London trade, and carry young mistress off. I would.”
“Now, Gil Carr,” cried the founder, as soon as they were alone. “We’ve done our business. You’ve delivered all your cargo that I want, and you’ve been paid your money. Wouldn’t it have been more decent if you had kept away?”