“It is disgraceful, sir!” cried Gil, angrily. “You ought to be thinking of your coffin instead of pretty girls.”
That touched Wat home, and he sprang to his feet with the activity of a boy.
“No, I oughtn’t, skipper,” he cried, excitedly. “And, look here, don’t you say that there terrifying word to me again—I hate it. When it’s all over, if you don’t have me dropped overboard, just as I am, at sea, or even here at home in the little river, I’ll come back and haunt you. Coffin, indeed! Talk about such trade as that! Just as if I hadn’t sailed round the world like a man.”
He reseated himself, and began once more to use his flint and steel, but this time viciously.
“Once for all then, Wat, I will not have this sort of thing here. A man of your years hanging about after that great ugly dairy wench.”
“Who did?” cried Wat sharply. “Nay, captain, never.”
“Have I been mistaken, then?” cried Gil, eagerly. “Stop, though—you don’t mean to say that you have been casting your ancient eyes on Janet?”
“Why not?” cried Wat, leaping up once more. “She’s as pretty a creature as ever I set my ancient eyes, as you call ’em, on.”
“Why, man, she’s eighteen, and you are sixty-four.”
“All the better,” cried Wat. “Janet it is, and I’m going to wed her.”