Whereupon the man went to his sleeping comrade, and neatly kicked his hat into the air, bidding him wake, with a strange oath that startled me. The sleeper did not at once open his eyes, but his mouth being already open, he let forth a volley of curses, and demanded his hat, avouching that if he suffered a sunstroke he would "this" and "that" the other: his actual words I cannot write. My uncle's face showing his reprobation of such language, especially on the Sabbath, the big man excused his comrade, saying that 'twas only Joshua Chick's way, and he was really a good soul, and very obliging. At this the prostrate man opened his eyes, and, seeing my uncle, got upon his feet, and when he was told of the invitation to supper, he touched his forelock and said he was always ready to oblige. If the looks of Nick Wabberley did not take my fancy, still less did those of Joshua Chick, who was a small man, very lean and swarthy, and his eyes squinted so dreadfully that he seemed to be looking at my uncle and myself at one and the same time.
After a few more words we parted, the men promising to be at our house prompt at eight o'clock. And as we continued our walk home, my uncle satisfied my curiosity, telling me that the big man, Nick Wabberley, who was, as I had already guessed, the brother of Tom Wabberley, that owned Lowcote Farm some two miles from our door, had been a school-fellow of his, and the idlest boy in the whole countryside. He never got through a day without a flogging. The master birched him; his father leathered him; but neither did him any good: he remained an incorrigible dunce and truant, and no one was very sorry when one morning it was found that he had slipped out of his bedroom window during the night and run away. He had never since been heard of, but now that after twenty-five years he had returned to his native place, my uncle's heart warmed towards him because he had been to sea. Sailors were not often seen in our inland parts, and the prospect of discourse with a man who had actually beheld what he had only read about filled my uncle with delight.
Prompt on the stroke of eight Nick Wabberley arrived, accompanied by his messmate Joshua Chick. They proved to be excellent trenchermen: indeed, they prolonged the meal longer than either my uncle or my aunt liked, the former being impatient to hear stories of the sea, the latter watching with concern the disappearance of her viands. But supper was over at last, and then my uncle bade the visitors draw their chairs to the fire, gave them each a long pipe and a sneaker of punch, and settled himself in his arm-chair to drink in the tale of their adventures. Being near seventeen I was allowed to make one of the company, to the envy of my young cousins, who hung about the room for some time, but being at last detected were bundled off to bed.
It needs not to tell how late we sat up, nor how many tumblers of brandy-punch the two sailors tossed off between them before they departed, steady enough on their legs, but a trifle thick in their speech. My uncle was abstemious himself, and held a toper to be something less than a man; at an ordinary time he would have avoided to ply his visitors with liquor, but the truth is that on this occasion his whole soul was rapt away into a kind of wonderland by Nick Wabberley's tales, so that the men were able to replenish their glasses at intervals, unperceived. I have heard many a mariner's yarn since, and know them to be works of fancy and imagination as often as not; at that time I was as credulous as a babe, and my uncle scarcely less, and I doubt not we gulped down all the marvels we heard as greedily as the trout gapes at a fly. Certainly Nick Wabberley was a masterly story-teller, spinning yarns, as they say, as easily as a spider spins her web, and never at a loss for a word. Joshua Chick took but a modest part in the conversation, being very well occupied in replenishing the glasses; but every now and again he would slip in a word to correct some statement of his comrade, Nick accepting it with great composure. I noticed that these occasional contributions of Joshua's tended most often towards embellishment, and the level tones in which he related the most astonishing marvels, at the same time fixing one eye on my uncle and the other on me (keeping his hand on the brandy-bottle), made a wonderful impression on us.
It appeared that the two sailors had been members of the company which sailed with Captain Cook (he was then lieutenant) on his first voyage into the southern hemisphere. My uncle knew by heart the story of this voyage as it is given in Dr. Hawkesworth's book, and expressed great surprise that so many of the incidents and particulars related by Nick Wabberley were not mentioned in that worthy doctor's pages. He even ventured at one point to controvert a statement of Nick's, adducing the doctor as his authority, at which Nick waxed mightily indignant. "Why, d'ye see, warn't I there?" he said. "Warn't I there, Josh?"
"You was," says Chick firmly.
"And warn't you there?" says Wabberley, his moist lips quivering with indignation.
"I were," replies Chick, with vehemence.
"Then what the blazes has any landlubber of a doctor got to do with it, what don't know one end of a ship from t'other!"
There was nothing to be said in answer to this, and my uncle afterwards confided to me his opinion that Captain Cook's own journals contained a good many things which Dr. Hawkesworth had not seen fit to print.