“If you don’t look out and leave me alone, I will pretty soon accentuate your nose, Stormy,” retorted the other, all good humour again, as he always was; for he took a joke, even of the most practical sort, as freely as he perpetrated one. “Yes, Johnny Vernon, it should be called ‘My-deary,’ and I’ll tell you why. The island, so the monk told me, owes its origin, or rather discovery, to two lovers who fled thither in the year fourteen hundred and something. One of these lovyers, my young friend, was a Scotchman named Robert Matchim, and the other was a Miss Anna D’Arfet, a young lady residing at Lisbon, whose parents objected to Robert and refused to match her with Matchim.”
Mr Stormcock pitched another biscuit immediately at Larkyns, crying out at the same time—
“That’s for your bad pun!”
The wag, however, dodged it and proceeded with his yarn.
“Being a Scotchman, although poor, as few of the nation are,” proceeded he, aiming this retaliatory shot at the master’s mate, who, he knew, hailed from the North and hadn’t a spare bawbee to bless himself with, “our friend, Robert Matchim, being as brave as he was bold, would not be done by a pitiful Portuguese laird. So, he pawned the title-deeds of his ancestral estates in Skye, where I forgot to mention he lived when at home; and, chartering a caravel, which happened luckily to be lying at anchor off the port at the time, smuggled his sweetheart on board and sailed away—with the intention of eloping to France, where her stern paryent would, he thought, be unable to follow him for certain political reasons.”
“Very good so far,” interposed Mr Stormcock again at this point, in an ironical tone. “Pray go on; it is most interesting!”
“Glad you like it,” said Larkyns, coolly, without turning a hair. “Well, then, to finish the story. Very unfortunately for these fond lovyers, a storm arose, like that bit of breeze we had t’other day. This blew them out of their course and they lost their reckoning, landing at this very island, of which we are speaking instead of at some French port as they expected. The spot they pitched on was called Machico Bay on the eastern side; and there they lived happy ever after, having the additional satisfaction after departing this life of being both buried in one grave. Their last resting-place was seen by a party of Spaniards who subsequently re-discovered the island; when these sentimental mariners, noting the names of the aforesaid lovyers on their joint tombstone, and the account there detailed of their strange adventures, very romantically and devoutly erected a chapel to their memory. This chapel exists to this very day and can be seen by you, Stormy, or any other unbeliever in the truthfulness of my yarn! It is for this reason, my worthy Johnny, that I insist that the island shall be properly styled ‘My-deary’; for, as Robert loved Anna, he would naturally have addressed her as ‘My-deary.’ Do you twig, young ’un, eh?”
“Oh, yes,” I answered with a snigger, “I think, though, it’s rather far-fetched.”
“So it is,” said he. “It came from Madeira; and that’s some six hundred miles, more or less, from where we now are.”
At that moment, Corporal Macan appeared at the door of the gunroom and walked up to where I was sitting.