"Pooh! Three little corvettes from two men-o'-war and four big frigates! And let me tell you there's not many men could have brought that ship through those rocks like that. I wonder who it is? A Guernsey man for sure!" [A very similar story is told of Sir James Saumarez in the Crescent off Vazin Bay in Guernsey. His pilot was Jean Breton, who received a large gold medal for the feat.]
His war-dance came to a sudden stop with the fall of a heavy hand on his shoulder, and he jerked round in surprise. It was a stout, heavily-built man in blue cloth jacket and trousers, and a cap such as no Island man ever wore in his life, and a sharp ratty face such as no Island man would have cared to wear.
"Now, little corbin, what is it you are dancing at?" he asked, in a tongue that was neither English nor French nor Norman, but an uncouth mixture of all three, and in a tone which was meant to imply joviality but carried no conviction to the boy's mind.
But the boy had weighed him up in a moment and with one glance, and he was too busy thinking to speak.
"Come then! Art dumb?" and he shook the boy roughly.
"Mon dou donc, yes, that is it!" said Carette, dancing round them with apprehension for her companion. "He's dumb."
"He was shouting loud enough a minute ago," and he pinched the boy's ear smartly between his big thumb and finger.
"It's only sometimes," said Carette lamely. "You let him go and maybe he'll speak."
"See, my lad," said the burly one, letting go the boy's ear but keeping a grip on his shoulder. "I'm not going to harm you. All I want to know is whether you've seen any sizable ships banging about here lately.—You know what I mean!"
The small boy knew perfectly what he meant, and his lip curled at thought of being mistaken for the kind of boy who would open his mouth to a preventive man. He shook his head, however.