Big French sighed in relief and they walked on in silence for a minute or so. They were now some four hundred yards from the Ship. The high building with its great thatch showed a dark outline against the cold starlight, but all the uncurtained lower windows showed the warm glow within and from the partly open door the sound of singing came out to them on the cold breeze.
The two unconsciously hastened their steps. When they reached the gate of the courtyard the words of the song could be heard clearly above the noise of laughter and banging of pewter.
“Pretty Poll she loved a sailor”
Gilbot’s voice was piping a little in advance of the rest.
“And well she loved he,
But he sailed to the mouth
Of a stream in the South
And was losht in the rolling sea.
And was losht in the rolling sea.”
Dick straightened his lace ruffles at his throat.
“The dogs seem merry,” he observed as he kicked open the door and stepped into the candle-lit kitchen of the Ship.
All eyes were immediately turned on him, and he stood perfectly still for some seconds enjoying to the full the impression he was making.
The Ship’s company was used to the simple finery of Captain Fen de Witt and his men, and most of them had been to the western end of the Island and had seen strangers who had come, it was whispered, from London itself, but Dick’s magnificence was wholly new to most of them, while even those who had seen him before were surprised at the contrast which his glistening figure made with the sombre background of the Ship kitchen’s smoke-blackened walls.
Hal stood staring at him as long as any of the others, and Mistress Sue let the rum she was drawing fill up one of the great pewter tankards and spill over on to the stones before she noticed it, so intently did she look at the stranger in the doorway.