“Sir,” he said, “are you in want of hands on your vessel?”
“I always am,” replied the captain; and then, his practised eye seeing that Dicky was a gentleman, he asked, “What straits have brought you to this pass?” At the very first word the skipper spoke, Dicky’s heart bounded with joy. The Devonshire burr ran through all his speech.
“You are a Devonshire man, I see,” said Dicky, coolly; “so am I. Take me aboard and I will tell you that which will make you willing to let me work my passage to wherever you are bound.”
“You are right; I am Devon born and bred,” replied the skipper. “We sail with the tide for Antwerp. Where is your passage money?”
“Do you think I would have asked to earn my passage had I money in my pocket? My friend, I am a gentleman of your own county. If you take me to Antwerp, I give you the word of a gentleman that you shall have, within a month, the best rate you ever had for a passenger in your life.”
The skipper motioned him into the boat. Arrived on board, he dared not ask for anything to eat in spite of the hunger that gnawed him like a wolf. He waited, therefore, with such patience as he could, while the anchor was hove; and, a fresh breeze rising, in half an hour they were moving slowly down the river, stealing past mansions and farmsteads and low-lying houses, by the faint gleam of the stars.
When they were well on their way, the captain leaving the deck for a few minutes, supper was served in a stuffy little cabin by a ragged cabin boy. By that time Dicky was too faint to eat ravenously.
“I have seen that to-day,” said the skipper, “which might spoil any man’s supper. I have seen the heads and quarters of two London citizens, Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins nailed up at Temple Bar. They were hanged to-day.”
“God rest their souls,” said Dicky after a moment. And catching the man’s eye fixed on him meaningly, he saw that he was known. He turned up his sleeve and showing his bruised arm, said,—
“I am Richard Egremont, who was to have been hanged this day, but God willed it otherwise. I am of that Devonshire family which has seen its estates given to bastards and strangers, and we have been forced to eat the bread of exile for more than seven years. Now give me up, if you choose.”