Cradock laughed so heartily, that he rolled over with the hydropult on him, and threw his heels up in the air, and if they had not yelled so, they would have been sure to hear him. Very skilfully he had brought the nose of that noble engine to bear full upon the royal countenance, and the jet of water from the little stream passed through the ribs of the fetich. That god had asserted himself to such purpose, that henceforth you might hang him with beads, and give him a wig of tobacco, and no black man would dare to look at them.
Cradock Nowell felt almost too proud of his mighty volunteer movement, and began to think more than ever that the whole of the island was his. These things show, more than anything else can, his return to human reason; for of the rational human being—as discovered ordinarily—the very first instinct and ambition is the ownership of a peculium. What man cannot sympathize with that feeling who has got three fields and six children? Therefore when a beautiful schooner, of the true American rig, which made such lagging neddies of our yachts a few years since, came into view one afternoon, and fetched up, with the sails all shaking in the wind, abreast of the shed, ere sun–down, Cradock felt like the owner of a house who sees a man at his gate. Then he came down quietly with Wena, and sat upon a barrel, with a pipe of Cavendish in his mouth, and Wena crouched, like a chrysalis, between his pumpkinʼd feet.
Even the Yankee, who had not been surprised at any incident of life since his nurse dropped him down an oil–well, when he was two years old, even he experienced some sensation, when he saw a white man sitting and smoking upon his barrel of knowingest notions, with a black dog at his feet. But Recklesome Young was not the man to be long taken aback.
“Darn me, but yoo are a cool hand. Britisher, for ten dollars. Never see none like ‘em, I donʼt.”
“You are right,” answered Cradock, “I am an Englishman. Very much at your service. What is your business upon my island?”
“Waal,” said the Yankee, turning round to the four men who had rowed him ashore; “Zebedee, this is just what I likes, and no mistark about it. One of them old islanders come to dispute possession. And perhaps a cannon up the hill, and a company of sojers. Ainʼt it good, Zeb, ainʼt it? Lor, how I do love them!”
“Now, donʼt be too premature,” said Cradock, “it is the fault of your nation, as the opposite is ours.”
“Darned well said, young Britisher, give us your hand’ upon it; for, arter all, I likes yoo.”
Cradock shook hands with him heartily, for there was something in the manʼs face and manner, when you let his chaff drift by, which an Englishman recognises, as kindly, strong, and sincere, although now and then contemptuous. The contempt alone is not genuine, but assumed to meet ours or anybodyʼs. The active, for fear of the passive voice.
“You are welcome to all the island,” said Cradock, “and all my improvements, if you will only take me home again. The whole of it belongs to me, no doubt; but I will make it all over to you, for a passage to Southampton.”