With these words he turned to the right, and drove into Major Hockin's “Sea Parade.” There we stopped to hear what was going on, and it proved to be well worth our attention. The old pilot perhaps had exhausted reason, and now was beginning to give way to wrath. The afternoon was deepening fast, with heavy gray clouds lowering, showing no definite edge, but streaked with hazy lines, and spotted by some little murky blurs or blots, like tar pots, carried slowly.
“Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?” the ancient pilot shouted, pointing with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the sea, whence came puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks backward. “Mackerel sky when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at noon, and now afore sunset Noah's Arks! Any of them breweth a gale of wind, and the three of them bodes a tempest. And the top of the springs of the year to-morrow. Are ye daft, or all gone upon the spree, my men? Your fathers would 'a knowed what the new moon meant. Is this all that cometh out of larning to read?”
“Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man,” said one, “to help you off with that stiff reel. What consarn can he be of yourn?”
“Don't you be put out, mate,” cried another. “Never came sea as could top that bar, and never will in our time. Go and calk your old leaky craft, Master Banks.”
“We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from Newport—a place never heerd on when this old town was made.”
“Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks. You must want it, after that long pipe.”
“'Hockin Arms,' indeed!” the pilot answered, turning away in a rage from them. “What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow? Hockin legs wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings. And you poor grinning ninnies, as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that ye had them to-morrow. However, ye've had warning, and ye can't blame me. The power of the Lord is in the air and sea. Is this the sort of stuff ye trust in?”
He set one foot against our Major's wall—an action scarcely honest while it was so green—and, coming from a hale and very thickset man, the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward. Rattle, rattle went the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated fellows down below.
“You'll try the walls of a jail,” cried one. “You go to Noah's Ark,” shouted another. The rest bade him go to a place much worse; but he buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without spoiling the effect by any more weak words.
“Right you are,” cried my flyman—“right you are, Master Banks. Them lubbers will sing another song to-morrow. Gee up, old hoss, then!”