“No need to raise that question, lad,” said Gascoyne, with a perplexed smile. “I am not quite clear as to what my duty is now that I am free to go back and again give myself up.”
“Go back!—free!” exclaimed John Bumpus in a tone of withering sarcasm. “So, Mister Gascoyne, ye’ve got sich an oncommon cargo o’ conceit in ye yet, that you actually think ye could go back without so much as ‘By your leave!’”
While Jo was speaking he bared to the shoulder an arm that was the reverse of infantine, and, holding it up, said slowly—
“I’ve often had a sort o’ desire, d’ye see, to try whether this bit of a limb or the one that’s round Mrs Stuart’s waist is the strongest. Now if you have any desire to settle this question, just try to shove this boat’s head up into the wind—that’s all!”
This was said so emphatically by the pugnacious Bumpus that his companions laughed, and Corrie cheered in admiration.
“You see,” observed Henry, “you need not give yourself any concern as to this point, you have no option in the matter.”
“No, not a bit o’ poption in it wotiver—though wot that means I ain’t rightly sure,” said Dick Price.
“Perhaps I ought to exercise my parental authority over you, Henry,” said Gascoyne, “and command you to steer back to Sandy Cove.”
“But we wouldn’t let him, mister pirate,” said Dick Price, who, now that his difficult duties were over, was preparing to solace himself with a pipe; an example that was immediately followed by Bumpus, who backed his friend by adding—
“No more we would.”