"The devil you are!" cried the captain, stepping out. "Why, here is a precious villain for you! Jack, cut him off in the rear if he tries to get away. So—so, my young quill driver. You would poach on the preserves of your betters, would you? Would you? Would you?" At each repetition he banged the wooden post of the summerhouse with his cudgel.
The poet made no reply, but he looked to right and to left and behind him, for a way of escape, but found none, for I was ready to bar his flight. Wherefore, his shoulders became rounded, and his head hung down, and his knees trembled. Samuel Semple was caught in a trap. Some young fellows would have made a fight of it. But not Samuel: all he thought about was submission and non-resistance, which might provoke pity.
"Three times, jackanapes, hast thou presumed to send stuff to my ward. Here they are," he took from me the last sheet of doggerel verse and drew from his pocket two more. "Here they are—one—two—three—all addressed to the Matchless Molly. Why, thou impudent villain—what devil prompted thee to call her Matchless Molly—matchless—to such as you! Take that, sirrah, and that——" They were laid on with a will. The poet groaned but made no reply—again looking vainly to right and left for some way of escape.
"Now, sir," said the captain, "before we go on to the serious business, thou wilt eat this precious stuff—eat it—eat it—swallow it all—or by the Lord!" Again he raised the cudgel, "I will stuff it down thy throat."
"Oh! Captain Crowle," he murmured, "I will eat them—I will eat them."
The poet took the papers. They were dry eating and I fear tasteless, but in a few minutes he had swallowed them all.
"They are down," said the captain. "Now comes the basting. And I would have you to understand, lump of impudence, that it is my mercy only—my foolish mercy, perhaps, that keeps me from sending you through the town at the tail of a cart. Kneel down, sir, in token of repentance. What? I say—kneel down."
The basting which followed was really worthy of the days when Captain Crowle, with his own hand, quelled a mutiny and drove the whole crew under hatches. The right hand at seventy was as vigorous as at forty. For my own part, I attempted no interference. The captain was wrathful but he had command of himself. If he added to the basting a running commentary of sea-going terms, signifying scorn and contempt, with the astonishment with which a sailor always regards presumption, it was only to increase the terror and the effect of the cudgelling. I am quite certain that he was resolved in his own mind when he should stop; that is to say, when the justice of the case would have been met and revenge would begin. And I hold myself excused for not preventing any portion of this commentary.
It was a poor, shrinking, trembling figure full of bruises and aches and pains that presently arose and slunk away. I should have felt sorry for him had he taken punishment like a man. Why, I would maroon any of my crew who would cry and grovel and snivel when tied up for his three dozen. It made one sick and ashamed to see him and to hear him, with his—
"Mercy, captain! Oh! Enough, good captain! Oh! captain, I confess. I deserve it all. Never again, captain. Oh! Forgiveness—forgiveness!" And so on. I say it made me sick and ashamed. When all was over I followed him to the garden gate. "Oh! Jack," he groaned. "You stood by and saw it all. I am a dead man. He shall be hanged for it. You are the witness. I am nothing but a bag of broken bones. Ribs and collar bones and skull. I am a poor, unfortunate, murdered man. I am done to death with a cudgel."