I found a plentiful repast, which, though somewhat roughly cooked, I did ample justice to. The skipper produced a bottle of claret and another of cognac, and pressed me to drink, but he himself, I observed, was very moderate in his potations.
“If I did not keep a cool head on my shoulders, the Saucy Bet would soon get into trouble,” he remarked; “still, that need not stop you from making yourself happy if you like.”
He seemed very much surprised when I told him that I had no fancy for making myself happy in that fashion.
In the afternoon the wind fell, and we lay becalmed, floating down Channel with the ebb. The smugglers swore terribly at the delay, as they were in a hurry to get over to the French coast.
In the evening I walked the deck some time with the skipper, who was full of anecdotes. In the war time he had commanded a privateer, which had been tolerably successful, but his vessel had been captured at last, and he had spent some months a prisoner in France. He had on that occasion picked up a fair knowledge of French, which much assisted him, he said, in his present vocation. He was always on good terms with the mounseers, he told me, though he amused himself sometimes at their expense.
“Some of my chaps and I were ashore one night, not long ago, taking a glass at a wine shop near the harbour, when a frigate came in, and a beauty she was, no doubt about that.” He continued: “The Frenchmen began to praise her, and says one of them to me—
“‘There, you haven’t got a craft like that in the whole of your navy.’
“‘I don’t know what we’ve got,’ says I; ‘but if there comes a war we should precious soon have one, for we should have she.’
“You should have seen the rage the Frenchmen were in when I said that, and heard how they sacréd and swore. But I calmed them down by reminding them that they had taken some of our frigates, and that it was only to be expected that we should take some of theirs in return.”
The captain gave me a side-berth in the little cabin, occupied generally, I found, by one of the mates. It was somewhat close, but I was soon asleep, and slept soundly until daylight the next morning.