“You’ve just come from the West Indies, mate, I’ve a notion?”
“Yes, I’ve been in those seas,” answered Dick, for, having told Jessie so, he could not deny the fact.
“I thought as much; and we met there not long ago in a way I’m not likely to forget,” said Peter, quietly. “Maybe you don’t remember me, but I do you, I can tell you; and there are not a few of the crew of the Kate who will remember you, too, if they set eyes on you.”
Dick; taken by surprise, turned pale, and declared he did not know what the young man meant; but Peter again minutely described how his ship had been boarded by pirates on the Spanish main, and positively asserting that Dick was one of them, advised him, if he valued his life and liberty, to clear out of Plymouth without delay.
Dick, as might have been expected, swore that the young man, as he called Peter, was mistaken; but shortly after, observing that it was clear he was not wanted, took up his hat, and, without much leave-taking, hurried out of the house.
Jessie, who feared that Peter was right in his suspicions, thanked him for giving Dick the warning.
“He was once, at all events, Ralph Michelmore’s friend, and I should have grieved if you had been the means of bringing him to punishment,” she said.
“I’d not hurt him, Miss Jessie, on any account,” answered Peter; “but as I judged by the way you spoke to him that he was not welcome, I thought I would just say what would make him keep away for the future.”
Peter remained to dinner and amused Jessie and Mrs Judson with an account of his adventures, in all of which his honesty and courage were remarkable, though he was not aware that what he said exhibited it.
“That’s what the right training of good Captain Mudge has done for him,” observed Mrs Judson, when he had gone. “I remember him a regular pickle; and, if he had been left to himself, he would have been a vagabond all his life, like many others who have had no kind friends to look after them.”