“I forgot all about her,” exclaimed the Count. “We will present her to you, my worthy friend,” he said. “You shall become her skipper, and, if you please, you are welcome to sail round the world in her, provided we are not compelled to accompany you.”
The one-eyed mariner gratefully accepted the gift. “I am a made man,” he said, “and need no longer be at the beck and call of Captain Jan Dunck, supposing he and the Golden Hog are still afloat. I will obtain fishing lines, and go out and fish and sell my fish, and build a cottage, and marry a wife, and live happy and independent to the end of my days.”
A bright idea seemed to strike the Count. “Friend, if you happen not to have found a wife in these parts, pray come over to Belgium, and I will there introduce you to a charming person, Johanna Klack by name, and you can take her away with you and settle at Marken or Urk, or any other island in or about the Zuyder Zee.”
“Excellent! the brightest idea, my dear Count, to which you ever gave birth,” exclaimed the Baron. “By all means, worthy Pieter, come. Don’t trouble yourself to look out for a wife here; they’re all very good in their way, but Johanna Klack is super-excellent, and she probably has saved up a whole stockingful of guilders. I feel very much inclined to go back with you at once to assist you in your wooing.”
“Mynheer,” said the one-eyed mariner, putting his finger to his nose, “‘good wine needs no bush.’ I have an idea or two. If this dame is so very charming, somebody with more personal attractions than I possess will have won her before I have the happiness of making her acquaintance; and you forget that, though I have got the boat, I have to obtain the fishing lines to catch the fish, to sell the fish, to go on doing that for some years, and then to build the house, and when the house is built it will be time enough for me to come in search of Vrouw Johanna Klack.”
“Well, well, we’ll talk about that to-morrow morning,” said the Baron, who did not feel very
sanguine as to the speedy disposal of Johanna Klack’s fair hand.
Pieter, wishing them good night, went to sleep on board his boat, while they turned into two bunks in the small cabin of the sloop and slept soundly.