Great confusion, shouting and swearing kept Robert Bluett wakeful for some time, and next morning he learned the reason of it.  As he walked early upon the quay before breakfast, tried to master the intricate coast-line at a glance and longed to be afloat that he might get a wider and juster view of the red and honeycombed cliffs, a woebegone figure approached him—a bent and hobbling creature that crawled on two sticks, wore a three-cornered hat and had his right eye concealed by a big black patch.  Only the flowing beard of Johnny Cramphorn proclaimed him.

“God save you, Master Bluett, or I should say ‘Cap’n Bluett,’” he began.  “The very man I wanted for to see.”

“Who’s been clawing you?” asked the Excise Officer.

“Who but the Dowl’s own anointed?  You heard the tantara in the tap-room?  Well, ’twas upon an aged piece like me they varmints falled like heathen wolves.  Look here!”

He lifted his patch and showed a pale blue eye p. 334set in a bruise as black as ink.  Thus seen it suggested a jackdaw’s.

“Jonathan Godbeer’s hand done that—the Lord judge un!  Wi’ his bullock’s fist he knocked me down, ’cause I withstood un to his face, like the prophet withstood David.”

“Ban’t no quarrel of mine,” said Mr. Bluett, “though if all I hear be true, me an’ Godbeer may fall out afore the world’s much older.”

“Ess—if you’m honest, you’ll fall out wi’ him.  ’Twas honesty brought me these cruel bruises.  When you’d gone, I rose in my wrath an’ axed un how he dared to lie to you so open; then he smote me.”

Mr. Bluett’s natural probity here led him into unwisdom.

“To be plain,” he said, “I haven’t heard no very good account of you neither.”

“Ah, ’tis so hard to get away from one’s sins!  I’ll be honest, Cap’n, same as you be,” answered Mr. Cramphorn.  “I doan’t deny but I’ve been a free-trader in my time, though ’twas little enough ever I made by it but a score on the wrong side of the Book o’ Life.  But I’ve long been weary of ill-doing and be set ’pon the right road this many years, as Parson Yates will tell ’e.  ’Twas for the cause of right I got these blows—same as Paul his stripes—an’ though I’ve been that man’s friend in time past, now I’m gwaine to take vengeance p. 335against un, an’ next time I hears tell of his games, you’ll be the fust to know it.”

“That will suit me very well,” answered Bluett.

“An’ I ax you to back me up an’ protect me henceforth in the King’s name,” continued Johnny.  “To think of a man as would wallop an old blid like me!  No better’n a murderer—there he is now!  Doan’t you go away from me till he’ve passed us by.”

Jonathan Godbeer walked along the quay to the boats.  He scowled at old Cramphorn and touched his hat to the officer.