"Apart from the fighting, gentlemen," began Carlton, who was a man of careful speech and stiff mind, "for I judge you do not hanker after battle-tales, seeing we shall have our stomach full ere many days be past, if the Prince can entice Condé into the open, there were not many things worth telling. But this was a remarkable occurrence, the like of which I will dare say none of you have seen, though I know there are men here who have been in battle once and again. Upon the 'Catherine' there was a gentleman volunteer, a man of family and fine estate, by the name of Hodge Vaughan. Early in the fight, when the Earl of Sandwich was our admiral and Van Ghent commanded the Dutch, Vaughan received a considerable wound, and was carried down into the hold. Well, it happened that they had some hogs aboard and, the worse for poor Hodge Vaughan, the sailor who had charge of them, like any other proper Englishman, was fonder of fighting than of feeding pigs, and so left them to forage for themselves. As they could get nothing else, and liked a change in their victuals when it came within their reach, they made their meal off Vaughan, and when the fight was over there was nothing left of that poor gentleman except his skull, which was monstrous thick and bade defiance to the hogs. This is not a common happening," continued Carlton with much composure, "and I thank my Maker I was not carried into that hold to be a hog's dinner. Yet I give you my word of honor that the tale is true."

"Lord! it was a cruel ending for a gallant gentleman," said Collier, "and it makes gruesome telling. Have you anything else sweeter for the mouth, for there be enough of hogs on the land as well as on sea, and some of them go round the field, where men are lying helpless, on two legs and not on four, from whom heaven defend us."

"Since you ask for more," replied Carlton, "a thing took place about which there was much talk, and on it I should like to have your judgment. Upon the same ship with myself, there was a gentleman volunteer, and he came with the name of a skilful swordsman. He had been in many duels and thought no more of standing face to face with another man, and he cared not who he was, than taking his breakfast. You would have said that he of all men would have been the coolest on the deck and would have given no heed to danger. Yet the moment the bullets whizzed he ran into the hold, and for all his land mettle he was a coward on the sea. When everyone laughed at him and he was becoming a thing of scorn, he asked to be tied to the mainmast, so that he might not be able to escape. So it comes into my mind," concluded Carlton, "to ask this question of you gallant gentlemen, Is courage what Sir Walter Raleigh calls it, if I mind me rightly, the art of the philosophy of quarrel, or must it not be the issue of principle and rest upon a steady basis of religion? I should like to ask those artists in murder, meaning no offence to any gentleman present who may have been out in a duel, to tell me this, why one who has run so many risks at his sword's point should be turned into a coward at the whizz of a cannon ball?"




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