The Buccaneer - A Tale

"So it is," continued another, whose weather-beaten body was supported

on a pair of wooden legs, and who had just joined the little party of

which Robin made one; "so it is, Jack, and what I call English, worth

ten books full of other lingo; wasn't I with him in Fifty-three, when,

with only twelve vessels, he beat Van Tromp, who had seventy ships of

the line and three hundred merchantmen under convoy? and hadn't the

Triumph seven hundred shot in her hull? Well, though it was there I lost

my precious limbs, I don't grudge them, not I: it's as well to go to the

fish as to the worms, and any how we have the king's pension."

"Jemmy," said a waggish-looking sailor, with only one eye and half an

arm, twirling some tobacco in his mouth at the same time--"Jemmy, it's

rum talking about royalty--you forget----"

"It's no such thing as rum talking, Terry; I don't mind who governs

England--she's England still. It warms my blood, too, to think of the

respect paid the Union Jack by all nations. When our admiral, God bless

him! was in the road of Cadiz, a Dutch fellow didn't dare to hoist his

flag; so, ye see, the Dutch knows what's what, though both men and ships

are heavy sailors."

"Yes," chimed in the first speaker, "that was the time when his health

was drunk with a salute of five guns by one of the French commanders:

and it's noble, so it is, to see the order he keeps those Algerines in.

Why, if in searching the Sallee rovers they found an English prisoner

aboard, they sent him off to Blake as civil as possible, hoping to get

favour. But that didn't hinder him from peppering both the Dey of

Algiers, and the infidel rascal at Tunis."

"I hear that the burning of the Spanish ships in the Road of Santa Cruz

was the most wonderful thing ever done," observed he of the wooden legs;

"and it's desperate bad news that he's taken on for sickness; for sure

am I, that the Protector will never have so faithful a friend, or so

good a servant. And so I told the sergeant, or whatever you choose to

call him, of the Ironsides, who stopped at the Oliver's Head, down below

yesterday, to bait horses, or some such thing:--says I, 'If Blake goes,

let your master look to himself.'--But I hate all soldiers--lubberly,

sulky, black-looking fellows--no spirit in them, particularly now, when

it's the fashion not to drink, or swear, or do any thing for

divarsion--ugh!" And the old man's ire against the "land-lubbers" grew

so hot, that he turned away, and stumped stoutly down the hill. Robin

was not tardy in following, nor long in getting into conversation,

though the remembrance of the "land lubbers" still rankled in the old

man's mind.