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Keene and I duly dined with the commodore that evening; and when the cloth had been removed, and the servants had retired, the old gentleman said: "Well, Mr Grenvile, I called upon your friend Fawcett this afternoon, and had a fairly long chat with him, in spite of the doctors.
My feeble movements, however, had evidently attracted the notice of somebody, for as I raised my hands toward my head, with some vague idea of releasing myself, I heard a voice, which I identified as that of the carpenter, murmur, in a low, cautious tone. "Don't move, Mr Grenvile; don't move, sir, for all our sakes.
In Cornwall, Sir Ralph Hopton, afterwards Lord Hopton, Sir Bevil Grenvile, and Sir Nicholas Slanning secured all the country, and afterwards spread themselves over Devonshire and Somersetshire, took Exeter from the Parliament, fortified Bridgewater and Barnstaple, and beat Sir William Waller at the battle of Roundway Down, as I shall touch at more particularly when I come to recite the part of my own travels that way.
"Aloft there! just stay where you are for a little while, Mr Grenvile, and keep your eye on those sail to leeward. And if you observe any alteration in the course that they are steering, report the fact to me at once." "Ay, ay, sir!" I answered, and settled myself down comfortably for what I anticipated might be a fairly long wait.
"Thank you, Mr Grenvile; you may come down now," replied the captain. And as I swung off the yard I saw the skipper and the first lieutenant, with their heads together over the binnacle, talking earnestly.
"I was going to say, Mr Grenvile, that well, our skipper's a very queer-tempered sort of a man he was second mate when we left home and as like as not he may kick up a row about my receivin' you aboard indeed it wouldn't very greatly surprise me if he was to order you all over the side again; so I thought I'd just better give ye a hint, so as you may know what to expect, and how to act."
"Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Thomas," remarked the skipper, exchanging salutes with the general, and then offering his hand. "Perhaps you will do me the favour to step below to my cabin with me, and we can then have a chat together. Meanwhile, Mr Grenvile, if one may judge from your appearance, the sooner you report yourself to the surgeon the better it will be for you."
When, as I supposed, the brig had receded from us a distance of fully a hundred feet, the carpenter said, this time in his natural voice: "Now, Mr Grenvile, you may safely move, sir, and the sooner you do so the better, for them villains have scuttled us, and I don't doubt but what the water's pourin' into us like a sluice at this very moment.
We sat there talking until close upon three o'clock in the morning, and when at length we rose to retire to our respective rooms, Sir Timothy remarked: "Well, Mr Grenvile, I have listened to your story with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction, and what you have told me has fully confirmed me in my half-formed determination to keep you here on the station for the present.
"And I'll be shot, Mr Grenvile, if every mother's son of 'em didn't declare, right off, without hesitatin', for him! Whereupon he ordered me in here, and told me not to dare to show my nose out on deck again until I had his permission, or he'd have me hove over the rail.
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