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He learned early that for a black dog with long silky ears, a feathered tail, and head of great dignity, there was no home whatsoever, away from those creatures with special scents, who took liberties with his name, and alone of all created things were privileged to smack him with a slipper.
William Taylor, of Mystic, a man seventy-six years old, who was in the smack Evergreen, Capt. John Appleman, tells me that they started from Mystic, October 3, 1832, on a fishing voyage to Key West, in company with the smack Morning Star, Captain Rowland. On the 12th were off Cape Hatteras, the winds blowing heavily from the northeast, and the smack under double-reefed sails.
The smack was caused by a momentary encounter between the hand and his spherical cheek, the thud by a meeting of his head and the door. "You miserable creature!" she hissed. With a look such as only the righteous can ever hope to wear, and that in the moment of martyrdom, he watched her rush upstairs sobbing. And thus the coalition, having served its beneficent purpose, came abruptly to an end.
One of the gales above referred to is blowing itself out and the Evening Star is threading her way among the shoals to her brief repose in Yarmouth. Yes, that ridiculous atom of humanity, with a rope, or "steering lanyard," round the tiller to prevent its knocking him down or sweeping him overboard, stands there guiding the plunging smack on her course through the dangerous shoals.
'Whisht! whisht! gudewife, said her husband, with a smack that had much more affection than ceremony in it; 'never mind, never mind; there's a gentleman that will tell you that, just when I had ga'en up to Lourie Lowther's, and had bidden the drinking of twa cheerers, and gotten just in again upon the moss, and was whigging cannily awa hame, twa landloupers jumpit out of a peat-hag on me or I was thinking, and got me down, and knevelled me sair aneuch, or I could gar my whip walk about their lugs; and troth, gudewife, if this honest gentleman hadna come up, I would have gotten mair licks than I like, and lost mair siller than I could weel spare; so ye maun be thankful to him for it, under God. With that he drew from his side-pocket a large greasy leather pocket-book, and bade the gudewife lock it up in her kist.
It was as if they had been shot, exulting, from the sky to the water, sitting close, sitting tight, linked together, each with an arm round the other's waist, and the hand that was free grasping the rail, their bodies bowed to the hurricane of their speed, with the rapture in their throats mounting and mounting, a towering, toppling climax of delight and fear, as the boat shot from the rails into the water and rose like a winged thing and leaped, urging to the heights that had sent it forth, and dropped, perilously again, with a shudder and a smack, once, twice; so tremendous was the impetus.
Guapo leaped hastily back, as hastily, I will make bold to say, as any Indian of his years could have done, but not quick enough to clear himself quite. He wanted about eight inches; but in this case inches were as good as miles for the crocodile's purpose, for about eight inches of the tip of his tail came "smack" across Guapo's naked shins, and sent the old Indian head over heels.
Weyburn was driven on a half-circle of the lane to the gate, where he jumped out to greet Lady Charlotte trotting back for another smack in the face of her enemy, a third rounding of her Troy with the vanquished dead at her heels, as Weyburn let a flimsy suggestion beguile his fancy, until the Homeric was overwhelming even to a playful mind, and he put her in a mediaeval frame.
'Wot d'yer mean by thet? she said; 'd'yer think I'm kiddin'? 'Kiddin'? No! You've only just come up from the country, ain't yer? 'Think I'm kidding? What d'yer think I want ter kid for? Liars never believe anyone, thet's fact. 'Na then, Liza, don't be saucy. 'Saucy! I'll smack yer in the eye if yer sy much ter me.
"Will that do?" he asked himself. "No; I'd better say something spooney to quiet her." He considered again, added a line, and brought his hand down on the table with a cheery smack. "That will do the business! Read it yourself, Arnold it's not so badly written." Arnold read the note without appearing to share his friend's favorable opinion of it. "This is rather short," he said.
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