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Updated: May 11, 2025
"Who brought it?" I inquired. "Mr Horsey, sir." Susan stammered the name, and looked confused. "He waits an answer, sir." Haco Barepoles had been eyeing his daughter gravely the while. He now sprang up with the wild energy that was his peculiar characteristic, and flinging the door wide-open with a crash that shook the whole framework of the berth, stood face to face with Dan Horsey.
Next day Haco Barepoles steered the "Coal-Coffin" triumphantly into the port of London, with a hole in her side big enough, if Tom Grattan's report is to be believed, "to admit of a punt bein' row'd d'rect from the sea into the hold!" The steamer which had run down the sloop of Haco Barepoles was a large iron one, which had just set out on a voyage to the West Indies.
She was the daughter of the skipper of one of our coal sloops, named Haco Barepoles, a man of excellent disposition, but gifted with such a superabundance of animal spirits, courage, and recklessness, that he was known in the port of Wreckumoft as Mad Haco. Much exhausted by one of the hardest nights of toil and exposure I ever spent, I retired to my room and sought and found repose.
If I could make quids o' them there sentiments, I'd set up a factory an' send a inexhaustible supply to the big-wigs in parlymint for perpetooal mastication. There now, don't stare, but go for'ard, an' see, two of you take in another reef o' the mains'l. If the glass speaks true, we'll be under my namesake barepoles before long; look alive, boys!"
"Perhaps you are right, sweet cousin! Anyhow we can't be both wrong, which is a comfort." "May I ask what is the heart-trouble you complain of?" said Lizzie. "Love and hatred," replied Gildart with a sigh and a frown. "Indeed! Is the name of the beloved object a secret?" It is Haco Barepoles." "The mad skipper!" exclaimed Lizzie in surprise. "I thought he was the most amiable man in existence.
He glanced round, but, not finding the object of his search, was about to leave, when Dan Horsey came up, and, touching his hat, asked if he were looking for Haco Barepoles. "I am," said Gildart. "So is meself," said Dan; "but the mad skipper an't aisy to git howld of, an' not aisy to kape howld of when ye've got him.
Gaff, feeling a gush of confidence come over him, and having ascertained that, in regard to secrecy, Susan was as "safe as the bank," related the circumstances of the wreck, and his having left Emmie at her grandfather's villa; the relation of all which caused Haco Barepoles to give vent to a series of low grunts and whistles, expressive of great surprise.
On the night when Billy went to the Home it was very full, and he stumbled over more than one recumbent seaman on the landings before he reached the hall, where, late though it was, a number of men were playing chess, draughts, and bagatelle, or reading books and papers. Here he found Haco Barepoles, as rugged as ever, seated by the fire and deeply engaged in a copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress."
"If it holds like this till to-morrow, we'll be in port by noon," said Haco Barepoles to Gaff as they stood near the wheel, holding on to the backstays, and turning their backs to the seas that swept heavily over the side from time to time. "You speak as if you wor sure o' gettin' in," said Gaff.
Little more was said, but from that night Mrs Gaff changed her manner and her practice. She set herself earnestly and doggedly to prepare for the return of her husband and child! On the day that followed this radical change in her feelings and plans, Mrs Gaff received a visit from Haco Barepoles.
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