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She sang of a Cornish pirate, Coppinger, "Cruel Coppinger," and of his deeds by land and sea, of his daring and his cleverness and his brutality, and the terror that he inspired, and at last of his pursuit by the king's cutter and his utter vanishing "no man knew where."
He came up to me and told me that his wife was away and that he was giving a little dinner-party to my brother Simon and to Coppinger. They were already at his house, and he and they were anxious that I should join them.
"For boys it doesn't matter so much," broke in Mrs. Kirby, "but I really did dislike seeing Christian on the platform with that party!" "She was only playing accompaniments," said Miss Coppinger still resentful. "That only made it worse! If she had sung a solo it would have been less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, with a masterly change of front. "I was indignant!
To what lengths they might have gone, no earthly powers can tell, but money became scarce, and times grew bad for them. Armed King's cutters came, not singly, but in great numbers, and tidings of danger were brought to Cruel Coppinger by strangely dressed foreigners. And so, at last, things came to a climax, and deliverance was at hand for the poor suffering people.
Thus, Miss Frederica Coppinger phrased it to those of her allies with whom she was now holding sweet communion. The allies, albeit separated by intervals of from five to ten miles of rough and often hilly road, met with sufficient frequency to keep touch, yet not often enough to crush the ultimate fragrance from the flower of gossip.
The wedding-day had to be postponed, though, for Farmer Hamlyn fell ill, grew rapidly worse, and in a very short time was dead and buried. As soon as this was over a great change came over things. Master Coppinger began to show himself in his true character, and a very black character indeed his was!
They leapt ditches and hedges, animals, waggons, people, anything that came in their way, until, coming at last to a steep hill, they slackened their pace a little, and Coppinger condescended to speak. "I promised the Devil I would bring him a tailor," he said, "for his clothes sadly need mending, and I am going to carry you to him to-night.
Wait a minute. I say, old man, do wait a minute. I'm making fast the kodak and the flashlight apparatus on the end of the rope. Pull them up, and just make me half a dozen exposures, there's a good fellow." "Oh, all right," I said, and hauled the things up, and got them inside. The photographs would be absolutely dull and uninteresting, but that wouldn't matter to Coppinger.
Then it very soon came out that the whole country-side was infested with a body of smugglers, wreckers, poachers, robbers, and murderers, over all of whom 'Cruel Coppinger, as he came to be called by the honest people in the neighbourhood, was captain and ringleader.
Here Dampier and Coppinger resolved to leave the pirates, it having been against their will that Captain Swan had been deserted, and they having become ashamed of the proceedings of their companions. Coppinger managed to land, but Captain Reed sent after him and brought him back, and they had to put off their design until a more favourable opportunity.
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