As the boats were being rowed into the Mole again, some one asked who had got the ship.  The Russian competitor, who was angry at the work being taken from his master, called out, “Bags has got her, the drunken old sneak!”

Bags lost no time in letting fly an oar at him, the yoke and rudder quickly following.  His vengeance was let loose, and he poured forth a stream of quarter-deck language at the top of his voice.  His phrases were dazzling in ingenuity, and amid much laughter and applause he urged his hearers to keep at a distance from the fellow who had dared to insult an English shipmaster.

“Or you will get some passengers that will keep you busy.  They—­he—­calls them peoches, but we English call them lice!”

This sally caused immense amusement, not so much for what was said as for his dramatic style of saying it.  His antagonist retorted that he had been turned out of England for bad language and bad behaviour, and he would have him turned out of Russia also.  This nearly choked the old mariner with rage.  He roared out—­

“Did I, an English shipmaster, ever think that I would come to this, to be insulted by a Russian serf?  I will let the Government know that an Englishman has been insulted.  I will lay the iniquities of this Russian system of rascality before Benjamin Disraeli.  I knows him; and if he is the man I takes him for, he won’t stand any nonsense when it comes to insulting English subjects.  He has brought the Indian troops from India for that purpose, and when the honour of England is at stake he will send the fleet into the Baltic, and neither your ships nor your forts will prevent his orders to blow Cronstadt down about your blooming ears being carried out.  I know where your torpedoes and mines are, and Disraeli has confidence in me showing them the road to victory.  The British Lion never draws back!”

The Russian deal-yard man, to whom this harangue was particularly directed, went to the Governor on landing, and stated what the rough, weather-beaten old sailor had been saying.  The Governor communicated with the authorities at St. Petersburg, and an order came to have the old Englishman banished from Cronstadt and Russia for ever within twenty-four hours.  The poor creature had made a home for himself in Cronstadt, his wife and four children being with him.  The blow was so sharp and unexpected, it stupefied him.  His first thought was his family, but there was little or no time for thought or preparation.  He had either to be got away or concealed.  A liberal distribution of roubles at the instigation of many sympathizers made it possible for him to be put aboard an English steamer, and a week after his banishment was supposed to have taken effect he sailed from Cronstadt, a ruined and broken-hearted man.  The old sailor’s grief for the harm his wayward conduct had done to his wife and family was quite pathetic, and so far as kindness could appease the mental anguish he was having to endure it was ungrudgingly extended to him, and when he left Cronstadt he left behind him a host of sympathizers who regarded the punishment as odious.