“Bless her heart, she shall have ’em now.  We have rid from Bristowe, sir, the captain and me, and we stayed but to put up our horses at the Bull and Gate, where I left my bag filled with good store of things for the old woman.  Won’t she open her eyes!  Won’t she thank Heaven for bandy-legged Joe!”

We had now reached the door of Mistress Hind’s house, and as I set down the bag a great oath burst from Captain Benbow’s lips.

“Split me!” says he, eying the splintered panel and the gap where the knocker had been.  “Had I those villains on deck they should have a supper of rope’s end, I warrant you.”

His voice was rough, and his tongue had a keen Shropshire tang, which indeed it never lost, giving thereby evidence to confute those who afterwards claimed for him kinship with a noble family.  In truth Benbow was the son of an honest tanner of our town, and took no shame of his origin:  his greatness was above such pettiness of spirit.  He had run away to sea at an early age, and for some years lived a hard life before the mast.  But his native merits in time triumphed over adverse fortune, and before he was thirty he became master and in a good measure owner of a frigate which he called The Benbow.

It is said, I know not with what truth, that his fortunes date from an adventure that befell him in the year 1686.  In the Benbow frigate he was attacked by a sallee rover, who boarded him, but was beaten off with the loss of thirteen men.  Benbow (I tell the tale as I heard it) cut off their heads and threw them into pickle.  When he landed at Cadiz, he brought them on shore in a sack, and on being challenged by the custom house officers as importing contraband goods, he threw them on the table with, “Gentlemen, if you like ’em, they are at your service.”

This saying so tickled the humor of the king of Spain that he recommended Benbow to our King James, and thus led to his promotion in our Royal Navy.  The captain was now somewhat above forty years old, straight but slight in build, not ill looking, save that his nose was a trifle over big—­a defect not uncommon, I have remarked, among great commanders.

Well, as I said, we had arrived at Mistress Hind’s door, and the captain was in a great rage at the havoc wrought by Vetch and his crew.  He rapped on the door with the hilt of his sword, and out pops Mistress Nelly’s head from the window above (’twas in a night-cap), and she screams: 

“Out upon you, you vagabones!  You’ve done mischief enough for one night, drat you, and if ye be not gone inside of half a minute I’ll empty the slops on ye, that I will.”

Benbow laughed.

“The family spirit!” he says under his breath to Joe.  “Speak to her; don’t tell her I’m here.”

“Oh, Mistress Hind,” says Joe in a mournful voice, “here’s a welcome to a poor worn-out old mariner as you used to befriend.”

“Who in the world are ye?” she asks.