Before he departed, however, I got from Joe a relation of what had befallen him since the night he stole away.  He arrived in Bristowe footsore and ragged, and there came nigh to starving before he found employment.  One shipmaster swore his hair was too red:  it would serve for a beacon to French privateers; another, that he was too bandy:  his legs would never grip the rigging if he essayed to go aloft.  But at length he obtained a berth on a tobacco ship trading to Virginia, and suffered great torture both from the sea and from the harsh and brutal ship’s officers.  He made other voyages, to the Guinea coast, the Indies, and elsewhere, and one fine day, being paid off at Southampton, he chanced to hear that Captain Benbow was in port, and making himself known to that officer as a fellow townsman, he was taken by him to be his servant, and had never left him since.

“And have you pickled any pirates’ heads?” I asked, remembering the story, and bethinking me of the silver-mounted cup possessed by Mr. Ridley, the captain’s brother-in-law, which was said to have once covered the head of a sallee rover.

“Pickled fiddlesticks!” says Joe.  “Dunnat believe every mariner’s tale you hear, Master Humphrey.”

And then he proceeded to tell me a fearful and wonderful tale of a sea serpent, and was mightily offended when I said it was all my eye.

Joe went away with his captain after a few days, and I own I envied him, and for the first time felt a secret discontent in the prospect of a life among pigs and poultry, a feeling which was heightened when Dick Cludde soon afterwards departed with a commission from His Majesty.  Dick was a lubber and, I believed then, though I had afterwards proof to the contrary, a coward; and matching myself against him I knew I would do the king’s navy more credit than he.  But I kept my thought to myself—­and next day made a sad bungle, I remember, of my construe of Thucydides’ account of the sea fight at Salamis.

So months passed away.  I saw with grave concern that my father was ailing more and more.  The attacks of his terrible disease came more frequently, and Mr. Pinhorn owned that he could do him no good.  He bore his pain with wonderful fortitude, never suffering a complaint to pass his lips.  Many a time in after years I recalled his noble courage, which helped me to bear the lesser sufferings which fell to my lot.  He seemed to know that his end was approaching, and one day called me to his private room and talked to me with a kindness that brought a lump into my throat.

Much of what he said is too sacred to be set down here; I can truthfully say that his assurance of having made ample provision for me seemed of little moment beside his earnest loving counsel, which made the deeper impression because he had so rarely spoken in that strain.