“What hae ye done wi’ Mungo, John Paul?”

“Captain John Paul, Mither Birkie,” spoke up a coarse fellow with a rough beard.  And a laugh went round.

“Ay, captain!  I’ll captain him!” screamed the carlin, pushing to the front as the oars were tossed, “I’ll tak aith Mr. Currie’ll be captaining him for his towmond voyage o’ piratin’.  He be leukin’ for ye noo, John Paul.”  With that some of the men on the thwarts, perceiving that matters were likely to go ill with the captain, began to chaff with their friends above.  The respect with which he had inspired them, however, prevented any overt insult on their part.  As for me, my temper had flared up like the burning of a loose charge of powder, and by instinct my right hand sought the handle of the mate’s hanger.  The beldame saw the motion.

“An’ hae ye murder’t MacMuir, John Paul, an’ gien’s claw to a Buckskin gowk?”

The knot stirred with an angry murmur:  in truth they meant violence, —­nothing less.  But they had counted without their man, for Paul was born to ride greater crises.  With his lips set in a line he stepped lightly out of the boat into their very midst, and they looked into his eyes to forget time and place.  MacMuir had told me how those eyes could conquer mutiny, but I had not believed had I trot been thereto see the pack of them give back in sullen wonder.  And so we walked through and on to the little street beyond, and never a word from the captain until we came opposite the sign of the Hurcheon.”

“Do you await me here, Richard,” he said quite calmly; “I mast seek Mr. Currie, and make my report.”

I have still the remembrance of that pitiful day in the clean little village.  I went into the inn and sat down upon an oak settle in a corner of the bar, under the high lattice, and thought of the bitterness of this home-coming.  If I was amongst strangers, he was amongst worse:  verily, to have one’s own people set against one is heaviness of heart to a man whose love of Scotland was great as John Paul’s.  After a while the place began to fill, Willie and Robbie and Jamie arriving to discuss Paul’s return over their nappy.  The little I could make of their talk was not to my liking, but for the captain’s sake I kept my anger under as best I could, for I had the sense to know that brawling with a lot of alehouse frequenters would not advance his cause.  At length, however, came in the same sneering fellow I had marked on the wharf, calling loudly for swats.  “Ay, Captain Paul was noo at Mr. Curries, syne banie Alan seed him gang forbye the kirk.”  The speaker’s name, I learned, was Davie, and he had been talking with each and every man in the long-boat.  Yes, Mungo Maxwell had been cat-o’-ninetailed within an inch of his life; and that was the truth; for a trifling offence, too; and cruelly discharged at some outlandish port because, forsooth, he would not accept the gospel of the divinity of Captain Paul.  He would as soon sign papers with the devil.