Читать книгу List, Ye Landsmen!. A Romance of Incident онлайн

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“I am mate of the Royal Brunswicker,” said I. “She’s getting her anchor in the Downs, and I want to get aboard before she’s off and away. Where shall I find a couple of men to put me aboard?”

He lifted up his head after the leisurely manner of old age, took his pipe out of his mouth with a trembling hand, and surveyed me steadfastly, as though he was nearly blind.

“Where are ye from?” said he.

“From the house of my uncle, Captain Joseph Round.”

“Captain Joseph Round, is it?” exclaimed the old fellow suspiciously. “I can remember Joe Round—Joey Round was the name he was known by—man and boy fifty-eight year. He’ll be drawing on to sixty-five, I allow. What might be yower name?”

By this time I had recollected the old fellow, and his name had come to me with my memory of him.

“Martin—Tom Martin,” said I, “you are going blind, old man, or you would know me. My name is William Fielding—Bill Fielding sometimes along the beach here, among such of you drunken, smuggling swabs as I chose to be familiar with. Now, see here, I must get aboard my ship at once, and there’ll be another job wants doing also, for the which I shall be willing to pay a guinea. Tell me instantly, Tom, of three men—two to row me aboard, and one to send on a guinea’s worth of errand.”