Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader | Page 4

while there, in a condition of alternate calm and storm;
but riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his checkered life,
and lit up its most somber phases like gleams of light on an April day.
"You entered my service with your own consent," replied the captain to
Jo's last remark, "and you may leave it, with the same consent,
whenever you choose; but you will please to remember that I did not
engage you to serve on board the schooner. Back there you do not go
either with or without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent
on going to sea on your own account.--you've got a pair of good arms
and legs,--you can swim! Besides," continued the captain, dropping the
tone of sarcasm in which this was said, and assuming a more careless
and good-natured air, "you were singing something not long since, if I
mistake not, about 'farewell to the rolling sea,' which leads me to think
you will not object to a short cruise on shore for a change, especially on
such a beautiful island as this is."
"I'm your man, capting," cried the impulsive seaman, at the same time
giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round. "And, to say
wot's the plain truth, d'ye see, I'm not sorry to ha' done with your
schooner; for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could
wish for to go to sea in, I can't say much for the crew,--saving your

presence, Dick," he added, glancing over his shoulder at the
surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar. "Of all the rascally set I
ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst. If I didn't know you
for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I'd take ye for a pirate."
"Don't speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo," said the
captain, with a slight frown. "No good and true man ever does that."
"No more I do," replied John Bumpus, while a deep red color suffused
his bronzed countenance. "No more I do, leastwise if they wos here I'd
say it to their faces; for they're a set of as ill-tongued villains as I ever
had the misfortune to--"
"Silence!" exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder.
Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such
a man, but John Bumpus was one of those few. He did indeed remain
silent for two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment.
"Capting," said he, seriously, "I don't mean no offense, but I'd have you
to know that I engaged to work for you, not to hold my tongue at your
bidding, d'ye see? There ain't the man living as'll make Jo Bumpus shut
up w'en he's got a mind to--"
The captain put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman
by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently
with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly,
and breaking into a loud laugh, cried:--
"Come, Jo, you must admit that there is at least one living man who has
made you 'shut up' before you had finished what you'd got to say."
John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the
anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist,
quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute,
after which he made the following observation:--
"Capting, I've seed, in my experience o' life, that there are some

constitootions as don't agree with jokin'; an' yours is one on 'em. Now,
if you'd take the advice of a plain man, you'd never try it on. You're a
grave man by natur', and you're so bad at a joke that a feller can't quite
tell w'en you're a-doin' of it. See, now! I do declare I wos as near drivin'
you right over the stern o' your own boat as could be, only by good luck
I seed the twinkle in your eye in time."
"Pull away, my lad," said the captain, in the softest tones of his deep
voice, at the same time looking his reprover straight in the face.
There was something in the tone in which that simple command was
given, and in the look by which it was accompanied, that effectually
quelled John Bumpus in spite of himself. Violence had no effect on
John, because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior
violence, and in all cases he was willing to try. But to be put down in
this mild way was perplexing. The words were familiar, the look
straightforward and common enough. He could not understand it at