to (dragged in by the hair of the head,
so to speak), pleased Mr. Lloyd, the master, mightily.

The rage of the persons chiefly concerned knew no bounds, and this
good came of it, that the Mohocks troubled Shrewsbury streets no
more.

Captain Benbow, and with him Joe Punchard, stayed but a few days in
the town. They had come on a flying visit in an interval of the war
against the French on the high seas, and very proud we were that
the captain, one of ourselves, was winning himself a name for
prowess and gallantry in his country's service.

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 constr