or you, for
he don't like strangers. Aye," he goes on, "he's a wonderful man for
his own way; to be sure he is. You'll be aboard and away before sunset,
or you might see him. Take my advice and put about. The shore's
unwholesome," says he.

"By the looks of you," says I, "you've nothing more than jaundice, and
that I can put up with. As for your guv'nor, I remember him well when
he and I did the light fandango together in European ports. He was
always a wonder with the fiddle. My mistress could lead him like a
pug-dog. I don't doubt she's a bit of a hand at it still."

Now, this set him thinking, and he put two and two together, I suppose,
and knew pretty well who I was.

"You'll be Jasper Begg that sailed the lady's yacht Manhattan?" says
he. "Well, I've heard of you often, and from her own lips. She'll be
pleased to see you, right enough--though what the guv'nor might say is
another matter. You see," he went on, "this same island is a paradise,
sure as thunder; but it's lonely for women-kind, and your mistress, she
don't take to it kindly. Not that she's complaining, or anything of
that sort. A lady who has rings for her fingers and bells for her toes,
and all real precious, same as any duchess might wear, she don't
complain long Why, my guv'nor could make his very teeth out of diamonds
and not miss 'em, come to that! But his missus is always plaguing him
to take her to Europe, and that game. As if he don't want a wife in his
own home, and not in another man's, which is sense, Mister Begg, though
it is spoke by a plain seaman."

I said, "Aye, aye," and held my tongue, knowing that he would go on
with it. We were almost down at the house now, and the cliffs stood
like a great cloud of solid rock, above which a loom of smoke was
floating. Dolly walked at my heels like a patient dog. My own feelings
are not for me to tell. I was going to see Ruth Bellenden again. Why,
she was there in yonder garden, and nothing between us but this great
hulking yellow boy, who took to buttonholing me as a parson buttonholes
his churchwarden when he wants a new grate in his drawing-room.

"Now," says he, standing before me as one who had half a mind to block
the road, "you be advised by me, Mister Begg, and cut this job short.
Don't you be listening to a woman's parley, for it's all nonsense. I've
done wrong to let you ashore, perhaps--perhaps I haven't; but, ashore
or afloat, it's my business to see that the guv'nor's orders is carr