but nobody minded sich things. 'Twas dark parts,
and Popish, then; and nobody knowed nothing, nor got no schooling, nor
cared for nothing, but scrattling up and down alongshore like to prawns
in a pule. Iss, sitting in darkness, we was, and the shadow of death,
till the day-spring from on high arose, and shined upon us poor
out-o'-the-way folk--The Lord be praised! And now, look to mun!" and he
waved his hand all round--"Look to mun! Look to the works of the Lord!
Look to the captains! Oh blessed sight! And one's been to the Brazils,
and one to the Indies, and the Spanish Main, and the North-West, and the
Rooshias, and the Chinas, and up the Straits, and round the Cape,
and round the world of God, too, bless His holy name; and I seed the
beginning of it; and I'll see the end of it too, I will! I was born into
the old times: but I'll see the wondrous works of the new, yet, I will!
I'll see they bloody Spaniards swept off the seas before I die, if my
old eyes can reach so far as outside the Sound. I shall, I knows it. I
says my prayers for it every night; don't I, Mary? You'll bate mun, sure
as Judgment, you'll bate mun! The Lord'll fight for ye. Nothing'll stand
against ye. I've seed it all along--ever since I was with young master
to the Honduras. They can't bide the push of us! You'll bate mun off
the face of the seas, and be masters of the round world, and all that
therein is. And then, I'll just turn my old face to the wall, and depart
in peace, according to his word.

"Deary me, now, while I've been telling with you, here've this little
maid been and ate up all my sugar!"

"I'll bring you some more," said Amyas; whom the childish bathos of the
last sentence moved rather to sighs than laughter.

"Will ye, then? There's a good soul, and come and tell with old Martin.
He likes to see the brave young gentlemen, a-going to and fro in their
ships, like Leviathan, and taking of their pastime therein. We had
no such ships to our days. Ah, 'tis grand times, beautiful times
surely--and you'll bring me a bit sugar?"

"You were up the Plate with Cabot?" said Cary, after a pause. "Do you
mind the fair lady Miranda, Sebastian de Hurtado's wife?"

"What! her that was burnt by the Indians? Mind her? Do you mind the sun
in heaven? Oh, the beauty! Oh, the ways of her! Oh, the speech of her!
Never was, nor never will be! And she to die by they villains; and all
for the goodness of her! Mind her? I minded naught else when she was o