heir liking, and buy it with no sparing hand, so that,
at the last, the payment shall be worthy of the labourer.

[Illustration]

I have never been gifted with what pedants miscall courage. That
extreme rashness of the temper which drives fools to their destruction
hath no place in my disposition. A shrinking meekness under
provocation, and a commendable absence of body whenever blows fell
thick, seemed always to me to be the better part. And for this I
have boldly endured many taunts. Yet it so chanced that in my life I
fell in with many to whom the cutting of throats was but a moment's
diversion. Nay, more, in most of their astounding ventures I shared
with them; I made one upon their reckless forays; I was forced, sorely
against my will, to accompany them upon their stormy voyages, and to
endure with them their dangers; and there does not live one man, since
all of them are dead, and I alone survive, so well able as myself
to narrate these matters faithfully within the compass of a single
five-shilling volume.

CHAPTER II.

On a December evening of the year 17--, ten men sat together in the
parlour of "The Haunted Man." Without, upon the desolate moorland, a
windless stricture of frost had bound the air as though in boards, but
within, the tongues were loosened, and the talk flowed merrily, and
the clink of steaming tumblers filled the room. Dr. DEADEYE sat with
the rest at the long deal table, puffing mightily at the brown old
Broseley church-warden, whom the heat and the comfort of his evening
meal had so far conquered, that he resented the doctor's treatment of
him only by an occasional splutter. For myself, I sat where the warmth
of the cheerful fire could reach my chilled toes, close by the side
of the good doctor. I was a mere lad, and even now, as I search in my
memory for these long-forgotten scenes, I am prone to marvel at my
own heedlessness in thus affronting these lawless men. But, indeed, I
knew them not to be lawless, or I doubt not but that my prudence had
counselled me to withdraw ere the events befell which I am now about
to narrate.

As I remember, the Doctor and Captain JAWKINS were seated opposite to
one another, and, as their wont was, they were in high debate upon
a question of navigation, on which the Doctor held and expressed an
emphatic opinion.

"Never tell me," he said, with flaming aspect, "that the common
term, 'Port your helm,' implies aught but what a man, not otherwise
foolish