my
grandfather with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quiet
all round. And there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tide
and his temper rising.

"Look here, you something-or-other yokels," he called out, "if this
is one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it.
Leave the spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, and
take away the children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!"

"Mounseer," answers my grandfather, "I dare say you've a-done it for
your country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to prison--
wee, wee, to preeson," he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way so as
to make himself understood.

Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my fine
fellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a Magistrate in this
parish, as I happen to know."

"There _was_," said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons to
believe he's been made away with."

"The only thing we could find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a
shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed
it, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the
premises; and I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell."

"You won't deny," my grandfather went on, "that you've been making a
map of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket."

"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once! I tell you that I'm a
British officer and a gentleman!"

"_And_ a Papist," went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with a
bullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh out
allowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineers
had turned him adrift from the _Bounty_, and he wore it ever after.)
"See here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wear
such a thing about him inside his clothes?"

"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom,"
says Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer,
and you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs."

"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?"

"No, I won't," says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here all
night!"

With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and Sam
Trewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella's
sean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from his
store at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all their
might; in the stern stood Trewhella's f