in blue,
red, and green, beginning with the Creation upon his neck and winding up
with the Ascension upon his left ankle. Never have I seen such a walking
work of art. He was wont to say that had he been owned and his body cast
up upon some savage land, the natives might have learned the whole of
the blessed gospel from a contemplation of his carcass. Yet with sorrow
I must say that the seaman's religion appeared to have all worked into
his skin, so that very little was left for inner use. It had broken out
upon the surface, like the spotted fever, but his system was clear of
it elsewhere. He could swear in eleven languages and three-and-twenty
dialects, nor did he ever let his great powers rust for want of
practice. He would swear when he was happy or when he was sad, when he
was angry or when he was loving, but this swearing was so mere a trick
of speech, without malice or bitterness, that even my father could
hardly deal harshly with the sinner. As time passed, however, the old
man grew more sober and more thoughtful, until in his latter days he
went back to the simple beliefs of his childhood, and learned to fight
the devil with the same steady courage with which he had faced the
enemies of his country.

Old Solomon was a never-failing source of amusement and of interest to
my friend Lockarby and myself. On gala days he would have us in to dine
with him, when he would regale us with lobscouse and salmagundi, or
perhaps with an outland dish, a pillaw or olla podrida, or fish broiled
after the fashion of the Azores, for he had a famous trick of cooking,
and could produce the delicacies of all nations. And all the time that
we were with him he would tell us the most marvellous stories of Rupert,
under whom he served; how he would shout from the poop to his squadron
to wheel to the right, or to charge, or to halt, as the case might be,
as if he were still with his regiment of horse. Of Blake, too, he had
many stories to tell. But even the name of Blake was not so dear to our
old sailor as was that of Sir Christopher Mings. Solomon had at one time
been his coxswain, and could talk by the hour of those gallant deeds
which had distinguished him from the day that he entered the navy as a
cabin boy until he fell upon his own quarter-deck, a full admiral of the
red, and was borne by his weeping ship's company to his grave in Chatham
churchyard. 'If so be as there's a jasper sea up aloft,' said the old
seaman, 'I'll wager tha