The Honour of the Flag | Page 4

and the gun was so well aimed that on Joe Westlake looking aloft he beheld his beautiful flag of a fathom and a half in holes.
For some moments the old man-of-wars man stood staring up at his wounded flag, idle with wrath and astonishment. He then in a voice of thunder shouted: "Plum--Robins--Tuck! D' ye see what that there fired little tailor's been and done? Why, junk me if he ha' n't shot our colour through! Boys, load with ball; d' ye hear? Suffocate me, but he shall have it back. Quick, my hearts, and go for him."
With ocean alacrity some round shot were got up, a gun was fired point-blank at Labour's Retreat, and down came a chimney-stack, amidst the cheers of the crew of the Tom Bowling.
"Now, then," roared old Joe, "over with our boat, lads, and board 'em! Tommy, stay you here and let go the anchor"; and in a very few minutes Plum and Robins were pulling Joe Westlake ashore.
Sloper and his party saw them coming and manfully stood their ground. The three seamen, securing their boat, forced their way on to the lawn and marched up to the tailor and his friends.
"What do you mean by firing at my cutter?" roared old Joe.
"What do you mean by knocking down my chimneys?" cried the tailor, who was exceedingly pale.
"Who began it?" bawled Joe. "Who fired first? Who's bin and made holes in that there flag of mine? Why, that's the flag of a British sailor, you little withered thimble you; and durn ye, if you don't make me instantly an humble apology and stump up with the cost of what ye've injured, I'll skin ye!" and he threw himself into a very menacing posture.
At this point one of the tailor's friends slunk off.
"My chimney-stack is worth more than your twopenny flag," shrieked Sloper, maddened even into some temporary emotion of courage by the insults of the old man-of-warsman.
"Say that again, will 'ee," said Joe. "Just sneer at that there flag again, will 'ee."
The tailor was idiotic enough to repeat the affront, on which, and as though a perfect understanding as to what was to be done subsisted among the three sailors, old Joe, Plum, and Robins fell upon Sloper, and, lifting him up in their arms, ran with him to the boat, into which they flung him, paying not the least heed whatever to his cries for help and for mercy, and instantly headed for the cutter, leaving the tailor's friends white as milk and speechless with alarm near the cannon upon the lawn.
When the boat reached the cutter, Plum jumped aboard and received little Sloper from the hands of old Joe, making no more of the burthen than had the tailor been a parcel, say, of a coat and waistcoat, or a pair of trousers. Old Joe then actively got over the rail. He lifted the little main-hatch, and Mr. Sloper was dropped into the space below, where the darkness was so great that he could not see, and where there was nothing to sit upon but Thames ballast.
"In boat, up anchor, and away with us!" said Joe Westlake.
The breeze was fresh, the cutter was always an excellent sailer, and in a very short space of time she was running down Long Reach with Erith and its adjacent shores out of sight, past the round of land where Dartford creek is to be found. Joe Westlake then called a council. Robins was at the tiller; Plum and Tuck came aft, and the four debated at the helm.
"I've heerd," said old Joe, "of this tailor afore. His name's Sloper. I've never larnt why he mounted them guns, or where the little rooting hog got his pluck from to fire 'em. But there can be no shadder of a doubt, mates, that his object in firing to-day was to insult that there flag."
He pointed with an immensely square forefinger to the masthead.
"Ne'er a shadder," said Plum.
"For why," continued old Joe, "did the smothered rag of a chap wait for us to come right abreast afore firing?"
"Ah! that's it, ye see," exclaimed Bob Robins. "There ye've hit it, Mr. Westlake."
"The little faggot's game," old Joe went on, "is as clear as mud in a wineglass. He fires with blank cartridge; like as he'd say 'What'll you do?' What did he want? That we should retarn his civility with grape? Of course; that if it should come to a difficulty he'd have the law on his side. Not being able to aggravate us into shotting our guns, what must he turn to and do but load with stone--and look at that flag! Riddled, mates. I'll not speak of it as spiled, though a prettier and a better bit of bunting was never mastheaded. Spiled ain't the word: disgraced it