I had fished on for some hour or two; Claude had long since
disappeared among the hills; I fancied myself miles from any human
being, when a voice at my elbow startled me
'A bleak place for fishing this, sir!'
I turned; it was an old grey-whiskered labouring man, with pick and
spade on shoulder, who had crept on me unawares beneath the wall of
the neighbouring deer-cover. Keen honest eyes gleamed out from his
brown, scarred, weather-beaten face; and as he settled himself
against a rock with the deliberate intention of a chat, I commenced
by asking after the landlord of those parts, well known and honoured
both by sportsman and by farmer.
'He was gone to Malta--a warmer place that than Exmoor.'
'What! have you been in Malta?'
Yes, he had been in Malta, and in stranger places yet. He had been a
sailor: he had seen the landing in Egypt, and heard the French
cannon thundering vainly from the sand-hills on the English boats.
He had himself helped to lift Abercrombie up the ship's side to the
death-bed of the brave. He had seen Caraccioli hanging at his own
yard-arm, and heard (so he said, I know not how correctly) Lady
Hamilton order out the barge herself, and row round the frigate of
the murdered man, to glut her eyes with her revenge.
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