When at last the officer lowered his telescope, Adrian came forward and saluted him with a slight bow, all unconsciously as unlike the average Jack Tar's scrape to his superior as can be well imagined:
"Am I not," he asked, "addressing in you, sir, one of the Cochranes of the Shaws?"
The question and the tone from a common sailor were, of course, enough to astonish the young man. But there must be more than this, as Adrian surmised, to cause him to blush, wax angry, and stammer like a very school-boy found at fault. Speaking with much sharpness:
"My name is Smith, my man," cried he, seizing his belongings, "and you--just carry on with that coiling!"
"And my name, sir, is Adrian Landale, of Pulwick Priory. I would like a moment's talk with you, if you will spare me the time. The Cochranes of the Shaws have been friends of our family for generations."
A guffaw burst from a group of Adrian's mates working hard by, at this recurrence of what had become with them a standing joke; but the officer, who had turned on his heels, veered round immediately, and stood eyeing the speaker in profound astonishment.
"Great God, is it possible! Did you say you were a Landale of Pulwick? How the devil came you here then, and thus?"
"Press-gang," was Adrian's laconic answer.
The lad gave a prolonged whistle, and was lost for a moment in cogitation.
"If you are really Mr. Landale," he began, adding hastily, as if to cover an implied admission--"of course I have heard the name: it is well known in Lancashire--you had better see the skipper. It must have been some damnable mistake that has caused a man of your standing to be pressed."
The speaker ended with almost a deferential air and the smile that had already warmed Adrian's heart. At the door of the Captain's quarters he said, with the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye:
"A curious error it was you made, I assure you my name is Smith--Jack Smith, of Liverpool."
"An excusable error," quoth Adrian, smiling back, "for one of your seals bear unmistakably the arms of Cochrane of the Shaws, doubtless some heirloom, some inter-marriage."
"No, sir, hang it!" retorted Mr. Jack Smith of Liverpool, his boyish face flushing again, and as he spoke he disengaged the trinket from its neighbours, and jerked it pettishly overboard, "I know nothing of your Shaws or your Cochranes."