"I'm tired out, Don John," added Captain Shivernock, as he seated himself, fanning his red face with his hat.
"Have you walked far, sir?" asked Donald, who was well acquainted with the captain; for his father had worked on his boat, and he was often in the shop.
"I believe I have hoofed it about ten miles this morning," replied Captain Shivernock with an oath; and he had a wicked habit of ornamenting every sentence he used with a profane expletive, which I shall invariably omit.
"Then you have walked nearly the whole length of the island."
"Do you mean to tell me I lie?" demanded the captain.
"My boat got aground down here. I started early this morning to go down to Vinal Haven; but I'm dished now, and can't go," continued Captain Shivernock, so interlarding with oaths this simple statement that it looks like another thing divested of them.
"Where did you get aground?" asked Donald.
Donald could not divine how the captain had got aground near Seal Harbor, if he was bound from Belfast to Vinal Haven, though it was possible that the wind had been more to the southward early in the morning, compelling him to beat down the bay; but it was not prudent to question anything the captain said.
"I ran in shore pretty well, and took the ground. I tried for half an hour to get the Juno off, but I was soon left high and dry on the beach. I anchored her where she was, and I'm sorry now I didn't set her afire," explained the captain.
"That's what I said. She shall never play me such a trick again," growled the strange man.
"Do you mean to say it was my fault?" demanded the captain, ripping out a string of oaths that made Donald shiver.
"It was an accident which might happen to any one."
"Do you think I didn't know what I was about?"
"I suppose you did, sir; but any boat may get aground."
"Not with me! if she did I'd burn her or sell her for old junk. I never will sail in her again after I get home. I know what I'm about."
"Got a boat here?" suddenly demanded the eccentric.
"Take me down to Seal Harbor in her," added the captain, rising from his seat.
"Don't you? What's the reason you can't?" asked the captain, with a sneer on his lips.
Captain Shivernock cursed the yacht club with decided unction, and insisted that Donald should convey him in his boat to the place where the Juno was at anchor.