Kent rustics, as they looked to each other; then at the sailors rolling away full speed along the edge of the plantation where the outlandish creature had disappeared; and, lastly, at the canvas cover which lay on the spot where he had stood. They were actually consulting how to guard against possible inroads from the savage at night, since he might be lurking near, when I mounted and rode off; I daresay even their hearing that I was a live and real lieutenant would cap the whole story. "Croydon used to be a pretty, retired little town, you know, so quiet and old-fashioned that I enjoyed the unusual rest of it, and the very look of the canal, the market-place, the old English trees and people--by comparison with even the _Iris's_ white decks, and her circumference of a prospect, so different every morning or hour of the day. My mother and my sister Jane were so kind--they petted me so, and were so happy to have me down to breakfast and out walking, even to feel the smell of my cigar--that I hardly knew where I was. I gave them an account of the places I had seen, with a few tremendous storms and a frigate-fight or two, instead of the horse-marine stories about mermaids and flying Dutchmen I used to pass upon them when a conceited youngster. Jane, the little gipsy, would listen with her ear to a large shell, when we were upon sea matters, and shut her eyes, saying she could fancy the things so well that way. Or was it about India, there was a painted sandal-wood fan carved in open-work like the finest lace, which she would spread over her face, because the seeing through it, and its scent, made her feel as if she were in the tropics. As for my mother, good simple woman, she was always between astonishment and horror, never having believed that lieutenants would be so heartless as to mast-head a midshipman for the drunkenness of a boat's crew, nor being able to understand why, with a gale brewing to seaward, a captain tried to get his ship as far as he could from land. The idea of my going to sea again never entered her head, the terrible war being over, and the rank I had gained being invariably explained to visitors as at least equal to that of a captain amongst soldiers. To the present day, this is the point with respect to seafaring matters on which my venerated and worthy parent is clearest: she will take off her gold spectacles, smoothing down her silver hair with the other hand, and lay down the law as to reform in naval titles, showing that my captain's commission puts me on a level with a military colonel. However, as usual, I got tired by little and little of this sort of thing; I fancy there's some peculiar disease gets into a sailor's brain that makes him uneasy with a firm floor and no offing beyond; certainly the country about Croydon was to my mind, at that time, the worst possible--all shut in, narrow lanes, high hedges and orchards, no sky except overhead, and no horizon. If I