damask waistcoat and breeches, silk hose, diamond knee and shoe-buckles, a red feather in his cocked hat, a gold chain round his neck with a diamond cross hung to it, jewel-hilted sword, hanging[55] by a silk sash at his side; his naval-blue coat resplendent with gold buttons, lace, and other trappings proper to the Buccaneer's costume. Nelly, decked out in rich velvets, lace, silks, satins, and jewels which once belonged to dark-eyed senoras of Mexico or Peru, eclipsed all the ladies of the West Country. Such a man as Captain Black, notwithstanding his former profession was not a person to be treated with contempt at any time, and much less "In the days when we went a pirating, a long time ago." These gentlemen were looked upon as heroic adventurers, who served the dons, by way of reprisal, no worse than they deserved. Because then, if an English, French, or Dutch ship put into a Spanish-American port she was likely to be confiscated, and her crew kept prisoners, or treated no better than slaves, if they escaped with their lives, till dearly ransomed. We have little to do, however, with the morality of sea-highwaymen. Yet, if old stories may be credited, our brave Buccaneer Black soon became a greater favourite with certain ladies of the parish than he was with their lovers and husbands. One tale is often told of his adventures with a gay lady of the Tresillian family, who then lived at Tresidder, and how a noted smuggler called Ackey Carn, one both landless and lawless, who cared for no man, being a rival for the gay dame's favour, by way of a jest spoke of certain amatory passages which he had witnessed between the Captain and lady, whose powerful and proud relatives constrained Carn, under pain of their displeasure, to do penance in Burian Church for thus thoughtlessly exposing the scandal. But the culprit, who, according to custom, came into church barefooted and clad in a sheet, instead of kneeling before the priest or parson, to beg pardon, and otherwise express contrition, and receive the priestly reprimand with becoming humility, stood up in front of the rud-locks (rood-loft,) turned his back to the priest and, facing the congregation (crowded to behold the show) made the well-remembered speech which begins:— "Here am I, compelled by the law For to deny what my own eyes saw, &c." Here follows a minute relation, told in language more quaint than choice, which was calculated to spread the scandal far and near. Then, throwing off his sheet, he showed himself well armed and bade defiance to all priests, pirates, and Tresillians, this side of a disagreeably warm place, as he would have said, if paraphrases of gentle words and equivocations had been the fashion then; however, he said he didn't care a rap for any one before him, and he would fight them all one after the other.