human
Daggett has told you this, Deacon Pratt --said Gardiner, in his off-hand way.
gpt
And he is the man who has told you of those sealing-islands too?
human
Admitting it to be so, why not Daggett as well as any other man?
gpt
Certainly, if he knew what he was saying to be true--but the yarn of a sailor is not often to be taken for gospel.
human
Daggett was near his end, and cannot be classed with those who talk idly in the pride of their health and strength--men who are ever ready to say--'Tush, God has forgotten.'
gpt
Why was this told to you, when the man had natural friends and relatives by the dozen over on the Vineyard?
human
He had been away from the Vineyard and them relatives fifty years; a length of time that weakens a body's feelings considerably. Take you away from Mary only a fourth part of that time, and you would forget whether her eyes are blue or black, and altogether how she looks.
gpt
If I should, a most miserable and contemptible dog should I account myself! No, deacon, twice fifty years would not make me forget the eyes or the looks of Mary!
human
Ay, so all youngsters think, and feel, and talk. But let 'em try the world, and they'll soon find out their own foolishness. But Daggett made me his confidant because Providence put me in his way, and because he trusted to being well enough to go in the schooner, and to turn the expedition to some account in his own behalf.
gpt
Had the man the impudence to confess that he had been a pirate, and helped to bury treasure on this key?
human
That is not, by any means, his history. Daggett was never a pirate himself, but accident placed him in the same prison and same room as that in which a real pirate was confined. There the men became friends, and the condemned prisoner, for such he was in the end, gave this secret to Daggett as the last service he could do him.
gpt
I hope, deacon, you do not expect much in the way of profit from this part of the voyage?
human
I expect the most from it, Gar'ner, as you will too, when you come to hear the whole story.