* Agent . `` You see , Davie , '' resumed my uncle , as soon as he saw that I had done , `` I have a venture with this man Hoseason , the captain of a trading brig , the Covenant , of Dysart . Now , if you and me was to walk over with yon lad , I could see the captain at the Hawes , or maybe on board the Covenant if there was papers to be signed ; and so far from a loss of time , we can jog on to the lawyer , Mr. Rankeillor 's . After a ' that 's come and gone , ye would be swier * to believe me upon my naked word ; but ye 'll believe Rankeillor . He 's factor to half the gentry in these parts ; an auld man , forby : highly respeckit , and he kenned your father . '' * Unwilling . I stood awhile and thought . I was going to some place of shipping , which was doubtless populous , and where my uncle durst attempt no violence , and , indeed , even the society of the cabin-boy so far protected me . Once there , I believed I could force on the visit to the lawyer , even if my uncle were now insincere in proposing it ; and , perhaps , in the bottom of my heart , I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships . You are to remember I had lived all my life in the inland hills , and just two days before had my first sight of the firth lying like a blue floor , and the sailed ships moving on the face of it , no bigger than toys . One thing with another , I made up my mind . `` Very well , '' says I , `` let us go to the Ferry . '' My uncle got into his hat and coat , and buckled an old rusty cutlass on ; and then we trod the fire out , locked the door , and set forth upon our walk . The wind , being in that cold quarter the north-west , blew nearly in our faces as we went . It was the month of June ; the grass was all white with daisies , and the trees with blossom ; but , to judge by our blue nails and aching wrists , the time might have been winter and the whiteness a December frost . Uncle Ebenezer trudged in the ditch , jogging from side to side like an old ploughman coming home from work . He never said a word the whole way ; and I was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy . He told me his name was Ransome , and that he had followed the sea since he was nine , but could not say how old he was , as he had lost his reckoning . He showed me tattoo marks , baring his breast in the teeth of the wind and in spite of my remonstrances , for I thought it was enough to kill him ; he swore horribly whenever he remembered , but more like a silly schoolboy than a man ; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done : stealthy thefts , false accusations , ay , and even murder ; but all with such a dearth of likelihood in the details , and such a weak and crazy swagger in the delivery , as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him . I asked him of the brig -LRB- which he declared was the finest ship that sailed -RRB- and of Captain Hoseason , in whose praises he was equally loud .
Heasyoasy -LRB- for so he still named the skipper -RRB- was a man , by his account , that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth ; one that , as people said , would `` crack on all sail into the day of judgment ; '' rough , fierce , unscrupulous , and brutal ; and all this my poor XXXXX had taught himself to admire as something seamanlike and manly .
Davie ay cabin-boy days durst fire first firth jogging remonstrances