The rest of us might quote his wit, his wisdom, might
defer to him as a being, if not superhuman, at least superlative
among men; but Cai Tamblyn would have none of it. He had found one
formula to answer all our praises.
"_Him_? Why, I knawed him when he was _so_ high!"
Nor would he hesitate, in the Mayor's presence, from translating it
into the second person.
"_You_? Why, I knawed you when you was _so_ high!"
Yet the Mayor retained him in his service, which sufficiently proves
his magnanimity.
He could afford to be magnanimous, being adored.
Who but he could have called a public meeting and persuaded the
ladies of the town to enroll themselves in a brigade and patrol the
cliffs in red cloaks during harvest, that the French, if perchance
they approached our shores, might mistake them for soldiery? It was
pretty, I tell you, to walk the coast-track on a warm afternoon and
pass these sentinels two hundred yards apart, each busy with her
knitting.
Of all the marks left on our town by Major Hymen's genius, the
Port Hospital, or the idea of it, proved (as it deserved) to
be the most enduring. The Looe Volunteers might pride themselves
on their longevity--at the best a dodging of the common lot.
We, characteristically, thought first of death and wounds.
As the Major put it, at another public meeting: "There are risks even
in handling the explosives generously supplied to us by Government.
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