“Wae’s me!” he said, with a heave of his big chest, “I reca’ as yestreen the night Maxwell cam aboord.  The sun gaed loon a’ bluidy, an’ belyve the morn rose unco mirk an’ dreary, wi’ bullers (rollers) frae the west like muckle sowthers (soldiers) wi’ white plumes.  I tauld the captain ‘twas a’ the faut o’ Maxwell.  I ne’er cad bide the blellum.  Dour an’ din he was, wi’ ae girn like th’ auld hornie.  But the captain wadna hark to my rede when I tauld him naught but dool wad cooin o’ taking Mungo.”

It seemed that John Paul, contrary to MacMuir’s advice, had shipped as carpenter on the voyage out—­near seven months since—­a man by the name of Mungo Maxwell.  The captain’s motive had nothing in it but kindness, and a laudable desire to do a good turn to a playmate of his boyhood.  As MacMuir said, “they had gaed barefit thegither amang the braes.”  The man hailed from Kirkbean, John Paul’s own parish.  But he had within him little of the milk of kindness, being in truth a sour and mutinous devil; and instead of the gratitude he might have shown, he cursed the fate that had placed him under the gardener’s son, whom he deemed no better than himself.  The John had scarce cleared the Solway before Maxwell showed signs of impudence and rebellion.

The crew was three-fourths made of Kirkcudbright men who had known the master from childhood, many of them, indeed, being older than he; they were mostly jealous of Paul, envious of the command he had attained to over them, and impatient under the discipline he was ever ready to inflict.  ’Tis no light task to enforce obedience from those with whom one has birdnested.  But, having more than once felt the weight of his hand, they feared him.

Dissatisfaction among such spreads apace, if a leader is but given; and Maxwell was such a one.  His hatred for John Paul knew no bounds, and, having once tasted of his displeasure, he lay awake o’ nights scheming to ruin him.  And this was the plot:  when the Azores should be in the wake, Captain Paul was to be murdered as he paced his quarterdeck in the morning, the two mates clapt into irons, and so brought to submission.  And Maxwell, who had no more notion of navigation than a carpenter should, was to take the John to God knows where,—­the Guinea coast, most probably.  He would have no more navy regulations on a merchant brigantine, he promised them, nor banyan days, for the matter o’ that.

Happily, MacMuir himself discovered the affair on the eve of its perpetration, overhearing two men talking in the breadroom, and he ran to the cabin with the sweat standing out on his forehead.  But the captain would have none of the precautions he urged; declared he would walk the deck as usual, and vowed he could cope single-handed with a dozen cowards like Maxwell.  Sure enough, at crowdie-time, the men were seen coming aft, with Maxwell in the van carrying a bowl, on the pretext of a complaint against the cook.