"That were a knave's trick, to be sure, when ye risked a shot and a ducking, ay, and a drowning too, to save my life.

Drowning, in sooth; for why I did not pull you in along with me, the saints alone can tell!" "Nay," said Matcham, "I would 'a' saved us both, good Dick, for I can swim." "Can ye so ?" cried Dick, with open eyes.

It was the one manly accomplishment of which he was himself incapable.

In the order of the things that he admired, next to having killed a man in single fight came swimming.

"Well," he said, "here is a lesson to despise no man.