"We'll hoick him up to the store, Bill, if you're ready? It looks a nice cool place. And while you're prizin' him open, I'd best explain to his Reverence and the barber. Here, unship the shore-plank; and you, A. Grigg and Son, lend a hand to heave.…Aye, you're right: it weighs more'n a trifle—bein' a quarter-puncheon, an' the best proof-spirits. Tilt her this way,…Ready?…then w'y-ho! and away she goes!"
With a heave and a lurch that canted the boat until the water poured over her gunwale, the huge tub was rolled overside into shallow water. The recoil, as the boat righted herself, cast the small barber off his balance, and he fell back over a thwart with heels in air. But before he picked himself up, the two seamen, encouraging one another with strange cries, had leapt out and were trundling the cask up the beach, using the flats of their hands. With another w'y-ho! and a tremendous lift, they ran it up to the turfy plat, whence Bill Adams steered it with ease through the ruinated doorway of the store. Mr. Jope returned, smiling and mopping his brow.
"It's this-a-way," he said, addressing the Parson. "Eli Tonkin his name is, or was; and, as he said, of this parish."
"Tonkin?" queried the Parson. "There are no Tonkins surviving in Botusfleming parish. The last of them was a poor old widow I laid to rest the week after Christmas."
"Belay there!…Dead, is she?" Mr. Jope's face exhibited the liveliest disappointment. "And after the surprise we'd planned for her!" he murmured ruefully. "Hi! Bill!" he called to his shipmate, who having stored the cask, was returning to the boat.
"Wot is it?" asked Bill Adams inattentively. "Look here, where did we stow the hammer an' chisel?"
"Take your head out o' the boat an' listen. The old woman's dead!"
The tall man absorbed the news slowly.
"That's a facer," he said at length. "But maybe we can fix her up, too? I'll stand my share."
"She was buried the week after Christmas."