“Settle’s way from his cradle,” growl’d another; “and times enough I’ve told ’n: ‘Cap’n,’ says I, ‘there’s no sense o’ proportions about ye.’ A master mind, sirs, but ’a ’ll be hang’d for a hen-roost, so sure as my name’s Bill Widdicomb.”
“Ugly words-what a creeping influence has that same mention o’ hanging!” piped a thinner voice.
“Hold thy complaints, Old Mortification,” put in a speaker that I recogniz’d for Black Dick; “sure the pretty maid upstairs is tender game. Hark how they sing!”
And indeed the threatened folk upstairs were singing their catch very choicely, with a girl’s clear voice to lead them—
“Comment dit papa —Margoton, ma mie?”
“Heathen language, to be sure,” said the thin voice again, as the chorus ceased: “thinks I to mysel’ ‘they be but Papisters,’ an’ my doubting mind is mightily reconcil’d to manslaughter.”
“I don’t like beginning ’ithout the Cap’n,” observed Black Dick: “though I doubt something has miscarried. Else, how did that young spark ride in upon the mare?”
“An’ that’s what thy question should ha’ been, Dick, with a pistol to his skull.”
“He’ll keep till the morrow.”
“We’ll give Settle half-an-hour more,” said the landlord: “Mary!” he push’d open the hatch, so that I had barely time to duck my head out of view, “fetch in the punch, girl. How did’st leave the young man i’ the loft?’