“Well, yes, sir, that’s what he is; but by the same token I don’t wonder at it, for if a man stood bechuckst good and avil and Misthress Greenheys was on the avil side, faix, he’d be sure to go toward the avil—at laste, he would if he was an Oirishman.”
“Then you will!”
“Yis, sor, for the lady’s sake; but I shall have to give up my share of the good things here, and behave very badly to the captain.”
“My good fellow, I will provide you for life.”
“That’s moighty kind of you, sor, and I thank ye. Yis, I’ll do it, for, ye see, though I don’t want to behave badly to the captain, Black Mazzard’s too much for me; and besides, I kape thinking that if, some day or another, I do mate wid an accident and get dancing on the toight-rope, I sha’n’t have a chance of wedding the widdy Greenheys, and that would be a terrible disappointment to the poor darlin’.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Humphrey, impatiently. “Then tell me. You will help me by getting a boat ready, and we can all go down together and put to sea!”
“Hark at him!” said Dinny, with a laugh, after going to the great curtain and peering into the corridor. “Ye spake, sor, like a gintleman coming out of his house and calling for a kyar. Lave that all to me.”
“I will, Dinny; but what do you propose doing, and when!”
“What do I propose doing, sor? Oh! it’s all settled. The darlin’ put an idee in my head, and it’s tuk root like a seed.”
“Trust a woman for ingenuity!” cried Humphrey, speaking with the authority of one who knew, though as to women’s ways he was a child.