"Our boatswain spinneth a better yarn than I," said the gunner; "but as I feel drouthy, and Tib is an auld friend, I care not if I shake out a reef for an hour or sae, so bear ye ahead, sir."
The alewife's house was soon found, for over her door was the sign which all brewsters had to put forth under a penalty of four pennies. An Act of the Parliament passed in those days made it unlawful for a man "to walk or travell in tyme of nicht, unless he was a man of great authentic or of gude fame;" and recent outrages committed in her establishment made the poor alewife somewhat reluctant to unbar her door, until she heard the familiar voice of Wad; on this she at once admitted him and his companion, placed a fresh candle in the tin sconce, which lit her low ceiled and clay-floored apartment, one end of which was spanned by an enormous fire place, wherein, though the season was summer, a fire of wood and turf was blazing. On a fir-table she placed a trenplate of cakes, and two jugs of foaming ale, which she brought from a secret place. The vicinity of so many lawless vassals and mosstroopers having made her house very unsafe of late, Tib had allowed her barrels to remain empty, there being neither wisdom nor thrift in filling them for soldiers who only paid her by ridicule or abuse. Some had vowed that she brewed "evil ale, and should pay them the usual fine of eight shillings for having drunk it;" others swore they "would have her put upon the cuckstule at Bonnington, and send her ale to the puir or the hospitallers," and so forth, as Tib, who was a rosy and comely woman of some forty years, and who had long since contrived to console herself for the abstraction of her spouse "by the infidel Turks," informed Willie Wad, while Borthwick listened to the history of her troubles with great impatience.
While he plied the honest and unsuspecting gunner with Tib Tarvet's strongest beverage, we may imagine the affectation of interest with which Borthwick listened to his detail of action, in which he was painfully minute, and which he loaded with technicalities unintelligible as Greek or Hebrew to the cunning listener, who bit his lips with impatience while Wad ardently expatiated on the able manner in which the poor Cressi was run down; and how the spanking Yellow Frigate, with every stitch of canvas set aloft and alow, was brought to bear in all her weight and strength on the doomed ship; how, in rounding to, she won the advantage of the wind, and how the gallant Barton took her helm; how the braces and bowlines were let go through the blocks like a whirlwind; how the sheets and tacks were slacked off and the yards squared like lightning; and how the sea smoked under her counter, as the heavy ship broke like a thunderbolt upon the foeman's hull, crashing through and over it! Then how they all ranged up alongside of each other, Englishman and Scot—yardarm and yardarm—muzzle to muzzle—till their portlids and chainplates rasped together, and men slew each other at the lower deck ports; how iron grapnels were flung out and lashed to yard-head and gunnel; and how thus, for so many glasses, they continued that deadly strife, pouring in the shot of carthouns, sakers, falcons, crossbows, and arquebusses, while two-handed swords, axes, and mauls, were plied like flails in a barnyard, and the steel blades rang on the helmets like a shower of iron hammers upon clinking anvils; how many brave fellows had fallen in the battle; how many had weathered it, and how many had died since of their wounds when the tide ebbed, the invariable time of death, according to an old superstition.
Tib, who was somewhat abashed by the gay apparel of Borthwick, sat knitting in the ingle seat of her wide chimney, and though far aloof, listening intently to the narration of Wad, in which, as a sailor's wife and a Scot—for in those days the Scottish women possessed even more patriotism than their countrymen—she was doubly interested.
Meanwhile the fire blazed on the hearth; the candle guttered and streamed in the currents of air, and Willie continued to speak, but thicker and more slowly, of course, while he quaffed pot after pot of ale; and now he began to remember that "Jamie Gair was waiting for him at the auld Brig-stairs," just when Borthwick (whose wolfish eyes were constantly fixed on the pouch containing the letter) resolved to give him a finishing stroke, by ordering Tib Tarvet to prepare for him a strong hot pint.
Now, we have elsewhere mentioned, the Scottish pint is similar to the English quart, and as the required draught consisted of strong ale, whiskey, and eggs boiled together, and taken hot, it may easily be supposed that such a decoction was more than sufficient to lay the unwary gunner, as he afterwards said, "on his beam ends."
Some lingering recollection of where he was, and of the message entrusted him, flashed upon his memory through the thickening haze that was overspreading his faculties, and setting the hot stoup, half drained, upon the board, he reeled up from it.
"Where away?" said Borthwick; "finish thy pot, man—where away so fast?"
"A lady—a letter," muttered Wad, opening and shutting his eyes in succession, and rolling his head from side to side; "she gied me a braw siller chain for my pretty Rose; yo-ho, brother gossip; I must trip my anchor now—"
"But finish thine ale, friend, to the health cf Andrew Wood."