The mate slowly lifted his head, which had sunk on his massive chest, and as I saw his face I grew amazed, for he resembled nothing so much as a good-living, well-fed minister.
"I ha' used the sea, Cap'n, in my time. I loved the nuns and the virgins in San Iago afore we made a bonfire o' it, ay the holy nuns, but they skirled. Here's tae them, they were good while they lasted," and the unholy wretch smacked his lips as though he relished the memory more than the drink.
"Sanny McNeilage, they ca' me. I've seen what I've seen and what ye'll never see—I've seen the decks red for a week and all hands drunk;" and then he turned to me, and his face shone with kindliness, "Are ye any man wi' a cutlass, my lad?"
"No," says I, for my blood boiled at the thought of the nuns, "I wish I were."
"So do I," says he in a pitiful voice.
"All that was before your mother died," says a young lad at his elbow, fierce Ronny McKinnon, and the mate put his head in his arms and his shoulders shook with his greetin', while nods and winks went round the godless crew.
"She was English, my poor old mother," he cried, "and I would lay down my damned soul for her, but she died fifteen year ago, and she could not say 'wee tatties' in the English when she slipped her cable, for she turned into Gaelic—yes," and he looked up, the tears in his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. I think I never saw anything so hateful, but then I saw his hand at his hanger and his big shoulders haunching. "Will any o' ye be denying it?" he murmured in his pitiful voice, and then through the tears I saw the devil mocking, and knew why the crew hastened to reassure him.
Meg, the gleevitch, kept the drink going and threw more wood on the fire. "Drink up," she cries, "it's a rid tinker's night this."
"Why red tinkers, Meg?" says Dan, raising his head from close confab wi' the captain.
"Ye ken the story fine," says she, "how the weans hiv the red hair tae keep them warm maybe, lying oot."