“Yes, sir, that I will, without two thoughts about 'un. Only too happy, as the young women say, to give 'un up, quick stick—so soon as ever I ha' got 'un.”
“If ever there was a contumacious rogue! Roll up a couple of those puncheons, Mr. Avery; and now light half a dozen links. Have you got your spigot-heels—and rummers? Very good; Lieutenant Donovan, Mr. Avery, and Senior Volunteer Brett, oblige me by standing by to verify. Gentlemen, we will endeavor to hold what is judicially called an assay—a proof of the purity of substances. The brand on these casks is of the very highest order—the renowned Mynheer Van Dunck himself. Donovan, you shall be our foreman; I have heard you say that you understood ardent spirits from your birth.”
“Faix, and I quite forget, commander, whether I was weaned on or off of them. But the foine judge me father was come down till me—honey, don't be narvous; slope it well, then—a little thick, is it? All the richer for that same, me boy. Commander, here's the good health of his Majesty—Oh Lord!”
Mr. Corkoran Donovan fell down upon the shingle, and rolled and bellowed: “Sure me inside's out! 'Tis poisoned I am, every mortial bit o' me. A docthor, a docthor, and a praste, to kill me! That ever I should live to die like this! Ochone, ochone, every bit of me; to be brought forth upon good whiskey, and go out of the world upon docthor's stuff!”
“Most folk does that, when they ought to turn ends t'otherwise.” James Brown of Grimsby could see how things were going, though his power to aid was restricted by a double turn of rope around him; but a kind hand had given him a pipe, and his manner was to take things easily. “Commander, or captain, or whatever you be, with your king's clothes, constructing a hole in they flints, never you fear, sir. 'Tis medical water, and your own wife wouldn't know you to-morrow. Your complexion will be like a hangel's.”
“You d——d rogue,” cried Nettlebones, striding up, with his sword flashing in the link-lights, “if ever I had a mind to cut any man down—”
“Well, sir, do it, then, upon a roped man, if the honor of the British navy calleth for it. My will is made, and my widow will have action; and the executioner of my will is a Grimsby man, with a pile of money made in the line of salt fish, and such like.”
“Brown, you are a brave man. I would scorn to harm you. Now, upon your honor, are all your puncheons filled with that stuff, and nothing else?”
“Upon my word of honor, sir, they are. Some a little weaker, some with more bilge-water in it, or a trifle of a dash from the midden. The main of it, however, in the very same condition as a' bubbleth out of what they call the spawses. Why, captain, you must 'a lived long enough to know, partiklar if gifted with a family, that no sort of spirit as were ever stilled will fetch so much money by the gallon, duty paid, as the doctor's stuff doth by the phial-bottle.”
“That is true enough; but no lies, Brown, particularly when upon your honor! If you were importing doctor's stuff, why did you lead us such a dance, and stand fire?”