"Well, I be up for bunkum, every bit so much as you be. But where shall us be off to? That's the p'int of zettlement. Clampits, I say. Roaring fun there, and the gim'-keepers aveared of 'e."
"Darsn't goo there yet, I tell 'e. Last thing old moother did was to send me word, Passon to Perlycrass had got the tip on me. Don't want no bother with them blessed Beaks again."
"Wonder you didn't goo and twist the Passon's neck." The faithful mate looked up at him, as if the captain had failed of his duty, unaccountably.
"Wouldn't touch a hair of that man's head, if it wor here atwixt my two knees." Harvey Tremlett brought his fist down on his thigh, with a smack that made the stones ring round him. "Tell 'e why, Jem Kettel. He have took my little Zip along of his own chiller, and a' maneth to make a lady on her. And a lady the little wench hath a right to be—just you say the contrairy—if hanncient vam'ley, and all that, have right to count. Us Tremletts was here, long afore they Waldrons."
The smaller man appeared afraid to speak. He knew the weak point of the big man perhaps, and that silence oils all such bearings.
"Tull 'e what, Jemmy," said the other coming round, after stripping his friend's mouth of his proper pipe; "us'll go up country—shoulder packs and be off, soon as ever the moon be up. Like to see any man stop me, I would."
He stood up, with the power of his mighty size upon him; a man who seemed fit to stop an avalanche, and able to give as much trouble about stopping him.
"All right, I be your man;" replied the other, speaking as if he were quite as big, and upon the whole more important. "Bristol fust; and then Lunnon, if so plaise 'e. Always a bit of louderin' there. But that remindeth me of Perlycrass. Us be bound to be back by fair-time, you know. Can't afford to miss old Timberlegs."
"Time enow for that;" Harvey Tremlett answered. "Zix or zeven weeks yet to Perlycrass fair. What time wor it as old Timberlegs app'inted?"