“Hallo! messmate, wot’s ado that ye should go into the blues when we’re on the pint o’ making our fortins?” said Orrick.
“Ado!” cried Rodney angrily, “is it not bad enough to be called messmate by you, and not be able to deny it?”
“You’re civil, anyhow,” said Orrick, with an oath.
“I mean to be,” retorted Nick, fiercely.
“Come, come, it’s no use quarrelling,” said Orrick, with an affectation of good-humour. “Never say die! Nick; them’s the words o’ the immortial Nelson, w’en he gave the signal to blaze away at Trafalgar. But sit ye down here on this rock, and I’ll tell ye all about wot I see’d last night. Ye’d like to know, I dessay.”
“I’d like to have know’d sooner, if you had seen fit to tell me,” said Rodney Nick, in a gruff tone.
“Well, then, keep yer mind easy, and here goes. You know as how I chanced to hear old Jeph make an appointment with that young puppy, Guy Foster, to meet him at the darkest hour o’ night at the tomb o’ Mary Bax. Thinks I, it won’t be for nothin’ you’re goin’ to meet at sich an hour in sich a place, my hearties, so I’ll go an’ keep ye company in a private way!
“You may be sure I was up to time. Two hours did I wait in the ditch behind the tomb, and I can tell ye, Nick, it’s desprit eerie work a-sittin’ there all alone of a dark night, a-countin’ of the beatins of yer ’art, an’ thinkin’ every shadow of the clouds is a ghost. Hows’ever, the old man came at last, and lies down flat on the grave, and begins to groan a bit. Arter that he takes to prayin’, an’, d’ye know, the way that old feller prays is a caution. The parsons couldn’t hold a candle to him. Not that I ever heer’d ony of ’em, but I s’pose they couldn’t!
“Well, he was cut short in the middle by the arrival of the puppy—.”
“Wot puppy?” inquired Rodney.