"Tis Big Swankie," whispered Ruby.
"There's nae hurry," objected the other fisherman, who, we need scarcely inform the reader, was our friend, Davy Spink.
"Nae hurry!" repeated his comrade angrily. "That's aye yer cry. Half 'o oor ventures hae failed because ye object to hurry."
"Hoot, man! that's enough o't," said Spink, in the nettled tone of a man who has been a good deal worried. Indeed, the tones of both showed that these few sentences were but the continuation of a quarrel which had begun elsewhere.
"It's plain to me that we must pairt, freen'," said Swankie in a dogged manner, as he lifted a keg out of the boat and placed it on the ground.
"Ay," exclaimed Spink, with something of a sneer, "an" d'ye think I'll pairt without a diveesion o' the siller tea-pats and things that ye daurna sell for fear o' bein' fund out?"
"I wonder ye dinna claim half o' the jewels and things as weel," retorted Swankie; "ye hae mair right to them, seein' ye had a hand in findin' them."
"Me a hand in findin' them," exclaimed Spink, with sudden indignation. "Was it me that fand the deed body o' the auld man on the Bell Rock? Na, na, freend. I hae naething to do wi' deed men's jewels."
"Have ye no?" retorted the other. "It's strange, then, that ye should entertain such sma' objections to deed men's siller." "Weel-a-weel, Swankie, the less we say on thae matters the better. Here, tak' hand o' the tither keg."
The conversation ceased at this stage abruptly. Evidently each had touched on the other's weak point, so both tacitly agreed to drop the subject.