'Ever, ever your's, 'A.H. 'June 9.'
***
O Jack! what heart's-ease does this interception give me!—I sent the rascal back with the letter to old Grimes, and charged him to drink no deeper. He owned, that he was half-seas over, as he phrased it.
Dog! said I, are you not to court one of Mrs. Moore's maids to-night?—
Cry your mercy, Sir!—I will be sober.—I had forgot that—but old Grimes is plaguy tough, I thought I should never have got him down.
Away, villain! Let old Grimes come, and on horseback too, to the door—
He shall, and please your honour, if I can get him on the saddle, and if he can sit—
And charge him not to have alighted, nor to have seen any body—
Enough, Sir, familiarly nodding his head, to show he took me. And away went the villain—into the parlour, to the women, I.
In a quarter of an hour came old Grimes on horseback, waving to his saddle-bow, now on this side, now on that; his head, at others, joining to that of his more sober beast.