“Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider should be wasted like this!” exclaimed the tranter. “Your thumb! Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger tap, my sonnies.”
“Idd it cold inthide te hole?” inquired Charley of Michael, as he continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole.
“What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!” Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. “I lay a wager that he thinks more about how ’tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts of the world put together.”
All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders—thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon which the gaze might precipitate itself.
“Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?” said the tranter. “Never such a man as father for two things—cleaving up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. ’A’d pass his life between the two, that ’a would.” He stepped to the door and opened it.
“Father!”
“Ay!” rang thinly from round the corner.
“Here’s the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!”
A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family appeared.