“Well there it was all up again, but I gave her a new apron, and a few other little trinkets, and we went up again to get married. We expected then we would be tied so fast that all nature couldn’t separate us, and when we asked the deacon if he wouldn’t marry us he said:
“ ‘No, I shan’t dew any such thing.’
“ ‘Why, what on airth is the reason? says we.
“ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I’ve taken a mislikin’ to both on you.’
“Deb burst out cryin’, the deacon burst out scoldin’, and I burst out laughin’, and sich a set of reg’lar busters you never did see.”
XIX.
THE YANKEE AMONGST THE MERMAIDS.
A YARN, BY A CAPE CODDER.
Do I b’leve in the sea-sarpint? You might as well ax me if I b’leved in the compass, or thought the log could lie. I’ve never seed the critter myself, cos I haint cruised in them waters as he locates himself in, not since I started on my first voyage in the ‘Confidence’ whaler, Captain Coffing; but I recking I’ve got a brother as hails from Nahant, that sees him handsome every year, and knows the latitude and longitude of the beast, just as well as I knows the length o’ the futtock shrouds o’ the foretops.
Did you ever see a marmaid? Waell, then, I reckon you’d best shut up, cos I have, and many on ’em; and marmen too, and marmisses and marmasters, of all sizes, from babbies not bigger nor mackrels to regular six-feeters, with starns like a full-grow’d porpus. I’ve been at a marmaid’s tea-party, and after larnin’ the poor ignorant scaly critters how to splice the main-brace, I left the hull bilin’ on ’em blazin’ drunk.
You see, when our craft was cruisin’ up the Arches, we cast anchor one mornin’ in pretty deep water, just abrest of a small green island as wasn’t down in the chart, and hadn’t got no name, nyther. But our capting know’d what he was arter, abeout as right as ninepence, cos a small skewner came alongside pretty sune, freighted with brandy and wine for the officers, what they’d ordered for their own private stores. Waell, the slings was run up to the end o’ the main-yard, and the waisters were busy hoistin’ up the barrils, when a cask o’ brandy slipped from the slings as it was being canted round, and dropped right splash into the sea, sinkin’ right away. Upon ’zaminationing the manifest, it proved to be the best cask o’ brandy in the skewner, imported from Boardo direct for the capting himself.
“You etarnal lazy suckers,” said he; “look here! take all the boats’ anchors, lash ’em together in tews so as to form grapnels o’ four pints each, and drag all about here for that ar’ brandy—and mind you find it, or I’ll put every mother’s son of you on short allowance o’ rye for the next month.”