Waell, if ever you did hear a most etarnal row, or see a hull raft o’ drunken fellers cut didoes, then was the time. It was voted that I were a public enemy, and every half-drunken marman suddenly become very ’fishus to have me lynched, and it were settled at last that I were to be rode on a rail, and then tarred and feathered. But, while some o’ the varmint went arter the rail and the tar, the rest o’ the critters begun quarrelin’ who was to sarve out the licker; and as each marman, drunk or sober, wanted to have the keare o’ the precious stuff, they soon raised a pretty muss, and kept on tearin’ at each other like a pack o’ wolves. Seein’ this, I jest kinder sneaked quietly away from the cave grocery till I com’ in sight o’ the ship, when I struck upperd for the sarfis, and swum for dear life. I soon seed that the boats’ crew were musterin’ for another bout o’ draggin’ for the brandy-cask; so, fearin’ least the capting should miss me, I jest laid hold o’ the edge o’ the gig, and crawled in pretty quickly, and laid myself down in the starn-sheets, as if I’d never been out o’ the boat.
I hadn’t laid thar’ half a second, when I heerd a noise jest for all the world as if somebody was squeezin’ a small thundercloud right over my head. I ruz up, and thar’ were the capting and the hull crew lookin’ over the ship’s side at me—the officers in a tarnal rage, and the men grinnin’ like so many hyenas.
“Rouse up, you long-sided lazy swab, and bring the boats in from the boom. Are you goin’ to sleep all day?”
“Ay, ay, Sir,” said I, jumpin’ up in the boat, when all the water run off me like forty thousand mill-streams—I’d been so outrageous soaked while down with the marmen. I felt kinder skeered lest the capting should see it, but when I stood up he laughed right out, and so did the hull crew tew.
“Why, he’s not awake yet,” said the capting. “Bosen, give him another bucket.”
You see they wanted to persuade me that I’d fell asleep in the gig, as fast as a meetin’-house, and slept thar’ the hull while the crew were at dinner, and that no shoutin’ nor nothin’ couldn’t wake me up—so, the bosen run along the boom and jest give me a couple o’ buckets o’ sea-water right over me. When I told ’em my yarn abeout the marman poppin’ up his head, and invitin’ me down, and all abeout findin’ the brandy-tub and the rest, they swore that I’d got drunk on the parson’s licker, and dreamt it all in the boat. But I guess I know what I did see, jest abeout as slick as anybody; and the chaplain b’lieved the hull story; and said that as I’d learnt the marmen the valley o’ licker, they’d get huntin’ up all the tubs and barrels out of the different wrecks in all the various seas; and that intemperance would spile the race, and thin ’em off till they became one o’ the things that was—jest like the Injins what’s wastin’ away by the power o’ rum and whiskey given ’em by the white men.
I recking the parson warn’t far out in his kalkilashing. The love o’ licker has had its effect upon the marmen and the marmaids; they must have thinned off surprisin’ly, for I ain’t seed none since, nor I don’t know nobody that has nyther.
XX.
CAPTAIN STICK AND TONEY.
Captain Stick was a remarkably precise old gentleman, and a conscientiously just man. He was, too, very methodical in his habits, one of which was to keep an account in writing of the conduct of his servants, from day to day. It was a sort of account-current, and he settled by it every Saturday afternoon. No one dreaded these hebdomadal balancings more than Toney, the boy of all-work; for the Captain was generally obliged to write a receipt, for a considerable amount, across his shoulders.
One settling afternoon, the Captain, accompanied by Toney, was seen “toddling” down to the old stable, with his little account-book in one hand, and a small rope in the other. After they had reached the “Bar of Justice,” and Toney had been properly “strung up,” the Captain proceeded to state his accounts, as follows: