“By my word, sir,” said Claud Halcro, “I believe there is not one of your people but could drink out the mickle bicker of Scarpa, which was always offered to the Bishop of Orkney brimful of the best bummock that ever was brewed.”[38]
“If drinking could make them bishops,” said Bunce, “I should have a reverend crew of them; but as they have no other clerical qualities about them, I do not propose that they shall get drunk to-day; so we will cut our drink with a song.”
“And I’ll sing it, by ——!” said or swore Dick Fletcher, and instantly struck up the old ditty—
“It was a ship, and a ship of fame,
Launch’d off the stocks, bound for the main,
With an hundred and fifty brisk young men,
All pick’d and chosen every one.”
“I would sooner be keel-hauled than hear that song over again,” said Bunce; “and confound your lantern jaws, you can squeeze nothing else out of them!”
“By ——,” said Fletcher, “I will sing my song, whether you like it or no;” and again he sung, with the doleful tone of a north-easter whistling through sheet and shrouds,—
“Captain Glen was our captain’s name;
A very gallant and brisk young man;
As bold a sailor as e’er went to sea,
And we were bound for High Barbary.”
“I tell you again,” said Bunce, “we will have none of your screech-owl music here; and I’ll be d—d if you shall sit here and make that infernal noise!”
“Why, then, I’ll tell you what,” said Fletcher, getting up, “I’ll sing when I walk about, and I hope there is no harm in that, Jack Bunce.” And so, getting up from his seat, he began to walk up and down the sloop, croaking out his long and disastrous ballad.
“You see how I manage them,” said Bunce, with a smile of self-applause—“allow that fellow two strides on his own way, and you make a mutineer of him for life. But I tie him strict up, and he follows me as kindly as a fowler’s spaniel after he has got a good beating.—And now your toast and your song, sir,” addressing Halcro; “or rather your song without your toast. I have got a toast for myself. Here is success to all roving blades, and confusion to all honest men!”