‘Please God!’ said William Daly.
‘Anything called off you lately?’ said Tom.
‘Nothing for five weeks,’ answered Hagan, with a nasal accent, ‘and she was a French whaler.’
‘Got a clergyman yet?’
‘Nein,’ answered Peter Green. ‘Der governor wrote by a South-Seaman to der Bishop of Cape Town. Der vhas no reply yet.’
‘Parsons ain’t penguins,’ said Cotton. ‘I tell ’ee, captain, the clergyman as comes to live amongst us ’ll be a-dedicating of his life to his Maker, arter a fashion you may overhaul the lot of your parishes at home afore finding the like of.’
‘Are there many young children among you, Mr. Green?’ said I.
‘Why, yaw, considering, marm. Dere vhas t’ree generations of us;’ and he named the number of children.
‘Don’t time hang a little heavily with you?’ said Mr. Bates.
‘Well, we gets up early and we turns in early,’ answered Daly, ‘and what’s between somehow seems to slide out unbeknown. We turns a day up as you turns a sandglass up, and the stuff runs so fast and sly that it always seems to be time to go to bed or time to be getting up.’