United States or Antigua and Barbuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung open, and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by a couple of officers of Ours, entered the room. "Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time. Present me, Garge, my dear fellow, to your lady.
"Ay, and so't ought to," retorted the blunt-spoken old skipper. "I've served you now a matter of over thirty years, and you've never yet had to find fault wi' my judgment. And you won't find it wrong either in that there matter o' Garge." After which the subject was dropped, and the pair proceeded to the discussion of various matters which have no bearing upon the present history.
Why, on Christmas we didn't have no holiday divil a bit of it just a bite more to ate for dinner, with no shore leave, and the haythens working us and working thimsilves all day as if it had been an ordinary Chuesday 'stead of Christmas, which is Christ's birthday, while on Garge's birthday the whole ship cilibrates. Ah, he certainly must have bin a great mon, that same Garge."
And I be an old man; I've seed a good many strange happenin's in my time, and I've drawed my own conclusions from 'em; I'm just so well able to form a sound opinion as Alderman Marshall or any other man to Plymouth. Now, Garge, you just go ahead, and when you've a done I'll tell 'e what I do think of your plan, and you too." "Well," replied George, "it is simple enough.
And when we arrived there, if you'll believe me, madam and Mr Garge, we found no less than twelve big galleons, loaded wi' goold an' silver, waitin' for the rest o' the Plate fleet and its convoy to sail for Old Spain! And the very next day the ships as was expected arrived off the port and found us English in possession! "Then there was a pretty to-do, you may take my word for 't.
Pathrick himself couldn't touch him with a shillaly." "And for why?" demanded several Irishmen, truculently, their ire aroused at the invidiousness of the allusion. "Because St. Pathrick, God love him, aint never been counted as ranking alongside of Christ, and this here Garge Washington seems to be of more importance than ayther of thim.
So I just says to her, 'Good ebenin', miss, are you waitin' for the wagonette too? She never answered a word, and before I could think of anything else to say old Garge came along, and we both got in She sat in a corner, silent as a ghooste. Well, then, I went to light th' lamp, same as I have to-night, but as luck would 'ave it, I hadn't a match.
But 'twont be true very much longer, Garge, for I've a-got a ship upon my stocks now as'll beat the Bonaventure every way and in all weathers. I've a called her the Nonsuch, because there's never been nothin' like her avore. I drawed out the plans of her shortly a'ter the Bonaventure was launched, because I couldn't abear to be beaten by Mason nor nobody else.
"Ay, ay; I've been havin' a crack wi' old Cap'n Burroughs, since mun comed whoam, and he've a been tellin' me all about ye. Garge, I'm proud of 'e, boy and so be madam here, too, I'll be boun' for 'twas I that made a sailor of 'e by givin' of 'e thicky toy bwoat, a matter o' twelve or vourteen year agone 'tis now. My goodness me! how time du vly, to be sure.
At the outset Dyer had listened to George's speech in open-mouthed amazement, and some little contempt for what he regarded as the young man's ignorance; but even his dense intellect could not at last fail to grasp the inward meaning and intention of the speaker; a lightning flash of intelligence revealed to him that it was not ignorance but a desire to spare his mother the anguish of long-drawn-out anxiety and the agony resulting from the mental pictures drawn by a woman's too vivid imagination; and forthwith he rose nobly to the exigencies of the occasion by chiming in with: "Ay, ay, Mr Garge, you'm right, sir.
Word Of The Day