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So the Master Thief immediately got hold of an old worn-out mare, and set himself to work to make a collar for it of green withies and branches of broom; bought a shabby old cart and a great cask, and then he told a poor old beggar woman that he would give her ten dollars if she would get into the cask and keep her mouth wide-open beneath the tap-hole, into which he was going to stick his finger.
I understood enough of hydraulics to know that water will rise to its own level if guided by a pipe or tube; I knew, therefore, that if I had only possessed a piece of hose, I could have attached it to the tap-hole, and thus discovered how high the water stood in the cask. But where was the hose or other pipe to be had?
'I am not sure that I can do it, said the man, 'for I have to go to a wedding with this cask of mead which I have been to fetch, and the tap has fallen out on the way, so now I have to keep my finger in the tap-hole as I drive. 'Oh, just ride off, said the Governor, 'and I will look after the cask and the horse too.
But time passed, and it grew later and later, and still the man did not come back, and at last the Governor grew so weary of keeping his finger in the tap-hole that he took it out. 'Now I shall have ten dollars more! cried the old woman inside the cask; so he soon saw what kind of mead it was, and set out homewards.
Had it been allowed to continue running, until it stopped of itself in other words, had the surface of the water sunk to the level of the tap-hole then would there have been but little left, scarce enough to have lasted me for a week. I endeavoured to ascertain what had been the amount of wastage, but I could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion.
But I can't promise. This is a' old cask, and the wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawson that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead and gone, poor heart! took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. 'Reub, says he 'a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!
Yes, it took me minutes to accomplish this, and to become satisfied that the bung was not upon my side of the cask that it was either upon the top or the opposite side; but, whether one or the other, it was beyond my reach, and it was therefore as useless to me as if no such aperture existed. In my search for the bung I had not forgotten the vent or tap-hole.
So the man said that if he would do that he would go, but he begged the Governor to be very careful to put his finger into the tap-hole the moment he took his out. So the Governor said that he would do his very best, and the Master Thief got on the Governor's horse.
If the casks stand on one end, the better way is to make a hole with a tap-borer near the summit of the stave, at the same distance from the top as the lower tap-hole is from the bottom.
After it is scummed once or twice, you may put in your herbs, and spice grosly beaten, one half loose; the other in a bag, which afterwards may be fastned with a string to the tap-hole, as Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Ginger and the like; when it is thus boiled, let it stand in the vessel until it be cooled; then Tun it up into your barrel, and let it work two or three days, or more before you stop the bung-hole; but in putting up the boiled liquor into the barrel, reserve the thick grounds back, which will be settled in the pan or kettle.
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