I
heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket.
"Who are you saking here, an' please ye?"
"No one in particular, my dear; but if you don't let me in, I shall be
lodged in jail before five minutes be over."
"I can't help that, young man," said she; "but where are ye from, darling?"
"Hush!--I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove."
"Oh," said my beauty, "come in;" and she opened the door, but still kept it
on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid
in beneath it, yet a common--sized man could not possibly have squeezed
himself through. The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to,
and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen
feet square, with a well sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over
against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall.
There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room--but no
tablecloth--at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather
whisky--faced savage, dressed in a shabby great--coat of the hodden grey
worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy
breeches, worsted stockings, and well--patched shoes; he was smoking a long
pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets
and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent
up a smoky steam that cast a halo round the lamp, that depended from the
roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of
coarse whale oil.
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