I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, and
indicating Pat Doolan's at the Cove as a good rendezvous; and promising to
overtake them before they reached passage, I parted company at the corner
of the street, and rejoined the lieutenant.
Next morning we spent in looking about the town--Cork is a fine town,
contains seventy thousand inhabitants, more or less--safe in that--and
three hundred thousand pigs, driven by herdsmen, with coarse grey
greatcoats. The pigs are not so handsome as those in England, where the
legs are short, and tails curly; here the legs are long, the flanks sharp
and thin, and tails long and straight.
All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven images; arrived
at Cove to a large dinner and here follows a great deal of nonsense of the
same kind.
By the time it was half--past ten o'clock, I was preparing to turn in, when
the master at arms called down to me,--"Mr Cringle, you are wanted in the
gunroom."
I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way
I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in
pea jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of
them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They
appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one
fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom,
the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying
themselves over a glass of cold grog--the gunner taking the watch on deck
the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet,
while the Spanish priest, and aide--de--camp to the general, were playing
at chess, and wrangling in bad French.
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