Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/21

 with the superscription of decay. And here it is necessary that I say a few words as to this family badge; for, as you will see, I was to bear it all my life, and shall carry its impress with me to the grave. The Mohune shield was plain white or silver, and bore nothing upon it except a great black "Y." I call it a "Y," though the Reverend Mr. Glennie once explained to me that it was not a "Y" at all, but what heralds call a cross-pall. Cross-pall or no cross-pall, it looked for all the world like a black "Y," with a broad arm ending in each of the top corners of the shield, and the tail coming down into the bottom. You might see that cognizance carved on the manor, and on the stonework and woodwork of the church, and on a score of houses in the village, and it hung on the signboard over the door of the inn. Every one knew the Mohune "Y" for miles around, and a former landlord having called the inn the Why Not in jest, the name had stuck to it ever since.

More than once on winter evenings, when men were drinking in the Why Not, I had stood outside, and listened to them singing Ducky-stones, or Kegs bobbing One, Two, Three, or some of the other tunes that sailors sing in the west. Such songs had neither beginning nor ending, and very little sense to catch hold of in the middle. One man would croon the air, and the others would croon a solemn chorus; but there was little hard drinking, for Elzevir Block never got drunk himself, and did not like his guests to get drunk either. On singing nights the room grew hot, and the steam stood so thick on the glass inside that one could not see in; but at other times, when there was no company,