Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/65

 but Ratsey stopped him with a sharp "No more of that; the words aren't to our taste to-night, but come as wry as if the parson called Old Hundred and I tuned up with Veni. I knew he meant the last verse with a hanging touch in it; but Greening was for going on with the song, until some others broke in too, and he saw that the company would have none of it.

"Not but what the labourer is worthy of his hire," went on Master Ratsey; "so spile that little breaker of Schiedam, and send a rummer round to keep off midnight chills."

He loved a glass of the good liquor well, and with him 'twas always the same reasoning—namely, to keep off chills; though he chopped the words to suit the season, and now 'twas autumn, now winter, now spring or summer chills.

They must have found glasses, though I could not remember to have seen any in the vault, for a minute Jater fugleman Ratsey spoke again,—

"Now, lads, glasses full and bumpers for a toast. And here's to Blackbeard, to Father Blackbeard, who watches over our treasure better than he did over his own; for were it not the fear of him that keeps off idle feet and prying eyes, we should have had the gaugers in, and our store ransacked twenty times."

So he spoke, and it seemed there was a little halting at first, as of men not liking to take Blackbeard's name in Blackbeard's place, or raise the Devil by mocking at him. But then some of the bolder shouted "Blackbeard," and so the more timid chimed in, and in a minute there were a score of voices calling "Blackbeard, Blackbeard," till the place rang again.