rines--the sailors won't believe it. But you
are right to be cautious, since you can't say who are right, who not.
But you look ill; it's but the cold morning air. Will you have a can
of flip, or a jorum of hot rumbo? or will you splice the mainbrace'
(showing a spirit-flask). 'Will you have a quid--or a pipe--or a
cigar?--a pinch of snuff, at least, to clear your brains and sharpen
your apprehension?'

Fairford rejected all these friendly propositions.

'Why, then,' continued Ewart, 'if you will do nothing for the free
trade, I must patronize it myself.'

So saying, he took a large glass of brandy.

'A hair of the dog that bit me,' he continued,--'of the dog that will
worry me one day soon; and yet, and be d--d to me for an idiot, I must
always have hint at my throat. But, says the old catch'--Here he sang,
and sang well--

'Let's drink--let's drink--while life we have;
We'll find but cold drinking, cold drinking in the grave.

All this,' he continued, 'is no charm against the headache. I wish I
had anything that could do you good. Faith, and we have tea and coffee
aboard! I'll open a chest or a bag, and let you have some in an instant.
You are at the age to like such catlap better than better stuff.'

Fairford thanked him, and accepted his offer of tea.

Nanty Ewart was soon heard calling about, 'Break open yon chest--take
out your capful, you bastard of a powder-monkey; we may want it again.
No sugar? all used up for grog, say you? knock another loaf to pieces,
can't ye? and get the kettle boiling, ye hell's baby, in no time at
all!'

By dint of these energetic proceedings he was in a short time able to
return to the place where his passenger lay sick and exhausted, with a
cup, or rather a canful, of tea; for everything was on a large scale
on board of the JUMPING JENNY. Alan drank it eagerly, and with so much
appearance of being refreshed that Nanty Ewart swore he would have
some too, and only laced it, as his phrase went, with a single glass of
brandy. [See Note 8.]

CHAPTER XIV

NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED

We left Alan Fairford on the deck of the little smuggling brig, in that
disconsolate situation, when sickness and nausea, attack a heated and
fevered frame, and an anxious mind. His share of sea-sickness, however,
was not so great as to engross his sensations entirely, or altogether
to divert his attention from what was passing around. If he could not
delight in the swiftnes