to come down the broken path which
leads to the shore; the latter all properly tackled for carrying their
loading. Twenty fishing barks were pushed afloat at once, and crowded
round the brig with much clamour, laughter, cursing, and jesting. Amidst
all this apparent confusion there was the essential regularity. Nanty
Ewart again walked his quarter-deck as if he had never tasted spirits
in his life, issued the necessary orders with precision, and saw them
executed with punctuality. In half an hour the loading of the brig was
in a great measure disposed in the boats; in a quarter of an hour more,
it was landed on the beach, and another interval of about the same
duration was sufficient to distribute it on the various strings of
packhorses which waited for that purpose, and which instantly dispersed,
each on its own proper adventure. More mystery was observed in loading
the ship's boat with a quantity of small barrels, which seemed to
contain ammunition. This was not done until the commercial customers
had been dismissed; and it was not until this was performed that Ewart
proposed to Alan, as he lay stunned with pain and noise, to accompany
him ashore.

It was with difficulty that Fairford could get over the side of the
vessel, and he could not seat himself on the stern of the boat without
assistance from the captain and his people. Nanty Ewart, who saw nothing
in this worse than an ordinary fit of sea-sickness, applied the usual
topics of consolation. He assured his passenger that he would be quite
well by and by, when he had been half an hour on terra firma, and
that he hoped to drink a can and smoke a pipe with him at Father
Crackenthorp's, for all that he felt a little out of the way for riding
the wooden horse.

'Who is Father Crackenthorp?' said Fairford, though scarcely able to
articulate the question.

'As honest a fellow as is of a thousand,' answered Nanty.

'Ah, how much good brandy he and I have made little of in our day! By my
soul, Mr. Fairbird, he is the prince of skinkers, and the father of
the free trade--not a stingy hypocritical devil like old Turnpenny
Skinflint, that drinks drunk on other folk's cost, and thinks it sin
when he has to pay for it--but a real hearty old cock;--the sharks have
been at and about him this many a day, but Father Crackenthorp knows how
to trim his sails--never a warrant but he hears of it before the ink's
dry. He is BONUS SOCIUS with headborough and constable. The king's