s; two fingers on the starboard, and
three on the larboard hand; crooked, d'ye see, like the knees of a
bilander. I'll tell you what, brother, you seem to be a--ship deep
laden--rich cargo--current setting into the bay--hard gale--lee shore--
all hands in the boat--tow round the headland--self pulling for dear
blood, against the whole crew--snap go the finger-braces--crack went the
eye-blocks. Bounce daylight--flash starlight--down I foundered, dark as
hell--whiz went my ears, and my head spun like a whirligig. That don't
signify--I'm a Yorkshire boy, as the saying is--all my life at sea,
brother, by reason of an old grandmother and maiden aunt, a couple of old
stinking--kept me these forty years out of my grandfather's estate.
Hearing as how they had taken their departure, came ashore, hired horses,
and clapped on all my canvas, steering to the northward, to take
possession of my--But it don't signify talking--these two old piratical--
had held a palaver with a lawyer--an attorney, Tom, d'ye mind me, an
attorney--and by his assistance hove me out of my inheritance. That is
all, brother--hove me out of five hundred pounds a year--that's all--what
signifies--but such windfalls we don't every day pick up along shore.
Fill about, brother--yes, by the L--d! those two smuggling harridans,
with the assistance of an attorney--an attorney, Tom--hove me out of five
hundred a year." "Yes, indeed, sir," added Mr. Clarke, "those two
malicious old women docked the intail, and left the estate to an alien."

Here Mr. Ferret thought proper to intermingle in the conversation with a
"Pish, what dost talk of docking the intail? Dost not know that by the
statute Westm. 2, 13 Ed. the will and intention of the donor must be
fulfilled, and the tenant in tail shall not alien after issue had, or
before." "Give me leave, sir," replied Tom, "I presume you are a
practitioner in the law. Now, you know, that in the case of a contingent
remainder, the intail may be destroyed by levying a fine, and suffering a
recovery, or otherwise destroying the particular estate, before the
contingency happens. If feoffees, who possess an estate only during the
life of a son, where divers remainders are limited over, make a feoffment
in fee to him, by the feoffment, all the future remainders are destroyed.
Indeed, a person in remainder may have a writ of intrusion, if any do
intrude after the death of a tenant for life, and the writ ex gravi
querela lies to