Part 32 (1/2)
”All! av coorse it is. Wot more would ye have? Didn't I say that I'd tell ye a story as would prove to ye that ghosts drink, more especially Irish ghosts? To be sure it turned out afterwards that the ghost was the s.e.xton o' the parish as took advantage o' the poor widdy's fears; but I can tell ye, boys, that ghost niver came back after the widdy became Mrs Briant.”
”Oh! then ye married the widder, did ye?” said Jim Scroggles.
”I did; an' she's alive and hearty this day av she's not--”
Briant was interrupted by a sudden roar of laughter from the men, who at that moment caught sight of Jacko, the small monkey, in a condition of mind and body that, to say the least of it, did him no credit. We are sorry to be compelled to state that Jacko was evidently and undoubtedly tipsy. Gurney said he was ”as drunk as a fiddler.”
We cannot take upon ourself to say whether he was or was not as drunk as that. We are rather inclined to think that fiddlers, as a cla.s.s, are maligned, and that they are no worse than their neighbours in this respect, perhaps not so bad. Certainly, if any fiddler really deserves the imputation, it must be a violoncello player, because he is, properly speaking, a base-fiddler.
Be this, however, as it may, Jacko was unmistakably drunk--in a maudlin state of intoxication--drunker, probably, than ever a monkey was before or since. He appeared, as he came slowly staggering forward to the place where the men were at work on the boat, to have just wakened out of his first drunken sleep, for his eyes were blinking like the orbs of an owl in the suns.h.i.+ne, and in his walk he placed his right foot where his left should have gone, and his left foot where his right should have gone, occasionally making a little run forward to save himself from tumbling on his nose, and then pulling suddenly up, and throwing up his arms in order to avoid falling on his back. Sometimes he halted altogether,--and swayed to and fro, gazing, meanwhile, pensively at the ground, as if he were wondering why it had taken to rolling and earthquaking in that preposterous manner; or were thinking on the bald-headed mother he had left behind him in the African wilderness.
When the loud laugh of the men saluted his ears, Jacko looked up as quickly and steadily as he could, and grinned a ghastly smile--or something like it--as if to say, ”What are you laughing at, villains?”
It is commonly observed that, among men, the ruling pa.s.sion comes out strongly when they are under the influence of strong drink. So it is with monkeys. Jacko's ruling pa.s.sion was thieving; but having, at that time, no particular inducement to steal, he indulged his next ruling pa.s.sion--that of affection--by holding out both arms, and staggering towards Phil Briant to be taken up.
A renewed burst of laughter greeted this movement. ”It knows ye, Phil,”
cried Jim Scroggles.
”Ah! then, so it should, for it's meself as is good to it. Come to its uncle, then. O good luck to yer purty little yaller face. So it wos you stole the brandy, wos it? Musha! but ye might have know'd ye belonged to a timp'rance s.h.i.+p, so ye might.”
Jacko spread his arms on Briant's broad chest--they were too short to go round his neck--laid his head thereon, and sighed. Perhaps he felt penitent on account of his wickedness; but it is more probable that he felt uneasy in body rather than in mind.
”I say, Briant,” cried Gurney.
”That's me,” answered the other.
”If you are Jacko's self-appointed uncle, and Miss Ailie is his adopted mother, wot relation is Miss Ailie to you?”
”You never does nothin' right, Gurney,” interposed Nikel Sling; ”you can't even preepound a pruposition. Here's how you oughter to ha' put it. If Phil Briant be Jacko's uncle, and Miss Ailie his adopted mother--all three bein' related in a sorter way by bein' s.h.i.+pmates, an'
all on us together bein' closely connected in vartue of our bein'
messmates--wot relation is Gurney to a donkey?”
”That's a puzzler,” said Gurney, affecting to consider the question deeply.
”Here's a puzzler wot'll beat it, though,” observed Tim Rokens; ”suppose we all go on talkin' stuff till doomsday, w'en'll the boat be finished?”
”That's true,” cried d.i.c.k Barnes, resuming work with redoubled energy; ”take that young thief to his mother, Phil, and tell her to rope's-end him. I'm right glad to find, though, that he _is_ the thief arter all, and not one o' us.”
On examination being made, it was found that the broken and empty brandy-bottle lay on the floor of the monkey's nest, and it was conjectured, from the position in which it was discovered, that that dissipated little creature, having broken off the neck in order to get at the brandy, had used the body of the bottle as a pillow whereon to lay its drunken little head. Luckily for its own sake, it had spilt the greater part of the liquid, with which everything in its private residence was saturated and perfumed.
On having ocular demonstration of the depravity of her pet, Ailie at first wept, then, on beholding its eccentric movements, she laughed in spite of herself.
After that, she wept again, and spoke to it reproachfully, but failed to make the slightest impression on its hardened little heart. Then she put it to bed, and wrapped it up carefully in its sailcloth blanket.
With this piece of unmerited kindness Jacko seemed touched, for he said, ”Oo-oo--oo-oo--ooee-ee!” once or twice in a peculiarly soft and penitential tone, after which he dropped into a calm, untroubled slumber.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
THE BOAT FINISHED--FAREWELL TO FAIRYLAND--ONCE MORE AT SEA.