When he had set down the empty pitcher and drawn his breath, he began
to criticise the liquor which it had lately contained.--"Sufficient
single beer, old Pillory--and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a
nutshell of malt to a butt of Thames--as dead as a corpse, too, and
yet it went hissing down my throat--bubbling, by Jove, like water upon
hot iron.--You left us early, noble Master Grahame, but, good faith,
we had a carouse to your honour--we heard _butt_ ring hollow ere we
parted; we were as loving as inkle-weavers--we fought, too, to finish
off the gawdy. I bear some marks of the parson about me, you see--a
note of the sermon or so, which should have been addressed to my ear,
but missed its mark, and reached my left eye. The man of God bears my
sign-manual too, but the Duke made us friends again, and it cost me
more sack than I could carry, and all the Rhenish to boot, to pledge
the seer in the way of love and reconciliation--But, Caracco! 'tis a
vile old canting slave for all that, whom I will one day beat out of
his devil's livery into all the colours of the rainbow.--Basta!--Said
I well, old Trapbois? Where is thy daughter, man?--what says she to my
suit?--'tis an honest one--wilt have a soldier for thy son-in-law, old
Pillory, to mingle the soul of martial honour with thy thieving,
miching, petty-larceny blood, as men put bold brandy into muddy ale?"
"My daughter receives not company so early, noble captain," said the
usurer, and concluded his speech with a dry, emphatical "ugh, ugh.
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