The Buccaneer - A Tale

"Now is the time when rakes their revels keep;

Kindlers of riot, enemies of sleep."

GAY

"A brewer may be like a fox or a cub,

And teach a lecture out of a tub,

And give the wicked world a rub,

Which nobody can deny.

A brewer may be as bold as Hector,

When he had drunk his cup of nectar;

And a brewer may be a Lord Protector,

Which nobody can deny.

But here remains the strangest thing,

How this brewer about his liquor did bring

To be an Emperor or King,

Which nobody can deny.

Then push the brewer's liquor about,

And loudly let each true man shout--

Shout--"

"Shout not, I pray you, but rather keep silence," exclaimed an old

woman, cautiously opening the door of a room in which the revellers were

assembled, and thus interrupting their rude, but animated harmony;

"shout not: you may hear a horse's tramp without; and Crisp grumbles so

hard, that sure I am 'tis no friend's footstep."

"Why, mother," cried one of the company, winking on the rest, "you say

it was a horse you heard?"

"Well! and I say so still, good Master Roupall."

"Sure you do not make friends of horses?"

"Better make them of horses than of asses," replied the crone, bitterly;

and the laugh was raised against Roupall, who, as with all jesters,

could ill brook the jest that was at his own expense.

"I hear no tramp, and see no reason why you should interrupt us thus

with your hooting, you ill-favoured owl," he exclaimed fiercely.

"Hush!" she replied, placing her finger on her lip, while the little

terrier that stood at her feet, as if comprehending the signal, crept

stealthily to the door, and laying his nose on the floor, drew in his

breath; and then erecting his ears, and stiffening his short tail,

uttered a low determined growl.

"There are strangers, and near us too," observed an older man, who had

hitherto remained silent; "there is little doubt of their being

unfriendly: we had therefore better, seeing it would be imprudent to

fight, retreat."

"Retreat! and why, I wonder?" inquired Roupall, the most reckless and

daring of the set; and whose efforts were invariably directed towards

meriting the soubriquet of "Jack the Rover," by which he was usually

designated among his associates; "what care we, whether they be friends

or foes! let them enter. Old Noll has too much to do abroad, to heed a

few noisy troopers in an obscure hostelry in the Isle of Shepey."