“Jack Gow could have anything he wanted from an old schoolmate,” smiled Mr. Fea, like one who, in a pinch, would not object to being a pirate himself, “but Jack is asking a little too much, when you come to think of it. Here is Jack--a good boy, too, even if he was a little rough at school--come back to his old home only to be published a pirate; but, says I when I heard this, ‘Little Johnny Gow a pirate?’ ‘Never in this world,’ said I, and many on the Sound can bear me out on this. ‘But he is,’ said they, and a bad, pillaging, plundering sea dog he is, to be sure. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you are welcome to the notion, but as for me, I stand by little Johnny Gow.’ But, now, hark’ee, suppose I had a boat, and suppose I said to Johnny Gow, ‘Here, heave off with this boat,’ what d’ ye imagine would happen to me? Why, inside of no time at all, I’d be fast in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh as an aider and abettor of pirates. As men of the world, you know you can’t talk to some people when a notion’s stuck in their heads, can ye now?” In this way Mr. Fea turned the edge of the tense minute. With one pretext and another, he wooed the delegation down to the village tavern, where he opened wide his purse and they opened still more widely their mouths, into which that liquid flowed which is authoritatively reputed to steal away the brains. The pirates mellowed, got to slapping Mr. Fea jolting whacks on the shoulder and constantly pledged him with their mugs. Opportunely, their host, so bland, so hospitable and, although they did not realize it, so sober, excused himself a second, and, stepping out, called Tam and Donald quickly and bade them scamper to the beach and destroy the pirate’s boat. This done, they were to come back to the tavern and send in some kind of casual word which would give him excuse to leave his company a second time. As Mr. Fea passed into the public room again, the keeper and his wife met him with upraised hands and faces of silent consternation. He smiled reassuringly, pushed open the door, upon which a roar of strange sea songs came tumultuously from the inside accompanied with the clanging of cutlasses marking time to the voices. Very coolly he resumed his place at the presidency of the revels, where he directed the increasing bubble of strong Scotch whiskey, varied with the husky smuggled French brandy, until, to his obvious annoyance, he was again interrupted by a call to the outside. Tam and Donald had done their task. Pulling them aside from the yellow squares of light which shone from the boisterous inn, Mr. Fea now bade them assemble six men, well armed, place them behind the hedges and carefully remember to do one of two things: if Mr. Fea came from the tavern accompanied only by the boatswain, the ambush was to seize the boatswain; but if he came with the whole crew, he would walk a little forward of the company, upon whom the watchers were then to open fire.