"Well-a-well, 'tis but for a brief while longer--a few fleeting weeks, an' us Die-hards shall be as though we had never been. So why not be cheerful? For my part, I mind back in 'seventy-nine, when the fleets o' France an' Spain assembled an' come up agen' us--sixty-six sail o' the line, my sonnies, besides frigates an' corvettes to the amount o' twenty-five or thirty, all as plain as the nose on your face: an' the alarm guns goin', up to Plymouth, an' the signals hoisted at Maker Tower--a bloody flag at the pole an' two blue 'uns at the outriggers. Four days they laid to, an' I mind the first time I seed mun, from this very place as it might be where we'm standin' at this moment, I said 'Well, 'tis all over with East Looe this time!' I said: 'an' when 'tis over, 'tis over, as Joan said by her weddin'.' An' then I spoke them verses by royal Solomon--Wisdom two, six to nine. 'Let us fill oursel's wi' costly wine an' ointments,' I said: 'an' let no flower o' the spring pass by us. Let us crown oursel's wi' rosebuds, afore they be withered: let none of us go without his due part of our voluptuousness'--" "Why, you old adage, that's what Solomon makes th' _ungodly_ say!" interrupted young Gunner Oke, who had recently been appointed parish clerk, and happened to know. "As it happens," Uncle Issy retorted, with sudden dignity--"as it happens, I _was_ ungodly in them days. The time I'm talkin' about was August 'seventy-nine; an' if I don't mistake, your father an' mother, John Oke, were courtin' just then, an' 'most too shy to confide in each other about havin' a parish clerk for a son." "Times hev' marvellously altered in the meanwhile, to be sure," put in Sergeant Pengelly of the "Sloop" Inn. "Well, then," Uncle Issy continued, without pressing his triumph, "''Tis all over with East Looe,' I said, 'an' this is a black day for King Gearge,' an' then I spoke them verses o' Solomon. 'Let none of us,' I said, 'go without his due part of our voluptuousness'; and with that I went home and dined on tatties an' bacon. It hardly seems a thing to be believed at this distance o' time, but I never relished tatties an' bacon better in my life than that day--an' yet not meanin' the laste disrespect to King Gearge. Disrespect? If his Majesty only knew it, he've no better friend in the world than Israel Spettigew. God save the King!" And with this Uncle Issy pulled off his cap and waved it round his head, thereby shedding a _moulinet_ of raindrops full in the faces of his comrades around. This was observed by Captain Pond, standing on the platform above, beside Thundering Meg, the big 24-pounder, which with four 18-pounders on the shore-wall formed the lower defences of the haven. "Mr. Clogg," he called to his junior lieutenant, "tell Gunner Spettigew to put on his hat at once. Ask him what he means by taking his death and disgracing the company."