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