“So I will; but that’s like somethin’ to eat, I think?”

Spink pointed to the soup.

“Ay, it’s a’ we’ve got, so let’s fa’ to; and haste ye, lad.  It’s a sair heart she’ll hae this night—­wae’s me!”

While Spink and his wife were thus employed, Widow Brand, Minnie Gray, and Captain Ogilvy were seated at tea, round the little table in the snug kitchen of the widow’s cottage.

It might have been observed that there were two teapots on the table, a large one and a small, and that the captain helped himself out of the small one, and did not take either milk or sugar.  But the captain’s teapot did not necessarily imply tea.  In fact, since the death of the captain’s mother, that small teapot had been accustomed to strong drink only.  It never tasted tea.

“I wonder if Ruby will get leave of absence,” said the captain, throwing himself back in his armchair, in order to be able to admire, with greater ease, the smoke, as it curled towards the ceiling from his mouth and pipe.

“I do hope so,” said Mrs. Brand, looking up from her knitting, with a little sigh.  Mrs. Brand usually followed up all her remarks with a little sigh.  Sometimes the sigh was very little.  It depended a good deal on the nature of her remark whether the sigh was of the little, less, or least description; but it never failed, in one or other degree, to close her every observation.

“I think he will,” said Minnie, as she poured a second cup of tea for the widow.

“Ay, that’s right, lass,” observed the captain; “there’s nothin’ like hope—­

          ‘The pleasures of hope told a flatterin’ tale
          Regardin’ the fleet when Lord Nelson get sail.’

Fill me out another cup of tea, Hebe.”

It was a pleasant little fiction with the captain to call his beverage “tea”.  Minnie filled out a small cupful of the contents of the little teapot, which did, indeed, resemble tea, but which smelt marvellously like hot rum and water.

“Enough, enough.  Come on, Macduff!  Ah!  Minnie, this is prime Jamaica; it’s got such a—­but I forgot; you don’t understand nothin’ about nectar of this sort.”

The captain smoked in silence for a few minutes, and then said, with a sudden chuckle—­

“Wasn’t it odd, sister, that we should have found it all out in such an easy sort o’ way?  If criminals would always tell on themselves as plainly as Big Swankie did, there would be no use for lawyers.”

“Swankie would not have spoken so freely,” said Minnie, with a laugh, “if he had known that we were listening.”

“That’s true, girl,” said the captain, with sudden gravity; “and I don’t feel quite easy in my mind about that same eavesdropping.  It’s a dirty thing to do—­especially for an old sailor, who likes everything to be fair and above-board; but then, you see, the natur’ o’ the words we couldn’t help hearin’ justified us in waitin’ to hear more.  Yes, it was quite right, as it turned out A little more tea, Minnie.  Thank’ee, lass.  Now go, get the case, and let us look over it again.”