Old Roscoe, our wooden-legged mate (the right leg of flesh having been lost in my father’s service), gave a funny jaw-breaking Scotch song, with a chorus which no one could repeat, so when the chorus came he sang it alone, while we contented ourselves with howling “Rule Britannia”—­at least all those who knew it, while the others who did not, laughed and smoked.

Then a Spaniard (who was a shipwright) sang one of his national songs to an accompaniment of thumb-snapping (to imitate castanets), at which he was very expert.  He had a fine baritone voice, and his song was full of fire, being a famous bull-fighting ditty, in which El Toro came in for a dashing chorus.

By and bye the fun became still faster and more furious, till old Ross, of the timber-toe, took exception and would insist on order being kept.  Ross always constituted himself Master of the Ceremonies when anything festive was on foot, and our men, as a matter of course, left everything in his hands; but the men of St. Peter Port knew him not, and would have no authority from him, and as a kind of good-natured revenge for his interference, some of them played a practical joke upon him; but they did not know their man, for no sooner had the joke been carried into effect (gunpowder in his pipe) than Ross seized his stick and knocked two of his tormentors down, the rest quickly fleeing out of doors.  His wooden leg greatly handicapped him, but he at length got one of the men in a corner, who, on finding there was no means of escape, struck out right and left at Ross’s somewhat prominent nose, causing the claret to flow like the cataract of Lodore.  Now his Scotch blood was up, and he certainly would have done his assailant an injury, as he was a very powerful man, had not some of his comrades rescued him.  But this did not appease his fury, for he went at them all with a glass bottle in one hand and a heavy stick in the other; but luckily his career was cut short by a man who ran behind him, and with a well-directed blow with an iron rod broke his leg clean in two just below the knee—­the wooden one, of course.  Down came the hero, who in his rage tore up the earth around him to fling at the circle of grinning faces.  By this time my father and the skipper came upon the scene, and after a time cooled down the gallant Scot, and persuaded him to “gang awa” to bed, which he did, going in state, borne at the four corners by four of his shipmates.

This incident put a stop to the singing, but commenced fun in another way.  Some of the fellows cut up the remains of Ross’s leg and stick and set them on fire, the barrel which had done duty for a rostrum being also broken up and added; other wooden articles were quickly flung on, till at length quite a large bonfire was formed, round which these excited men danced hand-in-hand like children round a Maypole.  Their manners, however, were hardly childlike, for they jumped, and yelled, and sang with the ruddy firelight glowing on their countenances, till they looked like a lot of demons performing some diabolical incantation.  All around was the dark night, and rocks, and trees, which gave a most weird aspect to the scene when viewed from a short distance.