Commodore Junk — page 34: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

27 CHAPTER V. A KEEN ENCOUNTER. THE prognostications of his fellow-officer did not prove true, for Captain Armstrong, instead of being sobered by the ride up the hill, grew more drunken. The fresh air blown straight from the ocean seemed to dizzy his muddled brain, and when he rode down the hill he was more drunken than ever, and rolled about in his saddle like his ship in a storm, This seemed to amuse the captain, and he talked and chuckled to himself, sang snatches of songs, and woke the echoes of the little village street at the top of the next hill, where the tall, square church tower stood up wind-swept and dreary to show mariners the way to Dartmouth harbour. Then came a long ride along a very shelf of a road, where it seemed as if a false step on the part of his horse would send both rolling down the declivity to the edge of the sheer rocks, where they would fall headlong to the fine shingle below. But drunken men seem favourites with their horses, for when Captain Armstrong lurched to starboard his nag gave a hitch to keep him in the saddle, and when he gave another lurch to larboard the horse was ready for him again—all of which amused the captain more and more, and he chuckled aloud, and sang, and swore at his cousin for a cold, fishy, sneaking hound. “He'd like to see me die, and get the estate,” he said ; “ but T’'ll live to a hundred, and leave half a score of boys to inherit, and he sha’n’t get a groat, a miserable, sanctified dog-fish. Steady, mare, steady! Bah, how thirsty Iam! Wish I’d had another drop.” CONnnicGloOol<s =)