A GRACIOUS MERCY As a matter of course, every gunner at the fort was ready to make oath by every colour of the rainbow, that never shot, shell, wad, sponge, or even powder-flake could by any possibility have fallen on the beach.

And before they had time to grow much more than doubly positive--that is to say, within three days' time--the sound of guns fired in earnest drowned all questions of bad practice.
For the following Sunday beheld Springhaven in a state of excitement beyond the memory of the very oldest inhabitant, or the imagination of the youngest.

Excitement is a crop that, to be large, must grow--though it thrives all the better without much root--and in this particular field it began to grow before noon of Saturday.

For the men who were too old to go to sea, and the boys who were too young, and the women who were never of the proper age, all these kept looking from the best lookouts, but nothing could they see to enable them to say when the kettle, or the frying-pan, or gridiron, would be wanted.

They rubbed their eyes grievously, and spun round three times, if time had brought or left them the power so to spin; and they pulled an Irish halfpenny, with the harp on, from their pockets, and moistened it with saliva--which in English means spat on it--and then threw it into the pocket on the other side of body.