From this time Jonas recovered his former spirits, if such a term may be
employed to express the state in which he had left the city. He had his
bottle often at his mouth; roared out snatches of songs, without the
least regard to time or tune or voice, or anything but loud discordance;
and urged his silent friend to be merry with him.
'You're the best company in the world, my good fellow,' said Montague
with an effort, 'and in general irresistible; but to-night--do you hear
it?'
'Ecod! I hear and see it too,' cried Jonas, shading his eyes, for the
moment, from the lightning which was flashing, not in any one direction,
but all around them. 'What of that? It don't change you, nor me, nor our
affairs. Chorus, chorus,
It may lighten and storm,
Till it hunt the red worm
From the grass where the gibbet is driven;
But it can't hurt the dead,
And it won't save the head
That is doom'd to be rifled and riven.
That must be a precious old song,' he added with an oath, as he stopped
short in a kind of wonder at himself.
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