Tom Cringle’s Log

Now, said the Irish sergeant, I could brain you, but it is not worth while! –I question if he could, however, knowing as I did the thickness of their skulls, Ah, here they come! –and a dozen half drunken, more than half–naked, bloated, villainous–looking blackamoors, with shovels and pick–axes on their shoulders, came along the road, laughing and singing most lustily. They passed beneath where we sat, and, when about a stonecast beyond, they all jumped into a trench or pit, which I had not noticed before, about twenty feet long, by eight wide.