“Aye, but it’d be your blood, sweat and tears with which you’d be paying, had you been caught. Your mother’d be paying, too, with her own tears. Did you never think of that? That’s what I disapprove of, Casey. Your selfishness.” My father sat back in his chair and took a swig out of a bottle of whiskey, grimacing as he did so.

“Look, you’re a pirate, a pirate, dad! When was the last time you even saw mother, huh? So don’t you go lecturing me!”

My father stood up unsteadily, and I could see the whiskey was beginning to have its effect over him. He always was a lousy drunk. As he stood looming over me, his black eyes blazing, I worried for a second he was going to cuff my ears as he used to do when I was a child. But then he pitched his head back and laughed, a loud, roaring laugh that seemed to shake the very floor and walls of the cabin.

“Oh, you’re a right proper nag! Just like your dear old ma!”

I didn’t know whether to run or laugh along with him, so I did the latter, albeit uncertainly.