It was on the 7th of November, if I recollect rightly, that Fleming and Marables were called up to trial at the Old Bailey, and I was in the court, with Mr Drummond and the Dominie, soon after ten o’clock. After the judge had taken his seat, as their trial was first on the list, they were ushered in. They were both clean and well dressed. In Fleming I could perceive little difference; he was pale, but resolute; but when I looked at Marables I was astonished. Mr Drummond did not at first recognise him—he had fallen away from seventeen stone to, at the most, thirteen—his clothes hung loosely about him—his ruddy cheeks had vanished—his nose was becoming sharp, and his full round face had been changed to an oblong. Still there remained that natural good-humoured expression in his countenance, and the sweet smile played upon his lips. His eyes glanced fearfully round the court—he felt his disgraceful situation—the colour mounted to his temples and forehead, and he then became again pale as a sheet, casting down his eyes as if desirous to see no more.
After the indictment had been read over, the prisoners were asked by the clerk whether they pleaded guilty or not guilty.
“Not guilty,” replied Fleming, in a bold voice.
“John Marables—guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty,” replied Marables—“guilty, my lord;” and he covered his face with his hands.
Fleming was indicted on three counts;—an assault, with intent to murder; having stolen goods in his possession; and for a burglary in a dwelling-house, on such a date; but I understand that they had nearly twenty more charges against him, had these failed. Marables was indicted for having been an accessary to the last charge, as receiver of stolen goods. The counsel for the crown, who opened the trial, stated that Fleming, alias Barkett, alias Wenn, with many more aliases, had for a long while been at the head of the most notorious gang of thieves which had infested the metropolis for many years; that justice had long been in search of him, but that he had disappeared, and it had been supposed that he had quitted the kingdom to avoid the penalties of the law, to which he had subjected himself by his enormities. It appeared however, that he had taken a step which not only blinded the officers of the police, but at the same time had enabled the gang to carry on their depredations with more impunity than ever. He had concealed himself in a lighter on the river, and appearing in her as one diligently performing his duty, and earning his livelihood as an honest man had by such means been enabled to extend his influence, the number of his associates, and his audacious schemes. The principal means of detection in cases of burglary was by advertising the goods, and the great difficulty on the part of such miscreants was to obtain a ready sale for them—the receivers of stolen goods being aware that the thieves were at their mercy, and must accept what was offered. Now, to obviate these difficulties, Fleming had, as we before observed, concealed himself from justice on board of a river barge, which was made the receptacle for stolen goods: those which had been nefariously obtained at one place being by him and his associates carried up and down the river in the craft, and disposed of at a great distance, by which means the goods were never brought to light, so as to enable the police to recognise or trace them. This system had now been carried on with great success for upwards of twelve months, and would, in all probability, have not been discovered even now, had it not been that a quarrel as to profits had taken place, which had induced two of his associates to give information to the officers; and these two associates had also been permitted to turn king’s evidence, in a case of burglary, in which Fleming was a principal, provided that it was considered necessary. But there was a more serious charge against the prisoner,—that of having attempted the life of a boy, named Jacob Faithful, belonging to the lighter, and who, it appeared, had suspicions of what was going on, and, in duty to his master, had carefully watched the proceedings, and given notice to others of what he had discovered from time to time. The lad was the chief evidence against the prisoner Fleming, and also against Marables, the other prisoner, of whom he could only observe, that circumstances would transpire, during the trial, in his favour, which he had no doubt would be well considered by his lordship. He would not detain the gentlemen of the jury any longer, but at once call on his witnesses.
I was then summoned, again asked the same questions as to the nature of an oath, and the judge being satisfied with my replies, I gave my evidence as before; the judge as I perceived, carefully examining my previous disposition, to ascertain if anything I now said was at variance with my former assertions. I was then cross-examined by the counsel for Fleming, but he could not make me vary in my evidence, I did, however, take the opportunity, whenever I was able, of saying all I could in favour of Marables. At last the counsel said he would ask me no more questions. I was dismissed; and the police-officer who had picked me up, and other parties who identified the various property as their own, and the manner in which they had been robbed of it, were examined. The evidence was too clear to admit of doubt. The jury immediately returned a verdict of guilty against Fleming and Marables, but strongly recommended Marables to the mercy of the crown. The judge rose, put on his black cap, and addressed the prisoners as follows. The court was so still, that a pin falling might have been heard:—
“You, William Fleming, have been tried by a jury of your countrymen, upon the charge of receiving stolen goods, to which you have added the most atrocious crime of intended murder. You have had a fair and impartial trial, and have been found guilty; and it appears that, even had you escaped in this instance, other charges, equally heavy, and which would equally consign you to condign punishment, were in readiness to be preferred against you. Your life has been one of guilt, not only in your own person, but also in abetting and stimulating others to crime; and you have wound up your shameful career by attempting the life of a fellow-creature. To hold out to you any hope of mercy is impossible. Your life is justly forfeited to the offended laws of your country; and your sentence is that you be removed from this court to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck till you are dead; and may God, in his infinite goodness, have mercy on your soul!
“You, John Marables, have pleaded guilty to the charges brought against you; and it has appeared, during the evidence brought out on the trial, that, although you have been a party to these nefarious transactions, you are far from being hardened in your guilt.” (“No, no!” exclaimed Marables.) “I believe sincerely that you are not, and much regret that one who, from the evidence brought forward, appears to have been, previously to this unfortunate connection, an honest man, should now appear in so disgraceful a situation. A severe punishment is, however, demanded by the voice of justice, and by that sentence of the law you must now be condemned: at the same time I trust that an appeal to the mercy of your sovereign will not be made in vain.”
The judge then passed the sentence upon Marables, the prisoners were led out of court, and a new trial commenced; while Mr Drummond and the Dominie conducted me home. About a week after the trial, Fleming suffered the penalty of the law; while Marables was sentenced to transportation for life, which, however, previous to his sailing, was commuted to seven years.
In a few days the lighter returned. Her arrival was announced to me one fine sunny morning as I lay in bed, by a voice whose well-known notes poured into my ear as I was half dozing on my pillow:—
“Bright are the beams of the morning sky,
And sweet the dew the red blossoms sip,
But brighter the glances of dear woman’s eye—
“Tom, you monkey, belay the warp, and throw the fenders over the side. Be smart, or old Fuzzle will be growling about his red paint.
“And sweet is the dew on her lip.”
I jumped out of my little crib, threw open the window, the panes of which were crystallised with the frost in the form of little trees, and beheld the lighter just made fast to the wharf, the sun shining brightly, old Tom’s face as cheerful as the morn, and young Tom laughing, jumping about, and blowing his fingers. I was soon dressed, and shaking hands with my barge-mates.
“Well, Jacob, how do you like the Old Bailey? Never was in it but once in my life, and never mean to go again if I can help it; that was when Sam Bowles was tried for his life, but my evidence saved him. I’ll tell you how it was. Tom, look a’ter the breakfast; a bowl of tea this cold morning will be worth having. Come, jump about.”
“But I never heard the story of Sam Bowles,” answered Tom.
“What’s that to you? I’m telling it to Jacob.”
“But I want to hear it—so go on, father. I’ll start you. Well, d’ye see, Sam Bowles—”
“Master Tom, them as play with bowls may meet with rubbers. Take care I don’t rub down your hide. Off, you thief, and get breakfast.”
“No, I won’t: if I don’t have your Bowles you shall have no bowls of tea. I’ve made my mind up to that.”
“I tell you what, Tom; I shall never get any good out of you until I have both your legs ampitated. I’ve a great mind to send for the farrier.”
“Thanky, father; but I find them very useful.”
“Well,” said I, “suppose we put off the story till breakfast time; and I’ll go and help Tom to get it ready.”
“Be it so, Jacob. I suppose Tom must have his way, as I spoiled him myself. I made him so fond of yarns, so I was a fool to be vexed.
“Oh, life is a river, and man is the boat
That over its surface is destined to float;
And joy is a cargo so easily stored,
That he is a fool who takes sorrow on board.
“Now I’ll go on shore to master, and find out what’s to be done next. Give me my stick, boy, and I shall crawl over the planks a little safer. A safe stool must have three legs, you know.”
Old Tom then stumped away on shore. In about a quarter of an hour he returned, bringing half-a-dozen red herrings.
“Here, Tom, grill these sodgers. Jacob, who is that tall old chap, with such a devil of a cutwater, which I met just now with master? We are bound for Sheerness this trip, and I’m to land him at Greenwich.”
“What, the Dominie?” replied I, from old Tom’s description.
“His name did begin with a D, but that wasn’t it.”
“Dobbs?”
“Yes, that’s nearer; he’s to be a passenger on board of us, going down to see a friend who’s very ill. Now, Tom, my hearty, bring out the crockery, for I want a little inside lining.”
We all sat down to our breakfast, and as soon as old Tom had finished, his son called for the history of Sam Bowles.
“Well, now you shall have it. Sam Bowles was a shipmate of mine on board of the Greenlandman; he was one of our best harpooners, and a good, quiet, honest messmate as ever slung a hammock. He was spliced to as pretty a piece of flesh as ever was seen, but she wasn’t as good as she was pretty. We were fitting out for another voyage, and his wife had been living on board with him some weeks, for Sam was devilish spoony on her, and couldn’t bear her to be out of his sight. As we ’spected to sail in a few days, we were filling up our complement of men, and fresh hands came on board every day.
“One morning, a fine tall fellow, with a tail as thick as a hawser, came on board and offered himself; he was taken by the skipper, and went on shore again to get his traps. While he was still on deck I went below, and seeing Sam with his little wife on his knee playing with his love-locks, I said that there was a famous stout and good-looking fellow that we should have as a shipmate. Sam’s wife, who, like all women, was a little curious, put her head up the hatchway to look at him. She put it down again very quick, as I thought, and made some excuse to go forward in the eyes of her, where she remained some time, and then, when she came aft, told Sam that she would go on shore. Now, as it had been agreed that she should remain on board till we were clear of the river, Sam couldn’t think what the matter was; but she was positive, and go away she did, very much to Sam’s astonishment and anger. In the evening, Sam went on shore and found her out, and what d’ye think the little Jezebel told him?—why, that one of the men had been rude to her when she went forward, and that’s why she wouldn’t stay on board. Sam was in a devil of a passion at this, and wanted to know which was the man; but she fondled him, and wouldn’t tell him, because she was afraid that he’d be hurt. At last she bamboozled him, and sent him on board again quite content. Well, we remained three days longer, and then dropped down the river to Greenwich, where the captain was to come on board, and we were to sail as soon as the wind was fair. Now, this fine tall fellow was with us when we dropped down the river, and as Sam was sitting down on his chest eating a basin o’ soup, the other man takes out a ’baccy pouch of seal-skin;—it was a very curious one, made out of the white and spotted part of a young seal’s belly. ‘I say, shipmate,’ cries Sam, ‘hand me over my ’baccy pouch. Where did you pick it up?’
“‘Your pouch!’ says he to him; ‘I killed the seal, and my fancy girl made the pouch for me.’
“‘Well, if that ain’t cool! you’d swear a man out of his life, mate. Tom,’ says he to me, ‘ain’t that my pouch which my wife gave me when I came back last trip?’
“I looked at it, and knew it again, and said it was. The tall fellow denied it, and there was a devil of a bobbery. Sam called him a thief, and he pitched Sam right down the main hatchway among the casks. After that there was a regular set-to, and Sam was knocked all to shivers, and obliged to give in. When the fight was over, I took up Sam’s shirt for him to put on. ‘That’s my shirt,’ cried the tall fellow.
“‘That’s Sam’s shirt,’ replied I; ‘I know it’s his.’
“‘I tell you it’s mine,’ replied the man; ‘my lass gave it to me to put on when I got up this morning. The other is his shirt.’
“We looked at the other, and they both were Sam’s shirts. Now when Sam heard this, he put two and two together, and became very jealous and uneasy: he thought it odd that his wife was so anxious to leave the ship when this tall fellow came on board; and what with the pouch and the shirt he was puzzled. His wife had promised to come down to Greenwich and see him off. When we anchored, some of the men went on shore—among others the tall fellow. Sam, whose head was swelled up like a pumpkin, told one of his shipmates to say to his wife that he could not come on shore, and that she must come off to him. Well, it was about nine o’clock, dark, and all the stars were twinkling, when Sam says to me, ‘Tom, let’s go on shore; my black eyes can’t be seen in the dark.’ As we hauled up the boat, the second mate told Sam to take his harpoon-iron on shore for him, to have the hole for the becket punched larger. Away we went, and the first place, of course, that Sam went to, was the house where he knew that his wife put up at, as before. He went upstairs to her room, and I followed him. The door was not made fast, and in we went. There was his little devil of a wife, fast asleep in the arms of the tall fellow. Sam couldn’t command his rage, and having the harpoon-iron in his hand, he drove it right through the tall fellow’s body before I could prevent him. It was a dreadful sight: the man groaned, and his head fell over the side of the bed. Sam’s wife screamed, and made Sam more wroth by throwing herself on the man’s body, and weeping over it. Sam would have pulled out the iron to run her through with, but that was impossible. The noise brought up the people of the house, and it was soon known that murder had been committed. The constable came, Sam was thrown into prison, and I went on board and told the whole story. Well, we were just about to heave up, for we had shipped two more men in place of Sam, who was to be tried for his life, and the poor fellow he had killed, when a lawyer chap came on board with what they call a suppeny for me; all I know is, that the lawyer pressed me into his service, and I lost my voyage. I was taken on shore, and well fed till the trial came on. Poor Sam was at the bar for murder. The gentleman in his gown and wig began his yarn, stating that how the late fellow, whose name was Will Errol, was with his own wife when Sam harpooned him.
“‘That’s a lie!’ cried Sam; ‘he was with my wife. False papers! Here are mine;’ and he pulled out his tin case, and handed them to the court.
“The judge said that this was not the way to try people and that Sam must hold his tongue; so the trial went on, and at first they had it all their own way. Then our turn came, and I was called up to prove what had passed, and I stated how the man was with Sam’s wife, and how he, having the harpoon-iron in his hand, had run it through his body. Then they compared the certificates, and it was proved that the little Jezebel had married them both; but she had married Sam first, so he had the most right to her; but fancying the other man afterwards, she thought she might as well have two strings to her bow. So the judge declared that she was Sam’s wife, and that any man, even without the harpoon in his hand, would be justified in killing a man whom he found in bed with his own wife. So Sam went scot-free; but the judge wouldn’t let off Sam’s wife, as she had caused murder by her wicked conduct; he tried her a’terwards for biggery, as they call it, and sent her over the water for life. Sam never held up his head a’terwards; what with having killed an innocent man, and the ’haviour of his wife, he was always down. He went out to the fishery, and a whale cut the boat in two with her tail; Sam was stunned, and went down like a stone. So you see the mischief brought about by this little Jezebel, who must have two husbands, and be damned to her.”
“Well, that’s a good yarn, father,” said Tom, as soon as it was finished. “I was right in saying I would hear it. Wasn’t I?”
“No,” replied old Tom, putting out his large hand, and seizing his son by the collar; “and now you’ve put me in mind of it, I’ll pay you off for old scores.”
“Lord love you, father, you don’t owe me anything,” said Tom.
“Yes, I do; and now I’ll give you a receipt in full.”
“O Lord! they’ll be drowned,” screamed Tom, holding up both his hands with every symptom of terror.
Old Tom turned short round to look in the direction, letting go his hold. Tom made his escape, and burst out a-laughing. I laughed also, and so at last did his father.
I went on shore, and found that old Tom’s report was correct—the Dominie was at breakfast with Mr Drummond. The new usher had charge of the boys, and the governors had allowed him a fortnight’s holiday to visit an old friend at Greenwich. To save expense, as well as to indulge his curiosity, the old man had obtained a passage down in the lighter. “Never yet, Jacob, have I put my feet into that which floateth on the watery element,” observed he to me; “nor would I now, but that it saveth money, which thou knowest well is with me not plentiful. Many dangers I expect, many perils shall I encounter; such have I read of in books; and well might Horace exclaim—‘Ille robur et aes triplex,’ with reference to the first man who ventured afloat. Still doth Mr Drummond assure me that the lighter is of that strength as to be able to resist the force of the winds and waves; and, confiding in Providence, I intend to venture, Jacob, ‘te duce.’”
“Nay, sir,” replied I, laughing at the idea which the Dominie appeared to have formed of the dangers of river navigation, “old Tom is the Dux.”
“Old Tom; where have I seen that name? Now I do recall to mind that I have seen the name painted in large letters upon a cask at the tavern bar of the inn at Brentford; but what it did intend to signify I did not inquire. What connection is there?”
“None,” replied I; “but I rather think they are very good friends. The tide turns in half-an-hour, sir; are you ready to go on board?”
“Truly am I, and well prepared, having my habiliments in a bundle, my umbrella and my great-coat, as well as my spencer for general wear. But where I am to sleep hath not yet been made known to me. Peradventure one sleepeth not—‘tanto in periculo.’”
“Yes, sir, we do. You shall have my berth, and I’ll turn in with young Tom.”
“Hast thou, then, a young Tom as well as an old Tom on board?”
“Yes, sir; and a dog, also, of the name of Tommy.”
“Well, then, we will embark, and thou shalt make me known to this triad of Thomases. ‘Inde Tomos dictus locus est.’ (Cluck, cluck.) Ovid, I thank thee.”
The old Dominie’s bundle and other paraphernalia being sent on board, he took farewell of Mr Drummond and his family in so serious a manner, that I was convinced that he considered he was about to enter upon a dangerous adventure, and then I led him down to the wharf where the lighter lay alongside. It was with some trepidation that he crossed the plank, and got on board, when he recovered himself and looked round.
“My sarvice to you, old gentleman,” said a voice behind the Dominie. It was that of old Tom, who had just come from the cabin. The Dominie turned round, and perceived old Tom.
“This is old Tom, sir,” said I to the Dominie, who stared with astonishment.
“Art thou, indeed? Jacob, thou didst not tell me that he had been curtailed of his fair proportions, and I was surprised. Art thou then Dux?” continued the Dominie, addressing old Tom.
“Yes,” interrupted young Tom, who had come from forward, “he is ducks, because he waddles on his short stumps; and I won’t say who be goose. Eh, father?”
“Take care you don’t buy goose, for your imperance, sir,” cried old Tom.
“A forward boy,” exclaimed the Dominie.
“Yes,” replied Tom “I’m generally forward.”
“Art thou forward in thy learning? Canst thou tell me Latin for goose?”
“To be sure,” replied Tom; “Brandy.”
“Brandy!” exclaimed the Dominie. “Nay, child, it is anser.”
“Then I was right,” replied Tom. “You had your answer!”
“The boy is apt.” Cluck cluck.
“He is apt to be devilish saucy, old gentleman; but never mind that, there’s no harm in him.”
“This, then, is young Tom, I presume, Jacob?” said the Dominie, referring to me.
“Yes, sir,” replied I. “You have seen old Tom, and young Tom, and you have only to see Tommy.”
“Want to see Tommy, sir?” cried Tom. “Here, Tommy, Tommy!”
But Tommy, who was rather busy with a bone forward, did not immediately answer to his call, and the Dominie turned round to survey the river. The scene was busy, barges and boats passing in every direction, others lying on shore, with waggons taking out the coals and other cargoes, men at work, shouting or laughing with each other. “‘Populus in fluviis,’ as Virgil hath it. Grand indeed is the vast river, ‘Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum,’ as the generations of men are swept into eternity,” said the Dominie, musing aloud. But Tommy had now made his appearance, and Tom, in his mischief, had laid hold of the tail of the Dominie’s coat, and shown it to the dog. The dog, accustomed to seize a rope when it was shown to him, immediately seized the Dominie’s coat, making three desperate tugs at it. The Dominie, who was in one of his reveries, and probably thought it was I who wished to direct his attention elsewhere, each time waved his hand, without turning round, as much as to say, “I am busy now.”
“Haul and hold,” cried Tom to the dog, splitting his sides, and the tears running down his cheeks with laughing. Tommy made one more desperate tug, carrying away one tail of the Dominie’s coat; but the Dominie perceived it not, he was still “nubibus,” while the dog galloped forward with the fragment, and Tom chased him to recover it. The Dominie continued in his reverie, when old Tom burst out—
“O, England, dear England, bright gem of the ocean,
Thy valleys and fields look fertile and gay,
The heart clings to thee with a sacred devotion,
And memory adores when in far lands away.”
The song gradually called the Dominie to his recollection; indeed, the strain was so beautiful that it would have vibrated in the ears of a dying man. The Dominie gradually turned round, and when old Tom had finished, exclaimed, “Truly it did delight mine ear, and from such—and,” continued the Dominie, looking down upon old Tom—“without legs too!”
“Why, old gentleman, I don’t sing with my legs,” answered old Tom.
“Nay, good Dux, I am not so deficient as not to be aware that a man singeth from the mouth; yet is thy voice mellifluous, sweet as the honey of Hybla, strong—”
“As the Latin for goose,” finished Tom. “Come, father, old Dictionary is in the doldrums; rouse him up with another stave.”
“I’ll rouse you up with the stave of a cask over your shoulders, Mr Tom. What have you done with the old gentleman’s swallow-tail?”
“Leave me to settle that affair, father: I know how to get out of a scrape.”
“So you ought, you scamp, considering how many you get into; but the craft are swinging and heaving up. Forward there, Jacob, and sway up the mast; there’s Tom and Tommy to help you.”
The mast was hoisted up, the sail set, and the lighter in the stream before the Dominie was out of his reverie.
“Are there whirlpools here?” said the Dominie, talking more to himself than to those about him.
“Whirlpools!” replied young Tom, who was watching and mocking him; “yes, that there are, under the bridges. I’ve watched a dozen chips go down, one after the other.”
“A dozen ships!” exclaimed the Dominie, turning to Tom; “and every soul lost?”
“Never saw them afterwards,” replied Tom, in a mournful voice.
“How little did I dream of the dangers of those so near me,” said the Dominie, turning away, and communing with himself. “‘Those who go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters;’—‘Et vastas aperit Syrtes;’—‘These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.’—‘Alternante vorans vasta Charybdis aqua.’—‘For at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof.’—‘Surgens a puppi ventus.—Ubi tempestas et caeli mobilis humor.’—‘They are carried up to the heavens, and down again to the deep.’—‘Gurgitibus miris et lactis vertice torrens.’—‘Their soul melteth away because of their troubles.’—‘Stant pavidi. Omnibus ignoiae mortis timor, omnibus hostem.’—‘They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man.’”
“So they do, father, don’t they, sometimes?” observed Tom, leering his eye at his father. “That’s all I’ve understood of his speech.”
“They are at their wit’s end,” continued the Dominie.
“Mind the end of your wit, master Tom,” answered his father, wroth at the insinuation.
“‘So when they call upon the Lord in their trouble’—‘Cujus jurare timent et fallere nomen’—‘He delivereth them out of their distress, for he makest the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still;’ yea, still and smooth as the peaceful water which now floweth rapidly by our anchored vessel—yet it appeareth to me that the scene hath changed. These fields met not mine eyes before. ‘Riparumque toros et prata recentia rivis.’ Surely we have moved from the wharf?”—and the Dominie turned round, and discovered, for the first time, that we were more than a mile from the place at which we had embarked.
“Pray, sir, what’s the use of speech, sir?” interrogated Tom, who had been listening to the whole of the Dominie’s long soliloquy.
“Thou asketh a foolish question, boy. We are endowed with the power of speech to enable us to communicate our ideas.”
“That’s exactly what I thought, sir. Then pray what’s the use of your talking all that gibberish, that none of us could understand?”
“I crave thy pardon, child; I spoke, I presume, in the dead languages.”
“If they’re dead, why not let them rest in their graves?”
“Good; thou hast wit.” (Cluck, cluck.) “Yet, child, know that it is pleasant to commune with the dead.”
“Is it? then we’ll put you on shore at Battersea churchyard.”
“Silence, Tom. He’s full of his sauce, sir—you must forgive it.”
“Nay, it pleaseth me to hear him talk; but it would please me more to hear thee sing.”
“Then here goes, sir, to drown Tom’s impudence:—
“Glide on my bark, the morning tide
Is gently floating by thy side;
Around thy prow the waters bright,
In circling rounds of broken light,
Are glittering, as if ocean gave
Her countless gems unto the wave.
“That’s a pretty air, and I first heard it sung by a pretty woman; but that’s all I know of the song. She sang another—
“I’d be a butterfly, born in a bower.”
“You’d be a butterfly!” said the Dominie, taking old Tom literally, and looking at his person.
Young Tom roared, “Yes, sir, he’d be a butterfly, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t very soon. His legs are gone, and his wings aren’t come: so he’s a grub now, and that, you know, is the next thing to it. What a funny old beggar it is, father—aren’t it?”
“Tom, Tom, go forward, sir; we must shoot the bridge.”
“Shoot!” exclaimed the Dominie; “shoot what?”
“You aren’t afraid of fire-arms, are ye, sir?” inquired Tom.
“Nay, I said not that I was afraid of fire-arms; but why should you shoot?”
“We never could get on without it, sir; we shall have plenty of shooting, by-and-by. You don’t know this river.”
“Indeed, I thought not of such doings; or that there were other dangers besides that of the deep waters.”
“Go forward, Tom, and don’t be playing with your betters,” cried old Tom. “Never mind him, sir, he’s only humbugging you.”
“Explain, Jacob. The language of both old Tom and young Tom are to me as incomprehensible as would be that of the dog Tommy.”
“Or as your Latin is to them, sir.”
“True, Jacob, true. I have no right to complain; nay, I do not complain, for I am amused, although at times much puzzled.”
We now shot Putney Bridge, and as a wherry passed us, old Tom carolled out—
“Did you ever hear tell of a jolly young waterman?”
“No, I never did,” said the Dominie, observing old Tom’s eyes directed towards him. Tom, amused by this naïveté on the part of the Dominie, touched him by the sleeve, on the other side, and commenced with his treble—
“Did you ne’er hear a tale
Of a maid in the vale?”
“Not that I can recollect, my child,” replied the Dominie.
“Then, where have you been all your life?”
“My life has been employed, my lad, in teaching the young idea how to shoot.”
“So, you’re an old soldier, after all, and afraid of fire-arms. Why don’t you hold yourself up? I suppose it’s that enormous jib of yours that brings you down by the head.”
“Tom, Tom, I’ll cut you into pork pieces if you go on that gait. Go and get dinner under weigh, you scamp, and leave the gentleman alone. Here’s more wind coming.
“A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.”
“Jacob,” said the Dominie, “I have heard by the mouth of Rumour, with her hundred tongues, how careless and indifferent are sailors unto danger; but I never could have believed that such lightness of heart could have been shown. Yon man, although certainly not old in years, yet, what is he?—a remnant of a man resting upon unnatural and ill-proportioned support. Yon lad, who is yet but a child, appears as blythe and merry as if he were in possession of all the world can afford. I have an affection for that bold child, and would fain teach him the rudiments, at least, of the Latin tongue.”
“I doubt if Tom would ever learn them, sir. He hath a will of his own.”
“It grieveth me to hear thee say so, for he lacketh not talent, but instruction; and the Dux, he pleaseth me mightily—a second Palinurus. Yet how that a man could venture to embark upon an element, to struggle through the horrors of which must occasionally demand the utmost exertion of every limb, with the want of the two most necessary for his safety, is to me quite incomprehensible.”
“He can keep his legs, sir.”
“Nay, Jacob; how can he keep what are already gone? Even thou speakest strangely upon the water. I see the dangers that surround us, Jacob, yet I am calm: I feel that I have not lived a wicked life—‘Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,’ as Horace truly saith, may venture, even as I have done, upon the broad expanse of water. What is it that the boy is providing for us? It hath an inviting smell.”
“Lobscouse, master,” replied old Tom, “and not bad lining either.”
“I recollect no such word—unde derivatur, friend?”
“What’s that, master?” inquired old Tom.
“It’s Latin for lobscouse, depend upon it, father,” cried Tom, who was stirring up the savoury mess with a large wooden spoon. “He be a deadly lively old gentleman, with his dead language. Dinner’s all ready. Are we to let go the anchor, or pipe to dinner first?”
“We may as well anchor, boys. We have not a quarter of an hour’s more ebb, and the wind is heading us.”
Tom and I went forward, brailed up the mainsail, cleared away, and let go the anchor. The lighter swung round rapidly to the stream. The Dominie, who had been in a fit of musing, with his eyes cast upon the forests of masts which we had passed below London Bridge, and which were now some way astern of us, of a sudden exclaimed, in a loud voice, “Parce precor! Periculosum est!”
The lighter, swinging short round to her anchor, had surprised the Dominie with the rapid motion of the panorama, and he thought we had fallen in with one of the whirlpools mentioned by Tom. “What has happened, good Dux? tell me,” cried the Dominie to old Tom, with alarm in his countenance.
“Why, master, I’ll tell you after my own fashion,” replied old Tom, smiling; and then singing, as he held the Dominie by the button of his spencer—
“Now to her berth the craft draws nigh,
With slacken’d sail, she feels the tide;
‘Stand clear the cable!’ is the cry—
The anchor’s gone, we safely ride.
“And now, master, we’ll bail out the lobscouse. We sha’n’t weigh anchor again until to-morrow morning; the wind’s right in our teeth, and it will blow fresh, I’m sartain. Look how the scud’s flying; so now we’ll have a jolly time of it, and you shall have your allowance of grog on board before you turn in.”
“I have before heard of that potation,” replied the Dominie, sitting down on the coaming of the hatchway, “and fain would taste it.”
We now took our seats on the deck, round the saucepan, for we did not trouble ourselves with dishes, and the Dominie appeared to enjoy the lobscouse very much. In the course of half-an-hour all was over; that is to say, we had eaten as much as we wished; and the Newfoundland dog, who, during our repast, lay close by young Tom, flapping the deck with his tail, and sniffing the savoury smell of the compound, had just licked all our plates quite clean, and was now finishing with his head in the saucepan; while Tom was busy carrying the crockery into the cabin, and bringing out the bottle and tin pannikins, ready for the promised carouse.
“There, now, master, there’s a glass o’ grog for you that would float a marline-spike. See if that don’t warm the cockles of your old heart.”
“Ay,” added Tom, “and set all your muscles as taut as weather backstays.”
“Master Tom, with your leave, I’ll mix your grog for you myself. Hand me back that bottle, you rascal.”
“Just as you please, father,” replied Tom, handing the bottle; “but recollect, none of your water bewitched. Only help me as you love me.”
Old Tom mixed a pannikin of grog for Tom, and another for himself. I hardly need say which was the stiffer of the two.
“Well, father, I suppose you think the grog will run short. To be sure, one bottle aren’t too much ’mong four of us.”
“One bottle, you scamp! there’s another in the cupboard.”
“Then you must see double already, father.”
Old Tom, who was startled at this news, and who imagined that Tom must have gained possession of the other bottle, jumped up and made for the cupboard, to ascertain whether what Tom asserted was correct. This was what Tom wished; he immediately changed pannikins of grog with his father, and remained quiet.
“There is another bottle, Tom,” said his father, coming out and taking his seat again. “I knew there was. You young rascal, you don’t know how you frightened me!” And old Tom put the pannikin to his lips. “Drowned the miller, by heavens!” said he, “What could I have been about?” ejaculated he, adding more spirit to his mixture.
“I suppose, upon the strength of another bottle in the locker, you are doubling the strength of your grog. Come, father,” and Tom held out his pannikin, “do put a little drop in mine—it’s seven-water grog, and I’m not on the black-list.”
“No, no, Tom; your next shall be stronger. Well, master, how do you like your liquor?”
“Verily,” replied the Dominie, “it is a pleasant and seducing liquor. Lo and behold! I am at the bottom of my utensil.”
“Stop till I fill it up again, old gentleman. I see you are one of the right sort. You know what the song says—
“A plague on those musty old lubbers,
Who tell us to fast and to think,
And patient fall in with life’s rubbers,
With nothing but water to drink!
“Water, indeed! The only use of water I know is to mix your grog with, and float vessels up and down the world. Why was the sea made salt, but to prevent our drinking too much water. Water, indeed!
“A can of good grog, had they swigg’d it,
T’would have set them for pleasure agog,
And in spite of the rules
Of the schools,
The old fools
Would have all of them swigg’d it,
And swore there was nothing like grog.”
“I’m exactly of your opinion, father,” said Tom, holding out his empty pannikin.
“Always ready for two things, Master Tom—grog and mischief; but, however, you shall have one more dose.”
“It hath, then, medicinal virtues?” inquired the Dominie.
“Ay, that it has, master—more than all the quacking medicines in the world. It cures grief and melancholy, and prevents spirits from getting low.”
“I doubt that, father,” cried Tom, holding up the bottle “for the more grog we drink, the more the spirits become low.”
Cluck, cluck, came from the thorax of the Dominie. “Verily, friend Tom, it appeareth, among other virtues, to sharpen the wits. Proceed, friend Dux, in the medicinal virtues of grog.”
“Well, master, it cures love when it’s not returned, and adds to it when it is. I’ve heard say it will cure jealousy; but that I’ve my doubts of. Now I think on it, I will tell you a yarn about a jealous match between a couple of fools. Jacob, aren’t your pannikin empty, my boy?”
“Yes,” replied I, handing it up to be filled. It was empty, for, not being very fond of it myself, Tom, with my permission, had drunk it as well as his own.
“There, Jacob, is a good dose for you; you aren’t always craving after it, like Tom.”
“He isn’t troubled with low spirits, as I am, father.”
“How long has that been your complaint, Tom?” inquired I.
“Ever since I heard how to cure it. Come, father, give us the yarn.”
“Well, then, you must mind that an old shipmate o’ mine, Ben Leader, had a wife named Poll, a pretty sort of craft in her way—neat in her rigging, swelling-bows, taking sort of figure-head, and devilish well rounded in the counter; altogether, she was a very fancy girl, and all the men were after her. She’d a roguish eye, and liked to be stared at, as most pretty women do, because it flatters their vanities. Now, although she liked to be noticed so far by the other chaps, yet Ben was the only one she ever wished to be handled by; it was ‘Paws off, Pompey!’ with all the rest. Ben Leader was a good-looking, active, smart chap, and could foot it in a reel, or take a bout at single-stick with the very best o’ them; and she was mortal fond of him, and mortal jealous if he talked to any other woman, for the women liked Ben as much as the men liked she. Well, as they returned love for love, so did they return jealousy for jealousy; and the lads and lasses, seeing that, had a pleasure in making them come to a misunderstanding. So every day it became worse and worse between them. Now, I always says that it’s a stupid thing to be jealous, ’cause if there be cause, there be no cause for love and if there be no cause, there be no cause for jealousy.”
“You’re like a row in a rookery, father—nothing but caws,” interrupted Tom.
“Well, I suppose I am; but that’s what I call chop logic—aren’t it, master?”
“It was a syllogism,” replied the Dominie, taking the pannikin from his mouth.
“I don’t know what that is, nor do I want to know,” replied old Tom; “so I’ll just go on with my story. Well, at last they came to downright fighting. Ben licks Poll ’cause she talked and laughed with other men, and Poll cries and whines all day ’cause he won’t sit on her knee, instead of going on board and ’tending to his duty. Well, one night, a’ter work was over, Ben goes on shore to the house where he and Poll used to sleep; and when he sees the girl in the bar, he says, ‘Where is Poll?’ Now, the girl at the bar was a fresh-comer, and answers, ‘What girl?’ So Ben describes her, and the bar-girl answers, ‘She be just gone to bed with her husband, I suppose;’ for, you see, there was a woman like her who had gone up to her bed, sure enough. When Ben heard that, he gave his trousers one hitch, and calls for a quartern, drinks it off with a sigh, and leaves the house, believing it all to be true. A’ter Ben was gone, Poll makes her appearance, and when she finds Ben wasn’t in the tap, says, ‘Young woman, did a man go upstairs just now?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the bar-girl, ‘with his wife, I suppose; they be turned in this quarter of an hour.’ When she almost turned mad with rage, and then as white as a sheet, and then she burst into tears, and runs out of the house, crying out, ‘Poor misfortunate creature that I am!’ knocking everything down undersized, and running into the arms of every man who came athwart her hawse.”
“I understood him, but just now, that she was running on foot; yet doth he talk about her horse. Expound, Jacob.”
“It was a nautical figure of speech, sir.”
“Exactly,” rejoined Tom; “it meant her figure-head, old gentleman; but my yarn won’t cut a figure if I’m brought up all standing in this way. Suppose, master, you hear the story first, and understand it a’terwards?”
“I will endeavour to comprehend by the context,” replied the Dominie.
“That is, I suppose, that you’ll allow me to stick to my text. Well, then, here’s coil away again. Ben, you see, what with his jealousy and what with a whole quartern at a draught, became somehow nohow, and he walked down to the jetty with the intention of getting rid of himself, and his wife and all his trouble by giving his soul back to his Creator, and his body to the fishes.”
“Bad philosophy,” quoth the Dominie.
“I agree with you, master,” replied old Tom.
“Pray what sort of a thing is philosophy?” inquired Tom.
“Philosophy,” replied old Tom, “is either hanging, drowning, shooting yourself, or, in short, getting out of the world without help.”
“Nay,” replied the Dominie, “that is felo de se.”
“Well, I pronounce it quicker than you, master; but it’s one and the same thing: but to go on. While Ben was standing on the jetty, thinking whether he should take one more quid of ’baccy afore he dived, who should come down but Poll, with her hair all adrift, streaming and coach-whipping astern of her, with the same intention as Ben—to commit philo-zoffy. Ben, who was standing at the edge of the jetty, his eyes fixed upon the water, as it eddied among the piles, looking as dismal as if he had swallowed a hearse and six, with the funeral feathers hanging out of his mouth—”
“A bold comparison,” murmured the Dominie.
“Never sees her; and she was so busy with herself, that, although close to him, she never sees he—always remembering that the night was dark. So Poll turned her eyes up, for all the world like a dying jackdaw.”
“Tell me, friend Dux,” interrupted the Dominie, “doth a jackdaw die in any peculiar way?”
“Yes,” replied young Tom; “he always dies black, master.”
“Then doth he die as he liveth. (Cluck, cluck.) Proceed, good Dux.”
“And don’t you break the thread of my yarn any more, master, if you wish to hear the end of it. So Poll begins to bludder about Ben. ‘O Ben, Ben,’ cried she; ‘cruel, cruel man; for to come—for to go;—for to go—for to come!’
“‘Who’s there?’ shouted Ben.
“‘For to come—for to go,’ cried Poll.
“‘Ship ahoy!’ hailed Ben, again.
“‘For to go—for to come,’ blubbered Poll; and then she couldn’t bring out anything more for sobbing. With that, Ben, who thought he knew the voice, walks up to her, and says, ‘Be that you, Poll?’
“‘Be that you, Ben?’ replied Poll, taking her hands from her face, and looking at him.
“‘I thought you were in bed with—with—oh! Poll!’ said Ben.
“‘And I thought you were in bed with—oh! Ben!’ replied Poll.
“‘But I wasn’t, Poll?’
“‘Nor more wasn’t I, Ben.’
“‘And what brought you here, Poll?’
“‘I wanted for to die, Ben. And what brought you here, Ben?’
“‘I didn’t want for to live, Poll, when I thought you false.’
“Then Polly might have answered in the words of the old song, master; but her poor heart was too full, I suppose.” And Tom sang—
“Your Polly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs.
“Howsomever, in the next minute they were both hugging and kissing, sobbing, shivering and shaking in each other’s arms; and as soon as they had settled themselves a little, back they went, arm-in-arm, to the house, and had a good stiff glass to prevent their taking the rheumatism, went to bed, and were cured of their jealously ever a’terwards—which in my opinion, was a much better philo-zoffy than the one they had both been bound on. There, I’ve wound it all off at last, master, and now we’ll fill up our pannikins.”
“Before I consent, friend Dux, pr’ythee inform me how much of this pleasant liquor may be taken without inebriating, vulgo, getting tipsy.”
“Father can drink enough to float a jolly-boat, master,” replied Tom; “so you needn’t fear. I’ll drink pan for pan with you all night long.”
“Indeed you won’t, mister Tom,” replied the father.
“But I will, master.”
I perceived that the liquor had already had some effect upon my worthy pedagogue, and was not willing that he should be persuaded into excess. I therefore pulled him by the coat as a hint; but he was again deep in thought, and he did not heed me. Tired of sitting so long, I got up, and walked forward to look at the cable.
“Strange,” muttered the Dominie, “that Jacob should thus pull me by the garment. What could he mean?”
“Did he pull you, sir?” inquired Tom.
“Yes, many times; and then he walked away.”
“It appears that you have been pulled too much, sir,” replied Tom, appearing to pick up the tail of his coat, which had been torn off by the dog, and handing it to him.
“Eheu! Jacobe—fili dilectissime—quid fecisti?” cried the Dominie, holding up the fragment of his coat with a look of despair.
“‘A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether,’” sang out old Tom: and then looking at Tom, “Now, ain’t you a pretty rascal, master Tom?”
“It is done,” exclaimed the Dominie, with a sigh, putting the fragment into the remaining pocket; “and it cannot be undone.”
“Now, I think it is undone, and can be done, master,” replied Tom. “A needle and thread will soon join the pieces of your old coat again—in holy matrimony, I may safely say—”
“True. (Cluck, cluck.) My housekeeper will restore it; yet will she be wroth, ‘Feminae curaeque iraeque;’ but let us think no more about it,” cried the Dominie, drinking deeply from his pannikin, and each minute verging fast to intoxication. “‘Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.’ I feel as if I were lifted up, and could dance, yea, and could exalt my voice and sing.”
“Could you, my jolly old master? then we will both dance and sing—
“Come, let us dance and sing,
While all Barbadoes bells shall ring,
Mars scrapes the fiddle string
While Venus plays the lute.
Hymen gay, trips away,
Jocund at the wedding day.
“Now for chorus—
“Come, let us dance and sing.”
I heard Tom’s treble, and a creaking noise, which I recognised to proceed from the Dominie, who had joined the chorus; and I went aft, if possible to prevent further excess; but I found that the grog had mounted into the Dominie’s head, and all my hints were disregarded. Tom was despatched for the other bottle, and the Dominie’s pannikin was replenished, old Tom roaring out—
“Come, sling the flowing bowl;
Fond hopes arise,
The girls we prize
Shall bless each jovial soul;
The can, boys, bring,
We’ll dance and sing,
While foaming billows roll.
“Now for the chorus again—
“Come, sling the flowing bowl, etcetera.
“Jacob, why don’t you join?” The chorus was given by the whole of us. The Dominie’s voice was even louder, though not quite so musical, as old Tom’s.
“Evoé!” cried the Dominie; “evoé! cantemus.
“Amo, amas—I loved a lass,
For she was tall and slender;
Amas, amat—she laid me flat,
Though of the feminine gender.
“Truly do I not forget the songs of my youth, and of my hilarious days: yet doth the potent spirit work upon me like the god in the Cumean sybil; and I shall soon prophecy that which shall come to pass.”
“So can I,” said Tom, giving me a nudge, and laughing.
“Do thine office of Ganymede, and fill up the pannikin; put not in too much of the element. Once more exalt thy voice, good Dux.”
“Always ready, master,” cried Tom, who sang out again in praise of his favourite liquor—
“Smiling grog is the sailor’s best hope, his sheet anchor,
His compass, his cable, his log,
That gives him a heart which life’s cares cannot canker.
Though dangers around him,
Unite to confound him,
He braves them, and tips off his grog.
’Tis grog, only grog,
Is his rudder, his compass, his cable, his log,
The sailor’s sheet anchor is grog.”
“Verily, thou art an Apollo—or, rather, referring to thy want of legs, half an Apollo—that is, a demi-god. (Cluck, cluck.) Sweet is thy lyre, friend Dux.”
“Fair words, master; I’m no liar,” cried Tom. “Clap a stopper on your tongue, or you’ll get into disgrace.”
“Ubi lapsus quid feci,” said the Dominie; “I spoke of thy musical tongue; and, furthermore, I spoke alle-gori-cal-ly.”
“I know a man lies with his tongue as well as you do, old chap; but as for telling a hell of a (something) lie, as you states, I say I never did,” rejoined old Tom, who was getting cross in his cups.
I now interfered, as there was every appearance of a fray; and in spite of young Tom, who wished, as he termed it, to kick up a shindy, prevailed upon them to make friends, which they did, shaking hands for nearly five minutes. When this was ended, I again entreated the Dominie not to drink any more, but to go to bed.
“Amice, Jacobe,” replied the Dominie; “the liquor hath mounted into thy brain, and thou wouldst rebuke thy master and thy preceptor. Betake thee to thy couch, and sleep off the effects of thy drink. Verily, Jacob, thou art plenus Veteris Bacchi; or, in plain English, thou art drunk. Canst thou conjugate, Jacob? I fear not. Canst thou decline, Jacob? I fear not. Canst thou scan, Jacob? I fear not. Nay, Jacob, methinks that thou art unsteady in thy gait, and not over clear in thy vision. Canst thou hear, Jacob? if so, I will give thee an oration against inebriety, with which thou mayest down on thy pillow. Wilt thou have it in Latin or in Greek?”
“O, damn your Greek and Latin!” cried old Tom; “keep that for to-morrow. Sing us a song, my old hearty; or shall I sing you one? Here goes—
“For while the grog goes round,
All sense of danger’s drown’d,
We despise it to a man;
We sing a little—”
“Sing a little,” bawled the Dominie.
“And laugh a little—”
“Laugh a little,” chorused young Tom.
“And work a little—”
“Work a little,” cried the Dominie.
“And swear a little—”
“Swear not a little,” echoed Tom.
“And fiddle a little—”
“Fiddle a little,” hiccuped the Dominie.
“And foot it a little—”
“Foot it a little,” repeated Tom.
“And swig the flowing can,
And fiddle a little,
And foot it a little,
And swig the flowing can—”
roared old Tom, emptying his pannikin.
“And swig the flowing can—”
followed the Dominie, tossing off his.
“And swig the flowing can—”
cried young Tom turning up his pannikin empty.
“Hurrah! that’s what I calls glorious. Let’s have it over again, and then we’ll have another dose. Come, now, all together.” Again was the song repeated; and when they came to “foot it a little,” old Tom jumped on his stumps, seizing hold of the Dominie, who immediately rose, and the three danced round and round for a minute or two, singing the song and chorus, till old Tom, who was very far gone, tripped against the coamings of the hatchway, pitching his head into the Dominie’s stomach, who fell backwards, clinging to young Tom’s hand; so that they all rolled on the deck together—my worthy preceptor underneath the other two.
“Foot it rather too much that time, father,” said young Tom, getting up the first, and laughing. “Come, Jacob, let’s put father on his pins again; he can’t rise without a purchase.” With some difficulty, we succeeded. As soon as he was on his legs again, old Tom put a hand upon each of our shoulders, and commenced, with a drunken leer—
“What though his timbers they are gone,
And he’s a slave to tipple,
No better sailor e’er was born
Than Tom, the jovial cripple.
“Thanky, my boys, thanky; now rouse up the old gentleman. I suspect we knocked the wind out of him. Hollo, there, are you hard and fast?”
“The bricks are hard, and verily my senses are fast departing,” quoth the Dominie, rousing himself, and sitting up, staring around him.
“Senses going, do you say, master?” cried old Tom. “Don’t throw them overboard till we have made a finish. One more pannikin apiece, one more song, and then to bed. Tom, where’s the bottle?”
“Drink no more, sir, I beg; you’ll be ill to-morrow,” said I to the Dominie.
“Deprome quadrimum,” hiccuped the Dominie. “Carpe diem—quam minimum—creula postero.—Sing, friend Dux—Quem virum—sumes celebrare—music amicus.—Where’s my pattypan?—We are not Thracians—Natis in usum—laetitae scyphis pugnare—(hiccup)—Thracum est—therefore we—will not fight—but we will drink—recepto dulce mihi furere est amico—Jacob, thou art drunk—sing, friend Dux, or shall I sing?
“Propria quae maribus had a little dog,
Quae genus was his name—
“My memory faileth me—what was the tune?”
“That tune was the one the old cow died of, I’m sure,” replied Tom. “Come, old Nosey, strike up again.”
“Nosey, from nasus—truly, it is a fair epithet; and it remindeth me that my nose—suffered in the fall which I received just now. Yet I cannot sing—having no words—”
“Nor tune, either, master,” replied old Tom; “so here goes for you—
“Young Susan had lovers, so many that she
Hardly knew upon which to decide;
They all spoke sincerely, and promised to be
All worthy of such a sweet bride.
In the morning she’d gossip with William, and then
The noon will be spent with young Harry,
The evening with Tom; so, amongst all the men,
She never could tell which to marry.
Heigho! I am afraid
Too many lovers will puzzle a maid.
“It pleaseth me—it ringeth in mine ears—yea, most pleasantly. Proceed,—the girl was as the Pyrrha of Horace—
“Quis multa gracillis—te puer in rosa—
Perfusis liquidis urgit odoribus.
Grate, Pyrrha—sub antro?”
“That’s all high Dutch to me, master; but I’ll go on if I can. My memory box be a little out of order. Let me see—oh!
“Now William grew jealous, and so went away;
Harry got tired of wooing;
And Tom having teased her to fix on the day,
Received but a frown for so doing;
So, ’mongst all her lovers, quite left in the lurch,
She pined every night on her pillow;
And meeting one day a pair going to church,
Turned away, and died under a willow.
Heigho! I am afraid
Too many lovers will puzzle a maid.
“Now, then, old gentleman, tip off your grog. You’ve got your allowance, as I promised you.”
“Come, master, you’re a cup too low,” said Tom, who, although in high spirits, was not at all intoxicated; indeed, as I afterwards found, he could carry more than his father. “Come, shall I give you a song?”
“That’s right, Tom; a volunteer’s worth two pressed men. Open your mouth wide, an’ let your whistle fly away with the gale. You whistles in tune, at all events.”
Tom then struck up, the Dominie see-sawing as he sat, and getting very sleepy—
“Luck in life, or good or bad,
Ne’er could make me melancholy;
Seldom rich, yet never sad,
Sometimes poor, yet always jolly.
Fortune’s in my scale, that’s poz,
Of mischance put more than half in;
Yet I don’t know how it was,
I could never cry for laughing—
Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!
I could never cry for laughing.
“Now for chorus, father—
“Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!
I could never cry for laughing.
“That’s all I know; and that’s enough, for it won’t wake up the old gentleman.”
But it did. “Ha, ha, ha—ha, ha, ha! I could never die for laughing,” bawled out the Dominie, feeling for his pannikin; but this was his last effort. He stared round him. “Verily, verily, we are in a whirlpool—how everything turneth round and round! Who cares? Am I not an ancient mariner—‘Qui videt mare turgidum—et infames scopulos.’ Friend Dux, listen to me—favet linguis.”
“Well,” hiccuped old Tom, “so I will—but speak—plain English—as I do.”
“That I’ll be hanged if he does,” said Tom to me. “In half an hour more I shall understand old Nosey’s Latin just as well as his—plain English, as he calls it.”
“I will discuss in any language—that is—in any tongue—be it in the Greek or the Latin—nay, even—(hiccups)—friend Dux—hast thou not partaken too freely—of—dear me! Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui—plenum—truly I shall be tipsy—and will but finish my pattypan—dulce periculum est—Jacob—can there be two Jacobs?—and two old Toms?—nay—mirabile dictu—there are two young Toms, and two dog Tommies—each with—two tails. Bacche, parce—precor—precor—Jacob, where art thou?—Ego sum tu es—thou art—sumus, we are—where am I? Procumbit humi bos—for Bos—read Dobbs—amo, amas—I loved a lass. Tityre, tu patulae sub teg-mine—nay—I quote wrong—then must I be—I do believe that—I’m drunk.”
“And I’m cock sure of it,” cried Tom, laughing, as the Dominie fell back in a state of insensibility.
“And I’m cock sure of it,” said old Tom, rolling himself along the deck to the cabin hatch “that I’ve as much—as I can stagger—under, at all events—so I’ll sing myself to sleep—’cause why—I’m happy. Jacob—mind you keep all the watches to-night—and Tom may keep the rest.” Old Tom then sat up, leaning his back against the cabin hatch, and commenced one of those doleful ditties which are sometimes heard on the forecastle of a man-of-war; he had one or two of the songs that he always reserved for such occasions. While Tom and I dragged the Dominie to bed, old Tom drawled out his ditty—
“Oh! we sailed to Virgi-ni-a, and thence to Fy-al,
Where we water’d our shipping, and so then weigh-ed all,
Full in view, on the seas—boys—seven sail we did es-py,
O! we man-ned our capstern, and weighed spee-di-ly.
“That’s right, my boys, haul and hold—stow the old Dictionary away—for he can’t command the parts of speech.
“The very next morning—the engagement proved—hot,
And brave Admiral Benbow received a chain-shot.
O when he was wounded to his merry men—he—did—say,
Take me up in your arms, boys, and car-ry me a-way.
“Now, boys, come and help me—Tom—none of your foolery—for your poor old father is—drunk—.”
We assisted old Tom into the other “bed-place” in the cabin. “Thanky, lads—one little bit more, and then I’m done—as the auctioneer says—going—going—
“O the guns they did rattle, and the bul-lets—did—fly,
When brave Benbow—for help loud—did cry,
Carry me down to the cock-pit—there is ease for my smarts,
If my merry men should see me—’twill sure—break—their—hearts.
“Going,—old swan-hopper—as I am—going—gone.”
Tom and I were left on deck.
“Now, Jacob, if you have a mind to turn in. I’m not sleepy—you shall keep the morning watch.”
“No, Tom, you’d better sleep first. I’ll call you at four o’clock. We can’t weigh till tide serves; and I shall have plenty of sleep before that.”
Tom went to bed, and I walked the deck till the morning, thinking over the events of the day, and wondering what the Dominie would say when he came to his senses. At four o’clock, as agreed, I roused Tom out, and turned into his bed, and was soon as fast asleep as old Tom and the Dominie, whose responsive snores had rung in my ears during the whole time that I had walked the deck.
About half-past eight the next morning, I was called up by Tom to assist in getting the lighter under weigh. When on deck I found old Tom as fresh as if he had not drunk a drop the night before, very busily stumping about the windlass, with which we hove up first the anchor, and then the mast. “Well, Jacob, my boy, had sleep enough? Not too much, I dare say; but a bout like last night don’t come often, Jacob—only once in a way; now, and then I do believe it’s good for my health. It’s a great comfort to me, my lad, to have you on board with me, because as you never drinks, I may now indulge a little oftener. As for Tom, I can’t trust him—too much like his father—had nobody to trust to for the look-out, except the dog Tommy, till you came with us. I can trust Tommy as far as keeping off the river sharks; he’ll never let them take a rope-yarn off the deck, night or day; but a dog’s but a dog, after all. Now we’re brought to; so clap on, my boy, and let’s heave up with a will.”
“How’s the old gentleman, father?” said Tom, as we paused a moment from our labour at the windlass.
“Oh! he’s got a good deal more to sleep off yet. There he lies, flat on his back, blowing as hard as a grampus. Better leave him as long as we can. We’ll rouse him as soon as we turn Greenwich reach. Tom, didn’t you think his nose loomed devilish large yesterday?”
“Never seed such a devil of a cutwater in my life, father.”
“Well, then, you’ll see a larger when he gets up, for it’s swelled bigger than the brandy bottle. Heave and haul! Now bring to the fall, and up with the mast, boys, while I goes aft and takes the helm.”
Old Tom went aft. During the night the wind had veered to the north, and the frost had set in sharp, the rime covered the deck of the barge, and here and there floating ice was to be seen coming down with the tide. The banks of the river and fields adjacent were white with hoar frost, and would have presented but a cheerless aspect, had not the sun shone out clear and bright. Tom went aft to light the fire, while I coiled away and made all snug forward. Old Tom as usual carolled forth—
“Oh! for a soft and gentle wind,
I heard a fair one cry
But give to me the roaring breeze,
And white waves beating high,
And white waves beating high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free,
The world of waters is our own,
And merry men are we.”
“A nice morning this for cooling a hot head, that’s sartain. Tommy, you rascal, you’re like a court lady, with her velvet gownd, covered all over with diamonds,” continued old Tom, looking at the Newfoundland dog, whose glossy black hair was besprinkled with little icicles, which glittered in the sun.
“You and Jacob were the only sensible ones of the party last night, for you both were sober.”
“So was I, father. I was as sober as a judge,” observed Tom, who was blowing up the fire.
“May be, Tom, as a judge a’ter dinner; but a judge on the bench be one thing, and a judge over a bottle be another, and not bad judges in that way either. At all events, if you warn’t sewed up, it wasn’t your fault.”
“And I suppose,” replied Tom, “it was only your misfortune that you were.”
“No, I don’t say that; but still, when I look at the dog, who’s but a beast by nature, and thinks of myself, who wasn’t meant to be a beast, why, I blushes, that’s all.”
“Jacob, look at father—now, does he blush?” cried Tom.
“I can’t say that I perceive it,” replied I, smiling.
“Well, then, if I don’t it’s the fault of my having no legs. I’m sure when they were knocked off I lost half the blood in my body, and that’s the reason, I suppose. At all events, I meant to blush, so we’ll take the will for the deed.”
“But do you mean to keep sober in future, father?” said Tom.
“Never do you mind that—mind your own business, Mr Tom. At all events, I sha’n’t get tipsy till next time, and that’s all I can say with safety, ’cause, d’ye see, I knows my failing. Jacob, did you ever see that old gentleman sail too close to the wind before?”
“I never did—I do not think that he was ever tipsy before last night.”
“Then I pities him—his headache, and his repentance. Moreover, there be his nose and the swallow-tail of his coat to make him unhappy. We shall be down abreast of the Hospital in half-an-hour. Suppose you go and give him a shake, Jacob. Not you, Tom; I won’t trust you—you’ll be doing him a mischief; you haven’t got no fellow-feeling, not even for dumb brutes.”
“I’ll thank you not to take away my character that way, father,” replied Tom. “Didn’t I put you to bed last night when you were speechless?”
“Suppose you did—what then?”
“Why, then, I had a feeling for a dumb brute. I only say that, father, for the joke of it, you know,” continued Tom, going up to his father and patting his rough cheek.
“I know that, my boy; you never were unkind, that’s sartain; but you must have your joke—
“Merry thoughts are link’d with laughter,
Why should we bury them?
Sighs and tears may come hereafter,
No need to hurry them.
They who through a spying-glass,
View the minutes as they pass,
Make the sun a gloomy mass,
But the fault’s their own, Tom.”
In the meantime I was vainly attempting to rouse the Dominie. After many fruitless attempts, I put a large quantity off snuff on his upper lip, and then blew it up his nose. But, merciful powers! what a nose it had become—larger than the largest pear that I ever saw in my life. The whole weight of old Tom had fallen on it, and instead of being crushed by the blow, it appeared as if, on the contrary, it had swelled up, indignant at the injury and affront which it had received. The skin was as tight as the parchment of a drum, and shining as if it had been oiled, while the colour was a bright purple. Verily, it was the Dominie’s nose in a rage.
The snuff had the effect of partially awakening him from his lethargy. “Six o’clock—did you say, Mrs Bately? Are the boys washed—and in the schoolroom? I will rise speedily—yet I am overcome with much heaviness. Delapsus somnus ab—” and the Dominie snored again. I renewed my attempts, and gradually succeeded. The Dominie opened his eyes, stared at the deck and carlines above him, then at the cupboard by his side; lastly, he looked at and recognised me.
“Eheu, Jacobe!—where am I? And what is that which presses upon my brain? What is it so loadeth my cerebellum, even as if it were lead? My memory—where is it? Let me recall my scattered senses.” Here the Dominie was silent for some time. “Ah me! yea, and verily, I do recollect—with pain of head and more pain of heart—that which I would fain forget, which is, that I did forget myself; and indeed have forgotten all that passed the latter portion of the night. Friend Dux hath proved no friend, but hath led me into the wrong path: and as or the potation called Grog—Eheu, Jacobe! how have I fallen—fallen in my own opinion—fallen in thine—how can I look thee in the face! O, Jacob! what must thou think of him who hath hitherto been thy preceptor and thy guide!” Here the Dominie fell back on the pillow, and turned away his head.
“It is not your fault, sir,” replied I, to comfort him; “you were not aware of what you were drinking—you did not know that the liquor was so strong. Old Tom deceived you.”
“Nay, Jacob, I cannot lay that flattering unction to my wounded heart. I ought to have known, nay, now I recall to mind, that thou wouldst have warned me—even to the pulling off of the tail of my coat—yet I heeded thee not, and I am humbled—even I, the master over seventy boys!”
“Nay, sir, it was not I who pulled off the tail of your coat; it was the dog.”
“Jacob, I have heard of the wonderful sagacity of the canine species, yet could not I ever have believed that a dumb brute would have perceived my folly, and warned me from intoxication. Mirabile dictu! Tell me, Jacob, thou who hast profited by these lessons which thy master could give—although he could not follow up his precept by example—tell me, what did take place? Let me know the full extent of my backsliding.”
“You fell asleep, sir, and we put you to bed.”
“Who did me that office, Jacob?”
“Young Tom and I, sir; as for old Tom, he was not in a state to help anybody.”
“I am humbled, Jacob—”
“Nonsense, old gentleman; why make a fuss about nothing?” said old Tom, who, overhearing our conversation came into the cabin. “You had a drop too much, that’s all, and what o’ that? It’s a poor heart that never rejoiceth. Rouse a bit, wash your face with old Thames water, and in half-an-hour you’ll be as fresh as a daisy.”
“My head acheth!” exclaimed the Dominie, “even as if there were a ball of lead rolling from one temple to the other; but my punishment is just.”
“That is the punishment of making too free with the bottle, for sartain; but if it is an offence, then it carries its own punishment and that’s quite sufficient. Every man knows that when the heart’s over light at night, that the head’s over heavy in the morning. I have known and proved it a thousand times. Well, what then? I puts the good against the bad, and I takes my punishment like a man.”
“Friend Dux, for so I will still call thee, thou lookest not at the offence in a moral point of vision.”
“What’s moral?” replied old Tom.
“I would point out that intoxication is sinful.”
“Intoxication sinful! I suppose that means that it’s a sin to get drunk. Now, master, it’s my opinion that as God Almighty has given us good liquor, it was for no other purpose than to drink it; and therefore it would be ungrateful to him, and a sin, not to get drunk—that is, with discretion.”
“How canst thou reconcile getting drunk with discretion, good Dux?”
“I mean, master, when there’s work to be done, the work should be done; but when there’s plenty of time, and everything is safe, and all ready for a start the next morning, I can see no possible objection to a jollification. Come, master, rouse out; the lighter’s abreast of the Hospital almost by this time, and we must put you on shore.”
The Dominie, whose clothes were all on, turned out of his bed-place and went with us on deck. Young Tom, who was at the helm, as soon as we made our appearance, wished him a good-morning very respectfully. Indeed, I always observed that Tom, with all his impudence and waggery, had a great deal of consideration and kindness. He had overheard the Dominie’s conversation with me, and would not further wound his feelings with a jest. Old Tom resumed his place at the helm, while his son prepared the breakfast, and I drew a bucket of water for the Dominie to wash his face and hands. Of his nose not a word was said; and the Dominie made no remarks to me on the subject, although I am persuaded it must have been very painful, from the comfort he appeared to derive in bathing it with the freezing water. A bowl of tea was a great solace to him, and he had hardly finished it when the lighter was abreast the Hospital stairs. Tom jumped into the boat and hauled it alongside. I took the other oar, and the Dominie, shaking hands with old Tom, said, “Thou didst mean kindly, and therefore I wish thee a kind farewell, good Dux.”
“God be with you, master,” replied old Tom; “shall we call for you as we come back?”
“Nay, nay,” replied the Dominie, “the travelling by land is more expensive, but less dangerous. I thank thee for thy songs, and—for all thy kindness, good Dux. Are my paraphernalia in the boat, Jacob?”
I replied in the affirmative. The Dominie stepped in, and we pulled him on shore. He landed, took his bundle and umbrella under his arm, shook hands with Tom and then with me, without speaking, and I perceived the tears start in his eyes as he turned and walked away.
“Well, now,” said Tom, looking after the Dominie, “I wish I had been drunk instead of he. He does so take it to heart, poor old gentleman!”
“He has lost his self-esteem, Tom,” replied I. “It should be a warning to you. Come, get your oar to pass.”
“Well, some people he fashioned one way and some another. I’ve been tipsy more than once, and I never lost anything but my reason, and that came back as soon as the grog left my head. I can’t understand that fretting about having had a glass too much. I only frets when I can’t get enough. Well, of all the noses I ever saw, his bests them by chalks; I did so want to laugh at it, but I knew it would pain him.”
“It is very kind of you, Tom, to hold your tongue, and I thank you very much.”
“And yet that old dad of mine swears I’ve got no fellow-feeling, which I consider a very undutiful thing for him to say. What’s the reason, Jacob, that sons be always cleverer than their fathers?”
“I didn’t know that was the case, Tom.”
“But it is so now, if it wasn’t in olden time. The proverb says, ‘Young people think old people to be fools, but old people know young people to be fools.’ We must alter that, for I says, ‘Old people think young people to be fools, but young people know old people to be fools.’”
“Have it your own way, Tom, that will do, rowed of all.”
We tossed in our oars, made the boat fast, and gained the deck, where old Tom still remained at the helm. “Well,” said he, “Jacob, I never thought I should be glad to see the old gentleman clear of the lighter, but I was—devilish glad; he was like a load on my conscience this morning; he was trusted to my charge by Mr Drummond, and I had no right to persuade him to make a fool of himself. But, however, what’s done can’t be helped, as you say sometimes; and it’s no use crying; still it was a pity, for he be, for all the world, like a child. There’s a fancy kind of lass in that wherry, crossing our bows; look at the streamers from her top-gallant.
“Come o’er the sea,
Maiden, to me,
Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows,
Seasons may roll,
But the true soul
Burns the same wherever it goes
Then come o’er the sea,
Maiden, with me.”
“See you hanged first, you underpinned old hulk!” replied the female in the boat, which was then close under our bows.
“Well, that be civil, for certain,” said old Tom, laughing.
We arrived at Sheerness the next morning, landed the bricks, which were for the Government buildings, and returned in ballast to the wharf. My first inquiry was for the Dominie; but he had not yet returned; and Mr Drummond further informed me that he had been obliged to send away his under-clerk and wished me to simply take his place until he could procure another. The lighter therefore took in her cargo, and sailed without me, which was of consequence, as my apprenticeship still went on. I now lived with Mr Drummond as one of his own family, and wanted for nothing. His continual kindness to me made me strive all I could to please him by diligence and attention, and I soon became very expert at accounts, and, as he said, very useful. The advantages to me, I hardly need observe were considerable, and I gained information every day. Still, although I was glad to be of any use to Mr Drummond, the confinement at the desk was irksome, and I anxiously looked for the arrival of the new clerk to take my place and leave me free to join the lighter. Mr Drummond did not appear to me to be in any hurry; indeed, I believe that he would have retained me altogether, had he not perceived that I still wished to be on the river.
“At all events, Jacob, I shall keep you here until you are master of your work; it will be useful to you hereafter,” he said to me one day; “and you do not gain much by sailing up and down the river.”
This was true; and I also derived much advantage from the evenings spent with Mrs Drummond, who was a very sensible good woman, and would make me read aloud to her and little Sarah as they sat at their needle. I had no idea, until I was employed posting up the book, that Mr Drummond’s concern was so extensive, or that there was so much capital employed in the business. The Dominie returned a few days after my arrival. When we met his nose had resumed its former appearance, and he never brought up the subject of the evening on board of the lighter. I saw him frequently, mostly on Sundays after I had been to church with the family; and half-an-hour, at least, was certain to be dedicated to our reading together one of the classics.
As I was on shore several months, I became acquainted with many families, one or two of which were worth noticing. Among the foremost was Captain Turnbull, at least such was his appellation until within the last two months previous to my making his acquaintance, when Mr Turnbull sent out his cards, George Turnbull, Esquire. The history of Captain Turnbull was as follows:— He had, with his twin brother, been hung up at the knocker, and afterwards had been educated at the Foundling Hospital; they had both been apprenticed to the sea; grown up thorough-bred, capital, seamen in the Greenland fishery; rose to be mates then captains; had been very successful, owned part, then the whole of the ship, afterwards two or three ships; and had wound up with handsome fortunes. Captain Turnbull was a married man without a family; his wife, fine in person, vulgar in speech, a would-be fashionable lady, against which fashion Captain T had for years pleaded poverty; but his brother, who had remained a bachelor, died, leaving him forty thousand pounds—a fact which could not be concealed. Captain Turnbull had not allowed his wife to be aware of the extent of his own fortune, more from a wish to live quietly and happily than from any motive of parsimony, for he was liberal to excess; but now he had no further excuse to plead, and Mrs Turnbull insisted upon fashion. The house they had lived in was given up, and a marine villa on the borders of the Thames to a certain degree met the views of both parties; Mrs Turnbull anticipating dinners and fêtes, and the captain content to watch what was going on in the river, and amuse himself in a wherry. They had long been acquaintances of Mr and Mrs Drummond; and Captain Turnbull’s character was such as always to command the respect of Mr Drummond, as he was an honest, friendly man. Mrs Turnbull had now set up her carriage, and she was, in her own opinion, a very great personage. She would have cut all her former acquaintance; but on that point the captain was inflexible, particularly as regarded the Drummonds. As far as they were concerned, Mrs Turnbull gave way, Mrs Drummond being a lady-like woman, and Mr Drummond universally respected as a man of talent and information. Captain, or rather, Mr Turnbull, was a constant visitor at our house, and very partial to me. He used to scold Mr Drummond for keeping me so close to my desk, and would often persuade him to give me a couple of hours’ run. When this was obtained, he would call a waterman, throw him a crown, and tell him to get out of his wherry as fast as he could. We then embarked, and amused ourselves pulling up and down the river, while Mrs Turnbull, dressed in the extremity of the fashion, rode out in the carriage and left her cards in every direction.
One day Mr Turnbull called upon the Drummonds, and asked them to dine with him on the following Saturday; they accepted the invitation. “By-the-by,” said he, “I got what my wife calls a remind in my pocket;” and he pulled out of his coat-pocket a large card, “with Mr and Mrs Turnbull’s compliments,” etcetera, which card he had doubled in two by his sitting down upon it, shortly after he came in. Mr Turnbull straightened it again as well as he could, and laid it on the table. “And Jacob,” said he, “you’ll come too. You don’t want a remind; but if you do, my wife will send you one.”
I replied, “that I wanted no remind for a good dinner.”
“No, I dare say not, my boy; but recollect that you come an hour or two before the dinner-hour, to help me; there’s so much fuss with one thing or another, that I’m left in the lurch; and as for trusting the keys of the spirit-room to that long-togged rascal of a butler, I’ll see him harpoon’d first; so do you come and help me, Jacob.”
This having been promised, he asked Mr Drummond to lend me for an hour or so, as he wished to take a row up the river. This was also consented to; we embarked and pulled away for Kew Bridge. Mr Turnbull was as good a hand at a yarn as old Tom, and many were the adventures he narrated to me of what had taken place during the vicissitudes of his life, more especially when he was employed in the Greenland fishery. He related an accident that morning, which particularly bore upon the marvellous, although I do not believe that he was at all guilty of indulging in a traveller’s licence.
“Jacob,” said he, “I recollect once when I was very near eaten alive by foxes, and that in a very singular manner. I was then mate of a Greenland ship. We had been on the fishing ground for three months, and had twelve fish on board. Finding we were doing well, we fixed our ice-anchors upon a very large iceberg, drifting up and down with it, and taking fish as we fell in with them. One morning we had just cast loose the carcass of a fish which we had cut up, when the man in the crow’s nest, on the look-out for another ‘fall,’ cried out that a large polar bear and her cub were swimming over to the iceberg, against the side of which, and about half-a-mile from us, the carcass of a whale was beating. As we had nothing to do, seven of us immediately started in chase we had intended to have gone after the foxes, which had gathered there also in hundreds, to prey upon the dead whale. It was then quite calm: we soon came up with the bear, who at first was for making off; but as the cub could not get on over the rough ice as well as the old one, she at last turned round to bay. We shot the cub to make sure of her, and it did make sure of the dam not leaving us till either she or we perished in the conflict. I never shall forget her moaning over the cub, as it lay bleeding on the ice, while we fired bullet after bullet into her. At last she turned round, gave a roar and a gnashing snarl, which you might have heard a mile, and, with her eyes flashing fire, darted upon us. We received her in a body, all close together, with our lances to her breast; but she was so large and strong, that she beat us all back, and two of us fell; fortunately the others held their ground, and as she was then on end, three bullets were put into her chest, which brought her down. I never saw so large a beast in my life. I don’t wish to make her out larger than she really was, but I have seen many a bullock at Smithfield which would not weigh two-thirds of her. After that, we had some trouble in despatching her; and while we were so employed, the wind blew up in gusts from the northward, and the snow fell heavy. The men were for returning to the ship immediately, which certainly was the wisest thing for us all to do; but I thought that the snowstorm would blow over in a short time, and not wishing to lose so fine a skin, resolved to remain and flay the beast; for I knew that if left there a few hours, as the foxes could not get hold of the carcass of the whale, which had not grounded, they would soon finish the bear and the cub, and the skins be worth nothing. Well, the other men went back to the ship, and as it was, the snow-storm came on so thick that they lost their way, and would never have found her, if it was not that the bell was kept tolling for a guide to them. I soon found that I had done a very foolish thing; instead of the storm blowing over, the snow came down thicker and thicker; and before I had taken a quarter of the skin off, I was becoming cold and numbed, and then I was unable to regain the ship, and with every prospect of being frozen to death before the storm was over. At last, I knew what was my only chance. I had flayed all the belly of the bear, but had not cut her open. I ripped her up, tore out all her inside, and then contrived to get into her body, where I lay, and, having closed up the entrance hole, was warm and comfortable, for the animal heat had not yet been extinguished. This manoeuvre, no doubt, saved my life: and I have heard that the French soldiers did the same in their unfortunate Russian campaign, killing their horses and getting inside to protect themselves from the dreadful weather. Well, Jacob, I had not lain more than half-an-hour, when I knew by sundry jerks and tugs at my newly invented hurricane-house that the foxes were busy—and so they were sure, enough. There must have been hundreds of them, for they were at work in all directions, and some pushed their sharp noses into the opening where I had crept in; but I contrived to get out my knife and saw their noses across whenever they touched me, otherwise I should have been eaten up in a very short time. There were so many of them, and they were so ravenous, that they soon got through the bear’s thick skin, and were tearing away at the flesh. Now I was not so much afraid of their eating me, as I thought that if I jumped up and discovered myself they would have all fled. No saying, though; two or three hundred ravenous devils take courage when together; but I was afraid that they would devour my covering from the weather, and then I should perish with the cold; and I was also afraid of having pieces nipped out of me, which would of course oblige me to quit my retreat. At last daylight was made through the upper part of the carcass, and I was only protected by the ribs of the animal, between which every now and then their noses dived and nipped my sealskin jacket. I was just thinking of shouting to frighten them away, when I heard the report of half-a-dozen muskets, and some of the bullets struck the carcass, but fortunately did not hit me. I immediately halloed as loud as I could, and the men, hearing me, ceased firing. They had fired at the foxes, little thinking that I was inside of the bear. I crawled out; the storm was over, and the men of the ship had come back to look for me. My brother, who was also a mate on board of the vessel, who had not been with the first party, had joined them in the search, but with little hopes of finding me alive. He hugged me in his arms, covered as I was with blood, as soon as he saw me. He’s dead now, poor fellow—That’s the story, Jacob.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied I; but perceiving that the memory of his brother affected him, I did not speak again for a few minutes. We then resumed our conversation, and pulling back with the tide, landed at the wharf.
On the day of the dinner party I went up to Mr Turnbull’s at three o’clock as he had proposed. I found the house in a bustle; Mr and Mrs Turnbull, with the butler and footman, in the dining-room, debating as to the propriety of this and that being placed here and there, both servants giving their opinion, and arguing on a footing of equality, contradicting and insisting, Mr Turnbull occasionally throwing in a word, and each time snubbed by his wife, although the servants dare not take any liberty with him. “Do, pray, Mr Turnbull, leave hus to settle these matters. Get hup your wine; that is your department. Leave the room, Mr Turnbull, hif you please. Mortimer and I know what we are about, without your hinterference.”
“Oh! by the Lord, I don’t wish to interfere; but I wish you and your servants not to be squabbling, that’s all. If they gave me half the cheek—”
“Do, pray, Mr Turnbull, leave the room, and allow me to regulate my own ’ousehold.”
“Come, Jacob, we’ll go down into the cellar,” said Mr Turnbull; and accordingly we went.
I assisted Mr Turnbull in his department as much as I could, but he grumbled very much. “I can’t bear all this nonsense, all this finery and foolery. Everything comes up cold, everything is out of reach. The table’s so long, and so covered with uneatables, that my wife is hardly within hail and, by jingo, with her the servants are masters. Not with me, at all events; for if they spoke to me as they do to Mrs Turnbull, I would kick them out of the house. However, Jacob, there’s no help for it. All one asks for is quiet; and I must put up with all this sometimes, or I should have no quiet from one year’s end to another. When a woman will have her way, there’s no stopping her: you know the old verse—
“A man’s a fool who strives by force or skill
To stem the torrent of a woman’s will;
For if she will, she will, you may depend on’t,
And if she won’t, she won’t—and there’s an end on’t.
“Now let’s go up into my room, and we will chat while I wash my hands.”
As soon as Mr Turnbull was dressed, we went down into the drawing-room, which was crowded with tables loaded with every variety of ornamental articles. “Now this is what my wife calls fashionable. One might as well be steering through an ice-floe as try to come to an anchor here without running foul of something. It’s hard-a-port or hard-a-starboard every minute; and if your coat-tail jibes, away goes something, and whatever it is that smashes, Mrs T always swears it was the most valuable thing in the room. I’m like a bull in a china-shop. One comfort is, that I never come in here except when there’s company. Indeed, I’m not allowed, thank God. Sit on a chair, Jacob, one of those spider-like French things, for my wife won’t allow blacks, as she calls them, to come to an anchor upon her sky-blue silk sofas. How stupid to have furniture that one’s not to make use of! Give me comfort but it appears that’s not to be bought for money.”
Six o’clock was now near at hand, and Mrs Turnbull entered the drawing-room in full dress. She certainly was a very handsome woman, and had every appearance of being fashionable; but it was her language which exposed her. She was like the peacock. As long as she was silent you could but admire the plumage, but her voice spoilt all. “Now, Mr Turnbull,” said she, “I wish to hexplain to you that there are certain himproprieties in your behaviour which I cannot put hup with, particularly that hof talking about when you were before the mast.”
“Well, my dear, is that anything to be ashamed of?”
“Yes, Mr Turnbull, that his—one halways sinks them ere particulars in fashionable society. To wirtuperate in company a’n’t pleasant, and Hi’ve thought of a plan which may hact as an himpediment to your vulgarity. Recollect, Mr T, whenhever I say that Hi’ve an ’eadache, it’s to be a sign for you to ’old your tongue; and, Mr T, hoblige me by wearing kid gloves all the evening.”
“What! at dinner time, my dear?”
“Yes, Mr T, at dinner time; your ’ands are not fit to be touched.”
“Well, I recollect when you thought otherwise.”
“When, Mr T? ’ave I not often told you so?”
“Yes, lately; but I referred to the time when one Poll Bacon of Wapping took my hand for better or for worse.”
“Really, Mr T, you quite shock me. My name was Mary, and the Bacons are a good old Hinglish name. You ’ave their harms quartered on the carriage in right o’ me. That’s something, I can tell you.”
“Something I had to pay for pretty smartly, at all events.”
“The payment, Mr T, was on account of granting harms to you, who never ’ad any.”
“And never wished for them. What do I care for such stuff?”
“And when you did choose, Mr Turnbull, you might have consulted me, instead of making yourself the laughing-stock of Sir George Naylor and all the ’eralds. Who but a madman would have chosen three harpoons saluims, and three barrels couchants, with a spouting whale for a crest? Just to point out to everybody what should hever be buried in hoblivion; and then your beastly motto—which I would have changed—‘Blubber for ever!’ Blubber indeed! henough to make hany one blubber for ever.”
“Well, the heralds told me they were just what I ought to have chosen, and very apposite, as they termed it.”
“They took your money and laughed at you. Two pair of griffins, a lion, half-a-dozen leopards, and a hand with a dagger, wouldn’t ’ave cost a farthing more. But what can you hexpect from an ’og?”
“But if I was cured, I should be what you were—Bacon.”
“I won’t demean myself, Mr Turnbull.”
“That’s right, my dear, don’t; there’s no curing you. Recollect the motto you chose in preference to mine.”
“Well, and a very proper one—‘Too much familiarity breeds contempt’—is it not so, Master Faithful?”
“Yes, madam, it was one of our copies at school.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, it was my hown hinvention.”
Rap, tap, rap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
“Mr and Mrs Peters, of Petercumb Hall,” announced the butler. Enter Mrs Peters first, a very diminutive lady, and followed by Mr Peters, six feet four inches without his shoes, deduct for stooping and curved shoulders seven inches. Mr Peters had retired from the Stock Exchange with a competence, bought a place, named it Petercumb Hall, and set up his carriage. Another knock, and Mr and Mrs Drummond were announced. Compliments exchanged, and a pastile lighted by Mrs Turnbull.
“Well, Drummond,” said Mr Turnbull, “what are coals worth now?”
“Mr Turnbull, I’ve got such an ’eadache.”
This was of course a matter of condolence from all present, and a stopper upon Mr Turnbull’s tongue.
Another sounding rap, and a pause. “Monsieur and Madame de Tagliabue coming up.” Enter Monsieur and Madame de Tagliabue. The former, a dapper little Frenchman, with a neat pair of legs, and stomach as round as a pea. Madame sailing in like an outward-bound East Indiaman, with studding sails below and aloft; so large in her dimensions, that her husband might be compared to the pilot-boat plying about her stern.
“Charmée de vous voir, Madame Tom-bulle. Vous vous portez bien; n’est-ce pas?”
“Ve,” replied Mrs Turnbull, who thus exhausted her knowledge of the French language while the Monsieur tried in vain, first on one side, and then on the other, to get from under the lee of his wife and make his bow. This was not accomplished until the lady had taken possession of a sofa, which she filled most comfortably.
Who these people were, and how they lived, I never could find out: they came in a fly from Brentford.
Another announcement. “My Lord Babbleton and Mr Smith coming up.”
“Mr T, pray go down and receive his lordship. (There are two wax candles for you to light on the hall table, and you must walk up with them before his lordship,” said the lady aside.)
“I’ll be hanged if I do,” replied Mr Turnbull; “let the servants light him.”
“O, Mr T, I’ve such an ’eadache?”
“So you may have,” replied Mr T, sitting down doggedly.
In the meantime Mr Smith entered, leading Lord Babbleton, a boy of twelve or thirteen years old, shy, awkward, red-haired, and ugly, to whom Mr Smith was tutor. Mrs T had found out Mr Smith, who was residing near Brentford with his charge, and made his acquaintance on purpose to have a lord on her visiting list, and, to her delight, the leader had not forgotten to bring his bear with him. Mrs Turnbull sprang to the door to receive them, making a prepared courtesy to the aristocratical cub, and then shaking him respectfully by the hand. “Won’t your lordship walk to the fire? Isn’t your lordship cold? I hope your lordship’s sty is better in your lordship’s eye. Allow me to introduce to your lordship’s notice Mr and Mrs Peters—Madame and Mounsheer Tagleebue—Mr and Mrs Drummond, the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Babbleton.” As for Mr Turnbull and myself, we were left out as unworthy of introduction. “We are ready for dinner, Mr Turnbull.”
“Snobbs, get dinner dressed up,” said Mr T to the butler.
“O, Mr T, I’ve such an ’eadache.”
This last headache was produced by Mr T forgetting himself, and calling the butler by his real name, which was Snobbs; but Mrs Turnbull had resolved that it should be changed to Mortimer—or rather, to Mr Mortimer, as the household were directed to call him, on pain of expulsion.
Dinner was announced. Madame Tagliabue, upon what pretence I know not, was considered the first lady in the room, and Lord Babbleton was requested by Mrs Turnbull to hand her down. Madame rose, took his lordship’s hand, and led him away. Before they were out of the room, his lordship had disappeared among the ample folds of Madame’s gown, and was seen no more until she pulled him out, on their arrival at the dinner-table. At last we were all arranged according to Mrs Turnbull’s wishes, although there were several chops and changes about, until the order of precedence could be correctly observed. A French cook had been sent for by Mrs Turnbull; and not being mistress of the language, she had a card with the names of the dishes to refresh her memory, Mr Mortimer having informed her that such was always the custom among great people, who, not ordering their own dinners, of course they could not tell what there was to eat.
“Mrs Turnbull, what soup have you there?”
“Consummy soup, my lord. Will your lordship make use of that or of this here, which is o’juss.”
His lordship stared, made no answer; looked foolish; and Mr Mortimer placed some soup before him.
“Lord Babbleton takes soup,” said Mr Smith, pompously; and the little right honourable supped soup, much to Mrs Turnbull’s satisfaction.
“Madame, do you soup? or do you fish?”
“Merci, no soup—poisson.”
“Don’t be afraid, madame; we’ve a French cook: you won’t be poisoned here,” replied Mrs Turnbull, rather annoyed.
“Comment, my chère madame, I meant to say dat I prefer de cod.”
“Mr T, some soup for Madame. John, a clean plate for Lord Babbleton. What will your lordship condescend to make use of now?” (Mrs Turnbull thought the phrase, make use, excessively refined and elegant.)
“Ah, madame, votre cuisine est superbe,” exclaimed Monsieur Tagliabue, tucking the corner of his napkin into his button-hole, and making preparations for well filling his little rotundity.
“Ve,” replied Mrs Turnbull. “Mrs Peters, will you try the dish next Mr Turnbull? What is it?” (looking at her card)—“Agno roty. Will you, my lord? If your lordship has not yet got into your French—it means roast quarter of lamb.”
“His lordship is very partial to lamb,” said Mr Smith, with emphasis.
“Mr Turnbull, some lamb for Lord Babbleton, and for Mr Peters.”
“Directly, my dear.—Well, Jacob, you see, when I was first mate—”
“Dear! Mr Turnbull—I’ve such an ’eadache. Do, pray, cut the lamb. (Aside.) Mr Mortimer, do go and whisper to Mr Turnbull that I beg he will put on his gloves.”
“Mrs Peters, you’re doing nothing. Mr Mortimer, ’and round the side dishes, and let John serve out the champagne.”
“Mrs Peters, there’s a wolley went o’ weaters. Will you make use of some? Mrs Drummond, will you try the dish coming round? It is—let me see—chew farsy. My Lord Babbleton, I ’ope the lamb’s to your liking? Monshere Tagliabue—William, give Monshere a clean plate. What will you take next?”
“Vraiment, madame, tout est excellent, superbe! Je voudrais embrasser votre cuisinier—c’est un artiste comme il n’y a pas?”
“Ve,” replied Mrs Turnbull.
The first course was removed; and the second, after some delay, made its appearance. In the interim, Mr Mortimer handed round one or two varieties of wine.
“Drummond, will you take a glass of wine with me?” said Mr Turnbull. “I hate your sour French wines. Will you take Madeira? I was on shore at Madeira once for a few hours, when I was before the mast, in the—”
“Mr Turnbull, I’ve such an ’eadache,” cried his lady, in an angry tone. “My lord, will you take some of this?—it is ding dong o’ turf—a turkey, my lord.”
“His lordship is fond of turkey,” said Mr Smith, dictatorially.
Monsieur Tagliabue, who sat on the other side of Mrs T, found that the turkey was in request—it was some time before he could help himself.
“C’est superbe?” said Monsieur, thrusting a truffle into his mouth. “Apparemment, madame, n’aime pas la cuisine Anglaise?”
“Ve,” replied Mrs Turnbull. “Madame, what will you be hassisted to?” continued Mrs T.
“Tout de bon, madame.”
“Ve; what are those by you, Mr Peters?” inquired the lady in continuation.
“I really cannot exactly say; but they are fritters of some sort.”
“Let me see—hoh! bidet du poms. Madame, will you eat some bidet du poms?”
“Comment, madame, je ne vous comprends pas—”
“Ve.”
“Monsieur Tagliabue, expliquez donc;” said the foreign lady, red as a quarter of beef.
“Permettez,” said Monsieur, looking at the card. “Ah, c’est impossible, ma chère,” continued he, laughing. “Madame Turnbull se trompait; elle voudrait dire Beignets de pommes.”
“Vous trouvez notre langue fort difficile, n’est-ce pas?” continued madame, who recovered her good humour, and smiled graciously at Mrs T.
“Ve,” replied Mrs Turnbull, who perceived that she had made some mistake, and was anxiously awaiting the issue of the dialogue. It had, however, the effect of checking Mrs T, who said little more during the dinner and dessert.
At last the ladies rose from the dessert, and left the gentlemen at the table; but we were not permitted to remain long before coffee was announced, and we went up stairs. A variety of French liqueurs were handed about, and praised by most of the company. Mr Turnbull, however, ordered a glass of brandy as a settler.
“Oh! Mr Turnbull, I’ve such an ’eadache!”
After that the party became very dull. Lord Babbleton fell asleep on the sofa. Mr Peters walked round the room, admiring the pictures, and asking the names of the masters.
“I really quite forget; but, Mr Drummond, you are a judge of paintings I hear. Who do you think this is painted by?” said the lady, pointing to a very inferior performance. “I am not quite sure; but I think it is Van—Van Daub.”
“I should think so too,” replied Mr Drummond, drily; “we have a great many pictures in England by the same hand.”
The French gentleman proposed écarté, but no one knew how to play it except his wife; who sat down with him to pass away the time. The ladies sauntered about the room, looking at the contents of the tables, Mrs Peters occasionally talking of Petercumb Hall; Mr Smith played at patience in one corner; while Mr Turnbull and Mr Drummond sat in another in close conversation; and the lady of the house divided her attentions, running from one to the other, and requesting them not to talk so loud as to awake the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Babbleton. At last the vehicles were announced, and the fashionable party broke up, much to the satisfaction of everybody, and to none more than myself.
I ought to observe that all the peculiar absurdities I have narrated did not strike me so much at the time; but it was an event to me to dine out, and the scene was well impressed upon my memory. After what occurred to me in my after life, and when I became better able to judge of fashionable pretensions, the whole was vividly brought back to my recollection.
I remained with Mr Drummond about eight months, when at last the new clerk made his appearance—a little fat fellow, about twenty, with a face as round as a full moon, thick lips, and red cheeks. During this time I frequently had the pleasure of meeting with old and young Tom, who appeared very anxious that I should rejoin them; and I must say that I was equally willing to return to the lighter. Still Mr Drummond put his veto on it, and Mrs Drummond was also constantly pointing out the very desirable situation I might have on shore as a clerk in the office; but I could not bear it—seated nearly the whole day—perched up on a high stool—turning over Debtors, contra Creditors, and only occasionally interrupted by the head clerk, with his attempt to make rhymes. The new clerk came, I expected my release, but I was disappointed. Mr Drummond discovered him to be so awkward, and the head clerk declared that the time was so busy, that he could not spare me. This was true; Mr Drummond had just come to a final arrangement, which had been some time pending, by which he purchased a wharf and large warehouses, with a house adjoining, in Lower Thames Street—a very large concern, for which he had paid a considerable sum of money. What with the valuations, winding up of the Brentford concern on the old account, etcetera, there was much to do, and I toiled at the desk until the removal took place; and when the family were removed, I was still detained, as there was no warehouseman to superintend the unloading and hoisting up of goods. Mr Tomkins, the head clerk, who had been many years a faithful servant to Mr Drummond, was admitted a partner, and had charge of the Brentford wharf, a species of promotion which he and his wife resolved to celebrate with a party. After a long debate, it was resolved that they should give a ball, and Mrs Tomkins exerted all her taste and ingenuity on the occasion. My friend Tomkins lived at a short distance from the premises, in a small house, surrounded with half an acre of garden, chiefly filled with gooseberry-bushes, and perambulated by means of four straight gravel walks. Mr and Mrs Drummond were invited, and accepted the invitation, which was considered by the Tomkinses as a great mark of condescension. As a specimen of Mr Tomkins’s poetical talents, I shall give his invitation to Mr Drummond, written in the very best German text:—
“Mr and Mrs T—
Sincerely hope to see
Mr and Mrs Drum-
Mond, to a very hum-
Ble party that they in-
Tend to ask their kin
To, on the Saturday
Of the week ensuing:
When fiddles they will play,
And other things be doing.”
Belle Vue House.
To which jeu d’esprit Mr Drummond answered with a pencil on a card—
“Mr and Mrs Drum-
Mond intend to come.”
“Here, give Tomkins that, Jacob; it will please him better than any formal acceptation.” Mr and Mrs Turnbull were also asked; the former accepted, but the latter indignantly refused.
When I arrived with Mr and Mrs Drummond many of the company were there; the garden was what they called illuminated, that is, every gooseberry-bush had one variegated lamp suspended above the centre; and, as Mr Tomkins told me afterwards, the lamps were red and yellow, according to the fruit they bore. It was a cold, frosty, clear night, and the lamps twinkled as brightly among the bare boughs of the gooseberry trees as the stars did in the heavens. The company in general were quite charmed with the novelty. “Quite a minor Wauxhall,” cried one lady, whose exuberance of fat kept her warm enough to allow her to stare about in the open air. The entrance porch had a dozen little lamps, backed with laurel twigs, and looked very imposing. Mrs Tomkins received her company upon the steps outside, that she might have the pleasure of hearing their praises of her external arrangements; still it was freezing, and she shivered not a little. The drawing-room, fourteen feet by ten, was fitted up as a ballroom, with two fiddlers and a fifer sitting in a corner and a country-dance was performing when we arrived. Over the mantle-piece was a square of laurel twigs, inclosing as a frame this couplet from the poetical brain of the master of the house, cut out in red paper, and bespangled with blue and yellow tinsel—
“Here we are to dance so gay,
While the fiddlers play away.”
Other appropriate distichs, which I have now forgotten, were framed in the same way on each of the other compartments. But the dining-room was the chef d’oeuvre. It was formed into a bower, with evergreens, and on the evergreen boughs were stuck real apples and oranges in all directions, so that you could help yourself.
“Vell, I do declare, this is a paradise!” exclaimed the fat lady who entered with me.
“In all but one thing, ma’am,” replied Mr Turnbull, who, with his coat off, was squeezing lemons for the punch—“there’s no forbidden fruit. You may help yourself.”
The bon-mot was repeated by Mr Tomkins to the end of his existence, not only for its own sake, but because it gave him an opportunity of entering into a detail of the whole fête—the first he had ever given in his life. “Ah, Jacob, my boy, glad to see you—come and help here—they’ll soon be thirsty, I’ll warrant,” said Mr Turnbull, who was in his glory. The company, although not so very select, were very happy; they danced, drank punch, laughed, and danced again; and it was not till a late hour, long after Mr and Mrs Drummond had gone home, that I quitted the “festive scene;” Mr Turnbull, who walked away with me, declaring that it was worth a dozen of his party, although they had not such grand people as Mrs Tagliabue, or the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Babbleton. I thought so too; every one was happy, and every one at their ease; and I do believe they would have stayed much longer, but the musicians took so much punch that one fiddler broke his fiddle, the other broke his head in going down the steps into the garden, and the fifer swore he could blow no longer; so, as there was an end to the music, clogs, pattens, and lanterns were called for, the shawls were brought out of the kitchen, and every one went away. Nothing could go off better. Mrs Tomkins had a cold and rheumatism the next day; but that was not surprising, a minor Wauxhall not being seasonable in the month of December.
A week after this party we removed to Thames Street, and I performed the duty of warehouseman. Our quantity of lighters was now much increased, and employed in carrying dry goods, etcetera. One morning old Tom came under the crane to discharge his lighter, and wishing to see me, when the fall had been overhauled down to heave up the casks with which the lighter was laden, instead of hooking on a cask, held on by his hands, crying, “Hoist away,” intending to be hoisting himself up to the door of the warehouse where I was presiding. Now, there was nothing unusual in this whim of old Tom’s, but still he ran a very narrow chance, in consequence of an extra whim of young Tom’s, who, as soon as his father was suspended in the air, caught hold of his two wooden stumps, to be hoisted up also; and as he caught hold of them, standing on tiptoe, they both swung clear of the lighter, which could not approach to within five feet of the buildings. The crane was on the third story of the warehouse, and very high up. “Tom, Tom, you rascal, what the devil are you about?” cried the old man, when he felt the weight of his son’s body hanging to him.
“Going up along with you, father—hope we shall go to heaven the same way.”
“More likely to go to the devil together, you little fool; I never can bear your weight. Hoist away, there, quick.”
Hearing the voices, I looked out of the door, and perceiving their situation, ordered the men to hoist as fast as they could, before old Tom’s strength should be exhausted; but it was a compound moving crane, and we could not hoist very fast, although we could hoist very great weights. At last, as they were wound up higher and higher, old Tom’s strength was going fast. “O Tom, Tom, what must be done? I can’t—I can’t hold on but a little longer, and we shall be both dashed to pieces. My poor boy?”
“Well, then, I’ll let go, father; it was all my folly, and I’ll be the sufferer.”
“Let go!” cried old Tom; “no, no, Tom—don’t let go, my boy; I’ll try a little longer. Don’t let go, my dear boy—don’t let go!”
“Well, father, how much longer can you hold on?”
“A little—very little longer,” replied the old man, struggling. “Well, hold fast now,” cried young Tom, who, raising his head above his arms, with great exertion shifted one of his hands to his father’s thigh, then the other; raising himself as before, he then caught at the seat of his father’s trousers with his teeth; old Tom groaned, for his son had taken hold of more than the garments; he then shifted his hands round his father’s body—from thence he gained the collar of his jacket—from the collar he climbed on his father’s shoulders, from thence he seized hold of the fall above, and relieved his father of the weight. “Now, father, are you all right?” cried Tom, panting as he clung to the fall above him.
“I can’t hold on ten seconds more, Tom—no longer—my clutch is going now.”
“Hang on by your eyelids, father, if you love me,” cried young Tom, in agony.
It was indeed an awful moment; they were now at least sixty feet above the lighter, suspended in the air; the men whirled round the wheel, and I had at last the pleasure of hauling them both in on the floor of the warehouse; the old man so exhausted that he could not speak for more than a minute. Young Tom, as soon as all was safe, laughed immoderately. Old Tom sat upright. “It might have been no laughing matter, Mr Tom,” said he, looking at his son.
“What’s done can’t be helped, father, as Jacob says. After all, you’re more frightened than hurt.”
“I don’t know that, you young scamp,” replied the old man, putting his hand behind him, and rubbing softly; “you’ve bit a piece clean out of my starn. Now, let this be a warning to you, Tom. Jacob, my boy, couldn’t you say that I’ve met with an accident, and get a drop of something from Mr Drummond?”
I thought, after his last observation, I might honestly say that he had met with an accident, and I soon returned with a glass of brandy, which old Tom was drinking off when his son interrupted him for a share.
“You know, father, I shared the danger.”
“Yes, Tom, I know you did,” replied the father; “but this was sent to me on account of my accident, and as I had that all to myself, I shall have all this too.”
“But, father, you ought to give me a drop, if it were only to take the taste out of my mouth.”
“Your own flesh and blood, Tom,” replied his father, emptying his glass.
“Well, I always heard it was quite unnatural not to like your own flesh and blood,” replied Tom; “but I see now that there may be reasons for it.”
“Be content, Tom,” replied his father, putting down the glass; “we’re now just square. You’ve had your raw nip, and I’ve had mine.”
Mr Drummond now came up, and asked what had been the matter. “Nothing, sir—only an accident. Tom and I had a bit of a hoist.”
As this last word had a double meaning, Mr Drummond thought that a cask had surged, when coming out of the lighter, and struck them down. He desired old Tom to be more careful, and walked away, while we proceeded to unload the lighter. The new clerk was a very heavy, simple young man, plodding and attentive certainly, but he had no other merit; he was sent into the lighter to rake the marks and numbers of the casks as they were hoisted up, and soon became a butt to young Tom, who gave him the wrong marks and numbers of all the casks, to his interrogations.
“What’s that, boy?” cried the pudding-faced fellow, with his pencil in one hand and his book in the other.
“Pea soup, 13,” replied Tom; “ladies’ bonnets, 24. Now, then, master, chalk again, pipe-clay for sodgers, 3; red herrings, 26.” All of which were carefully noted down by Mr Grubbins who, when the lighter was cleared, took the memoranda to Mr Drummond.
Fortunately, we had checked the number of the casks as they were received above—their contents were flour. Mr Drummond sent for young Tom, and asked him how he dared play such a trick. Tom replied very boldly, “that it was meant as a good lesson to the young man, that in future he did his own work, and did not trust to others.” To this Mr Drummond agreed, and Master Tom was dismissed without punishment.
As the men had all gone to dinner, I went down into the lighter to have a little chat with my old shipmates. “Well, Jacob,” said old Tom, “Tom’s not a bit wiser than he was before—two scrapes to-day, already.”
“Well, father, if I prove my folly by getting into scrapes, I prove my wit by getting out of them.”
“Yes, that may be true, Tom; but suppose we had both come down with a run, what would you have thought then?”
“I suspect, father, that I should have been past thinking.”
“I once did see a thing of that kind happen,” said old Tom, calling to mind former scenes in his life; “and I’ll tell you a yarn about it, boys, because they say danger makes friends.”
We sat down by old Tom, who narrated as follows “When I was captain of the main-top in the La Minerve, forty-four gun frigate, we were the smartest ship up the Mediterranean; and many’s the exercise we were the means of giving to other ship’s companies, because they could not beat us—no, not even hold a candle to us. In both fore and main-top we had eight-and-twenty as smart chaps as ever put their foot to a rattling, or slid down by an a’ter backstay. Now, the two captains of the foretop were both prime young men, active as monkeys, and bold as lions. One was named Tom Herbert, from North Shields, a dark, good-looking chap, with teeth as white as a nigger’s, and a merry chap he was, always a-showing them. The other was a cockney chap. Your Lunnuners arn’t often good seamen; but when they are seamen, there’s no better; they never allow any one to show them the way, that’s for sartin, being naturally spunky sort of chaps, and full of tricks and fun. This fellow’s name was Bill Wiggins, and between him and Herbert there was always a jealousy who should be the smartest man. I’ve seen both of them run out on the yard, in fine weather, without holding on nothing, seize the lift, and down to their station, haul up the earing, in no time; up by the lift again, and down on deck, by the backstay, before half the men had time to get clear of the top. In fact, they often risked their lives in bad weather, when there was no occasion for it, that one might outdo the other. Now, this was all very well, and a good example to the other men: the captain and officers appeared to like these contests for superiority, but it ended in their hating each other, and not being even on speaking terms, which, as the two captains of the top, was bad. They had quarrelled often, and fought five times, neither proving the better man; either both done up, or parted by the master-at-arms, and reported to the first lieutenant, so that at last they were not so much countenanced by the officers, and were out of favour with the captain, who threatened to disrate them both if ever they fought again. We were cruising off the Gulf of Lyons, where sometimes it blows hard enought to blew the devil’s horns off, though the gales never last very long. We were under close reefed fore- and main-top sails, storm stay-sail and trysail, when there was a fresh hand at the bellows, and the captain desired the officers of the watch, just before dinner to take in the fore-top sail. Not to disturb the watch below, the main-top men were ordered up forward to help the fore-top men of the watch; and I was of course aloft, ready to lie out on the lee yard-arm—when Wiggins, who had the watch below, came up in the top, not liking that Herbert should be at work in such weather without he being there too.
“‘Tom,’ says to me, ‘I’ll take the yard-arm.’
“‘Very well,’ say I, ‘with all my heart; then I’ll look to the bunt.’
“Just at that time there came on a squall with rain, which almost blinded us; the sail was taken in very neatly, the clew-lines, chock-a-block, bunt-lines and leech-lines well up, reef-tackles overhauled, rolling-tackles taut, and all as it should be. The men lied out on the yard, the squall wore worse and worse, but they were handing in the leech of the sail, when snap went one bunt-line, then the other; the sail flapped and flagged, till away went the leech-lines, and the men clung to the yards for their lives; for the sail mastered them, and they could do nothing. At last it split like thunder, buffeting the men on the yard-arms till they were almost senseless, until to windward it wore away into long coach whips, and the whole of the canvas left was at the lee yard-arm. The men laid in at last with great difficulty, quite worn out by fatigue and clinging for their existence; all but Wiggins, who was barred by the sail to leeward from making his footing good on the horse, and there he was, poor fellow, completely in irons, and so beaten by the canvas that he could hardly be said to be sensible. It takes a long while to tell all this, but it wasn’t the work of a minute. At last he made an attempt to get up by the lift, but was struck down, and would have been hurled overboard if it hadn’t been that his leg fell over the horse, and there he was, head downwards, hanging over a raging sea, ready to swallow him up as soon as he dropt into it. As every one expected he would be beat off before any assistance could be given, you may guess that it was an awful moment to those below who were looking up at him, watching for his fall and the roll of the ship, to see if he fell clear into the sea, or was dashed to pieces in the fore-chains.
“I couldn’t bear to see a fellow-creature, and good seaman in the bargain, in that state, and although the captain dare not order any one to help him, yet there were one or two midshipmen hastening up the fore-rigging, with the intent, I have no doubt, of trying to save him (for midshipmen don’t value their lives at a quid of tobacco), so I seizes the studding sail halyards, and runs up the topmast rigging, intending to go down by the lift, and pass a bowling knot round him before he fell, when who should I meet at the cross-trees but Tom Herbert, who snatched the rope out of my hand, bawling to me through the gale, ‘This is my business, Tom.’
“Down he goes by the lift, the remainder of the canvas flapped over him, and I seed no more until I heard a cry from all below, and away went Herbert and Wiggins, both together, flying to leeward just as the ship was taking her recovery to windward. Fortunately they both fell clear of the ship about two feet, not more, and as their fall was expected, they had prepared below. A master’s mate, of the name of Simmonds, and the captain of the forecastle, both went overboard in bowling knots, with another in their hands, and in a minute or two they were all four on board again; but Herbert and were both senseless, and a long while coming to again. Well, now, what do you think was the upshot of it? Why, they were the best friends in the world ever afterwards, and would have died for one another; and if one had a glass of grog from the officers for any little job, instead of touching his forelock and drinking it off to the officer’s health, he always took it out of the gun-room, that he might give half of it to the other. So, d’ye see my boys, as I said before I began my yarn, that danger makes friends.
“’Tis said we vent’rous die hard,
When we leave the shore,
Our friends may mourn, lest we return
To bless their sight no more.
But this is all a notion
Bold Jack can’t understand;
Some die upon the ocean.
And some die upon dry land.”
“And if we had tumbled, father, we should have just died betwixt and between, not water enough to float us. It would have been woolez wous parlez wous, plump in the mud, as you say sometimes.”
“Why, yes, Tom. I’ve a notion that I should have been planted too deep ever to have struck,” replied the old man, looking at his wooden stumps.
“Why, yes, father, legs are legs, when you tumble into six foot of mud. How you would have dibbled down, if your daddles hadn’t held on.”
“Well then, Tom, recollect that you never sell your father for a lark again.”
Tom laughed, and catching at the word, although used in a different sense, sung—
“Just like the lark high poised in air.
“And so were you, father, only you didn’t sing as he does, and you didn’t leave your young one below in the nest.”
“Ay, it is the young uns which prevent the old ones from rising in the world—that’s very true, Tom. Holla, who have we got here? My service to you, at all events.”
It was the captain of the American schooner, from out of which we were then taking the casks of flour.
“We’ve no sarvice in our country, I’ve a notion, my old bobtail roarer,” said he. “When do you come alongside of my schooner, for tother lading with this raft of yours? Not to-night, I guess.”
“Well, you’ve guessed right this time,” replied old Tom; “we shall lie on the mud till to-morrow morning, with your permission.”
“Yes, for all the world like a Louisiana alligator. You take things coolly, I’ve a notion, in the old country. I don’t want to be hanging head and starn in this little bit of a river of your’n. I must be back to New York afore fever time.”
“She be a pretty craft, that little thing of yours,” observed old Tom; “how long may she take to make the run?”
“How long? I expect in just no time; and she’d go as fast again, only she won’t wait for the breeze to come up with her.”
“Why don’t you heave-to for it?” said young Tom.
“Lose too much time, I guess. I have been chased by an easterly wind all the way from your Land’s End to our Narrows, and it never could overhaul me.”
“And I presume the porpoises give it up in despair, don’t they?” replied old Tom, with a leer; “and yet I’ve seen the creatures playing across the bows of an English frigate at her speed, and laughing at her.”
“They never play their tricks with me, old snapper; if they do, I cuts them in halves, and a-starn they go, head part floating on one side, and tail part on the other.”
“But don’t they join together again when they meet in your wake?” inquired Tom.
“Shouldn’t wonder,” replied the American captain.
“Pray, captain, what may be that vessel they talk so much about at New York?” Old Tom referred to the first steam vessel, whose qualities at that time had been tried, and an exaggerated report of which had been copied from the American papers. “That ship, or whatever she may be, that sails without masts, yards, or canvas; it is quite above my comprehension.”
“Old country heads can’t take it in. I’ll tell you what—she goes slick through the water, a-head or a-starn, broadside on, or up or down, or any way; and all you have to do is to poke the fire and warm your fingers; and the more you poke, the faster she goes ’gainst wind and tide.”
“Well, I must see that to believe it, though,” replied old Tom.
“No fear of a capsize, I calculate. My little craft did upset with me one night, in a pretty comfortable heavy gal; but she’s smart, and came up again on the other side in a moment, all right as before. Never should have known anything about it, if the man at the wheel had not found his jacket wet, and the men below had a round turn in all the clews of their hammocks.”
“After that round turn, you may belay,” cried young Tom, laughing.
“Yes, but don’t let’s have a stopper over all, Tom,” replied his father. “I consider all this excessively divarting. Pray, captain, does everything else go fast in the new country.”
“Everything with us clean slick, I guess.”
“What sort of horses have you in America?” inquired I.
“Our Kentucky horses, I’ve a notion, would surprise you. They’re almighty goers; at a trot, beat a North West gal of wind. I once took an Englishman with me in a gig up Allibama country, and he says, ‘What’s this great churchyard we are passing through?’ ‘And stranger,’ says I, ‘I calculate it’s nothing but the milestones we are passing so slick.’ But I once had a horse, who, I expect, was a deal quicker than that. I once seed a flash of lightning chase him for half-an-hour round the clearance, and I guess it couldn’t catch him. But I can’t wait no longer. I expect you’ll come alongside to-morrow afore meridian.”
“Ay, ay, master,” replied old Tom, tuning up—
“’Twas post meridian, half-past four,
By signal I from Nancy parted,
At five she lingered on the shore,
With uplift eyes and broken-hearted.”
“I calculate you are no fool of a screamer,” said the American, shoving off his boat from the barge, and pulling to his vessel.
“And I calculate you’re no fool of a liar,” said young Tom.
“Well, so he is; but I do like a good lie, Jacob, there’s some fun in it. But what the devil does the fellow mean by calling a gale of wind—a gal?”
“I don’t know,” replied Tom, “unless for the same reason that we call a girl a blowing.”
Our conversation was here interrupted by Mr Hodgson, the new head clerk, of whom I have hitherto said nothing. He came into the establishment in the place of Mr Tomkins, when we quitted the Battersea wharf, and had taken an evident dislike to me, which appeared to increase every day, as Mr Drummond gave me fresh marks of his approbation. “You, Faithful, come out of that barge directly, and go to your desk. I will have no eye-servers under me. Come out, sir, directly.”
“I say, Mr Quilldriver,” cried old Tom, “do you mean for to say that Jacob is an eye-sarver?”
“Yes, I do; and want none of your impertinence, or I’ll unship you, you old blackguard.”
“Well, then, for the first part of your story, my sarvice to you and you lies; and as for the second, that remains to be proved.”
Mr Hodgson’s temper was not softened by this reply of old Tom. My blood was also up, for I had borne much already; and young Tom was bursting with impatience to take my part. He walked carelessly by the head clerk, saying to me as he passed by, “Why, I thought, Jacob, you were ’prentice to the river; but it seems that you’re bound to the counting-house. How long do you mean to sarve?”
“I don’t know,” replied I, as I walked away sulkily; “but I wish I was out of my time.”
“Very well, sir, I shall report your behaviour to Mr Drummond. I’ll make him know your tricks.”
“Tricks! you won’t let him know his tricks. His duty is to take his trick at the wheel,” replied old Tom; “not to be brought up at your cheating tricks at the desk.”
“Cheating tricks, you old scoundrel, what do you mean by that?” replied Mr Hodgson, in a rage.
“My father means ledgerdemain, I suppose,” replied young Tom.
This repartee from a quarter so little expected sent off the head clerk more wroth than ever.
“You seemed to hit him hard there, Tom,” said his father; “but I can’t say that I understand how.”
“You’ve had me taught to read and write, father,” replied young Tom; “and a’ter that, a lad may teach himself everything. I pick up every day, here and there; and I never see a thing or a word that I don’t understand but I find out the meaning when I can. I picked up that hard word at Bartlemy fair.”
“And very hard you hit him with it.”
“Who wouldn’t to serve a friend? But mark my words, father, this won’t last long. There’s a squall blowing up, and Jacob, quiet as he seems to be, will show his teeth ere long.”
Tom was correct in his surmise. I had not taken my seat at my desk more than a minute, when Mr Hodgson entered, and commenced a tirade of abuse, which my pride could no longer allow me to submit to. An invoice, perfectly correct and well-written, which I had nearly completed, he snatched from before me, tore into fragments, and ordered me to write it over again. Indignant at this treatment, I refused, and throwing down my pen, looked at him determinedly in the face. Irritated at this defiance, he caught up a directory, and threw it at my head. No longer able to command myself, I seized a ruler and returned the salute. It was whizzing through the air as Mr Drummond entered the room; and he was just in time to witness Mr Hodgson struck on the forehead and felled to the ground, while I remained with my arm raised, standing upon the cross-bar of my high stool, my face glowing with passion.
Appearances were certainly against me. Assistance was summoned, and the head clerk removed to his chamber, during all which time I remained seated on my stool before the desk, my breast heaving with tumultuous feelings. How long I remained there I cannot say, it might have been two hours; feelings long dormant had been aroused, and whirled round and round in a continual cycle in my feverish brains. I should have remained probably much longer in this state of absorption, had I not been summoned to attend Mr Drummond. It appeared that in the meantime Mr Hodgson had come to his own senses, and had given his own version of the fracas, which had been, to an unjustifiable degree, corroborated by the stupid young clerk, who was no friend of mine, and who sought favour with his principal. I walked up to the drawing-room, where I found Mr and Mrs Drummond, and little Sarah, whose eyes were red with crying. I entered without any feeling of alarm, my breast was too full of indignation. Mrs Drummond looked grave and mournful, Mr Drummond severe.
“Jacob Faithful, I have sent for you to tell you that in consequence of your disgraceful conduct to my senior clerk, you can no longer remain under my roof. It appears that what I have been a witness to this day has been but a sequel to behaviour equally improper and impertinent; that so far from having, as I thought, done your duty, you have constantly neglected it; and that the association you have formed with that drunken old man and his insolent son has led you into this folly. You may say that it was not your wish to remain on shore, and that you preferred being on the river. At your age it is too often the case that young people consult their wishes rather than their interests; and it is well for them if they find those who are older, and wished them well, to decide for them. I had hoped to have been able to place you in a more respectable situation in society than was my original intention when you were thrown upon me, a destitute orphan; but I now perceive my error. You have proved yourself not only deceitful but ungrateful.”
“I have not,” interrupted I, calmly.
“You have. I have been a witness myself to your impropriety of conduct, which, it appears, has long been concealed from me; but no more of that. I bound you apprentice to the river, and you must now follow up your apprenticeship; but expect nothing farther from me. You must now work your own way up in the world, and I trust that you will reform and do well. You may return to the lighter until I can procure you a situation in another craft, for I consider it my duty to remove you from the influence of those who have led you astray, and with the old man and his son you will not remain. I have one thing more to say. You have been in my counting-house for some months, and you are now about to be thrown upon the world. There are ten pounds for your services,” (and Mr Drummond laid the money on the table). “You may also recollect that I have some money belonging to you, which has been laid by until you shall be out of your apprenticeship. I consider it my duty still to retain that money for you; as soon as your apprenticeship is expired you may demand it, and it shall be made over to you. I trust, sincerely trust, Jacob, that the severe lesson you are now about to receive will bring you to a sense of what is right, and that you will forget the evil counsel you have received from your late companions. Do not attempt to justify yourself; it is useless.” Mr Drummond then rose and left the room.
I should have replied, had it not been for this last sentence of Mr Drummond’s, which again roused the feeling of indignation, which, in their presence, had been gradually giving way to softer emotions. I therefore stood still, and firmly met the glance of Mr Drummond as he passed me. My looks were construed into hardness of heart.
It appeared that Mr Drummond had left the room by previous arrangement, that he might not be supposed to be moved from this purpose, and that Mrs Drummond was then to have talked to me, and to have ascertained how far there was a chance of my pleading guilty, and begging for a mitigation of my sentence; but the firm composure of innocence was mistaken for defiance; and the blood mounting to my forehead from a feeling of injustice—of injustice from those I loved and venerated—perhaps the most poignant feeling in existence to a sensitive and generous mind—was falsely estimated as proceeding from impetuous and disgraceful sources. Mrs Drummond looked upon me with a mournful face, sighed, and said nothing; little Sarah watching me with her large black eyes, as if she would read my inmost soul.
“Have you nothing to say, Jacob,” at last observed Mrs Drummond, “that I can tell Mr Drummond when his anger is not so great?”
“Nothing, madam,” replied I, “except that I’ll try to forgive him.”
This reply was offensive even to the mild Mrs Drummond. She rose from her chair. “Come, Sarah,” said she: and she walked out of the room, wishing me, in a kind, soft voice, a “good-bye, Jacob,” as she passed me.
My eyes swam with tears. I tried to return the salutation, but I was too much choked by my feelings; I could not speak, and my silence was again looked upon as contumacy and ingratitude. Little Sarah still remained—she had not obeyed her mother’s injunctions to follow her. She was now nearly fourteen years old, and I had known her as a companion and a friend for five years. During the last six months that I had resided in the house we had become more intimately acquainted. I joined her in the evening in all her pursuits, and Mr and Mrs Drummond appeared to take a pleasure in our intimacy. I loved her as a dear sister; my love was based on gratitude. I had never forgotten her kindness to me when I first came under her father’s roof, and a long acquaintance with the sweetness of her disposition had rendered the attachment so firm, that I felt I could have died for her. But I never knew the full extent of the feeling until now that I was about to leave her, perhaps for ever. My heart sank when Mr Drummond left the room—a bitter pang passed through it as the form of Mrs Drummond vanished from my sight; but now was to be the bitterest of all. I felt it, and I remained with the handle of the door in my hand, gasping for breath—blinded with the tears that coursed each other rapidly down my cheeks. I remained a minute in this state, when I felt that Sarah touched my other listless hand.
“Jacob!” she would have said, but before half my name was out she burst into tears, and sobbed on my shoulder. My heart was too much surcharged not to take the infection—my grief found vent, and I mingled my sobs with those of the affectionate girl. When we were more composed, I recounted to her all that had passed, and one, at least, in the world acknowledged that I had been treated unjustly. I had but just finished, when the servant interrupted us with a message to Sarah, that her mother desired her presence. She threw herself into my arms, and bade me farewell. I released her, she hastened to obey her mother, but perceiving the money still upon the table, she pointed to it. “Your money, Jacob!”
“No Sarah, I will not accept it. I would accept of anything from those who treat me kindly, and feel more and more grateful to them; but that I will not accept—I cannot, and you must not let it be left here. Say that I could not take it.”
Sarah would have remonstrated, but perceiving that I was firm, and at the same time, perhaps, entering into my feelings, she again bade me farewell, and hastened away.
The reader may easy imagine that I did not put off my departure. I hastened to pack up my clothes, and in less than ten minutes after Sarah had quitted me, I was on board the lighter, with old Tom and his son, who were then going to supper. They knew a part of what had happened, and I narrated the rest.
“Well,” replied old Tom, after I had finished my story, “I didn’t know that I have done you any harm, Jacob, and I’m sorry that Mr Drummond should suppose so. I’m fond of a drop, that’s true; but I appeals to you, whether I ever force it on you—and whether I don’t check that boy as much as I can; but then, d’ye see, although I preach, I don’t practise, that’s the worst of it; and I know I’ve to answer for making Tom so fond of grog; and though I never says anything about it, I often think to myself, that if Tom should chance to be pressed some of these days, and be punished for being in liquor, he’ll think of his old father, and curse him in his heart, when he eyes the cat flourishing round before it strikes.”
“I’ll curse the cat, father, or the boatswain’s mate, or the officer who complained of me, or the captain who flogs me, or my own folly, but I’ll be hanged if ever I curse you, who have been so kind to me,” replied Tom, taking his father’s hand.
“Well, we must hope for the best, my dear boy,” replied old Tom; “but, Jacob, you’ve not had fair play, that sartain. It’s very true that master did take you as an orphan, and help you to an education; but that’s no reason why he should take away your free will, and after binding you ’prentice to the river, perch you up on a high stool, and grind your nose down to the desk. If so be he was so kind to you only to make you a slave, why, then, there was no kindness at all, in my opinion: and as for punishment without hearing what a man has to say in his own defence—there’s ne’er a Tartar in the sarvice but would allow a man to speak before he orders him to strip. I recollect a story about that in the sarvice, but I’m in no humour to spin a yarn now. Now, you see, Jacob, Master Drummond has done a great deal for you, and now he has undone a great deal! I can’t pretend to balance the account, but it does appear to me that you don’t owe him much; for what thanks is there if you take a vessel in tow, and then cast her off, half-way, when she most needs your assistance? But what hurts me most is his saying that you sha’n’t stay in the lighter with us; if you had, you shouldn’t have wanted, as long as pay and pension are forthcoming. Never mind—Tom, my boy, bring out the bottle—hang care: it killed the cat.”
The grog did not, however, bring back old Tom’s spirits; the evening passed heavily, and we retired to our beds at a seasonable hour, as we were to drop down to the schooner early the next morning. That night I did not close my eyes. I ran over, in my mind, all that had occurred, and indignation took full possession of my soul. My whole life passed in review before me. I travelled back to my former days—to the time which had been almost obliterated from my memory, when I had navigated the barge with my father. Again was the scene of his and my mother’s death presented to my view; again I saw him disappear, and the column of black smoke ascend to the sky. The Dominie, the matron, Marables, and Fleming, the scene in the cabin—all passed in rapid succession. I felt that I had done my duty, and that I had been unjustly treated; my head ached with tumultuous and long suppressed feelings. Reader, I stated that when I was first taken in hand by Mr Drummond I was a savage, although a docile one, to be reclaimed by kindness, and kindness only. You may have been surprised at the rapid change which took place in a few years; that change was produced by kindness. The conduct of Mr Drummond, of his amiable wife and daughter, had been all kindness; the Dominie and the worthy old matron had proved equally beneficent. Marables had been kind; and, although now and then, as in the case of the usher at the school, and Fleming on board the lighter, I had received injuries, still, these were but trifling checks to the uninterrupted series of kindness with which I had been treated by everybody. Thus was my nature rapidly formed by a system of kindness assisted by education; and had this been followed up, in a few years my new character would have been firmly established. But the blow was now struck, injustice roused up the latent feelings of my nature, and when I rose the next morning I was changed. I do not mean to say that all that precept and education had done for me was overthrown; but if not overthrown, it was so shaken to the base, so rent from the summit to the foundation, that, at the slightest impulse in a wrong direction, it would have fallen in and left nothing but a mixed chaos of ruined prospects. If anything could hold it together it was the kindness and affection of Sarah, to which I would again and again return in my revolving thoughts, as the only bright star to be discovered in my clouded horizon.
How dangerous, how foolish, how presumptuous it is in adults to suppose that they can read the thoughts and the feelings of those of a tender age! How often has this presumption on their part been the ruin of a young mind, which, if truly estimated and duly fostered, would have blossomed and produced good fruit! The blush of honest indignation is as dark as the blush of guilt, and the paleness of concentrated courage as marked as that of fear, the firmness of conscious innocence is but too often mistaken as the effrontery of hardened vice, and the tears springing from a source of injury, the tongue tied from the oppression of a wounded heart, the trembling and agitation of the little frame convulsed with emotion have often and often been ascribed by prejudging and self-opinionated witnesses to the very opposite passions to those which have produced them. Youth should never be judged harshly, and even when judged correctly, should it be in an evil course, may always be reclaimed;—those who decide otherwise, and leave it to drift about the world, have to answer for the cast-away.