Chapter Twenty Four.

Chapter Twenty Four.Cast Ashore.But a few hours before I had been lying in a nook amidst the huge rocks, high above the sands, gazing down at the sea, which curled over with a long ripple upon the yellow sands. The sun poured down with all his rich mellow autumn glory, and far as eye could reach the bosom of the sea was one shimmering surface of glittering silver—here tinged with the palest of greens, there passing into a lovely blue, while almost motionless, ship after ship, with every stitch of sail spread in a perfect cloud of canvas, added to the beauty of the scene.Where I lay, sheltered by a large overhanging rock, a tiny stream slowly trickled out of a cavern whose mouth was beautifully fringed by many varieties of fern, while other growths, nurtured by the cool freshness of the never-failing water, added their velvety beauty to the favoured spot.But now how different! I stood in an opening in the rocks where the village was built, and the great jetty ran down into the sea. The wind tore by me so that I could hardly stand against its fury, while down by the pier and the rocks, the waves came tumbling in ten or twelve feet high, curling over and over, as if to scoop out the shore; and wherever they encountered rock or pier there seemed a momentary halt, as if they gathered strength, when with a mighty leap up flew tons of water in a fountain of foam, which was again swept against the face of the long line of rocks behind the sand, or dashed over them and carried in a storm of spray inland.The noise was deafening, for the shingle and huge stones were being churned over and over, and, as it were, pounded by the waves, while wherever there was a cavern the water rushed in with a bellowing roar that was at times deepened into thunder, while the concussion and force of the hissing water seemed enough to rend the rocks asunder, and plough up the earth beyond, till the current forced its way through, to tear on as a devastating river, and drown all that came in its path.“What?” I shouted to a fisherman whose lips I had seen move, while his words were swept away.“Three ships ashore,” he shouted back, in the sing-song tone peculiar to the men of Cornwall, who draw their harvest from the sea,—the sturdy, sober, honest fellows, who seem gentlemen in comparison with the general run of fishermen at our ports and fishing stations,—men whom I had sat upon the rocks to listen to night after night, when a knot would get together and sing in capital tune and time—and with every part in the harmony carefully preserved—some melodious air, which, floating out to sea, sounded sweet beyond conception, and made me think what little need there was for people to go abroad to find scenery and national peculiarity. But it always was a failing among us to be be far-sighted that the beauties of home were overlooked.“Three ships ashore,” he shouted, pointing in three different directions; but I had already made them out, and now we went down as close to the pier as the waves would permit, for but some fifty yards from the end lay a small schooner with the waves washing over her—one by one the men who had clung to her rigging and sides being beaten off, washed towards the shore, and then drawn back by the under-tow again and again.Every minute the pier would be left clear out of the water, which poured off its sides, and in one of these intervals a sailor was seen swimming strongly close alongside, riding up and down the huge billows, but fighting hardly for his life.All at once I saw a man seize a life-buoy, one of those large yellow cork rings; and as the last wave left the stone pier free from water right to where the lighthouse rose, he dashed along it, running swiftly towards where the swimmer was striving to reach the shore.In a few moments he was beside him, and threw the buoy so that the poor fellow reached it, when the men around me began to shout to the gallant fellow to return. But every shout seemed beaten back instantly; and amidst a violent commotion—men running and seizing ropes, women shrieking and clutching one another—I saw a large wave come tearing in, rise like a huge beast at a leap, and curl right over the pier, sweeping it from end to end, and deluging it with many feet of water. This was succeeded by another and another, and then once more the water was streaming off the stones, and one could see the fisherman who ran to his brother man’s rescue struggling for his own life on the other side of the pier, against which he was at length violently dashed. But there were kinsmen and friends at hand in plenty, and one with a rope round him ran down the pier, plunged in, swam to the poor fellow, clutched him, and then they were drawn ashore together insensible, but locked in a tight embrace.All this time the sailor who clung to the buoy seemed wild and confused, and ignorant of its purpose, for, all at once a groan rose from the crowd assembled, when loosing his hold, the drowning man threw up his arms and disappeared in the boiling surge.In rushed the waves again and again, while more than once the yellow life-buoy could be seen; but as the waves receded they dragged it back, and now every eye was directed to the little schooner, which seemed to lift with the waves, and then tremble in every beam as it was dashed down again, till the masts went over the side.About a hundred yards lower down I could see a crowd of people assembled facing a large brig which had struck amongst the rocks, and whose crew seemed doomed to meet with a watery grave.But preparations were being made to afford succour here, for as I reached the crowd I found them busy with the rocket apparatus. There were the rocket and the long line carefully laid in and out, round peg after peg, in its case, so that it might run forth swiftly and easily; and just then the stand was directed right, the rocket aimed, the fire applied, and after a loud rushing sound, off darted the fiery messenger on its errand of mercy, forming an arc in the air and falling upon the other side of the doomed ship, which lay about sixty yards from the shore.An exultant chorus followed this successful attempt to connect the vessel with the shore by means of a cord, for the rocket line ran easily and perfectly out, and the cable at hand being now attached, the sailors on board began to haul, when, like a snake, the great rope slowly ran down the beach, plunged into the boiling surf, and still kept on uncoiling and running down till those on the cliff signalled down that the end was hauled on board and made it fast to the mast.And now so far successful, the cable and a line being on board, the cable hauled tight by those on shore, and secured to a capstan used for hauling up fishing-boats, the rest of the arrangements were concluded, and those on board drew the tarpauling and rope seat which run by a ring along the cable, and into which a person coming ashore slipped his legs, and then swung beneath the tightened rope as the apparatus was hauled by those on shore, and the shipwrecked one rode over the boiling waves, and was perhaps only once immersed where the rope bellied down in the middle.All seemed ready, the men by me began to haul, and it was then seen that a woman was swinging beneath the rope, which rose and fell with the weight upon it, till for a few seconds the poor creature disappeared from sight in the tossing waves. But the men worked well, and the next minute, with a loud hurrah, she was ashore, and a dozen hands ready to free the drenched sufferer, when the joy was turned into sorrow, for it was seen that in the hurry of passing the poor woman over the ship’s side the rope had become entangled round her neck, and she had been strangled just in those brief minutes when there was life and safety before her.But there were other lives to save, and as the body of the fair, delicate woman was borne with tender, loving hands up the sands, through the opening, and then to the large inn, the sling was drawn back by the crew of the ship, and another tried the perilous passage.How the angry waves leaped up, and darted again and again, as if to tear the men being rescued from the rope of safety, and how those ashore cheered again and again as each poor drenched and dripping wretch, half choked with the brine, was hauled ashore, and then stood trembling and tottering, sometimes not even able to stand from being so exhausted! Some shouted for joy, some burst into fits of crying, others stood stolidly gazing at their saviours, while one or two went down on their knees devoutly to offer thanks for the life saved.To five-and-twenty souls did that thin line, shot over the wreck by means of a rocket, carry life and hope, and heartily their fellow-men worked to save them from the sea that fought hard to take them for its prey; and when, at last, nearly every man had come ashore upon the frail bridge of hemp, the waves seemed to tear at the wreck with redoubled fury, piling mountains of foaming water upon it, leaping upon the deck, or lifting the hull to dash it again upon the cruel rocks that were gnawing their way through the bottom.“Only the captain left now,” said the last poor fellow who came ashore, and then he staggered and fell—quite insensible from the revulsion of feeling. And on hearing these words the men set the slings free, but they were dragged back only slowly, and as if the poor captain was about exhausted. Every now and then we could make him out clinging to the rigging where the end of the cable had been secured, but all at once a regular mountain of a wave came coursing in faster and faster, leaped up, seemed hanging in mid-air for a few moments, and then poured down with resistless fury upon the doomed vessel. There was a wild confused cry from those on shore, which was heard above the howling of the storm; men and women clasped their hands and ran hither and thither, as if agonised at their helplessness to render aid, and then, as I looked out seaward, I could only see the clean-swept deck at intervals, for the rigging was gone, while the cable, that bridge of safety to so many, now hung slack in the water.“Haul!” shouted the man who managed the rocket apparatus—one of the old Coast Guardsmen,—and a score of willing hands crowded down to get a clutch at the cable, when at a given signal they started inshore to run it up, but checked directly, for they found that there was a large tangle of wreck attached, which came up slowly, with the huge waves tearing at it as though to drag it back; but as more and more of the dripping cable appeared from the water more willing hands seized upon it, so that at last it came faster and faster, and part of a mast, with a confusion of blocks, ropes, and shrouds, appeared at the edge of the sands where the water boiled so furiously, and the next minute was high upon the sands.I hurried down to be one of the knot of people who crowded round, when my heart sank, for it was as I feared: the captain, a fine, calm, stern-browed man, lay there amongst the cordage, one leg in the slings, as if about to venture, when that cruel wave poured ruin on the deck of the ship, and tore away his last chance for life.Twisted, tangled, and confused, the ropes lay together, and it was only by means of a free use of their clasp-knives that the beachmen and sailors set the poor fellow free.Slowly and sadly we stood round, looking down upon the pale features of the brave man who had clung to his ship till the last of his crew was ashore; but there was no weeping and wailing wife to cast herself upon the cold, drenched form, and sweep the hair from his broad forehead; so slowly, and with the crowd following in silence, we bore the corpse to the inn, to lay it side by side with that of the wife he had tried to save.A young, noble-looking pair, with faces calm and pale, seeming but to sleep as they lay there hushed in death—in that great mystery, for the sea had conquered.“Sixty years have I lived down here, man and boy,” said a fisherman, in his pleasant sing-song tone, “and if I were to try and count up the lives of men as the great sea has taken, I could hardly believe it. I’ve seen the sea-shore strewn with wreck, and I’ve known the waves cast up the dead day after day for weeks after a storm; some calm and pale-faced, some beaten, torn, and not to be looked upon without a shudder. Seems, sir, as if the sea kept ’em as long as it could, and then cast them up and busily tried to hide ’em, throwing up sand and shells—sand and shells, so that I’ve found them, sometimes half-hidden, and the water lapping melancholy-like around. Now it’s some poor fisherman—now a sailor, or a gentleman been a-yachting, or a foreigner from some fine vessel. Every year hundreds taken, and every dead body with such a tale of sorrow, and misery, and wretchedness attached as would make your heart ache could you but read it. Ah, the sea is a great thing, and I as live by it knows it well. To-day you see it quiet and still—to-morrow it’s tearing at the shore with fury, and it’s only God who can still its rage.”But still, year after year, in their calm dependence upon His great arm, our fishers and sailors put forth to tempt the perils of the vast deep for their livelihood. Right and left of them others are taken; but still the busy toilers thrust forth from the shore and make their voyage easily, or in an agony of fear are overtaken by the storm, and at length, “being exceedingly tossed with the tempest... lighten the ship.” And, again, when run ashore, cling terror-stricken to the vessel and its rigging, till beaten off before succour arrives when they are cast ashore.

But a few hours before I had been lying in a nook amidst the huge rocks, high above the sands, gazing down at the sea, which curled over with a long ripple upon the yellow sands. The sun poured down with all his rich mellow autumn glory, and far as eye could reach the bosom of the sea was one shimmering surface of glittering silver—here tinged with the palest of greens, there passing into a lovely blue, while almost motionless, ship after ship, with every stitch of sail spread in a perfect cloud of canvas, added to the beauty of the scene.

Where I lay, sheltered by a large overhanging rock, a tiny stream slowly trickled out of a cavern whose mouth was beautifully fringed by many varieties of fern, while other growths, nurtured by the cool freshness of the never-failing water, added their velvety beauty to the favoured spot.

But now how different! I stood in an opening in the rocks where the village was built, and the great jetty ran down into the sea. The wind tore by me so that I could hardly stand against its fury, while down by the pier and the rocks, the waves came tumbling in ten or twelve feet high, curling over and over, as if to scoop out the shore; and wherever they encountered rock or pier there seemed a momentary halt, as if they gathered strength, when with a mighty leap up flew tons of water in a fountain of foam, which was again swept against the face of the long line of rocks behind the sand, or dashed over them and carried in a storm of spray inland.

The noise was deafening, for the shingle and huge stones were being churned over and over, and, as it were, pounded by the waves, while wherever there was a cavern the water rushed in with a bellowing roar that was at times deepened into thunder, while the concussion and force of the hissing water seemed enough to rend the rocks asunder, and plough up the earth beyond, till the current forced its way through, to tear on as a devastating river, and drown all that came in its path.

“What?” I shouted to a fisherman whose lips I had seen move, while his words were swept away.

“Three ships ashore,” he shouted back, in the sing-song tone peculiar to the men of Cornwall, who draw their harvest from the sea,—the sturdy, sober, honest fellows, who seem gentlemen in comparison with the general run of fishermen at our ports and fishing stations,—men whom I had sat upon the rocks to listen to night after night, when a knot would get together and sing in capital tune and time—and with every part in the harmony carefully preserved—some melodious air, which, floating out to sea, sounded sweet beyond conception, and made me think what little need there was for people to go abroad to find scenery and national peculiarity. But it always was a failing among us to be be far-sighted that the beauties of home were overlooked.

“Three ships ashore,” he shouted, pointing in three different directions; but I had already made them out, and now we went down as close to the pier as the waves would permit, for but some fifty yards from the end lay a small schooner with the waves washing over her—one by one the men who had clung to her rigging and sides being beaten off, washed towards the shore, and then drawn back by the under-tow again and again.

Every minute the pier would be left clear out of the water, which poured off its sides, and in one of these intervals a sailor was seen swimming strongly close alongside, riding up and down the huge billows, but fighting hardly for his life.

All at once I saw a man seize a life-buoy, one of those large yellow cork rings; and as the last wave left the stone pier free from water right to where the lighthouse rose, he dashed along it, running swiftly towards where the swimmer was striving to reach the shore.

In a few moments he was beside him, and threw the buoy so that the poor fellow reached it, when the men around me began to shout to the gallant fellow to return. But every shout seemed beaten back instantly; and amidst a violent commotion—men running and seizing ropes, women shrieking and clutching one another—I saw a large wave come tearing in, rise like a huge beast at a leap, and curl right over the pier, sweeping it from end to end, and deluging it with many feet of water. This was succeeded by another and another, and then once more the water was streaming off the stones, and one could see the fisherman who ran to his brother man’s rescue struggling for his own life on the other side of the pier, against which he was at length violently dashed. But there were kinsmen and friends at hand in plenty, and one with a rope round him ran down the pier, plunged in, swam to the poor fellow, clutched him, and then they were drawn ashore together insensible, but locked in a tight embrace.

All this time the sailor who clung to the buoy seemed wild and confused, and ignorant of its purpose, for, all at once a groan rose from the crowd assembled, when loosing his hold, the drowning man threw up his arms and disappeared in the boiling surge.

In rushed the waves again and again, while more than once the yellow life-buoy could be seen; but as the waves receded they dragged it back, and now every eye was directed to the little schooner, which seemed to lift with the waves, and then tremble in every beam as it was dashed down again, till the masts went over the side.

About a hundred yards lower down I could see a crowd of people assembled facing a large brig which had struck amongst the rocks, and whose crew seemed doomed to meet with a watery grave.

But preparations were being made to afford succour here, for as I reached the crowd I found them busy with the rocket apparatus. There were the rocket and the long line carefully laid in and out, round peg after peg, in its case, so that it might run forth swiftly and easily; and just then the stand was directed right, the rocket aimed, the fire applied, and after a loud rushing sound, off darted the fiery messenger on its errand of mercy, forming an arc in the air and falling upon the other side of the doomed ship, which lay about sixty yards from the shore.

An exultant chorus followed this successful attempt to connect the vessel with the shore by means of a cord, for the rocket line ran easily and perfectly out, and the cable at hand being now attached, the sailors on board began to haul, when, like a snake, the great rope slowly ran down the beach, plunged into the boiling surf, and still kept on uncoiling and running down till those on the cliff signalled down that the end was hauled on board and made it fast to the mast.

And now so far successful, the cable and a line being on board, the cable hauled tight by those on shore, and secured to a capstan used for hauling up fishing-boats, the rest of the arrangements were concluded, and those on board drew the tarpauling and rope seat which run by a ring along the cable, and into which a person coming ashore slipped his legs, and then swung beneath the tightened rope as the apparatus was hauled by those on shore, and the shipwrecked one rode over the boiling waves, and was perhaps only once immersed where the rope bellied down in the middle.

All seemed ready, the men by me began to haul, and it was then seen that a woman was swinging beneath the rope, which rose and fell with the weight upon it, till for a few seconds the poor creature disappeared from sight in the tossing waves. But the men worked well, and the next minute, with a loud hurrah, she was ashore, and a dozen hands ready to free the drenched sufferer, when the joy was turned into sorrow, for it was seen that in the hurry of passing the poor woman over the ship’s side the rope had become entangled round her neck, and she had been strangled just in those brief minutes when there was life and safety before her.

But there were other lives to save, and as the body of the fair, delicate woman was borne with tender, loving hands up the sands, through the opening, and then to the large inn, the sling was drawn back by the crew of the ship, and another tried the perilous passage.

How the angry waves leaped up, and darted again and again, as if to tear the men being rescued from the rope of safety, and how those ashore cheered again and again as each poor drenched and dripping wretch, half choked with the brine, was hauled ashore, and then stood trembling and tottering, sometimes not even able to stand from being so exhausted! Some shouted for joy, some burst into fits of crying, others stood stolidly gazing at their saviours, while one or two went down on their knees devoutly to offer thanks for the life saved.

To five-and-twenty souls did that thin line, shot over the wreck by means of a rocket, carry life and hope, and heartily their fellow-men worked to save them from the sea that fought hard to take them for its prey; and when, at last, nearly every man had come ashore upon the frail bridge of hemp, the waves seemed to tear at the wreck with redoubled fury, piling mountains of foaming water upon it, leaping upon the deck, or lifting the hull to dash it again upon the cruel rocks that were gnawing their way through the bottom.

“Only the captain left now,” said the last poor fellow who came ashore, and then he staggered and fell—quite insensible from the revulsion of feeling. And on hearing these words the men set the slings free, but they were dragged back only slowly, and as if the poor captain was about exhausted. Every now and then we could make him out clinging to the rigging where the end of the cable had been secured, but all at once a regular mountain of a wave came coursing in faster and faster, leaped up, seemed hanging in mid-air for a few moments, and then poured down with resistless fury upon the doomed vessel. There was a wild confused cry from those on shore, which was heard above the howling of the storm; men and women clasped their hands and ran hither and thither, as if agonised at their helplessness to render aid, and then, as I looked out seaward, I could only see the clean-swept deck at intervals, for the rigging was gone, while the cable, that bridge of safety to so many, now hung slack in the water.

“Haul!” shouted the man who managed the rocket apparatus—one of the old Coast Guardsmen,—and a score of willing hands crowded down to get a clutch at the cable, when at a given signal they started inshore to run it up, but checked directly, for they found that there was a large tangle of wreck attached, which came up slowly, with the huge waves tearing at it as though to drag it back; but as more and more of the dripping cable appeared from the water more willing hands seized upon it, so that at last it came faster and faster, and part of a mast, with a confusion of blocks, ropes, and shrouds, appeared at the edge of the sands where the water boiled so furiously, and the next minute was high upon the sands.

I hurried down to be one of the knot of people who crowded round, when my heart sank, for it was as I feared: the captain, a fine, calm, stern-browed man, lay there amongst the cordage, one leg in the slings, as if about to venture, when that cruel wave poured ruin on the deck of the ship, and tore away his last chance for life.

Twisted, tangled, and confused, the ropes lay together, and it was only by means of a free use of their clasp-knives that the beachmen and sailors set the poor fellow free.

Slowly and sadly we stood round, looking down upon the pale features of the brave man who had clung to his ship till the last of his crew was ashore; but there was no weeping and wailing wife to cast herself upon the cold, drenched form, and sweep the hair from his broad forehead; so slowly, and with the crowd following in silence, we bore the corpse to the inn, to lay it side by side with that of the wife he had tried to save.

A young, noble-looking pair, with faces calm and pale, seeming but to sleep as they lay there hushed in death—in that great mystery, for the sea had conquered.

“Sixty years have I lived down here, man and boy,” said a fisherman, in his pleasant sing-song tone, “and if I were to try and count up the lives of men as the great sea has taken, I could hardly believe it. I’ve seen the sea-shore strewn with wreck, and I’ve known the waves cast up the dead day after day for weeks after a storm; some calm and pale-faced, some beaten, torn, and not to be looked upon without a shudder. Seems, sir, as if the sea kept ’em as long as it could, and then cast them up and busily tried to hide ’em, throwing up sand and shells—sand and shells, so that I’ve found them, sometimes half-hidden, and the water lapping melancholy-like around. Now it’s some poor fisherman—now a sailor, or a gentleman been a-yachting, or a foreigner from some fine vessel. Every year hundreds taken, and every dead body with such a tale of sorrow, and misery, and wretchedness attached as would make your heart ache could you but read it. Ah, the sea is a great thing, and I as live by it knows it well. To-day you see it quiet and still—to-morrow it’s tearing at the shore with fury, and it’s only God who can still its rage.”

But still, year after year, in their calm dependence upon His great arm, our fishers and sailors put forth to tempt the perils of the vast deep for their livelihood. Right and left of them others are taken; but still the busy toilers thrust forth from the shore and make their voyage easily, or in an agony of fear are overtaken by the storm, and at length, “being exceedingly tossed with the tempest... lighten the ship.” And, again, when run ashore, cling terror-stricken to the vessel and its rigging, till beaten off before succour arrives when they are cast ashore.

Chapter Twenty Five.The First Stray Hair.What is a Wife? Well, that seems a question easily answered. But still the answer depends upon circumstances; in fact, there seem to be no end of replies to that little query, and answering the question, as one who has taken a little notice of wives in general, I’ll tell you what a wife is sometimes. It is a something to be kicked and sworn at, and beaten, knocked down and trampled upon, used in brutal ways that the vilest barrow-man would hesitate about applying to his donkey for fear of killing it, while when the poor woman is forced to appear before a magistrate and prosecute, why—well, he is her husband after all, and for lack of evidence the brute gets off. A wife is something to have her hair dragged down and her head beaten against the wall; to be neglected, half-starved, or made to work for the noble specimen of creation who hulks about in front of public-houses, and scowls at every decent-looking working man who passes him. She is the something who sits up for him and puts his drunken highness to bed; nurses his children; slaves for him worse than any drudge—ten times—no a hundred times, for money would not buy a soul to slave as some women do for their husbands. What is a wife? Why, often and often a poor, trusting, simple-hearted woman, toiling in hard bondage till there’s a place dug for her in one of the cemeteries and she goes to rest.But what is a wife? Is she not the God-given blessing to cheer a working man’s home? and while working with her husband to make that home happy, is she not the sharer of his joys and sorrows,—the heart that he can trust and confide in, though all the world turn their backs upon him? Yes, this, and much more,if her husband will.And now a word for those who have dissension and discomfort at the cottage or lodgings, for it’s hardly fair to disgrace that most holy of names by calling some places I knowhome. And first just a word about some of these miserable spots, and let’s try and find a few causes for there being one-roomed places, badly furnished or not furnished at all, for the rickety chairs and beggarly bed and odds and ends are not worthy the name; children with no shoes, dirty clothes, dirty faces, dirtier hands, and dirtiest noses. The wife—oh, desecration of the sacred name!—a sour-faced, thinly-clad, mean-looking, untidy-haired, sorrowful woman, dividing her time between scolding the children and “rubbing out,” not washing, some odds and ends of clothes in a brown pan—the wash-tub leaked, so it was split up and burned—and then hanging the rags upon strings stretched from one side of the room to the other, just as if put there on purpose to catch “the master’s” hat and knock it off when he comes home from work.Well, there are two sides to every question, and one reason for there being such wretched places is this:—Young folks get wed after the good old fashion invented some six thousand years ago, when Eve must have blushed and turned away her head and let her hand stay in Adam’s; and while the days are young all goes well, but sometimes Betsy—that’s the wife, you know—thinks there’s no call to be so particular about her hair now as she used to be before Tom married her, and so puts in the thin end of a wedge that blasts the happiness of her future life.What strong language, isn’t it? Betsy does not make her hair so smooth as she used to, and so puts in the thin end of a wedge that blasts the happiness of her future life. Strong words, sweeping words, but true as any that were ever written, for that simple act of neglect, that wanting of pride in her appearance and innocent coquetry to please her husband, is deadly, ruinous, to love and esteem, and altogether a something that should be shuddered at by every woman in England.The unbrushed hair leads to other little acts of neglect which creep in slowly, but so surely; shoes get down at heel, dresses torn and unhooked, and then the disorder slowly spreads to the children, then to the furniture, and so on, step by step, till Tom stands leaning against the wall looking upon the wreck before him, and wondering how it is possible that the slovenly, half-dirty woman before him can have grown out of that smart, bright-eyed servant lass he once wed.But there it is—there’s the fact before him; that’s Betsy sure enough—at least that’s the present Betsy, not the Betsy of old—and, somehow or another, Tom puts his hands in his pockets, sighs very deeply, and then goes out and loiters about the streets.“Just arf a pint, Tom,” says a mate he meets, whose wife is suffering from the same disease; and Tom says he will, and they go in where there’s a clean sanded floor, no noisy children, a bright fire, and some dressed up and doctored decoction sold to the poor fellows as beer.Next time it’s Tom says to the other—“Just arf a pint, Sam;” and Sam says he will. But the mischief is they don’t have “arf a pint,” but a good many half-pints; and at last every Saturday night there’s an ugly score up that gets paid out of the wages before any money goes home; while Betsy says Tom has got to be so fond of the public-house that he never sits at home now, while the money he spends is shameful.“Bet, Bet, Bet—and whose fault is it?”“Not mine, I’m sure,” says Betsy in a very shrill voice, as she bridles up.“Wrong, Betsy; for it is your fault, and yours alone.”“There,” cries Betsy; “the cruel injustice of the thing!” And then she would go on for nearly half-an-hour, and tell all the neighbours what we have said. But we must stop her. So, go to, Betsy, thou wife of the British working man, for in hundreds, nay, thousands of cases, it is your fault, and yours alone; and, where it is not, I say, may the great God help and pity you! for yours is indeed a pitiful case.Come, now, listen to a few words, and don’t frown. There’s the trace as yet of that bonny face that won poor Tom. He’ll come back cross and surly to-night. Never mind: try and bring back that same old smile that used to greet him. Smooth that tangled hair and drive some of the wrinkles out of your forehead—all will not go; make the best of the common cotton dress—in short, as of old, “clean yourself” of an afternoon; and, if you’ve a trace, a spark of love for your husband and yourself, hide away and stuff into a corner—under the bed—anywhere—that household demon, the wash-tub or pan; while, as to the rubbed-out clothes, bundle them up anywhere till he is out of sight again. Think of the old times, and start with new rules. It will be hard work, but you will reap such a smiling, God-blessed harvest that tears of thanksgiving will some day come to your eyes, and you will weep and bless the change. You have children; well, thank God for them. You were a child once yourself; you are a child now in the hands of a great and patient Father who bears with your complaining. Well; those children; they are dirty and noisy, but there are cures—simple remedies for both evils. If their precious little fasts are only broken on bread and treacle, let them be broken at regular hours decently and in order, and don’t have them crumbling the sticky bread all over the floor, running about the room, or up and down the stairs, or in the street. Get them to bed at regular times, and manage them kindly, firmly; and don’t snarl and strike one day, and spoil and indulge the next. Make the best of your home, however beggarly; but, in spite of all, in your efforts to have it clean, don’t let Tom see you cleaning.Now, don’t think after years of neglect, that because you have now made no end of improvement all is going to be as it used. Don’t think it. You let in the thin end of the wedge over that stray hair, and things have gone gradually wrong. Just so: and you must by slow, painful degrees, get that wedge gradually worked back a little bit and a little bit, while all your patience and perseverance will be so sorely tried, that in sheer despair you’ll often say, “There: it’s of no use!” But it is of use, and of the greatest of use, and even though he may not show it, Tom can see the difference and feel those household spirits tugging at his heart-strings, and saying, when at public-house, “Come away!” in tones that he finds it hard to resist. Brutal men there are in plenty, we know, but, God be thanked for it! how many of our men have the heart in the right place, and you women of England can touch it if you will.Say your home, through long neglect, has become bare and beggarly. Never mind; make the best of it. It’s wonderful what a ha’porth of hearthstone, a ha’porth of blacklead, and a good heart will do. And that isn’t all, you foolish woman; for there’s a bright and glorious light that can shine out of a loving woman’s face and make the humblest home a palace with its happy radiance. Say your room is bare. What then? Does Tom go to a well-furnished place to spend his money? No; but to a room of hard, bare forms and settles, and common tables sticky and gum-ringed, while the floor, well sanded, grits beneath his feet. Go to, Betsy, never mind the bareness, for you have a glorifying sun within you, whose radiance can brighten the roughest, thorniest way.Look out here at this bare court, dull, dingy, filthy, frowsy, misery stricken. The sun comes from behind yon cloud, and lo! the place is altered so that even your very heart leaps at the change, and your next breath is a sigh of pleasure. And have you not for years been shrouding your face in clouds and keeping them lingering about your home? Thousands of you have: take heart, and let the sun appear everywhere that Tom will cast his eye. Why, the reflection shall so gladden your own spirit that it shall leap for joy, while you know within yourself that you have done your duty.Young wives, beware—take heed of the first stray hair and jealously prison it again, for by that single frail filament perhaps hangs yours, your husband’s, your children’s future welfare; so never let Tom be less proud of you than in the days of old.What is a wife? The prop or stay of a man, the balance that shall steady him through life, and make him—the weaker vessel—give forth when struck a sonorous, honest, clear tone.Heis the weaker vessel, and yours are the hands to hold him fast.But it cannot always be so, for in spite of all a loving heart can do there are brutes—we won’t call them men—we won’t own them as belonging to our ranks, but drum them out—brutes, before whom the jewel of a true wife’s love is as the pearl cast before swine. But, there; leave we them to their wallow, for it is defiling paper to quote their evil ways.What is a wife? A burden? a care? Oh no, she is what we choose to make her: a constant spring of bright refreshing water, ready for us at all times during our journey through life—a confidant—one we can turn to for help when stricken down by some disease, or the wounds met with in the battle of life, ready to smooth our pillow, and cool the weary, aching head. There; when looking upon some of the poor, dejected, neglected, half-forsaken women we see around, it is enough to make a man’s heart swell with indignation and scorn for those who have cast aside so great a treasure, and made of it a slave.There are faults enough on both sides, but many a happy home, many a simple domestic hearth, has been opened out or swept and garnished ready for the reception of a demon of discord, whose web once spun over the place, can perhaps never be torn away. But turn we again to the hopeful side of the question. Let the sun of your love shine forth, oh woman, brightly upon your home, however bare, and fight out the good fight with undying faith. And young wife, you of a few days, weeks, months, remember the first stray hair.

What is a Wife? Well, that seems a question easily answered. But still the answer depends upon circumstances; in fact, there seem to be no end of replies to that little query, and answering the question, as one who has taken a little notice of wives in general, I’ll tell you what a wife is sometimes. It is a something to be kicked and sworn at, and beaten, knocked down and trampled upon, used in brutal ways that the vilest barrow-man would hesitate about applying to his donkey for fear of killing it, while when the poor woman is forced to appear before a magistrate and prosecute, why—well, he is her husband after all, and for lack of evidence the brute gets off. A wife is something to have her hair dragged down and her head beaten against the wall; to be neglected, half-starved, or made to work for the noble specimen of creation who hulks about in front of public-houses, and scowls at every decent-looking working man who passes him. She is the something who sits up for him and puts his drunken highness to bed; nurses his children; slaves for him worse than any drudge—ten times—no a hundred times, for money would not buy a soul to slave as some women do for their husbands. What is a wife? Why, often and often a poor, trusting, simple-hearted woman, toiling in hard bondage till there’s a place dug for her in one of the cemeteries and she goes to rest.

But what is a wife? Is she not the God-given blessing to cheer a working man’s home? and while working with her husband to make that home happy, is she not the sharer of his joys and sorrows,—the heart that he can trust and confide in, though all the world turn their backs upon him? Yes, this, and much more,if her husband will.

And now a word for those who have dissension and discomfort at the cottage or lodgings, for it’s hardly fair to disgrace that most holy of names by calling some places I knowhome. And first just a word about some of these miserable spots, and let’s try and find a few causes for there being one-roomed places, badly furnished or not furnished at all, for the rickety chairs and beggarly bed and odds and ends are not worthy the name; children with no shoes, dirty clothes, dirty faces, dirtier hands, and dirtiest noses. The wife—oh, desecration of the sacred name!—a sour-faced, thinly-clad, mean-looking, untidy-haired, sorrowful woman, dividing her time between scolding the children and “rubbing out,” not washing, some odds and ends of clothes in a brown pan—the wash-tub leaked, so it was split up and burned—and then hanging the rags upon strings stretched from one side of the room to the other, just as if put there on purpose to catch “the master’s” hat and knock it off when he comes home from work.

Well, there are two sides to every question, and one reason for there being such wretched places is this:—Young folks get wed after the good old fashion invented some six thousand years ago, when Eve must have blushed and turned away her head and let her hand stay in Adam’s; and while the days are young all goes well, but sometimes Betsy—that’s the wife, you know—thinks there’s no call to be so particular about her hair now as she used to be before Tom married her, and so puts in the thin end of a wedge that blasts the happiness of her future life.

What strong language, isn’t it? Betsy does not make her hair so smooth as she used to, and so puts in the thin end of a wedge that blasts the happiness of her future life. Strong words, sweeping words, but true as any that were ever written, for that simple act of neglect, that wanting of pride in her appearance and innocent coquetry to please her husband, is deadly, ruinous, to love and esteem, and altogether a something that should be shuddered at by every woman in England.

The unbrushed hair leads to other little acts of neglect which creep in slowly, but so surely; shoes get down at heel, dresses torn and unhooked, and then the disorder slowly spreads to the children, then to the furniture, and so on, step by step, till Tom stands leaning against the wall looking upon the wreck before him, and wondering how it is possible that the slovenly, half-dirty woman before him can have grown out of that smart, bright-eyed servant lass he once wed.

But there it is—there’s the fact before him; that’s Betsy sure enough—at least that’s the present Betsy, not the Betsy of old—and, somehow or another, Tom puts his hands in his pockets, sighs very deeply, and then goes out and loiters about the streets.

“Just arf a pint, Tom,” says a mate he meets, whose wife is suffering from the same disease; and Tom says he will, and they go in where there’s a clean sanded floor, no noisy children, a bright fire, and some dressed up and doctored decoction sold to the poor fellows as beer.

Next time it’s Tom says to the other—“Just arf a pint, Sam;” and Sam says he will. But the mischief is they don’t have “arf a pint,” but a good many half-pints; and at last every Saturday night there’s an ugly score up that gets paid out of the wages before any money goes home; while Betsy says Tom has got to be so fond of the public-house that he never sits at home now, while the money he spends is shameful.

“Bet, Bet, Bet—and whose fault is it?”

“Not mine, I’m sure,” says Betsy in a very shrill voice, as she bridles up.

“Wrong, Betsy; for it is your fault, and yours alone.”

“There,” cries Betsy; “the cruel injustice of the thing!” And then she would go on for nearly half-an-hour, and tell all the neighbours what we have said. But we must stop her. So, go to, Betsy, thou wife of the British working man, for in hundreds, nay, thousands of cases, it is your fault, and yours alone; and, where it is not, I say, may the great God help and pity you! for yours is indeed a pitiful case.

Come, now, listen to a few words, and don’t frown. There’s the trace as yet of that bonny face that won poor Tom. He’ll come back cross and surly to-night. Never mind: try and bring back that same old smile that used to greet him. Smooth that tangled hair and drive some of the wrinkles out of your forehead—all will not go; make the best of the common cotton dress—in short, as of old, “clean yourself” of an afternoon; and, if you’ve a trace, a spark of love for your husband and yourself, hide away and stuff into a corner—under the bed—anywhere—that household demon, the wash-tub or pan; while, as to the rubbed-out clothes, bundle them up anywhere till he is out of sight again. Think of the old times, and start with new rules. It will be hard work, but you will reap such a smiling, God-blessed harvest that tears of thanksgiving will some day come to your eyes, and you will weep and bless the change. You have children; well, thank God for them. You were a child once yourself; you are a child now in the hands of a great and patient Father who bears with your complaining. Well; those children; they are dirty and noisy, but there are cures—simple remedies for both evils. If their precious little fasts are only broken on bread and treacle, let them be broken at regular hours decently and in order, and don’t have them crumbling the sticky bread all over the floor, running about the room, or up and down the stairs, or in the street. Get them to bed at regular times, and manage them kindly, firmly; and don’t snarl and strike one day, and spoil and indulge the next. Make the best of your home, however beggarly; but, in spite of all, in your efforts to have it clean, don’t let Tom see you cleaning.

Now, don’t think after years of neglect, that because you have now made no end of improvement all is going to be as it used. Don’t think it. You let in the thin end of the wedge over that stray hair, and things have gone gradually wrong. Just so: and you must by slow, painful degrees, get that wedge gradually worked back a little bit and a little bit, while all your patience and perseverance will be so sorely tried, that in sheer despair you’ll often say, “There: it’s of no use!” But it is of use, and of the greatest of use, and even though he may not show it, Tom can see the difference and feel those household spirits tugging at his heart-strings, and saying, when at public-house, “Come away!” in tones that he finds it hard to resist. Brutal men there are in plenty, we know, but, God be thanked for it! how many of our men have the heart in the right place, and you women of England can touch it if you will.

Say your home, through long neglect, has become bare and beggarly. Never mind; make the best of it. It’s wonderful what a ha’porth of hearthstone, a ha’porth of blacklead, and a good heart will do. And that isn’t all, you foolish woman; for there’s a bright and glorious light that can shine out of a loving woman’s face and make the humblest home a palace with its happy radiance. Say your room is bare. What then? Does Tom go to a well-furnished place to spend his money? No; but to a room of hard, bare forms and settles, and common tables sticky and gum-ringed, while the floor, well sanded, grits beneath his feet. Go to, Betsy, never mind the bareness, for you have a glorifying sun within you, whose radiance can brighten the roughest, thorniest way.

Look out here at this bare court, dull, dingy, filthy, frowsy, misery stricken. The sun comes from behind yon cloud, and lo! the place is altered so that even your very heart leaps at the change, and your next breath is a sigh of pleasure. And have you not for years been shrouding your face in clouds and keeping them lingering about your home? Thousands of you have: take heart, and let the sun appear everywhere that Tom will cast his eye. Why, the reflection shall so gladden your own spirit that it shall leap for joy, while you know within yourself that you have done your duty.

Young wives, beware—take heed of the first stray hair and jealously prison it again, for by that single frail filament perhaps hangs yours, your husband’s, your children’s future welfare; so never let Tom be less proud of you than in the days of old.

What is a wife? The prop or stay of a man, the balance that shall steady him through life, and make him—the weaker vessel—give forth when struck a sonorous, honest, clear tone.Heis the weaker vessel, and yours are the hands to hold him fast.

But it cannot always be so, for in spite of all a loving heart can do there are brutes—we won’t call them men—we won’t own them as belonging to our ranks, but drum them out—brutes, before whom the jewel of a true wife’s love is as the pearl cast before swine. But, there; leave we them to their wallow, for it is defiling paper to quote their evil ways.

What is a wife? A burden? a care? Oh no, she is what we choose to make her: a constant spring of bright refreshing water, ready for us at all times during our journey through life—a confidant—one we can turn to for help when stricken down by some disease, or the wounds met with in the battle of life, ready to smooth our pillow, and cool the weary, aching head. There; when looking upon some of the poor, dejected, neglected, half-forsaken women we see around, it is enough to make a man’s heart swell with indignation and scorn for those who have cast aside so great a treasure, and made of it a slave.

There are faults enough on both sides, but many a happy home, many a simple domestic hearth, has been opened out or swept and garnished ready for the reception of a demon of discord, whose web once spun over the place, can perhaps never be torn away. But turn we again to the hopeful side of the question. Let the sun of your love shine forth, oh woman, brightly upon your home, however bare, and fight out the good fight with undying faith. And young wife, you of a few days, weeks, months, remember the first stray hair.

Chapter Twenty Six.A Piece of Assurance.Being only a quiet, country-bumpkin sort of personage, it seems but reasonable that I should ask what can there be in me that people should take such intense interest in my life being insured. If such eagerness were shown by, say one’s wife, or any very near relative, one might turn suspicious, and fancy they had leanings towards the tea-spoons, sugar-tongs, and silver watch, and any other personal property that, like Captain Cuttle, one might feel disposed to make over “jintly” in some other direction. Consequently, one would be afterwards on the look-out for modern Borgiaism, and take homoeopathic doses of Veratria, Brucine, etc, etc, by way of antidote for any unpleasant symptoms likely to manifest themselves in the system. But then it is not from near relatives that such earnestness proceeds, but from utter strangers. It is hard to say how many attempts I have had made upon my life insurance—I will not use the word assurance, though it exists to a dreadful extent in the myrmidons of the pushing offices—at home, abroad, in the retirement of one’s study, in the lecture-hall of a town, always the same.Fancy being inveigled into attending a lecture, and sitting for an hour and a half while a huge, big-whiskered man verbally attacks you, seizes you with his eye, metaphorically hooks you with his finger, and then holds you up to the scorn of the assembled hundreds, while he reproaches you for your neglect of the dear ones at home; calls up horrors to make you nervous; relates anecdotes full of widows in shabby mourning; ragged children and hard-hearted landlords; cold relations, bitter sufferings, and misery unspeakable; all of which troubles, calamities, and cares, will be sure to fall upon those you leave behind, if you do not immediately insure in the Certain Dissolution and Inevitable Collapse Assurance Company, world-famed for its prompt and liberal settlement, and the grand bonuses it gives to its supporters.I have nerves, and consequently did not want to know exactly how many people leave this world per cent, per annum. I dislike statistics of every kind, and never felt disposed to serve tables since I was kept in at school to learn them. I did not want to be sent home to dream of a dreadful dance of death funereally performed by undertakers’ men in scarfs, with brass-tipped staves and bunches of black ostrich-plumes in their hands. We do certainly read of people who prepare their own mausoleums, and who, doubtless, take great comfort and delight in the contemplation of their future earthly abode; but to a man without any such proclivities this style of lecture—this metaphorical holding of one’s head by force over the big black pit, was jarring and dreadfully discordant in its effect upon the resonant strings of the human instrument.I have very strange ways and ideas of my own, and have no hesitation in saying that I like to do as I please, and as seems me best. If what seems to me best is wrong, of course I do not own to it. Who does? and if I prefer insuring my furniture and house to my life, and this system is wrong, I’m not going to be convinced of its wrongness by a tall, gentlemanly-looking man who wishes to see me on particular business, and whom I have shown into the room I call my study, but which should be termed workshop.Now, just at the time of the said tall, gentlemanly man’s arrival, I am in the agony of composition; I have written nearly half of a paper for a magazine, one which the editor will be as sure to reject as I in my then state of inflation think he will hug it to his breast as a gem. I am laboriously climbing the climax, and find the ascent so slippery, and the glides back so frequent, that the question arises in one’s breast whether, like the Irish schoolboy, it would not be better to try backwards. I have just come to where the awe-stricken Count exclaims—“Please sir, you’re wanted,” says Mary, opening the door upon her repeated knocks gaining no attention; and then, after an angry parley, I am caught—regularly limed, trapped, netted by the words “particular business.”A tall gentlemanly man wanting to see me on particular business. What can it be? Perhaps it is to editThe Times; perhaps to send Dr Russell home, after taking his pencil and note-book out of his war-correspondent hands; or maybe to put out the GAS of theDaily Telegraph. Is it to elevate theStandard, distribute theDaily News, act as astronomer-royal to theMorningandEvening Stars, to roll theGlobe, or be itsAtlas, take the spots from the face of theSun, blow the great trumpet of theMorning Herald, literary field-marshal in some review, rebuild some damaged or exploded magazine? What can the business be? Not stage business, certainly, for that is not my branch. Law? perhaps so. A legacy—large, of course, or one of the principals would not have come down instead of writing. It must be so: I am next of kin to somebody, and I shall buythatestate after all.Enter tall gentlemanly man upon his particular business of a private nature; and then, being a quiet, retiring person, to whom it is painful to speak rudely or without that glaze which is commonly called politeness, I suffer a severe cross-examination as to age, wife’s ditto, number of children, and so on. I am told of the uncertainty of life—the liability of the thread to snap, without the aid of the scissors of Atropos—how strengthening the knowledge of having made provision for my ewe and lambs would be if I were ill; how small the amount would be; how large a bonus would be added if I assured at once; how mine would be sure to be a first-class life—he had not seen the phials and pill-boxes in the bedroom cupboard—how nothing should be put off until to-morrow which could be done to-day, which I already knew; how a friend of his had written twelve reasons why people should assure, which reasons he kindly showed to me; and told me an abundance of things which he said I ought to know. He had answer pat for every possible or impossible objection that I could make, having thoroughly crammed himself for his task; and he knocked me down, bowled me over, got me up in corners, over the ropes, in Chancery, fell upon me heavily; in fact, as the professors of the “noble art” would say—the noble art of self-defence and offence to the world—had it all his own way.I had no idea what a poor debater I was, or that I could be so severely handled. My ignorance was surprising; and I should have been melancholy afterwards instead of angry, if I had not consoled myself with the idea that I was not in training for a life assurance fight.I recalled the answer made by a friend to a strong appeal from a class office, and that was, that he was neither a medical nor a general, and therefore not eligible; at the same time holding the door open for his visitor’s exit. But then I did not feel myself equal to such a task, and however importunate and troublesome a visitor might be, I somehow felt constrained to treat him in a gentlemanly manner. I tried all the gentle hints I could, and then used more forcible ones; but the gentlemanly man seemed cased in armour of proof, from which my feeble shafts glanced and went anywhere; while, whenever he saw that I was about to make a fresh attack, he was at me like Mr Branestrong, QC, and beat down my guard in a moment. It took a long time to eradicate the bland, but it went at last, and a faint flush seemed to make its way into my face, while to proceed to extremities, there was a peculiar nervous twitching in one toe, originating in its debility caused by a table once falling upon it, but now the twitches seemed of a growing or expanding nature, and as if they were struggling hard to become kicks. It was pain unutterable, especially when the moral law asserted its rights, and an aspect of suavity was ruled by reason to be the order of the day—if allied with firmness.“If allied with firmness.” Ah! but there was the rub, for firmness had turned craven and vanished at the first appearance of my visitor.“No; I would rather not assure then; I would think it over; I would make up my mind shortly; I felt undecided as to the office I should choose,” were my replies,et hoc genus omne; but all was of no avail, and at last I acknowledged to myself that I could not hold my own, and must speak very strongly to get rid of my unwelcome friend, who solved my problem himself by asking whether I admired poetry.Presuming that this was to change the conversation, preparatory to taking his leave, I replied, “Yes.”“Then he would read me a short poem on the subject in question,” and drawing from his pocket a piece of paper, he began in a most forced declamatory style to read some doggerel concerning a gentleman who was taken to heaven, but who left a wife and seven—rhyme to heaven—and whose affairs would have been most unsatisfactory if he had not assured his life.But my friend did not finish, being apparently startled by some look or movement upon my part, which caused him to hurriedly say “Good morning,” and to promise to call again, as I seemed busy.Perhaps he may call again; but he will have to call again, and again, and again, and very loudly too, before he gets in to talk upon particular business.Now, it may seem strange that after this I should express great admiration for the system of assurance; but I do admire it, and consider it the duty of every poor man to try and make some provision for the future of those he may leave behind. But one cannot help feeling suspicious of offices that are in the habit of forcing themselves so unpleasantly upon your notice, and sinking their professional respectability in the dodges and advertising and canvassing tricks of the cheap “to be continued in monthly parts” book-hawker, or the broken down tradesman, who leaves goods for your inspection. One has learned to look upon the quiet, flowing stream as the deepest and safest to bear the bark; for the rough, bubbling water speaks of shoals, rocks, and quicksands, with perchance “snags and sawyers,” ready to pierce the frail bottom.Once more alone, I referred to the circular left upon my table, where beneath my age and the sum per cent, that I should have to pay, was a broad pencil-mark, emanating from the eminently gentlemanly gold pencil-case of my visitor. But in spite of unheard-of advantages, liberal treatment, large bonus distribution every five years, with a great deal more duly set forth in the paper, I shall not assure in that office, for I made my mind up then in the half-hour of anger, when I could not get the Count to exclaim anything, although I tried so hard. He was awe-stricken, certainly; but as I had painted him, he would keep changing into a gentlemanly man, charged with life assurance principles. So I read what I had written, saw the error of my ways, and knowing too well that a certain conductor would reject it after the first page, I sighed, tore off a portion, and used it to illumine a cigar; and then took for my hero the morning’s visitor—writing this paper, which I trust may have a better fate.

Being only a quiet, country-bumpkin sort of personage, it seems but reasonable that I should ask what can there be in me that people should take such intense interest in my life being insured. If such eagerness were shown by, say one’s wife, or any very near relative, one might turn suspicious, and fancy they had leanings towards the tea-spoons, sugar-tongs, and silver watch, and any other personal property that, like Captain Cuttle, one might feel disposed to make over “jintly” in some other direction. Consequently, one would be afterwards on the look-out for modern Borgiaism, and take homoeopathic doses of Veratria, Brucine, etc, etc, by way of antidote for any unpleasant symptoms likely to manifest themselves in the system. But then it is not from near relatives that such earnestness proceeds, but from utter strangers. It is hard to say how many attempts I have had made upon my life insurance—I will not use the word assurance, though it exists to a dreadful extent in the myrmidons of the pushing offices—at home, abroad, in the retirement of one’s study, in the lecture-hall of a town, always the same.

Fancy being inveigled into attending a lecture, and sitting for an hour and a half while a huge, big-whiskered man verbally attacks you, seizes you with his eye, metaphorically hooks you with his finger, and then holds you up to the scorn of the assembled hundreds, while he reproaches you for your neglect of the dear ones at home; calls up horrors to make you nervous; relates anecdotes full of widows in shabby mourning; ragged children and hard-hearted landlords; cold relations, bitter sufferings, and misery unspeakable; all of which troubles, calamities, and cares, will be sure to fall upon those you leave behind, if you do not immediately insure in the Certain Dissolution and Inevitable Collapse Assurance Company, world-famed for its prompt and liberal settlement, and the grand bonuses it gives to its supporters.

I have nerves, and consequently did not want to know exactly how many people leave this world per cent, per annum. I dislike statistics of every kind, and never felt disposed to serve tables since I was kept in at school to learn them. I did not want to be sent home to dream of a dreadful dance of death funereally performed by undertakers’ men in scarfs, with brass-tipped staves and bunches of black ostrich-plumes in their hands. We do certainly read of people who prepare their own mausoleums, and who, doubtless, take great comfort and delight in the contemplation of their future earthly abode; but to a man without any such proclivities this style of lecture—this metaphorical holding of one’s head by force over the big black pit, was jarring and dreadfully discordant in its effect upon the resonant strings of the human instrument.

I have very strange ways and ideas of my own, and have no hesitation in saying that I like to do as I please, and as seems me best. If what seems to me best is wrong, of course I do not own to it. Who does? and if I prefer insuring my furniture and house to my life, and this system is wrong, I’m not going to be convinced of its wrongness by a tall, gentlemanly-looking man who wishes to see me on particular business, and whom I have shown into the room I call my study, but which should be termed workshop.

Now, just at the time of the said tall, gentlemanly man’s arrival, I am in the agony of composition; I have written nearly half of a paper for a magazine, one which the editor will be as sure to reject as I in my then state of inflation think he will hug it to his breast as a gem. I am laboriously climbing the climax, and find the ascent so slippery, and the glides back so frequent, that the question arises in one’s breast whether, like the Irish schoolboy, it would not be better to try backwards. I have just come to where the awe-stricken Count exclaims—

“Please sir, you’re wanted,” says Mary, opening the door upon her repeated knocks gaining no attention; and then, after an angry parley, I am caught—regularly limed, trapped, netted by the words “particular business.”

A tall gentlemanly man wanting to see me on particular business. What can it be? Perhaps it is to editThe Times; perhaps to send Dr Russell home, after taking his pencil and note-book out of his war-correspondent hands; or maybe to put out the GAS of theDaily Telegraph. Is it to elevate theStandard, distribute theDaily News, act as astronomer-royal to theMorningandEvening Stars, to roll theGlobe, or be itsAtlas, take the spots from the face of theSun, blow the great trumpet of theMorning Herald, literary field-marshal in some review, rebuild some damaged or exploded magazine? What can the business be? Not stage business, certainly, for that is not my branch. Law? perhaps so. A legacy—large, of course, or one of the principals would not have come down instead of writing. It must be so: I am next of kin to somebody, and I shall buythatestate after all.

Enter tall gentlemanly man upon his particular business of a private nature; and then, being a quiet, retiring person, to whom it is painful to speak rudely or without that glaze which is commonly called politeness, I suffer a severe cross-examination as to age, wife’s ditto, number of children, and so on. I am told of the uncertainty of life—the liability of the thread to snap, without the aid of the scissors of Atropos—how strengthening the knowledge of having made provision for my ewe and lambs would be if I were ill; how small the amount would be; how large a bonus would be added if I assured at once; how mine would be sure to be a first-class life—he had not seen the phials and pill-boxes in the bedroom cupboard—how nothing should be put off until to-morrow which could be done to-day, which I already knew; how a friend of his had written twelve reasons why people should assure, which reasons he kindly showed to me; and told me an abundance of things which he said I ought to know. He had answer pat for every possible or impossible objection that I could make, having thoroughly crammed himself for his task; and he knocked me down, bowled me over, got me up in corners, over the ropes, in Chancery, fell upon me heavily; in fact, as the professors of the “noble art” would say—the noble art of self-defence and offence to the world—had it all his own way.

I had no idea what a poor debater I was, or that I could be so severely handled. My ignorance was surprising; and I should have been melancholy afterwards instead of angry, if I had not consoled myself with the idea that I was not in training for a life assurance fight.

I recalled the answer made by a friend to a strong appeal from a class office, and that was, that he was neither a medical nor a general, and therefore not eligible; at the same time holding the door open for his visitor’s exit. But then I did not feel myself equal to such a task, and however importunate and troublesome a visitor might be, I somehow felt constrained to treat him in a gentlemanly manner. I tried all the gentle hints I could, and then used more forcible ones; but the gentlemanly man seemed cased in armour of proof, from which my feeble shafts glanced and went anywhere; while, whenever he saw that I was about to make a fresh attack, he was at me like Mr Branestrong, QC, and beat down my guard in a moment. It took a long time to eradicate the bland, but it went at last, and a faint flush seemed to make its way into my face, while to proceed to extremities, there was a peculiar nervous twitching in one toe, originating in its debility caused by a table once falling upon it, but now the twitches seemed of a growing or expanding nature, and as if they were struggling hard to become kicks. It was pain unutterable, especially when the moral law asserted its rights, and an aspect of suavity was ruled by reason to be the order of the day—if allied with firmness.

“If allied with firmness.” Ah! but there was the rub, for firmness had turned craven and vanished at the first appearance of my visitor.

“No; I would rather not assure then; I would think it over; I would make up my mind shortly; I felt undecided as to the office I should choose,” were my replies,et hoc genus omne; but all was of no avail, and at last I acknowledged to myself that I could not hold my own, and must speak very strongly to get rid of my unwelcome friend, who solved my problem himself by asking whether I admired poetry.

Presuming that this was to change the conversation, preparatory to taking his leave, I replied, “Yes.”

“Then he would read me a short poem on the subject in question,” and drawing from his pocket a piece of paper, he began in a most forced declamatory style to read some doggerel concerning a gentleman who was taken to heaven, but who left a wife and seven—rhyme to heaven—and whose affairs would have been most unsatisfactory if he had not assured his life.

But my friend did not finish, being apparently startled by some look or movement upon my part, which caused him to hurriedly say “Good morning,” and to promise to call again, as I seemed busy.

Perhaps he may call again; but he will have to call again, and again, and again, and very loudly too, before he gets in to talk upon particular business.

Now, it may seem strange that after this I should express great admiration for the system of assurance; but I do admire it, and consider it the duty of every poor man to try and make some provision for the future of those he may leave behind. But one cannot help feeling suspicious of offices that are in the habit of forcing themselves so unpleasantly upon your notice, and sinking their professional respectability in the dodges and advertising and canvassing tricks of the cheap “to be continued in monthly parts” book-hawker, or the broken down tradesman, who leaves goods for your inspection. One has learned to look upon the quiet, flowing stream as the deepest and safest to bear the bark; for the rough, bubbling water speaks of shoals, rocks, and quicksands, with perchance “snags and sawyers,” ready to pierce the frail bottom.

Once more alone, I referred to the circular left upon my table, where beneath my age and the sum per cent, that I should have to pay, was a broad pencil-mark, emanating from the eminently gentlemanly gold pencil-case of my visitor. But in spite of unheard-of advantages, liberal treatment, large bonus distribution every five years, with a great deal more duly set forth in the paper, I shall not assure in that office, for I made my mind up then in the half-hour of anger, when I could not get the Count to exclaim anything, although I tried so hard. He was awe-stricken, certainly; but as I had painted him, he would keep changing into a gentlemanly man, charged with life assurance principles. So I read what I had written, saw the error of my ways, and knowing too well that a certain conductor would reject it after the first page, I sighed, tore off a portion, and used it to illumine a cigar; and then took for my hero the morning’s visitor—writing this paper, which I trust may have a better fate.

Chapter Twenty Seven.The Decline of the Drama.’Tain’t no use, sir; times is altered and the people too. What with yer railways, and telegraphs, and steam, and penny noosepapers, people knows too much by half, and it’s about all dickey with our profession. People won’t stop and look: they thinks it’s beneath ’em; and ’tain’t no good to get a good pitch, for the coppers won’t come in nohow. Why what’s innocenter or moraller than a Punch and Judy? “Nothing,” says you, and of course there ain’t. Isn’t it the showing up of how wice is punished and wirtue triumphant in a pleasant and instructive manner. Ov course it is. But no, it won’t do now. Punches is wore out; and so’s Fantysheenys and tumbling; for people’s always wanting a something noo, just as if anything ought to be noo ’cept togs and tommy. Ain’t old things the best all the world over? You won’t have noo paintings, nor noo wine, and you allus thinks most o’ old books and old fiddles; so what do you want with a noo sort o’ Punch?Here I am a-sitting up in the old spot; there’s the theayter in the back-yard, with the green baize and the front up here on account o’ the rain. There you are you see, turn him round. There’s a given up to the calls o’ the time. “Temple of Arts” you see on the top, in a ribbon, with Punch holdin’ on wun side and comical Joey holding on t’other. There’s the strap and box, if you’ll open it, and there’s the pipes on the chimbly-piece. There’s everything complete but the drum, and that we was obliged to lend to the ’Lastic Brothers, for theirs is lent, uncle you know, and Jem Brown, one on ’em, says he lost the ticket, though it looks werry suspicious.But, now, just open that box, and lay ’em out one at a time on the table, and you’ll just see as it ain’t our fault as we don’t get on. An’ take that ere fust. ’Tain’t no business there, but it’s got atop somehow. That’s the gallus that is, and I allus would have as galluses ought to be twiste as big, but Bill Bowke, my pardner, he says as it’s right enough, and so I wouldn’t alter. Now there you are! Look at that, now! There’s a Punch! Why, it’s enough to bring tears in yer eyes to see how public taste’s fell off. There was four coats o’ paint put on him, besides the touchins up and finishins, and at a time, too, when browns were that scarce it was dreadful. There, pull ’em out, sir; I ain’t ashamed o’ the set, and hard-up as I am at this werry moment, I wouldn’t take two pound for ’em. There, now. Pull ’em out. That’s Joe, and he’s got his legs somehow in the beadle’s pocket. Quite nat’ral, ain’t it? just as if he was a rum ’un ’stead of only being a doll, you know. That’s the kid as you’ve dropped. That ain’t much account, that ain’t; for you see babies never does have any ’spression on their faces, and anything does to be chucked outer window; and the crowd often treads on it, bless you. There’s a Judy, too; only wants a new frill a-tacking on her head for a cap, and she’s about the best on the boards, I’ll bet. You see I cared ’em myself, and give the whole of my mind to it, so as the faces might look nat’ral and taking. Mind his wig, sir. Ah! that wants a bit o’ glue, that does, and a touch o’ black paint. You see that’s the furrin gentleman as says nothin’ but “Shallabala,” and a good deal o’ the back of his head’s knocked off. There you are, you see, bright colours, good wigs, and nicely dressed. That’s the ghost. Looks thin? well, in course, sperrets ain’t ’sposed to be fat. Head shrunk? Well, ’nuff to make it. That’s Jack Ketch; and that’s the coffin; and that’s the devil. We don’t allus bring him out, and keeps the ghost in the box sometimes, according to the company as we gets in. Out in the streets the people likes to see it all; not as they often do, for we generally gets about half through, and then drops it, pretending we can’t get coppers enough to play it out, when the real thing is as the people’s sucked dry, and won’t tip any more, or we’d keep it up; but in the squares and gentlemen’s gardings it ain’t considered right for the children, so we gives the play in a mutilated form, don’t you see.Now that’s the lot, don’t you see, sir, and if you wouldn’t mind putting the box on this chair by the bedside, and shoving the table up close, I’ll put ’em all back careful myself, for lying sick here one don’t get much amusement. Ain’t got even Toby here, which being a dawg warn’t much company, yet he was some, though his name warn’t Toby but Spice. Nice dawg he was, though any training warn’t no good; he was a free child o’ natur, and when his time came for the play he would bite the wrong noses and at the wrong times. The wust of it was too, that he would bolt, I don’t mean swaller, but go a-running off arter other dawgs, and getting his frill torn as bad as his ears, and I never did see a raggeder pair o’ ears than he had nowheres—torn amost to ribbons they was. We lost him at last, though I never knowed how, but a ’spicion crossed my mind one day when Bill my pardner was eating a small German, and it was close by the factory as we missed him; and though Bill said I was a duffer and spoilt his dinner, I allus stuck to it, and allus will, as there was the smell of Spice in that ere sassage.There you are, yer see sir, all packed clost and neat, and as I said afore I wouldn’t take two pounds for ’em, bad as I am inside and out. Trade’s bad, profession’s bad, and I’m bad; but bless yer heart we shall have a revival yet, and when the drum comes back, and I get wind enough again to do the business, we shall go ahead like all that.There if I ain’t boxed all the figgers up, and left the coffin out. Good job my old woman ain’t here, or she’d say it was a sign or something o’ that sort, and try to make one uncomfortable; but there you are, you see, sir, all snug now, and it does seem rather a low spiriting thing to have in a house, sir, and putting aside Punch and Judy stuff, the smaller they are the less you like it.Going, sir? well, you’ll come again, I hope, and if Idoget better, why, I’ll go through the lot in front of your house, if you let me have your card.Beg pardon, sir, thought you were going; not as I wants you to, for company’s werry pleasant when you’re stretched on your back and can’t help yourself. Since I’ve been a-lying here I’ve been reckoning things up, and I’ve come to the conclusion as the world’s got too full. People lives too fast, and do what you will, puff and blow and race after ’em, ten to one you gets beat. Everything wants to be noo and superior, says the people, and nothing old goes down. Look at them happy times, when one could take the missus in the barrer with a sackful o’ cokynuts and pincushions, and them apples and lemons as the more you opened the more come out; then there’d be the sticks, and a tin kettle, and just a few odds and ends, and all drawn by the donkey; when off we’d go down to some country fair or the races; dig the holes or have bags of earth, stick up the things—cokynuts or cushions; the wife sees to the fire and kittle, and you shouts out—leastways, I don’t mean you, I mean me, you know—shouts out, “Three throws a penny,” when the chuckle-headed bumpkins would go on throwing away like winkin’ till they knocked something down, and then go off all on the smile to think how clever they’d been. But now they must have their Aunt Sallys and stuff, and country fairs has all gone to the bow-wows.If I gets better I’m a-goin’ to turn Punch from a mellowdramy into a opera—make ’em sing everything, you know. I’d have tried it on afore only my mate gets so orrid short-winded with the pipes, and often when you’re a-expectin’ the high notes of a toone he drops it off altogether, and fills in with larrups of the drum, and that wouldn’t do you know in the sollum parts.Them music-halls has done us as much harm as any-think, and pretty places they is; why if it warn’t for the pretty toons as they fits on the songs, nobody wouldn’t stop to hear the rubbidge as is let off. Punchisstoopid sometimes, we know, but then look at the moral. And there ain’t no moral at all in music-hall songs.Sometimes I think as I shall have to knock off the national drammy in consequence of want of funds, for you know times may turn so hard that I shall have to sell all off, and the drum mayn’t come back, though I was thinking one time of me and pardner taking a hinstrument each and practisin’ up some good dooets—me taking the drum and him the pipes, allus allowing, of course, as the drum do come back. But then you see as his short-windedness would be agen us, and it wouldn’t do to be allus drowning the high parts with so much leathering.Heigho, sir. It makes me sigh to lie here so long waiting to get well, till in the dusky evening time, when the gas lamps are shining up and the stars are peeping down, one gets thinking that it’s time to think of that little thing as I left out of the box; and then lying all alone one seems to have all the long years fall away from one, and get back into the old, old times, and often I have been fishing, and wandering, and bird’s-nesting again all over and over as it used to be. I see it all so plainly, and then get calling up all the old mates I had, and reckoning ’em up, and one’s out in Indy, and another was killed in the Crimee, and another’s in Australy for poaching, and among the whole lot I only knows one now, and that’s me—what there is left. I don’t talk like this before the old woman, but I think so much of our old churchyard, and the green graves, and yew trees; and somehow as I remember the old sunny corners and green spots, I fancy as I should like to go to sleep there far away from these courts and alleys. It seems like dying here, and being hurried away afterwards, with every one glad to get rid of you; but down in the old quiet parts it seems to me like watching the sun go down behind the hill, when the still, quiet evening comes on so soft and pleasant, and then you grow tired and worn-out and lie down to rest, taking a long, long sleep under the bright green turf.But there, I ain’t in the country, I’m here in the thick of London, where I came up to seek my fortun, and never looked in the right place. We poor folks are like the children playing at “Hot boiled beans and werry good butter,” and though while you’re hunting for what’s hid, you may get werry near sometimes, getting warmer and hotter till you’re burning, yet somehow it isn’t often that one finds. Some does, but there’s werry few of ’em, and in the great scramble when one gets hold of anything it’s a chansh if it ain’t snatched out of your hand.But there, I shan’t give up, for there’s nothing like a bit o’ pluck to carry you through your troubles, and I’m a-going to scheme a noo sorter public Shakespearian dramatic entertainment, one as will be patronised by all the nobility and gentry, when in consequence of the unparalleled success, we shall stop all the press orders and free list, and come out arterwards with a new drum, and get presented with a set o’ silver-mounted pipes by a grateful nation. Leastwise I mean it to be a success if I can, but if it don’t turn out all right, through me and my pardner being so touched in the wind, Bill’s a-going to get up a subscription to buy a barrel-orgin and a four-wheel thing as ’ll take us both—me and the orgin; when I shall sit there with a tin plate to take the coppers, and Bill will grind away like that Italian chap as drew round the gentleman wot had been operated on. I don’t want to come down to that, though, for one can’t help ’sociating barrel-orgins with monkeys, and pitying the poor little chattering beggars as is chained up to an eight-toon box, played slow, as if it was wrong in its inside. And that makes me rather shrink a bit from it, for thinking as I might get tired of the organ-grinder.Steps, steps, steps. Here’s the missus coming, and there’ll be the physic to take, and then, after a bit of a nap, I mean to sit up and put my theaytrical company to rights.

’Tain’t no use, sir; times is altered and the people too. What with yer railways, and telegraphs, and steam, and penny noosepapers, people knows too much by half, and it’s about all dickey with our profession. People won’t stop and look: they thinks it’s beneath ’em; and ’tain’t no good to get a good pitch, for the coppers won’t come in nohow. Why what’s innocenter or moraller than a Punch and Judy? “Nothing,” says you, and of course there ain’t. Isn’t it the showing up of how wice is punished and wirtue triumphant in a pleasant and instructive manner. Ov course it is. But no, it won’t do now. Punches is wore out; and so’s Fantysheenys and tumbling; for people’s always wanting a something noo, just as if anything ought to be noo ’cept togs and tommy. Ain’t old things the best all the world over? You won’t have noo paintings, nor noo wine, and you allus thinks most o’ old books and old fiddles; so what do you want with a noo sort o’ Punch?

Here I am a-sitting up in the old spot; there’s the theayter in the back-yard, with the green baize and the front up here on account o’ the rain. There you are you see, turn him round. There’s a given up to the calls o’ the time. “Temple of Arts” you see on the top, in a ribbon, with Punch holdin’ on wun side and comical Joey holding on t’other. There’s the strap and box, if you’ll open it, and there’s the pipes on the chimbly-piece. There’s everything complete but the drum, and that we was obliged to lend to the ’Lastic Brothers, for theirs is lent, uncle you know, and Jem Brown, one on ’em, says he lost the ticket, though it looks werry suspicious.

But, now, just open that box, and lay ’em out one at a time on the table, and you’ll just see as it ain’t our fault as we don’t get on. An’ take that ere fust. ’Tain’t no business there, but it’s got atop somehow. That’s the gallus that is, and I allus would have as galluses ought to be twiste as big, but Bill Bowke, my pardner, he says as it’s right enough, and so I wouldn’t alter. Now there you are! Look at that, now! There’s a Punch! Why, it’s enough to bring tears in yer eyes to see how public taste’s fell off. There was four coats o’ paint put on him, besides the touchins up and finishins, and at a time, too, when browns were that scarce it was dreadful. There, pull ’em out, sir; I ain’t ashamed o’ the set, and hard-up as I am at this werry moment, I wouldn’t take two pound for ’em. There, now. Pull ’em out. That’s Joe, and he’s got his legs somehow in the beadle’s pocket. Quite nat’ral, ain’t it? just as if he was a rum ’un ’stead of only being a doll, you know. That’s the kid as you’ve dropped. That ain’t much account, that ain’t; for you see babies never does have any ’spression on their faces, and anything does to be chucked outer window; and the crowd often treads on it, bless you. There’s a Judy, too; only wants a new frill a-tacking on her head for a cap, and she’s about the best on the boards, I’ll bet. You see I cared ’em myself, and give the whole of my mind to it, so as the faces might look nat’ral and taking. Mind his wig, sir. Ah! that wants a bit o’ glue, that does, and a touch o’ black paint. You see that’s the furrin gentleman as says nothin’ but “Shallabala,” and a good deal o’ the back of his head’s knocked off. There you are, you see, bright colours, good wigs, and nicely dressed. That’s the ghost. Looks thin? well, in course, sperrets ain’t ’sposed to be fat. Head shrunk? Well, ’nuff to make it. That’s Jack Ketch; and that’s the coffin; and that’s the devil. We don’t allus bring him out, and keeps the ghost in the box sometimes, according to the company as we gets in. Out in the streets the people likes to see it all; not as they often do, for we generally gets about half through, and then drops it, pretending we can’t get coppers enough to play it out, when the real thing is as the people’s sucked dry, and won’t tip any more, or we’d keep it up; but in the squares and gentlemen’s gardings it ain’t considered right for the children, so we gives the play in a mutilated form, don’t you see.

Now that’s the lot, don’t you see, sir, and if you wouldn’t mind putting the box on this chair by the bedside, and shoving the table up close, I’ll put ’em all back careful myself, for lying sick here one don’t get much amusement. Ain’t got even Toby here, which being a dawg warn’t much company, yet he was some, though his name warn’t Toby but Spice. Nice dawg he was, though any training warn’t no good; he was a free child o’ natur, and when his time came for the play he would bite the wrong noses and at the wrong times. The wust of it was too, that he would bolt, I don’t mean swaller, but go a-running off arter other dawgs, and getting his frill torn as bad as his ears, and I never did see a raggeder pair o’ ears than he had nowheres—torn amost to ribbons they was. We lost him at last, though I never knowed how, but a ’spicion crossed my mind one day when Bill my pardner was eating a small German, and it was close by the factory as we missed him; and though Bill said I was a duffer and spoilt his dinner, I allus stuck to it, and allus will, as there was the smell of Spice in that ere sassage.

There you are, yer see sir, all packed clost and neat, and as I said afore I wouldn’t take two pounds for ’em, bad as I am inside and out. Trade’s bad, profession’s bad, and I’m bad; but bless yer heart we shall have a revival yet, and when the drum comes back, and I get wind enough again to do the business, we shall go ahead like all that.

There if I ain’t boxed all the figgers up, and left the coffin out. Good job my old woman ain’t here, or she’d say it was a sign or something o’ that sort, and try to make one uncomfortable; but there you are, you see, sir, all snug now, and it does seem rather a low spiriting thing to have in a house, sir, and putting aside Punch and Judy stuff, the smaller they are the less you like it.

Going, sir? well, you’ll come again, I hope, and if Idoget better, why, I’ll go through the lot in front of your house, if you let me have your card.

Beg pardon, sir, thought you were going; not as I wants you to, for company’s werry pleasant when you’re stretched on your back and can’t help yourself. Since I’ve been a-lying here I’ve been reckoning things up, and I’ve come to the conclusion as the world’s got too full. People lives too fast, and do what you will, puff and blow and race after ’em, ten to one you gets beat. Everything wants to be noo and superior, says the people, and nothing old goes down. Look at them happy times, when one could take the missus in the barrer with a sackful o’ cokynuts and pincushions, and them apples and lemons as the more you opened the more come out; then there’d be the sticks, and a tin kettle, and just a few odds and ends, and all drawn by the donkey; when off we’d go down to some country fair or the races; dig the holes or have bags of earth, stick up the things—cokynuts or cushions; the wife sees to the fire and kittle, and you shouts out—leastways, I don’t mean you, I mean me, you know—shouts out, “Three throws a penny,” when the chuckle-headed bumpkins would go on throwing away like winkin’ till they knocked something down, and then go off all on the smile to think how clever they’d been. But now they must have their Aunt Sallys and stuff, and country fairs has all gone to the bow-wows.

If I gets better I’m a-goin’ to turn Punch from a mellowdramy into a opera—make ’em sing everything, you know. I’d have tried it on afore only my mate gets so orrid short-winded with the pipes, and often when you’re a-expectin’ the high notes of a toone he drops it off altogether, and fills in with larrups of the drum, and that wouldn’t do you know in the sollum parts.

Them music-halls has done us as much harm as any-think, and pretty places they is; why if it warn’t for the pretty toons as they fits on the songs, nobody wouldn’t stop to hear the rubbidge as is let off. Punchisstoopid sometimes, we know, but then look at the moral. And there ain’t no moral at all in music-hall songs.

Sometimes I think as I shall have to knock off the national drammy in consequence of want of funds, for you know times may turn so hard that I shall have to sell all off, and the drum mayn’t come back, though I was thinking one time of me and pardner taking a hinstrument each and practisin’ up some good dooets—me taking the drum and him the pipes, allus allowing, of course, as the drum do come back. But then you see as his short-windedness would be agen us, and it wouldn’t do to be allus drowning the high parts with so much leathering.

Heigho, sir. It makes me sigh to lie here so long waiting to get well, till in the dusky evening time, when the gas lamps are shining up and the stars are peeping down, one gets thinking that it’s time to think of that little thing as I left out of the box; and then lying all alone one seems to have all the long years fall away from one, and get back into the old, old times, and often I have been fishing, and wandering, and bird’s-nesting again all over and over as it used to be. I see it all so plainly, and then get calling up all the old mates I had, and reckoning ’em up, and one’s out in Indy, and another was killed in the Crimee, and another’s in Australy for poaching, and among the whole lot I only knows one now, and that’s me—what there is left. I don’t talk like this before the old woman, but I think so much of our old churchyard, and the green graves, and yew trees; and somehow as I remember the old sunny corners and green spots, I fancy as I should like to go to sleep there far away from these courts and alleys. It seems like dying here, and being hurried away afterwards, with every one glad to get rid of you; but down in the old quiet parts it seems to me like watching the sun go down behind the hill, when the still, quiet evening comes on so soft and pleasant, and then you grow tired and worn-out and lie down to rest, taking a long, long sleep under the bright green turf.

But there, I ain’t in the country, I’m here in the thick of London, where I came up to seek my fortun, and never looked in the right place. We poor folks are like the children playing at “Hot boiled beans and werry good butter,” and though while you’re hunting for what’s hid, you may get werry near sometimes, getting warmer and hotter till you’re burning, yet somehow it isn’t often that one finds. Some does, but there’s werry few of ’em, and in the great scramble when one gets hold of anything it’s a chansh if it ain’t snatched out of your hand.

But there, I shan’t give up, for there’s nothing like a bit o’ pluck to carry you through your troubles, and I’m a-going to scheme a noo sorter public Shakespearian dramatic entertainment, one as will be patronised by all the nobility and gentry, when in consequence of the unparalleled success, we shall stop all the press orders and free list, and come out arterwards with a new drum, and get presented with a set o’ silver-mounted pipes by a grateful nation. Leastwise I mean it to be a success if I can, but if it don’t turn out all right, through me and my pardner being so touched in the wind, Bill’s a-going to get up a subscription to buy a barrel-orgin and a four-wheel thing as ’ll take us both—me and the orgin; when I shall sit there with a tin plate to take the coppers, and Bill will grind away like that Italian chap as drew round the gentleman wot had been operated on. I don’t want to come down to that, though, for one can’t help ’sociating barrel-orgins with monkeys, and pitying the poor little chattering beggars as is chained up to an eight-toon box, played slow, as if it was wrong in its inside. And that makes me rather shrink a bit from it, for thinking as I might get tired of the organ-grinder.

Steps, steps, steps. Here’s the missus coming, and there’ll be the physic to take, and then, after a bit of a nap, I mean to sit up and put my theaytrical company to rights.

Chapter Twenty Eight.In the Hooghly.You people here in England don’t know what a river is; the Thames and Severn are only ditches, while the Humber is precious little better than a creek of the sea. Just think of such rivers as the Amazon, and the Plate, and the Mississippi, where you can sail up miles, and miles, and miles, and on the two first can’t make out the shore on either side; while after a flood down comes little islands covered with trees washed out of the banks, some with pretty little snakes on ’em twenty feet long, p’raps, while on every flat bit of shore you see the alligators a-lying by wholesale. Then there’s them big African rivers with the alligator’s first cousins—crockydiles, you know, same as there is up in that big river in Indy—the Ganges, as I’ve sailed up right through the Sunderbunds, covered in some places with jungle, where the great striped tigers lie, and as one o’ my poor mates used to say, it’s dangerous to be safe.I’ve been up to Calcutta, I have, after sailing right across the roaring main to Adelaide, and dropping our cargo. My; how hot it is going up that river, a regular hot stifly sort of heat, as seems to get hold of you and say, “Hold hard, my boy, you can’t work here!” and we never used to do any more than we could help. Sailing up, day after day, we got anchored at last up at the grand place, and I don’t know which you takes most notice of, the grandness or the misery, for there’s a wonderful sight of both.“What’s that?” I says to Bob Davies, as we was a-leaning over the side, looking at the native boats floating here and there, and seeing how the great muddy stream flowed swiftly down.“That?” says Bob. “Ah, you’ll see lots of that sort of thing about. That’s a corpus, that is, and that’s how they buries ’em here. Waits till a poor fellow’s werry sick, and then takes and puts him at low tide on the bottom of the steps of the landing-places,—ghauts they calls ’em, and then, if he’s got strength enough in him, he crawls away, but if he ain’t, why the tide carries him off, and then he goes washing up and down the river till Dicky Todd lays hold on him, and pulls him under for his next meal.”“Who’s Dicky Todd?” I says.“Why,” says Bob, a-chuckling, “there he goes, that’s him,” and then he stood a-pinting out into the stream where there was what seemed to me to be a bit of rough bark of a tree floating slowly down towards the sea.“Why, that’s a tree, I says, ain’t it?”“Ho! ho! ho! what ignorance,” says Bob, “that’s a crorkodile, or a haligator, if you likes to call it so. Dicky Todd, that is, as don’t like his meals fresh, but keeps his game till it gets high, and then enjoys himself with a feast.”’Nough to make one shudder that was, but it was true enough, for, before the body I had seen floating down had gone much further, there was a bit of a swirl in the water, and both crocodile and body disappeared, while my face felt as if it was turning white, and I knew I felt sick.We chaps didn’t work very hard though, for there were plenty of black fellows there, ready to do anything for you, and lots of ’em were employed lading the ship, while we were busy touching her up, bending on new sheets, here and there mending sails, painting and scraping, and making right a spar or two that had sprung, for you know there’s always something amiss after a long voyage, and it’s no short distance from Liverpool to Port Adelaide, and then up to Calcutta. Rum chaps some of those blacks was, not werry decent in their ideas of dress, and all seeming to suffer from a famine in stockings. Precious particular too about what they call their caste, which you know is a complaint as exists in the old country too. Why, in our old village it was werry bad, and was like this you know: the squire’s people wouldn’t mix with the doctor’s, and the doctor’s wouldn’t visit the maltster’s, and the maltster’s didn’t know the people at the shop, who didn’t call on the clerk’s wife, who said her gal shouldn’t go to tea at Brown’s, who said Smith’s folks was low; and so on. That’s caste—that is, and they has it werry bad out in Indy. Mussulmans some on ’em, and Brahmins, and all sorts, and lots on ’em you’ll meet with a bit o’ paint on their forehead, to show what caste they belong to, I s’pose, while they’re as proud as Lucifer.One old chap used to come to work and bring his gang with him to go on with the lading, and one day when he came some of our fellows began to chaff him, for he’d got his head shaved, and what for do you think, but because he was in mourning, and had put away his wife? Not as that seemed to me anything to go in mourning for, since some of our chaps would have been a wonderful deal better without their wives as they left behind in Liverpool. But this chap had divorced his wife because she had let the child die, so he said, and there was the poor woman in double trouble.“S’pose she couldn’t help the little ’un going,” says Bob to him.“Ah! yes, Sahib,” says this old chap, Jamsy Jam, as he called himself, “oh yes, Sahib, she let child die—mosh trouble.” But I’m blest if I don’t think it was him wanted to get rid of his wife, and so made this an excuse.Bob Davis and me one day stood looking over the side o’ the ship, same as we often did, and he says to me, he says:—“Last time as I was here, we was lying a hundred yards further up the stream, and one day when I was in the bows, I could see something hitched on to the chain as moored us to the buoy, and if it wasn’t one of them poor fellows as had come down with the stream from perhaps hundreds of miles up the country, and there wasn’t one of our chaps as would get him off, so it came to my share to do it, and I undertook it out of a bit of bounce because the others wouldn’t, for I felt proper scared and frightened over it. They often gets hitched in the mooring chains of ships, and p’raps we shall come in for one before we goes.”About an hour after I goes and looks down at the chain, when if I didn’t turn all shivering, for there was something dusky hitched on sure enough, and I ran and called Bob Davis up to have a look, and see if it wasn’t what he’d been a talking about.“So it is,” he says; and he went and told the captain and mate, and they came and had a look, when the dinghy was ordered down, and Bob and me in her, to set the body free.Now I didn’t like the job a bit, and I pulled a long face at Bob, just same time as he was pulling a long face at me; but our captain was a man who would stand no nonsense, so we were soon down in the boat, and I put her along the side, while Bob got hold of the boat-hook, and reached out at the body.But it warn’t a body of a poor black at all, but a god as was dressed up, and had been sent sailing down from one of their grand feasts somewhere up the river, one of those set-outs where there’s so much dancing and beating of tom-toms and singing in their benighted, un-Christian-like, dreary fashion, all Ea-la-ba-sha-la-ma-ca-la-fa; for it sounds like nothing else to a sailor chap as don’t understand Hindostanee.Well, we brings this great idol on board, and the captain has it dried and stood on deck; but I’m blest if the black chaps didn’t all turn huffy about it, and kicked up a shine, and then took and went off, leaving all their work. They came back, though, next morning reg’lar as could be, and I says to Bob Davis, “Bob,” I says, “that’s just for all the world like coves at home: cuts off in a passion, and then comes back when they’re cool again.”“Ah,” says Bob, with a bit of a chuckle; “p’raps it is, but not quite; for they was afraid to work with one o’ their gods a-looking at ’em.”“Then what made ’em come back now?” I say.“Because he’s gone again bobbing about among the Dicky Todds and corpuses; and it’s my belief,” he says, “that our watch didn’t keep much of a look-out, or they’d have seen some of the swarthy beggars come aboard and heave it overboard, for it’s gone sure enough.”Gone it was, and no mistake; and I suppose Bob must have been right; and, though the cap went on a good ’un about losing his curiosity, it warn’t no good at all.“Some of you knows something of it,” says the cap to old Jam, as we called him for short.“Captain Sahib no got god of his own at home that he want black fellow’s,” says old Jam very grandly, but making a great salaam a’most down to the deck.But the cap only grumbled out something, and went off, for he didn’t want to offend the men.One day we had a sad upset—one as gave our chaps the horrors, and made them restless to get out of the place, and worse, for after that the men were always looking out for the crocodiles, and bodies, and things that came down the great stream, while now everything they saw floating, if it was only a lump of rotten rushes or a bit of tree-trunk, got to be called something horrid. Then the chaps got tired of its being so hot, and discontented at having not enough to do, I s’pose, for a ship’s crew never seems so happy as when the men are full swing an’ at the work.Well, it so happened that in two places the cap had had little swing stages slung over the side for the men who were touching up the ship’s ribs with a new streak of paint; and there the chaps were dabbing away very coolly as to the way they worked, but very hotly as to the weather, for the sun comes down there a scorcher when there’s no breeze on. I was very busy myself trying to find a cool place somewhere; and not getting it, when the man over the bulwarks gives a hail, and I goes to see what he wanted, which it was more paint, because he didn’t want to come up the side, and get it himself. So I takes the pot from him, and gets it half filled with colour, and goes back to the side all on the dawdle-and-crawl system just like the other chaps on deck.“Now then,” I says, “lay hold;” but my gentleman didn’t move, for there he was, squatted down and smoking his pipe; when, finding it comforting, he wouldn’t move.“I say,” he says, looking up, “just see if them lashings is all right; for, if I was to go down here, it’s my idee as I shouldn’t come up again for the crockydiles, and I don’t kear about giving up the number of my mess jest yet; so look out.”“Well, lay hold of this pot,” says I, reaching down to him as far as I could.“Wait a minute,” he says, when he began to groan himself up, and next moment he would have reached what I was holding to him, when I heard something give, a sort of crack; then there was a shriek and a loud splash, and I saw the poor fellow’s horror-stricken face for an instant as he disappeared beneath the water.“Man overboard!” I shouted, dropping the paint, and running to the rope which held the dinghy; when sliding down I was in her in a moment, and shoving along towards where the poor chap went down. First I looked one way, then another, and kept paddling about expecting that I should see his head come up, while now at the sides half the crew were looking over, for they had forgotten all about feeling tired or lazy in their anxiety to be of use.“There, look out,” cried Bob Davis; “he’ll come up there where that eddy is, and then I watched there and leaned over the sides ready to catch hold of the poor chap when he came up.”“Let her float down with the stream,” shouted the captain, excitedly; “he must come to the top directly,” and so I let her float down; kneeling there as I did, ready to snatch at anything which appeared. The river was running down muddy and strong, so that you could see nothing but the swirling about of the current, as it came rushing round by the ships and boats moored there, and I began to think that the poor fellow would soon be sucked under one of the big hulls, when it seemed to me that there was more swirling and rushing about of the water than usual, for my little boat began to rock a little and some bubbles of air came rising up and floating atop of the water.Here he is now, I thinks, getting hold of the boat-hook, and holding it just a little in the water, when all at once I turned quite sick and queer, for there was a great patchy stream of blood came up, and floated on the surface, slowly spreading out, and floating down the stream, when in a sort of mad fit I made a thrust down as far as I could reach with the hook to bring something up, and sure enough I caught against something, but the next moment there was a snatch and a jerk, and I had to let go of the hook, to save being pulled overboard, when I clung shuddering to the thwarts, and saw the long shaft disappear under water.The chaps on board our ship roused me up, or I think I should have turned quite dizzy, and rolled out of the boat; but now I jumped up, and setting an oar out of the stern, paddled a little further down, trying hard to make myself believe that the poor chap would come up again. But no, nothing more was seen of him but the bubbles on the top of the water, and that horrid red patch which came directly after.I paddled here and paddled there, trembling all over the whole time, but it was of no use, and at last when I was some distance off, and they began shouting for me, I put out both sculls, and rowed back, when mine wasn’t the only pale, sickly looking face aboard, for there were the men talking in whispers, and the other chap that had been painting came off of his stage, while if the captain had persisted in trying to get that bit of painting finished, I believe the men would have all mutinied and left the ship. But he didn’t, for though he couldn’t have liked to see the ship half done, he said nothing about it, for there was no one to blame, since that poor lost man rigged up his own stage; and all the rest of the time as we stopped there in the Hooghly—Ugly as we calls it—the cap and the mate used to spend hours every day practising rifle shooting at the crocodiles, as must have been the end of my poor ship-mate.

You people here in England don’t know what a river is; the Thames and Severn are only ditches, while the Humber is precious little better than a creek of the sea. Just think of such rivers as the Amazon, and the Plate, and the Mississippi, where you can sail up miles, and miles, and miles, and on the two first can’t make out the shore on either side; while after a flood down comes little islands covered with trees washed out of the banks, some with pretty little snakes on ’em twenty feet long, p’raps, while on every flat bit of shore you see the alligators a-lying by wholesale. Then there’s them big African rivers with the alligator’s first cousins—crockydiles, you know, same as there is up in that big river in Indy—the Ganges, as I’ve sailed up right through the Sunderbunds, covered in some places with jungle, where the great striped tigers lie, and as one o’ my poor mates used to say, it’s dangerous to be safe.

I’ve been up to Calcutta, I have, after sailing right across the roaring main to Adelaide, and dropping our cargo. My; how hot it is going up that river, a regular hot stifly sort of heat, as seems to get hold of you and say, “Hold hard, my boy, you can’t work here!” and we never used to do any more than we could help. Sailing up, day after day, we got anchored at last up at the grand place, and I don’t know which you takes most notice of, the grandness or the misery, for there’s a wonderful sight of both.

“What’s that?” I says to Bob Davies, as we was a-leaning over the side, looking at the native boats floating here and there, and seeing how the great muddy stream flowed swiftly down.

“That?” says Bob. “Ah, you’ll see lots of that sort of thing about. That’s a corpus, that is, and that’s how they buries ’em here. Waits till a poor fellow’s werry sick, and then takes and puts him at low tide on the bottom of the steps of the landing-places,—ghauts they calls ’em, and then, if he’s got strength enough in him, he crawls away, but if he ain’t, why the tide carries him off, and then he goes washing up and down the river till Dicky Todd lays hold on him, and pulls him under for his next meal.”

“Who’s Dicky Todd?” I says.

“Why,” says Bob, a-chuckling, “there he goes, that’s him,” and then he stood a-pinting out into the stream where there was what seemed to me to be a bit of rough bark of a tree floating slowly down towards the sea.

“Why, that’s a tree, I says, ain’t it?”

“Ho! ho! ho! what ignorance,” says Bob, “that’s a crorkodile, or a haligator, if you likes to call it so. Dicky Todd, that is, as don’t like his meals fresh, but keeps his game till it gets high, and then enjoys himself with a feast.”

’Nough to make one shudder that was, but it was true enough, for, before the body I had seen floating down had gone much further, there was a bit of a swirl in the water, and both crocodile and body disappeared, while my face felt as if it was turning white, and I knew I felt sick.

We chaps didn’t work very hard though, for there were plenty of black fellows there, ready to do anything for you, and lots of ’em were employed lading the ship, while we were busy touching her up, bending on new sheets, here and there mending sails, painting and scraping, and making right a spar or two that had sprung, for you know there’s always something amiss after a long voyage, and it’s no short distance from Liverpool to Port Adelaide, and then up to Calcutta. Rum chaps some of those blacks was, not werry decent in their ideas of dress, and all seeming to suffer from a famine in stockings. Precious particular too about what they call their caste, which you know is a complaint as exists in the old country too. Why, in our old village it was werry bad, and was like this you know: the squire’s people wouldn’t mix with the doctor’s, and the doctor’s wouldn’t visit the maltster’s, and the maltster’s didn’t know the people at the shop, who didn’t call on the clerk’s wife, who said her gal shouldn’t go to tea at Brown’s, who said Smith’s folks was low; and so on. That’s caste—that is, and they has it werry bad out in Indy. Mussulmans some on ’em, and Brahmins, and all sorts, and lots on ’em you’ll meet with a bit o’ paint on their forehead, to show what caste they belong to, I s’pose, while they’re as proud as Lucifer.

One old chap used to come to work and bring his gang with him to go on with the lading, and one day when he came some of our fellows began to chaff him, for he’d got his head shaved, and what for do you think, but because he was in mourning, and had put away his wife? Not as that seemed to me anything to go in mourning for, since some of our chaps would have been a wonderful deal better without their wives as they left behind in Liverpool. But this chap had divorced his wife because she had let the child die, so he said, and there was the poor woman in double trouble.

“S’pose she couldn’t help the little ’un going,” says Bob to him.

“Ah! yes, Sahib,” says this old chap, Jamsy Jam, as he called himself, “oh yes, Sahib, she let child die—mosh trouble.” But I’m blest if I don’t think it was him wanted to get rid of his wife, and so made this an excuse.

Bob Davis and me one day stood looking over the side o’ the ship, same as we often did, and he says to me, he says:—

“Last time as I was here, we was lying a hundred yards further up the stream, and one day when I was in the bows, I could see something hitched on to the chain as moored us to the buoy, and if it wasn’t one of them poor fellows as had come down with the stream from perhaps hundreds of miles up the country, and there wasn’t one of our chaps as would get him off, so it came to my share to do it, and I undertook it out of a bit of bounce because the others wouldn’t, for I felt proper scared and frightened over it. They often gets hitched in the mooring chains of ships, and p’raps we shall come in for one before we goes.”

About an hour after I goes and looks down at the chain, when if I didn’t turn all shivering, for there was something dusky hitched on sure enough, and I ran and called Bob Davis up to have a look, and see if it wasn’t what he’d been a talking about.

“So it is,” he says; and he went and told the captain and mate, and they came and had a look, when the dinghy was ordered down, and Bob and me in her, to set the body free.

Now I didn’t like the job a bit, and I pulled a long face at Bob, just same time as he was pulling a long face at me; but our captain was a man who would stand no nonsense, so we were soon down in the boat, and I put her along the side, while Bob got hold of the boat-hook, and reached out at the body.

But it warn’t a body of a poor black at all, but a god as was dressed up, and had been sent sailing down from one of their grand feasts somewhere up the river, one of those set-outs where there’s so much dancing and beating of tom-toms and singing in their benighted, un-Christian-like, dreary fashion, all Ea-la-ba-sha-la-ma-ca-la-fa; for it sounds like nothing else to a sailor chap as don’t understand Hindostanee.

Well, we brings this great idol on board, and the captain has it dried and stood on deck; but I’m blest if the black chaps didn’t all turn huffy about it, and kicked up a shine, and then took and went off, leaving all their work. They came back, though, next morning reg’lar as could be, and I says to Bob Davis, “Bob,” I says, “that’s just for all the world like coves at home: cuts off in a passion, and then comes back when they’re cool again.”

“Ah,” says Bob, with a bit of a chuckle; “p’raps it is, but not quite; for they was afraid to work with one o’ their gods a-looking at ’em.”

“Then what made ’em come back now?” I say.

“Because he’s gone again bobbing about among the Dicky Todds and corpuses; and it’s my belief,” he says, “that our watch didn’t keep much of a look-out, or they’d have seen some of the swarthy beggars come aboard and heave it overboard, for it’s gone sure enough.”

Gone it was, and no mistake; and I suppose Bob must have been right; and, though the cap went on a good ’un about losing his curiosity, it warn’t no good at all.

“Some of you knows something of it,” says the cap to old Jam, as we called him for short.

“Captain Sahib no got god of his own at home that he want black fellow’s,” says old Jam very grandly, but making a great salaam a’most down to the deck.

But the cap only grumbled out something, and went off, for he didn’t want to offend the men.

One day we had a sad upset—one as gave our chaps the horrors, and made them restless to get out of the place, and worse, for after that the men were always looking out for the crocodiles, and bodies, and things that came down the great stream, while now everything they saw floating, if it was only a lump of rotten rushes or a bit of tree-trunk, got to be called something horrid. Then the chaps got tired of its being so hot, and discontented at having not enough to do, I s’pose, for a ship’s crew never seems so happy as when the men are full swing an’ at the work.

Well, it so happened that in two places the cap had had little swing stages slung over the side for the men who were touching up the ship’s ribs with a new streak of paint; and there the chaps were dabbing away very coolly as to the way they worked, but very hotly as to the weather, for the sun comes down there a scorcher when there’s no breeze on. I was very busy myself trying to find a cool place somewhere; and not getting it, when the man over the bulwarks gives a hail, and I goes to see what he wanted, which it was more paint, because he didn’t want to come up the side, and get it himself. So I takes the pot from him, and gets it half filled with colour, and goes back to the side all on the dawdle-and-crawl system just like the other chaps on deck.

“Now then,” I says, “lay hold;” but my gentleman didn’t move, for there he was, squatted down and smoking his pipe; when, finding it comforting, he wouldn’t move.

“I say,” he says, looking up, “just see if them lashings is all right; for, if I was to go down here, it’s my idee as I shouldn’t come up again for the crockydiles, and I don’t kear about giving up the number of my mess jest yet; so look out.”

“Well, lay hold of this pot,” says I, reaching down to him as far as I could.

“Wait a minute,” he says, when he began to groan himself up, and next moment he would have reached what I was holding to him, when I heard something give, a sort of crack; then there was a shriek and a loud splash, and I saw the poor fellow’s horror-stricken face for an instant as he disappeared beneath the water.

“Man overboard!” I shouted, dropping the paint, and running to the rope which held the dinghy; when sliding down I was in her in a moment, and shoving along towards where the poor chap went down. First I looked one way, then another, and kept paddling about expecting that I should see his head come up, while now at the sides half the crew were looking over, for they had forgotten all about feeling tired or lazy in their anxiety to be of use.

“There, look out,” cried Bob Davis; “he’ll come up there where that eddy is, and then I watched there and leaned over the sides ready to catch hold of the poor chap when he came up.”

“Let her float down with the stream,” shouted the captain, excitedly; “he must come to the top directly,” and so I let her float down; kneeling there as I did, ready to snatch at anything which appeared. The river was running down muddy and strong, so that you could see nothing but the swirling about of the current, as it came rushing round by the ships and boats moored there, and I began to think that the poor fellow would soon be sucked under one of the big hulls, when it seemed to me that there was more swirling and rushing about of the water than usual, for my little boat began to rock a little and some bubbles of air came rising up and floating atop of the water.

Here he is now, I thinks, getting hold of the boat-hook, and holding it just a little in the water, when all at once I turned quite sick and queer, for there was a great patchy stream of blood came up, and floated on the surface, slowly spreading out, and floating down the stream, when in a sort of mad fit I made a thrust down as far as I could reach with the hook to bring something up, and sure enough I caught against something, but the next moment there was a snatch and a jerk, and I had to let go of the hook, to save being pulled overboard, when I clung shuddering to the thwarts, and saw the long shaft disappear under water.

The chaps on board our ship roused me up, or I think I should have turned quite dizzy, and rolled out of the boat; but now I jumped up, and setting an oar out of the stern, paddled a little further down, trying hard to make myself believe that the poor chap would come up again. But no, nothing more was seen of him but the bubbles on the top of the water, and that horrid red patch which came directly after.

I paddled here and paddled there, trembling all over the whole time, but it was of no use, and at last when I was some distance off, and they began shouting for me, I put out both sculls, and rowed back, when mine wasn’t the only pale, sickly looking face aboard, for there were the men talking in whispers, and the other chap that had been painting came off of his stage, while if the captain had persisted in trying to get that bit of painting finished, I believe the men would have all mutinied and left the ship. But he didn’t, for though he couldn’t have liked to see the ship half done, he said nothing about it, for there was no one to blame, since that poor lost man rigged up his own stage; and all the rest of the time as we stopped there in the Hooghly—Ugly as we calls it—the cap and the mate used to spend hours every day practising rifle shooting at the crocodiles, as must have been the end of my poor ship-mate.

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