III.—THE COURTSHIP AND ANOTHER SHIP.
One evening, as the two sisters were hastening along the road through the woods on their way homewards, a young farmer drove up in his spring-cart, cast a look at them, stopped, and said: “Young women, if you are going my way, I shall be glad of your company. You are quite welcome to ride.”
The sisters looked at each other. “Dunna be afreed,” said the young farmer; “my name’s James Cheshire. I’m well known in these parts; you may trust yersens wi’ me, if it’s agreeable.”
To James’ surprise, Nancy said, “No, sir, we are not afraid; we are much obliged to you.”
The young farmer helped them up into the cart, and away they drove.
“I’m afraid we shall crowd you,” said Jane.
“Not a bit of it,” replied the young farmer. “There’s room for three bigger nor us in this seat, and I’m no ways tedious.”
The sisters saw nothing odd in his use of the word “tedious,” as strangers would have done; they knew it merely meant “not at all particular.” They were soon in active talk. As he had told them who he was, he asked them in their turn if they worked at the mills there. They replied in the affirmative, and the young man said:—
“I thought so. I’ve seen you sometimes going along together. I noticed you because you seemed so sisterly like, and you are sisters, I reckon.”
They said “Yes.”
“I’ve a good spanking horse, you see,” said James Cheshire. “I shall get over th’ ground rayther faster than you done a-foot, eh? My word, though, it must be nation cold on these bleak hills i’ winter.”
The sisters assented, and thanked the young farmer for taking them up.
“We are rather late,” said they, “for we looked in on a friend, and the rest of the mill-hands were gone on.”
“Well,” said the young farmer, “never mind that. I fancy Bess, my mare here, can go a little faster nor they can. We shall very likely be at Tidser as soon as they are.”
“But you are not going to Tidser,” said Jane, “your farm is just before us there.”
“Yay, I’m going to Tidser though. I’ve a bit of business to do there before I go hom.”
On drove the farmer at what he called a spanking rate; presently they saw the young mill-people on the road before them.
“There are your companions,” said James Cheshire, “we shall cut past them like a flash of lightning.
“Oh,” exclaimed Jane Dunster, “what will they say at seeing us riding here?” and she blushed brightly.
“Say!” said the young farmer, smiling, “never mind what they’ll say; depend upon it, they’d like to be here theirsens.”
James Cheshire cracked his whip. The horse flew along. The party of the young mill-hands turned round, and on seeing Jane and Nancy in the cart, uttered exclamations of surprise.
“My word, though!” said Mary Smedley, a fresh buxom lass, somewhat inclined to stoutness.
“Well, if ever!” cried smart little Hannah Bowyer.
“Nay, then, what next!” said Tetty Wilson, a tall, thin girl, of very good looks.
The two sisters nodded and smiled to their companions; Jane still blushing rosily, but Nancy sitting as pale and as gravely as if they were going on some solemn business.
The only notice the farmer took was to turn with a broad smiling face, and shout to them, “Wouldn’t you like to be here too?”
“Ay, take us up,” shouted a number of voices together; but the farmer cracked his whip, and giving them a nod and a dozen smiles in one, said, “I can’t stay. Ask the next farmer that comes up.”
With this they drove on; the young farmer very merry and full of talk. They were soon by the side of his farm. “There’s a flock of sheep on the turnips there,” he said, proudly; “they’re not to be beaten on this side Ashbourne. And there are some black oxen going for the night to the straw-yard. Jolly fellows, those—eh? But I reckon you don’t understand much of farming stock?”
“No,” said Jane, and was again surprised at Nancy adding, “I wish we did. I think a farmer’s life must be the very happiest of any.”
“You think so?” said the farmer, turning and looking at her earnestly, and evidently with some wonder. “You are right,” said he. “You little ones are knowing ones. You are right; it’s the life for a king.”
They were at the village. “Pray stop,” said Jane, “and let us go down. I would not for the world go up the village thus. It would make such a talk!”
“Talk, who cares for talk?” said the farmer; “won’t the youngsters we left on the road talk?”
“Quite enough,” said Jane.
“And are you afraid of talk?” said the farmer to Nancy.
“I’m not afraid of it when I don’t provoke it wilfully,” said Nancy; “but we are poor girls, and can’t afford to lose even the good word of our acquaintance. You’ve been very kind in taking us up on the road, but to drive us to our door would cause such wonder as would perhaps make us wish we had not been obliged to you.”
“Blame me, if you arn’t right again!” said the young farmer, thoughtfully. “These are scandal-loving times, and th’ neebors might plague you. That’s a deep head of yourn, though,—Nancy, I think your sister caw’d you. Well, here I stop then.”
He jumped down and helped them out.
“If you will drive on first,” said Jane, “we will walk on after, and we’re greatly obliged to you.”
“Nay,” said the young man, “I shall turn again here.”
“But you’ve business.”
“Oh! my business was to drive you here—that’s all.”
James Cheshere was mounting his cart, when Nancy stepped up, and said: “Excuse me, Sir, but you’ll meet the mill-people on your return, and it will make them talk all the more as you have driven us past your farm. Have you no business that you can do in Tidser, Sir?”
“Gad! but thou’rt right again! Ay, I’ll go on!” and with a crack of his whip, and a “Good night!” he whirled into the village before them.
No sooner was he gone than Nancy, pressing her sister’s arm to her side, said: “There’s the right man at last, dear Jane.”
“What!” said Jane, yet blushing deeply at the same time, and her heart beating quicker against her side. “Whatever are you talking of, Nancy? That young farmer fall in love with a mill-girl?”
“He’s done it,” said Nancy; “I see it in him. I feel it in him. And I feel, too, that he is true and staunch as steel.”
Jane was silent. They walked on in silence. Jane’s own heart responded to what Nancy had said; she thought again and again on what he said. “I have seen you sometimes;” “I noticed you because you seemed so sisterly.” “He must have a good heart,” thought Jane; “but then he can never think of a poor mill-girl like me.”
The next morning they had to undergo plenty of raillery from their companions. We will pass that over. For several days, as they passed to and fro, they saw nothing of the young farmer. But one evening, as they were again alone, having staid at the same acquaintance’s as before, the young farmer popped his head over a stone wall, and said, “Good evening to you, young women,” He was soon over the wall, and walked on with them to the end of the town. On the Sunday at the chapel Jane saw Nancy’s grave face fixed on some object steadily, and, looking in the same direction, was startled to see James Cheshire. Again her heart beat pit-a-pat, and she thought “Can he really be thinking of me?”
The moment chapel was over, James Cheshire was gone, stopping to speak to no one. Nancy again pressed the arm of Jane to her side as they walked home, and said—“I was not wrong.” Jane only replied by returning her affectionate pressure.
Some days after, as Nancy Dunster was coming out of a shop in the evening after their return home from the mill, James Cheshire suddenly put his hand on her shoulder, and, on her turning, shook her hand cordially, and said, “Come along with me a bit. I must have a little talk with you.”
Nancy consented without remark or hesitation. James Cheshire walked on quickly till they came near the fine old church which strikes travellers as so superior to the place in which it is located; when he slackened his pace, and taking Nancy’s hand, began in a most friendly manner to tell her how much he liked her and her sister. That, to make a short matter of it, as was his way, he had made up his mind that the woman of all others in the world that would suit him for a wife was her sister. “But, before I said so to her, I thought I would say so to you, Nancy, for you are so sensible, I’m sure you will say what is best for us all.”
Nancy manifested no surprise, but said, calmly: “You are a well-to-do farmer, Mr. Cheshire. You have friends of property; my sister, and—”
“Ay, and a mill-girl; I know all that. I’ve thought it all over, and so far you are right again, my little one. But just hear what I’ve got to say. I’m no fool, though I say it. I’ve an eye in my head and a head on my shoulders, eh?”
Nancy smiled.
“Well now, it’s not any mill-girl; mind you, it’s not any mill-girl; no, nor perhaps another in the kingdom, that would do for me. I don’t think mill-girls are in the main cut out for farmers’ wives, any more than farmers’ wives are fit for mill-girls; but you see, I’ve got a notion that your sister is not only a very farrantly lass, but that she’s one that has particular good sense, though not so deep as you, Nancy, neither. Well, I’ve a notion she can turn her hand to anything, and that she’s a heart to do it, when it’s a duty. Isn’t that so, eh? And if it is so, then Jane Dunster’s the lass for me; that is, if it’s quite agreeable.”
Nancy pressed James Cheshire’s hand, and said, “You are very kind.”
“Not a bit of it,” said James.
“Well,” continued Nancy; “but I would have you to consider what your friends will say; and whether you will not be made unhappy by them.”
“Why, as to that,” said James Cheshire, interrupting her, “mark me, Miss Dunster. I don’t ask my friends for anything. I can farm my own farm; buy my own cattle; drive my spring-cart, without any advice or assistance of theirs; and therefore I don’t think I shall ask their advice in the matter of a wife, eh? No, no, on that score I’m made up. My name’s Independent, and, at a word, the only living thing I mean to ask advice of is yourself. If you, Miss Dunster, approve of the match, it’s settled, as far I’m concerned.”
“Then so far,” said Nancy, “as you and my sister are concerned, without reference to worldly circumstances—I approve it with all my heart. I believe you to be as good and honest as I know my sister to be. Oh! Mr. Cheshire! she is one of ten thousand.”
“Well, I was sure of it;” said the young farmer; “and so now you must tell your sister all about it; and if all’s right, chalk me a white chalk inside of my gate as you go past i’ th’ morning, and to-morrow evening I’ll come up and see you.”
Here the two parted with a cordial shake of the hand. The novel signal of an accepted love was duly discovered by James Cheshire on his gate-post, when he issued forth at daybreak, and that evening he was sitting at tea with Jane and Nancy in the little cottage, having brought in his cart a basket of eggs, apples, fresh butter, and a pile of the richest pikelets (crumpets), country pikelets, very different to town-made ones, for tea.
We need not follow out the courtship of James Cheshire and Jane Dunster. It was cordial and happy. James insisted that both the sisters should give immediate notice to quit the mill-work, to spare themselves the cold and severe walks which the winter now occasioned them. The sisters had improved their education in their evenings. They were far better read and informed than most farmers’ daughters. They had been, since they came to Tideswell, teachers in the Sunday-school. There was comparatively little to be learned in a farm-house for the wife in winter, and James Cheshire therefore proposed to the sisters to go for three months to Manchester into a wholesale house, to learn as much as they could of the plain sewing and cutting out of household linen. The person in question made up all sorts of household linen, sheets, pillow-cases, shirts, and other things; in fact, a great variety of articles. Through an old acquaintance he got them introduced there, avowedly to prepare them for house-keeping. It was a sensible step, and answered well. At spring, to cut short opposition from his own relatives, which began to show itself, for these things did not fail to be talked of, James Cheshire got a license, and proceeding to Manchester, was then and there married, and came home with his wife and sister.
The talk and gossip which this wedding made all round the country, was no little; but the parties themselves were well satisfied with their mutual choice, and were happy. As the spring advanced, the duties of the household grew upon Mrs. Cheshire. She had to learn the art of cheese-making, butter-making, of all that relates to poultry, calves, and household management. But in these matters she had the aid of an old servant who had done all this for Mr. Cheshire, since he began farming. She took a great liking to her mistress, and showed her with hearty good-will how everything was done; and as Jane took a deep interest in it, she rapidly made herself mistress of the management of the house, as well as of the house itself. She did not disdain, herself, to take a hand at the churn, that she might be familiar with the whole process of butter-making, and all the signs by which the process is conducted to a successful issue. It was soon seen that no farmer’s wife could produce a firmer, fresher, sweeter pound of butter. It was neither swelted by too hasty churning, nor spoiled, as is too often the case, by the buttermilk or by water being left in it, for want of well kneading and pressing. It was deliciously sweet, because the cream was carefully put up in the cleanest vessels and well attended to. Mrs. Cheshire, too, might daily be seen kneeling by the side of the cheese-pan, separating the curd, taking off the whey, filling the cheese-vat with the curd, and putting the cheese herself into press. Her cheese-chamber displayed as fine a set of well-salted, well-colored, well-turned and regular cheeses as ever issued from that or any other farm-house.
James Cheshire was proud of his wife; and Jane herself found a most excellent helper in Nancy. Nancy took particularly to housekeeping; saw that all the rooms were exquisitely clean; that everything was in nice repair; that not only the master and mistress, but the servants had their food prepared in a wholesome and attractive manner. The eggs she stored up; and as fruit came into season, had it collected for market, and for a judicious household use. She made the tea and coffee morning and evening, and did everything but preside at the table. There was not a farm-house for twenty miles round, that wore an air of so much brightness and evident good management as that of James Cheshire. For Nancy, from the first moment of their acquaintance, he had conceived a most profound respect. In all cases that required counsel, though he consulted freely with his wife, he would never decide till they had had Nancy’s opinion and sanction.
And James Cheshire prospered. But, spite of this, he did not escape the persecution from his relations that Nancy had foreseen. On all hands he found coldness. None of them called on him. They felt scandalized at his evening himself, as they called it, to a mill-girl. He was taunted when they met at market, with having been caught with a pretty face; and told that they thought he had had more sense than to marry a dressed doll with a witch by her side.
At first James Cheshire replied with a careless waggery, “The pretty face makes capital butter, though, eh? The dressed doll turns out a tolerable dairy, eh? Better,” added James, “than a good many can, that I know, who have neither pretty faces, nor have much taste in dressing to crack of.”
The allusion to Nancy’s dwarfish plainness was what peculiarly provoked James Cheshire. He might have laughed at the criticisms on his wife, though the envious neighbors’ wives did say that it was the old servant and not Mrs. Cheshire who produced such fine butter and cheese; for where-ever she appeared, spite of envy and detraction, her lovely person and quiet good sense, and the growing rumor of her good management, did not fail to produce a due impression. And James had prepared to laugh it off; but it would not do. He found himself getting every now and then angry and unsettled by it. A coarse jest on Nancy at any time threw him into a desperate fit of indignation. The more the superior merit of his wife was known, the more seemed to increase the envy and venom of some of his relatives. He saw, too, that it had an effect on his wife. She was often sad, and sometimes in tears.
One day when this occurred, James Cheshire said, as they sat at tea, “I’ve made up my mind. Peace in this life is a jewel. Better is a dinner of herbs with peace, than a stalled ox with strife. Well, now, I’m determined to have peace. Peace and luv,” said he, looking affectionately at his wife and Nancy, “peace and luv, by God’s blessing, have settled down on this house; but there are stings here and stings there, when we go out of doors. We must not only have peace and luv in the house, but peace all round it. So I’ve made up my mind. I’m for America!”
“For America!” exclaimed Jane. “Surely you cannot be in earnest.”
“I never was more in earnest in my life,” said James Cheshire. “It is true I do very well on this farm here, though it’s a cowdish situation; but from all I can learn, I can do much better in America. I can there farm a much better farm of my own. We can have a much finer climate than this Peak country, and our countrymen still about us. Now, I want to know what makes a man’s native land pleasant to him?—the kindness of his relations and friends. But then, if a man’s relations are not kind?—if they get a conceit into them, that because they are relations they are to choose a man’s wife for him, and sting him and snort at him because he has a will of his own?—why, then I say, God send a good big herring-pool between me and such relations! My relations, by way of showing their natural affection, spit spite and bitterness. You, dear wife and sister, have none of yourn to spite you. In the house we have peace and luv. Let us take the peace and luv, and leave the bitterness behind.”
There was a deep silence.
“It is a serious proposal,” at length said Jane, with tears in her eyes.
“What says Nancy?” asked James.
“It is a serious proposal,” said Nancy, “but it is good. I feel it so.”
There was another deep silence; and James Cheshire said, “Then it is decided.”
“Think of it,” said Jane earnestly,—“think well of it.”
“I have thought of it long and well, my dear. There are some of these chaps that call me relation that I shall not keep my hands off, if I stay amongst them,—and I fain would. But for the present I will say no more; but,” added he, rising and bringing a book from his desk, “here is a book by one Morris Birkbeck,—read it, both of you, and then let me know your minds.”
The sisters read. On the following Lady-day, James Cheshire had turned over his farm advantageously to another, and he, his wife, Nancy, and the old servant, Mary Spendlove, all embarked at Liverpool, and transferred themselves to the United States, and then to the State of Illinois. Five-and-twenty years have rolled over since that day. We could tell a long and curious story of the fortunes of James Cheshire and his family: from the days when, half-repenting of his emigration and his purchase, he found himself in a rough country, amid rough and spiteful squatters, and lay for months with a brace of pistols under his pillow, and a great sword by his bedside for fear of robbery and murder. But enough, that at this moment, James Cheshire, in a fine cultivated country, sees his ample estate cultivated by his sons, while as Colonel and magistrate he dispenses the law and receives the respectful homage of the neighborhood. Nancy Dunster, now styled Mrs. Dunster, the Mother in Israel—the promoter of schools and the councillor of old and young—still lives. Years have improved rather than deteriorated her short and stout exterior. The long exercise of wise thoughts and the play of benevolent feelings, have given even a sacred beauty to her homely features. The dwarf has disappeared, and there remains instead, a grave but venerable matron,—honored like a queen.
IX.
The Ghost of the late Mr. James Barber.
A YARN ASHORE.
“ ‘LUCK!’ nonsense. There is no such thing. Life is not a game of chance any more than chess is. If you lose, you have no one but yourself to blame.”
This was said by a young lieutenant in the Royal Navy, to a middle-aged midshipman, his elder brother.
“Do you mean to say that luck had nothing to do with Fine Gentleman Bobbin passing for lieutenant, and my being turned back?” was the rejoinder.
“Bobbin, though a dandy, is a good seaman, and—and——.” The speaker looked another way, and hesitated.
“I am not, you would add—if you had courage. But I say I am, and a better seaman than Bobbin.”
“Practically, perhaps, for you are ten years older in the service. But it was in the theoretical part of seamanship—which is equally important—that you broke down before the examiners,” continued the younger officer, in tones of earnest but sorrowful reproach, “You never would study.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, master Ferdinand,” said the elder middy, not without a show of displeasure. “I don’t think this is the correct sort of conversation to be going on between two brothers after a five years’ separation.”
The young lieutenant laid his hand soothingly on his brother’s arm, and entreated him to take what he said in good part.
“Well, well!” rejoined the middy, with a laugh half-forced. “Take care what you are about, or, by Jove, I’ll inform against you.”
“What for?”
“Why, for preaching without a license. Besides, you were once as bad as you pretend I am.”
“I own it with sorrow; but I was warned in time by the wretched end of poor James Barber——”
“Of whom?” asked the elder brother, starting back as he pushed his glass along the table. “You don’t mean Jovial Jemmy, as we used to call him; once my messmate in the brig ‘Rollock.’ ”
“Yes, I do.”
“What! dead?”
“Yes.”
“Why, it was one of our great delights, when in harbor and on shore, to ‘go the rounds’—as he called it—with Jovial Jemmy. He understood life from stem to stern—from truck to keel. He knew everybody, from the First Lord downwards. I have seen him recognized by the Duke one minute, and the next pick up with a strolling player, and familiarly treat him at a tavern. He once took me to a quadrille party at the Duchess of Durrington’s, where he seemed to know and be known to everybody present, and then adjourned to the Cider Cellars, where he was equally intimate with all sorts of queer characters. Though a favorite among the aristocracy, he was equally welcome in less exclusive societies. He was ‘Brother,’ ‘Past Master,’ ‘Warden,’ ‘Noble Grand,’ or ‘President’ of all sorts of Lodges and Fraternities. Uncommonly knowing was Jemmy in all sorts of club and fashionable gossip. He knew who gave the best dinners, and was always invited to the best balls. He was a capital judge of champagne, and when he betted upon a horse-race everybody backed him. He could hum all the fashionable songs, and was the fourth man who could dance the polka when it was first imported. Then he was as profound in bottled stout, Welsh rabbits, Burton ale, devilled kidneys, and bowls of Bishop, as he was in Roman punch, French cookery, and Italian singers. Afloat, he was the soul of fun:—he got up all our private theatricals, told all the best stories, and sung comic songs that made even the Purser laugh.”
“An extent and variety of knowledge and accomplishments,” said Lieutenant Fid, “which had the precise effect of blasting his prospects in life. He was, as you remember, at last dismissed the service for intemperance and incompetence.”
“When did you see him last?”
“What, alive?” inquired Ferdinand Fid, changing countenance.
“Of course! Surely you do not mean to insinuate that you have seen his ghost!”
The lieutenant was silent; and the midshipman took a deep draught of his favorite mixture—equal portions of rum and water—and hinted to his younger brother, the lieutenant, the expediency of immediately confiding the story to the Marines; for he declined to credit it. He then ventured another recommendation, which was that Ferdinand should throw the impotent temperance tipple he was then imbibing “over the side of the Ship”—which meant the tavern of that name in Greenwich, at the open bow-window of which they were then sitting—and clear his intellects by something stronger.
“I can afford to be laughed at,” said the younger Fid, “because I have gained immeasurably by the delusion, if it be one; but if ever there was a ghost, I have seen the ghost of James Barber. I, like yourself and he, was nearly ruined by love of amusement and intemperance, when he—or whatever else it might have been—came to my aid.”
“Let us hear. I see I am ‘in’ for a ghost story.”
“Well; it was eighteen forty-one when I came home in the ‘Arrow’ with despatches from the coast of Africa: you were lying in the Tagus in the ‘Bobstay.’ Ours, you know, was rather a thirsty station; a man inclined for it comes home from the Slaving Coasts with a determination to make up his lee way. I did mine with a vengeance. As usual, I looked up ‘Jovial Jemmy.’ ”
“ ’Twas easy to find him if you knew where to go.”
“I did know, and went. He had by that time got tired of his more aristocratic friends. Respectability was too ‘slow’ for him, so I found him presiding over the ‘Philanthropic Raspers,’ at the ‘Union Jack.’ He received me with open arms, and took me, as you say, the ‘rounds.’ I can’t recall that week’s dissipation without a shudder. We rushed about from ball to tavern, from theatre to supper-room, from club to gin-palace, as if our lives depended on losing not a moment. We had not time to walk, so we galloped about in cabs. On the fourth night, when I was beginning to feel knocked up, and tired of the same songs, the same quadrilles, the bad whiskey, the suffocating tobacco smoke, and the morning’s certain and desperate penalties, I remarked to Jemmy that it was a miracle how he had managed to weather it for so many years. ‘What a hardship you would deem it,’ I added, ‘if you were obliged to go the same weary round from one year’s end to another.’ ”
“What did he say to that?” asked Philip.
“Why, I never saw him so taken aback. He looked quite fiercely at me, and replied, ‘I am obliged!’ ”
“How did he make that out?”
“Why, he had tippled and dissipated his constitution into such a state that use had become second nature. Excitement was his natural condition, and he dared not become quite sober for fear of a total collapse—or dropping down like a shot in the water.”
The midshipman had his glass in his hand, but forebore to taste it.—“Well, what then?”
“The ‘rounds’ lasted two nights longer. I was fairly beaten. Cast-iron could not have stood it. I was prostrated in bed with fever—and worse.” Ferdinand was agitated, and took a large draught of his lemonade.
“Well, well, you need not enlarge upon that,” replied Phil Phid, raising his glass towards his lips, but again thinking better of it; “I heard how bad you were from Seton, who shaved your head.”
“I had scarcely recovered when the ‘Arrow’ was ordered back, and I made a vow.”
“Took the pledge, perhaps!” interjected the mid, with a slight curl of his lip.
“No! I determined to work more and play less. We had a capital naval instructor aboard, and our commander was as good an officer as ever trod the deck. I studied—a little too hard perhaps, for I was laid up again. The ‘Arrow’ was, as usual, as good as her name, and we shot across to Jamaica in five weeks. One evening as we were lying in Kingston harbor, Seton, who had come over to join the Commodore as full surgeon, told me what he had never ventured to divulge before.”
“What was that?”
“Why, that, on the very day I left London, James Barber died of a frightful attack of delirium tremens!”
“Poor Jemmy!” said the elder Fid, sorrowfully, taking a long pull of consolation from his rummer. “Little did I think, while singing some of your best songs off Belem Castle, that I had seen you for the last time!”
“I hadn’t seen him for the last time,” returned the lieutenant, with awful significance.
Philip assumed a careless air, and said, “Go on.”
“We were ordered home in eighteen forty-five, and paid off in January. I went to Portsmouth; was examined, and passed as lieutenant.”
This allusion to his brother’s better condition made poor Philip look rather blank.
“On being confirmed at the Admiralty,” continued Ferdinand, “I had to give a dinner to the ‘Arrows;’ which I did at the Salopian, Charing Cross. In the excess of my joy at promotion, my determination of temperance and avoidance of what is called ‘society’ was swamped. I kept it up once more; I went the ‘rounds,’ and accepted all the dinner, supper, and ball invitations I could get, invariably ending each morning in one of the old haunts of dissipation. Old associations with James Barber returned, and like causes produced similar effects. One morning while maundering home, I began to feel the same wild confusion as had previously commenced my dreadful malady.”
“Ah! a little touched in the top-hamper.”
“It was just day-light. Thinking to cool my self, I jumped into a wherry to get pulled down here to Greenwich.”
“Of course you were not quite sober.”
“Don’t ask! I do not like even to allude to my sensations, for fear of recalling them. My brain seemed in a flame. The boat appeared to be going at the rate of twenty miles an hour. Fast as we were cleaving the current, I heard my name distinctly called out. I reconnoitred, but could see nobody. I looked over on one side of the gun-wale, and, while doing so, felt something touch me from the other; I felt a chill; I turned round and saw——”
“Whom?” asked the midshipman, holding his breath.
“What seemed to be James Barber.”
“Was he wet?”
“As dry as you are.”
“I summoned courage to speak. ‘Hillo! some mistake!’ I exclaimed.
“ ‘Not at all,’ was the reply. ‘I’m James Barber. Don’t be frightened, I’m harmless.’
“ ‘But——’
“ ‘I know what you are going to say,’ interrupted the intruder. ‘Seton did not deceive you—I am only an occasional visitor up here.’
“This brought me up with a round turn, and I had sense enough to wish my friend would vanish as he came. ‘Where shall we land you?’ I asked.
“ ‘Oh, any where—it don’t matter. I have got to be out every night and all night; and the nights are plaguy long just now.’
“I could not muster a word.
“ ‘Ferd Fid,’ continued the voice, which now seemed about fifty fathoms deep; and fast as we were dropping down the stream, the boat gave a heel to starboard, as if she had been broadsided by a tremendous wave—‘Ferd Fid, you recollect how I used to kill time; how I sang, drank, danced, and supped all night long, and then slept and soda-watered it all day. You remember what a happy fellow I seemed. Fools like yourself thought I was so; but I say again, I wasn’t,’ growled the voice, letting itself down a few fathoms deeper. ‘Often and often I would have given the world to have been a market-gardener or a dealer in chick-weed while roaring “He is a jolly good fellow,” and “We won’t go home till morning!” as I emerged with a group from some tavern into Covent Garden market. But I’m punished fearfully for my sins now. What do you think I have got to do every night of my—never mind—what do you think is now marked out as my dreadful punishment?’
“ ‘Well, to walk the earth, I suppose,’ said I.
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘To paddle about in the Thames from sunset to sun-rise?’
“ ‘Worse. Ha, ha!’ (his laugh sounded like the booming of a gong). ‘I only wish my doom was merely to be a mud-lark. No, no, I’m condemned to rush about from one evening party and public house to another. At the former I am bound for a certain term on each night to dance all the quadrilles, and a few of the polkas and waltzes with clumsy partners; and then I have to eat stale pastry and tough poultry before I am let off from that place. After, I am bound to go to some cellar or singing place to listen to “Hail smiling morn,” “Mynheer Van Dunk,” “The monks of old,” “Happy land,” imitations of the London actors, and to hear a whole canto of dreary extempore verses. I must also smoke a dozen of cigars, knowing—as in my present condition I must know,—what they are made of. The whole to end on each night with unlimited brandy (British) and water, and eternal intoxication. Oh, F. F., be warned! Take my advice; keep up your resolution, and don’t do it again. When afloat, drink nothing stronger than purser’s tea. When on shore be temperate in your pleasures; don’t turn night into day; don’t exchange wholesome amusements for rabid debauchery, robust health for disease and—well, I won’t mention it. When afloat, study your profession and don’t get cashiered and cold-shouldered as I was. Promise me—nay, you must swear!’
“At this word I thought I heard a gurgling sound in the water.
“ ‘If I can get six solemn pledges before the season’s over, I’m only to go these horrid rounds during the meeting of Parliament.’
“ ‘Will you swear?’ again urged the voice, with persuasive agony.
“I was just able to comply.
“ ‘Ten thousand thanks!’ were the next words I heard; ‘I’m off, for there is an awful pint of pale ale, a chop, and a glass of brandy and water overdue yet, and I must devour them at the Shades.’ (We were then close to London Bridge.) ‘Don’t let the waterman pull to shore; I can get there without troubling him.’
“I remember no more. When sensation returned, I was in bed, in this very house, a shade worse than I had been from the previous attack.”
“That,” said Philip, who had left his tumbler untasted, “must have been when you had your head shaved for the second time.”
“And you really believe it was Jovial James’ ghost,” inquired Fid, earnestly.
“Would it be rational to doubt it?”
Philip rose and paced the room in deep thought for several minutes. He cast two or three earnest looks at his brother, and a few longing ones at his glass. In the course of his cogitation, he groaned out more than once an apostrophe to poor “James Barber.” At length he declared his mind was made up.
“Ferd!” he said, “I told you awhile ago to throw your lemonade over the side of the Ship. Don’t. Souse out my grog instead.”
The lieutenant did as he was bid.
“And now,” said Fid the elder, “ring for soda water; for one must drink something.”
Last year it was my own good fortune to sail with Mr. Philip Fid in the “Bombottle” (74). He is not exactly a tee-totaller; but he never drinks spirits, and will not touch wine unmixed with water, for fear of its interfering with his studies, at which he is, with the assistance of the naval instructor (who is also the chaplain), assiduous. He is our first mate, and the smartest officer in the ship. Seton is our surgeon.
One day, after a cheerful ward-room dinner (of which Fid was a guest), while we were at anchor in the Bay of Cadiz, the conversation happened to turn upon Jovial Jemmy’s apparition, which had become the best-authenticated ghost story in Her Majesty’s Naval service. On that occasion Seton undertook to explain the mystery upon medical principles.
“The fact is,” he said, “what the commander of the ‘Arrow’ saw (Ferdinand had by this time got commissioned in his old ship) was a spectrum, produced by that morbid condition of the brain, which is brought on by the immoderate use of stimulants, and by dissipation; we call it Transient Monomania. I could show you dozens of such ghosts in the books, if you only had patience while I turned them up.”
Everybody declared that was unnecessary. We would take the doctor’s word for it; though I feel convinced not a soul besides the chaplain and myself had one iota of his faith shaken in the real presence of Jovial Jemmy’s post-mortem appearance to Fid the younger.
Ghost or no ghost, however, the story had had the effect of converting Philip Fid from one of the most intemperate and inattentive to one of the soberest and best of Her Majesty’s officers. May his promotion be steady!
X.
A Tale of the Good Old Times.
AN alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of the parish of St. Wulfstan’s in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with profound veneration to the griffins which formed the water-spouts of St. Wulfstan’s Church, and he almost worshipped an old boot under the name of a black jack, which on the affidavit of a forsworn broker, he had bought for a drinking vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had petitioned Parliament against every just or merciful change, which, since he had arrived at man’s estate, had been made in the laws. He had successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, waterworks, infant schools, mechanics’ institute, and library. He had been active in an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public health, and being a strong advocate of intramural interment, was instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing the pig-market from the middle of the High Street. Through his influence the shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to remain where they were; namely, close to the Town-Hall, and immediately under his own and his brethren’s noses. In short, he had regularly, consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that was proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For this conduct he was highly esteemed and respected; and, indeed, his hostility with any interference of disease, had procured him the honor of a public testimonial;—shortly after the presentation of which, with several neat speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury.
The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop’s views on the subject of public health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the rate-payers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist. Moreover, he was a jovial fellow,—a boon companion; and his love of antiquity leant particularly towards old ale and old port wine. Of both of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a visitation-dinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the deputy-registrar. One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr. Blenkinsop.
He lived in a remote part of the town, whither, as he did not walk exactly in a right line, it may be allowable, perhaps, to say that he bent his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High-street, awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below, singing, not very distinctly,
“With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,”
were indebted, little as they may have suspected it, to Alderman Blenkinsop, for their serenade.
In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine mediæval structure, supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once Mayor of Beetlebury, and a great benefactor to the town; in which he had founded alms-houses and a grammar-school, A. D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St. Wulfstan; but De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in Cromwell’s time, and promoted to the vacant pedestal, vice Wulfstan, demolished. Mr. Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now stopped to take a view of it by moonlight. In that doubtful glimmer, it seemed almost life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet he could well nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his bonnet, beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm. So vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophize the Statue.
“Fine old fellow!” said Mr. Blenkinsop. “Rare old buck! We shall never look upon your like again. Ah! the good old times—the jolly good old times! ‘No times like the good old times—my ancient worthy. No such times as the good old times!”
“And pray, Sir, what times do you call the good old times?” in distinct and deliberate accents, answered—according to the positive affirmation of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses—the Statue.
Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question between him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale, simply as stated by himself, are here submitted.
When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. Blenkinsop says, he certainly experienced a kind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of consternation. But this soon abated in a wonderful manner. The Statue’s voice was quite mild and gentle—not in the least grim—had no funeral twang in it, and was quite different from the tone a statue might be expected to take by anybody who had derived his notions on that subject from having heard the representative of the class in “Don Giovanni.”
“Well; what times do you mean by the good old times?” repeated the Statue, quite familiarly. The churchwarden was able to reply with some composure, that such a question coming from such a quarter had taken him a little by surprise.
“Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop,” said the Statue, “don’t be astonished. ’Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favorite police, the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don’t you know that we statues are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I will help you to answer my own questions. Let us go back step by step; and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean the reign of George the Third?”
“The last of them, Sir,” replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, “I am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days.”
“I should hope so,” the Statue replied. “Those the good old times? What! Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with a child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France, which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed it cost, has left you saddled with the national debt. Surely you will not call these the good old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop?”
“Not exactly, Sir: no; on reflection I don’t know that I can,” answered Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now, it was such a civil, well-spoken statue—lost all sense of the preternatural horror of his situation, and scratched his head just as if he had been posed in argument by an ordinary mortal.
“Well, then,” resumed the Statue, “my dear Sir, shall we take the two or three reigns preceding. What think you of the then existing state of prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery unspeakable. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned cell with the Ordinary for their pot companion. Flogging, a common punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the risk of being hustled and robbed even in the day-time? When not only Hounslow and Bagshot Heath, but the public road swarmed with robbers, and a stagecoach was as frequently plundered as a hen-roost. When, indeed, ‘the road’ was esteemed the legitimate resource of a gentleman in difficulties, and a highwayman was commonly called ‘Captain’ if not respected accordingly. When cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting were popular, nay, fashionable amusements. When the bulk of the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time between fox-hunting and guzzling. When a duellist was a hero, and it was an honor to have ‘killed your man.’ When a gentleman could hardly open his mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When the country was continually in peril of civil war through a disputed succession; and two murderous insurrections, followed by more murderous executions, actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage, brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it, Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as constituting the good old times, respected friend?”
“There was Queen Anne’s golden reign, Sir,” deferentially suggested Mr. Blenkinsop.
“A golden reign!” exclaimed the Statue. “A reign of favoritism and court trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of Bolingbroke’s, and Harley’s, and Churchill’s intrigues. The reign of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Mrs. Masham. A golden fiddlestick! I imagine you must go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop.”
“Well,” answered the churchwarden, “I suppose I must, Sir, after what you say.”
“Take William the Third’s rule,” pursued the Statue. “War, war again; nothing but war. I don’t think you’ll particularly call these the good old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were they the good old times when Judge Jeffries sat on the bench? When Monmouth’s rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize. When the King tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in consequence. Does your worship fancy that these were the good old times?”
Mr. Blenkinsop admitted that he could not very well imagine that they were.
“Were Charles the Second’s the good old times?” demanded the Statue. “With a court full of riot and debauchery—a palace much less decent than any modern casino—whilst Scotch Covenanters were having their legs crushed in the “Boots,” under the auspices and personal superintendence of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe, and Dangerfield, and their sham-plots, with the hangings, drawings, and quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the Great Plague and Fire of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the ‘Merry Monarch’ the good old times.”
“I feel the difficulty which you suggest, Sir,” owned Mr. Blenkinsop.
“Now, that a man of your loyalty,” pursued the Statue, “should identify the good old times with Cromwell’s Protectorate, is of course out of the question.”
“Decidedly, Sir!” exclaimed Mr. Blenkinsop. “He shall not have a statue, though you enjoy that honor,” bowing.
“And yet,” said the Statue, “with all its faults, this era was perhaps no worse than any we have discussed yet. Never mind! It was a dreary, cant-ridden one, and if you don’t think those England’s palmy days, neither do I. There’s the previous reign then. During the first part of it, there was the king endeavoring to assert arbitrary power. During the latter, the Parliament were fighting against him in the open field. What ultimately became of him I need not say. At what stage of King Charles the First’s career did the good old times exist, Mr. Alderman? I need barely mention the Star Chamber and poor and Prynne; I merely allude to the fate of Strafford and of Laud. On consideration, should you fix the good old times anywhere thereabouts?”
“I am afraid not, indeed, Sir?” Mr. Blenkinsop responded, tapping his forehead.
“What is your opinion of James the First’s reign? Are you enamored of the good old times of the Gunpowder Plot? or when Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded? or when hundreds of poor miserable old women were burnt alive for witchcraft, and the royal wiseacre on the throne wrote as wise a book, in defence of the execrable superstition through which they suffered?”
Mr. Blenkinsop confessed himself obliged to give up the times of James the First.
“Now, then,” continued the Statue, “we come to Elizabeth.”
“There I’ve got you!” interrupted Mr. Blenkinsop, exultingly. “I beg your pardon, Sir,” he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken; “but everybody talks of the times of good Queen Bess, you know!”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the Statue, not at all like Zamiel, or Don Guzman, or a pavior’s rammer, but really with unaffected gaiety. “Everybody sometimes says very foolish things. Suppose Everybody’s lot had been cast under Elizabeth! How would Everybody have relished being subject to the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Commission, with its power of imprisonment, rack, and torture? How would Everybody have liked to see his Roman Catholic and dissenting fellow-subjects, butchered, fined, and imprisoned for their opinions; and charitable ladies butchered, too, for giving them shelter in the sweet compassion of their hearts? What would Everybody have thought of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots? Would Everybody, would Anybody, would you, wish to have lived in these days, whose emblems are cropped ears, pillory, stocks, thumb-screws, gibbet, axe, chopping-block, and Scavenger’s daughter? Will you take your stand upon this stage of History for the good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop?”
“I should rather prefer firmer and safer ground, to be sure, upon the whole,” answered the worshipper of antiquity, dubiously.
“Well, now,” said the Statue, “ ’tis getting late, and, unaccustomed as I am to conversational speaking, I must be brief. Were those the good old times when Sanguinary Mary roasted bishops, and lighted the fires of Smithfield? When Henry the Eighth, the British Bluebeard, cut his wives’ heads off, and burnt Catholic and Protestant at the same stake? When Richard the Third smothered his nephews in the Tower? When the Wars of the Roses deluged the land with blood? When Jack Cade marched upon London? When we were, disgracefully driven out of France under Henry the Sixth, or, as disgracefully, went marauding there, under Henry the Fifth? Were the good old times those of Northumberland’s rebellion? Of Richard the Second’s assassination? Of the battles, burnings, massacres, cruel tormentings, and atrocities, which form the sum of the Plantagenet reigns? Of John’s declaring himself the Pope’s vassal, and performing dental operations on the Jews? Of the Forest Laws and Curfew under the Norman kings? At what point of this series of bloody and cruel annals will you place the times which you praise? Or do your good old times extend over all that period when somebody or other was constantly committing high treason, and there was a perpetual exhibition of heads on London Bridge and Temple Bar?”
It was allowed by Mr. Blenkinsop that either alternative presented considerable difficulty.
“Was it in the good old times that Harold fell at Hastings, and William the Conqueror enslaved England? Were those blissful years the ages of monkery; of Odo and Dunstan, bearding monarchs and branding queens? Of Danish ravage and slaughter? Or were they those of the Saxon Heptarchy, and the worship of Thor and Odin? Of the advent of Hengist and Horsa? Of British subjugation by the Romans? Or, lastly, must we go back to the Ancient Britons, Druidism, and human sacrifices; and say that those were the real, unadulterated, genuine, good old times when the true-blue natives of this island went naked, painted with woad?”
“Upon my word, Sir,” replied Mr. Blenkinsop, “after the observations that I have heard from you this night, I acknowledge that I do feel myself rather at a loss to assign a precise period to the times in question.”
“Shall I do it for you?” asked the Statue.
“If you please, Sir. I should be very much obliged if you would,” replied the bewildered Blenkinsop, greatly relieved.
“The best times, Mr. Blenkinsop,” said the Statue, “are the oldest. They are wisest; for the older the world grows the more experience it acquires. It is older now than ever it was. The oldest and best times the world has yet seen are the present. These, so far as we have yet gone, are the genuine good old times, Sir.”
“Indeed, Sir?” ejaculated the astonished Alderman.
“Yes, my good friend. These are the best times that we know of—bad as the best may be. But in proportion to their defects they afford room for amendment. Mind that, Sir, in the future exercise of your municipal and political wisdom. Don’t continue to stand in the light which is gradually illuminating human darkness. The Future is the date of that happy period which your imagination has fixed in the Past. It will arrive when all shall do what is right; hence none shall suffer what is wrong. The true good old times are yet to come.”
“Have you any idea when, Sir?” Mr. Blenkinsop inquired, modestly.
“That is a little beyond me,” the Statue answered. “I cannot say how long it will take to convert the Blenkinsops. I devoutly wish you may live to see them. And with that, I wish you good night, Mr. Blenkinsop.”
“Sir,” returned Mr. Blenkinsop with a profound bow, “I have the honor to wish you the same.”
Mr. Blenkinsop returned home an altered man. This was soon manifest. In a few days he astonished the Corporation by proposing the appointment of an Officer of Health to preside over sanitary affairs of Beetlebury. It had already transpired that he had consented to the introduction of lucifer-matches into his domestic establishment, in which, previously, he had insisted on sticking to the old tinder-box. Next, to the wonder of all Beetlebury, he was the first to propose a great new school, and to sign a requisition that a county penitentiary might be established for the reformation of juvenile offenders. The last account of him is that he has not only become a subscriber to the mechanics’ institute, but that he actually presided thereat, lately, on the occasion of a lecture on Geology.
The remarkable change which has occurred in Mr. Blenkinsop’s views and principles, he himself refers to his conversation with the Statue as above related. The narrative, however, his fellow townsmen receive with incredulous expressions, accompanied by gestures and grimaces of like import. They hint, that Mr. Blenkinsop had been thinking for himself a little, and only wanted a plausible excuse for recanting his errors. Most of his fellow-aldermen believe him mad; not less on account of his new moral and political sentiments, so very different from their own, than of his Statue story. When it has been suggested to them that he has only had his spectacles cleaned, and has been looking about him, they shake their heads, and say that he had better have left his spectacles alone, and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a good deal of dirt quite the contrary. Their spectacles have never been cleaned, they say, and any one may see they don’t want cleaning.
The truth seems to be, that Mr. Blenkinsop has found an altogether new pair of spectacles, which enable him to see in the right direction. Formerly, he could only look backwards; he now looks forwards to the grand object that all human eyes should have in view—progressive improvement.
IMMENSE SALE!
LEWIE;
OR,
T H E B E N D E D T W I G !
BY COUSIN CICELY
Author of “SILVER LAKE STORIES.”
TWELFTH THOUSAND, NOW PRINTING.
No Book sells like it—None so well supplies the demand!
Superbly Printed and Beautifully Bound.
Price from $1.00 to $1.75, according to style.
ALDEN, BEARDSLEY & Co., Auburn, N. Y., } Publishers.
WANZER, BEARDSLEY & Co., Rochester, N. Y., }
What the Press Say:
Cousin Cicely is very industrious—whether in penciling lights or shadows, in describing domestic scenery, or inculcating religious principles, the fair author possesses a happy facility, so as to render her productions alike agreeable and instructive.—Protestant Churchman.
This book is written in a style well calculated to please, and contains an inestimable moral—plain, concise, and void of superfluities, that a child may understand it—characters life-like and well sustained, and the whole plan of the work is good.—Yates Co. Whig.
| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| there had had issued=> there had issued {pg 35} |
| restless irritablity=> restless irritability {pg 126} |
| occcupied that disposition=> occupied that disposition {pg 199} |
| worthy man’s conseience=> worthy man’s conscience {pg 203} |
| an acquintance of Lieutenant Hackett=> an acquaintance of Lieutenant Hackett {pg 205} |
| as pigeon’s pick up peas=> as pigeons pick up peas {pg 213} |
| Mr. Hewson said preremptorily=> Mr. Hewson said peremptorily {pg 235} |
| said her hushand=> said her husband {pg 236} |
| send me to goal=> send me to gaol {pg 247} |