THE WOODEN LEG.
“Peregrine and Gauntlet heard the sound of the stump ascending the wooden staircase with such velocity, that they at first mistook it for the application of drum-sticks to the head of an empty barrel.”—PEREGRINE PICKLE.
EVER since the year 1799, I have had, in the coachman phrase, an off leg and a near one; the right limb, thanks to a twelve-pounder, lies somewhere at Seringapatam, its twin-brother being at this moment under a table at Brighton. In plain English, I have a wooden leg. Being thus deprived of half of the implements for marching, I equitably retired, on half-pay, from a marching regiment, and embarked what remained of my body, for the land of its nativity, literally fulfilling the description of man, “with one foot on sea and one on shore,” in the Shakspearian song.
A great deal has been said and sung of our wooden walls and hearts of oak, but legs of ditto make but an inglorious figure on the ocean. No wrestler from Cornwall or Devonshire ever received half so many fair back-falls as I, the least roll of the vessel—and the equinoctial gales were in full blow—making me lose, I was going to say, my feet. I might have walked in a dead calm, and as a soldier accustomed to exercise, and moreover a foot soldier, and used to walking, I felt a great inclination to pace up and down the deck, but a general protest from the cabins put an end to my promenade. As Lear recommends, my wooden hoofs ought to have been “shod with felt.”
At last the voyage terminated, and in my eagerness to land, I got into a fishing-boat, which put me ashore at Dungeness. Those who have enjoyed a ramble over its extensive shingle, will believe that I soon obtained abundance of exercise in walking with a wooden leg among its loose pebbles; in fact, when I arrived at Lydd, I was, as the cricketers say, “stumped out.” It was anything but one of Foote’s farces.
The next morning saw me in sight of home,—as a provincial bard says—
“But when home gleams upon the wanderer’s eye,
Quicken his steps—he almost seems to fly.”
But I wish he had seen me doing my last half mile over Swingfield Hill. I found its deep sand anything but a quicksand, in spite of a distinct glimpse of the paternal roof. I am convinced, when “Fleet Camilla scours the plain,” she does not do it with sand. At last I stood at the lodge-gate, which opened, and let me into a long avenue, the path of which had been newly gravelled, but not well rolled; accordingly, I cut out considerable work for myself and the gardener, who, as he watched the holes I picked in his performance, seemed to look on my advance much as Apollyon did on Pilgrim’s Progress. By way of relief, I got upon the grass, but my wooden leg, though it was a blackleg, did not thrive much upon the turf. Arrived at the house door, filial anxiety caused me to forget to scrape and wipe, and I proceeded to make a fishy pattern of soles and dabs up the stair carpet. The good wife in the Scotch song says—
“His very foot has music in’t,
As he comes up the stair.”
If there was any music in mine, it was in the stump, which played a sort of “Dead March in Saul,” up to the landing-place, where the sound and sight of my Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane threw my poor mother into a Macbeth fit of horror, for the preparatory letter which should have broken my leg to her, had been lost on its passage. As for my father, I will not attempt to describe his transport, for I came upon him,
“As fools rush in where angels fear to tread;”
and Gabriel or Michael would not have escaped a volley for treading on his gouty foot. At the same moment, Margaret and Louisa, with sisterly impetuosity, threw themselves on my neck, and not being attentive to my “outplay or loose leg,” according to Sir Thomas Parkyn’s “Instructions for Wrestling,” the result was a “hanging trippet.” “A hanging trippet is when you put your toe behind your adversary’s heel, on the same side, with a design to hook his leg up forwards, and throw him on his back.”
The reader will guess my satisfaction when night came, and allowed me to rid myself of my unlucky limb. Fatigued with my walk through dry sand and wet gravel, exhausted by excessive emotion, and, maybe, a little flustered by dipping into the cup of welcome, I literally tumbled into bed, and was soon dreaming of running races and leaping for wagers, gallopading, waltzing, and other feats of a biped, when I was suddenly aroused by shrill screams of “Thieves!” and “Murder!” with a more hoarse call for “Frank! Frank!” There were burglars, in fact, in the house, who were packing and preparing to elope with the family plate, without the consent of parents. It was natural for the latter to call a son and a soldier to the rescue, but son or soldier never came in time to start for the plate; not that I wanted zeal or courage, or arms, but I wanted that unlucky limb, and I groped about a full half hour in the dark, before I could lay my hand upon my leg.
The next morning I took a solitary stroll before breakfast to look at the estate; but during my absence abroad, some exchanges of land had taken place with our neighbour, Sir Theophilus. The consequence was, in taking my wood through a wood of his, but which had formerly been our own, and going with my “best leg foremost,” as a man in my predicament always does, I popped it into a man-trap. Thus my timber failed me at a pinch when it might really have stood my friend. Luckily the trap was one of the humane sort;—but it was far from pleasant to stand in it for two hours calling out for Leg Bail.
I could give many more instances of scrapes, besides the perpetual hobble which my wooden leg brought me into, but I will mention only one. At the persuasion of my friends, a few years ago, I stood for Rye, but the electors, perhaps, thought I only half stood for it, for they gave me nothing but split votes. It was perhaps as well that I did not go into the House, for with two such odd legs I could never properly have “paired off.” The election expenses, however, pressed, heavily on my pocket, and to defray them, and all for one Wooden Leg, I had to cut down some thousand loads of timber.
“TIMBER TOO FOR HIS KNEES.”
THE GHOST.
A VERY SERIOUS BALLAD.
“I’ll be your second.”—LISTON.
IN Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in Town.
But Brown and stout will both wear out,
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow’d wife to mourn
At twenty pence a yard.
Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To manumit her blacks.
With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing thus came about,
She asked him in at home, and then
At church he asked her out!
Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phœnix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand.
One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;
It came a little after one,
But she was after two!
“Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B.!
Are these your sorrow’s deeds,
Already getting up a flame,
To burn your widow’s weeds?
“It’s not so long since I have left
For aye the mortal scene;
My memory—like Roger’s,
Should still be bound in green!
“Yet if my face you still retrace
I almost have a doubt—
I’m like an old For-get-me-Not,
With all the leaves torn out!
“To think that on that finger-joint,
Another pledge should cling;
O Bess! upon my very soul,
It struck like ‘Knock and Ring.’
“A ton of marble on my breast
Can’t hinder my return;
Your conduct, Ma’am, has set my blood
A-boiling in my urn!
“Remember on! remember how
The marriage rite did run—
If ever we one flesh should be,
’Tis now—when I have none!
“And you, Sir—once a bosom friend—
Of perjured faith convict,
As ghostly too can give no blow,
Consider you are kick’d.
“A hollow voice is all I have,
But this I tell you plain,
Marry come up!—you marry, Ma’am,
And I’ll come up again.”
More he had said, but chanticleer
The spritely shade did shock
With sudden crow, and off he went,
Like fowling-piece at cock!
COCK OF THE WALK.
“THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON.”