"Stratford-on-Avon, Stratford-on-Avon—
My heart is full of woe:
Formerly, once upon a time
It was not ever so."
"The love that then I faltered
I now am forced to stifle;
For the case is completely altered
And I wish I had a rifle."
"I wish I was wrecked
Like Robinson Crusoe,
But you cannot expect
A canal-boat to do so."
"Perhaps I ought to explain, though?" he suggested, breaking off.
"If you don't mind."
"You see I got a brother—a nelder brother, an' by name 'Enery; an' last year he went for a miner in South Africa, at a place that I can't neither spell nor pronounce till it winds up with 'bosh.' So we'll call it Bosh."
"Right-o! But why did he go for that miner? To relieve 'is feelin's?"
"You don't understand. He went out as a miner, havin' been a pit-hand at the Blackstone Colliery, north o' Bursfield. Well, one week-end— about a month before he started—he took a noliday an' went a trip with me to Stratford aboard this very boat. Which for six months past I'd 'ad a neye upon a girl in Stratford. She was a General—"
"Salvation Army?"
"—A Cook-general, in a very respectable 'ouse'old—a publican's, at the 'Four Alls' by Binton Bridges. Me bein' shy—as you may 'ave noticed— I 'adn't, as you might say, put it to 'er; an' likewise until the matter was settled I didn' like to tell 'Enery. But I interjuced 'im—the same bein' 'er Sunday out; an' afterwards, when he called 'er a monstrous fine girl, I felt as 'appy as if he'd given me ten shillin'. Which only proves," Sam commented bitterly, "what I say in the next verse—"