“There were strong qualities in the man,” declared Gaffer Hext; “but once let the devil in, he’ll soon mix the ingredients of our natures and turn all sour, however good the material.”
“They found four hundred and seventy-three pounds, ten and eightpence to his name in the bank,” said Johnny Beer. “Fifty pounds more than I began wedded life with. A very saving man; the last of the big poachers, you might say. There’ll be none so great an’ skilled as him an’ Rix Parkinson in the future.”
“I hope you’m right, Johnny, with all my soul,” answered Mr Sweetland.
“To think of they two young brave hearts on the rolling deep!” mused Mr Bartley. “I wonder if the ocean be fretful to-night?”
“What was you writing in your pocket-book, Johnny, just after we gave ’em three cheers an’ the train steamed out o’ the station this morning?” asked Samuel Prowse.
“Why, be sure ’twas verses,” answered Mr Bartley. “At a rare time like that, ’tis well known the rhyme rolls out of Beer like perspiration off a man’s brow at harvesting. Come, Johnny, wasn’t you turning a verse about it?”
“If truth must be told, I was,” confessed the publican. “Upon such great occasions the fit takes me, like drink will take another. I must rhyme or be ill. ’Twas the same in the courthouse, while us was waiting for the verdict. And though I ban’t the best judge, my wife said of the poetry I done to Exeter assizes at the trial of Sim, that it read like print an’ made her go goose-flesh down the spine. We all know she’s weak where I’m concerned, but notwithstanding few have got more sense than her; and strangely enough, the rhyme about Titus Sim’s sentence and trial be in my pocket this minute by a lucky accident. If anybody would like—?”
“Nothing upon that grim subject to-night, Johnny,” said Matthew Sweetland; “but if you’ve got the stuff you turned out at the station, and if it’s merry, us’ll hear it patiently, I make no doubt.”
Mr Beer was disappointed; but the company supported Daniel’s father.
“As you like, of course; but I haven’t polished it up, you know. Many of my best verses I’ve often been knowed to write over twice. My wife will bear witness of it. But as for merry rhymes, I do think I’m better at solemn ones. There’s more sting to ’em. Mirth an’ joy an’ an extra glass to the health of a lass, an’ so on, be all very well; but they read tame unless you was on the spot yourself an’ knowed how it tasted. Nothing on God’s earth be so uninteresting reading as the account of other folks at a revel, if you wasn’t there. But with tragic matters, the creepiness be very refreshing, an’ the fact you wasn’t there adds to the pleasure. The very heart of comfortable tragedy be to look on at other people in a hell of a mess, while you’m all right, with your pint an’ your pipe drawing easy.”