“He isn’t troubled with low spirits, as I am, father.”
“How long has that been your complaint, Tom?” inquired I.
“Ever since I heard how to cure it. Come, father, give us the yarn.”
“Well, then, you must mind that an old shipmate o’ mine, Ben Leader, had a wife named Poll, a pretty sort of craft in her way—neat in her rigging, swelling-bows, taking sort of figure-head, and devilish well rounded in the counter; altogether, she was a very fancy girl, and all the men were after her. She’d a roguish eye, and liked to be stared at, as most pretty women do, because it flatters their vanities. Now, although she liked to be noticed so far by the other chaps, yet Ben was the only one she ever wished to be handled by; it was ‘Paws off, Pompey!’ with all the rest. Ben Leader was a good-looking, active, smart chap, and could foot it in a reel, or take a bout at single-stick with the very best o’ them; and she was mortal fond of him, and mortal jealous if he talked to any other woman, for the women liked Ben as much as the men liked she. Well, as they returned love for love, so did they return jealousy for jealousy; and the lads and lasses, seeing that, had a pleasure in making them come to a misunderstanding. So every day it became worse and worse between them. Now, I always says that it’s a stupid thing to be jealous, ’cause if there be cause, there be no cause for love and if there be no cause, there be no cause for jealousy.”
“You’re like a row in a rookery, father—nothing but caws,” interrupted Tom.
“Well, I suppose I am; but that’s what I call chop logic—aren’t it, master?”
“It was a syllogism,” replied the Dominie, taking the pannikin from his mouth.
“I don’t know what that is, nor do I want to know,” replied old Tom; “so I’ll just go on with my story. Well, at last they came to downright fighting. Ben licks Poll ’cause she talked and laughed with other men, and Poll cries and whines all day ’cause he won’t sit on her knee, instead of going on board and ’tending to his duty. Well, one night, a’ter work was over, Ben goes on shore to the house where he and Poll used to sleep; and when he sees the girl in the bar, he says, ‘Where is Poll?’ Now, the girl at the bar was a fresh-comer, and answers, ‘What girl?’ So Ben describes her, and the bar-girl answers, ‘She be just gone to bed with her husband, I suppose;’ for, you see, there was a woman like her who had gone up to her bed, sure enough. When Ben heard that, he gave his trousers one hitch, and calls for a quartern, drinks it off with a sigh, and leaves the house, believing it all to be true. A’ter Ben was gone, Poll makes her appearance, and when she finds Ben wasn’t in the tap, says, ‘Young woman, did a man go upstairs just now?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the bar-girl, ‘with his wife, I suppose; they be turned in this quarter of an hour.’ When she almost turned mad with rage, and then as white as a sheet, and then she burst into tears, and runs out of the house, crying out, ‘Poor misfortunate creature that I am!’ knocking everything down undersized, and running into the arms of every man who came athwart her hawse.”
“I understood him, but just now, that she was running on foot; yet doth he talk about her horse. Expound, Jacob.”
“It was a nautical figure of speech, sir.”