And still the captain read on till the appointed time, when one end of the plank was raised, and the form slowly glided from the ship, and plunged heavily beneath the wave; the waters circled and sparkled in the moonlight for a few moments, lapping against the ship’s side, and then all was still again but the deep, solemn voice of the captain as he read on to the end, when the men silently dispersed and talked in whispers, while the canoe which lay upon the deck reminded us at every turn of the sad incident we had witnessed.
The next day down came a fair wind: sails were shaken out, the cordage tightened, the vessel heeled over, and once more we were cleaving our way through the dancing waters; but the recollection of the dead savage floating alone upon the great ocean clung to us all for the remainder of the voyage.
Chapter Nineteen.
Martha Jinks’s Egsperiences.
A short time since we were about to change our residence, and my wife, having need for a fresh lady to cook our chops and manufacture apple-dumplings, answered two or three of the advertisements which appeared in the “Thunderer,” under the heading, “Want Places. All letters to be post-paid.” When after the lapse of a couple of days, Mistress Martha Jinks called in Whole Jorum Street, and was shown into the room. Mrs Scribe thought it better that I should be present, to act as support in case of need, since she is rather nervous over such matters. Consequently, I sat busy scribbling at a side-table, ready if wanted—really and truly writing, and lamenting greatly the want of stenography, so that my report of Mrs Jinks’s visit might have been verbatim. A tall, stout, elderly lady, in a snuff-hued front, with a perpetual smile upon her countenance, a warm colour, and a figure bearing a strong resemblance to one of those rolled mattresses in a furnishing warehouse—one of those tied round the middle with a cord, and labelled “all wool.” She was a lady who would undoubtedly have ruled the roast in her kitchen, and knowing my partner’s foibles I should most decidedly have contrived that Mrs Jinks did not take possession of our new suburban residence. But my fears were needless, for after a few exchanges touching wages, privileges, number of servants, and numerous other little matters, interesting only to those whom they may concern, my wife mentioned our proximate removal, when Mrs Martha Jinks, with the evident intention of keeping the ball rolling, gave her head a most vigorous shake, smiled patronisingly, and then, after bridling up, unto her did say—
“No, mum, not if I knows it; thank you all the same. I likes the sound of the place, mum, and I ain’t a-finding fault with the wages, nor the tea and sugar, nor the perquisites, but I’ll never bemean myself, mum, to going to a new house agen. I’ve been cook in the respectablest of families, mum, for three-and-thirty years, and after my egsperience in new houses, I’ll never go to one no more.
“Now, of course I ain’t a-saying but what old houses has their doorbacks, sech as crickets, as is allus a-going fuzz, and flying by night into the candle and into the sugar-basin; and then, agen, black beatles, as isn’t pleasant to walk over if you come down in the dark, and then a-going pop to that degree that the mess on the floor nex morning is enough to worry a tylin’ and mylin’ woman out of her seven senses.
“You see, mum, I don’t dislike the looks of you; for you don’t look mean, and as if you’d allus be a-pottering about in my kidgin, which is a thing I can’t abear; for, as I says to Mary in my last place—Mary, you know, as married the green-grocer, and sells coals at the little shop a-corner of the mews,—‘Mary,’ I says, ‘a missus oughter be in her drorring-room—a-drorring, or a-receiving of wisitors, or a-making of herself agreeable at the winder, not a-poking and a-poll-prying about my kidgin, with her nose in the dresser-drors, a-smelling and a-peeping about. What is it to her, I should like to know, if there is a bottle in the corner of the cupboard next door to the cruets, and if it don’t smell of winegar but of g—, you know? Why, if a missus was troubled with spazzums to the degree as I’ve suffered ’em, she’d go and live in a distillery and never be happy out.’ The things as I’ve put up with in some places, mum, would give you the creeps, and make yer ’air stand on end. Me, you know, a cook as has lived in the best of families, to be told as the brandy-sauce had not got half the brandy in; and when the tipsy-cake come on the table, for the missus to come downstairs in a towering fury, and go on like Billinsgate. I’m sure she did for all her pretence about being a lady; and to say as she did with them brazen lips of her’s, and all the time trembling with passion—