Thus the second ‘Moral Emblems’ came out; ninety copies, price ninepence. The public welcomed it as heartily as the first, the little boy becoming so prosperous that he accumulated upwards of five pounds. But let it never be said that he spurned the humble mainstay of his beginnings. He printed the weekly programmes as usual, and bore the exactions of the black-bearded gentleman with fortitude. When he made such a trifling mistake, for instance, as ‘The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Hells,’ he dutifully climbed the hill to his freezing room, and ran off a whole fresh set. Two francs fifty was two francs fifty. Every business man appreciates the comfort of a small regular order which can be counted on like the clock.
But one day there was no black-bearded gentleman. ‘Oh, he was dead. Had had a hemorrhage three days before and had died.’ I don’t know whether the little boy mourned for him particularly, but it was a shock to lose that two francs fifty centimes. The little boy was worried until he found a lady who had substituted herself for the gentleman with the black beard. She was a very kind lady; you could print anything for that lady, and ‘get away with it’ as Americans say. But she was frolicsome and lacked poise; she was vague about appointments, and had a disheartening way of saying: ‘Oh, bother,’ when the little boy appeared; she would insist on kissing him amid circumstances of the most odious publicity; was so abased a creature besides, that she often marred the programmes by making pen-and-ink corrections. In contrast, the little boy looked back on the black-bearded gentleman almost with regret.
Two winters were thus occupied, with incidental education that seemed far less important. The Prussian officer had fortunately died, releasing the little boy from any further study of German. All that he retains of it to-day is the taste of that pocket-knife, and of the Prussian officer’s thumb. Then he was sent to boarding-school in England, or to be precise to a tutor who had half a dozen resident pupils. Time passed; publishing became a memory. Then a long summer holiday found the little boy, now much grown and matured, reunited with his family in Kingussie. The printing-press was there, and business was resumed with enthusiasm. The stepfather, who had made much more progress with engraving than the boy had with Latin, had the blocks and poems all ready for ‘The Graver and the Pen.’
But the printing-press broke down; and after an interval of despair and unavailing attempts to repair it, an amiable old man was found who had a press of his own behind a microscopic general shop. Here ‘The Graver and the Pen’ was printed with what now seems an almost regrettable perfection. The amiable old man was altogether too amiable. He would insist on doing far too much himself, though he had been merely paid a trifling rent for the use of the press. An edition of a hundred copies was printed, of which almost none were sold. The little boy had grown such a big boy that he was ashamed of tradesmanship. He had passed the age when he could take sixpences and ninepences with ease from strangers. New standards were imperceptibly forming, and it pleased him better to see his stepfather give away ‘The Graver and the Pen’ to those worthy of so signal an honour.
In fact ‘The Graver and the Pen’ was the last enterprise of Osbourne and Co. ‘The Pirate and the Apothecary’ was projected; three superb illustrations were engraved for it; yet it never saw more light than the typewriter afforded. ‘The Builder’s Doom’ has remained in manuscript until the present time. No illustrations were either drawn or engraved for it. It marked the final decline of a once flourishing business, which in its day had given so much laughter to many people sadly in need of it.
LLOYD OSBOURNE.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
PREFACE | ||
NOT I, AND OTHER POEMS— | ||
I. | Some like drink | |
II. | Here, perfect to a wish | |
III. | As seamen on the seas | |
IV. | The pamphlet here presented | |
MORAL EMBLEMS: A COLLECTION OF CUTS ANDVERSES— | ||
I. | See how the children in the print | |
II. | Reader, your soul upraise to see | |
III. | A PEAK IN DARIEN—Broad-gazing on untrodden lands | |
IV. | See in the print how, moved by whim | |
V. | Mark, printed on the opposing page | |
I. | With storms a-weather, rocks-a-lee | |
II. | The careful angler chose his nook | |
III. | The Abbot for a walk went out | |
IV. | The frozen peaks he once explored | |
V. | Industrious pirate! see him sweep | |
A MARTIAL ELEGY FOR SOME LEADSOLDIERS— | ||
| For certain soldiers lately dead | |
THE GRAVER AND THE PEN: OR, SCENES FROMNATURE, WITH APPROPRIATE VERSES | ||
I. | PROEM—Unlike the common run of men | |
II. | THE PRECARIOUS MILL—Alone above the stream itstands | |
III. | THE DISPUTATIOUS PINES—The first pine to the secondsaid | |
THE TRAMPS—Now long enough had day endured | ||
V. | THE FOOLHARDY GEOGRAPHER—The howling desert milesaround | |
VI. | THE ANGLER AND THE CLOWN—The echoing bridge you heremay see | |
MORAL TALES— | ||
I. | ROBIN AND BEN: OR, THE PIRATE AND THEAPOTHECARY—Come, lend me an attentive ear | |
II. | THE BUILDER’S DOOM—In eighteen-twenty DeaconThin | |