A tall athletic youth, and a short thick-set man (brothers) dressed in flash coats, (velvet shooting jackets), ornamented with large ivory buttons, and their hats slouched on, sat in a corner smoking their pipes. They bore the exact appearance of being half poachers, and half tillers of the earth; fellows who, upon a pinch, would have no objections to take the road with a bludgeon—the very models of country blackguards. They were both in liquor—the shorter one so much so, that he had became quite obstreperous, and had once or twice interrupted the other vocalists; and now, as if unable to contain himself any longer, broke out with a strong voice slobbered a little though from too much malt—
“With a dog and gun, and all such ware,
To Donerby woods we did repair.
We went till we came to Ryburn town,
And there we drank of ale around.
“We ran these dogs till almost one,
Which made the gamekeeper load his gun—”
here the honest fellow hiccuped, which rather interrupted his harmony; at length, after a stare, as if to collect his ideas, an extra exertion, and a kind of vaunting look—again stammered forth with—
“If they had took us, and fought us like men,
We should not have valued them two to their ten.”
This last burst was too much for his remaining senses; he dropped on the floor—the proper level for all topers.
But the best specimens were the street singers, that ragged, squalling class. A dirty tattered, coarse-featured wench whose visits from the cadging house could only be varied to the gin shop and pawn shop, came singing and dancing in rocking her body to and fro. She was saluted by the name, of “Bristol Bet,” and “Give us the sergeant;” but Bet had tasted too much of the inspiring liquid, to answer their calls with promptitude. She footed away vigorously, to drive away care, seconding every caper with a shout, and “Jack’s the lad,” and slapping her body, and heel, in rather an unlady-like style.
After giving her legs a proper shaking, she laid her head a little on one side, and moving it, with her foot to keep time, screamed out, in notes both loud and shrill,
“One lovely morning as I was walking,
In the merry month of May,
Alone a smart young pair were talking,
And I overheard what they did say.
The one appeared a lovely maiden,
Seemingly in grief and pain,
The other was a gay young soldier,
A sergeant in the waggon train.”
This appeared to be a real “Sweet Home” song; it went to the heart of every one in the room, who roared and bellowed applause, and thumped away with their hands and feet on the floor and tables. Bet never stopped until she had given the whole history of the Sergeant and his dearest Nancy. This poetry and music was too congenial to be easily set aside.
One of the same sex, and certainly one of the same family, a low, squat, scowling, weather-beaten looking hussey, a cadger born and bred, whose shoulders seemed as if they had been squared and rounded by a child continually laying upon them. She was the real songstress of low life; Vulgarity might have taken her by the hand. Throwing up her face which was the very symbol of bad weather and an easterly wind, doled out.