FAMILY STORIES.—No. II.
LEGEND OF HAMILTON TIGHE.
Tapton Everard, Feb. 14, 1837.
Friend Bentley,—I see you have got hold of some of our family secrets; but Seaforth was always a blab. No matter: as you have found your way into our circle, why, I suppose we must even make the best of it, and let you go on. The revival of "Old Sir Giles's" story has set us all rummaging among the family papers, of which there is a large chest full "apud castro de Tappington," as a literary friend of mine has it. In the course of her researches, Caroline the other day popped upon the history of a far-off cousin, some four or five generations back,—a sad story,—a sort of Uriah business,—in which a principal part was played by a great-great-aunt of ours. In order to secure her own child's succession to a fair estate, she was always believed to have wantonly exposed the life of her husband's only son by a former marriage; and through the assistance of her brother, a sea-captain, to have at least thrust him unnecessarily into danger, even if their machinations went no farther. The lad was killed; and report said that an old boatswain confessed on his death-bed—But Miss Simpkinson will tell you the story better than I can. She has dished it up for you in her choicest Pindarics; and though the maiden is meek, her muse is masculine.
Yours, as it may be, Thomas Ingoldsby.
THE LEGEND OF HAMILTON TIGHE.
The captain is walking his quarter-deck, With a troubled brow and a bended neck; One eye is down through the hatchway cast, The other turns up to the truck on the mast; Yet none of the crew may venture to hint "Our skipper hath gotten a sinister squint!"
The captain again the letter hath read Which the bum-boat woman brought out to Spithead— Still, since the good ship sailed away, He reads that letter three times a-day; Yet the writing is broad and fair to see As a skipper may read in his degree, And the seal is as black, and as broad, and as flat, As his own cockade in his own cock'd hat: He reads, and he says, as he walks to and fro, "Curse the old woman—she bothers me so!"
He pauses now, for the topmen hail— "On the larboard quarter a sail! a sail!" That grim old captain he turns him quick, And bawls through his trumpet for Hairy-faced Dick.