ELIZABETH J. EAMES.
THE MUSICIAN.
A TALE FOUNDED UPON FACT.
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BY HENRY COOD WATSON.
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I was traveling outside the coach from B ——, early in the year 18—, after a season of fashionable dissipation, tired with the important nothings which eke out the existence of the beau monde, and determined to seek relief in change of scene, from the daily increasing ennui that oppressed me. I am not one of those who travel from Dan to Beersheeba without seeing any thing worthy of attention. To me the face of every human being is a book, in which strange and eventful histories are written legibly by the hand of time and passion, and with the assistance of my somewhat active imagination, I often fancy that I can trace the actions and events, the hopes and fears, that have made up their sum of life. It is a pleasing and grateful task to watch the face of youth; to trace love, hope, and confidence, in every line of the countenance. There is not to be seen one doubt, one look of distrust in this the brightest page of life’s eventful history.
My companions were a young girl, a free and generous-hearted sailor, two ordinary, every-day travelers, and a pale, and to all appearances, an intellectual youth. I make it a rule, when thrown into the company of strangers, if but for an hour, to make that hour, by conversation, pass as pleasantly as possible; and as I was likely to remain with my present companions for some hours, I determined to draw them into a familiar discourse. Our sailor was a character such as Dibden loved to draw—light-hearted and careless to a fault. At each place, while the horses were being changed, he would dismount, and insist upon treating every one around, spending his hard-earned cash without a thought for to-morrow. He kept us in a roar of laughter for some hours, by the strange tales he told. One, I remember, but it was so interlarded with technical terms, which he explained at the time, that I fear it will lose half its gist by their omission, and the substitution of my shore-going phraseology.
“We were cruising off the Bermudas,” said he, “in the summer of 179-. And a blazing summer it was—so hot, that all the sugar on board was turned into hard bake, and the purser’s skin was so dried, that he kept his tally on his face for the rest of the voyage; to say nothing of the captain’s dog, Toby, who was sitting on deck one day, when the pitch in the seams melting, he was held so fast by the stern, that he was unable to cut and run, and was in consequence exposed to the heat of the varticle sun, whereby he caught what the parley-voos call a ‘coop do sol’s heel,’ which, I suppose, means a ‘kick from the sun’s heel.’ Howsomever, that’s as may be. Well, as I said before, we were sailing with a fine steady breeze, at the rate of eight knots an hour, when, all of a sudden, we felt ourselves brought up, as it were, with a round turn. All hands immediately jumped on deck; the skipper came up in a devil of a hurry, swearing that we had struck upon some hidden rock. We sounded but could not find the bottom. The wind was rising and filled the canvas almost to bursting, but not an inch did she move. The skipper was flabbergasted, and the master, an old Northman, said that he thought we were over some magnetical rocks, and, according to the doctrine of substraction, they would draw all the iron out of the bottom, and we should fall to pieces. When, all of a sudden, it strikes Harry Dare-em-all—ah, by the by, he was a fellow—bathing one day in those very seas, he saw a shark as big as a whale coming right upon him. Away swims Harry; down he dives, and up he comes again, but Mr. Sharkey, was close upon his heels, and at last had turned over, ready for a grip, when Harry darts under him, and gives him such a kick in the small of his back, just to help him on the faster, that he broke him in half. The gentleman was hauled on board, and to this day I uses one of his grinders for a baccy-stopper. Well, says Harry, I shouldn’t wonder if it’s one of them feline animals of the shark species—for you see Harry knew something of fishogomy—as has bolted the junk we threw astarn to catch them beggars with. Away we all flies to the starn, and sure enough, there was the rope as taut as nothing. We pulled and hauled, but it was no go; so at last we gave it a turn round the capstan, and all hands were ready to toe it merrily round; but devil a bit of a round could they go, for the more they pushed the more he pulled. He must have had pretty tough muscle to stand against a stiff breeze and the whole ship’s crew—but he did, and beat us too. So at last the skipper ordered the carpenter to cut the rope—and so he did. But, my eyes! no sooner was it cut than away goes the barkey at such a rate, for two hours, that we thought we should have lost every stick. Howsomever, the shark got nothing by his move, for I met one Bill Jones, some years after, which had been cruising in them seas, and he says that there is a atomy of a shark, as goes diving about like one demented, with an iron hook, and a hundred fathom of cable hanging to his jaws, so that he hasn’t disgested ’em yet.”