Chapter V: Part 5

Unmindful of praise, and true to the energy that was growing within him, little Tom learnt to swim, and dive, and play with the huge ocean as familiarly as with his elder brothers. More especially if a vessel chanced to anchor near the shore, either to wait for a change of wind, or to barter for fish, that was a temptation so powerful with Tom, that he seldom waited for his father's return, if at a distance with the boat,—but into the wave he would plunge, and speedily gain the vessel, becoming, in a few minutes, a favourite with every one on board, for his sense and activity. Tom's brothers shared the pleasure, or at least the benefits, of these ventures, though they were neither skilful nor courageous enough to share the peril; for little Tom usually returned, bearing by the strings in his mouth, like a water dog, his cockle-bag filled with precious scraps of sea-biscuit, and sometimes a bit or two of boiled salt beef,—a priceless luxury for the brothers, to whom noble little Tom invariably gave up the bag, as soon as he reached the shore.

By the time that Tom was regularly entered as one of his poor father's labouring band, the strongest of his three elder brothers was taken by the father, into the little boat, taught to assist in managing the bladdered nets, and so advanced from a mere cockle-gatherer to an embryo fisherman. The two next brothers were neither sufficiently strong, active, or enterprising, ever to rival the oldest; but when Tom was ten years old, though Jack was fifteen, his father preferred taking him in the boat. The little hero not only gained greater knowledge, but rapidly grew in courage, presence of mind, and plan for adventure, by the change. In fact, the father's circumstances were speedily bettered by his child's intelligence and energy.

One day, while his father was "dealing" the largest net out of the boat, so as to prevent its getting "foul," and little Tom was riding upon the old horse which the father was necessitated to keep for his daily use, towing the end of the net by a line to the required distance into the water, he perceived that he was among an unusually large shoal of fine fish,—and so swam the horse out, considerably, with the intent to have a full sweep of the treasure. Much to the lad's chagrin, however, the father hallooed, and motioned, and menaced, for him to come back; and so Tom, who was too true a lad to disobey when his father seemed so angry, was constrained to give up his prize, and the result was that the father had to meet his usual chapman for the Louth market with only a very pitiful take of fish for the day. Tom was then but twelve years old, but his shrewdness discerned how greatly these timid acts of his father served to gird in the hungry family with straitness. He had never disobeyed on a large scale before; but his spirit prompted him to what, according to his unschooled casuistry, he conceived to be a virtuous disobedience, now—and yet it was a venturous and perilous deed for a child that he undertook. And thus he went about it.

He drew his mother aside, as soon as they returned home in the evening, and dazzled her imagination with his brilliant and excited account of the value and fineness of the shoal he had seen, and told her he was resolved to have them before the next morning.

"The Lord help thee, bairn!" exclaimed the mother; "what art thou talking of?"

"Talking sense, mother," said Tom; "and you'll see it: for you must sit up till Jack and I come back with the old horse: we'll set off as soon as my fayther has gone to bed and fallen fast asleep."

"Jack!" cried the mother, "why, it'll make him tremble to talk o' such a thing!"

"The more's the shame for him, then," replied the little hero; "if he does tremble, and durst not go, I shall think him a lubber"—a word that Tom had learnt from the sailors, and, of course, was very fond of using: "the moon's at full, and we can see as well as by daylight to manage the net."

"Thou'lt be drownded, bairn," said the mother; "and, besides, the fish may be all gone from where thou saw 'em this morning."

"Not they," insisted Tom; "they're brits, mother,—fine large brits," he repeated, with sparkling eyes; "and you've heard my fayther say over and over again that flat fish stay in a snug bottom for days together. I saw 'em spread all along the far flat, within the sunk rocks, toward Donna Hook: they've found fine shelter, and plenty to feed on, no doubt, and they won't go away; they'll make pounds, mother—and we need money, you know, mother."

Tom's mother gazed at him with fond wonder: so much ardour, so much earnest zeal to benefit his parents, and brothers and sisters, in one so young—it was almost too much for her, and the tears rose, as she stood silently looking at her child, with one hand on his shoulder, and his eager, entreating eyes penetrating into her very soul to learn whether he would win her consent. He prevailed, however, and she heard the last footsteps of the old horse, as it slowly left the door of the cottage, with Tom and Jack on its back, and the net packed behind, with feelings of excited apprehension she had not felt since the first storm after her marriage, when her husband was out at sea.——

"What's that?" asked the father, half awaking at the sound of the horse's feet, and wondering that his wife was still up; but she rendered him some evasive answer, and continued darning one of the children's rent garments, telling him that she must have it done for the boy to put on in the morning. Leaving the reader to imagine the mother's agonising doubts and fears, and anxious listenings to the movement of every changeful sound of the night, let us attend to Tom and his brother, and their daring adventure. Not that it needs any expanded description,—for it was entered upon, and achieved, with all Tom's soul thrown into it, in such a way as to render it memorable to Jack's latest day, when Jack told it to his children. Jack was fearful enough at remaining alone in the boat to hand out the net by moonlight,—but Tom was dashing along on the old horse that was a good swimmer, and was not long in doubling and returning. Again and again was their swoop of the sea repeated, till their strength was well-nigh exhausted with toiling to carry on land their loads of fish. A mighty harvest from the great waters it was, to be reaped by the energy and intrepidity of a boy of twelve years old. The fish were concealed in a "crike" or small freshet, a little removed from the beach, where it was easy to form a dam; and with one good load upon the old horse, fastened in the folded net, the lads set off on foot, long before daylight, from the beach, and speedily were at their father's cottage-door with this earnest of their booty.

"Whoa hoa!" cried Tom aloud to the old horse, almost before it was time to stop; and his mother, who was already in front of her cottage, lifted up her closed hand, and shook it, and cried, "Hush, bairn,—whisht, whisht!—thy fayther will hear thee, and what's to be done then?"

But Tom was neither to be hushed nor whished. "Tell my fayther to get up, and take Dick and Will with him to fetch the rest o' the brits and rays, while Jack and I have some breakfast, for we are hungry above a bit," he said; and he tumbled the fish out of the net, and told his mother they had left ten times as many in the crike. What cared Tom whether his father felt inclined to scold or not? He knew that the booty would silently and overwhelmingly plead his pardon. And oh, the trembling joy and pride of the poor mother,—her thoughts of large pecuniary relief and admiration of her child's noble act, combining, and causing her to prattle with so much elation that she scarcely knew what she said!

Seven pounds, in sterling English money, Tom's poor father made of his child's night adventure: a sum he had never approached for one day's, no, nor one week's labour in his little boat, since he had possessed it. Need it be said that Tom's father was proud of him? He loved all his children: they and his wife were his jewels, his only idols in the world; and to picture truly his yearnings for their happiness, as he cast a thought towards his cottage, or counted his boys by their little red caps, toiling, meanwhile, afar off from the beach where the children straggled sometimes at great distances from each other, at their hardy employ,—to tell what truly exalted thinkings passed hourly through the mind of that poor fisherman, tossed upon the surge often a whole day without a fragment of gain, and yet clinging with glowing love to his wife and children on land,—oh, it would form a theme to kindle the sweetest eloquence of the gentle yet godlike Shakspere himself! But it was natural that Tom should become his father's peculiar pride, for he was, indeed, a child to be proud of.

It was, therefore, a melancholy sound, the first request of that heroic boy, when he became fourteen—a sorrowful note in the ears of his doting parents—that he might become a sailor, and leave them! The father and mother exchanged a dreary look, and said nought. It was a request they might expect, one day or other, for the lad had always raved about the darling life of a sailor, and he was now becoming of an age when it was fit he should enter on such a profession as he intended to follow for life: but yet they had always put the thought aside, and clung to the enjoyment of possessing such a son, and beholding him as "the light of their eyes," daily. Tom saw and felt what his parents endured when he presented his first request, and he did not renew it till another month had flown, and a Boston sloop was lying off the cockle-sands, laden with timber from Hull, when he again asked if he might go for a sailor. This time, however, the question was put under circumstances which seemed to soften the dread of separation. Boston was a Lincolnshire port, and a voyage thither and back, on trial, would soon be performed, so that they would soon see their darling again; and therefore his parents gave consent for Tom's departure.

The boy became as much the darling of the little crew in the sloop, during their brief voyage, as he had been of his father and mother. They gave him the name which stuck to him through life, as soon as they had heard his history, to which, indeed, they were scarcely strangers, for it was not the first time he had been on board their shallop. And "Cockle Tom" was proud to tell his new name when he saw his home again: it had been given him by sailors, and it was, therefore, more honourable in his estimation than knighthood or nobility given by a monarch would have been, had he known of either.

There was now no putting off the complete separation from their noblest child for Tom's parents. He had fully made up his mind to live on the sea, his darling element: and, besides, he had been to Hull, the port to which the Boston sloop traded, and had seen the Greenland whale-ships, and talked with the sailors till he was all excitement for the noble daring of joining in an attack upon the vast sea-monsters, and seeing the mountain icebergs, and hearing the roaring of the white bears. His father therefore prepared clothing for the lad, and began to think of setting out with him for Hull, in order to see him safely committed, as a sailor-apprentice, to the care of some kind and fatherly sort of Greenland captain.

It was a dull week that young Cockle Tom passed at home; for, despite his enthusiasm, the complete separation from his parents was a thought that cut him to the quick. Did, then, the fisherman's child, who had been led forth to endure the cold sea wind, and labour, and hunger, from infancy, love his parents? Ay, that did he, and with such a love as you know nothing of, young spruce, who have been to boarding-school, and have since become versed in all the hollownesses of "respectable life." If there was a sacred corner in Tom's heart, it was that where the precious images of his father and mother were enshrined. Toil, fatigue, hunger, pain, loss of sleep, nay, death itself, he would have encountered at any moment to benefit them; and, young as he was, he formed strong judgments on men's characters who failed in parental duty. He never swore but once in his life, before leaving home, and that was when a young farmer in the parish married a flaunting wife, and gave up his aged father, blind and palsy-stricken, to be placed in an alms-house. "D—n his eyes!" exclaimed young Tom, while his own eyes flashed fire, "I should like to grapple his weasand, as big as he is!" That was a rude expression, and a strange one, too, for a boy of fourteen; but while his mother reproved it with such a look as she had never given him before,—and he blushed like scarlet, and promised, with tears in his eyes, never to swear again,—yet she read within Tom's heart, by the aid of those few syllables, the existence of a principle which, she felt, more truly ennobled her child than the highest earthly titles would have aggrandised him.

It was some relief to young Tom to reflect that his parents were now in comparatively comfortable circumstances, and chiefly through his means. The ice of timidity once broken, Jack had become more adventurous, and within one year, by the joint efforts of the two brothers, so great an increase took place in the fish the father had to offer for sale, that he was enabled to buy the little cottage in which he lived, with the garden adjoining, as well as to clothe his whole family. The next year furnished a new and larger boat, and an extra horse, besides stocking the little purse of the father with a few spare guineas in gold—the noble old spade-aces which "looked so much like _real_ money," as our forefathers used to say, when they first saw the queer, "fly-away-blow-away" paper money.

Did they cry—Tom, or his mother—when the separation came? Ay, and brothers, and sisters, and father too, as he was about to depart with him—real tears, to be sure; for, as much like their native oaks as our genuine old English race were in their hardihood and endurance of storms, their hearts were of the tenderest—in the right place. A still severer feeling of desolation was experienced by Tom and his father when they parted at Hull; but Tom "girt up the loins of his mind," and buried his sorrow in listening to the sailors' talk, and in thinking of his coming adventures.

And now "the history of Cockle Tom" may end; for our purpose is not to write a long story, but to show how a simple and yet truly noble character may be formed: and that purpose is accomplished as well as we are able to reach it. For the remainder of Cockle Tom's life,—it was that of the true English sailor,—full of generosity and noble daring, shaded, here and there, with a dash of passion, or a fit of insobriety at the end of a long voyage of suffering, but tinted to brilliancy with many an act of exalted sacrifice. Five voyages Cockle Tom made to Greenland, or the Straits; three to the West Indies, and one to the East; six times he passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and visited Malta, or Corfu, or Constantinople; and four times he voyaged to the Guinea coast, ere he reached the age of thirty. That was the limit of his life; but he had saved as many lives as he numbered years by that time. As an expert swimmer,—as a soul that would venture even into the jaws of death to save a drowning man,—as a shipmate that would always take the severer share of toil and ease another,—as an agile and clever mariner that was unexcelled in the rapidity and perfection with which he could execute any manoeuvre in the management of his ship,—as the heart of fun and merriment,—and as the lad whose purse was ever at the command of a brother in need,—Cockle Tom was the glory and pride of every "true British tar" who knew him.

And how fresh did his filial love remain amidst separation and newness of scene! His father and mother kept that sacred corner in his heart, perfectly unrivalled, for many a long year; and when he admitted another fair image there it was not allowed to encroach upon the consecrated room occupied by the old ones. He loved his wife, whom he married at five-and-twenty, and she deserved his love; but he did not love his parents the less for that. They received many a solid proof of his affection, although they seldom saw him; and the news of his death, though it did not distract them with unseemly grief, dimmed the brightness of their declining days.

Cockle Tom lay in harbour at Hull, after his return from the fourth Guinea voyage: his vessel was delivered of its cargo: a friend had written "home" for him,—for his father's cottage was "home" with him, even after he had married and had a little neat house in Hull. On the morrow, his young wife and himself were to have set out to see his aged parents once more, when, in the fineness of the evening, while numerous pleasure-boats were jostling each other in the narrow space of the harbour, thronged as it was with large and small craft, one boat upset, and five human lives were in danger. In a moment, Tom had plunged from the deck where he stood, and the next moment had placed two in safety in one of the boats: a second struggle, and two more were rescued; but, in attempting to save the last, the dying struggler, or the cramp, overpowered him, and he sunk to rise no more! Such was the consistent end of the life of Cockle Tom,—the "true British sailor."

"A bold peasantry, their country's pride," are fast fading: may our other twin jewel in English national character—the noble sailor—ever preserve its lustre!

THE LAST DAYS OF AN OLD SAILOR; OR, "BUTTER YOUR SHIRT! SING TANTARA-BOBUS, MAKE SHIFT!"

Among the few survivors of our "glorious" sea-fights which the Peace sent home to Gainsbro', a busy little port on the Trent, was old Matthew Hardcastle, a veteran of threescore and ten, and something more. It was said that Matthew might have been discharged from ship-board some years earlier; but his attachment to the sea was extreme, and he was at length, to speak plainly, forced out of the navy.

Gainsbro' was, at that particular period, somewhat fertile in the production of eccentric folk, for Joe Hornby was then to be seen in it, with his hat stuck full of field flowers, and sometimes, to the peril of its "crown," fixed on his head wrong side upwards, because "the world was turned upside down;" and the septuagenarian spinster, Nelly Fish, might be seen flaunting along the narrow causeway, her strange pile of five or six straw hats, which she wore one upon another, to show that "she knew all the fashions that had been, as well as those that were;"—and Martin Jackson would, ever and anon, sally forth in some odd guise that demonstrated his lunacy; for to-day he might be seen covered with papers on which were written all kinds of queer criticisms on the rulers of the day, and to-morrow he would go through the streets clad in his wife's chemise for an outer robe, and wearing an old horseman's helmet with a fox's tail for a plume, while half-a-dozen terriers yelped away at his heels, following thick and fast to the mad hunter's cries of "Yo-ho! yo-ho! Hark forward! Tantivy! Yo-ho! yo-ho!"

Such were some of the strange relics of humanity which afforded grave problems for those who were able to moralise, or thought they were, at that time, in Gainsbro'; but, amidst all and sundry of its human catalogue, none of the curious articles thereof attracted more general attention, as they passed to and fro in the streets of the little town, than the veteran warrior-seaman, Matthew Hardcastle. Indeed, Matthew was beheld, by "gentle and simple," in a different light to the eccentrics, poor things! before mentioned. The world, in spite of its conviction that it is wrong to laugh, laughs on at the antics and whims of the helpless beings it calls "insane;" and Gainsbro' followed the way of the world in laughing, too often, at poor Joe Hornby, and Nelly Fish, and Martin Jackson; but it was by no means a custom to laugh at Matthew Hardcastle.

Matthew was a tall, well-built old fellow, and did not lose an inch of his height, notwithstanding his very advanced age. His brave face resembled more the gnarled bark of an old oak than any other thing that ever existed; it was a real sea-faring face, was Matthew's, if ever a man wore one in this world. And then his wig! All the town talked of Matthew Hardcastle's wig. It did not fall below the shoulders, like the princely-looking old wigs of the days of Marlborough; but it was a very grand, burly wig, for all that. It reached below the ears of the fine old man, considerably; and it displayed five tiers of curls,—glorious curls they were! Matthew's grand three-cocked hat, too,—for he and old George Laughton, the currier, with his soul of independence, and Charley Careless, the little high-spirited silversmith, were the three last men in Gainsbro' who refused to put away the splendid head-covering of their forefathers for the paltry upper gear of modern times,—Matthew's three-cocked hat stood higher behind than it did before, and, conjoined with the grandeur of his wig, caused Matthew to look as bold and imposing as a brigadier major! And whoever met Matthew on the causeway, rocking as he went with a regular naval kind of motion, and supporting his aged steps by a bamboo in either hand, was sure to say, "Good morning to you, Matthew! I hope you are quite well this morning!" if they were considered to be his equals or superiors in rank; while all the little boys and girls were wont to stop and bow or courtesy to him, and say, "Your sarvant, Matthew!" Such was the real honour paid to the aged sailor who had fought "the battles of his country," as they were called.

The time came, however, when all this show of respect to the brave old sailor ceased, for he lived too long! Twenty more years made his age hard upon one hundred. That was a rare age to live; but it would have been better for Matthew if he had died ten years earlier, for he lived till the effects of the "glorious" battles in which he had been engaged began to be felt—and felt grievously, even in that district, which you will deem comparatively happy when viewed after your mind's eye has been dwelling on the fathomless miseries of our dense hives of manufacture. He lived till hungry and ragged labourers began to stand daily in melancholy groups, and with folded arms, in the streets, and till the parish authorities began to talk of pulling down the old workhouse, to build a new "bastile" on the lovely green spot where the children used to resort to play at sand-mills!

Matthew felt the change in the "civilisation," as it was called, of the times, sensibly, as old as he was; but there was an inexhaustible spring of vivacity in the old seaman's noble nature, and in spite of age, infirmities, and bad times, Matthew Hardcastle was the merriest, as well as the oldest man in Gainsbro'. "Butter your shirt, sing tantara-bobus make shift!" Matthew would say, morning, noon, and night, when the poor would be uttering their plaints in his ears; and the whimsical saying, together with the jolly old fellow's way of uttering it, many a time turned the mourning of his neighbours into mirth.

One day, a stranger heard this singular saying, as he was journeying through the town, and passing by the street end of the alley where Matthew was leaning on his two sticks to take the evening air, and chatting with his neighbours, according to his custom. The traveller could not fail to be struck with the saying, for he had heard it before; and he had seen the veteran who uttered it before, though it was many a long year since. The traveller stopped, and gazed on the old sailor for a moment or two, and then stretched out his aged hand—for he, too, was an old man—to grasp the hand of his ancient friend.

"Matthew Hardcastle! what, old Matthew!" he exclaimed.

Matthew stared, and seemed at a loss for a few seconds; but, at length, he let one stick fall, as it were mechanically, and, clasping his old friend's hand with the hearty gripe of a true sailor, cried aloud, while the fire of his youth seemed once more to gleam from his eyes,—

"What! Paul Perkins! God bless thy heart! Why, I thought—but God bless thy heart and soul, how art thou?—I thought thou hadst gone to Davy's locker ten or fifteen years ago!"

"And I little thought that ever these old eyes were again to look upon Matthew Hardcastle," replied Paul; "why, Lord save us, you must be an amazing age! I am nearly threescore and ten, but you were a man in your prime when I was but little older than a child, you know."

"Butter your shirt, sing tantara-bobus make shift!" answered jolly old Matthew; "what matters it how old one may be? We shall live till we die—kill us that dare!" And the pair of sound-hearted old tars burst into a merry laugh that came up so clearly from the well-spring of their hearts as to create a kindred merriment through the curious crowd, which had by this time begun to gather round them, in the narrow street.

"Well, but come, shipmate, this must not be a dry meeting," said Paul; "suppose we step into the Red Lion, or the Black Horse, that I see on the signs here, hard by, and wet our whistles together, once more. It may be for the last time, you know, in this world."

"Avast, heaving!" replied Matthew; "I have no objection for Molly Crabtree, here, to fetch us a jack of rum or so, and we can have it in my little berth; but my old head won't bear the racket of a public-house now, Paul."

"Well, well, have it your own way, Mat," replied the other; and the two ancient men adjourned, as fast as their stiffened limbs would permit them, to Matthew's little dwelling in the alley.

Matthew's hammock—for he could never be persuaded to sleep in a bed—was slung at one corner of the narrow room, and just under it was placed his arm-chair. He would fain have given up his usual seat, on this occasion, to his friend; but Paul Perkins had too much real and untaught courtesy to accept of it.

"No, no, keep on board your own ship, Matthew," he cried; "I won't do any such thing: sit ye down, sit ye down."

And so Matthew sat down, with this entreaty, and reared his two sticks against the wall, and doffed his rare hat, and showed his wig in all its glory. Paul looked round the room, and could not help indulging in the natural exultation of a sailor. Nelson, and Howe, and Duncan, and Rodney, showed their gallant faces, according to the best skill of some humble limner, over the little mantelpiece: a fine model of a first-rate man-of-war—the work of Matthew's own fingers in his younger days—stood, in unapproachable pride, upon a little dresser on the opposite side of the dwelling; and, above it, a curious tobacco-pipe, from some foreign shore, curled its enormous length around three or four nails driven into the wall, and displayed the painted image of a black-a-moor's head, at its extremity. Other odd fragments of a sailor's fondness, such as small carved "figure-heads" of vessels, wrought with the pocket-knife, to relieve hours of tedium, pouches of kangaroo-skin, the favourite repositories of the sailor's favourite weed, pipe-stoppers of bone, cut into grotesque shapes, and such-like nick-knackeries decorated the walls, till scarcely a bare patch of them could be seen.

"Well, and I suppose you're at home here, Mat, eh?" said Paul, his face beaming with pleasure as he asked the question.

A sudden and unwonted shade came over Matthew's countenance: "Hum!" said he, gloomily, "liked the old Dreadnought better; but she's now—God bless her!—only a hull, like me. But butter your shirt!" cried the gallant-hearted old fellow, bursting into his prevailing gaiety,—"sing tantara-bobus make shift! we shall live till we die—kill us that dare!" And again the old lads set up a merry laugh in unison, and were as happy, for the nonce, as the proudest monarchs in christendom.

Molly Crabtree now entered with the rum, and began to prepare the grog, that real nectar for the sailor. The precious glass was mixed, and went round over and over again; nor would the old sailors be said "nay" when Molly looked modest about it: she was compelled to take a sip each time when it came to her turn. Old shipmates were named, and the bravery and virtues of the dead were honoured; hearty and kind wishes for the welfare of the living were expressed; old stories were told, and the joys of old times were recorded with a sigh; but sighing usually was followed by a laugh amid the utterance of old Matthew's singular expletive, "Butter your shirt! sing tantara-bobus make shift!"

"Upon my honour, Mat," at length said Paul, for, as it began to grow towards midnight, the phraseology of the ancient mariners began to grow more consequential,—more by token that the "jack" of rum had now been repeated, for the third time—"upon my honour, Mat, you and I were no skinkers in that hot action when you first wore the buttered shirt."

"Why, Lord ha' marcy on us!" cried Molly Crabtree, who had been listening all along, and staring like an owl at twilight, during the successive strange recitals of the two old seafarers,—"did Matthew ever wear a real buttered shirt, then? For Heaven's sake tell us the meaning on't!"

"That I will, ma'am," said Paul touching his hat as gallantly as an admiral; "you see, it was during a severe engagement with the Dutchmen that Mat and I were ordered to the main-top,—but hardly had we reached it, when a shot from the enemy cut our mainmast fairly in two, and hurled us both on to the enemy's deck, in the midst of more than a hundred heavy-bottomed Dutchmen! To dream of fighting against such odds, ma'am, you'll understand was, of course, out of all question; so we quietly walked our bodies, to the tune of 'donner and blitzen,' down below, to become close prisoners under hatches. Now it so happened, d'ye see, ma'am? that the only fellow-prisoners we found in the hole where they crammed us were cheeses and queer big tubs; and we felt a nat'ral sort of a curiosity to rummage about the hole, when left in the dark by ourselves. Clambering up some o' these huge tubs at one end of the hole, we both lost footing together, and fell head over heels into the midst of something that was remarkably soft; and there we struggled, and struggled hard, too,—but 'twas all in vain, we could not flounder out,—and so were content to remain closed on all sides up to the neck, with just our heads bobbing out, and gasping for breath. Shiver my timbers, if ever I was so pickled before or since! At length the Dutchman was taken; and when some of our lads made their way into the dark hole where we were, we began to hail 'em."—"Dreadnought a-hoy!" said Mat: "The Union Jack a-hoy!" said I: "Who's there, in the devil's name?" cried one: "Why that's old Mat Hardcastle's growl—where the devil is he?" said first one of our lads and then another. And, as sure as you're there, ma'am," continued Paul, growing more polite and gallant as he proceeded, "what with one noise or another, it wasn't until the lads had driven their marling-spikes through almost every cask in the hole, that Mat and I were discovered up to the neck in one of the Dutchmen's big butter firkins. We were a good deal ashamed, ma'am, o' course, being as how we were soaked to the skin in the grease, for it warmed, as we stuck in it; and no doubt by its melting, we should ha' been able to have got out of it without help, if we had had to stay much longer before we had been found. The worst of it was, we could not get time to strip for some hours after, and this made us both mighty uneasy, for many was the joke that was passed upon us as to how we liked our buttered shirts. But Mat's heart was always light, all his life long; and he answered all who asked that saucy question, just as he puts by all sorrow now, with "Butter _your_ shirt! Sing tantarara-bobus make shift!—and ever since then Matthew has kept his saying; and it is not a bad one, either, let me tell you, ma'am! what think ye?" concluded Paul Perkins, and took a stiffer pull at the grog than he had ever done that night, thinking that he deserved it for his cleverness, and feeling himself entitled to a double pull because he had missed his turn by telling this yarn.

Molly Crabtree only answered with a hearty laugh, and Paul laughed too, but Matthew laughed louder and longer than either of them, for he was 'a practised laugher, and lived by it,' as he used jokingly to say. But now the fourth measure of grog was done, and it was too late to buy more; so the conversation began to grow less boisterous. Molly rose to depart; and the two veterans were left by themselves. Paul urged Matthew to get into his hammock, and Matthew urged Paul; but neither could prevail on the other, and so at last they fairly fell asleep in their chairs, and neither of them awoke,—though they each snored as loud as a rhinoceros,—until Molly Crabtree came and opened the shutters some hours after sunrise the ensuing morning. Their limbs were tolerably stiff, and their heads ached beyond a joke, it may easily be guessed, for it was many a long day since either of them had gone to sleep groggy. They made the best of their aches and pains, however, when they awoke, and, after a hearty renewed gripe of friendship, thrust each a lumping quid of tobacco into his mouth, and then quietly awaited the preparation of breakfast by Molly Crabtree.

Now, as natural as our forefathers always reckoned it to be to get drunk, or, at least, tipsy, with an old friend, when you met him after a long absence or separation, yet it was always felt to be not less natural that the cosy companions of the preceding night talked like sober men the next morning. So it was with Matthew Hardcastle and Paul Perkins.

"Matthew,—I've been thinking," began Paul, very measuredly, as he was sipping the cocoa-sop out of a bright brown earthen porringer, with a spoon, in imitation of his host,—"I've been thinking,—we shall soon be in our last port."

"True, very true," said Matthew, "and, d'ye know, Paul? I would not much care if we had the same voyage to go again, save and except a little at the end on't."

"Then we don't think alike," said Paul, dropping his spoon into the porringer, and looking thoughtful: "I'm sure, Mat, you'll bear me witness that I'm no skinkerly coward; but, splice me, if I don't think that all this warring and fighting, and blowing up of poor men's limbs is, after all, a great piece of wickedness. And, besides that, I've thought very much of late,—and particularly since I've seen the times change so much,—that this setting of poor Englishmen on to fight poor foreigners, and poor foreigners to fight poor Englishmen, is only a deep scheme, on the part of the rich abroad and the rich at home, to keep the poor down."

"Say you so, Paul?" exclaimed Matthew, also resting his spoon on the brim of the porringer, and looking very intently upon his friend; "why, you know, Paul, if we had not gone to fight the foreigners, they would have come to fight us."

"But who amongst 'em was it that wanted to fight? just think of that, Matthew," rejoined Paul, very earnestly. "You and I had no quarrel with the French, or the Dutch, or the Spaniard, you know. And what poor foreigners, think you, had any quarrel with the people here? No, no, depend on it, Matthew, the poor never made these wars, nor ever thought of fighting, or wished to fight, on either side: it was the rich—'our betters,' as they are called—who began the quarrel, and then pushed us, or dragged us, into it, to lose our limbs, or shed our blood, or escape if we could."

"'Pon my word," said Matthew, shaking his wig, very significantly, "I've had some such thoughts as these now and then,—and you're making a strong yarn on't, Paul, I confess,—but what's the use of muddling one's old brains with such things? You know what I always say, Paul,—'Butter your shirt——"

"Nay, but avast a bit, Mat," said Paul, looking invincibly serious; "we are getting fast into our last port, as I said before; and, if we have been unthinking fools all our lives, I don't see why we should not open our eyes and look about us a bit, before we step on the last shore. Times are harder now than ever you and I knew 'em; and, as much fuss as there used to be made about an old seaman, all that sort of thing is gone. I question if you and I live a few years longer, and grow cranky,—and, God knows, I begin to feel queer, night and morning,—but folks will grow weary of waiting on us, and the parish wolves will haul us away to the workhouse, and pocket our little pensions."

"God Almighty forbid!" ejaculated Matthew, very fervently.

"But 'tis very likely to come to pass, however, let me tell you," rejoined Paul; "you knew Jerry Simpson: he was berthsman with us, if you remember, and lost an arm at Trafalgar. He wouldn't go into Greenwich college, but went and settled in Shoreditch, with his old sister. She died two twelvemonths ago, and poor old Jerry soon grew helpless—so they took him into the parish poor-house, pocketing his pension, and he died there, of sheer grief, about six months ago. That was a rum reward for fighting for his country so bravely as Jerry did——"

"By G—d it was!" exclaimed old Matthew, involuntarily—for the fine old fellow had not uttered an oath for years before: "the Lord ha' mercy upon me for swearing, poor old sinner that I am!" he continued:—"but you don't say that that's true about Jerry Simpson, do you, Paul? why he used to rush into a gun-boat like a ravenous wolf! Shiver my old timbers! but a braver sailor than Jerry never stepped upon deck!"

"'Pon the word of a sailor, what I have said is true," replied Paul, "for I saw it with my own sorrowful eyes. But now don't you perceive, Matthew," resumed Paul, eager to take advantage of the impression this fact had made, "that the change in the state of things is owing to the heavy taxes caused by the war, and——"

"Why, you see, Paul, I don't understand these things," said Matthew, impatiently; "but I feel you are right about us poor dogs never wishing to bite the foreigners—for I never had such a thought till I got on board ship. But why is it that great folks wish to shed blood at such a rate? What do they want, and what would they have? 'Zounds! if I have but my bit o' bacco, and can rest at night, I'm as happy as any of 'em. And then, again, Paul, why is it—excuse me, Paul, if I seem to talk foolish; I'm older than you, but you always had more book larning, I'm well aware—why is it that the poor don't let the rich fight their battles themselves, if they want any fighting?"

"Why, there, now, you old billy-goat!" exclaimed Paul, laughing; "you know that both you and I were dragged off by the press-gang, just as we were about to step on shore at Wapping; and were not thousands hauled away, in the same manner, throughout the war? 'Why is it that we don't let 'em fight their own battles themselves' indeed! why, you know, Mat, the poor dogs are compelled to obey the rich ones, in this world. What I want you to see is that the rich dogs make these wars on purpose to keep the poor dogs under. And yet I don't know, Matthew, that either you or I can alter things: it is past our time o' life; and, besides, I believe the whole consarn will before long tumble to pieces of itself, for the world's about tired of it."

"Blow me!" exclaimed Matthew, completely wearied of the subject, and anxious to resume his usual careless and happy vein, "if I can see the use of all your palaver, Paul: you may be right, in the main, but then you make no sail, take as many tacks as you will. You still end by saying the poor dogs are forced to bark and bite as the rich dogs bid 'em; and you own that we're both too old to do aught towards bettering things; and, besides, you say the consarn's doomed to fall to pieces by its own rottenness; and so, instead of bothering my old brains about it, I still say, as I did when we got out of the Dutchmen's firkin, 'Butter your shirt! sing tantarara-bobus make shift!'"

The argument was ended with a hearty laugh on both sides, for, as toughly as Paul had spun his yarn, it was clear, from his last observation, that he was beginning to esteem his work as "labour in vain." That day and another passed in calling old times to mind; and, on the fourth day, the two ancient friends and fellows in many a storm and broil, parted, never to meet again on the lee-shore of Time.

Old Matthew Hardcastle kept up his gaiety of heart till his last day, though that day was, to the full, as doleful as his trusty friend Paul Perkins had prognosticated it would be. Reader,—if ever it falls in your way to visit old Gainsbro', you will learn that, in the main, what I am about to relate is too true. In proportion as Matthew became helpless, people were wearied with waiting upon him; and, disgraceful to relate! the old warrior-seaman was, at length, neglected till his aged body swarmed with filth. Instead of respect, disgust was now expressed for him, by an unreasonable world. Paul Perkins' prophecy came true to the letter: the parish "worthies" came to "take care of him;" they took him to the poor-house; he was stripped stark-naked in the wash-house; and cold water was "swabbed," as he himself would have said, upon his aged body to cleanse him! Even in that moment, the brave companion of Howe and Nelson strove to keep up the gaiety of his noble heart, and once essayed his old saying, "Butter your shirt! sing"——But his aged lips quivered, and his jaws chattered with the cold,—and his bold old heart broke with the barbarous treatment he was undergoing!

Oh! this is a world of wrong; and it will take a great deal of effort to right it, if ever it be righted at all. Reader! if you even think, with Paul Perkins, that the bad system under which so many groan, will, at length, fall to pieces by virtue, or rather by the vice, of its own imperfections,—is it not, still, sensible and philanthropic to be doing what little we can to hasten what we feel to be "a consummation devoutly to be wished?"

DOROTHY PYECROFT'S PREACHING; OR, "CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME."

All the world, in the village of Sturton-le-Steeple, had said so, before the time of old Dorothy Pyecroft; but Dorothy did not join all the world in saying so. Sturton is a homely little place, situate in the pleasant shire of Nottingham, and lying within a couple of miles of the Trent, and old Lincolnshire; and its church steeple forms a pretty object in the landscape which you view from the hills above Gainsboro'. Dorothy Pyecroft, from the time that she was a child but the height of a table, went to Gainsboro' market with butter, eggs, or poultry, as regularly as Tuesday returned in each week; for the hearty old dame used commonly to boast that she had never known what it was to have a day's illness in her life, although, at the season we are beginning to gossip about, she was full threescore and ten. It was a bonny sight to see the dame go tripping o'er the charming lea which spreads its flowery riches from Sturton-le-Steeple to the banks of noble Trent, by four of the clock on a gay summer's morning, with the clean milking-pail under her arm, that was bare to the elbow. You would have thought, at a distance, she had been some blithe maiden in her teens. And then the cheerful and clear tone in which she summoned her cows, calling to them as kindly as if they were her children—"Come, my pratty creatures!" a call that was the signal for a treat of pleasing pastoral music to the enthusiastic early angler on the Trent: the rich, varied "low" of the cows,—alto, tenor, and bass,—answered that call, in changeful echo across the stream; the angler's delighted ear caught a treble, heavenward, from the matin lark, to complete the "harmony;" and even the cackling of the geese, uttering their confused joy at the sound of the dame's voice, seemed to mingle no unpleasing "discord" with the natural chorus. By the time that her morning's milking was over, the spoilt maidens of the village were only beginning to open their kitchen window-shutters; and she usually passed the whole train of them, loitering and chattering about their sweethearts, on their way to the lea, as she returned home, with the rich load upon her head, and her arms fixed as properly a-kimbo as could be shown by the sprightliest lass that ever carried a milking-pail. Some little shame was commonly felt among the loiterers as they passed the exemplary old woman,—but it did not result in their reformation. Old Farmer Muxloe, who was always abroad at daybreak, and usually chatted a few moments with the dame just at the point where the footpath crossed the bridle-way over the lea, often commented, in no very measured terms, on the decline of discipline among milk-maids since the days when he was a lad.

"Ah, dame!" he used to say, "there have been sore changes since you and I used to take a turn around the maypole; I'm sure the world gets lazier and lazier every day."

"Why, you see, neighbour, fashions change," the old dame would reply—for she ever loved to take the more charitable side of a question; "maybe, things may change again, and folk may take to getting up earlier, after a few more years are over."

"I'faith, I've little hope on't," the old farmer would reply, and shake his head, and smile; "but there's nobody like thee, Dolly, for taking the kindest side."

"Why, neighbour, I always think it the best," Dorothy would rejoin, with a benevolent smile; "I never saw things grow better by harsh words and harsh thinkings, in my time."

And then the old farmer would smile again, and say, "Well, well, that's just like thee! God bless thee, Dolly, and good morning to thee!" and away he would turn Dobbin's head, and proceed on his usual morning's ride from field to field.

The work of her little dairy, added to the care of a humble household, composed of an infirm and helpless husband, and an equally infirm maiden sister,—with, all and sundry, a stout house-dog, two tabby-cats, and a fruitful poultry-yard,—usually occupied Dorothy Pyecroft through the bustling forenoon of each day; and when there was no immediate call upon her skill and benevolence among sick neighbours,—for she was the cleverest herb-woman in the village, and exercised her knowledge of the healing art without fee, or willing acceptance even of thanks,—she would sit in her polished high-backed chair, and work through the livelong afternoon at her spinning-wheel, drowsing her two infirm companions into a salutary rest and forgetfulness with the humming monotony of her labour, but revolving within her own mind many a useful and solemn thought, meanwhile.

Dorothy sat absorbed in this her favourite employ, one afternoon in autumn, when an itinerant pedlar made his customary call at the cottage-door. The dame's mind was so deeply involved in the contrivance of one of her little plans of benevolence, that she did not recognise the face of the traveller until he had addressed her twice.

"Any small wares for children? any needles, pins, or thimbles?" cried the pedlar, running through the list of his articles with the glibness of frequent repetition.

"No, Jonah: I want none," replied the dame, kindly; "but, maybe, you'll take a horn o' beer, and a crumb or two o' bread and cheese?"

The pedlar assented, well pleased, and lowered the pack from his shoulders, and set down the basket from his hand, next seating himself in a chair without the ceremonial of asking, and in all the gladsome confidence of welcome.

"Thank you, thank you, dame," he said, and smacked his lips with pleasurable anticipation, as he took the horn of smiling beer and the piece of bread and cheese from the dame's hand.

"You're welcome, Jonah," replied the dame, heartily. "Have you walked far to-day? and what luck have you had?"

"I've come twenty miles, and have never taken handsel yet, dame," answered Jonah, in a melancholy tone.

"So, poor heart!" said Dorothy, very pitifully; "I must buy a trifling dozen of needles of thee, however, before thou goest. I fear times are hard, Jonah: I hear many and grievous complaints."

"Times are harder than ever I knew them to be, dame, I assure you," rejoined Jonah; "and they that have a little money seem most determined to hold it fast. Sore murmurings are made about this by poor folk: but I don't wonder at it, myself," concluded the worldly pedlar, "for, in such sore times as these, there's no knowing what a body may come to want: and, as the old saying goes, you know, dame, 'Charity begins at home!'"—and Jonah buried his nose in the ale-horn, thinking he had said something so wisely conclusive that it could not be contradicted.

"They say it was a parson who first used that saying," observed Dorothy, glancing from her wheel, very keenly, towards the pedlar; "but, for my part, Jonah, I am very far from thinking it such a saying as a parson ought to use."

"Say you, dame?" said Jonah, opening his eyes very wide.

"Did charity begin at home with their master?" said Dorothy, by way of explanation.

"Ah, dame!" said the pedlar, quickly discerning Dorothy's meaning, "I fear but few parsons think of imitating their master now-a-days!"

"That's more than I like to say," observed the gentle Dorothy; "I think there are more good people in the world than some folk think for;—but I'm sure, Jonah, we all want a better understanding of our duty towards each other."

"Right, Dame Dorothy, right!—that's the best sort of religion; but there's the least of it in this world," rejoined the pedlar.

"Why, Jonah," continued the good dame, "I think there might easily be a great deal more good in the world than there is. Every body ought to remember how many little kindnesses it is in their power to perform for others, without any hurt to themselves."

"Yes, a sight o'good might be done in that way, dame," observed the pedlar, beginning very much to admire Dorothy's remarks; "and how much more happy the world would be then!"