Part 23
Our stomachs we had just prepared To vest a small amount in; When, gush! a flood of brine came down The skylight--quite a fountain, And right on end the table rear’d, Just like the Table Mountain.
Down rush’d the soup, down gush’d the wine, Each roll, its rôle repeating, Roll’d down--the round of beef declar’d For parting--not for meating! Off flew the fowls, and all the game Was “too far gone for eating!”
Down knife and fork--down went the pork, The lamb too broke its tether; Down mustard went--each condiment-- Salt--pepper--all together! Down everything, like craft that seek The Downs in stormy weather.
Down plunged the Lady of the Lake, Her timbers seemed to sever; Down, down, a dreary derry down, Such lurch she had gone never; She almost seem’d about to take A bed of down for ever!
Down dropt the captain’s nether jaw, Thus robb’d of all its uses, He thought he saw the Evil One Beside Vesuvian sluices, Playing at dice for soul and ship And throwing _Sink_ and _Deuces_.
Down fell the steward on his face, To all the Saints commending; And candles to the Virgin vow’d, As save-alls ’gainst his ending. Down fell the mate, he thought his fate, Check-mate, was close impending!
Down fell the cook--the cabin boy, Their beads with fervour telling, While alps of serge with snowy verge, Above the yards came yelling. Down fell the crew, and on their knees Shuddered at each white swelling!
Down sunk the sun of bloody hue, His crimson light a cleaver To each red rover of a wave: To eye of fancy-weaver, Neptune, the God, seemed tossing in A raging scarlet fever!
Sore, sore afraid, each Papist pray’d To Saint and Virgin Mary; But one there was that stood composed Amid the waves’ vagary; As staunch as rock, a true game cock ’Mid chicks of Mother Cary!
His ruddy cheek retain’d its streak, No danger seemed to shrink him; His step still bold,--of mortal mould The crew could hardly think him: The Lady of the Lake, he seem’d To know, could never sink him.
Relax’d at last the furious gale, Quite out of breath with racing; The boiling flood in milder mood, With gentler billows chasing; From stem to stern, with frequent turn, The Stranger took to pacing.
And as he walk’d to self he talked, Some ancient ditty thrumming, In under tone, as not alone-- Now whistling, and now humming-- “You’re welcome, Charlie,” “Cowdenknowes,” “Kenmure,” or “Campbells’ Coming.”
Down went the wind, down went the wave, Fear quitted the most finical; The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot, And Hope was at the pinnacle: When rose on high, a frightful cry-- “The Devil’s in the binnacle!”
“The Saints be near,” the helmsman cried, His voice with quite a falter-- “Steady’s my helm, but every look The needle seems to alter; God only knows where China lies, Jamaica, or Gibraltar!”
The captain stared aghast at mate, The pilot at th’ apprentice; No fancy of the German Sea Of Fiction the event is: But when they at the compass look’d, It seem’d non compass mentis.
Now north, now south, now east, now west, The wavering point was shaken, ’Twas past the whole philosophy Of Newton, or of Bacon; Never by compass, till that hour Such latitudes were taken!
With fearful speech, each after each Took turns in the inspection; They found no gun--no iron--none To vary its direction; It stem’d a new magnetic case Of Poles in Insurrection!
Farewell to wives, farewell their lives, And all their household riches; Oh! while they thought of girl or boy, And dear domestic niches, All down the side which holds the heart, That needle crave them stitches.
With deep amaze, the Stranger gaz’d To see them so white-liver’d: And walk’d abaft the binnacle, To know at what they shiver’d; But when he stood beside the card, St. Josef! how it quiver’d!
No fancy-motion, brain-begot, In eye of timid dreamer-- The nervous finger of a sot Ne’er show’d a plainer tremor; To every brain it seem’d too plain, There stood th’ Infernal Schemer!
Mix’d brown and blue each visage grew, Just like a pullet’s gizzard; Meanwhile the captain’s wandering wit, From tacking like an izzard, Bore down in this plain course at last, “It’s Michael Scott--the Wizard!”
A smile past o’er the ruddy face; “To see the poles so falter, I’m puzzled, friends, as much as you, For with no fiends I palter; Michael I’m not--although a Scott-- My Christian name is Walter.”
Like oil it fell, that name, a spell On all the fearful faction; The Captain’s head (for he had read) Confess’d the Needle’s action, And bow’d to Him in whom the North Has lodged its main attraction!
SUMMER--A WINTER ECLOGUE.
A Back Parlour at Camberwell. Sylvanus is seated at the breakfast-table, and greeteth his friend Civis.
SYL.--A good morrow to you, friend Civis, and a hearty welcome!--How hath sleep dealt with you through the night?
CIV.--Purely indeed, and with rare pastoral dreams. I have done nothing but walk through pleasant groves, or sit me down under shady boughs, the whole livelong night. A foretaste, my friend, of the rural delights yet to come, in strolling with you amongst the dainty shades of this your verdant retreat. How have I yearned all through the month of June, to be a Jack-i’-the-Green again amidst your leaves here! You know my prospect in town.
SYL.--Aye, truly; I did once spend, or rather misspend a whole week there in the dog-days. You looked out opposite on a scorching brick front of six stories, with a south aspect--studded with I know not how many badges of Assurance from fire, and not without need--for the shop windows below seemed all a-blaze with geranium-coloured silks, at that time the mode, and flamme d’enfer. The left-hand shop, next door, was all red, likewise, with regiments of lobsters, in their new uniforms; beyond that, a terrible flaring Red Lion, newly done up with paint. At the next door, a vender of red morocco pocket-books--my eyes were in a scarlet fever, the whole time of my sojourning.
CIV.--A true picture, I confess. We are, indeed, a little strong in the warm tints; but they give the more zest to your suburban verdure. All the way down overnight, I thought only of the two tall elm trees beside your gate, and which have always been to my city optics as refreshing as a pair of green spectacles. Surely of all spots I have seen, Camberwell is the greenest, as the poet says, that ever laid hold of Memory’s waist.
SYL.--It hath been greener aforetime. But I pray you sit down and fall to.--Shall I help you to some of this relishing salted fish?
CIV.--By your good leave, Sylvanus, I will first draw up these blinds. My bed-room, you know, looks out only to the road, and I am longing to help my eyes, to a little of what, as a citizen, I may truly call the green fat of nature.
SYL.--Nay, Civis--I pray you let the blinds alone. The rolls are getting cold. This ham is excellently well cured, and the eggs are new-laid. Come, take a seat.
CIV.--I beseech your patience for one moment. There the blind is up. What a brave flood of sunshine--and what a glorious blue sky!--What a rare dainty day to roam abroad in, dallying with the Dryads!--But what do I behold! Oh, my Sylvanus, the Dryads are stripped of their green kirtles--stark naked! The trees are all bare, God help me! as bare as the “otamies in Surgeons’ Hall!”
SYL.--You would take no forewarning--I bade you not pull up the blind. It was my intent to have broken the truth to you, after you had made a full meal; but now you must to breakfast with what appetite you may!
CIV.--As I hope to see Paradise--there is not a green bough between this and Peckham!
SYL.--No, truly, not a twig! I would not advise any forlorn Babes to die in our woods, for Cock Robin would be painfully perplext to provide them with a pall. Alas! were a Butterfly to be born in our bowers, there is not a leaf to swaddle it in.
CIV.--Miserable man that I am, to have come down so late, or rather that winter should have arrived thus early! Ungenial climate! untimely Boreas!
SYL.--Blame not Boreas, nor winter neither. Boiling heat had more part than freezing point in this havoc. To think that even summer nowadays should go by steam!
CIV.--You speak in Sphynxian riddles! Oh, my Sylvanus, tell me in plain English prose what has become of the green emeralds of the forest?
SYL.--Destroyed in one day by a swarm of locusts. Not the locusts of Scripture, such as were eaten by St. John in the wilderness, but a new species. I caught one in the fact, on the very elm tree you wot of, and which it had stripped to the bone, saving one bough.
CIV.--I am glad, with all my heart, that you have him secure, for I delight to gaze on the wonders of nature, even of the destructive kinds. You shall show me your new locust. Of course you thrusted a pin through the body, and fixed it down to a cork after the manner of the entomologists.
SYL.--No, truly; for it knocked me down after the manner of the pugilists, and so made its escape.
CIV.--How! be they so huge, then? To my fancy, they seem more like flying dragons than locusts.
SYL.--It is true, notwithstanding. Some of them which I have seen, measured nearly six feet in length; others, that were younger, from three to five. One of these last, the Minimi, or small fry, I likewise took captive, though not without some shrewd kicking and biting, and striking with its fore-paws.
CIV.--The smallest of animals will do so to escape from bondage. I take for granted you knocked him on the head, for the sake of peace.
SYL.--No, indeed. I had not the heart; the visage was so strangely human, ape or monkey could not look more like a man in the face; and then it cried and whined for all the world like a mere boy.
CIV.--It would have been a kind of petty murder to slay him. I do not think I could commit Monkeycide myself. They look, as Lady Macbeth says, so like our Fathers. To kill an ape would plant the whole stings of an apiary in my conscience. I pray you go on with the description.
SYL.--Willingly, and according to the system of the great Linnæus. Antennæ or horns he had none, thus differing from the common locust, but in lieu thereof, sundry bunches and tufts of coarse red hair; eyes brown, and tending inwards towards the proboscis or snout. Two fore-legs or arms terminating in ten palpi or feelers, and the same number of toes or claws on the hinder feet. On grasping truncus, or the trunk, it was cased in a loose skin resembling corduroy, the same being most curiously furnished with sundry bags or pouches, into which, like the provident pelican, it stuffed the forage it had collected from the trees.
CIV.--With submission, Sylvanus, to your better judgment, I should have taken this same Locust, from your description, to have been actually a mere human boy.
SYL.--Between ourselves, he was--though of what nation or parentage I know not. To use his own heathenish jargon, he was doing “a morning fake on the picking lay for a cove wot add a tea-crib in the monkery.”
CIV.--A strange gibberish, but I do remember that Peter the Wild Boy was wont to discourse in the same uncouth fashion. Poor savage of the woods! I do feel for his pitiful estate; but what could move him to pluck off all-the green emeralds of the Forest?
SYL.--To make sham Hyson and mock Souchong. Even in June you would have deemed it was November, there were so many ragged Guys collecting gunpowder. Oh, Civis, thou hast no notion of the tea-trade that hath been carried on in these parts. Many times I have believed myself to be dwelling in Canton, and that my name was Hum. Thrice I have caught myself marvelling at the huge feet of Mrs. S., and have groped behind my nape for the national pigtail.
CIV.--Sylvanus, spare me. I have but one green week in the year, and here it is all blotted out of the calendar. I pray you do not jest with me. What hath become of the leaves of yon sycamore?
SYL.--Plucked by a Blackamoor, who preferred it to the climbing of chimneys.
CIV.--And yonder Ashes, which I could mourn for in appropriate sackcloth?
SYL.--Stripped by the select young gentleman of Seneca-house, who left the politer branches of education for the purpose. Scholars, you know, will play truant gratis, and these had the opportunity of performing it at twopence the hour. One Saturday they did turn their half-holiday into a whole one, and were found by the geographical master picking Chinese Pekoe and Padre on the sloe bushes and willows of Peckham Rye.
CIV.--Oh, my Sylvanus, such then is the cause of the desolation I survey. To think that I may have myself helped to swallow the verdure that I should now be sitting under. That the green Druidical leaves, instead of clothing the Dryads, should be assisting in the sweeping of my own Kidderminster carpets!
SYL.--Verily so it is. The great god Pan is dead, and Pot will reign in his stead.
CIV.--Such a misfortune was never before read in a tea-cup! Oh, my Sylvanus, what is to become of patriotism or love of the country, when the best part of the country is turned to grouts?
SYL.--I have heard by way of rumour, that Mistress Shakerly of our village, attributes her palsy to a dash of aspen in her British Congo; indeed there be shrewd doubts abroad whether the great Projector hath been at all reforming by turning over a new leaf. Mr. Fairday, the notable chemist, hath sworn solemnly on his affidavit, that the tea is strongly emetical, having always acted upon his stomach as tea and turn out.
CIV.--Of a verity it ought to be tested by the doctors.
SYL.--They have tested it, and tasted it to boot. Dr. Budd, the Pennyroyal Professor of Botany, hath ranked it with the rankest of poisons, after experimenting its destructive virtues on select tea parties of his relations and friends.
CIV.--And I doubt not Dr. Rudd, of the same Royal College, hath added a confirmation to this christening.
SYL.--You know the proverb. Doctors’ opinions do not keep step, or match together, better than their horses. Dr. Rudd hath given this beverage with cream of tartar and sugar of lead to consumptives, and hath satisfied himself morally and physically that phthisic does not begin with tea.
CIV.--Dr. Rudd is an ass! Oh, my Sylvanus, I am sick at heart! Only two days since I did purchase a delectable book of poems, called “Foliage,” purposely to read under your trees, but how can I enjoy it, when the very foliage of nature is, as the booksellers say, out of print! “Bare ruined quires where late the sweet birds sung.”
SYL.--My friend, take comfort. This tea-tray will not be brought up another year, for the counterfeit herb hath all been seized, and condemned to be burnt in the yard of the Excise.
CIV.--I am glad on’t, for it will be, as the French say, “a feu-de-joie;” and verily all the little singing birds ought to collect on the chimney-pots to chaunt a Tea Deum. In the mean time I must borrow Job’s patience under my boils, though they be of the size of kettles, and have boiled away my summer at a gallop. Possibly you may have fewer locusts another season; but by way of precaution, the next time I come down by the stage I shall attend to an old stage direction in Macbeth, namely, “Enter the army with their green boughs in their hands.”
PAIR’D _NOT_ MATCH’D.
Of wedded bliss Bards sing amiss, I cannot make a song of it; For I am small, My wife is tall, And that’s the short and long of it.
When we debate It is my fate To always have the wrong of it; For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
And when I speak My voice is weak, But hers--she makes a gong of it! For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
She has, in brief, Command in Chief, And I’m but Aide-de-camp of it; For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
She gives to me The weakest tea, And takes the whole Souchong of it; For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
She’ll sometimes grip My buggy whip, And make me feel the thong of it! For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
Against my life She’ll take a knife, Or fork, and dart the prong of it; For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
I sometimes think I’ll take to drink, And hector when I’m strong of it; For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
O, if the bell Would ring her knell, I’d make a gay ding-dong of it; For I am small, And she is tall, And that’s the short and long of it!
THE DUEL.
A SERIOUS BALLAD.
“Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.”
In Brentford town of old renown, There lived a Mister Bray, Who fell in love with Lucy Bell, And so did Mr. Clay.
To see her ride from Hammersmith, By all it was allow’d, Such fair outsides are seldom seen, Such Angels on a Cloud.
Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay, You choose to rival me, And court Miss Bell, but there your court No thoroughfare shall be.
Unless you now give up your suit, You may repent your love; I who have shot a pigeon match, Can shoot a turtle dove.
So pray before you woo her more, Consider what you do; If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,-- I’ll pop it into you.
Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray, Your threats I quite explode; One who has been a volunteer, Knows how to prime and load.
And so I say to you unless Your passion quiet keeps, I who have shot and hit bulls’ eyes, May chance to hit a sheep’s.
Now gold is oft for silver changed, And that for copper red; But these two went away to give Each other change for lead.
But first they sought a friend a-piece, This pleasant thought to give-- When they were dead, they thus should have Two seconds still to live.
To measure out the ground not long The seconds then forbore, And having taken one rash step They took a dozen more.
They next prepared each pistol-pan Against the deadly strife, By putting in the prime of death Against the prime of life.
Now all was ready for the foes, But when they took their stands, Fear made them tremble so they found They both were shaking hands.
Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., Here one of us may fall, And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now, Be doom’d to have a ball.
I do confess I did attach Misconduct to your name; If I withdraw the charge, will then Your ramrod do the same?
Said Mr. B., I do agree-- But think of Honour’s Courts! If we go off without a shot, There will be strange reports.
But look, the morning now is bright, Though cloudy it begun; Why can’t we aim above, as if We had call’d out the sun?
So up into the harmless air, Their bullets they did send; And may all other duels have That upshot in the end!
THE ROPE DANCER.
AN EXTRAVAGANZA,--AFTER RABELAIS.
I am going, my masters, to tell you a strange romantic, aye, necromantic, sort of story--and yet every monosyllable of it is as true as the Legend of Dumpsius. If you should think otherwise, I cannot help it. All I can say is, you are not experte credo, or expert at believing.
You must know, then, that on a certain day, of a certain year, certain officers went on certain information, to a certain house, in a certain court, in a certain city, to take up a certain Italian for a certain crime. What gross fools are they who say there is nothing certain in this world! However, in they went, with a crash and a dash, and a grip and a grapple, and if they did not take him by the scruff of the neck, like a dog, there is no truth in St. Winifred’s Well. He made no resistance, not so much as a left-hander, though he was by trade a smasher. As for any verbal defence, he never so much as attempted to lay a lie, much less to hatch one. There he was, caught in the very thing, act and fact, as poor a devil as need be to be making money. He was as dead as any die he had about him: as sure of a gallows and a rope, as if he had paid for them down on the nail of before-hand. Oh, ye City Crœsuses, what think ye of a man having his quantum suffocate of twisted hemp for making money! For my own part, if I was to swing for saying so, I’d cry out like a Stentor, that one of God’s images ought not to be made worm’s meat of for only washing the King’s face. ’Twould be a very hard-boiled case, and yet, ’fore Gog and Magog, so it was. For gilding a brass farthing he was to change twelve stone of good human flesh to a clod of clay; to change a jolly, laughing, smiling, grinning, crying, wondering, staring, face-making face for a mere caput mortuum; to change prime tripe, delicate cow-heel, succulent trotters, for a mouthful of dust; to change a garret for a grave; to change a neckcloth for a halter. Zounds! what a deal of change for a bad half sovereign! Well, there he was, caught like a rat, and going for a tit-bit to the furr’d Law-Cats, and without so much as giving a squeak for his life. The counterfeits were on him, so he had nothing to utter. I verily believe, if you had found him in twice as many melting pots, and crucibles, and dies, and white or brown gravy to boot, he could not have coined an excuse. As I said before, he was found _with the mould upon him_, and that, as the sexton of St. Sepulchre will tell you, is as good as a burial to you any day of your life. He was legally dead, and could not look, like other men, upon the sun as his sun-in-law, so he wisely shook hands with himself, and bade good-bye to himself, and did not attempt with his tongue to lick the cub of guilt into a child of grace. All he asked, was to be allowed to take with him a little reptile, or insect of some sort that he had brought over from Italy, belike to be a solace to his captivity; for Baron Trenck, you know, made a bon-camarade of a prison rat, and Monsieur F., in the Bastile, as you know equally, made a long-standing friend of a daddy-longlegs. We live in a world of whims. We eat them, and drink them, and court them, and marry them, take them to bed and board with us, and why not to prison? So Tonio begged for his whim to keep him company, and as it was a small gentle-looking whim, neither so fierce as a lion, nor so huge as an elephant, and moreover as it was a whim no ways dangerous to Church or State, he was allowed to take it with him in a little box, which he carried in his bosom.