"Merrily we go, my man—

Merrily with the tide!

Catch the breezes while you can—

Here we'll not abide!

Storm and calm will soon be o'er—

Spread the flowing sail!

Lift thy heart with sorrow sore—

Catch the fav'ring gale!

Wouldst thou weep till set of sun—

From the break of day?

This life's stream will soon be run—

Laugh, then, while you may!

Mariners in life's frail boat—

Sighs and tears are vain!

Cheerily let's onward float—

Soon the port we'll gain!

Merrily we go, my man—

Merrily with the tide!

Catch the breezes while you can—

Merrily onward glide!"

Again and again they doubled the last verse, those brave old voyagers!

until many a milk-maid came up the banks of Trent, leaving her cows

on the lea, to listen more nearly to the merry song they had so often

heard before from the two quaint companions of the fishing-boat.

The little ferry of Littleborough was at length gained, and Zed leaped

as gaily on shore as if he were yet in his youth, and then handed Phil

out, with his fiddle-case under his arm; and when the skiff was moored,

away they hasted to the "Ferry Boat Inn," as the humble public-house

was loftily termed, and where the intended wedding and merry-making

was about to be held. After half-a-dozen hearty gripes of the hand,

and as many congratulations on their good looks, the two old men were

zealously pressed to "eat and drink, and not spare," by the bluff

landlord. And, nothing loth, Zed and Phil sat down on the long-settle,

and made free with a good hearty beef-steak pie, and a tankard of ale;

and the landlord was ready to fill again ere the latter was fairly

empty. "Don't ye be dainty about it, my hearties," said he, "for the

youngsters will be down-stairs soon; they've been dressing this I don't

know how long; and you'll ha' plenty to do, I warrant ye, when they

happen to find that you're come: so do justice to your fare!"

And anon the bride that was to be was brought down-stairs by a crowd

of laughing lasses, and, blushing like the May, was placed in a chair

adorned with flowers; and soon the lads burst in with the bridegroom,

all in best array of plush and velveteen; and when he stepped up to

the chaired beauty for a morning's buss, the lads pulled him away

and said "nay;" and then all clapped their hands with delight when

they first saw Zed and Phil in the corner, and all shouted, as if

they were mad, for a good thumping ditty that would put mettle in

their heels. So Phil struck up first "Malbrook's gone to battle,"

and then "Gee-ho, Dobbin," and then "Grist the Miller," and then

"She will and she won't," and then, "Nelly is gone to be married;"

and each lad took his lass, and led up or followed the dance to the

capers of Phil's bow, till "The parson's come!" resounded through the

kitchen; and the marriage-procession was immediately formed, and the

kitchen was deserted, for even Zed and Phil went off, the one to

see, and the other to hear, lovely Polly of the Ferry-Boat Inn given

away to sprightly and honest young farmer Brown that morning, at the

neighbouring parish church of Sturton-le-Steeple.

The ceremony over, and the kitchen regained, feasting, fun, and frolic,

were the order of the day. Phil's fiddle and Zed's throat were worked

till the owners of them could scarcely work longer; and oh, the tales

that Phil told, and the songs that Zed sung, in the course of that

merry wedding-day! why, the like of 'em could not be said or sung by

man or maid, wife or widow, within all Christendom!

Don't imagine, either, that the fun and frolic were partaken of merely

by the younkers: let me tell you, that even the fat landlord himself,

although verging on fourscore, caught so much of the spirit of the

time, that he jumped up, all of a sudden, after watching the nodding

head and smirking face of Dame Dinah Brown, the grandmother of the

bridegroom, and discerning how she began to fidget, like himself,—I

say he jumped up all of a sudden, and, seizing her hand, whirled her

away, not in the least unwilling, to show the young lads and lasses

that they had not forgotten a quick step, and all that, as old as they

were. And, by Jingo! how all-alive did Phil look, while he screwed up

his catgut for a new strain; and never was any thing seen in mortal

man more wonderful than the ecstatic changes of his blind face, while

he struck up "Green leaves all grow sere!" as an accompaniment to

the frisking feet of Dame Dinah and the fat old landlord. And then

he changed the strain for one of rich merriment, while his sightless

and strangely expressive countenance depicted every shade of wild and

wilder glee, and vibrated throughout its whole surface with every

thrill of the melody and gambol of the bow; insomuch that more than

one youth forgot every thing around, and stood gazing at Phil's face,

thinking they would never forget how it looked, if they lived even to

be as old as Methusaleh.

On and on the aged dancers skipped, and "crossed" and "set," looking

as gleeful as if they had never known what it was to be grave, until,

streaming with sweat, and fairly wearied out with the mad employment

they had been giving their heels, and to which they had been strangers

for many a long year, they were constrained to sit down, avowing,

meanwhile, that "they only wished they were young again, for then they

would show the youngsters what a bit o' dancing was in their time!"

When the sun had set, Zed began to feel some degree of uneasiness to

be gone. There was the Trent to voyage, for at least three miles, in

order to reach their home at Torksey, and Zed knew the stream would be

somewhat swollen, but much more he feared the state of his own upper

story, since he had not been able to resist the pressing invitations

and challenges, first of one and then of another, and, consequently,

his potations had been somewhat numerous. Having given Phil the hint,

Phil began to complain of exhaustion as to his tale-budget, and of

the power of his nerves to direct the bow; but it was long ere this

would avail, and many a roaring ditty was launched forth from the

thunder of Phil's catgut, amid the thundering heels of the country

lads and lasses, before the two aged cronies could manage to obtain

leave, once more, to launch their little boat, and strike off for home.

The farewell chords were at last struck, the fiddle was boxed; and,

accompanied to the water's edge by a merry company, Zed and Phil pushed

off from shore amidst the hearty cheers of the merry-makers. Then, each

taking his oar, as usual, away they went with the tide, that now swept

up the river's course.

Much as they had sung that merry day, the two brave old fellows,

nevertheless, trolled forth more than one ditty before they reached

Torksey; and neither of them suffered any depression of spirits or

strength as they prosecuted their homeward voyage. Zed Marrowby,

especially—and, in good faith his alacrity must be fairly confessed to

have owed its greater intensity to his most frequent potations—Zed,

especially, sprung on shore with the nimbleness of a lad of twenty, as

soon as they arrived in front of the ruins of old Torksey castle, which

stands like a blighted, and yet beautiful thing of the past, beside

the very brink of the noble stream.

"As sure as a gun, Phil," cried the mellow old fellow, stamping with

vehemence, as he was leading Phil under a propped fragment of the old

fabric, "we'll not go to bed to-night till we've seen whether there be

any gold in these vaults, as the story goes! I've heard you tell the

tale about folks hiding their coin here, in the time of bloody Oliver,

until my patience is worn out. I'm determined, Phil, to know whether

any money can be found here, or not!"

"Why, zowks, Zed!" exclaimed Phil Garrett, "you're not so mad with that

glass o' rum they gave you before you pushed off as to have taken it

into your head to——"

"Don't bother me, Phil!" said the fisherman in a pet, "I'm determined

to fish up the gold out of these old vaults before midnight, as late as

it is, and that's the long and short on't!"

"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" cried Phil, uttering an old saying

that he was very fond of; "how will you dig up the gold, Zed? you have

never a shovel nor a pick-axe, you know."

"Then I'll soon have both," replied Zed; "you sit down here on this

stone, Phil, and I'll go and slive into the Talbot yard, and I'll

warrant it I'll soon have a pick-axe and a shovel." And off Zed

scampered as fast as his old heels, impelled by his heated head, could

carry him.

"Bring the dark lanthorn with you!" cried Phil, shouting after him as

loudly as he dared to shout; and then, sitting down on the grass in

lieu of the hard stone, began to think of the oddness and suddenness of

Zed's resolution. "What a fool Zed always becomes when he gets a drop

of rum!" thought Phil to himself; "and, confound it! I feel queerish,

somehow, myself. I wish I had not drunk that tipler o'rum. It was very

foolish of me, for I always tell Zed to stick to good old Sir John

Barleycorn, and then no great harm can come on it. But what's the use

of grumbling and growling at one's self when it's done? I'll e'en make

the best on't, since it is so." And Phil was about to troll forth

another merry ditty, when he remembered that it was near midnight, that

it must be thereabouts pitch dark, and that he was among the ruins of

Torksey Castle, where, according to a queer skin-freezing story he was

wont to tell himself, the lady without the head was often seen to walk

at midnight! So Phil, too muddled to remember that he could not have

seen the headless lady if she had appeared, held his peace, and thought

it was better to keep quiet in such a queer place and at such a queer

time of night.

Phil had not long to wait for the return of his eccentric companion.

Zed soon was at Phil's side, and, grasping his hand, assured him they

would soon be as rich as Jews with the buried gold.

"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" again cried Phil: but Zed took no

notice of it, and upheaving the pick-axe, without spending a moment in

considering whereabouts he ought to begin, struck at the ground with

all his might, assisted, not a little, at the first, by his invisible

but potent friend, Dr. Alcohol.

"Have you begun so soon, Zed?" asked Phil.

"Ay, to be sure," replied Zed, "I'm in earnest, man, and mean to have

this gold, depend on't."

"I'faith, it seems as though you did," returned Phil, feeling disposed

to roast his old friend, as they say; "do you find aught yet?"

"Pooh!" answered Zed, "let me get another foot or so deeper, and then

ask me."

"Oh, I'm in no hurry," said Phil; "only I thought I might as well be

knowing. But are you tired so soon, Zed?"

"I'm only just resting a moment," replied Zed; but he was up, and was

working away again with the pick-axe the next minute. Then he took the

shovel and began to clear away the loose earth, so as to be able to

see, by the light of the lanthorn, how deeply he had penetrated the

ground.

"Do you see aught yet?" asked Phil with a slight titter which he

suppressed as well as he could.

"Don't be in such a confounded hurry! I didn't think a bit o'gold would

ha' made you so covetous to get at it!" answered Zed, throwing down

the pick-axe, and pretending to be in a pet, though, in reality, it

was the tremendous ache in his back that caused him to throw down an

instrument of labour to which his aged hands were quite unused.

"Nay, nay, I tell you, I'm in no hurry at all," again retorted Phil;

"only, as I said before, I thought I might as well be knowing."

"All right, Phil!" cried Zed, in a twinkling of time, "here goes

again!" and struck more savagely at the ground this time than ever;

for, in spite of his affected coolness, the old fisherman began to

feel very impatient. In the course of a very few minutes, however,

Zed was again unable, from sheer weariness, to proceed, and, although

he changed his implement again for the spade, yet his back ached too

violently for him to go on with his gold-finding, so he sat down once

more to rest, and wiped the streaming perspiration from his aged face

with a hand that trembled, as indeed he trembled all over, like an

aspen leaf.

"Mercy on us!" cried Phil, "how you puff and blow, Zed! Do you begin to

feel ill with your hard work?"

"Pshaw! how old-womanish you talk!" retorted the fisherman, and started

up again, like a young blood of four-and-twenty. But, somehow or other,

Zed found it quite impossible to get on, the ache in his old back was

so violent.

"I say, Phil," he said, pausing suddenly, and looking very cunning at

the fiddler,—though the fiddler could not see either the sly wink of

his eye or any other of the signs by which the old fisherman intended

it to be understood that a very shrewd thought had struck him,—"I say,

Phil, what d'ye suppose I'm just now thinking about?"

"Can't tell exactly," replied Phil, though he had a somewhat knowing

idea of what was coming, for all that.

"Why, I was thinking——Oh!" said the poor old fisherman, feeling a

twinge in his back so dreadfully excruciating that it forced him to cry

out before he was aware—

"What! have you found the gold?" asked Phil, bursting into a titter;

"have you found it, Zed?"

"Found the devil!" exclaimed Zed, growing really ill-tempered at being

thus coolly roasted by his old companion.

"For Heaven's sake, take care, Zed; or we _may_ find him, with a

witness, in this queer place, and at this queer time o'night!" rejoined

the fiddler; "but what may you be thinking about, after all, Zed?"

"Why, I was thinking we might cover up this hole, so that no notice

would be taken of it, and then come and finish the job another time,"

replied Zed, who felt so much ashamed of what pain compelled him to

say, that he could with difficulty get through his speech.

"Come, now, sit you down a bit, Zed," said Phil, in a tone of hearty

kindness, that always came over Zed's more boisterous nature with the

power of a sweet lull after a squall,—"sit you down a bit, and let's

have a bit o'talk, while you rest yourself, for I'm sure your old bones

must ache with pain and weariness. Now, I say, Zed, just tell me, will

you, what would you do with this gold if you found it?"

"Do with it!" exclaimed Zed, staring at the fiddler, though the fiddler

could not stare at him; "what would I do with it, Phil?"

"Ay, what would you do with it? Are you tired of the old boat, after

we've cruised in her so many long years?"

"Tired of her! God forbid!" answered Zed, with warmth rendered

ludicrous by his insobriety; "no, Phil! you and I will never forsake

the old boat until our own poor old timbers fall fairly in pieces!"

"I thought you could not be thinking about that," said Phil; "but what,

then, I say, Zed,—what could you contrive to do with this gold, if you

found it?"

"We could comfort the hearts of poor Dick Toller's motherless and

fatherless children, and poor Bob Wilson's and Joe Martin's widows with

it, you know, Phil," answered the old fisherman.

"God bless your old heart, Zed!" cried Phil, grasping his old comrade's

hand, while his voice faltered with deep emotion, "that's spoken just

like you! But I tell you, Zed, it is but a wild scheme to be killing

yourself with trying to find this gold."

"To speak truth," said Zed, interrupting the other, "I begin to think

so, too: only, you see, Phil, this old head o'mine always turns so wild

when I happen to be such a fool as to take rum when they offer it me.

As you always say, Phil, if one could but have the resolution to stick

to Sir John Barleycorn instead of——"

"Well, well, Zed, say no more about it," said Phil, remembering that

the transgression was not entirely confined to his friend; "shovel in

the moulds as soon as you can, and let us be making our way home, for

yon's twelve by the church clock, and we mustn't be after sunrise, you

know, to-morrow; 'twill be bad luck if we be, depend on't."

So Zed shovelled in the earth as fast as his aches and pains would

permit him; and at length Phil threw the pick-axe over his shoulder,

and Zed bearing the fiddle-box, and shovel, and lanthorn, without

spending more time in talking, they hied them home as nimbly as they

could, dropping the pick-axe and shovel over the Talbot yard wall as

they went by, and speedily throwing themselves on their joint bed, when

they had reached it, fell asleep almost in a moment.

Before the sun arose, however, they were up and in the open air; but

Zed groaned heavily, more than once, as they went along towards the

Trent bank, for his aged bones were very stiff at the joints, as he

said, and he often called himself a fool, inwardly, as he thought of

his wild, money-digging freak of the preceding night. His melancholy,

however, was but transitory. The merry-hearted old men were soon on

their favourite element; the sun began to throw its cheering beams once

more upon the rippling waters; and, as the willows on the banks of the

noble Trent waved in the gentle breeze, and the rich meadows on the

border of the river sent forth their reviving fragrance, Zed lifted up

his head, while his hand plied the oar, and in the fulness of a happy

heart thus opened the conversation for the day:—

"Well, I wouldn't change places with the king on his throne, Phil;

I don't believe there's a happier pair than you and I, Phil, in the

wide world. And yet, now, as wild a scheme as that was of mine last

night, I cannot help wishing, this morning, that we had some o' that

gold at this moment. I could like to try my hand, Phil, as old and

inexperienced as it is in such work, at making some part of the world

happier."

"And so could I, Zed," said Phil; "and now don't you think that my

godmother's grandfather's plan of dividing the land would be a good

one, and tend to make the world happier, if it were carried into

effect?"

"The deuce is in you, Phil, for always bringing up that plan of your

godmother's grandfather!" said old Zed; "why, the plan may be good

enough, Phil; but how can it be brought about?"

"How can you get the gold?" retorted Phil.

"Good!" said Zed, with a hearty laugh; "i'faith, Phil, one scheme is as

likely to be brought about as the other: but, take hold of that end o'

the net, Phil, for I see a famous pike or two, darting about; and, you

know, we must try to get something to-day."

The net was thrown out, but failed; and, what was most unusual, the

labour of Zed and Phil was continued for several hours without the

capture even of a solitary eel. Phil often thought Zed threw out the

net very wildly, and imagined the liquor he took at the wedding had not

yet spent its effects on him; but the blind man could not be sure, for

Zed seemed resolutely taciturn.

'Twas about ten in the forenoon that Phil felt the little boat was

"brought up,"—he thought in an inlet, or small creek, on the Lindsey

side of the Trent, after they had laboured with nets and lines ever

since a little after sunrise, and all without a single instance of

success.——

"Phil, d'ye know why I've pulled in here this morning?" said Zed, as he

was mooring the skiff.

"No, by'r leddy!" answered the old-fashioned fiddler, "I can't tell,

for the life of me! but it seems to me that you've pulled in at Burton

Folly,—have you not, Zed? and what's the meaning of it?"

"Look sharp, Phil!" said Zed, briskly helping Phil out of the boat,

"we've had hard luck in the water this morning, but we'll try our luck

on land for once: we'll have one or two of 'Squire Hutton's pheasants

before we leave the holt."

"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" said Phil, for that was a common

saying with him, as I hinted before; "I wish I could _look sharp_, as

you bid me, Zed,—for I'll be hanged if you are not tearing my poor

legs among the whins, like old pork, as the saying goes."

"The deuce I am!" exclaimed Zed, slackening his pace; "I wouldn't hurt

you, for all the world, Phil: but you know it's worth while trying to

catch a pheasant or two,—they're such fine game."

"I don't know, Zed," rejoined Phil, "whether it be worth while or not:

we may get into a scrape by it, as old as we are, and——"

"Pshaw!" cried Zed, with an air of resolute contempt; "come along,

Phil!—come along!"

"O come along, ay!" said Phil; "I shall go with you, if you go to

the very devil!—but then I don't see what's the use of going there,

yet,—as old 'Squire Pimpleface used to say, when he gave up playing

cards at Saturday midnight, and refused, ever after to play on Sunday

mornings——"

"Hush!" said Zed, stopping short,—"my eyes! why, that must be the

gamekeeper! No, it isn't:—but we had better lie down, Phil."

"Down be it then!" said Phil, prostrating himself among the long grass,

while the old fisherman followed his example.

"Now, tell me," continued the fiddler, in a whisper, as they lay

along among the grass, and the fisherman was anxiously keeping the

look-out,—"tell me how you intend to catch the pheasants, Zed:

you know you've no gun; and you can't catch 'em with a net in open

day,—besides you haven't brought the net out of the boat, have you?"

"Pooh!" replied Zed, "why, I've heard my father say that 'Squire

Hutton's pheasants used to be as tame as bantam cocks, even in his

time. We may catch 'em, bless your soul! ay, easily! And, if not, I'm

sure I could hit one and knock it down with my hat."

The blind fiddler burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter on

hearing this artless declaration from his ancient companion.

"Zowks, Zed!" he exclaimed at last, "thou hast got some wild maggots,

for sure, into thy head this morning! prythee look out again, and see

if the coast be clear; for the sooner we shove off in the boat again

the better, I'm very sartain."

"Confound that fellow! he's coming this way," said Zed, in a voice of

alarm. And, indeed, there now seemed to be cause for fear, seeing that

a tall man, with a gun on his shoulder, was hastening down the hill,

apparently in a direction towards the foolish hiding-place of the

fiddler and the fisherman.

"What shall we do, Phil?" asked Zed, in the next breath.

"Cut and run!" cried Phil, and sprung up as nimbly as a hare when you

stumble upon her seat.

"Come along, then!" said Zed; and, seizing his blind companion by the

hand, away they galloped, as fast as their old limbs would wag down the

declivity, to the boat.

Zed pushed Phil, head over heels, into the skiff, and, jumping in

himself, scudded away out of the creek as fast as he could possibly

"scull," or turn the oar, at the boat's stern, after the manner of

a screw, in the water. The gamekeeper came up the water-side, and

approached within a few yards of the boat, before the adventurers could

make their way back into the broad Trent.

"You are two very old men," said he, lifting up his hand in a warning

manner, "or I would certainly detain you, and have you indicted for

trespass. Take care you are never found here again!"

Neither of the old men made a word of reply; and the gamekeeper walked

away.

"Detained us!—would he?" said Zed, in a low, but contemptuous tone, as

soon as they had gained the breadth of the river, and the gamekeeper

was sufficiently out of hearing,—"how could he have done that, if he

had tried, think you, Phil?"

"Never mind talking about that, Zed,—let us be content with having

got out of a scrape," answered blind Phil: "but now tell me, Zed," he

continued, putting an oar on one side of the boat, and taking his

share of labour with as easy naturalness as if he had possessed the

most perfect eyesight,—"what it could be that put such a wild notion

into your head as to lead you to think of catching a pheasant with your

hand, or of knocking it down with your hat:—why didn't you take a bit

o' salt to throw on its tail, Zed?" concluded the fiddler, and burst

into another fit of helpless laughter.

"He—he—he!" said the fisherman, forcing a faint laugh, to conceal

his shame and vexation;—"never mind,—never mind that, Phil!" he

said,—"my old head gets weak, or I might ha' been sure it would be a

fool's errand. Was not it a mighty piece of impudence in that thief

of a gamekeeper, think you, to tell us he had a mind to indict us for

'trespass,' as the Jack-in-office called it?—what harm could we do,

Phil, by just trampling among the grass for a few minutes?"

"Poor folks are not allowed to tread upon rich folks' land, you know,

Zed, without their leave," said the fiddler.

"No; but isn't it hard that there should be such a law, Phil?" said the

fisherman.

"Why, as for that, Zed," replied Phil, "my godmother's

grandfather,—who, my godmother used to tell me, was a famous scholar

in his day,—used to say that all the land belonged to every body, and

that nobody ought ever to have called an acre his own, in particular.

If that had been the case, you see, Zed, the gamekeeper could not have

threatened to indict you and me for trespass this morning."

"No more he could, Phil," rejoined Zed; "but, then, if the land

belonged to every body,—in such a way that nobody could say an acre

belonged to him, only,—why, how would the land be ploughed and the

grain sown,—for you know the old saying, Phil, 'What's every body's

business is nobody's business?'"

"My godmother's grandfather used to say that people ought to join in

companies to do it," replied Phil: "it's a subject I am not master of

to the extent he was, by all account; but I feel sure of one thing,

Zed,—that the world could not have been much worse divided than it is

at present, since the rich have so much land among them, and the poor

have none."

"You are right there, Phil, beyond a grain o'doubt," rejoined Zed.

"And my godmother's grandfather used to say besides," continued the

fiddler, "that God Almighty gave the world to every body, and that the

rich had stolen the poor's share of the land—for God Almighty never

left them destitute."

"Then, in that case, Phil," said the fisherman, "there is a share,

each, belonging to you and to me: and then it seems doubly hard to be

told, when your own share has been stolen from you, that you shall be

indicted for trespassing upon the land of one that has more than his

share—doesn't it, Phil?"

"Right, Zed, right!" returned Phil; "I'm pleased to find you relish

a bit of sensible talk, now and then; and can you deny, now, that

that plan of my godmother's grandfather would be a real good one, and

tend to make every body happy. Place all the folks in the world on a

level, Zed,—and let every man take his fair share in ploughing and

tilling, you know, Zed,—and then let every man share in cutting the

corn,—and all would have a fair title to eat it. You must see this to

be fair—quite fair, Zed?"

"Fair enough, no doubt," replied the fisherman; "but then, Phil,—as I

always ask you, but you never answer me,—how can you contrive to bring

all this about?"

"Nay, now, you don't argue fair!" answered Phil; and it was the only

answer he had, like many more learned proposers of good theories.

"A plague on all such gibberish!" exclaimed Zed, "we shall want but a

small share of any thing long, and if we don't get our fair six feet

of land when we have done sailing, why, we can rest very well in Davy

Jones's locker. Where's the use of bothering our old brains with such

crabbed matters?"

"Ods bobs and bodikins!" replied Phil, "but I think you are about

right, Zed: I must own it's only a simple sort of a thing for you and

I to be troubling our heads about great folks and their lands."

"I' faith, you talk sense, Phil!" said Zed; "confound the great folks!

let 'em take their land! We've managed to push along through threescore

summers and more, and we can manage to get through, I think, now. But,

swape in, Phil! for we're just alongside Littleborough again, and I'm

so hungry that I feel inclined to step on shore, and ask for a bite of

the wedding-cake this morning: I'll warrant 'em they'll be keeping up

the merriment yet."

"Promise me one thing, though, Zed," said Phil,—"that you'll take no

more rum, if they offer it you, and that you won't stay longer than a

couple of hours or so."

"Don't think I shall play the fool twice over!" retorted Zed; "I'll

warrant it I'll come away as sober as a judge this time, and take no

more fool's tricks into my head to-day."

"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" observed Phil, in his usual sly way;

but Zed did not answer, for they were now at shore, and the fisherman

had leaped out, and was once more mooring the little boat.

It is hardly necessary to relate that Zed found it impossible to keep

his hasty promise of a very short stay, seeing that the "Weddingers"

were "keeping it up" in true old-fashioned style, and Phil's fiddle

became, right soon, the very soul of their merriment. Phil, however,

had made his mind up, and succeeded, though with great effort, in

getting his old companion once more fairly afloat and on the way home

about an hour before sunset. Although Zed had, indeed, the virtue to

refuse the parting cup of rum, when it was offered, yet his old noddle

was far from being its own perfect master, by reason of his frequent

revisitations of the ale-pottle; and the first mile on the water was

all music of the most gleeful nature with the old voyagers. "Indeed,"

as Phil himself used to say, when talking about it, "we had each of us

whetted our whistles till will-ye, nil-ye, we must pipe, and couldn't

help it!" They were trolling forth, for the last time, their old

burthen of

"Says I to myself, says I,

Though I can't laugh, I won't cry;

Let 'em kill us that dare; they're all fools that care:

We all shall live till we die!"

when the report of a gun, and the sudden flight of a drooping heron

across the Trent, arrested their music.

"By Jingo! she's a dead bird, in three minutes!" exclaimed Zed; "mark

how her right wing droops, Phil!"

"I wish I could mark it," said Phil; "but you always forget that my

poor old eyes are blanks, when you've——"

"There she goes, plop among the osiers!" cried Zed, in an ecstasy;

"pull away to the larboard, Phil. I'll have her in a twink."

"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" observed Phil, but pulled away like

a dragon in the direction recommended by his companion, nevertheless.

Zed leaped out of the boat in a confounded hurry, when he thought it

was near enough for him to gain the shore; but he leaped out too soon,

for he fell flat on his face among the "warp," as the mud of the Trent

is called in Lincolnshire, and floundered like a flat fish when it has

been left by the water in a situation where it cannot get away.

"Holloa! what, in the name o' bad luck, are you about?" cried Phil,

hearing poor Zed make a mighty scuffle among the mud.

Zed made no answer, but kept struggling on; for the fact was, that he

was so eager to secure the bird, that he had succeeded in laying hold

of one of its legs, and, keeping hold, prevented himself from rising.

The heron and Zed made a desperate flapping and floundering, insomuch

that Phil roared out, more than once,—

"What, in the name of heaven and earth, are you about, I say, Zed?"

"Keep the boat in shore," cried Zed, with his mouth half filled with

mud; "I shall have her in another minute."

"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" retorted Phil again; and just then

the sportsman who had shot the heron jumped out of his boat on a firmer

part of the strand, and, running along the bank, arrived at the spot

where Zed was struggling with the bird. He struck off Zed's hold of

the fowl with a slight blow from his fowling-piece, and bore away

the bird in triumph. Zed slipped into the Trent, and went souse over

head, but rose instantly, and clambered into the boat. He vented his

disappointment and vexation against the sportsman in no very gentle

terms, while the sportsman mocked him from the bank; and, when the

captor of the heron stepped into his boat, Zed urged Phil to pull away,

that they might capsize the fellow, and give him a ducking, as he said

in his foolish haste. But Phil was always Zed's better angel, though he

was but a blind old fiddler. "No, no, Zed," he cried, "you shall not go

that way. Let us make for home, that you may get to the fire-side. I

say you shall _not_ go—and I mean it, too."

Nobody in the world could control Zed Marrowby but Phil Garret, when

old Zed was in his fuddled freaks; and even Phil could not always

succeed; but Zed's wet shirt helped to cool his choler in this instance.

"To old Nick with the fellow, and his heron-sue!" cried Zed, pulling in

the same direction with Phil; "I'll e'en let him take his live lumber:

what good will it do him?"

"Just as the fox said of the grapes, when he couldn't reach 'em—'Hang

'em! they're as sour as crabs!'" rejoined Phil; "but that was what I

said to myself, when you were struggling so hard to get the useless

fowl; and what good would it have done you, Zed?"

"Hang me, if I know, exactly!" replied Zed, looking foolish, and

wishing himself in a corner.

"You wouldn't like to eat a heron-sue, for they're as rank as stinking

fish, I've heard say," continued Phil; "and what else you would have

done with it I'm quite at a loss to guess: but never mind, Zed, you've

got a cooler, now,—and I think you won't be so hot again for some time

to come."

"Well, well, it's all in our lifetime," said Zed, resolving to be

cheerful; "only pull away, and let us get to our own fire-side, that I

may dry my old skin, there's a jolly fellow!"

"So I will, Zed," replied Phil, and doubled the force of his strokes at

the oar; "but I hope you'll promise me not to resume your gold-digging

when we land under the old castle-walls."

"I will, I will, Phil,—and so don't banter me any more; I shall be a

cooler man for some time to come, after this, depend on't," answered

Zed, with his teeth chattering.

And Zed spoke as truly as ever a prophet spoke, and much more truly

than many; for, although he got well warmed ere he went to bed, yet his

participation of so much extra liquor at the wedding, his foolish freak

at money-digging the preceding night, and his cold bath to conclude,

operating together upon his aged frame, produced rheumatic effects

which never left him.

Zed Marrowby and Phil Garrett left their voyaging at the close of

that summer. True, they made all fit and industrious preparation for

the next spring; and Zed's heart was gleefully bent on resuming their

old cruises on their beloved Trent, and in their beloved old boat;

but Phil listened with a foreboding heart to the deep cough which

shook Zed's old body through the winter, and often interrupted his

fervid utterances of what pleasure he expected when summer should come

again. And when Zed Marrowby would exclaim, "We shall have another

merry summer's cruise yet, Phil!" Phil Garret would answer with more

solemnity, much more, than was his wont to put on, "Don't say so till

you're are sure. I think, Zed, we shall cruise no more in this world;

and I hope our next port will be in a better land." Zed poohed and

pshawed, for some time, at this "solemn way o' talking," as he called

it; but at length he began to feel that Phil was right—he grew feebler

as the spring drew nearer, and when it came, feeling the expectation

to be vain of ever stepping again into the beloved old boat, he took

Phil's advice—for he said he always thought it worth more than the

parson's—and strove to fix his mind on reaching the happy port in the

better land.

Zed Marrowby's end was calm and peaceful; and so was that of Phil

Garret, his faithful companion, who was also laid under the green sod

in old Torksey churchyard within six months after. The memory of their

names and lives is well-nigh lost in the rural locality where they

lived; but there is not a saying more common in old Lincolnshire to

this day than that quaint caution so often uttered by the blind fiddler

to his less grave comrade, "Don't say so till you are sure!"

MASTER ZERUBBABEL,

THE ANTIQUARY;

AND

HOW HE FOUND OUT THE "NOOSE LARNING."

Antiquaries are scarce now-a-days. Don't mistake me, reader; I know

that there is an abundance of writers on things which are ancient—ay,

and more, that certain pragmatical folk pretend now to know more

exactly how every thing went on two thousand years ago, nay four

thousand years ago, than was known a few generations since by the

first scholars in Europe. But don't say I question the likelihood of

people knowing more about the ancients the farther time removes us

from them,—because that would be literary heresy, and would bring

upon an unlucky wight the hot persecution of the orthodox. But—I

repeat it—Antiquaries are scarce now-a-days. I mean, your real

thorough-bred ones, if I may say so—the fine old fellows who forgot

their breakfasts and dinners, walked out in their night-caps, went

to bed in their inexpressibles,—in brief, did all manner of queer

absent things by reason that they were ever present, in mind, with the

long bearded Druids, or the starched Romans, or the waggish Athenians,

or the broth-supping Spartans, or some other of the peoples who have

been dead and buried hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Talk of

antiquaries!—where are your lean, skeleton, paragons of patience now,

who can dwell seven years, with ecstasy, on the contemplation of a nail

proven to have been attached to a horse-shoe of ten centuries old,—or

who will write you, fasting, twenty folio sheets on the discovery of an

urn of Roman coins, or the opening of a British tumulus? The race is

now extinct: it has been driven out of existence by the newer and more

civilised race of the gentlemen antiquaries,—just as the aborigines of

New Holland and North America are following where the Peruvians have

already gone, into the realm of nought, before the European grasp-alls.

One of the latest existing specimens of the genuine antiquary was to

be found in the little county town of Oakham, in little Rutland, some

seventy years bygone. Zerubbabel Dickinson was his name, and he was

proud of it;—and many an unwilling and loitering urchin had he whipt

through the nouns and verbs, and the "Propria quæ maribus," into the

"As in præsenti," in his time, for he kept the best school in the town,

during his best days;—and when his vigour declined, and his eyes and

ears grew somewhat dim, he still continued to exert his skill and

intelligence in the induction of a more contracted number of pupils

into the porches of classic learning. But then he no longer enjoyed

the high gratification of being addressed in his full, imposing name,

alike by peasant, tradesman, or gentleman: Zerubbabel sunk to "Hubby,"

as the fine old pedagogue's shoulders declined in their stately height,

and his slower sense rendered it less certain that he heard distinctly

every syllable which was uttered by his acquaintances. Yet there was

no acidity of motive, no ill-naturedness, in the use of this familiar

abbreviation, for Hubby Dickinson was as much beloved, if he were

not quite so stiffly respected, as "Master Zerubbabel" had been. And

that shows, almost beyond the necessity of telling, that the fine old

antiquary had contracted no rust of the heart among the rusty coins

he had turned over so oft and so ecstatically; but, rather, that his

excellent nature had mellowed and become more loveable with age, though

it had shrunk from its former somewhat pride-blown proportions.

Self-complacence Hubby Dickinson had felt, in his day,—and he must

have been a philosopher, indeed, could he have utterly subdued such a

feeling,—seeing that his learning was esteemed, by gentle and simple,

a thing so ponderous and vast, that every body wondered how Master

Zerubbabel's brain could hold it, or his shoulders bear the burthen

of it. Certes, there was not even a clergyman in the neighbourhood,

despite his Oxford or Cambridge matriculation, but what resorted

to the humble abode of the great antiquarian schoolmaster for the

interpretation of difficult Greek or Hebrew texts; not an ancient

will or parchment ever puzzled a Rutland lawyer, but it was brought

to Master Zerubbabel Dickinson to decipher it; and not a ploughboy or

a hedger or ditcher found a rust-eaten coin, or an ancient key, or a

mysterious-looking fragment of pottery beneath the earth's surface,

but they would forthwith journey to the dwelling of the "high-larnt"

Oakham schoolmaster to learn the meaning, or the use, or the value of

their discovery. Coins the illustrious Zerubbabel possessed of all

ages, and almost all countries—at least, so he believed,—and keys

of the most ornate Saxon fashion; and spear-heads and arrow-heads

of the most primitive Keltic rudeness; beaking-bills of the age of

Alfred, and daggers of the reign of Canute; fragments of steel-shirts

that had been worn in the Crusades; and hilts and crosses of swords

which had done service in Cressy or Agincourt: and all these were

so learnedly arranged, that their order, itself, proclaimed the

antiquary's incomparable erudition; while the syllables he would utter

in illustration of their uses, and ages, and owners, and concomitants

innumerable, left you in a perfect whirl of wonder!

Now, of all these, the priceless contents of his precious museum,

Zerubbabel had written folio upon folio; and still continued to write

thereon, feeling that it behoved him to say all that possibly could

be said, on topics of such surpassing magnitude and importance, ere

he ventured to give his lucubrations to the world. Nevertheless,

these were minor labours, which, compared with one great and grand

undertaking that occupied nine-tenths of every leisure hour of his more

advanced life, were but as so many ant-hills to a pyramid.

Reader, hast thou ever seen the old castle of Oakham? If thou hast not,

and opportunity will serve, prythee, go thither, and feast thy eyes

with the wondrous array—not of breathing sculptures, or matchless

pictures; not of antique folios or curiously carven cabinets; not of

storied tapestries or blazing heraldries—but of horse-shoes: ay,

horse-shoes of all sorts and sizes, that adorn the walls of that

singular old Saxon hall,—supported by its "antique pillars massy

proof,"—and stretching its primitive roof overhead. A sight it is,

pregnant with abundant reflection, that curious monument of feudalism;

and many and marvellous are the stories they tell you about its origin:

but, chiefly, they report that Ferrers—the Earl now, but simply, the

_ferrier_, or farrier, to the victorious Norman—obtained, with this

fief, authority to demand a horse-shoe of any knight, baron, or earl,

who rode for the first time through his manor of Oakham. And many a

veritable shoe taken from the foot of the steed of proud baron, or

chivalrous knight,—his name obliterated by the rust of ages,—you

behold on those walls; but therewith now mingle the mock-shoes of the

modern great: a semblance, merely, put up at a great price, in some

instances, they say. Gigantic shapes, some of these modern things are:

such are those bearing the inscriptions "H. R. H. the Prince Regent,"

and "H. R. H. the Duchess of Kent," which latter hath a more diminutive

one beside it, inscribed "the Princess Victoria." Of the judges, who

here hold the courts of assize, the modern monuments of this curious

kind are the most numerous; and if you listen to a sly Oakhamer he will

not fail to tell you how often that model of political consistency,

of generosity, liberality, integrity, impartiality, gentleness, and

all the enlightened virtues—the ever-to-be-commemorated Abinger—was

_dunned_ for his five pounds, and how often he contrived to slip, like

an eel, through the fingers of those whose office or privilege it is to

claim the shoe or the price of it, before he was finally caught. Yet

_there is_ the shoe of the stainless and exalted legal functionary on

the wall,—so that he _was_ caught at last!

Pardon, reader, this most unseemly wandering from the illustrious

subject of our present biography, the erudite Zerubbabel Dickinson.

Now it was in the contemplation of this unique monument of baronial

greatness,—it was in the collection and collocation of manuscripts

relative to the identity of the several shoes,—it was in the array of

the pedigrees of those in whose names they were put up,—it was in

brushing away the rust (not from the shoes, for the discerning Dickinson

would have adjudged him a pagan, of a verity, and no Christian, who

dared to disturb a grain of it!)—the rust of uncertainty that hung

about the names and memories of those to whom the more ancient furniture

of horses' feet belonged,—it was in this mine profound of all that was

important, and noble, and useful, and great, and grand, about the

countless catalogue of horse-shoes that were nailed to the walls of the

great hall in the castle of Oakham, that the learned and laborious

Zerubbabel dug and delved,—it was on these themes, I say (and I

scarcely know how to express myself worthily on so magnitudinous a

matter), that the indefatigable and magnanimous schoolmaster-antiquary

expended the choicest energies of his untiring intellect.

This, courteous reader, was the prime labour—the _opus majus_ of

Master Zerubbabel Dickinson. The work was to have been entituled

"_Tallagium illustrissimum; seu Catalogus solearum ferrearum_"—with I

know not how many more _ums_ and _arums_, besides. _Was_ to have been?

Yes; for let it not be supposed that so stupendous a work was ever

finished. It was the opinion of the laborious Zerubbabel himself that

it never could be finished, so transcendent was the _beau-idéal_ of

such a work that he had conceived.

But enough of a subject which, in this degenerate age, will never

be placed at its right value. This slender fragment of a biographic

memorial was not commenced so much with the view of showing how truly

great a man was the erudite Master Zerubbabel,—since we would despair

as deeply of doing justice to so immense a subject as Zerubbabel

himself despaired of completing the leviathan folios of the mighty

"Tallagium illustrissimum:" we have a more philosophic purpose in

view—namely, the proof, by history, of the striking moral truism, that

the greatest men are very little men when you take them out of their

accustomed sphere: in other words, that the wisest men are fools when

you talk to them about things with which, in spite of their wisdom,

they are not conversant. But why prove a truism? Ah, my friend, these

same truisms, as the world calls them, for the greater part, are just

the very things that want proving——.

"Master Hubby," said a jolly fat farmer who called, with his fat wife

and her egg-basket, at the schoolmaster's door, towards five of the

clock on a market afternoon, "we've browt ye a queer, odd-fashionedish

sort on a thing, here, that we f'un i'th' home clooas tuther day; can

ye tell us what it is?" and the farmer produced an ancient fragment of

ironwork of a crooked form, but so unlike any modern utensil of any

kind, that any one but an antiquary might well be puzzled with it.

Nay, the profoundly erudite Zerubbabel himself was nonplused for the

moment! He turned it over and over, and put on his spectacles, and then

took them off again, and wiped them, and re-adjusted them to the most

perfect distance for his natural optics—that is to say, he placed

them as near to the very tip of his nose as they would remain without

falling off,—but all his delays for consideration would not do: he was

compelled to confess that he did not know what it was!

"Why dooant ye, indeed?" cried the farmer with a stare.

"The Lord ha' marcy on us! you dooant say so, Master Hubby, do ye?"

echoed the farmer's wife, perfectly electrified with the thought that

there was any thing ancient which Hubby did not understand; and she set

down her basket of eggs, and drew out her spectacle-case, and put on

her spectacles also, to gaze at Hubby in his.

And so there stood the odd trio at the learned schoolmaster's door:

the man of ancient learning, barnacled to the nose-tip, and holding up

the curious crooked rusty piece of iron with a gaze of indescribable

eagerness; and the farmer with open mouth, and hands buried in the

profound pockets of the plush waistcoat that enveloped the goodly

rotundity of his person; and the farmer's wife, with the basket

at her feet, her arms a-kimbo, and her eyes directed with intense

earnestness through her spectacles on the movements of the illustrious

Zerubbabel's countenance.

There was a perfect silence of full three minutes, and still the trio

gazed on.

"Where found ye it?" asked Hubby, at last, not knowing what other

question to adventure.

"At Hambleton on th' hill," replied the farmer; "and what think ye to't

then now, Master Hubby?" he asked again.

Zerubbabel shook his head, and there was again a profound and perfect

silence.

"You know, Davy," said the farmer's wife, at length, "young Bob

Rakeabout said he was somehow of a mind it was——"

"Pooh, woman!" said the impatient farmer; "where's the use and sense of

telling what such a rattle-scallion as he thinks?"

"Nay, but, Davy," reiterated the spouse, "it may be of use, for they

say he's book-larnt."

"Book-larnt! ay, mally good faith, I think as much: and noose-larnt,

too," replied the farmer; "and I wish, when his last noose is tied, he

may be allowed benefit o' clargy!" and he burst into a loud laugh at

his own wit.

"Well, howsomever," said the wife, "young Bob said he could swear it

was a spur, and nowt else."

"_Calcar equitis Romani_, of a verity!" exclaimed Zerubbabel, and danced

with ecstasy, till the farmer and his wife stared harder than ever.

"Ha! ye f'un' it out?" cried the farmer's wife: "Lord! maister Hubby,

do tell us what ye think it is."

"A spur, good neighbours, a spur it is, no doubt, and hath belonged to

some valorous Roman knight many ages ago," replied Hubby.

"Why, zowks, then, Bob was right," said the farmer; "and pray ye,

Maister Hubby, accept a dozen o' pullets' eggs with it, for it is not

worth having by itself."

Zerubbabel was of a very different opinion, but very thankfully

received the eggs, notwithstanding; and his homely visitors bade him

good afternoon.

And now did the deeply learned man retire into the very penetralia of

reflection, and meditation, and thought, and consideration, and so

forth; yet the "vasty cavern" of his mind displayed other and more

profound concernments than admiration of the invaluable Roman spur.

"_Noose-larnt_"—that was the singular word which riveted his thought.

"Noose-larnt!"—what could it mean? That was the great question which

the great Zerubbabel asked of himself—for he knew no higher authority

on such high matters—at least one hundred times before he went to bed;

but he slept—answerless! Again, on the succeeding day—ay, and on the

day succeeding that day—Hubby Dickinson pondered on the same profound

problem; and, on the third night, when he had extended his cogitations

to the stroke of twelve, and his sole remaining candle was reduced to

one inch of tallow, and four of black wick, curling through and through

the struggling bit of flame, and spreading gloom rather than light over

Hubby's little studium—then it was that Hubby Dickinson, feeling one

thought go through him like a flash of lightning, suddenly sprang up,

crying out, "Eureka—eureka!" and plucked an ancient volume from its

shelf to satisfy himself of the correctness of his thought.

The searcher for enlightenment snuffed the candle with a speed and

dexterity which few could equal,—performing the act with Nature's

snuffers, his fingers,—feeling that the vastitude and urgency of the

inquiry did not permit the delay of employing the aid of man's mechanic

invention,—and then, and then—opening the ancient volume, and turning

to the name he contemplated, and fixing his spectacles, once again, in

the most advantageous position—the ardent and delighted antiquary read

out aloud to himself the following passage from the said ancient tome:—

"Anaxagoras, the disciple of Anaximenes, was surnamed _Nous_, which

signifieth _intelligence_, by reason of his excelling quickness of

parts, and a certain, I know not what, of instant perception or

discernment of nice difficulties in a twinkling. For whereas other

wise men went round about to survey the questions to them proponed, on

this side and that, and, after much nice calculation and naming of

postulates, drew from the balance of probabilities what they affirmed

to be a correct answer, this philosopher manifested a strength and

clearness of judgment, and swiftness of reasoning, which might be said

to partake of intuition,—a faculty which the gods themselves only

possess in its perfection: and thus it came to pass that Anaxagoras was

called, in the Hellenistic tongue, _Nous_, or intelligence."

That was the passage he read; and when he had read it he closed the

heavy quarto with a noise like the report of a gun, and again cried out

that "he had found it" with all his power of lungs. And then, feeling

that he had done business enough for one night, in having made so

transcendentally-sagacious a discovery, he put out the small remnant

of candle, groped his way to his bedside, and, while he performed the

prefatory work of unclothing, thus he soliloquised:—

"Yea, of a verity, this is the true interpretation of the mystery. This

'Noose-larnt' young man is some great natural genius,—some miracle of

mother wit,—some second Anacharis the Scythian, who would very likely

beat all the wise men of this time, although he never entered the pale

of the schools,—nay, perhaps, hath never passed beyond the limits

of the lordship of Hambleton-on-the-hill. I have no doubt of it; for

none but such a genius could have determined, without witchcraft, that

this curiously shapen piece of ancient armour pertained to the heel.

It is strange that my friend, the parson of Hambleton,—who must have

given the young man this expressive epithet, seeing that the rural

people understand no Greek,—it is strange that he never told me of

the existence of this youth. But I will essay to find him out, if I be

spared till the morning light! O Hubby Dickinson! though few now call

you Zerubbabel, yet you may have lived to this age for a high purpose,

even to bring to light the name and singular endowments of this

'Noose-larnt' youth! Why, the discovery may even ennoble you beyond the

composition of the grand Tallagium!" And then Hubby fell asleep, and

dreamt delightfully; but the delight itself, of his dream awoke him,

and again he began to soliloquise amid the darkness:—

"Why, it is as clear and luminous as the sun at noon to my mind," he

said to himself: "nothing less than the possession of a high degree of

the faculty of intuition could have enabled this youth to announce such

a truth. Verily, there is no wonder the rude peasant people entertain

suspicions that he hath a familiar, or is a wizard: and that they do

entertain such ideas is evident from that strange exclamation, or

rather optation, of Gaffer Davy—he wished when the youth's last noose

was tied he might find benefit o'clergy. There, is an allusion to the

ancient privilege of escape from the halter by a neck-verse, which I

have illustrated in the Tallagium. Doubtless, the farmers and ploughmen

believe this singular youth to be one who deals in the black art, and

think his mal-practices may bring him to the gallows. Ah, it is the way

in which the lights of the world have been treated in all ages! I will

find out the abode of this miracle of nature, that I will!" he said,

and again fell asleep.

The morning broke, Hubby opened his eyes, and forthwith arose to renew

his self-congratulations. "Ah, Hubby," said he to himself, "you will

live to be called Master Zerubbabel again, by gentle and simple; for

you are destined, this day, to achieve a great work!" And then he went

over the roll of his reasonings again, and, feeling more assured than

ever of the certitude of them, he again congratulated himself. "Ay,

as old as I am, I have not lost my power of penetrating a matter," he

said; "tell me who, in the whole county of Rutland, except myself,

could have found this out from the simple premises on which it was

given me to erect my sagacious hypothesis?"

Reader,—was Hubby Dickinson a very silly old fellow to talk and

think thus? Ah, how many of your great philosophers have reared their

world-admired hypotheses from premises as slight; and yet how long it

was before the folly of many of them was found out!

Well, there was now but one step to be taken as a preliminary to the

commencement of Hubby's journey to Hambleton, which, he was sure, would

be memorable while the world lasted: it was—to give his scholars a

holiday.

Reader,—talk of potentates by whatever name you will; but your

schoolmaster is your only emperor! Can he not make laws—break

laws—bind his subjects—set them free—and, in one word, do what

he listeth? I tell thee, reader, that his is the true _imperium in

imperio_: his will is law, and who can gainsay it? Thou knowest of no

potentate so truly imperial as the village schoolmaster.

And Hubby Dickinson—had he not power in himself, and of himself—to

give his boys a holiday? That he had; and when the word was given,

ye powers! what a rush was there over benches, and what a scampering

for hats; and then the huzza! when the threshold was passed and the

plans for fun throughout the livelong day that were formed! Woe worth

the world! one owes it a grudge, one is tempted to think, since it

hath taken away from our lips the nectared chalice of childhood, and

giveth us now, from day to day, no other draught but this unsavoury

minglement, wherein one scarcely knows whether the bitterness or the

insipidity most prevails!

It was but three short miles from Oakham to Hambleton; and Hubby

Dickinson's eagerness of desire gave such strength and speed to his

limbs that he soon reached the village.

"Pray, my good friend," said he to a farmer on horseback, as he entered

the place, "can you say where I shall find the singularly endowed youth

who is familiarly called Bob Rakeabout, the Noose-larnt?"

Poor Hubby! how he stared, and how loftily indignant he felt, when the

farmer returned him a broad horse-laugh for an answer, and, setting

spurs to his horse, rode away! He was not to be driven from his

purpose, however, and put the same question to a pedestrian, next.

The man, who was a ditcher with a shovel on his shoulder, touched, or

rather nipped, his hat skirts, and asked what the gentleman said; and

when he clearly understood that Bob Rakeabout was wanted, his reply

was, that he knew not where he would be found, unless at the alehouse.

Hubby thanked his informant, but was sure within himself that there was

some mistake arising from the man's dulness, for it could not be that

a genius of so magnificent a grade as the human being he was seeking

could be found loitering in a vulgar alehouse. So on Hubby strode,

looking at the ground, and thinking, and thinking,—till, at last, he

was accosted by a very dark-visaged and singularly dressed man, who

stood by a tent in a lane, on the other side of the village—for the

thinker had passed quite through it, unconsciously.

"Fine weather, sir," said the man; "you seem to be in a brown study."

"Pray, my friend," said Hubby, instantly, "know you one Bob Rakeabout,

a singularly gifted youth who, I am informed, hath obtained the

significant epithet of the 'Noose-larnt?'"

The man took his short black pipe from his mouth, and stared agape for

a few seconds, and then said, with a smothered laugh,—

"Oh, Bob! Ay, I know him well: he's famous for noose-larning!"

Hubby Dickinson's heart leaped within him, and he bounded from the side

of the road into the centre of the lane, and, grasping the man's hand,

conjured him to lead him to the youth's presence. By this time, three

or four more dark faces had gathered at the entrance of the tent.

"Come in a bit," said the man to whom the antiquary had addressed

himself. And, winking at his companions, the gipsy led Hubby into the

tent.

Hubby was placed upon a sack that covered a clump of wood, and was

invited to partake some bread and cheese,—while a boy ran into the

village to fetch Bob Rakeabout. Having, in his eagerness, utterly

forgot his breakfast at home, Hubby felt nothing loth when he saw the

food, and accordingly accepted a "good farrantly piece," as the gipsies

called it. A humming horn of ale followed, and then another, and

another. Indeed, the contents of the huge black earthen bottle were

passed about rather freely. Endless questions followed, and strange

answers were given; and sometimes the gipsies stared, and at others

they smiled, and often they were in danger of laughing outright.

At length the boy returned, and, behold! immediately afterwards Bob

Rakeabout, the "Noose-larnt" himself, entered the tent! Hubby rose to

receive him, bareheaded; but, he knew not how it was, it was somewhat

difficult for him to stand, and so he sat down again. As for the great

natural phenomenon himself, he stretched his brawny hand to each of the

gipsies, and they shook it with remarkable good-humour. Then, seizing

the black earthen bottle, he applied it to his mouth, without either

using the horn or waiting for invitation to drink.

Hubby's thinkings were becoming somewhat confused; but he turned,

inwardly, to the fact that Diogenes threw away his dish when he saw the

boy drink out of his hand. "Of a verity, the youth is one of Nature's

own miracles!" said he to himself.

Forthwith, Bob Rakeabout rakishly laughed as he took out a large pouch,

composed of mole-skins, and filled with tobacco. He laid it open on the

floor of the tent, filled his own short pipe from it, and the gipsies

immediately followed his example. Hubby, as yet, had scarcely spoken to

Bob; but when the whole company began to smoke, and the antiquary was

again pressed to drink, for more than one reason he quietly remarked

that he much wished to converse with this youth alone.

"Oh, ay," replied the gipsy, whom Hubby had seen first, "Bob will have

no objection to that:—you can show this gentleman some noose-larning,

can't you, Bob?"

The gipsies tittered,—but Bob understood the question,—for much had

been said by himself and the gipsies in the peculiar slang of their

tribe, which Hubby had not comprehended.

"Take another horn, sir," said Bob; "and give us another ten minutes to

smoke our pipes out, and I'll show ye some noose-larning, in a twink."

Hubby's head swum partly with pleasure, but much more with the strong

ale, to which he was unused; but he drank off the other horn, in eager

expectation of such a mental feast to follow it as he had never yet

tasted.

"Come along wi' me, sir!" cried Bob, springing up, suddenly, at the end

of less than ten minutes; "come along wi' me, and I'll show ye some

noose-larning!"

"Are ye really off, Bob?" asked the gipsies, all together.

"Ay, ay," he answered, "kick up a roaster, and set on iron-jack against

I come back."

Hubby thought this strange talk; but he had not time to think much

about it, for Bob seized him by the hand, and away they scampered

together over two or three fields, and then entered a wood. And here

Bob took from his pocket certain strange engines of wood and wire, and,

showing Hubby the noose attached to each, planted them severally in

little openings of bush or brake, while Hubby stared like one that was

thunder-struck, for Bob only uttered one word—"Noose-larning!" and

then, seizing Hubby by the arm, hurried him on again. At length, in

the thickest part of the wood, Bob began to take up engines instead of

putting them down—but, lo! there were dead hares attached to them.

And now poor Hubby Dickinson saw of what kind of mettle the "miracle

of mother-wit" was made, and, taking to his heels, he ran from the

poacher with as much haste as if a legion of fiends were behind him.

Did the poacher follow? Not he, indeed. He only burst into hysterics of

laughter, and then went on with his business.

And whither fled the antiquary? Indeed, he knew not; but, having

emerged from the wood, he ran as long as the fumes of the strong

malt-liquor in his brains permitted him to retain possession of the

power of his feet; and, when they failed him, he fell souse into a

ditch, which happened merely to contain mud instead of water, and

remained there, insensible and asleep for the greater part of the time,

till late in the afternoon.

As luck would have it, the parson of Hambleton, who was an old

antiquarian crony of Hubby's, took his afternoon walk in that

direction, and, to his perfect amazement, found his erudite friend in

the ditch.

"Noose-larning!" roared out Hubby, and shook and shuddered, when

the parson had poked him with his walking-stick until he waked

him:—"Noose-larning!" he still uttered, beholding the poacher in the

wood, in his bewildered condition. With much ado, Hubby was at length

fully brought to the remembrance of what he was about, and being by

that time perfectly sober,—but dreadfully cramped,—he clambered out

of the ditch; and though sorely ashamed of his bedaubed condition,

and much more of his doating folly, he accompanied his friend to the

parsonage-house at Hambleton, and, after much entreaty, with all the

simplicity of his soul, recounted all he could remember of the whole

adventure, commencing with Gaffer Davy's visit and the present of the

Roman spur.

Oft was the hearty laugh of the plain Oakhamers raised at Hubby

Dickinson's expense, during the remainder of his life; but the fine old

fellow's adventure never lessened their esteem for him. He was never

permitted to want, even when age had stiffened his limbs and almost

totally closed his eyes and ears. Town and country were alike proud

of the learning that he had possessed; and the villages, especially,

believed that his like would never be seen in Rutland again, even to

the day of judgment.

In the lapse of a few months, Hubby got over the shame and soreness of

mind created by his adventure so entirely, as to be able to relish a

joke about it; and, when his lamp of life was quivering and ready to

sink, nothing would so soon cause it to blaze up with a healthy and

cheerful light as a joke about the "noose-larning"—unless it were a

grave and respectful mention of the "Tallagium illustrissimum." But the

lamp of that life went out at last, though its exit from mortality was

peaceful and gentle as the sinking to sleep of a babe; and never yet

has "the like" been seen in little Rutland, for wondrous learning, of

Master Zerubbabel Dickinson.

THE BEGGARED GENTLEMAN,

AND

HIS CROOKED STICK.

There is not a sight in the world more distressful to the bosom that

retains any measure in it of "the milk of human kindness" than that

of an abject, poverty-stricken fellow-creature, who once rolled in

wealth and plenty. Even the born beggar, who has lived a beggar all

his life, feels an involuntary compassion for such a man. And, if his

fall be attributable to no avaricious spirit of speculation, or proud

and sensual excess—but is the effect of Fortune's untoward frown,

or the result of what the selfish world calls an imprudent practice

of relieving the distressed, the "beggared gentleman" is surely a

legitimate object of universal commiseration.

"Poor Mr. Clifford!" the most ragged and hungry inhabitant of

Kirton-in-Lindsey would exclaim, "how much he is to be pitied!—I never

thought to see him come to this!" And when the subject of this general

pity happened to let fall his curious crooked stick through infirmity

of age, there was not a poor man or woman in the little town but

would hasten to restore it to him who seemed to regard it as the most

prizeable possession he had left in the world. It was moving to see

the instant act of ceremonious courtesy to which the recipient of this

simple heart-kindness would resort. He would raise his hat, and smile

with the same polite expression of thankfulness as in his best days. No

one who saw him could forget that he had been a gentleman. And yet the

home of his old age was one of squalid misery!

Hugh Clifford's father was a descendant, by a younger branch, of a

noble family, and had gained a considerable fortune as a merchant in

the port of Hull. He died in the beginning of the reign of George the

Third, and left his accumulated wealth to his only son, who was then

at college. Hugh hastened home, on the sudden death of his father,

and, by the advice of a few friends, resolved to carry on his father's

mercantile concern. Twelve months, however, served to disgust him with

business. His wealth, instead of augmenting, began rapidly to decrease

under the peculations of clerks and managers, to whom the business was

necessarily entrusted, and he took the resolution, ere it was too late,

of retiring, after he had disposed of his "concern," to a pretty little

estate which had fallen to him, by his mother's right, at the pleasant

little rural town of Kirton-in-Lindsey, that like "a city set on a

hill" delights the eye of the traveller for miles before he reaches it.

For many years, Hugh Clifford's house was a general refuge for the

distressed. None ever knocked at his gate, and told a tale of want,

but they found instant relief. Hugh Clifford's heart was expansive as

Nature herself. He felt that all men were his brethren, and that, if

he merely tendered them lip-kindness when they were in sorrow, it was

but mockery. He pondered over the precepts and history of the Great

Exemplar, until, nature and reason combining to stimulate him, his

whole life became an effort to banish the misery of human-kind. And yet

the sphere in which he acted was comparatively narrow; for his natural

intelligence was not of that high order which marks out for itself

extended fields of enterprize in philanthropy. Hugh Clifford could not

be termed a planet, like Howard, that visited widely distant climes

in its great dispensing orbit of goodness; but he was most veritably

a star of benevolence, that cheered with a pure and genial light all

within its neighbourhood who partook of woe and wretchedness.

Living, by his charity, in the very core of poor men's hearts, and

respected for his true politeness and urbanity by his wealthier

neighbours, Hugh Clifford, while he rendered others happy, was

believed to be himself a very happy man. Nevertheless, for twenty

years after he had passed the prime of age, discomfort and distress

were gradually stealing upon him; and these, too, from a source which

was almost entirely unsuspected by the majority of his neighbours.

True, it was sometimes remarked that fox-eyed lawyer Merrick was

often, very often, at Clifford cottage,—and this was considered to

be anomalous, since Hugh Clifford's acquaintances had been uniformly

chosen for some quality which distinguished them in the little town

and its neighbourhood, as benefactors rather than oppressors of the

poor: albeit lawyer Merrick was notoriously of the latter description

of character. A few shrewd, hard-bargaining farmers also made a notch

in their memories, now and then, that lawyer Merrick's purchases of odd

bits of land were becoming frequent now he seemed to be so very oft a

visitor at good Mr. Clifford's.

Notwithstanding these slight precurses of suspicion, it came, at

length, upon the ears of the Kirton people, poor and rich together,

like the shock of an earthquake, that "poor good old Mr. Clifford was

turned bodily out of doors, with nothing but the clothes on his back

and his favourite crooked stick in his hand, a complete pauper, for

that he had been getting into lawyer Merrick's debt for years and

years, by borrowing small sums upon his estate, whereby all he was

worth was mortgaged to the lawyer, who had now suddenly foreclosed, and

pounced upon house and land, pushing good old Mr. Clifford away, by

the shoulders!"

"Poor Mr. Clifford!" was echoed by every body;—but who helped "poor

Mr. Clifford?"

There lay the hardest fact in the good man's history. The little

tradesmen who had shared his daily orders for the relief of the

miserable had none of them more than five pounds in their books against

him; but each of them made out a bill of thrice the amount of their

debt, and so figured in the world's compassion as great losers by the

"beggared gentleman," instead of ingrates, when they shut their doors

against him. The farmers shook their heads, and buttoned up their fobs,

saying, "It was no wonder that all was over with Mr. Clifford: he ought

to have remembered that, 'Charity begins at home.'" The parish parson,

who was the prime whip of the neighbourhood, and spent more days of the

year with 'Squire Harrison's hounds than he spent in his pulpit and

study, thrice told, only struck his top-boots violently with his whip,

and said, "God bless me! I always thought the poor fellow was cracked

in his upper story! Why, he must have meant to end his days in an

alms-house, or he would not have undertaken to keep all the poor in my

parish and the surrounding parishes to boot!" and, springing into the

stirrups, was out of sight in a minute.

And into an alms-house poor Hugh Clifford went, but not until he had

wandered through the little town three or four times, leaning upon

his curious crooked stick, and looking as if unconscious of the crowd

of tearful poor men and women that followed him. At first, the parish

overseers waited, in the expectation that, as a matter of course,

either the parson or some of the "better sort of people" would invite

the "beggared gentleman" into their houses; but when it was seen that

no such invitation was given, while, all the time, the poor fallen man

was wandering in the street with derangement manifest in his looks, the

puzzled overseers laid their heads together, and agreed that one of the

alms-houses should be apportioned for Mr. Clifford's home, and that an

old deaf female pauper should be put under the same roof to wait upon

him.

For many days the poor victim to his own goodness was silent and

helpless, and, by order of the parish surgeon, was disturbed, on the

rugged bed where he lay, no oftener than was necessary to arouse him

in order that he might be fed; for his mental powers seemed to have

undergone so complete a paralysis as to render him insensible to the

calls of nature. After the lapse of some weeks, during the latter half

of which he seemed to be absorbed in abstract devotion, poor Hugh

Clifford's mind rallied. And now the meekness with which he bore his

adversity was equally remarkable with the perfectness of that pity

he had evermore displayed for the wretched during the term of his

prosperity. He accepted the smallest act of kindness with gratitude;

and the poor deaf old female pauper never knew what it was to hear him

utter a word of complaint.

The remnant of his life may be summed up in a few lines. All who had

the means of ameliorating his lot neglected him; and all who wished

for the means, and had hearts to have used them in his relief, lacked

them. He lived years in his beggared condition, and died calmly and

quietly, complaining of nothing in the world, nor of the world itself,

and leaving but one request,—that his curious crooked stick might be

placed by his right side, in his coffin, and buried with him!

The deaf old female pauper who had waited on him did not fail to

communicate this strange request to the parish overseers when they

came to look at Hugh Clifford's corpse, prior to giving orders for his

burial. It may be guessed that the singular request gave rise to much

wonder and some enquiry. But the old female could only answer that

the good gentleman would often place his odd-looking walking-stick in

the corner, and sit on his bedside looking very intently upon it; and

that often he would turn the other side of it to the wall, and then

sit and look at it again; and several times she had seen him take a

little note-book from his coat pocket, at the breast, and write in it,

looking, ever and anon, at the curious crooked stick.

The latter part of the old female's communication of course occasioned

a search. The pocket-book was found, and in it a paper covered with a

close manuscript of a most curious character, but one that served to

display the anatomy of poor Hugh Clifford's heart under his misfortunes

more fully than it could have been laid open and read in either

death-bed confession, or funeral sermon. It ran as follows:—

"_A Soliloquy on my only faithful and never-failing friend,—my

beloved and valued crooked stick._

"Ay, there thou art,—my own crooked stick!—My heart cleaves to thee,

in thy crookedness; and I love thus to look upon thee, more and more,

daily, as thou leanest by the wall in that corner,—remembering that

thou and I were not always tenants of an alms-house.

"I love to look upon thee, with a melancholy yet pleasurable love,

beholding that thou preservest thy crooked identity,—yea, remainest

as crooked as ever thou wert! I know not whether aught within me, or,

indeed, any thing but thyself without me, be still the same as on that

beautiful summer eve when, more than fifty years ago, I cut thee from

the venerable crab-tree whereon thou didst grow, and we formed our

inseparable friendship.

"The wise men of this age would tell me that not a particle of the body

I had then, at nineteen, is to be found in this old body of threescore

and ten,—but that blood, bone, brains, and all its other youthful

components, are changed. I know not, my dear crooked crab-stick, how

truly they may speak; but this I know,—that I then was proud of a

perfect and spotless array of teeth, while, now, my old gums are

tenantless; that then my eyes were sharp and strong, while now I see,

with the utmost difficulty, objects removed half a yard from my nose;

that then my ears were instruments of use, and porches for receiving

the brain's most precious visitants, the sounds of music,—while, now,

they only serve to plague me when I see people's lips moving, and

think, like other old fools, that folks are always talking about me;

and, that I used to have 'a handsome head of hair,' as my barber always

called it, on quarter-day, when he expected his salary,—while, now, I

behold a perpetual winter above my brow, and on my brow itself!

"But, ah! my faithful friend, why should I lament the changes which

have come upon me? Fate, or Fortune, or whatever power I might

fancifully charge with my evil day, cannot avenge herself of me so

bitterly as she might,—if I had teeth to be set on edge with inferior

food,—eyes to be offended with the rude shapes of this straw mattrass

and rush-bottomed chair,—ears to be tormented with the jangling of

earthen porringers, as the poor deaf old woman knocks them against each

other,—and hair which I could not dress for lack of a mirror!

"And then, as to my inner man, good lack, my beloved crooked

crab-stick! though thou remainest the same, how is this my inner man

changed! ay, how hath it changed and changed again, since our first

dear friendship was formed! Yet I said in my heart, once, that my

mind could never change in its regard for what I was pleased to call

'certain great principles!' Alack! I have lived to feel uncertain about

the certainty and greatness of almost all principles! and——

"But stop! how is this, that having taken thee into my hand, I begin,

just now, to question the reality of thy crookedness? Art thou really

so very, very crooked, my dearly beloved stick?

"There! I place thee, again, in thy own corner, that so thou mayst lean

against thy own spot in the wall, and lo! thy crookedness is made,

once more, fully manifest! No, no, my friend—for Hugh Clifford loves

thee too well and sincerely to call himself thy 'master,' and think of

thee as of a slave!—no, no, it is too late in life for the 'beggared

gentleman' to deceive himself—thou _art_ crooked, crooked indeed!

"But ah! my beloved stick, it is for thy crookedness I love thee,

above all, though not for it alone. I avow to thee, as I have often

avowed, in times past, when no human ear heard me, that I thank thee,

my faithful, crooked, unfailing friend, for all thy service. Twice,

when wielded by my right arm, didst though enable me to deliver a weak

fellow-creature from his stronger, who would have slain him because

he had not filthy gold or silver to satisfy the robber: ten times

didst thou empower me to wrest open the cottage doors of dying human

beings deserted by their kind, and unable to arise and welcome their

deliverer: nay, once didst thou enable me to preserve my own poor life

when the plunderer who now possesseth my house and land would have

secretly and bloodily taken it!

"What though it bringeth some sorrow to remember the angelic face and

form I saw, for the last time, but an hour before I cut thee from thy

parent tree, Ah! how well doth life assort the lot of its inheritors,

even when they most deeply repine! The sea devoured my Mary—my beauty,

my only love, and I repined that she was not spared to share my riches

and possessions; alas! would she not have had to share my lot, also,

in this alms-house? Indeed, my friend, I was blessed that I gained thy

friendship that night, when my love was taken from me, for how great a

comfort hast thou been to me!

"I tender thee these my heartfelt thanks, now our long and interesting

friendship is in the yellow leaf! Many a mile hast thou travelled

with me,—unfailingly hast thou supported my steps in manhood and old

age,—in all weathers,—and never shrunk from me, nor upbraided either

my haste or my tarrying, my speed or my slowness, my lavishness or my

poverty; but Hugh Clifford cannot expect, in the nature of things, to

remain with thee much longer. He loves thee so well, that he would fain

thou mightst be laid by his side in the grave: yet such a request may

be met churlishly by those who provide Hugh's coffin,—and thou mayst

become the support of another, who will, peradventure, proudly call

thee his 'property' instead of his 'companion!'"

"Farewell, then, my dearly-beloved and highly valued friend—farewell!

but not before I have more fully thanked thee:——

"Above all, my precious crooked stick, I return thee hearty thanks that

thou hast been to me a truthful mirror—yea, a bright and glittering

looking-glass,—although the eye of the undiscerning, and of those who

judge after the outward seeming and surface appearance, would misreckon

thee to be a dry, dull, opaque crooked crab-stick! Yea, a mirror, I

say, thou hast been to me,—reflecting upon my spiritual retina,—the

judgment,—that great fact, which, in my folly, I oft would have hidden

from myself,—that I resembled thee!

"Yet, thou pitiedest me in thy heart,—hard and unfeeling as some

would say that heart must be, the heart of a crooked crab-stick!—yea,

thou pitiedst me therein, and didst still from thy old corner

regard me with the same unflatteringly argumentative and admonitory

aspect,—penetrating _my_ heart with the faithful language of _thine_:

'Hugh! look at me and know thyself.'

"And I _have_ looked at thee, and I do _now_ look at thee, and in thy

veritable crookedness I behold my own!"

"Reader,—who wilt find this my solemn and earnest soliloquy, when I am

gone,—hast thou a crooked stick?

"'I, Mr. Clifford!' answers some young puppy of one-and-twenty, who,

perchance, may take my paper into his dainty fingers, 'I am not so

vulgar as to carry a crooked stick: my cane is most beautifully

polished, and it is a perfectly straight one!'"

"Pshaw! my brave lad! I sought not thy answer: do not be so pert: think

more, and talk less, for the next thirty years; and then re-consider my

question.

"'I understand your censorious query, Mr. Clifford,' says another,

some score of years older, and with less buckram but more gauze in his

composition—'I understand you: but the fact is, _my_ stick is _not_ a

crooked stick: it is perfectly straight, and hath always been straight:

'tis the evil-disposed and calumnious world who call it crooked:

albeit, if they would only view it aright, they would perceive that all

the parts of it which they think crooked and perverse are direct as a

geometrical right line!'

"Alas, my reader with the pretended straight stick! thou pratest in

vain to Hugh Clifford, the 'beggared gentleman!' I tell thee, plainly,

thy stick is, like mine, a crooked one; nay, I tell thee, that every

man's stick is but a crooked stick. And, of all curses under which this

poor abused world groans, may it be speedily and effectually delivered,

I pray, in my old age and in an alms-house, from the cant of the

starched faces who assure their fellow-creatures with so much show of

sanctity that their crooked sticks are straight ones!

"Farewell, then, once again, my beloved but crooked friend, and

thanks for thy faithfulness! alas, that I neglected to use thy silent

admonitions as I ought to have used them, when the serpent who wrecked

me was wont to shed his false tears while I related my tales of the

poor in his ears! Fool that I was to take those tears, and the offers

to lend more money that followed, for proofs of his feeling heart! Ah,

my friend, had I to spend life again, I would attend more closely to

thy monitions, and would not credit a man's professions of humanity,

unless they cost him something! But it is too late to repent at what I

fear I could not have avoided if I had even seen my error.

"Let it pass! Hugh Clifford's heart danceth for joy, even amidst the

squalor of an alms-house, that he can point to no inconsiderable

portion of his life, and say with truth regarding it, as one said of

old—'When the ear heard me, then it blessed me: and when the eye saw

me it gave witness to me: because I delivered the poor that cried, and

the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him

that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart

to sing for joy.'—

"Yet see I my image in thine, my dear faithful friend! my stick

is but a crooked one, though I have done some little good in my

life! Ostentation hath mixed itself, more or less, with my purest

charities,—anger hath too often burned in my bosom till the morning

light: I have not always 'done as I would be done by;' I have too often

behaved contemptuously to my fellow-creatures, forgetting that I was

but a poor, pitiful earth-worm, like themselves. I am but a _crooked_

stick, like thee, my beloved friend, with all my imagined excellency.

"But, finally, I thank thee, that thou hast perseveringly shown me that

I was not perfect: thou hast preserved me from self-deceit, or at least

hast chased it away, when it hath led me into temporary captivity.

"Farewell, then, my beloved crooked stick!—and if he who, first or

last, readeth this my serious soliloquy feeleth inclined to laugh

thereat, let him answer my question, when I ask him if _he_ be able to

point to one human thing that hath been to him what thou hast been to

me—_for fifty years, an ever-faithful and never-failing friend_?"

THE

NURTURE OF A YOUNG SAILOR;

OR,

THE HISTORY OF COCKLE TOM.

Cockle Tom was born in poverty, cradled in hardship, and schooled,

never in the alphabet, but perpetually in endurance of labour, hunger,

and fatigue. His manhood was brief; but his death was generous and

heroic. He was one of the humble children of genuine romance, which

England produces in profusion, but whose lives are unchronicled, and

the moral of their story lost, simply from the fact that, though

full of virtuous ambition, they are untainted with vain-glory: they

neither seek for notice in cities, nor lay claim to distinction in

public assemblies; but they restlessly seek to obtain and preserve the

reputation that they are hard-workers, undaunted by any danger, and

capable of sustaining any amount of fatigue, or undertaking any risk,

even that of life itself, to benefit the existence or preserve the life

of a fellow-creature. Such is genuine Saxon character—genuine old

English nature: what elements for useful greatness in a nation, if its

rulers were Alfreds! But to proceed with our humble biography:—

Cockle Tom was born at Northcotes-on-the-Sands, a slender, straggling

village, bleakly situate on the Lincolnshire sea-coast, and at no

great distance from the mouth of the Humber. His father was a simple

fisherman, who rented the "cockle sands," as they were called,—an

extent of something more than a mile, belonging to the parish of

Northcotes, and possessed in fee-simple by the principal landholder in

the neighbourhood. Having married young, and being early the head of a

numerous small family, Tom's father, from the penury of his condition,

was constrained to introduce every one of his male children, at least,

to the rough and painful labour of gathering cockles on the sea-beach

by the time they had reached the tender age of five years. And at

that age was Tom first taken, by his elder brothers, without shoes

or stockings, with a bundle of rags rather than clothes around him,

and a red flannel night-cap tied fast round his head, to gather the

shell-fish, by scraping them out of the sand with his little hands,

and putting them into a small hempen bag tied round his loins. Little

Tom was very eager to go;—for "the sea! the sea!" was his unvarying

song (chanted in a wild, untaught melody which perhaps even Neükomm

himself would have thought beautiful, could he have listened to it)

from the day when he was three years old, the first day on which his

father bore him on shoulder to gaze upon the ships riding in the German

Ocean. But poor little Tom cried bitterly with frozen hands, and cold,

and hunger, before the day was over, and it was time to return to his

mother's aproned knee, and the soothing heaven of sympathy that dwelt

on her tongue and in her eyes.

Yet, on the morrow, little Tom would go again. The father would have

left him at home till the Spring strengthened and the sun came nearer,

for it was but early March as yet; but the little adventurer was too

true to his nature to accept the boon. And from that day, summer and

winter, except when even the father himself was compelled to stay at

home by reason of an unusual storm, Tom continued to mount his little

red night-cap, like the rest, and make one among the picturesque

line of industrious stragglers on the sea-beach. To school Tom never

went in his life: though his lot would not have been more highly

favoured in that respect, had he been the child of a peasant in the

interior, or even the son of a decent mechanic in Lincolnshire, at that

period,—for we are speaking of events of seventy years' date, from

their commencement to our own time,—and at that far-back period the

idea of sending a poor man's child to school was regarded as a piece of

over-weening pride that deserved no gentle rebuke from "the better sort

of people." But what though he could never read? he could make boats;

and indeed his earliest error was a display of that kind of ingenuity,

for he bored a hole in the bottom of his mother's bread-tin when but

four years' old, stuck a wooden mast in it, fitted on a sail, and set

it afloat on the surface of a brook that ran by the end of his father's

little garden; and, while he clapped his little hands in ecstasy, away

dashed his ship to the sea! He was severely chidden for this, but _not_

flogged: that was not his mother's way; she happened to have too much

good sense to brutify her offspring: and the lecture served to shew him

that he had done foolishly,—but it did not annihilate that passion for

ships and the sea which his first sight of them had created within him.

He could make boats—did we say? ay, and he made a ship, too,—such

a ship!—though this was when he was ten years old, and had seen the

magnificent merchant-vessels from the Mediterranean and the West Indies

go by in full sail for the Humber and the port of Hull,—such a ship,

with masts, and yards, and rigging, and portholes, and even miniature

sailors,—it was so wondrous a piece of art as the oldest villager

in Northcotes had never seen, and rendered little Tom the every-day

talk of all its inhabitants. Such talk did not render little Tom vain,

however, for his yearning mind had influenced his hands to form the

ship from no principle of praise-seeking: it was a type that signified

he meant to sail in such an ocean-vehicle—if the simple people could

so have read it.

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?"