Toward the end of September, when school-time was drawing near and the
nights were already black, we would begin to sally from our-respective
villas, each equipped with a tin bull’s-eye lantern. The thing was so
well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain; and
the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows with our
particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a
cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigour of the game, a buttoned
top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned
aright, though they would always burn our fingers; their use was naught;
the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull’s-eye
under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The fishermen used lanterns
about their boats, and it was from them, I suppose, that we had got the
hint; but theirs were not bull’s-eyes, nor did we ever play at being
fishermen. The police carried them at their belts, and we had plainly
copied them in that; yet we did not pretend to be policemen. Burglars,
indeed, we may have had some haunting thoughts of; and we had certainly
an eye to past ages when lanterns were more common, and to certain
story-books in which we had found them to figure very largely. But take
it for all in all, the pleasure of the thing was substantive; and to be a
boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat was good enough for us.
When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious “Have you got your
lantern?” and a gratified “Yes!” That was the shibboleth, and very
needful too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory contained, none
could recognise a lantern-bearer, unless (like the polecat) by the smell.
Four or five would sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger,
with nothing but the thwarts above them—for the cabin was usually locked,
or choose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle
overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull’s-eyes
discovered; and in the chequering glimmer, under the huge windy hall of
the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these
fortunate young gentlemen would crouch together in the cold sand of the
links or on the scaly bilges of the fishing-boat, and delight themselves
with inappropriate talk. Woe is me that I may not give some
specimens—some of their foresights of life, or deep inquiries into the
rudiments of man and nature, these were so fiery and so innocent, they
were so richly silly, so romantically young. But the talk, at any rate,
was but a condiment; and these gatherings themselves only accidents in
the career of the lantern-bearer. The essence of this bliss was to walk
by yourself in the black night; the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned;
not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your
glory public: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while,
deep down in the privacy of your fool’s heart, to know you had a
bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge.