the old dominie’s bundle and other paraphernalia being sent on board, he took farewell of mr drummond and his family in so serious a manner, that i was convinced that he considered he was about to enter upon a dangerous adventure, and then i led him down to the wharf where the lighter lay alongside. it was with some trepidation that he crossed the plank, and got on board, when he recovered himself and looked round.
“my sarvice to you, old gentleman,” said a voice behind the dominie. it was that of old tom, who had just come from the cabin. the dominie turned round, and perceived old tom.
“this is old tom, sir,” said i to the dominie, who stared with astonishment.
“art thou, indeed? jacob, thou didst not tell me that he had been curtailed of his fair proportions, and i was surprised. art thou then dux?” continued the dominie, addressing old tom.
“yes,” interrupted young tom, who had come from forward, “he is ducks, because he waddles on his short stumps; and i won’t say who be goose. eh, father?”
“take care you don’t buy goose, for your imperance, sir,” cried old tom.
“a forward boy,” exclaimed the dominie.
“yes,” replied tom “i’m generally forward.”
“art thou forward in thy learning? canst thou tell me latin for goose?”
“to be sure,” replied tom; “brandy.”
“brandy!” exclaimed the dominie. “nay, child, it is anser.”
“then i was right,” replied tom. “you had your answer!”
“the boy is apt.” cluck cluck.
“he is apt to be devilish saucy, old gentleman; but never mind that, there’s no harm in him.”
“this, then, is young tom, i presume, jacob?” said the dominie, referring to me.
“yes, sir,” replied i. “you have seen old tom, and young tom, and you have only to see tommy.”
“want to see tommy, sir?” cried tom. “here, tommy, tommy!”
but tommy, who was rather busy with a bone forward, did not immediately answer to his call, and the dominie turned round to survey the river. the scene was busy, barges and boats passing in every direction, others lying on shore, with waggons taking out the coals and other cargoes, men at work, shouting or laughing with each other. “‘populus in fluviis,’ as virgil hath it. grand indeed is the vast river, ‘labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum,’ as the generations of men are swept into eternity,” said the dominie, musing aloud. but tommy had now made his appearance, and tom, in his mischief, had laid hold of the tail of the dominie’s coat, and shown it to the dog. the dog, accustomed to seize a rope when it was shown to him, immediately seized the dominie’s coat, making three desperate tugs at it. the dominie, who was in one of his reveries, and probably thought it was i who wished to direct his attention elsewhere, each time waved his hand, without turning round, as much as to say, “i am busy now.”
“haul and hold,” cried tom to the dog, splitting his sides, and the tears running down his cheeks with laughing. tommy made one more desperate tug, carrying away one tail of the dominie’s coat; but the dominie perceived it not, he was still “nubibus,” while the dog galloped forward with the fragment, and tom chased him to recover it. the dominie continued in his reverie, when old tom burst out—
“o, england, dear england, bright gem of the ocean,
thy valleys and fields look fertile and gay,
the heart clings to thee with a sacred devotion,
and memory adores when in far lands away.”
the song gradually called the dominie to his recollection; indeed, the strain was so beautiful that it would have vibrated in the ears of a dying man. the dominie gradually turned round, and when old tom had finished, exclaimed, “truly it did delight mine ear, and from such—and,” continued the dominie, looking down upon old tom—“without legs too!”
“why, old gentleman, i don’t sing with my legs,” answered old tom.
“nay, good dux, i am not so deficient as not to be aware that a man singeth from the mouth; yet is thy voice mellifluous, sweet as the honey of hybla, strong—”
“as the latin for goose,” finished tom. “come, father, old dictionary is in the doldrums; rouse him up with another stave.”
“i’ll rouse you up with the stave of a cask over your shoulders, mr tom. what have you done with the old gentleman’s swallow-tail?”
“leave me to settle that affair, father: i know how to get out of a scrape.”
“so you ought, you scamp, considering how many you get into; but the craft are swinging and heaving up. forward there, jacob, and sway up the mast; there’s tom and tommy to help you.”
the mast was hoisted up, the sail set, and the lighter in the stream before the dominie was out of his reverie.
“are there whirlpools here?” said the dominie, talking more to himself than to those about him.
“whirlpools!” replied young tom, who was watching and mocking him; “yes, that there are, under the bridges. i’ve watched a dozen chips go down, one after the other.”
“a dozen ships!” exclaimed the dominie, turning to tom; “and every soul lost?”
“never saw them afterwards,” replied tom, in a mournful voice.
“how little did i dream of the dangers of those so near me,” said the dominie, turning away, and communing with himself. “‘those who go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters;’—‘et vastas aperit syrtes;’—‘these men see the works of the lord, and his wonders in the deep.’—‘alternante vorans vasta charybdis aqua.’—‘for at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof.’—‘surgens a puppi ventus.—ubi tempestas et caeli mobilis humor.’—‘they are carried up to the heavens, and down again to the deep.’—‘gurgitibus miris et lactis vertice torrens.’—‘their soul melteth away because of their troubles.’—‘stant pavidi. omnibus ignoiae mortis timor, omnibus hostem.’—‘they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man.’”
“so they do, father, don’t they, sometimes?” observed tom, leering his eye at his father. “that’s all i’ve understood of his speech.”
“they are at their wit’s end,” continued the dominie.
“mind the end of your wit, master tom,” answered his father, wroth at the insinuation.
“‘so when they call upon the lord in their trouble’—‘cujus jurare timent et fallere nomen’—‘he delivereth them out of their distress, for he makest the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still;’ yea, still and smooth as the peaceful water which now floweth rapidly by our anchored vessel—yet it appeareth to me that the scene hath changed. these fields met not mine eyes before. ‘riparumque toros et prata recentia rivis.’ surely we have moved from the wharf?”—and the dominie turned round, and discovered, for the first time, that we were more than a mile from the place at which we had embarked.
“pray, sir, what’s the use of speech, sir?” interrogated tom, who had been listening to the whole of the dominie’s long soliloquy.
“thou asketh a foolish question, boy. we are endowed with the power of speech to enable us to communicate our ideas.”
“that’s exactly what i thought, sir. then pray what’s the use of your talking all that gibberish, that none of us could understand?”
“i crave thy pardon, child; i spoke, i presume, in the dead languages.”
“if they’re dead, why not let them rest in their graves?”
“good; thou hast wit.” (cluck, cluck.) “yet, child, know that it is pleasant to commune with the dead.”
“is it? then we’ll put you on shore at battersea churchyard.”
“silence, tom. he’s full of his sauce, sir—you must forgive it.”
“nay, it pleaseth me to hear him talk; but it would please me more to hear thee sing.”
“then here goes, sir, to drown tom’s impudence:—
“glide on my bark, the morning tide
is gently floating by thy side;
around thy prow the waters bright,
in circling rounds of broken light,
are glittering, as if ocean gave
her countless gems unto the wave.
“that’s a pretty air, and i first heard it sung by a pretty woman; but that’s all i know of the song. she sang another—
“i’d be a butterfly, born in a bower.”
“you’d be a butterfly!” said the dominie, taking old tom literally, and looking at his person.
young tom roared, “yes, sir, he’d be a butterfly, and i don’t see why he shouldn’t very soon. his legs are gone, and his wings aren’t come: so he’s a grub now, and that, you know, is the next thing to it. what a funny old beggar it is, father—aren’t it?”
“tom, tom, go forward, sir; we must shoot the bridge.”
“shoot!” exclaimed the dominie; “shoot what?”
“you aren’t afraid of fire-arms, are ye, sir?” inquired tom.
“nay, i said not that i was afraid of fire-arms; but why should you shoot?”
“we never could get on without it, sir; we shall have plenty of shooting, by-and-by. you don’t know this river.”
“indeed, i thought not of such doings; or that there were other dangers besides that of the deep waters.”
“go forward, tom, and don’t be playing with your betters,” cried old tom. “never mind him, sir, he’s only humbugging you.”
“explain, jacob. the language of both old tom and young tom are to me as incomprehensible as would be that of the dog tommy.”
“or as your latin is to them, sir.”
“true, jacob, true. i have no right to complain; nay, i do not complain, for i am amused, although at times much puzzled.”
we now shot putney bridge, and as a wherry passed us, old tom carolled out—
“did you ever hear tell of a jolly young waterman?”
“no, i never did,” said the dominie, observing old tom’s eyes directed towards him. tom, amused by this naïveté on the part of the dominie, touched him by the sleeve, on the other side, and commenced with his treble—
“did you ne’er hear a tale
of a maid in the vale?”
“not that i can recollect, my child,” replied the dominie.
“then, where have you been all your life?”
“my life has been employed, my lad, in teaching the young idea how to shoot.”
“so, you’re an old soldier, after all, and afraid of fire-arms. why don’t you hold yourself up? i suppose it’s that enormous jib of yours that brings you down by the head.”
“tom, tom, i’ll cut you into pork pieces if you go on that gait. go and get dinner under weigh, you scamp, and leave the gentleman alone. here’s more wind coming.
“a wet sheet and a flowing sea,
a wind that follows fast,
and fills the white and rustling sail,
and bends the gallant mast.
and bends the gallant mast, my boys,
while, like the eagle free,
away the good ship flies, and leaves
old england on the lee.”
“jacob,” said the dominie, “i have heard by the mouth of rumour, with her hundred tongues, how careless and indifferent are sailors unto danger; but i never could have believed that such lightness of heart could have been shown. yon man, although certainly not old in years, yet, what is he?—a remnant of a man resting upon unnatural and ill-proportioned support. yon lad, who is yet but a child, appears as blythe and merry as if he were in possession of all the world can afford. i have an affection for that bold child, and would fain teach him the rudiments, at least, of the latin tongue.”
“i doubt if tom would ever learn them, sir. he hath a will of his own.”
“it grieveth me to hear thee say so, for he lacketh not talent, but instruction; and the dux, he pleaseth me mightily—a second palinurus. yet how that a man could venture to embark upon an element, to struggle through the horrors of which must occasionally demand the utmost exertion of every limb, with the want of the two most necessary for his safety, is to me quite incomprehensible.”
“he can keep his legs, sir.”
“nay, jacob; how can he keep what are already gone? even thou speakest strangely upon the water. i see the dangers that surround us, jacob, yet i am calm: i feel that i have not lived a wicked life—‘integer vitae, scelerisque purus,’ as horace truly saith, may venture, even as i have done, upon the broad expanse of water. what is it that the boy is providing for us? it hath an inviting smell.”
“lobscouse, master,” replied old tom, “and not bad lining either.”
“i recollect no such word—unde derivatur, friend?”
“what’s that, master?” inquired old tom.
“it’s latin for lobscouse, depend upon it, father,” cried tom, who was stirring up the savoury mess with a large wooden spoon. “he be a deadly lively old gentleman, with his dead language. dinner’s all ready. are we to let go the anchor, or pipe to dinner first?”
“we may as well anchor, boys. we have not a quarter of an hour’s more ebb, and the wind is heading us.”
tom and i went forward, brailed up the mainsail, cleared away, and let go the anchor. the lighter swung round rapidly to the stream. the dominie, who had been in a fit of musing, with his eyes cast upon the forests of masts which we had passed below london bridge, and which were now some way astern of us, of a sudden exclaimed, in a loud voice, “parce precor! periculosum est!”
the lighter, swinging short round to her anchor, had surprised the dominie with the rapid motion of the panorama, and he thought we had fallen in with one of the whirlpools mentioned by tom. “what has happened, good dux? tell me,” cried the dominie to old tom, with alarm in his countenance.
“why, master, i’ll tell you after my own fashion,” replied old tom, smiling; and then singing, as he held the dominie by the button of his spencer—
“now to her berth the craft draws nigh,
with slacken’d sail, she feels the tide;
‘stand clear the cable!’ is the cry—
the anchor’s gone, we safely ride.
“and now, master, we’ll bail out the lobscouse. we sha’n’t weigh anchor again until to-morrow morning; the wind’s right in our teeth, and it will blow fresh, i’m sartain. look how the scud’s flying; so now we’ll have a jolly time of it, and you shall have your allowance of grog on board before you turn in.”
“i have before heard of that potation,” replied the dominie, sitting down on the coaming of the hatchway, “and fain would taste it.”
