i remained with mr drummond about eight months, when at last the new clerk made his appearance—a little fat fellow, about twenty, with a face as round as a full moon, thick lips, and red cheeks. during this time i frequently had the pleasure of meeting with old and young tom, who appeared very anxious that i should rejoin them; and i must say that i was equally willing to return to the lighter. still mr drummond put his veto on it, and mrs drummond was also constantly pointing out the very desirable situation i might have on shore as a clerk in the office; but i could not bear it—seated nearly the whole day—perched up on a high stool—turning over debtors, contra creditors, and only occasionally interrupted by the head clerk, with his attempt to make rhymes. the new clerk came, i expected my release, but i was disappointed. mr drummond discovered him to be so awkward, and the head clerk declared that the time was so busy, that he could not spare me. this was true; mr drummond had just come to a final arrangement, which had been some time pending, by which he purchased a wharf and large warehouses, with a house adjoining, in lower thames street—a very large concern, for which he had paid a considerable sum of money. what with the valuations, winding up of the brentford concern on the old account, etcetera, there was much to do, and i toiled at the desk until the removal took place; and when the family were removed, i was still detained, as there was no warehouseman to superintend the unloading and hoisting up of goods. mr tomkins, the head clerk, who had been many years a faithful servant to mr drummond, was admitted a partner, and had charge of the brentford wharf, a species of promotion which he and his wife resolved to celebrate with a party. after a long debate, it was resolved that they should give a ball, and mrs tomkins exerted all her taste and ingenuity on the occasion. my friend tomkins lived at a short distance from the premises, in a small house, surrounded with half an acre of garden, chiefly filled with gooseberry-bushes, and perambulated by means of four straight gravel walks. mr and mrs drummond were invited, and accepted the invitation, which was considered by the tomkinses as a great mark of condescension. as a specimen of mr tomkins’s poetical talents, i shall give his invitation to mr drummond, written in the very best german text:—
“mr and mrs t—
sincerely hope to see
mr and mrs drum-
mond, to a very hum-
ble party that they in-
tend to ask their kin
to, on the saturday
of the week ensuing:
when fiddles they will play,
and other things be doing.”
belle vue house.
to which jeu d’esprit mr drummond answered with a pencil on a card—
“mr and mrs drum-
mond intend to come.”
“here, give tomkins that, jacob; it will please him better than any formal acceptation.” mr and mrs turnbull were also asked; the former accepted, but the latter indignantly refused.
when i arrived with mr and mrs drummond many of the company were there; the garden was what they called illuminated, that is, every gooseberry-bush had one variegated lamp suspended above the centre; and, as mr tomkins told me afterwards, the lamps were red and yellow, according to the fruit they bore. it was a cold, frosty, clear night, and the lamps twinkled as brightly among the bare boughs of the gooseberry trees as the stars did in the heavens. the company in general were quite charmed with the novelty. “quite a minor wauxhall,” cried one lady, whose exuberance of fat kept her warm enough to allow her to stare about in the open air. the entrance porch had a dozen little lamps, backed with laurel twigs, and looked very imposing. mrs tomkins received her company upon the steps outside, that she might have the pleasure of hearing their praises of her external arrangements; still it was freezing, and she shivered not a little. the drawing-room, fourteen feet by ten, was fitted up as a ballroom, with two fiddlers and a fifer sitting in a corner and a country-dance was performing when we arrived. over the mantle-piece was a square of laurel twigs, inclosing as a frame this couplet from the poetical brain of the master of the house, cut out in red paper, and bespangled with blue and yellow tinsel—
“here we are to dance so gay,
while the fiddlers play away.”
other appropriate distichs, which i have now forgotten, were framed in the same way on each of the other compartments. but the dining-room was the chef d’oeuvre. it was formed into a bower, with evergreens, and on the evergreen boughs were stuck real apples and oranges in all directions, so that you could help yourself.
“vell, i do declare, this is a paradise!” exclaimed the fat lady who entered with me.
“in all but one thing, ma’am,” replied mr turnbull, who, with his coat off, was squeezing lemons for the punch—“there’s no forbidden fruit. you may help yourself.”
the bon-mot was repeated by mr tomkins to the end of his existence, not only for its own sake, but because it gave him an opportunity of entering into a detail of the whole fête—the first he had ever given in his life. “ah, jacob, my boy, glad to see you—come and help here—they’ll soon be thirsty, i’ll warrant,” said mr turnbull, who was in his glory. the company, although not so very select, were very happy; they danced, drank punch, laughed, and danced again; and it was not till a late hour, long after mr and mrs drummond had gone home, that i quitted the “festive scene;” mr turnbull, who walked away with me, declaring that it was worth a dozen of his party, although they had not such grand people as mrs tagliabue, or the right honourable lord viscount babbleton. i thought so too; every one was happy, and every one at their ease; and i do believe they would have stayed much longer, but the musicians took so much punch that one fiddler broke his fiddle, the other broke his head in going down the steps into the garden, and the fifer swore he could blow no longer; so, as there was an end to the music, clogs, pattens, and lanterns were called for, the shawls were brought out of the kitchen, and every one went away. nothing could go off better. mrs tomkins had a cold and rheumatism the next day; but that was not surprising, a minor wauxhall not being seasonable in the month of december.
a week after this party we removed to thames street, and i performed the duty of warehouseman. our quantity of lighters was now much increased, and employed in carrying dry goods, etcetera. one morning old tom came under the crane to discharge his lighter, and wishing to see me, when the fall had been overhauled down to heave up the casks with which the lighter was laden, instead of hooking on a cask, held on by his hands, crying, “hoist away,” intending to be hoisting himself up to the door of the warehouse where i was presiding. now, there was nothing unusual in this whim of old tom’s, but still he ran a very narrow chance, in consequence of an extra whim of young tom’s, who, as soon as his father was suspended in the air, caught hold of his two wooden stumps, to be hoisted up also; and as he caught hold of them, standing on tiptoe, they both swung clear of the lighter, which could not approach to within five feet of the buildings. the crane was on the third story of the warehouse, and very high up. “tom, tom, you rascal, what the devil are you about?” cried the old man, when he felt the weight of his son’s body hanging to him.
“going up along with you, father—hope we shall go to heaven the same way.”
“more likely to go to the devil together, you little fool; i never can bear your weight. hoist away, there, quick.”
hearing the voices, i looked out of the door, and perceiving their situation, ordered the men to hoist as fast as they could, before old tom’s strength should be exhausted; but it was a compound moving crane, and we could not hoist very fast, although we could hoist very great weights. at last, as they were wound up higher and higher, old tom’s strength was going fast. “o tom, tom, what must be done? i can’t—i can’t hold on but a little longer, and we shall be both dashed to pieces. my poor boy?”
“well, then, i’ll let go, father; it was all my folly, and i’ll be the sufferer.”
“let go!” cried old tom; “no, no, tom—don’t let go, my boy; i’ll try a little longer. don’t let go, my dear boy—don’t let go!”
“well, father, how much longer can you hold on?”
“a little—very little longer,” replied the old man, struggling. “well, hold fast now,” cried young tom, who, raising his head above his arms, with great exertion shifted one of his hands to his father’s thigh, then the other; raising himself as before, he then caught at the seat of his father’s trousers with his teeth; old tom groaned, for his son had taken hold of more than the garments; he then shifted his hands round his father’s body—from thence he gained the collar of his jacket—from the collar he climbed on his father’s shoulders, from thence he seized hold of the fall above, and relieved his father of the weight. “now, father, are you all right?” cried tom, panting as he clung to the fall above him.
“i can’t hold on ten seconds more, tom—no longer—my clutch is going now.”
“hang on by your eyelids, father, if you love me,” cried young tom, in agony.
it was indeed an awful moment; they were now at least sixty feet above the lighter, suspended in the air; the men whirled round the wheel, and i had at last the pleasure of hauling them both in on the floor of the warehouse; the old man so exhausted that he could not speak for more than a minute. young tom, as soon as all was safe, laughed immoderately. old tom sat upright. “it might have been no laughing matter, mr tom,” said he, looking at his son.
“what’s done can’t be helped, father, as jacob says. after all, you’re more frightened than hurt.”
“i don’t know that, you young scamp,” replied the old man, putting his hand behind him, and rubbing softly; “you’ve bit a piece clean out of my starn. now, let this be a warning to you, tom. jacob, my boy, couldn’t you say that i’ve met with an accident, and get a drop of something from mr drummond?”
i thought, after his last observation, i might honestly say that he had met with an accident, and i soon returned with a glass of brandy, which old tom was drinking off when his son interrupted him for a share.
“you know, father, i shared the danger.”
“yes, tom, i know you did,” replied the father; “but this was sent to me on account of my accident, and as i had that all to myself, i shall have all this too.”
“but, father, you ought to give me a drop, if it were only to take the taste out of my mouth.”
“your own flesh and blood, tom,” replied his father, emptying his glass.
“well, i always heard it was quite unnatural not to like your own flesh and blood,” replied tom; “but i see now that there may be reasons for it.”
“be content, tom,” replied his father, putting down the glass; “we’re now just square. you’ve had your raw nip, and i’ve had mine.”
mr drummond now came up, and asked what had been the matter. “nothing, sir—only an accident. tom and i had a bit of a hoist.”
as this last word had a double meaning, mr drummond thought that a cask had surged, when coming out of the lighter, and struck them down. he desired old tom to be more careful, and walked away, while we proceeded to unload the lighter. the new clerk was a very heavy, simple young man, plodding and attentive certainly, but he had no other merit; he was sent into the lighter to rake the marks and numbers of the casks as they were hoisted up, and soon became a butt to young tom, who gave him the wrong marks and numbers of all the casks, to his interrogations.
“what’s that, boy?” cried the pudding-faced fellow, with his pencil in one hand and his book in the other.
“pea soup, 13,” replied tom; “ladies’ bonnets, 24. now, then, master, chalk again, pipe-clay for sodgers, 3; red herrings, 26.” all of which were carefully noted down by mr grubbins who, when the lighter was cleared, took the memoranda to mr drummond.
fortunately, we had checked the number of the casks as they were received above—their contents were flour. mr drummond sent for young tom, and asked him how he dared play such a trick. tom replied very boldly, “that it was meant as a good lesson to the young man, that in future he did his own work, and did not trust to others.” to this mr drummond agreed, and master tom was dismissed without punishment.
as the men had all gone to dinner, i went down into the lighter to have a little chat with my old shipmates. “well, jacob,” said old tom, “tom’s not a bit wiser than he was before—two scrapes to-day, already.”
“well, father, if i prove my folly by getting into scrapes, i prove my wit by getting out of them.”
“yes, that may be true, tom; but suppose we had both come down with a run, what would you have thought then?”
“i suspect, father, that i should have been past thinking.”
“i once did see a thing of that kind happen,” said old tom, calling to mind former scenes in his life; “and i’ll tell you a yarn about it, boys, because they say danger makes friends.”
we sat down by old tom, who narrated as follows “when i was captain of the main-top in the la minerve, forty-four gun frigate, we were the smartest ship up the mediterranean; and many’s the exercise we were the means of giving to other ship’s companies, because they could not beat us—no, not even hold a candle to us. in both fore and main-top we had eight-and-twenty as smart chaps as ever put their foot to a rattling, or slid down by an a’ter backstay. now, the two captains of the foretop were both prime young men, active as monkeys, and bold as lions. one was named tom herbert, from north shields, a dark, good-looking chap, with teeth as white as a nigger’s, and a merry chap he was, always a-showing them. the other was a cockney chap. your lunnuners arn’t often good seamen; but when they are seamen, there’s no better; they never allow any one to show them the way, that’s for sartin, being naturally spunky sort of chaps, and full of tricks and fun. this fellow’s name was bill wiggins, and between him and herbert there was always a jealousy who should be the smartest man. i’ve seen both of them run out on the yard, in fine weather, without holding on nothing, seize the lift, and down to their station, haul up the earing, in no time; up by the lift again, and down on deck, by the backstay, before half the men had time to get clear of the top. in fact, they often risked their lives in bad weather, when there was no occasion for it, that one might outdo the other. now, this was all very well, and a good example to the other men: the captain and officers appeared to like these contests for superiority, but it ended in their hating each other, and not being even on speaking terms, which, as the two captains of the top, was bad. they had quarrelled often, and fought five times, neither proving the better man; either both done up, or parted by the master-at-arms, and reported to the first lieutenant, so that at last they were not so much countenanced by the officers, and were out of favour with the captain, who threatened to disrate them both if ever they fought again. we were cruising off the gulf of lyons, where sometimes it blows hard enought to blew the devil’s horns off, though the gales never last very long. we were under close reefed fore- and main-top sails, storm stay-sail and trysail, when there was a fresh hand at the bellows, and the captain desired the officers of the watch, just before dinner to take in the fore-top sail. not to disturb the watch below, the main-top men were ordered up forward to help the fore-top men of the watch; and i was of course aloft, ready to lie out on the lee yard-arm—when wiggins, who had the watch below, came up in the top, not liking that herbert should be at work in such weather without he being there too.
“‘tom,’ says to me, ‘i’ll take the yard-arm.’
“‘very well,’ say i, ‘with all my heart; then i’ll look to the bunt.’
“just at that time there came on a squall with rain, which almost blinded us; the sail was taken in very neatly, the clew-lines, chock-a-block, bunt-lines and leech-lines well up, reef-tackles overhauled, rolling-tackles taut, and all as it should be. the men lied out on the yard, the squall wore worse and worse, but they were handing in the leech of the sail, when snap went one bunt-line, then the other; the sail flapped and flagged, till away went the leech-lines, and the men clung to the yards for their lives; for the sail mastered them, and they could do nothing. at last it split like thunder, buffeting the men on the yard-arms till they were almost senseless, until to windward it wore away into long coach whips, and the whole of the canvas left was at the lee yard-arm. the men laid in at last with great difficulty, quite worn out by fatigue and clinging for their existence; all but wiggins, who was barred by the sail to leeward from making his footing good on the horse, and there he was, poor fellow, completely in irons, and so beaten by the canvas that he could hardly be said to be sensible. it takes a long while to tell all this, but it wasn’t the work of a minute. at last he made an attempt to get up by the lift, but was struck down, and would have been hurled overboard if it hadn’t been that his leg fell over the horse, and there he was, head downwards, hanging over a raging sea, ready to swallow him up as soon as he dropt into it. as every one expected he would be beat off before any assistance could be given, you may guess that it was an awful moment to those below who were looking up at him, watching for his fall and the roll of the ship, to see if he fell clear into the sea, or was dashed to pieces in the fore-chains.
“i couldn’t bear to see a fellow-creature, and good seaman in the bargain, in that state, and although the captain dare not order any one to help him, yet there were one or two midshipmen hastening up the fore-rigging, with the intent, i have no doubt, of trying to save him (for midshipmen don’t value their lives at a quid of tobacco), so i seizes the studding sail halyards, and runs up the topmast rigging, intending to go down by the lift, and pass a bowling knot round him before he fell, when who should i meet at the cross-trees but tom herbert, who snatched the rope out of my hand, bawling to me through the gale, ‘this is my business, tom.’
“down he goes by the lift, the remainder of the canvas flapped over him, and i seed no more until i heard a cry from all below, and away went herbert and wiggins, both together, flying to leeward just as the ship was taking her recovery to windward. fortunately they both fell clear of the ship about two feet, not more, and as their fall was expected, they had prepared below. a master’s mate, of the name of simmonds, and the captain of the forecastle, both went overboard in bowling knots, with another in their hands, and in a minute or two they were all four on board again; but herbert and were both senseless, and a long while coming to again. well, now, what do you think was the upshot of it? why, they were the best friends in the world ever afterwards, and would have died for one another; and if one had a glass of grog from the officers for any little job, instead of touching his forelock and drinking it off to the officer’s health, he always took it out of the gun-room, that he might give half of it to the other. so, d’ye see my boys, as i said before i began my yarn, that danger makes friends.
“’tis said we vent’rous die hard,
when we leave the shore,
our friends may mourn, lest we return
to bless their sight no more.
but this is all a notion
bold jack can’t understand;
some die upon the ocean.
and some die upon dry land.”
“and if we had tumbled, father, we should have just died betwixt and between, not water enough to float us. it would have been woolez wous parlez wous, plump in the mud, as you say sometimes.”
“why, yes, tom. i’ve a notion that i should have been planted too deep ever to have struck,” replied the old man, looking at his wooden stumps.
“why, yes, father, legs are legs, when you tumble into six foot of mud. how you would have dibbled down, if your daddles hadn’t held on.”
“well then, tom, recollect that you never sell your father for a lark again.”
tom laughed, and catching at the word, although used in a different sense, sung—
“just like the lark high poised in air.
“and so were you, father, only you didn’t sing as he does, and you didn’t leave your young one below in the nest.”
“ay, it is the young uns which prevent the old ones from rising in the world—that’s very true, tom. holla, who have we got here? my service to you, at all events.”
