no. ii.—to mister john carnaby, number 49, polyanthus place, mile end, london.
dear brother,
this is to acknowledge the favour of your family letter with enclosures, which came to hand as pleasant and welcome as a 4-inch shell, that is no great treat of itself, and discharges a worse lot of botheration from its inside. between both i got as port royal a headache as a man need desire from a bottle of new rum, for which, as it’s not unbrotherly to swear at a nevy,
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“dear bob” and his school be d—d. as to my not answering letters, i always do, provided they are either saucy or challenging; in which case, like answering a broadside, it’s a point of duty and honour to return as good as you get;—but for swopping sweet civil lollipop letters, lick for lick, it’s more than i would do with any female alive, let alone a man. and when yours are not lollipopping, they’re snivelling, or else both together, as the case is now. however blood’s blood: and so for once i will commit what you want, rather than accept your invite, and go up to help you and that old dry red cow, mother rumsey, to chew the cud of the matter all over again by word of mouth. as for harrowing up my feelings, or ploughing them up either, thank my stars it’s a stiffer soil than that comes to. why, my feelings are as tough—and not without need—as a bull-beef steak fresh killed, and take quite as much pitching into before they’re as tender as you suppose. likely it is, that a man who has rammed his head, as i have in africa, into a stuck camel for a secondhand swig at his cistern, would come within sixty degrees of the notion of pitying a lubberly school-boy for having as much as ever he could swill of sour swipes! then for bad food, the stinkingest beef i ever met with was none to be had, good or bad, except the smell of the empty barrel. that’s something like what you call being pincht in my fud; and so it was i reckon when i gave my watch, and a good seven shilling piece besides, for about a pound of pork cartridges. so i’m not going to pipe my eye at dear bob’s short commons neither. it’s all very well for pap-boating mothers to admire fat babbies while they’re on the lap; but the whole human breed would be spoiled, if mother nature did not unspoil it again by sending us now and then to the school of adversity, without a knife and fork and a spoon. i came in for a quarter’s learning there myself, in the desart as aforesaid, and one of the lessons i learnt was from the ostriches; namely, when you
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can’t get a regular cargo of food, you must go in ballast with old shoes, leather caps, or any other odd matters you can pick up. there’s nothing in life like bringing chaps up hardy, if they’re to stand the hammering we’re all born to, provided we are born alive. i once heard a clever yankee arguing to the same point. “rear up your lads,” says he, “like nails; and then they’ll not only go through the world, but you may clench ’em on t’other side.” and for my part, if i was a father, which thank god i am not, to my knowledge, i would mark down a week of banyan days to every month in the almanack, just to accustom the youngsters to take in and let out their bread bags, till it came natural; like the laps and esquimaux, who spend their lives in a feast and a fast, turn and turn about, whereby their insides get as elastic as india rubber, and accommodate themselves to their loading, chock full or clean, as falls out. i’ve known the time i would have given all my prize-money for a set of linings of the same conveniency, as when it was coming to the toss-up of a cowry whether i was to eat tom pike, or tom pike was to eat me. just read the north pole voyages, and you will see that pampering bellies is not the exact course to make captain backs. so for all that’s been made on that tack, hitherto, you owe nothing but a higher rating to doctor darby, provided there’s any step above doctor in his service; i’ll even go so far as stand my share towards a bit of plate to him, for not making my nevy a loblolly milk-sop. that’s my notion about hard fare. to be sure there was mother brownrigg was hung for going a little too near the wind in her ‘prentices’ insides; but if the balance was squared, a few of the other old women would be run up to the yard-arm, for slow poisoning the rising generation with sugar-plum cakes and kickshaw tarts. and that your dear bob has got a rare sweet tooth of his own is as plain as the pike of teneriffe, for it sticks out like a barbary wild boar’s tusks all through his precious complaints.
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whereby you had better clap a stopper on in time, unless mayhap you want him to grow up in the fashion, which seems now-a-days for our young men to know, and think, and talk, aye and write too, about kitchen craft,—with their pully olays and volley vongs—as if they was so many cook’s mates at a french hotel. there’s no disputing likings, but rather than be such a macaroni dishclout dandy, as delicate as a lap-dog, i’d be a turnspit’s whelp at once, and sit up on my hind legs a-begging for the sop in the pan. now if you’re for his being one of those unabled-bodied objects of creation, i’ve no more to say; for you have got the right bearings, and have only to stand on till you bring dear bob and molly coddle into one. but if so be on the contrary you have gumption enough to want to claw off that point, then down helm at once, and cut mother
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rumsey adrift, plum cakes and all. i’ve long had on my mind to drop you a word of advice against that old catamaran, who knows fast enough that two bears’ heads are never so likely to rub together as when they’re a-licking the same cub. by the cub i mean my nevy, and the two old ones are you and mother r. besides it’s been my observation through life. many’s the young man and woman will live for years together in the same house, or make the india voyage together in the same ship, without hooking on, or even coming in sight of such a notion; but neither i, nor anybody else, ever saw two old ones, he and she, in the like case, without their coming at long and at last to a splice in church. so it is with an old cat and dog, that while they had a tooth in their heads could hardly abide in the same parish, whereas when they get on the superannuated list, you will see them as thick as thieves, and messing together in the same dish. the philosophy of it is more than i pretend to know, unless it be they’re past fighting, and fit for no active sort of work;—but so it is, as sure as the sea is salt. you had best then part company at once, if you don’t want to see dear bob mast-headed up to the back garret, or cooped down in the coal-cellar, on monkey’s allowance; such being the first steps a stepmother always takes in any story-book i ever read. i’m for my nevy having fair-play after all. so as i’ve subscribed to the bit of plate to dr. darby for case-hardening the fellow’s carcass, you may set me down towards the spitefullest boatswain’s cat that ever was handled, in case it turns out he has neglected the boy’s mind. i’ve seen a man seized up for a much smaller offence than crimping and inveigling a long hundred of lads at a time to a sham abram school, and swindling them out of the best part of the property about them, namely their juvenile time. it is only a streak above kidnapping, seeing that for any profit in learning the youngsters might as well spend their best years in the plantations. not but that parents de
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serve a cobbing themselves for putting a boy under a master without asking to look at his certificates. as for the latin and greek, mayhap they’re no loss to take on about. the dead and gone tongues for a tradesman’s son, that’s going behind a counter, is much of a muchness with fitting up a newcastle collier’s cabin after the pattern of a leith smack’s; only that the gilding and polishing may be grimed and grubbed off again in the course of trade. still, considering they were paid for as work done, in common honesty my nevy ought to have had them put in his head; or at least something in lieu, such as navigation or the like. his own mother tongue is quite a different matter; and thereupon i’ll give you my mind, upright and downright, of the two school-letters. to be sure the doctor likes weight of metal, and fires away with the high-soundingest words he can get, whereby his meaning is apt to loom bigger than it is, like a fishing-boat in a fog; and where there’s such a ground swell of language, a seaman is apt to think there’s no great depth of ideas; but bating that, there’s nothing to shake a rope’s end at, but quite the reverse, especially as to teaching the youngsters to give three cheers for their king and country. now, dear bob’s letter-work on the other hand, with its complaints of hard fare, is only fit to be sung by a snivelling swiss beggar boy to his hurdy gurdy; besides many a chafe in the grammar and orthography, and being writ in such a scrambling up and down fist as a drunken purser might scrawl in a gale of wind. now it’s my opinion a landsman that hasn’t his hands made as hard as horn with hauling home sheets nor his fingers as stiff and sticky as pitch can make ’em, has it in his power to write as fine penmanship as copperplate except for the want of good will. so that the fault may be set down to my nevy’s own account, and mayhap many of the rest, for no doubt there are skulkers at school as well as on board ship. my advice then is this, namely, just throw a shot across dr. darby’s forefoot, to let him
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know you mean to overhaul him, and demand a sight of the school log, and so forth; by which you will have satisfaction one way or another; and putting the case he has gone to leeward of his duty, why, then come hammer and tongs, and blaze away at him to your heart’s content. the next step in course will be to take my nevy from under his orders, and find him a berth in a well officered ship; and i am ready so far to do an uncle’s part by the lad, as help to look out for a proper well-appointed craft. that’s my advice whether you steer by it or not—and so no more at present, and not sorry to belay—from
dear john, your loving brother,
ben carnaby.
