Фредерик Марриет
Jacob Faithful
Chapter Eleven
Much learning Afloat—Young Tom is very Lively upon the Dead Languages—The Dominie, after experiencing the Wonders of the Mighty Deep, prepares to revel upon Lobscouse—Though the Man of Learning gets Many Songs and some Yarns from Old Tom, he loses the Best Part of a Tale without knowing it
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.”
Chapter Twelve
Is a chapter of tales in a double sense—The Dominie, from the natural effects of his single-heartedness, begins to see double—A new definition of philosophy, with an episode on jealousy
We now took our seats on the deck, round the saucepan, for we did not trouble ourselves with dishes, and the Dominie appeared to enjoy the lobscouse very much. In the course of half-an-hour all was over; that is to say, we had eaten as much as we wished; and the Newfoundland dog, who, during our repast, lay close by young Tom, flapping the deck with his tail, and sniffing the savoury smell of the compound, had just licked all our plates quite clean, and was now finishing with his head in the saucepan; while Tom was busy carrying the crockery into the cabin, and bringing out the bottle and tin pannikins, ready for the promised carouse.
“There, now, master, there’s a glass o’ grog for you that would float a marline-spike. See if that don’t warm the cockles of your old heart.”
“Ay,” added Tom, “and set all your muscles as taut as weather backstays.”
“Master Tom, with your leave, I’ll mix your grog for you myself. Hand me back that bottle, you rascal.”
“Just as you please, father,” replied Tom, handing the bottle; “but recollect, none of your water bewitched. Only help me as you love me.”
Old Tom mixed a pannikin of grog for Tom, and another for himself. I hardly need say which was the stiffer of the two.
“Well, father, I suppose you think the grog will run short. To be sure, one bottle aren’t too much ’mong four of us.”
“One bottle, you scamp! there’s another in the cupboard.”
“Then you must see double already, father.”
Old Tom, who was startled at this news, and who imagined that Tom must have gained possession of the other bottle, jumped up and made for the cupboard, to ascertain whether what Tom asserted was correct. This was what Tom wished; he immediately changed pannikins of grog with his father, and remained quiet.
“There is another bottle, Tom,” said his father, coming out and taking his seat again. “I knew there was. You young rascal, you don’t know how you frightened me!” And old Tom put the pannikin to his lips. “Drowned the miller, by heavens!” said he, “What could I have been about?” ejaculated he, adding more spirit to his mixture.
“I suppose, upon the strength of another bottle in the locker, you are doubling the strength of your grog. Come, father,” and Tom held out his pannikin, “do put a little drop in mine—it’s seven-water grog, and I’m not on the black-list.”
“No, no, Tom; your next shall be stronger. Well, master, how do you like your liquor?”
“Verily,” replied the Dominie, “it is a pleasant and seducing liquor. Lo and behold! I am at the bottom of my utensil.”
“Stop till I fill it up again, old gentleman. I see you are one of the right sort. You know what the song says—
“A plague on those musty old lubbers,
Who tell us to fast and to think,
And patient fall in with life’s rubbers,
With nothing but water to drink!
“Water, indeed! The only use of water I know is to mix your grog with, and float vessels up and down the world. Why was the sea made salt, but to prevent our drinking too much water. Water, indeed!
“A can of good grog, had they swigg’d it,
T’would have set them for pleasure agog,
And in spite of the rules
Of the schools,
The old fools
Would have all of them swigg’d it,
And swore there was nothing like grog.”
“I’m exactly of your opinion, father,” said Tom, holding out his empty pannikin.
“Always ready for two things, Master Tom—grog and mischief; but, however, you shall have one more dose.”
“It hath, then, medicinal virtues?” inquired the Dominie.
“Ay, that it has, master—more than all the quacking medicines in the world. It cures grief and melancholy, and prevents spirits from getting low.”
“I doubt that, father,” cried Tom, holding up the bottle “for the more grog we drink, the more the spirits become low.”
Cluck, cluck, came from the thorax of the Dominie. “Verily, friend Tom, it appeareth, among other virtues, to sharpen the wits. Proceed, friend Dux, in the medicinal virtues of grog.”
“Well, master, it cures love when it’s not returned, and adds to it when it is. I’ve heard say it will cure jealousy; but that I’ve my doubts of. Now I think on it, I will tell you a yarn about a jealous match between a couple of fools. Jacob, aren’t your pannikin empty, my boy?”
“Yes,” replied I, handing it up to be filled. It was empty, for, not being very fond of it myself, Tom, with my permission, had drunk it as well as his own.
“There, Jacob, is a good dose for you; you aren’t always craving after it, like Tom.”
“He isn’t troubled with low spirits, as I am, father.”
“How long has that been your complaint, Tom?” inquired I.
“Ever since I heard how to cure it. Come, father, give us the yarn.”
“Well, then, you must mind that an old shipmate o’ mine, Ben Leader, had a wife named Poll, a pretty sort of craft in her way—neat in her rigging, swelling-bows, taking sort of figure-head, and devilish well rounded in the counter; altogether, she was a very fancy girl, and all the men were after her. She’d a roguish eye, and liked to be stared at, as most pretty women do, because it flatters their vanities. Now, although she liked to be noticed so far by the other chaps, yet Ben was the only one she ever wished to be handled by; it was ‘Paws off, Pompey!’ with all the rest. Ben Leader was a good-looking, active, smart chap, and could foot it in a reel, or take a bout at single-stick with the very best o’ them; and she was mortal fond of him, and mortal jealous if he talked to any other woman, for the women liked Ben as much as the men liked she. Well, as they returned love for love, so did they return jealousy for jealousy; and the lads and lasses, seeing that, had a pleasure in making them come to a misunderstanding. So every day it became worse and worse between them. Now, I always says that it’s a stupid thing to be jealous, ’cause if there be cause, there be no cause for love and if there be no cause, there be no cause for jealousy.”
“You’re like a row in a rookery, father—nothing but caws,” interrupted Tom.
“Well, I suppose I am; but that’s what I call chop logic—aren’t it, master?”
“It was a syllogism,” replied the Dominie, taking the pannikin from his mouth.
“I don’t know what that is, nor do I want to know,” replied old Tom; “so I’ll just go on with my story. Well, at last they came to downright fighting. Ben licks Poll ’cause she talked and laughed with other men, and Poll cries and whines all day ’cause he won’t sit on her knee, instead of going on board and ’tending to his duty. Well, one night, a’ter work was over, Ben goes on shore to the house where he and Poll used to sleep; and when he sees the girl in the bar, he says, ‘Where is Poll?’ Now, the girl at the bar was a fresh-comer, and answers, ‘What girl?’ So Ben describes her, and the bar-girl answers, ‘She be just gone to bed with her husband, I suppose;’ for, you see, there was a woman like her who had gone up to her bed, sure enough. When Ben heard that, he gave his trousers one hitch, and calls for a quartern, drinks it off with a sigh, and leaves the house, believing it all to be true. A’ter Ben was gone, Poll makes her appearance, and when she finds Ben wasn’t in the tap, says, ‘Young woman, did a man go upstairs just now?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the bar-girl, ‘with his wife, I suppose; they be turned in this quarter of an hour.’ When she almost turned mad with rage, and then as white as a sheet, and then she burst into tears, and runs out of the house, crying out, ‘Poor misfortunate creature that I am!’ knocking everything down undersized, and running into the arms of every man who came athwart her hawse.”
“I understood him, but just now, that she was running on foot; yet doth he talk about her horse. Expound, Jacob.”
“It was a nautical figure of speech, sir.”
“Exactly,” rejoined Tom; “it meant her figure-head, old gentleman; but my yarn won’t cut a figure if I’m brought up all standing in this way. Suppose, master, you hear the story first, and understand it a’terwards?”
“I will endeavour to comprehend by the context,” replied the Dominie.
“That is, I suppose, that you’ll allow me to stick to my text. Well, then, here’s coil away again. Ben, you see, what with his jealousy and what with a whole quartern at a draught, became somehow nohow, and he walked down to the jetty with the intention of getting rid of himself, and his wife and all his trouble by giving his soul back to his Creator, and his body to the fishes.”
“Bad philosophy,” quoth the Dominie.
“I agree with you, master,” replied old Tom.
“Pray what sort of a thing is philosophy?” inquired Tom.
“Philosophy,” replied old Tom, “is either hanging, drowning, shooting yourself, or, in short, getting out of the world without help.”
“Nay,” replied the Dominie, “that is felo de se.”
“Well, I pronounce it quicker than you, master; but it’s one and the same thing: but to go on. While Ben was standing on the jetty, thinking whether he should take one more quid of ’baccy afore he dived, who should come down but Poll, with her hair all adrift, streaming and coach-whipping astern of her, with the same intention as Ben—to commit philo-zoffy. Ben, who was standing at the edge of the jetty, his eyes fixed upon the water, as it eddied among the piles, looking as dismal as if he had swallowed a hearse and six, with the funeral feathers hanging out of his mouth—”
“A bold comparison,” murmured the Dominie.
“Never sees her; and she was so busy with herself, that, although close to him, she never sees he—always remembering that the night was dark. So Poll turned her eyes up, for all the world like a dying jackdaw.”
“Tell me, friend Dux,” interrupted the Dominie, “doth a jackdaw die in any peculiar way?”
“Yes,” replied young Tom; “he always dies black, master.”
“Then doth he die as he liveth. (Cluck, cluck.) Proceed, good Dux.”
“And don’t you break the thread of my yarn any more, master, if you wish to hear the end of it. So Poll begins to bludder about Ben. ‘O Ben, Ben,’ cried she; ‘cruel, cruel man; for to come—for to go;—for to go—for to come!’
“‘Who’s there?’ shouted Ben.
“‘For to come—for to go,’ cried Poll.
“‘Ship ahoy!’ hailed Ben, again.
“‘For to go—for to come,’ blubbered Poll; and then she couldn’t bring out anything more for sobbing. With that, Ben, who thought he knew the voice, walks up to her, and says, ‘Be that you, Poll?’
“‘Be that you, Ben?’ replied Poll, taking her hands from her face, and looking at him.
“‘I thought you were in bed with—with—oh! Poll!’ said Ben.
“‘And I thought you were in bed with—oh! Ben!’ replied Poll.
“‘But I wasn’t, Poll?’
“‘Nor more wasn’t I, Ben.’
“‘And what brought you here, Poll?’
“‘I wanted for to die, Ben. And what brought you here, Ben?’
“‘I didn’t want for to live, Poll, when I thought you false.’
“Then Polly might have answered in the words of the old song, master; but her poor heart was too full, I suppose.” And Tom sang—
“Your Polly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs.
“Howsomever, in the next minute they were both hugging and kissing, sobbing, shivering and shaking in each other’s arms; and as soon as they had settled themselves a little, back they went, arm-in-arm, to the house, and had a good stiff glass to prevent their taking the rheumatism, went to bed, and were cured of their jealously ever a’terwards—which in my opinion, was a much better philo-zoffy than the one they had both been bound on. There, I’ve wound it all off at last, master, and now we’ll fill up our pannikins.”
“Before I consent, friend Dux, pr’ythee inform me how much of this pleasant liquor may be taken without inebriating, vulgo, getting tipsy.”
“Father can drink enough to float a jolly-boat, master,” replied Tom; “so you needn’t fear. I’ll drink pan for pan with you all night long.”
“Indeed you won’t, mister Tom,” replied the father.
“But I will, master.”
I perceived that the liquor had already had some effect upon my worthy pedagogue, and was not willing that he should be persuaded into excess. I therefore pulled him by the coat as a hint; but he was again deep in thought, and he did not heed me. Tired of sitting so long, I got up, and walked forward to look at the cable.
“Strange,” muttered the Dominie, “that Jacob should thus pull me by the garment. What could he mean?”
“Did he pull you, sir?” inquired Tom.
“Yes, many times; and then he walked away.”
“It appears that you have been pulled too much, sir,” replied Tom, appearing to pick up the tail of his coat, which had been torn off by the dog, and handing it to him.
“Eheu! Jacobe—fili dilectissime—quid fecisti?” cried the Dominie, holding up the fragment of his coat with a look of despair.
“‘A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether,’” sang out old Tom: and then looking at Tom, “Now, ain’t you a pretty rascal, master Tom?”
“It is done,” exclaimed the Dominie, with a sigh, putting the fragment into the remaining pocket; “and it cannot be undone.”
“Now, I think it is undone, and can be done, master,” replied Tom. “A needle and thread will soon join the pieces of your old coat again—in holy matrimony, I may safely say—”
“True. (Cluck, cluck.) My housekeeper will restore it; yet will she be wroth, ‘Feminae curaeque iraeque;’ but let us think no more about it,” cried the Dominie, drinking deeply from his pannikin, and each minute verging fast to intoxication. “‘Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.’ I feel as if I were lifted up, and could dance, yea, and could exalt my voice and sing.”
“Could you, my jolly old master? then we will both dance and sing—
“Come, let us dance and sing,
While all Barbadoes bells shall ring,
Mars scrapes the fiddle string
While Venus plays the lute.
Hymen gay, trips away,
Jocund at the wedding day.
“Now for chorus—
“Come, let us dance and sing.”
