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 X 
 
 lUFFE ASON,LITH VICAR UNE, COVENTRY, « LONDON. 
 
Gift of C. A. Kofoid 
 
THE 
 
 QF THE WflNDEROO; 
 
 OR 
 
 FRIDAY NIGHTS AT SEA. 
 
 BY 
 
 GORDON [stables, CM., M.D. 
 
 (SURGEO}^ ROYAL NA VY), 
 
 Author of " Ths Cruise of the Snowbird," " From Pole to Pole," 
 
 " O'er Many Lands, on Many Seas," " Stanley Graham, 
 
 A Tale of the Dark Continent," etc. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ILIFFE & SON, 3, ST. BRIDE STREET, 
 
 LUDGATE CIRCUS. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 ILIFFE AND SON, 3, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.G. 
 
 WORKS : COVENTRY 
 
955 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 To F. W. ROBINSON, Esq. 
 
 (Novelist, etc., etc.) 
 
 TRUE, my good friend Fred, the annual hamper — 
 huge in dimensions, and filled with moorcock, 
 hare, and grouse — did not reach your residence 
 this year from my Highland home at Dalbooie. Cir- 
 cumstances beyond the pale of my control combined 
 to prevent my wandering through the blooming heather 
 on the glorious 12th; and any game my ghillie had 
 slain would not — I feel certain — have possessed, in your 
 estimation, so high a value as those which flutter 
 groundward to my unerring gun. 
 
 But believe me, friend, my disappointment was quite 
 as poignant as your own. For a time 1 was incon- 
 solable, till I bethought me of a pathway to lead me 
 out and away from the labyrinth of my sorrows. 
 
 ^^Haheo! Hahehit ! ^' I cried at the breakfast-table 
 one morning. I likewise shouted " Eureka ! I will 
 dedicate to F. W. Robinson my new book of instructive 
 and moral yarns." 
 
 " Will he care for it ? " queried my wife, tentatively. 
 
 " Care for it, my dear ! " I ejaculated. " Why, I've 
 often heard Fred say that, next to the man who sends 
 him a hamper of game, he reveres the thoughtful soul 
 who posts him a joke." 
 
 S 
 
Dedication. 
 
 So now, my friend, the thing is done. The little 
 modest volume is written, printed, published. Would, 
 however, it were better done ! Would, for your sake, 
 every page of it were fringed with smiles ; that my wit 
 could scintillate like that of a Jerrold ; that my pen 
 could coruscate like the lightning-tipped tongue of a 
 Sheridan. It mought not be ! -Still, I have comfort in 
 remembering that you are about the last man in the 
 world to " look a gift horse in the mouth." 
 
 "A book of nonsense yarns! " you'll say, when you 
 read them. Right. But nonsense makes one laugh, 
 and to laugh is to live. They say that at forty a man 
 must either be a fool or a physician. Can you conceive, 
 of a man being both ? A man seated, pen in hand, 
 arrayed in the crimson-hooded toga of the M.D., sur- 
 mounted by cap and bells ? While spinning these moral 
 yarns, so sat I. 
 
 Says Burns : — 
 
 " Some books are lies frae end to end, 
 In some, big lies are never penned." 
 
 My present "bookie" belongs to the latter class, and 
 you will be struck with the air of truthfulness that per- 
 vades every page. It is, in fact, a collection of facts ; 
 not ordinary facts, mind you, but true facts. And if 
 all the yarns are not equally instructive and impressive 
 
 what then ? Why, as our Scotch surgeon used to 
 
 say, when ladling out the soup—" Ye maun tak' the 
 thick wi' the thin." 
 Good-bye, Fred. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I.— The Anchor's Weighed 9 
 
 II.— Sea-pie Night— A Song and a Yarn by the 
 
 Galley Fire .. .. •• •• •• ^5 
 
 III. — My Bachelorhood and Wii\t Came of It . . 21 
 I.— Written a Month before Christmas. 
 II. — Written a Month after Christmas. 
 III. — Written in Bed. 
 
 lY. — The Widow's Bonanza— A Love Yarn. . . . 36 
 
 I. — In a Log Hut. 
 
 ij._Roddy's Red Hair, and What Came Over It. 
 III. — Where the Love Comes In. 
 
 v. — A Twig or Two from my Family Tree . . . . 52 
 
 VI._Clever Idiots— The Scotch Engineer's True 
 
 Story . . . . • • • • • • • • 57 
 
 VIL— The Mate Spins A Yarn 73 
 
 Vin.— The Black Men's Ball, and What It Led To 79 
 
 ]X.— The Captain Tells a Few Smuggling Yarns .. 91 
 X.— Dr. Dibson Again— The Curious Case of Jones 
 
 Pkre 99 
 
 XI.— The Inn OF THE Jolly Tapsters 107 
 
 XII. — Drawing the Long Bow 120 
 
 XIII.— I Read a Paper 122 
 
 XIV.— Wagga-Wagga 133 
 
 XV.— That Skye Terrier— A Burlesque .. .. 135 
 
 XVI.— The Doctor Spins Again— Our Mad Surgeon 140 
 
 XVIL- One More Yarn from the Jolly Tapsters ,. 144 
 
THE CRUISE OF THE "WANDEROO;" 
 
 OR, 
 
 FRIDAY NIGHTS AT SEA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ANCHOR'S WEIGHED. 
 
 *'XF there be any happiness to be found at sea, I believe 
 I I am bound to have a taste of it this time." 
 A That is what I said to myself as I stood leaning over 
 the bulwarks, and gazing shorevvards, on the morning 
 after the day on which I had joined the Wanderoo. I 
 had no very special object in gazing shorewards. I 
 wasn't married then, and had, therefore, no weeping wife 
 to leave behind me ; and I wasn't in love, at least not 
 much more than sailors usually are. To be sure, there 
 was bewitching Barbara B., and saucy-eyed Adeline C, 
 and the dear girls I was wont to waltz with at the nightly 
 hop, and poor Carry L., the gentle wee actress who said 
 
 but there, never mind what she said ; hadn't I got to 
 
 sail in three days' time ? and wouldn't they all forget me 
 in three weeks at furthest ? Of course they would. So 
 I gazed shoreward simply from habit. I was born on 
 shore ; and besides, it was a lovely morning. We were 
 lying inside the Plymouth breakwater. The water be- 
 tween us and the shore was all a-ripple with a westerly 
 breeze, and all a-sparkle with the May sunshine. Boats 
 were passing to and fro, and, quite regardless of their 
 
 B 
 
lo The Cruise of the " JVauderoo.'" 
 
 presence, big shells were being hurtled over them at the 
 target beyond. There would be just one puff of white 
 smoke from the wall of the fort on the right, then the 
 roar of the gun, then the dull thud near the target, if a 
 shell ; or if a shot, you could mark its further progress by 
 the flecks of foam it raised as it went ricochetting away 
 and away and away, till it sank at last in the depths of 
 the sea. 
 
 In yonder, slightly to the left, is a stone fort, bristling 
 with guns. It hugs the foreshore, crouching in under 
 the green hills, like a tiger about to spring on its prey. 
 Pity the enemy's ship those deadly guns are ever brought 
 to bear upon. Beyond are the bonny wooded braes of 
 Mount Edgecumbe ; but all the rough lines of the hills 
 and forts and distant steeples are rounded off and 
 softened by a dreamy haze, partly mist and partly smoke, 
 that the sun will make 'short work with as soon as he 
 gets over the foreyard. 
 
 And what were we, and whither were we bound ? 
 
 These questions may be very briefly answered. 
 
 We were a little steam yacht, or, rather, a craft of 
 some three hundred tons that we had bought and made 
 a yacht of. 
 
 We had a monkey for a figure-head, and we duly and 
 with great ceremony baptised the vessel 
 
 " THE WANDEROO." 
 
 We were bound for the Arctic regions in search of 
 sport, and probably adventure, our crew, all told, being 
 about forty-five. 
 
 Most of our fellows hailed from Hull, Dundee, or 
 Aberdeen, and every man Jack had been in Polar regions 
 before ; we were therefore good icemen. 
 
 Aft, we were in our little mess, six souls in all, that is 
 allowing the big Newfoundland dog Nero to have a soul, 
 which I feel sure he had. 
 
 There was Harry Smartie, our mate, who had been 
 
 everywhere and done everything. A tall, dashing Yankee, 
 
 but a man who, though possessed of a deal of dry 
 
 humour, did not speak through his nose, as the untravelled 
 
 Saxon imagines all American men do. 
 
The Anchor s Wci";hcd. ii 
 
 '^ 
 
 Duncan Douglas, our Scotch engineer, brown-faced, 
 big-bearded, quiet, but jolly in the extreme. 
 
 Dr. Dibson, also a right good fellow, who had seen 
 service in the Royal Navy, and was profoundly learned, so 
 that, good though his yarns were, he was apt to prelude 
 them with a kind of introductory lecture. 
 
 Our captain, Ben Crisp, and my humble self, of whom 
 the least said the soonest mended. 
 
 But the captain was a bit of a character. An old Navy 
 man he was, who had joined the merchant service during 
 the Crimean War. 
 
 He confessed to being fifty. That in itself was good 
 proof of his honesty ; for had he said to you, *' I'm not a 
 day over forty, lad," and had you looked into that calm, 
 clear eye of his, had you marked the rose tints of health 
 that mantled over cheeks and brow, and winced under 
 the grip of his steel hard hand, you would have returned 
 the pressure of the latter to the best of your ability, and 
 promptly made answer thus, " I believe you, my boy ; 
 I believe you." 
 
 Not a tall man was the tar of our tale, Captain 
 Benjamin Crisp, yet he gave you the idea of such, for 
 his was a powerful frame. Talk about limbs ! see Ben's 
 — see the lower masts of an old seventy-four. A chest ? 
 Ben's was tough and hard as the winch you heave the 
 anchor with ; and Ben's biceps — aye, that was a biceps 
 and no mistake about it ; had you felt it, you would at 
 once have said : " Biceps be hanged ! that ain't a biceps ; 
 Ben, my boy, you don't gammon me. It's one of the 
 ship's blocks you've got stowed up your sleeve. There ! " 
 
 And Ben would have smiled and looked pleased, and 
 probably proceeded forthwith to light his short clay. His 
 smile, indeed, was one of the pleasantest ever you saw. 
 It lit up his whole face, as the sun lights up the morning 
 clouds. You were constrained to smile with him, or even 
 to laugh, for you felt on good terms with yourself at 
 once. There was altogether a breezy manner about 
 Ben, born, one would think, of the fresh free air he had 
 breathed so long ; born of the ozonic ocean itself, for 
 Ben was redolent of the sea. Dressed ? Why, as most 
 
12 Tlic Cruise of flie '' IVaiideroo.'' 
 
 master-mariners dress on shore — broad-cloth coat, broad- 
 cloth everything, and the everlasting upright hat ; but if 
 Ben thought to impose upon anyone by this rig of his, 
 and to pass himself off as a genuine landsman, he was 
 very much mistaken indeed. For in your imagination, 
 wherever you had met him thus encased, you couldn't 
 have helped divesting him on the spot of every stitch he 
 wore. Nay, but avast ! for a moment, we will not have 
 the good Ben stripped to the skin and left to shiver ; for, 
 I say, while with one flash of the imagination you would 
 have deprived him of all his shore-going toggery, with 
 the next you would have topped him with a brave sou'- 
 wester, rigged him out in P. -jacket and C. -boots, and 
 supposed him far away on the broad bosom of the 
 Atlantic, steadily tramping up and down on the weather 
 side of his own well-caulked quarter-deck. 
 
 Such was Ben at his best. Such was Ben as I 
 remember meeting him one afternoon on the Paddington 
 platform. He had just returned from the far-off Indies, 
 and looked the quintessence of blooming health and 
 jollity. I had no business even to have asked how he 
 was, and might have expected the answer that came 
 straight at my head like a fifty-six pound shot. 
 
 " How am I ? " said bold Ben ; " how am I ? how do 
 I look ? " 
 
 Ben had a clear, manly, ringing voice, one that could 
 be heard, aye, and had been heard, high over the raging 
 wmd on many a stormy night at sea. But it wasn't an 
 unpleasant voice, nor a grating voice. He did not speak 
 as though his gullet were lined with emery paper and his 
 head in a bucket of water, as some old sailors do. Per- 
 haps the cigars he smoked had something to do with the 
 matter. Ah ! they were rare bits o' 'baccy, I can tell ye. 
 Wherever he got them I can't make out, but there they 
 were, as thick as the neck of a quart bottle, as smooth 
 and brown as a horse chestnut or polished cedar, pearly 
 in ash and pleasant in perfume, not a day too old, not a 
 day too new. Let you be ever so cynical or ever so 
 churlish, 3^ou couldn't have smoked one of Ben's cigars 
 for half a minute without feeling at peace with the whole 
 
The Anchor's WcigJicd. 13 
 
 world, and content with your lot ; so content, indeed, 
 that were Salisbur}^ to ask you to chanije places with 
 the Prince of Wales, you could only reply, " Well, I'll 
 think over it, Sal., and let you know." 
 
 Ben was a thorough sailor. Alas ! there are few like 
 him left. 
 
 Well found in every way were we, with a fair 
 allowance of coals, which, however, we determined not 
 to use except when obliged to. We would always sail 
 when wind and weather permitted. 
 
 We started on our memorable cruise in the month of 
 March, 187 — , and early on a blustering morning. I ran 
 on deck to look at the weather, just pausing a second on 
 the main or fighting deck to glance at a Fitzroy baro- 
 meter. The mercury was low and concave. 
 
 I could hear the wind, before my head was on a level 
 with the quarter-deck. It was blowing up Channel, and 
 blowing big guns too, not to say Woolwich Infants. It 
 was making harp-strings of our wire-rigging, and " how- 
 thering'' through it with the roar of a cataract after 
 a " spate." It seemed trying to twist our very royal 
 masts ; but they refused to yield, although the vessel 
 herself jerked angrily about, and pulled viciously at her 
 moorings, as if longing to be free. There were occa- 
 sional blinks of sunshine between the squalls, and 
 occasional glimpses of a blue sky ; but the clouds were 
 banked along the horizon to windward, like rocks of 
 quartz on top, but black and threatening beneath. 
 
 Dark smoke was escaping from the funnel, cut flat oft 
 ere it could rise an inch above it, and rapidly swirled 
 away to leeward. 
 
 I knew very well we were going to have a rough day 
 of it, followed, in all probability, by a dirty night. The 
 prospect was not a pleasing one ; for sailors like to leave 
 their native land in fine weather, though rolling home is 
 rather agreeable than otherwise. 
 
 Two hours later, it was blowing about half a gale of 
 wind — what most landsmen w^ould call a hurricane ; but, 
 nevertheless, the Wanderoo was steaming seawards 
 past the breakwater, right in the teeth of it. Captain 
 
14 The Cruise of the '' Wauderoo.''' 
 
 Ben Crisp was too good a sailor to be daunted by a 
 puff of wind. 
 
 The Wanderoo looked as though she meant to behave 
 splendidly. She met the seas half-way, seemed in fact 
 to leap at them, over them, and into them ; the foam 
 went feathering up as high as the funnel, and the white 
 spray fell in bucketfuls on the quarter-deck. Heavy as 
 the seas undoubtedly were that she had to contend with, 
 there was no sensation under our feet as we walked up 
 and down that her way was stopped for a single moment, 
 nor did she shake or shiver like an old clothes-basket, 
 nor ship tons of solid green water as some lubberly tubs 
 would have done under like circumstances. Oh, no, the 
 Wanderoo was a grand tight wee craft ; solid and yet 
 elastic ; proud and defiant, yet answering to a touch ; a 
 veritable little heart-of-oak. 
 
 I knew all this two hours after we had passed the 
 breakwater, and felt happy and light-hearted in conse- 
 quence. 
 
 And the men soon knew it also, for having to go 
 forward in the evening, although the night was closing 
 in around us in darkness and storm, I could hear — high 
 over the roaring of the wind and the rushing noise of 
 breaking waves — our good fellows singing as sailors only 
 sing when they are pleased with their ship. 
 
 For four days we steamed steadily on, and found our- 
 selves well past the Shetlands by the fifth. 
 
 Then came a fair wind, and fires were let down and 
 out. 
 
 We had begun our voyage in earnest, and all hands 
 fore and aft seemed already at home. 
 
 The long voyage towards the Pole I do not mean to 
 describe. Suffice it to say that, just three weeks after 
 sailing, we found ourselves "beset," frozen in hard and 
 fast near the northern shores of the wild and rugged isle 
 of Jan Mayen — and it was during a long imprisonment 
 here that the happy thought occurred to us to beguile 
 the monotony of our existence by eating sea-pie, singing 
 sea-songs, and spinning yarns. 
 
A Song and a Yarn by the Galley Fire. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SEA-PIE NIGHT— A SONG AND A YARN BY THE GALLEY FIRE. 
 
 THERE were choice spirits forward, who of an 
 evening — if evening we dare call it, with the cold 
 sun shining in the blue sky — surrounded the galley 
 fire, and it was no uncommon thing for the doctor, the 
 engineer, or myself to find our way to half-deck or 
 steerage, and listen to the songs and fun and yarns. 
 
 Teddy Welcome was one of these, and probably it was 
 he who first suggested to the minds of us officers the idea 
 of beguiling the time by an occasional story or song before 
 turning in. 
 
 It was on that same Friday night — sea-pie night — 
 when we had made the ice. 
 
 Teddy was in full swing this evening. They had been 
 dancmg till tired after supper, and now they were yarning. 
 " Give us a song," cried Teddy to McFarlane, who held 
 the double capacity of carpenter and ship's fiddler. 
 
 " One of my own, then, if you'll have it." 
 
 *' Hurrah !" cried everybody. And to the fine old air 
 of "The Auld Scotch Sangs," McFarlane sang as 
 follows : 
 
 My Luntin'* Pipe. 
 
 My pipe, my pipe, my guid clay pipe, 
 
 What though you're short and black ? 
 Thy soothing fumes can sorrow kill. 
 
 And gladness bring me back. 
 For I am auld, my bluid rins cauld, 
 
 My days are wearin' through, 
 Nae joy is left me now in life. 
 
 My luntin' pipe, but you. 
 
 '' Reeking. 
 
i6 The Cruise of tlie '' Waiidcvoor 
 
 But mem'ry, in those clouds o" blue, 
 
 Can former times restore, 
 My mither's cot, the rowan tree 
 
 That grew beside the door, 
 The heather bloom, the gowden broom 
 
 That blossomed on the lea. 
 And wild wood green, and rippling stream, 
 
 Ilk' scene comes back to me. 
 
 See yonder stands the wee bit kirk, 
 
 Wi' steeple w^hite and high, 
 That points the way, like angel hand, 
 
 To realms beyond the sky ; 
 My Mary, though you've left me here, 
 
 Thy sweet face still I see : 
 It's painted in the wreathin' smoke, 
 
 My luntin' pipe, by thee. 
 
 Dear solace o' my early years 
 
 And life in every stage, 
 Thy fragrant breath a halo throws 
 
 Around the brow of age. 
 Though fickle fortune on me frown 
 
 Till death has closed my ee, 
 The fate I'll bliss that leaves me tJiis, 
 
 My luntin' pipe, wi' thee. 
 
 "Thank ye, Scottie," said Teddy ; "and if there was 
 a drop more in the bottle, it's your health and song I'd 
 be drinking this moment." 
 
 "Well," said Mac, "I think it's your turn noo, and 
 the company look towards ye." 
 
 " It's sorra the bit av music that is in me, but I'll spin 
 you a bit av a yarn." 
 
 " Good. Heave round, Teddy." 
 
 For all felt sure the merry wee Irishman had some 
 kind of tale to tell. The men's pipes were all in full 
 blast, and they looked in that stage of dream}^ comfort 
 in which one would rather listen to a story than talk. 
 
 " Av course," said Teddy, "it is the rale truth I'll be 
 after telling." 
 
 " Of course, of course. Heave round, then." 
 
 " It was the morsel av dead pig in the fire, sure 
 enough, that put me in mind av it," said Teddy. " It's 
 many a long year now since I sailed on the ould * Sted- 
 fast,' as purty a little craft as ever sail or eye was clapped 
 
A Song (lud ii Yarn by the Galley Fire. ij 
 
 upon, and her figure-head was the picture of the captain's 
 wife — bless her soul, for she's dead and gone. We made 
 the counthr}^ all right and straight, just as we've done 
 to-day. Now, it was just loike my luck, for the divil a 
 hundred seals we came across all the saison, and I 
 dipinding on the vhoyage to marry the swatest girl in 
 all Oirland. 
 
 " ' Bad cess to it,' says I to meself, one day ; * sure if 
 we can't get seals we'll have a bear or two.' So I sets 
 about collecting all the ham-bones I could find, and one 
 night I sets 'em a-frizzling in the galley fire. It was 
 frozen in we were at the time ; and och ! the delicate 
 perfume that went up the vent, and out av the chimley, 
 and spread itself all over the ice ! Sure the bears could 
 scent it fifty miles away, as aisyas sinning; and it's divil 
 a bit av a lie Im tellin' ye, for next morning, sure enough, 
 there they were, and not far off aither, mor'n a score on 
 'em, some a-sniffing av the air and shaking their heads, 
 and some sitting on one end, like dacint Christians, 
 rubbing their noses wid their paws. And thin, me 
 bhoys, it was rare sport we were having for days to- 
 gether ; and the more we killed the faster they came. 
 
 " Now, on board the ould ' Stedfast' was Duster, the 
 cleverest whaler, for an Indian, that ever threw harpoon. 
 
 " Well, me bhoys, all av ye know the ugly mists that 
 creep down over the counthry in June ; but when the 
 captain sent us off one day to get a seal or two that were 
 a-basking themselves on a point end av ice, the sun was 
 shining as swate and clear as it will to-morrow. After a 
 good drag, we launched her in the open say, and away 
 we pulled right merrily, and we weren't long aither 
 bagging a skin or two. But, faith, we found there were 
 more point ends than one, and seals on them, too ; so on 
 we went, and maybe went farther than we should have 
 done, for first one big gun and thin another was fired to 
 recall us, and, when we turned to look back, sorra a ship 
 could we see at all, only a great wall av grey fog roUin' 
 slowly down towards us. 
 
 "'Oh! golly, golly! look!' cried Duster, starting up 
 and pointing forward. Next moment we had forgotten 
 
i8 TJic Cruise of the ^^Wandcroo.'' 
 
 cntoirely the ' Stedfast,' the deadly mist, and i/irything 
 else but a whale, as big as the hill av Howth, that lay on 
 the water not a quarter av a mile ahead av us. 
 
 '* * Golly for good !' exclaims Duster, with his grimmest 
 smile, * I means to catchee for quick, dat debel, directly.' 
 
 "'Och, sure,' says I, 'Duster, me bhoy, is it takin' 
 lave av your sivinteen sinses ye are ? Who iver heard 
 tell av takin' a fish wid one boat ? Who's to spear 'im ? 
 and, troth, won't he pull us under the ice entoirely?' 
 But Duster only replied more determinedly than iver, ' I 
 means to catchee he.' And what does the crayture do 
 but made us make fast the end av the whale-line to a bit 
 av a berg that lay foreninst us. And thin, me bhoys, all 
 the ganious av the deed came up before me mind's eye 
 as clare as the day. Then we pulled to the fish, and 
 struck him, too ; for when did iver Duster miss ? Away 
 went the great fish, as fast as forked lightning; but, be 
 jabers, lads, when the line was all paid out and our boat 
 free, it wasn't so quick that the divil could thravel wid 
 that bit av ice in tow ; and, sure enough, had the ice been 
 a bit heavier, the line would have gone like a fiddle-string. 
 
 "'By golly,' said Duster, when the speared and dead 
 monster laid alongside the pack, ' I tell you I catchee he 
 directly.' 
 
 " Now, it was the duty of this choild, Teddy Welcome, 
 to stand by that dead whale till the boat returned from 
 the ship with assistance. I'd plenty av prog, sure, and 
 'baccy and a pipe ; but, for all that, I couldn't, for the 
 dear loife av me, help feeling a bit lonely and frightened- 
 loike when left all alone by meself alongside a dead 
 whale, the mist curling round me, and maybe no end 
 av bears within easy hail. 
 
 "Well, I don't think I'd been three hours on duty, 
 pacing up and down the broad flat berg, by way of 
 keeping meself warm, when out from the mist that I 
 couldn't peer into at all, at all, cam.e one wild roar, and 
 then maybe twinty, and, as sure as I tell ye, the say and 
 the ice seemed to shake right under me, and the pipe well 
 nigh dropped out of me mouth. 
 
 " ' Oh-h ! woa — woe !' came the cry again, more like a 
 
A Song (Did a Yarn by the Galley Fire. 19 
 
 thousand bulls than anything else in the earth or the 
 ocean. It was the bears for sartain, after the dead 
 whale, and maybe, thinks I, they've a bit of a score to 
 settle with poor Teddy himself anent the ham-bones. 
 ' Oh-h ! woa — woe ! ' — nearer now, and presently a 
 monster bull-bear looms out av the fog, and divilish well 
 I knew all his relations were coming to the wake as well. 
 
 " 'Bedad, thin,' says I, 'if that's yer game, here's the 
 back av me hand and the sole av me foot to the lot avye.' 
 And by this and by that, me bhoys, I makes no more ado 
 but just jumps off the ice on to the shovel lip av the great 
 fish, and, faith, as I did so, I thought the greasy baste 
 gave a bit of a wmk wid his saucy wee eye, as much as 
 to say, ' You get inside, Teddy, me bhoy ; but, as soon as 
 the bears eat the outside av me, they'll come to the stuffin. ' 
 ' It'll take thim some time, Mr. Fish,' says I, and in I 
 pops, aisy enough, too, for the big divil's mouth was 
 about half-open, and the whalebone hadn't had time to 
 stiffen. ' Now, mercy on the sowl av ye, Teddy,' says I, 
 ' for this is a quare sitivation, twinty hungry bears a- 
 tearing at the outside av your shielln', and maybe twinty 
 sharks pulling away at the floor av it.' For, throth, I 
 could feel the fish shaking ivery minute, and hear the 
 bears a-roaring outside av her. 
 
 •' But worse was to come ; for, what wid the tickling o' 
 the sharks and the scratching av the bears — och ! my hair 
 feels moving even yet, when I think of it. But, bedad, 
 the whale began to revive. The great mouth av him 
 opened, and slowly closed again ; a current av cold air 
 rushed past me like a whirlwind ; thin I could hear, a}', 
 and feel, the thundering av the tail av the mighty baste 
 on the whater. 
 
 " 'Oh, the blessed saints protect me!' I roared. ' I'll 
 be in the bottom av the say in a jiffey, and ne'er more see 
 Katie on the banks av the Liffey.' And ' Oh, Mr. Whale,' 
 I cries, ' do take it aisy. Sure you invited poor Teddy 
 inside the mouth av ye, and is it a dacint whale like 
 yourself that would kill a poor bhoy intoirely ?' 
 
 " Well, my lads, whether it were the saints that a-done 
 it or the blarney, I niver could tell, but the moighty fish 
 
20 Tlic Cruise of the '• ]]\iJi(feroo.'' 
 
 was as quiet as a herring evermore. So I lights my 
 dudheen, and, in less than an hour, what with the 
 smoking and the what-not, I was soon as sound asleep 
 as a babe in a cradle, and draming, swately draming, of 
 ould Oirland and Katie." 
 
 Here Teddy took the pipe from his mouth and heaved 
 a sigh ; perhaps he was ruminating now on the long 
 bright days of the past. But we didn't allow any sigh- 
 ing, so we brought Teddy up with a round turn. "Brace 
 up, Teddy !" we cried, and Teddy was all alive again in 
 a moment. 
 
 " Och ! bejabers !" he laughed, "you niver saw such 
 fun in your born days as came in at the finish, for Duster 
 and five boats' crews came back, but the sorra a Teddy 
 was there to be seen; the bears had eaten him, boots and 
 all. So wid many a sigh they set to work to ' f^ensh' the 
 whale. And now, sure enough, the divil or the black 
 drop must have been in me intoirely, to go and froighten 
 me messmates, and them all talking so koindly av me^ 
 too. But, begorra ! I couldn't help it. ' Git oft' av me 
 back, ye divils !' I roared, ' wid your picks and your 
 spades, or I'll sink wid the blissed lot avye!' Bhoys, ye 
 should have heard the silence that followed, and it wasn't 
 long av getting down they were, aither. But next minute 
 they were helping me up as koindly as ye plase, and then 
 they rowled me in the snow for the thrick I'd been afther 
 playing on them. And that's all, me bhoys. And it's to 
 bed I'm going now at onct." 
 
 "Thank you, Paddy, thank you," said our engineer; 
 " you can tell a good story, and man ! it's so pleasant to 
 hear that it is ' true.' " 
 
 " Sure, yes, sorr, that is the pleasantest part av it." 
 
 Said the engineer to the doctor and captain when all 
 were together again around the cabin stove, " It wouldn't 
 be a bad plan for us to take Paddy Ted's example, and 
 just a' tell stories time about." 
 
 "Well," said Captain Ben, " I move that you begin it." 
 
 " Willing I would be, but I've nothing made up." 
 
 We laughed. 
 
 " You're going to make it up, are you ?" 
 
My Bachelorhood, and Wliat Came of It. 21 
 
 " Certainly," said Duncan Douglas ; " things that are 
 thought about are aye the best." 
 
 " Well," said I, " if no one else has anything to say, I 
 will relate a little experience of my own and call it 'My 
 Bachelorhood, and what came of it.' " 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY BACHELORHOOD, AND WHAT CAME OF |IT. 
 
 I. 
 
 Written a Month before Christmas. 
 
 I'M not a bachelor. That is, I'm not a bachelor in the 
 strict sense of the word, because I am married, and 
 have a wee toddling family. But so far as doing for 
 myself to some considerable extent is concerned, I have 
 been a bachelor for more than a month. And now I will 
 tell you how it happened. 
 
 A terrible hullaballoo got up at the top of the stair one 
 day last autumn — the stair is close to my study. Ida 
 had run away with one of Harold's toys, Harold had 
 followed, and inflicted summary justice on her, using a 
 wooden doll on her head, precisely as a Comanche Indian 
 uses a war-club. And Inez had rushed to the rescue, 
 and it ended by the whole three tumbling downstairs in a 
 heap. 
 
 " Ton my word," I roared, '* it is enough to try the 
 temper of a saint. Sarah ! Jane ! anybody ! can t you 
 keep those children quiet ?" 
 
 Well, it was provoking ; I was concentrating. I was 
 about to describe a scene that needed a little fine writing' 
 and no little pathos, and had just succeeded, by the aid 
 ot my violin and guitar, in working myself into a 
 
22 ■ The Cruise of the '' Waiideroo.'" 
 
 delightfully sensitive mood, when the terrible scrim- 
 mage got up at the stair top. Was it not provoking, 
 and the printer waiting for copy ? 
 
 Even my wife admitted that it was provoking, when I 
 mentioned the matter during luncheon. 
 
 " But," she added, with one of her most wifely smiles, 
 "you were once a child yourself, Willie." 
 
 " I'm not quite prepared to deny it," I replied. " I 
 might have been a child myself once. A child, mind 
 you, that is one child, but, bother my whiskers, I wasn't 
 three or four, was I ? It is the plurality of the affliction 
 I object to. Even an author might stand one pair of 
 legs running overhead, one pair of lungs shouting over 
 the banisters, but when it comes to three or four pairs of 
 each, and their owners all bounding downstairs in a heap, 
 a chaotic mixture of bare legs, bare arms, and distorted 
 faces, with music to match, then — pass the potatoes, 
 please." 
 
 " Heigho !" I sighed ; " I sometimes do long for a 
 little peace. I'm all behind with my printers ; three 
 editors are writing every day for copy, and one wretch 
 has actually taken to telegraph for it. He wants to prove 
 the gravity of the situation by working the wires and 
 spending shillings without end. I'd give all the world 
 for — another chop, please ; thanks." 
 
 " Do you know," I continued, " I'd like to own an 
 island in the vasty deep, or a lodge in a wilderness, or a 
 lonely cave by the sounding sea, or a lighthouse. I 
 would like to take the wings of the morning and fly unto 
 — pudding ? Yes, of course." 
 
 " I don't think," said my better half, " that the serious- 
 ness of your situation affects your appetite." 
 
 " Ah, dear !" I answered, " you're joking again. I tell 
 you it is no joking matter. And there are those verses I 
 promised to " 
 
 Rat-tat. 
 
 " What is it, Sarah ? A telegram ? Humph. Now, 
 read this, dear. Listen to this melting lay — 
 
 " ' Do pray send on next chapter. We are quite at a 
 standstill.' 
 
iVji' BnchelorJiood, and WJud Came of It. 23 
 
 " Why, my dear, an appeal like that is enough to draw 
 tears from a rocking horse; it is indeed. It is — cheese ? 
 Yes, Sarah, a bit of Gorgonzola, and I say, Sarah, is 
 there any of that celery left ? 
 
 " And it isn't only the children, my dear, but all day 
 long the hall bell goes ring-ding-ring, and the kitchen 
 knocker rat-tat-tat. If it isn't the baker, it's the butcher, 
 or the grocer, or fishmonger, or a man with a box, or a 
 man with a bill. Why don't you tell them to only give 
 one knock ? Why don't you explain to them that they 
 needn't shout as if the basement were on fire, and there- 
 were people asleep in the attics ? Why don't you ? — but 
 there, you're going to cry — so like a woman. Sarah,, 
 bring my pipe ! " 
 
 Old Boosey, a neighbour of mine, often pops into my 
 study of a forenoon, and I have sometimes wished he 
 wouldn't. He comes in free-and-easy-like by the French 
 window, throws himself into my rocking chair, reaches 
 up his hand and helps himself to my tobacco-pouch, and 
 lights up. 
 
 "Go on," he says, "go on, write away. Don't let 
 me interfere with your work ; I love industry." 
 
 But it does interfere with my work. I don't want a 
 man sitting smoking at my back when I'm writing,, 
 especially if I am not smoking myself. 
 
 The morning after the battle of the bairns at the stair 
 top, old Boosey dropped in as usual. 
 
 " No news, I suppose," I said, by way of saymg 
 something. 
 
 "Well, no," he replied, "nothing of importance. 
 By-the-bye, though, Miss Mittson is leaving that cottage 
 on the hill that you fancied last year." 
 
 " Is she ?" I said, becoming suddenly interested. 
 
 " Shutting it up," he went on, " going away for the 
 winter months ; afraid to stay there after the recent 
 burglaries." 
 
 " By St. Thomas !" I cried, starting up, " the place 
 would suit me all to pieces. I'm glad you looked in for 
 once in a way, Boosey. I'll go and see the old girl 
 without a moment's delay." 
 
24 ^V/t' Cruise of the " Wanderoo.'" 
 
 So I did. I took the foot-path across the field, and in 
 less than half-an-hour I was closeted with Miss Mittson. 
 
 Yes, she would be pleased to let me have the cottage, 
 furnished as it was, for the winter months. Glad indeed 
 to get a tenant who would keep a fire in it. 
 
 " I suppose," she added, ''you won't be afraid of 
 burglars, but it is so gloomy here after nightfall." 
 
 '* Bother the burglars, no," I replied, delighted at my 
 success, and hopes of prospective peace. " There is one 
 thing to be said in favour of burglars, Miss Mittson, they 
 4ire quiet. They don't ring the bell, they don't knock at 
 the door loud enough to wake the dead, and they don't 
 ■come tumbling down stairs all of a heap when you are 
 concentrating. So I'm your tenant, Miss Mittson, and 
 very glad to be." 
 
 The lady went away in a week, and I took possession 
 at once. M}^ servant lad was engaged for a whole fore- 
 noon passing to and fro 'twixt my new study and my old, 
 with barrow-loads of books, my violin and guitar cases, 
 and last of all the cockatoo, for Cockie was to be my only 
 •companion at the cottage. 
 
 There is at least one thing in this world that neither 
 Baron Rothschild nor Vanderbilt is rich enough to buy, 
 and that is my cockatoo. I have sometimes thought she 
 is the only being in the world who thoroughly under- 
 stands me. When I talk to her she is attentive, and the 
 remarks she makes in reply are neat and to the point. 
 When I play slow airs on my old Cremona Cockie looks 
 ■as solemn as a clerk at a vestry meeting ; if I hit off a 
 hornpipe, Newcastle fashion, Cockie is all alive in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Go it," she cries, "Jack's alive. Keep it up. Keep 
 it up. Keep it up." 
 
 And at last she fairly dances and sings with delight. 
 
 For Cockie is no ordinary cockatoo. 
 
My BacJisIorliood, and What Came of It. 25 
 
 II. 
 
 Written a Month after Christmas. 
 
 Cockle and I are fairly settled down now in single 
 blessedness at the Poplars. N.B. — It is called the 
 Poplars — this cottage of Cockle's and mine — for the 
 simple reason that there isn't a poplar tree within a 
 quarter of a mile of it. I note that most cottages in the 
 country are named according to the rule of contrariety 
 and not according to Cocker. 
 
 But this is a charmingly quiet retired little box. I 
 think that even Cookie feels that the change has done 
 her good, for she chatters and dances constantly. She 
 has my company all day, and she has warmth all night, 
 for the last thing I do before going home is to bank fires, 
 to keep her comfortable till morning, and her master 
 returns to cheer her. 
 
 Yes, nothing could beat the repose and quiet that 
 dwells for ever around this bonnie wee cottage. It is a 
 long distance from any house, and not far from a lovely 
 pine wood. To-night, as I sit here, pen in hand, I can 
 hear the south wind moaning through the trees with a 
 soughing sound that some might call dreary, but it minds 
 me of being on the ocean, and I love it. 
 
 It must have been a hermit who built this cot, for 
 there is not even a road to it, only a tiny footpath, 
 so no one ever passes the window, and the noise of 
 wheels never falls on my ear, nor shouts of itinerant 
 vendors of wares. Even tramps never come near it, 
 perhaps they are too lazy, or probably they deem it 
 deserted. Old Boosey called once ; but Boosey is 
 very fat and large, and doesn't like a footpath. 
 Besides, I wouldn't let him smoke owing to Miss 
 Mittson's curtains. So, on the whole, I don't think 
 Boosey will come back. 
 
 There is a nice garden surrounding my cottage, a 
 rose lawn in front of the French window of the room 
 where I write, while beyond that is a somewhat melan- 
 choly-looking meadow, with a somewhat melancholy- 
 
 c 
 
26 The Cruise of the " Waiideroo.'' 
 
 looking horse in it. I do not know the exact age of 
 that horse, but he appears to me to be at least a 
 hundred years old. It also appears to me that he 
 was left there and forgotten by someone long, long ago, 
 and that he will never be come for, and that he knows 
 it. He stands leaning over my railing and looking at 
 the cabbages, sometimes for an hour at a time, and the 
 prevailing expression of his countenance is sorrow, 
 blended with pensive meditation. I frequently give him 
 a cabbage, and he sighs his gratitude. 
 
 There is a hare that often comes out of the wood and 
 sits down in the meadow to wash its face; there is a 
 cock-robin who sings to us on the gate, and cheekie 
 sparrows who come to pick up the seeds that have been 
 thrown out of Cockie's cage-drawer, and a bonny brown 
 weasel that comes every fine forenoon, and standing on 
 its hind legs close to the window, stares in at us. 
 
 I leave home at eight in the morning, riding as far 
 as I can ride on my cycle, trundle the machine up 
 through the meadow, enter my cottage, and am duly 
 saluted by Cockie with as much joy and excitement as 
 if I had newly returned from a six months' cruise. Then 
 I light my fire, wash my hands, and settle down to work. 
 At twelve o'clock, Cockie and I have cocoatina ; I go 
 home to lunch at one, back at two ; Cockie and I have 
 tea at five. Of course, we make our own tea and cocoa ; 
 that is the beauty of being a bachelor. We don't want 
 servants pottering around us ; it is a glorious thing — the 
 adjective " glorious" is not a whit too strong — to be in- 
 dependent. 
 
 When I finally close the shutters and depart, Cockie 
 says " Poor Polly !" with most melting emphasis on the 
 poor. 
 
 The human being who first occupied the cottage, and 
 who probably built it, might have been a hermit, but 
 there is certainly nothing of the hermitage about it now, 
 inside at all events, for our Miss Mittson's furniture and 
 fittings, from ceiling to floor, from curtains to carpet, 
 from the brackets with their vases to the fender with its 
 fireirons, all are in the best of taste. And if you judged 
 
My BacIicIorJiood, and What Cunic of It. 27 
 
 of Miss Mittson herself from her room, you would not be 
 far wrong. 
 
 The kitchen is a sight in itself. There are so many 
 knick-knacks that I do not know the names of, and 
 which I will not attempt to describe. Perhaps if I did 
 the reader would say it was only a very ordinary kitchen 
 after all. Perhaps the reader would be right, but men, 
 and especially sailor men, are not much used to kitchens ; 
 hence everything to me is fresh. For instance, that 
 wonderful little brass lamp into which you pour a little 
 paraffin, and can't see anything of the paraffin after you 
 have poured it in. But it burns all the same, with a feeble 
 smoky flame, and you surround it with a glass, which looks 
 like a tumbler minus a bottom ; this is no doubt for fear 
 of a spark. Then m the kitchen there are mysterious 
 looking pepper-boxes, and mysterious coffee-pots, and 
 kettles, and brushes, and pans, and a mysterious boot- 
 jack, that goes by clockwork after you wind it up — no, 
 it is a roastiiig-]3.ck, or a spit, or something; never 
 mind, there it is, and you can't alter it. But everything 
 in the kitchen is so clean ; the dresser is as white as a 
 ship's quarterdeck, the sink itself like marble, the hearth- 
 stone like snow, and the flat-topped fender is surely made 
 of polished silver. 
 
 And if you judged of Miss Mittson herself by her 
 kitchen you would not be far wrong. 
 
 Now I'll tell you, ladies, what I can do — and I timed 
 myself doing it — ^I can lay my fire and light it, and trim 
 my paraffin lamp, all within four and a half minutes ; 
 from which I infer that I am rather a clever fellow. It 
 isn't everybody who can clean the glass of a paraffin 
 lamp. You do it when it is cold, and you can use the 
 kitchen poker to shove the rag in, or you can use a 
 carving fork, but it is as well to wash the fork after- 
 wards before using it for anything else. 
 
 Before Miss Mittson went away, she gave verbal ex- 
 pression to a few of her hopes. They were as follows, 
 to ivit : She hoped I would always keep the garden gate 
 shut, because the old horse had got in once and crunched 
 the flowers, ate the greens, and rolled in the strawberry 
 
28 The Cruise of the " Waiideroo:' 
 
 bed ; she hoped I would always lock the door when I 
 left at night ; she hoped I wouldn't spill the red ink on 
 the drugget — what is a drugget I wonder ?— and finally, 
 she hoped I wouldn't knock over the lamp and fire the 
 house. I hope I won't either, but if I do, I'll jump out 
 at the French window with Cockie's cage, first thing. 
 
 On the whole, I have got on wonderfully well as a 
 bachelor, and I have picked up a few wrinkles about 
 household management that are worth remembering. 
 
 Fire-lighting was a bother at first. I once used a 
 round barrel-like morsel of pumice-stone, which I got 
 through an advertisement. You are supposed to dip it 
 in paraffin and it will go on lighting fires for a hundred 
 years without soiling the fingers. I used it once just, 
 and I daresay it went up the chimney — anyhow, / saw 
 no more of it. The fire-lighters I now use are cakes, 
 apparently composed of sawdust, pitch, and the parings 
 of roborant plasters. But they do their duty. 
 
 I found a funny little brush in Miss Mittson's kitchen, 
 with a handle to it, flat, like a canoe-paddle, with hair on 
 one side. I have seen our Sarah touch up the bars of 
 the grate with just such another brush, and it left them 
 so tidy. I tried that trick, but I burned half the hair out 
 of the brush and made Cockie cough. There is some 
 skill required in using it, I suppose. 
 
 The ash-pan. I know it is called the ash-pan. It 
 stands under the grate and keeps things tidy. It is a 
 first-rate arrangement and holds a lot. It wants empty- 
 ing though about once a week. I went out through the 
 French window with it the first time. Boreas was blow- 
 ing. Boreas caught the contents of the ash-pan before I 
 could wriggle out. I was nearly choked. The Sahara 
 was nothing to it. This contretemps did not improve my 
 appearance, nor my temper — nor the carpet. Next time 
 I took more care. I went out through the back-door, 
 threw the business upside down on the dustheap, and ran 
 off till the storm blew over. Oh ! yes, it is a capital 
 thing an ash-pan, and if you capsize it deftly you feel 
 happy, then, if in merry mood, you can use it as a 
 tambourine while you march indoors again. 
 
My Bachelorhood, and What Came of It. 29 
 
 There is a shovel that looks like a sieve in Miss 
 Mittson's kitchen. I knew what that was as soon as I 
 saw it. It was for sifting and saving the cinders. There 
 is nothing like economy in household matters. " Why,'' 
 I said to myself, '' shouldn't I sift and save the cinders ? "' 
 I took the sieve-like shovel into the drawing-room and 
 at once commenced operations in the ash-pan. But I 
 didn't save many cinders, and I don't think the dust 
 improved the furniture, for the keys of the piano after- 
 wards made my fingers quite black ; and before I could 
 see my face in the looking-glass I had to clear a hole. 
 I suppose there is an art even in cinder-sifting. 
 
 When a fire is kept up all day in a drawing-room I 
 find it is necessary sometimes to tidy up the fireside. 
 This is another operation that requires some skill, not to 
 say tact However, with a good ash-pan the labour is 
 considerably lessened, because you can brush dust and 
 ashes in under for a whole week, and no one is any the 
 wiser. The inventor of the ash-pan ought to have a 
 wooden monument. The hearthrug wants seeing to, say, 
 once a fortnight. The easiest way to see to it, I find, is 
 to roll it up like a school-map, escape with it through the 
 French window, and beat it against the iron railmg. 
 
 The blinds in my drawing-room window annoyed me 
 considerably at first. They are those patent busmess 
 that move on spring rollers, and you never can be sure 
 of them. They have a mind of their own. Probably, 
 when you have drawn them down for the night, and all is 
 quiet and still — click — up goes the centre one to the very 
 top, and if it be dark you can't help fancying there is a 
 face out on the lawn staring in at you. I have rolled 
 mine up and stowed them away under the sofa, where 
 Miss Mittson will find them on her return. 
 
 Did bachelors who have done for themselves ever 
 notice a disagreeable trick that some pairs of tongs have 
 of plaiting their legs and feet, and refusing to move them 
 either way at the moment they are most wanted ? It is 
 caused by luxation of their pelvic joints. Miss Mittson's 
 drawing-room tongs often go like that, especially when a 
 morsel of live co.il jumps out of the fire and alights on 
 the beautiful hearthrug — which it does not improve. 
 
30 The Cruise of the " Waiideroo.^' 
 
 Talking about the tongs puts me in mind of the poker. 
 I lost mine for ten whole days. What a funny thing to 
 lose ! I'm a little absent-minded when thinking, so there 
 was no saying where it might or mightn't turn up ; I 
 looked for it in the parlour and in the passage, all over 
 the kitchen, and among the coals in the cellar. No, it 
 wasn't anywhere there. I might have put it behind the 
 drawing-room looking-glass, but I hadn't; it might have 
 fallen down behind the piano, but it hadn't. Nor it 
 wasn't at the back of the chiftbnnier, nor under the sofa, 
 nor in any of the drawers. Neither had I abstractedly 
 taken it out of doors to stake chrysanthemums. Finally 
 I gave it up, it was lost, like Lucy Gray, so I had to use 
 a toe of the tongs to poke the fire. But, lo and behold ! 
 when it became necessary one day to " make a clean fire- 
 side," I found the poker right enough and snug enough 
 in under the bulwarks of the fender. 
 
 One day, in another moment of forgetfulness, I forgot 
 my latch-key, that is, I left it inside, and, slamming the 
 door, locked myself out. This necessitated my climbing 
 up by a spout over the water-butt, crawling along the 
 roof of the scullery, and getting in through the gable 
 window. As I did so I noticed a tall tramp-looking man 
 in the wood leaning against a tree and watching me. I 
 noticed that he had a most villainous-looking face, anp 
 that at his feet lay one of those straw bags that workmen 
 carry their tools in. 
 
 " Poor fellow," I said to myself, " he is gathering 
 acorns and fir-cones, no doubt, to make rustic picture- 
 frames of." 
 
 But the poor fellow was doing nothing of the kind. 
 
 III. 
 
 Written in Bed. 
 
 I'm not at the Poplars row. My bachelorhood is 
 ended. I am at home in my own house, and in bed. I 
 have been ill — very ill. But I am convalescent at last, 
 though my head is still bandaged and painful at times. 
 
My Baclielorlioocf, and ]VIi(d Came of It. 31 
 
 Cockie is in his cage yonder in a corner of the room, 
 perched on one leg in a meditative mood; on the hearth- 
 rug lies an immense dog of the boar-hound or Great 
 Dane breed. He is watching me with one eye, but 
 seems asleep with the other. 
 
 My window is wide open, and the soft spring air steals 
 in and refreshes me, bringing with it the odour of flowers 
 and the song of birds, and hope and health, and happi- 
 ness — that strange dreamy contented feeling which only 
 those who have been really ill and are coming back again 
 to newness of life ever enjoy. 
 
 I do not long for loneliness now as I used to, even the 
 voices of the children at play are music to me, and I'm 
 rather delighted than otherwise when Boosey comes in 
 and sits down and reads the paper to me or talks. 
 
 The Goat-and-Bells is a rustic little beer-house on the 
 outskirts of our village. Its great kitchen does duty for 
 parlour and tap-room as well. It has one long wooden 
 table, and one long wooden dais ; on winter evenings, a 
 roaring fire burns in the grate and glimpses of the cheer- 
 ful blaze may be caught through the half-open door by 
 people passing to and fro in the darkness. These and 
 the sight of the landlord himself seated quietly smokin<^ 
 in his high but hard-backed arm-chair, with a mug of 
 ale on the mantel-piece, lure many a one inside who has 
 twopence to spend. 
 
 One evening there entered and seated himself on the 
 dais, near the fire, a tall, and by no means a handsome 
 tramp. He threw down his basket between his feet, and 
 iron tools could be heard rattling therein. The landlord 
 bustled away to get the beer, and the funnel-shaped 
 apparatus to heat it in, while the tramp bent over the 
 blaze, and extended his fingers to warm them. 
 
 " On the road, measter ?" said the landlord, reseating 
 himself, and taking up his pipe. 
 
 " Yes," replied the tramp, eyeing him furtively, " I'm a 
 looking for work. Hard times these for poor trades- 
 men." 
 
32 The Cruise of the " Wanderoo.''' 
 
 ''So they be," assented the landlord, " so they be; 
 you're a tailor, aren't you ? Ah ! I thought so from the 
 looks o' them long fingers o' yourn." 
 
 " Have a drop with me," said the tramp, after a pause. 
 
 " Thank "ee," the landlord said, and he then waxed 
 more cheerful and communicative. 
 
 " Much work about this village ? " the tramp enquired. 
 
 " Not a very much," was the answer, " not a very 
 much. Bless ye, the good folks all go away afore winter 
 comes on." 
 
 " Ah ! do they ? Shut their houses up, I dare say ? " 
 
 " No, not much either. Leaves some old woman in 
 them. But they takes away their walliables, they does. 
 He ! he!" 
 
 " Humph ! " grunted the tramp. " Pretty little cot- 
 tage that is, now, up at the woodside. Any chance of a 
 bit of gardening to be got there. Eh ? " 
 
 " Bless ye, no. Bless ye, no. Only one gentleman 
 there." 
 
 *' Only one, eh-? Well, I passed down that way to- 
 night. Heard people talking inside. Keeps company, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 " Not he. Ha ! ha ! only his old cockatoo. He bees 
 an author kind o' chap. Writes books and such." 
 
 '' Rich ? " 
 
 " Wonderful ! All authors, they tell me, are. Make 
 money as fast as wink, they does, and hardly knows o' 
 the getting o' it. It's lucky bein' born wi' brains." 
 
 "That's so," said the tramp, who forthwith took to 
 studying the fire again. 
 
 Dogs know a deal more than we give them credit for. 
 Most people who understand these animals will admit 
 this ; but I have sometimes been half inclined to believe 
 they — or some of them at least — are gifted with a kind of 
 second sight. When I left home that day for my 
 bachelor chambers in the lonely cottage. Kaiser, my 
 splendid Dane, was standing at the gate, and I could 
 not help pausing to admire his beautiful proportions. 
 
My BacJicIorhood, and What Came of It. 33 
 
 All the grace and S3-mmetry of a greyhound has Kaiser ; 
 all the strength and muscle of a mastiff. 
 
 But Kaiser was not there to be admired. He gave me 
 distinctly to understand that he meant to accompany 
 me to the cottage. 
 
 *' No, Kaiser, no," I reasoned, " it cannot be. Much 
 thouf^h I and Cockie would appreciate your company 
 we may not have it. Miss Mittson's carpet must be 
 treated with courtesy. Your feet are large, and the path 
 is muddy ; Kaiser, you cannot come." 
 
 Kaiser's face fell, his ears dropped, and his steel-grey 
 eyes were filled with sorrow. But he did not attempt to 
 disobey, only, when I looked back before turning the 
 distant corner, the dog still stood at the gate gazing 
 after me. He was thinking I might probably relent 
 and whistle ; but I did not. What pain and suffering 
 my doiag so would have saved me ! 
 
 The day was an unusually dark one, and wore early 
 to a close. Then drops of rain began to patter against 
 the big panes in my French v/indow, and I could see 
 the giant pine trees nodding their black heads in the 
 rising breeze. 
 
 1 like to muse and think a little in the quiet twilight — 
 'twixt the gloaming and the mirk — especially if I have 
 anything pleasant to think about. But the moaning of 
 the wind through the chmks of the casement induced 
 in my mind a kind of melancholy to-night, which, 
 strange as it may seem to some, I rather fostered than 
 attempted to banish. The fact is I was about to write 
 a chapter of a sea tale in which some pathos was needed, 
 and one must feel to write well. 
 
 So I sat in my easy- chair, without lighting my lamp 
 until it was almost quite dark. 
 
 Presently I started ; I felt almost sure a form passed 
 the window, that a white face had looked in at me. 
 " Fancy, fancy, all fancy," I said half aloud. I picked 
 up a morsel of guitar string and threw it on the fire. 
 It looked like a tiny snake wriggling and leaping among 
 the coals. I took up the guitar itself and let my fingers 
 wander listlessly over the strings, touching them' so 
 
34 ^^if^ Cruise of the " iVanderoo.^' 
 
 softly that they seemed to sigh out the plaintive old- 
 world Scotch airs I played. 
 
 Soon after my head was bent over my paper; I was 
 in the mood and busy, busy writing. But more than 
 once that evening as I looked towards the window, the 
 panes of which looked black with the darkness without, 
 I thought I saw that white face again. I felt then 
 sufficiently nervous to wish that I had not stowed away 
 Miss Mittson's window blinds, Jiiad and all though they 
 were. 
 
 I went on writing, never heeding the time, until I had 
 finished my chapter. 
 
 It was long past nine, and my wife would be getting 
 anxious. 
 
 Presently, however, the moon would rise, and I would 
 have light to go home. 
 
 I still had to look for a verse as a heading for my 
 chapter, and so spent minutes rummaging among my 
 poets. None would suggest anything, then I went to 
 Miss Mittson's music stand and pulled forth some old 
 songs. Ha ! here it was, the very thing, and I must sit 
 down before the piano and sing it. A bonnie old poem 
 by Moore- 
 Ask of the sailer youth, when far 
 
 His light bark bounds o'er ocean's foam, 
 What charms him most when evening star 
 
 Smiles o'er the wave ? — to dream of home. 
 Fond thoughts of absent friends and loves 
 
 At that sweet hour around him come. 
 His heart's best joy where'er he roves, 
 That dream of home, that dream of home. 
 
 The cockatoo screamed suddenly and in terror. I 
 started up only to find myself confronted by a man armed 
 with an axe, the self-same villainous face I had seen in 
 the wood. I started up only to be felled with a tremen- 
 dous blow on the head. It was a murderous blow dealt 
 with murderous intent. 
 
 I reeled and fell, my elbow striking against the piano 
 keys and evolving a discordant crash. But a louder 
 crash followed — the crash of breaking glass, and I saw 
 my noble Kaiser spring in through the window like a 
 
My Bachelorhood, and What Came of It. 35 
 
 great wild wolf, throttle and floor my assailant — then — all 
 was a blank with me for a time. 
 
 When I recovered consciousness, the noble dog was 
 licking my face, but the tramp was gone. In his anxiety 
 about me, I suppose. Kaiser had permitted him to escape, 
 but the fellow must have been severely torn. He was 
 traced next day all through the wood by a trail of blood, 
 and at one place he must have sunk to the ground and 
 lain for some time, for here beneath a tree, where the 
 ground was deeply bedded with withered pine-needles, 
 there was quite a large pool. But the tramp was never 
 found. 
 
 " Dear old Kaiser, come and let me pat you." 
 But for all that, and for all this. Miss Mittson's 
 cottage is a dear little house, and sweetly quiet, and I 
 really mean to take it again next winter, but after night- 
 fall Kaiser shall lie in the rustic porch, and on my table 
 cheek-by -jowl with my ink-stand shall be — my revolver. 
 
 " Thank you right heartily, my boy," said Captain 
 Ben Crisp; "and now, if you'll listen, I'll give you a 
 little experience of my own. A love story, too." 
 
 " Hurrah ! for a love story," we cried. 
 
 " I'll call it ' The Widow's Bonanza." 
 
36 The Cruise of the " Waudcroo.'" 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE WIDOW'S BONANZA: 
 
 A LOVE YARN. 
 
 I. 
 
 In a Log Hut. 
 
 THIS bit of a yarn of mine hinges, as you might 
 say, upon a widow. It revolves round a widow. 
 She was a very wealthy widow too, for her departed 
 husband had left her, not only a plum, but a bonanza ! 
 Even at this moment I cannot sa}- exactly how much of 
 riches a bonanza represents, but I know it is something 
 enormous. The widow in question owned — so they said 
 — half a dozen silver mines out and out, or out and in, 
 and she could hardl}^ count the number of shares she 
 held in gold ones. So it must be admitted she was a 
 catch ; she was really worth cocking one's Glengarry at. 
 
 It was all arranged that I should marry this widow, 
 and become the proud owner of her bonanza — for the 
 Married Woman's Property Act had not then been read 
 a third time. When I say that it was all arranged that 
 I should marry her, I ought to add, between myself and 
 Roddy McKoy, and this before I had ever clapped eyes 
 upon her. 
 
 But Roddy had seen her, and been introduced to her 
 also, at a wedding in San Francisco, where his ship was 
 lying at the time. His ship was also mine, a merchant 
 barque ; he was captain, I was the only passenger, and 
 Roddy's friend and guest. As time was of little object 
 just then to either of us, we had started North and East 
 on a long camping tour, and at the end of three weeks 
 found ourselves far away from civilisation of any kind. 
 
The Widoiu^s Bonanza. 37 
 
 proprietors pro tern, of a log hut half-way up a rugged 
 pine-clad mountain, and not far from a lake where fish 
 
 Sprang wanton to be caught. 
 
 The life we led was so completely suited to the tastes of 
 both Roddy and myself that we resolved not to permit 
 even the approaching wedding — which he must attend — 
 to interfere with our pleasures or cause us to break up 
 camp. 
 
 So Roddy set off alone for San Francisco, and I held 
 the hut till his return. I had my gun and fishing-rod, 
 and plenty of books — what more did I want ? There 
 were wolves in the forest, but wolves don't attack human 
 beings in summer ; there was a stray grizzly not far off 
 also — well, I only prayed he might appear in Roddy's 
 absence, that I might lay his skin at my friend's feet 
 when he returned, as a trophy of my prowess. There 
 were Indians about also, but they were all friendly ; so I 
 read, and fished, and shot, and slept at night more sweetly 
 and sound than ever I have done since. 
 
 I was so sure that Roddy would return on the very day 
 he promised that I had an extra good dinner waiting for 
 him, and sure enough just as the red sunset clouds, that 
 were reflected so charmingly in the lake below, were 
 beginning to change to purple and grey, the dear old man 
 came toiling up the hill with an immense haversack slung 
 over his shoulder on his gun. I knew, without being 
 told, that there were plenty of good things in that sack, 
 so after dinner I heaped more wood on the fire — for high 
 up on these hills even summer nights are damp and chill 
 — and Roddy and I sat down to enjoy our evening. 
 
 I wonder if I could give the reader any idea by pen 
 and ink of the appearance of my friend Roddy as he sat 
 there beaming over the big meerschaum he held on to ? 
 I'll try. He had, then, white hair and a long snowy 
 beard, a jolly rosy face with hardly a wrinkle in it, and 
 eyes of pleasant blue, brimful of sincerity always, brimful 
 of merriment and fun as often as not. 
 
 Was he an old man ? No. That is the curious part 
 of it. Albeit, his hair was like the peak of Ben Lomond 
 
38 The Cruise of the '' Waiideroor 
 
 on a winler's morning, Captain Roderick McGruer was 
 barely five-and-forty. 
 
 Do you like the picture ? But stay, you haven't heard 
 Roddy speak yet. 
 
 Roddy was Irish. 
 
 Irish to the very backbone, and I don't care who knows 
 it. For — and I am glad to have an opportunity of saying 
 it — I have met with as much genial hospitality and as 
 many genuine gentlemen in Ireland as ever I have done 
 out of it. And I am not Irish myself either. 
 
 Probably, though I ought to apologise for Roddy's 
 brogue, I am fully aware that educated Irishmen do not 
 talk with a brogue, and that better English is spoken in 
 Dublin than in London, so you will call my friend a rough 
 nut. Perhaps he was, but dear me ! we should not judge 
 nuts by the shell, but by the kernel. Roddy's heart was 
 as innocent and kind as the heart of a little child. 
 
 "Well, Roddy, my boy," I said, "I'm so glad you 
 have returned. I was beginning to think the time just a 
 trifle troublesome. Now we'll have six weeks of it at 
 least among these glorious hills. Did you enjoy your- 
 self ?" 
 
 " Sure enough, and I did then," said Roddy. " And 
 what's more," he continued, " I met the richest and the 
 nicest and the purtiest widow ever I clapped eyes on 
 'twixt Belfast itself and Ballaporeen." 
 
 " Don't let your pipe out, Roddy," said I ; " but 
 iust heave round and tell me all about her." 
 
 " But troth," said Roddy, " smoking is dry work, 
 and a drop of hot water and sugar would moisten the 
 tongue." 
 
 " Sly dog ! " I said ; " but what do you say now to a 
 taste of something v/arm that would meter with dud- 
 een. 
 
 " It's potheen you're maning," he replied ; " och 1 
 you rascal ! if you ain't Irish yourself, sure you ought to 
 have been." 
 
 I rose and got hold of my friend's haversack, and 
 extracted a bulky flask from the bottom of it ; the kettle 
 was singing suggestively close by the fire, so — we made 
 some medicine. 
 
The Widow's Bonanza. 39 
 
 Then Roddy told me all about the widow and her 
 bonanza. He went into raptures over her beauty and 
 over her wealth, and spoke as if he himself had the 
 disposing of both her hand and her fortune. 
 
 ''x\nd sure," he said, "you'll be the happy man, 
 when you marry her. Why, it isn't sailing the salt seas 
 you'll be after that. And it is so proud you'll be that 
 you'll hardly walk on the same side av the street wi' 
 poor Roddy." 
 
 " But my dear silly old man," I cried, " what nonsense 
 you are talking. Even supposing I was willing to propose 
 such a thing as marriage to this wealthy widow of yours, 
 how sure are you she wouldn't show me the back of her 
 hand?" 
 
 "Is it the back av her hand you're talking of? " he 
 exclaimed. " Och ! listen to the boy. Bedad ! it is 
 jump at the offer she would, she'd tumble straight into 
 your arms, like a ripe pache, before the words were well 
 outav the mouth av ye." 
 
 " You really think so, Roddy ? " 
 
 " Saints ! yes, my lad, I'm sure av it. What dy'e 
 think widows are made av ? Eh ? Tell me that." 
 
 " Well," I replied, " I don't know, I haven't had a 
 great deal of experience of widows. But if I actually 
 thought " 
 
 " Don't say another blessed word about it," interrupted 
 Roddy. " It's all arranged. You're as good as married 
 to her already. Shake hands with me. You're the 
 luckiest dog in the world." 
 
 " If she be as nice, Roddy, as you say " 
 
 " Howld your tongue till you see her " 
 
 " Then," I continued, gazing meditatively at the spout 
 of the little tin kettle, "a bonanza is certainly a fine 
 thing, a fellow really could do a deal of good with a 
 bonanza." 
 
 " I believe ye, my boy," quoth Roddy, "and faith, if I 
 were only a hundred years younger, it isn't flinging the 
 widow and her bonanza at your head Td be, friends and 
 all as we are." 
 
 Roddy pulled hard at his great meerschaum ; my 
 
40 The Cruise of the " Wauderoo.'" 
 
 hand, with the cigar in it, dropped upon my knee, and I 
 began to see pictures in the fire. The burning logs 
 formed themselves into smiling valleys and glens, the 
 white ash on them was the snow on the mountain-tops, 
 that towered skywards on the far-away horizon. There 
 were beautiful fields, and waving forests, and lakes and 
 streams, and all, all were mine. There was a cloudland 
 of trees that rose and rolled over a hill, and in the centre 
 smoke ascending from the broad chimneys of a noble 
 mansion, and that mansion was mine. See, the trees 
 part asunder like a screen, and I can behold a park with 
 deer in it, and rose gardens, and ribboned flower-beds, 
 and terraces on which fountains were playing, and park 
 and all were mine. Look ! the snow is falling, and the 
 green lawns grow crisp and white, and the sun goes 
 down ; but lights stream out from rose-tinted windows, 
 and I can hear the sound of music and happy voices 
 within, and I long to be among them — for that pleasant 
 home is mine. 
 
 Yes, all is mine, all that is pleasant and lovely in life, 
 for what is it in this wide world that a bonanza cannot 
 buy ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Roddy's Red Hair, and what c.ime over if. 
 
 I don't know how long I sat there, dreamily gazing at 
 the fire, but the life died out of the landscape at last, the 
 snow crept farther and farther down the hillsides, the 
 mountains themselves grew grey and black at last, and 
 the rose tint fled from the valleys. 
 
 I started up with a slight shiver, and looked about for 
 more wood. Roddy's head was thrown back — he was 
 watching the smoke that curled upwards from his lips. 
 
 " Roddy," I cried, as I replenished the fire, "you are 
 dreaming, my friend." 
 
 " Draming, is it?" said Roddy; "yes, yes — draming. 
 An old man's drame." 
 
 " Nonsense, Roddy^ nonsense ; you're not an old man 
 
The ]Vidow''s Bonanza. 41 
 
 by chalks. Come, pull yourself together. Look at that 
 glorious fire. Tell me a story, drink your eau sucve, and 
 heave round with a yarn." 
 
 " Sure, there isn't the ghost of a story in Roddy at all, 
 at all," was the reply. 
 
 " Tell me something, anyhow. I don't mean to turn 
 in yet for a whole hour. What made you go to sea ? 
 Were you ever in love ? What made your hair so 
 white ?" 
 
 " I'll answer your questions all in a bunch," said 
 Roddy. " I've been in love. Sure now you mustn't 
 laugh at me when I tell you ; she was only a child, and / 
 was nothing else myself; but the love I bore has never 
 left me, and will light up my heart while life does last." 
 
 " Capital, Roddy. Go on. Was it this love which 
 silvered your hair ?"' 
 
 " No, that was the rheumatiz." 
 
 " Rheumatism. Lord ! how unromantic." 
 
 " Will you hold your wheesht till I tell you ? When 
 I was a boy, then, it's a lovely auburn my hair was, but 
 troth, my schoolfellows didn't hesitate to call it red. And 
 I didn't hesitate to punch their heads for that same ; but 
 this only made matters worse, as you may well believe. 
 It wasn't the boys I was caring for, anyhow, either back 
 or fore, but a little colleen — such a sweet, wee, blue-eyed, 
 saucy-nosed, cherry-lipped chick-a-biddy was surely 
 never seen on earth before. I thought I would like to 
 kiss her. I dramed about it for months before I made 
 the venture. But when my mind was made up at last, 
 then I went straight away and borrowed a shilling, and 
 bought a whole pound of charming swates, and went 
 and waylaid her in a wood, coming home, all by her 
 purty self, from school. 
 
 '* ' My darling Aileen,' says I, ' your Roddy's heart is 
 running over wi' the love that is in it for you. And it's 
 a whole pound of swates that I've bought, and I'll give 
 you them all, eviry one of them, for a single kiss.' 
 
 '* And what think you did she do ? Why, she took the 
 pound of beautiful swates as cool as a trout, and put them 
 in her bag ; then she tells me, with a toss av her head : 
 
 D 
 
42 The Cruise of the " Waiidcroo.''' 
 
 " ' It's only black-haired boys I like,' says she, * and 
 I would never kiss carrots.' 
 
 " I went away home with a lump in my throat as big 
 as a phaisent's egg. I read Robinson Crusoe for a whole 
 week — then ran off to the sea. 
 
 " So that's an answer to one av your questions. And 
 it was love that did it entirely. Love and carrots. Be 
 jabers, it's the truth I'm telling you, I never looked into 
 the glass without cursing the colour o' those same 
 carroty locks. 
 
 " 1 he boy is the father av the man. I grew up and 
 up and up, till I was just as big as you see me now. 
 And my hair grew redder than ever. But I never forgot 
 little Aileen ; I never could love another somehow. I 
 never courted a girl with a view to marriage either, for 
 fear of courting a rebuff, all along of my carroty hair. 
 But the time I might have spent as most young men do 
 spend their spare time, I devoted to my profession, and 
 soon rose to be first mate of as purty a ship as ever 
 carried a stun's'1-boom. 
 
 " Well, things throve with me wonderful-like, and 
 before I was thirty I was master o' my own ship, and 
 though it's myself that says it that shouldn't, there wasn't 
 a smarter sailor ever stepped a quarter-deck — bar the red 
 hair. 
 
 •' But about this time I took a cargo out to Bombay, 
 and was loading up with rice to return, when lo ! and 
 behold I was laid up with the faiver and rheumatiz. I 
 couldn't move hand nor foot to save my life, so I was 
 glad enough to get carried to hospital. The first mate 
 took home the ship, and there I was left on my back and 
 pretty nearly on my beam ends. 
 
 •' It was months and months before I was able to get 
 out av bed, and crawl to the window of my ward, to see 
 how the world wagged without me. It was just after the 
 rainy season, and everything looked cool and green and 
 beautiful. And there was the sun shining all by himself 
 up in the blue, blue sky, as he never shines anywhere out 
 av India, and down below were the houses with their 
 painted and gilded walls, and the palanquins going hither 
 
TJic Widow's Boii(iii:ja. 
 
 43 
 
 and thither, and the buggies and the bheastie-waliahs* 
 with their bags, and the cows, and the crows, and the 
 water-buffaloes, and Arabs in their robes, and the purty 
 Hindoo maidens all dressed in green and crimson sill:. 
 Och ! one and all av them put together made up such a 
 picture that I nearly grew well on the spot. 
 
 " I soon felt a trifle weak though, and faint and chilly, 
 and so I drew back. But now, what with the glare av 
 the sun, and all the brightness I'd been beholding, I 
 couldn't see much in the room, but I began to grope my 
 way back to bed. When all at once — as sure as I'm 
 alive — there, right, foreninst me stood 
 
 THE GHOST OF MY OWN FATHER, 
 
 who had been dead and buried for ten long years. And 
 the sorra a stitch had the ould man on him either, but a 
 long white shirt that came down to his knees and a 
 red Kilmarnock nightcap. * What have I to do to be 
 frightened at my father ? ' thought I to myself. But at 
 that moment, faith ! you could have floored me with a 
 farthing candle, and never a taste av a prayer could I 
 remember either. 
 
 " ' Och ! father,' I says, ' and it is out of the cowld 
 grave you're coming, and all the way over from Oirland, 
 to visit your sinful son ? ' 
 
 " But he never stirred, and he never spoke, though his 
 lips were moving, and when I stretched out my hand to 
 touch him, sure I found it wasn't my father at all, but 
 my own image in the glass. 
 
 " And that was how this faiver had left me, as grey as 
 an ould badger, as white as the snow, or near it. 
 
 '* Had I been struck stone blind, I don't think it would 
 have been a bigger blow to me ; here was thirty years 
 knocked off my life all at onct, as you might say. 
 
 *' Before I fell ill of the faiver, I used to go into society 
 a bit, by way av diversion, and red-haired and all that I 
 was, there was many a girl— haythen and Christian — 
 that didn't object to me saying soft things to her. But now 
 as soon as I got better all was changed, though I didn't 
 
 * Water-carriers, 
 
44 Tlic Cruise of tlic " Wanderoo.''' 
 
 find this out so much till after I left the Injies, and came 
 back to England. 
 
 " I wasn't going to lay up for a white head anyhow, so 
 I just went about as before. But now everybody ' old 
 Roddied ' me. It was old Roddy this, and old Roddy 
 that ; I was an old fogie, an old cock and a codjer. 
 ' You won't be going to this ball, Roddy ? ' one would 
 sa3^ ' Your dancing days are over, Roddy, I dare say ? ' 
 another would remark ; and so on, and so forth, while, 
 and after all, my legs and my heart were as young as 
 anybody's, and it was only my hair that was old. 
 
 " I used to go courting now just to spite myself, and 
 sometimes a girl would seem very soft on me, and maybe 
 finish up by saying it was far better to be an old man's 
 darling than a young man's slave. 
 
 " It was never a bit of use o' me sayin' that Smith 
 was a year older thah m^e, or that Jones only wanted six 
 months o' my age. The girls didn't contradict me, it is 
 true, but it was only for dacency's sake that they didn't. 
 
 " ' Och ! Roddy,' I used to say, as I shook my fist at 
 my face in the glass — ' Och ! Roddy, you thundering 
 ould idjit ; isn't it time you were making your test'ment ? ' 
 
 " Before the faiver and the rheumatiz, my boy, Roddy 
 used to be told off to take the prettiest girls down to 
 dinner ; now it was any toothless old maid, and if an 
 ould lady of sivinty had a quarter of a mile to walk it 
 was Roddy was sent with her, as certain as sunrise. 
 
 "What is it I wouldn't have given to get back my 
 pristine locks, carrotty and all as they were ? What 
 indeed ! 
 
 " Well, one fine morning I was reading the paper, 
 when what should I see but an advertisement of some 
 wonderful mixture to change grey hair to brown in the 
 twirikling of an eye. ' Sold by all hairdressers,' said 
 the advertisement. 
 
 " I was starting for Cork to take a ship in a day 
 or two, so I pitches the paper away, and ' Hurrah ! ' 
 I cries, ' Roddy will get young again ! ' 
 
 •' So that same evening down the strate I goes, and 
 down another strate, and up a third, and at last I sees a 
 
The Widoia's Duii(iii:.a. 45 
 
 barber's pole ; so in I goes, and takes a seat in the chair. 
 
 " ' A shave, sir ? Yes, sir ; certainly, sir. Getting 
 rather grey, aren't you ? ' he says presently. 
 
 " ' How ould would you take me to be then ? ' I says. 
 
 " ' Bout five-and-twenty,' he says. ' Hair is nothing 
 to go by.' 
 
 " I felt as proud as Lucifer, bedad. 
 
 " ' Like your whiskers trimmed, sir ? Can I sell you a 
 case of hair-dye, sir ? ' says he. 
 
 " ' Will it act, sir ? ' I says. 
 
 " ' A\'hy, certainly, sir. Thousands of customers, sir. 
 Thank you, sir. Full instructions how to use it inside, 
 sir. Good evening, sir." 
 
 " Back I goes to m}' private apartments, and there by 
 the light of a pair of candles I carried out the instructions 
 to the letter, and goes to bed, after washing my hair, as 
 happy as a king, and dramed that all the girls were 
 fighting for young Roddy, as they called me. 
 
 " The first thing I spied in the morning was the bath, 
 my boy, that I'd washed my head in. What a sight ! 
 The sorra a bit blacker could the water have been had 
 you been killing-cuttle fish in it. Then I had a look in 
 the glass. Oh ! wurra, wurra ; my own face was as red 
 and rosy as ever, but my hair was as green as the leeks ! 
 No wonder my eyes glared out of the sun-reddened face 
 of me. I was wild. I was mad. 
 
 " ' Och ! Roddy, you rogue,' I cried ; ' you murderin' 
 consated ould villain. Of Fanian proclivities too, which 
 you daren't deny. It's often and often you've wished to 
 see " the green above the red," and bedad, ye see it this 
 blissid morning with a vengeance. And there's a smell 
 of sulphur and brimstone all about, too, that would make 
 anybody believe the divil was in the room entirely.' " 
 " Well, Roddy, and what did you do ?" 
 " What did I do ? Why, sure I sent for a barber, and 
 had my hair cut off, and wore a wig till it grew ai^ain. 
 One lesson was enough for me, and I'll be old Roddy till 
 the grave closes over me. But now, my boy, what about 
 the widow and the blessed bonanza ? " 
 
 " I've been thinking, Roddy," I replied, " that it really 
 
46 The Cruise of the ^' ]V(Ui(hToo/' 
 
 wouldn't be a bad plan after all for me to marry her. 
 Meanwhile I'd like to turn in and dream about it. It's 
 getting late, you know." 
 
 " The best plan out," said Roddy. 
 
 So both of us rolled ourselves up in our rugs, and lay 
 down on our skin couches, and the first thing either of 
 us was sensible of, was the sunlight streaming in through 
 the chinks in the door, and falling on the floor, on the 
 hearth, and the half-burned logs that lay thereon. 
 
 III. 
 
 Where the Love comes in. 
 
 It was Roddy's turn to light the fire and make the 
 breakfast — a fact I was not slow to remind him of — and 
 while he got up and bustled around, I lay still, thinking, 
 dreamily thinking, about that bonanza. I must confess 
 that the widow herself was a mere secondary considera- 
 tion. 
 
 " I say, you know," I said to Roddy, as we sat down 
 to our meal of fried fish, camp-baked bread and coffee — 
 " I say, Roddy, my boy, we must not go like a bull at a 
 gate in this bonanza business." 
 
 " To be sure not," replied Roddy ; " but hay must be 
 made while the sun shines ; the iron must be struck 
 while the iron is hot." 
 
 Indeed, my friend wanted to break up the encampment 
 at once and hie off to 'Frisco, but I wouldn't hear of 
 such a thing. Life was far too pleasant where we were, 
 and the widow would keep. So I thought. 
 
 About a week after, Roddy and I were returning about 
 sunset to our hut, tired with a long day's gunning, and 
 carrying in our bags the fruits of the chase. Bang, my 
 Irish setter, rushed on in front of us up the hill, but 
 almost immediately returned barking. Then we observed, 
 to our surprise, that smoke was issuing from the one 
 chimney of our log castle. 
 
 " Indians, evidently," I said ; " but they are taking it 
 coolly." 
 
The Widoiv's Bomni:.a. 47 
 
 <' Sure, and you're right," said Roddy. 
 
 It was no Indians, however, but an old trapper, who 
 had come all the way from 'Fiisco with a letter for 
 Roddy— a letter from his newly-wedded friend. 
 
 Poor Roddy tried to speak after reading it, but he 
 failed ; so he seized me by the coat, and dragged me 
 forth, and thrust the letter into my hands. ^ 
 
 "Yes" it ended, "after your glowing description ot 
 camp-life, nothing will satisfy my wife but coming out to 
 spend the tail-end of our honeymoon at your log-hut. 
 So o-et ready. We'll be with you five days after you 
 recefve this. Mrs. Morrack is coming with us." 
 
 " Huriah '" cried Roddy, skipping around like a last- 
 season lamb. " Hurrah ! Mrs. Morrack is coming ! ' 
 
 " Who is Mrs. Morrack?" I asked. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you, man ? It's the widow, she is : the 
 widow with the bonanza." 
 
 I confess I was every bit as much excited as Roddy 
 
 now. 
 
 The widow was coming ! 
 
 The bonanza w^as going to arrive ! ^ 
 
 Five such busy days I had never spent in my lite 
 before. The old trapper stayed with us and proved 
 invaluable. We built a new hut ; we glorified and 
 improved the old one. We made a splendid archway 
 over the doorway, and laid down green boughs for tha 
 dainty feet of the bride to tread upon. We found out a 
 little alcove some distance from the huts on the hillside, 
 and turned it into a rustic summer arbour; and we con- 
 structed a winding path to it also, so that, when finished, 
 Roddy declared the whole thing was as complete 
 As a coach and six or a feather bed. 
 
 They didn't arrive on the fifth day, but they did on the 
 sixth Roddy's friend Woolmar, his young and pretty 
 bride, the widow Morrack, horses and mules, servants 
 and sacks, bags and baggage and all. 
 
 I declare in honesty I never spent so jolly a time as 
 that fortnight. We were all as happy as children. 1 he 
 bride was delighted with everything ; we walked and 
 
48 The Cruise of the ''Wandcroor 
 
 talked, and hunted and fished, and feasted, and flirted, 
 and sang. 
 
 And the widow ? Ah ! yes, the widow. She was all 
 that Roddy had described her. She was young, beautiful, 
 divine. She wore no crape or grave-yard decorations, 
 but light was the prevailing colour of her dress ; light 
 and airy, as became that bright sunshiny summer 
 weather. 
 
 I settled down to serious flirtation from the very first. I 
 constituted myself her chaperon, her knight, her servant, 
 her slave. I'm not sure I didn't fall in love with her out 
 and out — I believe I did. Was it any wonder ? Con- 
 sider the situation and the surroundings. The lovely 
 scenery, the lovely weather, the waving woods, the 
 lake on which we rowed, the widow herself — all tulle and 
 gauze, and silken fringe, and fair soft hair. A witching 
 bonnet, an odour of new-mown hay, smiles, dimples, 
 a saucy nose, bluest of eyes, alabaster teeth and — the 
 bonanza ! 
 
 Dear old Roddy ; he left us as much alone as was 
 possible. The widow herself noticed it. She told me 
 one day that she didn't think my friend liked her — that 
 he seemed always to avoid her. But always, when 
 Roddy got me alone, he used to ask how things were 
 progressing. 
 
 " Fairly well, I think, Roddy," I used to tell him. 
 
 " Well, heave round," then Roddy would answer. 
 
 " You see,'" I said one day, " I'm afraid to be too 
 precipitant. Precipitancy might spoil everything." 
 
 " Fiddlesticks !" was Roddy's reply. '* Precipitancy 
 is the best mixture out for a widow. Take my advice, 
 my boy. Go for a moonlight row on the lake to-night. 
 Get well into the centre av the water, then let the boat 
 drift and lave the rest to Nature." 
 
 I might have taken Roddy's advice, only a summer 
 storm came on that night ; the moon was seldom seen, 
 the lake was white with breaking waves, and the tall pine 
 trees bent like reeds and snapped before the force of the 
 gale. So we spent the evenmg in g-eneral jollity in the 
 log-hut. 
 
Tlic ]Vt(h)'i0^s JJuiKiiirjd. 
 
 41; 
 
 Next clay the only mementoes of the storm were the 
 fallen trees. The day was bright and sunny, and the sun 
 soon dried the ground and grass. In the afternoon I 
 happened to be extended, book in hand, close behind the 
 arbour, when I was aroused from a kind of reverie by the 
 sound of voices inside the little bower. I listened, I 
 couldn't help it. 
 
 "Sit down," said Roddy — it was he — "excuse my 
 freedom. It's a few years older than you I am, faith. 
 What a sweet evening it is — isn't it, my dear?" 
 
 " Yes," replied the widow, laughingly, " but I'm sure, 
 Captain McGruer, you didn't bring me here merely to tell 
 me that." 
 
 " Well — ahem ! — well, no — to be sure, it wasn't. What 
 an old fool I am, sure-ly !" 
 
 There was a pause— an awkward one for Roddy, I felt 
 certain. But presently he went on again — 
 
 " You see, my dear — nay, don't start, and don't blush 
 — there is nobody here to listen but your purty self. 
 Well, you see, it's a saicret I'm going to tell ye." 
 
 I felt mad with Roddy just then. What right had he 
 to go and make love on my behalf ? Was I a child, that 
 I couldn't tell my own story when I got a good chance ? 
 To be sure, I wasn't. I had a good mind to cough, and 
 reveal my presence, but I didn't. After all, Roddy, 
 poor, dear innocent soul, was doing it for the best. 
 
 " Yes, it's a saicret," he said, " and it's only known to 
 two as yet." 
 
 " Oh, do tell," sighed the widow ; " don't tantalize, 
 Captain." 
 
 " Well, then, you swate, purty thing, what would you 
 say if there was someone dying for ye entoirely — someone 
 thinking av ye every blessed mmute of the da}', and 
 draming of ye every night on his pillow ? " 
 
 " Bravo, Roddy ! ' I thought. 
 
 " It would be very nice," simpered the widow. 
 
 "Someone," Roddy continued, "who is choking to 
 tell of the mouutains of love that are burning like 
 volcanoes in his buzzom." 
 
 " Go on," said the widow. " It would be delicious," 
 
50 The Cruise of the " Waudcroo.'" 
 
 " Someone who has no thought av happiness that 
 doesn't centre in you — someone who doesn't care a 
 farthing rushh'ght for anybody in the wide world but 
 yourself — someone who never sees the sun, nor the 
 moon, nor the stars, when you're near him — someone 
 who doesn't feel the taste o' the mate he is eating when 
 you're sitting at the table foreninst him — someone, sure, 
 who would gladly devote a whole lifetime to — to — to 
 keeping your little toes warm ? " 
 
 " How prettil}' you can make love, Captain ! " said the 
 widow. " And someone reall}' loves me as much as all 
 that ? " 
 
 " Och, yes, and a deal more. It's meself that has no 
 words to describe the love that is ating up the heart av 
 him, till it's disappearing by degrees, like a copper nail 
 in a bottle of vitriol." 
 
 " I know it — I know it," sighed the widow. " I have 
 eyes, Captain McGruer, and they are woman's eyes. I 
 know and see that he loves me, though he is very shy 
 about it, and often has seemed to avoid me. And now, 
 Captam, why should I hesitate to speak the truth ? I 
 reciprocate his affection. My heart — a heart that warmed 
 to him on the first day I saw him — my heart is his, and 
 his only." 
 
 Here iny heart gave a great thud of delight — the bon- 
 anza would be a certainty, after all. I wanted to jump 
 and dance for joy, but I was compelled to keep still. 
 
 " Hurrah ! " I heard Roddy exclaim. " Sure, this is 
 the happiest day in my life. And what a happy little 
 darlint of a woman you'll be yourself! I'll be off, and 
 tell my friend at once that you love him — that you'll 
 
 marry him — that . Why, my dear, whatever is the 
 
 matter with ye at all at all ? " 
 
 " Captain McGruer ! " the widow exclaimed, excitedly. 
 "Oh, Captain, your friend ! That — man ! " 
 
 And now there was the sound of convulsive weeping 
 in the arbour. 
 
 " Saints be about us this blessed day ! " Roddy cried ; 
 " but by all the powers, what does it mane at all ? Sure 
 I don't know whether my ould head or my heels are 
 uppermost.'' 
 
The Widow's Bonanza. 51 
 
 "Weren't you," sobbed the widow, " weren't you — ma 
 — a — akinglove — on your — own account? " 
 
 I had hstened long enough. A thought came to mt 
 Hke an inspiration, and I acted on it an once. 
 
 I boldly entered the arbour. 
 
 " Mrs. Morrack," I said, " I have heard all. I did not 
 listen intentionally, but I have listened. Now let me 
 tell you that though I have dared to love you, this 
 generous friend of mine^don't you dare to interrupt me, 
 l^oddy — loves you too ; but he would have sacrificed his 
 own happiness to mine. That is the truth, Mrs. 
 Morrack, and you will be happy together, I know, for 
 that big manly heart of his can love you more in five 
 minutes than I could have done in fifty years. Your 
 hand, dear Roddy; yours. Mrs. Morrack. There •" 
 
 The widow smiled through her tears as I placed her 
 little hand in Roddy's, and said in a heavy-father tone of 
 voice — 
 
 " Bless you, my children ! 
 
 As for Roddy, I never saw him so taken aback in my 
 hfe before. 
 
 But, nevertheless, in less than a month Roddy 
 McGruer became the husband of the Widow Morrack, 
 and the Widow Morrack became Mrs. McGruer. 
 
 I never saw much signs of a bonanza though. Onl}' 
 Roddy ceased going to sea, and settled down into a quiet 
 old English gentleman. 
 
 But, surely, a bonanza after all is neither here nor 
 there, if a man gets a woman who loves him 1 
 Let Bobbie Burns reply — 
 
 It ne'er was weaUh, it ne'er was wealth, 
 
 That coft contentment, peace and pleasure ; 
 The bonds and bliss o' mutual love, 
 
 Ah ! that's the chief o' warld's treasure. 
 
 " Now, boys, to hammock, and I expect by next sea- 
 pie night that you will all have your yarns ready to spin. 
 Good night." 
 
 :jc :^ :)e in ^ ^ 
 
^2 l^Jic Cruise of the " ]]^(iii(Ieroo/' 
 
 And the following Friday found us once more seated 
 round the cabin stove, and being called upon for a sketch 
 of my life I gave the following " Twig from my Family 
 Tree." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A TWIG OR TWO FROM MY FAMILY TREE. 
 To be taken ivith a feiv Grains of Satt. 
 
 MY fami'y history, and pedigree ? I never knew I 
 possessed either until a few years ago, when 
 my father and the editor of the Buckie Observer 
 happened to be rival candidates for a certain office in 
 that bright wee village, then vacant. The editor's kind- 
 ness was all the more disinterested on this account, and 
 his earnestness in searching the Buckie archives and the 
 parish registry for facts bearing on our family history was 
 worthy, probably, of a better cause. It is to him I am 
 indebted for the following interesting particulars of the 
 life and time of my forbears. 
 
 The females of my illustrious line, it seems, were 
 near)y all wicious — wery, wery wicious — and one was 
 burned for a witch. Nearly all the males that weren't 
 hanged died about forty, falling victims to the theory 
 that man was made to live on grog alone. Patriotic to a 
 degree my people must have been ; they built no houses 
 to speak of, they wore no garments w^orth mentioning, 
 even in the eighteenth century, and their marriage 
 ceremony was excessively Scotch and easy — consistmg 
 in jumping backwards over a broomstick, with a bottle 
 of whiskey in one hand and a "bannock o' barley meal " 
 in the other. 
 
A T^C'ig or Tico from my Fdiuily Tree. 53 
 
 It appears that every one of my ancestors were married 
 at one period or another of their existence, which, con- 
 sidering the simpHcity of the service, is not to be won- 
 dered at. But one was very much married indeed, and as 
 her name is in some degree historical, I have, perhaps, 
 some reason to be proud of her. She Hved in a cave in 
 the centre of a deep dark forest on the northern bank of 
 the Tweed, and was well known in the regions round 
 about as "the wife o' Beith, with the iron teeth." She 
 was known and feared as well. !She was haidly the 
 person any young gallant would have willingly wedded. 
 She didn't take to marrying until somewhat past the age 
 of fifty, and then she stole her husbands, and was never 
 known to keep ore dead or alive more than a month. 
 She was constantly waited upon by about fifty creatures 
 that some averred were evil spirits. At all events, it 
 seems they were wild and uncouth enough looking to 
 belong to a far worse world than this. Accompanied by 
 a dozen or two of these uncanny beings, she was in the 
 habit of fording the Tv/eed, and making a raid on the 
 houses of the resident gentry, and bearing thence 
 "A gallant gay to be her ain good man." 
 
 If, in the course of a month, a ransom was paid, the 
 captive was floated down stream in a coffin, alive ; if no 
 ransom was paid, he was floated down the stream just 
 the same, only nailed up and no holes in the lid. 
 
 This terrible woman amassed wealth untold, and the 
 editor of the Buckie Observer \wo\i\^ never have mentioned 
 her at all, only there happens to be a coronet in my 
 family, and it appears that it was the "wife o' Beith's " 
 money that paid for it in the first instance. 
 
 There were not many such illustrious personages in 
 our ancient family as this "wife o' Beith." I might go 
 further and state, without fear of contradiction, that all 
 the others dwindled into insignificance when compared 
 with the lady of the iron teeth. 
 
 One or two, however, deserve mention — so thought our 
 friend, the editor. There was, for example, old Peter 
 McGrab, the eminent gaberlunzie,* the man who first 
 
 * Scotch = a professional beggar 
 
54 J^^^"-' Cruise of the " Wauderoo.'^ 
 
 elevated begging to the ranks of the fine arts. His 
 celebrated saying, " There are tricks in a' trades except 
 the good honest beggerman's," is remembered till this 
 day in Scotland. Then there was old John McGregor, 
 of Reelock Glen ; " Honest John," he was called in the 
 district. He never wanted whiskey in his house, nor 
 sheepie's hams in his larder. Probably he made the 
 whiskey, but he couldn't have made the hams. He met 
 his death in a singular kind of way. In their passage up 
 stream, the salmon had to get over a fall fifteen feet high. 
 They just took their tails in their mouths, then let go, 
 and up they went like so many bits of whalebone. But 
 they didn't all succeed, and those that didn't fell back 
 into a big creel placed beneath the fall for the purpose. 
 There was a rickety kind of bridge over the fall, and 
 honest John, my ancestor, used to go there at daybreak 
 and fish up the unfortunates with a long pole and hook. 
 One day, alas! he missed his footing, and over he went 
 head first into the creel. He was found there dead, and 
 the verdict was, " Let him take it." But John hadn't lost 
 anything by the job after all, for years before he had 
 given a post obit to a famous surgeon — in other words, 
 he had sold his body for dissection, and duly drank the 
 money. 
 
 The editor of the Buckie Ohscvvcr was unable to say 
 which side my ancestors took during the great rebellion. 
 One thing is certain : one of them, a long-legged, half- 
 naked Highlander, was captured on the field of Culloden 
 the day after the battle. When asked to tell at once 
 what king he was for — George, or Charles — he gave vent 
 to the following utterance, which is highly characteristic 
 of the " gay Gordons" : 
 
 " Och ! she is neither for King Sheorge nor for 
 Sharlie ; she is just for King Spoolie."* 
 
 Some of my people must have been great wanderers 
 in their own country. There was Supple Eppie, for 
 instance, well known to every gaoler in Aberdeenshije. 
 She was in the tinware line, as a rule. She was never 
 
 * Kiiiij Loot. 
 
A Tic'lg or Tk'o Jroiii my Pani'dy Tree. 55 
 
 seen without a string of ragged children hanging about 
 her skirts — her own, of course — an immense bundle of 
 ghttering tin utensils over her shoulder, and a bag of 
 meal in front to balance it. But there used to be many 
 queer little odds and ends and unconsidered trifles in 
 that bag as well as meal. Eggs, for ^^^sample, or even 
 a chicken or two, or a shirt, for at harrying a hen-house, 
 or clearing a clothes-hne, there wasn't Supple Eppie's 
 equal in all the country round. 
 
 j\Iy ancestors must have been great travellers abroad 
 as well, for the editor of the Buckie Observe y took no 
 small pains to show that a place called Botany Bay is 
 almost peopled by gay Gordons. 
 
 IMen of wealth some of my forbears undoubtedly were, 
 though in those days, when might was right, they never 
 seem to have been able to hold their own ; and attempts 
 to seize by force what they considered their property led 
 to endless lawsuits, in which their sworn enemies — the 
 police — always came off triumphant. This the Buckie 
 archives can show until this day. These same archives 
 mention the trades and professions some of my illustrious 
 forbears seem to have followed. One was a furrier — 
 specialty, rabbit skins; another an itinerent ironmonger 
 — specialty, tinware (this might have been Supple 
 Eppie) ; a fourth was a celebrated distiller — privatea ; 
 fifth a musician, evidently of some eminence, because 
 he was a performer on two instruments, the bagpipes 
 and the Caledonian Straduarius, or Cremona ; a sixth 
 was a cut above trade, a general in the army — general 
 dealer. I need only mention three others : One a 
 sportsman — specialty, hawking; the other a medical 
 man, inventor and vendor among the Highland clans of 
 a celebrated ointment, compounded of butter and brim- 
 stone ; the third must have belonged to the Romish 
 Church. He was a monk; this is proved by the frequent 
 allusions to a " night in the cells " that follow his name. 
 
 "The Black Calendar" throws some light on the 
 peculiarities of a few of my bold ancestors, who, like the 
 knights of old, departed this life with their shoes on. 
 
 Coming down to more recent times, the Buckie editor 
 
56 The Cruise of the '^Wauderoo." 
 
 did not fail to make mention of a wealthy uncle, who 
 never refused to put his hand in his old stocking when 
 asked to. Strange that this uncle should always have 
 been borrowing things from my family — a top-coat, a pair 
 of boots, a flat-iron, or even the mangle. (Could this 
 have been a pawnbroker? — Editor.) But then, great men 
 have queer whims at times. And why shouldn't they ? 
 What would be the good of being a great man, if one 
 couldn't do just as one liked ? 
 
 That is all I know of my family history, but according 
 to the editor of the Buckie Observer, you see before you 
 the latest edition of the "gay Gordons," small octavo, 
 half-calf. I was captured on the iron-bound ("coast of 
 Aberdeenshire, by the simple expedient of floating a 
 grating in-shore from a man-of-war ship, with a basin of 
 oatmeal porridge on it. After my capture, I was kept in 
 a barrel, barred at one end, and fed on stirabout, and 
 sent abroad in this fashion as a supernumerary. One day 
 the surgeon of the ship turned his toes up, and this being 
 reported to the captain — 
 
 " Oh ! " said the captain, ''is he now ? Very well ; write 
 him down D.D.,"^ and open a fresh cask." 
 
 And so I was hauled out to do duty instead of the D.D. 
 doctor. 
 
 " Mr. Douglas," said Captain Crisp, " we look to you 
 now to aid in illumining the evening." 
 
 " Ahem 1 " began the engineer, " if you don't object to 
 me reading my piece I'll lay before you a bundle of 
 ' Clever Idiots.' " 
 
 D.D.= Discharged Dead. 
 
Clever Idiots. 57 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CLEVER IDIOTS— THE SCOTCH ENGINEER'S TRUE STORY 
 
 " The world of fools hath such a store, 
 That he who would not see an ass 
 Must stay at home and bolt his door, 
 And break his looking-glass." 
 
 ^' TTTHE population of the British Islands," said 
 I Carlyle when asked, " is about forty-seven 
 ■^ millions." 
 
 " Mostly fools," he added in that dry and vicious 
 manner, which was characteristic of the man, when his 
 dyspepsia drowned his politeness. 
 
 Whether he was right or wrong I shall not stop to 
 inquire ; with the fool generally or generically I have 
 at present nothing to do. It is mine for the nonce to 
 deal with a few particular fools, and to convince mine 
 reader that my title is not quite so anomalistic as at first 
 sight it may seem. 
 
 Of the genus vS////f/<5, natural order ^;;5^;'^5, there are 
 a very large number of varieties and sub-varieties from 
 the individual who has a deficiency of twopence in his 
 mental shilling, or who lacks a feather in his cerebral 
 wing, down to the slavering idiot who sits at the manor 
 gate expectant of the daily dole. 
 
 Stay, though, he does not sit there now in England ; at 
 all events, the law has provided for him, and found him 
 a bed in an asylum or house of detention of some kind. 
 But I'm not so sure but that in some remote parts of the 
 Highlands of Scotland the wandering innocent is still to 
 be met with. I remember one of these who, some years 
 ago, was in the habit of roaming about the straths and 
 glens of Inverness-shire. Although I believe that, 
 judging from the shape of this fellow's cranium you could 
 have put all his brains into an ordinary egg-shell, still he 
 managed to live by his wits, and that is more than many 
 
 E 
 
58 Tlic Cruise of the ''Waiidcroor 
 
 a wise man can do. His wants were few and simple, a 
 stick to help him along the road and keep away the dogs, 
 food, clothing of any kind, and shelter for the night. The 
 stick he cut in the forest ; shelter by night he found in 
 byre or barn, or under a spruce tree or corn rick — 
 shelter by day even from the rain he did not care to have, 
 for the simple reason that the wetter and more miserable 
 he appeared the more sympathy he elicited, and the more 
 alms he obtained. I never knew this fool beg for a meal ; 
 he used to squat down in the ditch or at a gate where he 
 could be seen, and rocking himself to and fro for a few 
 moments, burst into the most dismal and distressing 
 bowlings and lamentations that it is possible to imagine. 
 But a basin of porridge and milk or a bowl of soup and a 
 bone to pick put an end to all this grief, and by-and-bye 
 he got up and went on his way rejoicing. This man 
 carried a " snuff mull," the pnlvis tahacci being the only 
 luxury he permitted himself, and it is needless to say that 
 his box was kept well filled. He was an oldish man, and 
 is probably now in the Better Land, and wiser far than 
 any of us. 
 
 There used to be a species of the beggarman common 
 in the Highlands, two of which in particular I remember. 
 When a lad, I was living with a relation — a clergyman — 
 for some time, and they used to visit there. They popped 
 in " promiscous-like," as the sailors say, they were un- 
 bidden guests, but alwa3's made welcome. I hope I am 
 not givmg the reader the impression that these two 
 gentlemen hunted in couple, because they did not ; I 
 am not sure that they were even acquaintances, but 
 
 about once m six months V would come round and 
 
 stay a week, and by-and-bye C would arrive, and he 
 
 would stop a week or even more. Intelligent, shrewd 
 fellows they were both, and both had taken honours at 
 their university, and gone mad immediately afterwards^ 
 A little learning is a dangerous thing, but here were two 
 men who seem to have had too much of it. Excellent 
 mathematicians I was assuied they were, and as far as 
 the dead languages were concerned, wondrous linguists ;, 
 to hear the one give recitations from the Odyssey, and 
 the other from the ^Eneid, was thrilling. 
 
Clever Idiots. 59 
 
 These interesting idiots had about fifty houses in the 
 Highlands that they visited periodically, but I believe 
 they never out-stayed their welcome. 
 
 The old gaberlunzie who flourished in Scotland in the 
 earlier portion of the present century, many strange 
 stories of whom I have heard old people tell, was some- 
 times an idiot, but just as often quite the reverse. He 
 was a contemporary of the ancient packmen, and as news 
 did not fly with lightning speed in those days, these men 
 would be always made welcome at farmers' kitchen fire- 
 sides, if they had sense enough to show a fair face to 
 the guid-wife, and spin a yarn to the guid-man. The 
 packman was, of course, a man of business, the gaber- 
 lunzie a beggar by trade — and generally a right pleasant 
 fellow from all accounts. He could sing a song as well 
 as tell a story, so he never failed to keep old and young 
 in glee. His bed was made in the barn on pea straw, or 
 oaten straw, with any old " flawk" (plaid) for a covering. 
 
 " There he'd snore like a king till good broad day." 
 Nor in the matter of food was he " ill to say to," as 
 witness the words of the old song — 
 
 " Nae house, nae hame, nor hold had he, 
 But he was well liked by every bodie, 
 And they gied him sunkets,* and saps to 
 pree," f 
 
 " A nievefu' I o' meal, andahandfu' o' groats, 
 A daud § o' a bannock, or herring bree |j 
 Could porridge, or the lickings o' plates. 
 Would mak' him as blythe, as a beggar 
 could be." 
 
 The gaberlunzie was in the habit of blowing up as he 
 neared the door of a dwelling, where he expected a wel- 
 come and good entertainment. 
 
 " His wallets ahint and afore did hang, 
 In as good order as wallets could be, 
 A lang kail-gully • hung down by his side. 
 And a meikle nowt-horn *' to rout ft on had 
 he." 
 
 ■= Sunkets=left food, t Pree = to eat or taste, t Nievefu' = handful. §Daud = 
 large piece. || Bree- the water in which something has been boiled. IT Kail- 
 gully = a horn spoon ; it also means a knife. '''^' Nowt-horn^cow-horn. +1 Rout 
 — to sound. 
 
6o The Cruise of the '^Wanderoo."' 
 
 By far the most illustrious of gaberlunzies that we 
 
 have any account of in Scottish history, was King 
 
 James V., the father of our bonnie Mary, Queen of 
 
 Scots. He was a kind of *' amateur casual " of the 
 
 sixteenth century. Born in 15 12, he did not "burn a 
 
 long peatstack," for he succumbed in 1542. But if he 
 
 had short life it was a merry one. Peace to his ashes, 
 
 he was " a rantin', rovin', rhymin' billy." His greatest 
 
 enjoyment was dressing himself as a beggarman and 
 
 travelling through the land in search of adventures, 
 
 which, when found, he duly made a note of, for he was a 
 
 pawkie song-maker and poet. These adventures of his 
 
 were not always pleasant, as, for example, when he found 
 
 himself one terrible stormy night in a smuggler's cave, 
 
 where being taken for a spy he was presented with a 
 
 dagger on a plate in lieu of supper, and mvited to 
 
 perform harri-karri on himself. Instead, however, 
 
 of plunging the knife into his own liver, he tiied 
 
 its edge on that of his host, then drawing his 
 
 sword, he fought himself clear of the cave, and, 
 
 being joined by his brave knights next morning — they 
 
 were never very far away — he retraced his steps and 
 
 made it hot for the troglodites. 
 
 He was a merry monarch, the very prince of gaber- 
 lunzies ; a favourite " goak " of his was to billet himself 
 on some farm, make himself frank and free and a 
 favourite with everyone, and finally elope with the 
 daughter. This was a bad return for hospitality. 
 
 Fancy the feelings of the farmer's guid-wife as em- 
 bodied in the following verses written by the king 
 himself: — 
 
 " She went to the bed where the beggar had lain, 
 The straw was cauld, and the begger was gane." 
 
 Of course, she jumped at once to the conclusion that 
 the gaberlunzie hadn't gone empty-handed, so 
 
 " She ran to coffer and she ran to kist (chest), 
 But nothing was stolen that could be missed." 
 
 The guid-wife settled down after that, and sent the 
 maid-of-all-work to " wauken her bairn." 
 
Clever Idiots. 6r 
 
 " The servant went where the daughter had lain, 
 The sheets were unslept in, the lassie was gane. 
 Then back to her mistress she speedily ran, 
 Cryin' — ' Your dochter's awa' wi' the beggar man.' " 
 
 It was true, ower true ; they were both off, and by 
 that time miles upon miles away from the farm. There 
 was racing and chasing, but all was in vain. 
 
 " Some rode upon horses, and some ran a-fit (on foot) ; 
 The guid-wife was mad, and out o' her wit ; 
 She couldna stand, and she couldna sit." 
 
 One is bound to feel sorry for the old lady, only 
 accidents will occur occasionally. 
 
 About a hundred years before this, there was a kind of 
 a plague of clever idiots in Scotland. They were more 
 rogues than fools ; but so numerous did they become, 
 and so daring were their depredations, that at last the 
 law had to interfere for the protection of the public. It 
 was enacted that these " feigned fools" should be caught 
 and kept in prison at their own expense, with their legs 
 in irons, so long as they had one bawbee to rattle on top 
 of another. When the bawbees were done, the " fools" 
 were nailed by the ears to a tree for a time, after which 
 their ears were cut off entirely, or rather they were cut 
 off from their ears, which were left on the tree by way of 
 a caution to others. The earless " fools" were then sent 
 "packing," and if they were found again, they were 
 fastened to the tree again, but by the neck this time, and 
 with nothing solid to stand upon. 
 
 In this way " feigned fools" were treated ; but the 
 genuine article always obtained sympathy. 
 
 It could not be ascertained with certainty whether the 
 wandering idiot was really a fool or a madman ; they 
 were called " daft," therefore, and their daftness took 
 droll turns at times. 
 
 A clever idiot of whom I have heard my grandfather 
 speak obtained his livelihood in the following manner : 
 He would call at a farmhouse, and, seating himself by the 
 fire, bring out a bundle of papers. 
 
 " I find you owe me a thousand pounds," he would say, 
 " and another thousand ; and it is too long due. I must 
 have it." 
 
62 The Cruise of the " Wandevoo:' 
 
 *' Certainly you shall," the guid-wife would reply ; 
 " but, first and foremost, you must have your dinner.*' 
 
 A square meal never failed to bring this strange indi- 
 vidual to his senses for the time being, and he would 
 either take his departure or go contentedly to bed in the 
 barn, as the case might be. 
 
 But the jokes these clever idiots used to perpetrate 
 were not invariably of a harmless character, and the 
 victims were just as often women as not. 
 
 There lived in an out-of-the-way moorland place in a 
 northern county an aged crone who, although a regular 
 church-goer, had not mastered the great truth that 
 cleanliness is akin to godliness. She was most sparing 
 in her acts of ablution, if not in those of her devotion. 
 At her door, one beautiful summer's forenoon, was heard 
 a knock, and on opening it, greatly to her horror, she saw 
 before her one of the wandering idiots of the district. 
 He was a man of gigantic build, hirsute and wild-looking 
 withal, and carried in his hand a piece of timber taller 
 than himself. 
 
 " Good morning," he said, walking in and taking a seat, 
 
 " Good morning, kindly," said the old crone. 
 
 " Put on a kettle of water." 
 
 " That I will," she said, " that I will gladly ; you'll be 
 needin' a drop of brose, I daur say." 
 
 " Never mind," he grunted. " Get the kettle to boil 
 quick." 
 
 While the old woman blew up the fire, the semi-maniac 
 placed the washing tub in the middle of the floor with a 
 piece of soap and the scrubbing-brush in it. 
 
 Obedient to orders, though with her heart in her mouth, 
 the crone poured the hot water into the tub. 
 
 " Now," said the daft man, " I've never seen you 
 before, but I've heard of you. It is quite true what they 
 say ; you're a dirty old besom. Strip. 
 
 Disobedience meant death, and she knew it. 
 
 " Now you can mak' my brose," he said, after he had 
 given her such a scrubbing as perhaps no old hag ever 
 had before. 
 
 " And maybe," he added, " I'll find ye clean and tidy 
 when I ca' round again." 
 
Clever Idiots. 63 
 
 I have heard my father talk of Feel Peter (" Feel" 
 means daft or foolish in the Aberdeenshire dialect). He 
 was also a powerful fellow, and like all the rest a 
 wanderer. He was daft without a doubt, but he didn't 
 like to be reminded of it, and if anyone wanted to rouse 
 the demon in him he had only to call him Feel Peter. A 
 farmer's wife, who had to cross the river Deveron before 
 she got home, met him one evening in the gloaming just 
 by the ford, but did not know him. 
 
 " Oh ! man," she said, " I heard that Feel Piter is 
 about, and Pm dreadfully feared that I may meet him." 
 
 " Indeed it is true," returned the maniac; "he is at 
 this side o' the water ; now the Deveron is deep the nicht, 
 and so, if you like, PU carry you o'er on my back." 
 
 The farmer's wife was most grateful, and mounted at 
 once. Little did she know what was in store for her. 
 The maniac waded into mid-stream, then stopping short, 
 he gave the old lady a hoist that nearly shook the breath 
 out of her. 
 
 " You said Feel Peter I think," he cried, giving her 
 another hoist. " Well, Pll Feel Peter ye ! You're on 
 Feel Peter's back ! " 
 
 At every second word he gave the poor old girl a hoist. 
 
 *' You're upon Feel Peter — mad Peter — Feel Peter's 
 back — Feel Peter — mad Perer — Feel Peter's back." 
 
 Then he pitched her off into the river and left her to 
 find her way over as best she could. 
 
 "That's Feel Peter for you'," he said as he strode 
 away. 
 
 As long back as I can remember there was a terrible 
 being that used to roam in the moors and woods of 
 Aberdeenshire. He might have been harmless enough, 
 but I shall never forget meeting him once on a lonely 
 road ; my little sister was with me, and we both stood 
 appalled as he strode past, bludgeon in hand, hardly 
 seeming to see us, but muttering to himself: 
 
 " Mourikan — roum — roum — roum. Mourikan roum." 
 
 Pve thought since that the words signified " American 
 rum." 
 
 He was, I believe, one of the clever idiots who traded 
 
64 T^^^c Cruise of the *' Wanderoo.'' 
 
 on the terror he inspired in the breasts of those he 
 visited, and in this way obtained an honest Hvehhood. 
 
 Female fools were not so common. 1 remember 
 Dickie Da, however, and so may many others. She was 
 a comical idiot of small dimensions who used to travel 
 the road with a big woman who acted as her keeper. 
 Dickie Da was said to be rich, or at least independent. 
 We school children used to run after Dickie Da, teasing 
 her until she glared like a veritable fiend, foamed at the 
 mouth, and spat curses at us. 
 
 There was a being of the same description during my 
 father's boyhood, called Jean Preen. Her the children 
 used also to chase, singing — 
 
 "Jean Preen, Jean Preen, 
 
 The cat's among the cream, 
 Licking with her forefeet. 
 
 And glowering with her een." 
 
 I am not sure whether daft Jean Carr lived in my 
 early days or not. I'm not aware that ever I saw her,, 
 but I have often listened to terrible tales of her doings 
 from my nurse. I believe there is little doubts that in 
 her day she stole and probably took the lives of several 
 children, ^he was not a responsible being, and would 
 therefore be forgiven. They said — with what amount of 
 truth I am unable to vouch — that when she stole a child 
 she nursed it for days, then, tying a bag of meal around 
 its neck, flung it into the deepest "pot" or pool in the 
 Deveron with the words — 
 
 "You have your supper, lodge where you like." 
 
 In many parts of Scotland, the village fool or village 
 innocent is quite a handy sort of individual ; he will herd 
 geese, tend to fowls or cattle, run all kinds of errands, 
 carry all sorts of messages or parcels, from a billet-doux 
 down to a burden of wood, and is therefore a favourite 
 with the old and young. 
 
 Last century it was considered quite the thing for 
 every laird of any standing in the North of Scotland to 
 retain a fool or clever idiot about his premises, or even to 
 wait at table, where their comical and witty remarks 
 raised many a hearty laugh among the guests. 
 
Clever Idiots. 65 
 
 An ancestor of mine, who lived in bygone times — 
 ancestors generally do, by-the-bye — never sat dov/n to- 
 dinner without both his fool and his piper in the room^ 
 and near his chair. This particular ancestor of mine 
 suffered a slight inconvenience shortly after the fatal 
 fteld of Culloden, in fact he lost his head, but I know a 
 good deal of his home history, and his fool must have 
 been a very clever person indeed. My ancestor's mother- 
 in-law lived with him, and whenever she was more 
 didactic than usual, he took refuge in the wit of his fool 
 — a wink did it. Failing the fool, my lord would say to 
 his i)iper — 
 
 " By the w^ay, Donald, I heard a splendid strathspey 
 the other day, it is called so-and-so, but I don't suppose 
 you know it." 
 
 "Och! doesn't she know it, then, whatefer ?" Donald 
 would reply. " Here she goes." 
 
 And Donald would " blaw up," and there would be an 
 end to all argument for a time. 
 
 Verily pipers have their uses. 
 
 And so have fools. 
 
 Just a word or two about two other fools I knew once. 
 
 FOOL THE FIRST. 
 
 John Fraser wasn't a fool by any means, but he had a 
 brother Willie who was. John himself was a millwright, 
 and a strict and regular kirk attender. He had never 
 been missed out of his pew, no, not once in twenty 
 years ; and this regularity, gained for him, at long last 
 an eldership, just as his hair was turning grey. Now^ 
 John had lived up to the age of forty and five, and had 
 never yet thought of taking unto himself a wife. Mark 
 you, up to this date, John was always seen at his work, 
 and always like his work, in shirt sleeves, a little square 
 paper hat, and the auld brown clay cutty was never once 
 seen out of his mouth. Like Burns's Newfoundland dog^ 
 " the fient a pride, na pride had he." But one day, in 
 taking a short cut home through a heather moor, John 
 " forgathered' with a lassie herding her cows. Bars- 
 
66 T//t' Cruise of tJie " Wanderoo.'' 
 
 headed was this lassie, barefooted and barelegged as well. 
 John stopped to admire her. Never before, he thought, 
 had he seen such a heather angel ; her blue eyes pierced 
 him to the heart, her lips — crimson as the blossom ot 
 bilberries wet with dew — he fain would have kissed on 
 the spot, and he even admired her innocent ankles, and 
 couldn't for the life of him help observing they were 
 beautifully rounded and white as marble. " By George," 
 said John to himself — and he was never known to swear 
 a heavier oath — " how well she would look goin' to the 
 kirk wi' me on Sunday." I don't think John felt the 
 good of his pipe all the way home, though he pulled at it 
 unmercifully. Well, to make a long story short, John 
 married this bonnie herd lassie, and set her at the head 
 of his board to admire, and in every way made much 
 of her. Now the herd lassie, thus suddenly elevated, 
 thought she couldn't do better now she was a millwright's 
 wife, and consequently a real lady, than go in for 
 gentility wholesale. Her idea of wholesale gentility was 
 dress, dress, dress for herself, and dress for John, and a 
 flower garden, and a gig to ride to the kirk in, and bother 
 the cutty pipe. Ah ! bother the cutty pipe indeed. Surely 
 a man must love his wife if he gives up his tobacco to 
 please her. John did. But I don't think John was 
 happy. He looked woful and ghostly, the paper cap was 
 thrown aside in a corner, and he dared no longer appear 
 at his work unless spruce and tidy. Poor John, gentility 
 sat ill upon him ; he got thinner and thinner, never 
 smiled at all, and his surtout coat, that he was married 
 in, hung as loosely from his shoulders as if he'd been 
 a scarecrow. I verily believe John would have died, if 
 something hadn't occurred that made a man of him again 
 in a month. This was nothing more nor less than the 
 birth — nine months after marriage — of a couple of 
 lumping, thumping, fat babies. But, mind you, it wasn't 
 the twins so much that did the trick, although I don't 
 doubt he was proud enough of those ; but, you see, his 
 wife had her arms full now, and couldn't look after John, 
 and I declare to you honestly that the twins weren't two 
 days old till John was back again at his work in his 
 
Clever Idiots. 67 
 
 shirt sleeves, paper hat and all, and the black cutty clay, 
 all over smiles, and as merry as a mill wheel. Such is 
 life. No, John w^asn't a fool, but his brother Willie was. 
 Not a downright born idiot, you know, but a " hafflin" 
 as such people are called. Nor was he bad-looking, but 
 funny-like as I remember him, not unlike an improved 
 edition oi Punch, minus the hump. Kind-hearted he was 
 too, and obliging, and so fond of children ; would let us 
 ride cockerty-koosie on his shoulders up and down the lea- 
 rigs for hours at a spell, made teetotums for us to play 
 for pins with on the winter's evenings, and on dark 
 nights used to give us a sack of shavings to make a 
 bonfire withal in the corner of a field ; and Willie would 
 dance with us round and round it, as delightedly as any 
 of us. 
 
 Willie was the most extraordinary snuff-taker ever I 
 met with in my life. The horn-mull was never out of 
 his hand, and he used to ladle it up his nose — a good 
 sized one — with a bone utensil as big as an ordinary salt 
 spoon. 
 
 How many and many an hour have I sat by the burn- 
 side with poor Willie, listening entranced to his wealth 
 of old world stories, which lost nothing from Willie's 
 queer way of relating them. 
 
 " Hang it" was a favourite expression of Willie's. It 
 seemed to relieve his feelings, poor fellow, but it came 
 out of his mouth with such charming emphasis that it 
 really didn't sound badly. It is somewhat curious that 
 wild birds, and even beasts, will often attach them- 
 selves to the half-witted, and of all creatures in the 
 world, what should Willie have as a companion but an 
 enormous heron. This heron followed him like a hen ; 
 it was like Willie's shadow, and you never met theoi 
 apart. I don't think the heron had improved its position 
 — it seemed always draggled and dilapidated. " Why, 
 Willie," I said one day, looking at this melancholy bird, 
 who was standing half-asleep in the shallow stream 
 despairing of catching fish, " if I could fly like it, and 
 had such great long legs, I would go away, away to big, 
 big rivers, where I would be sure of a trout for breakfast." 
 
68 The Cruise of the " IVanderoo.'' 
 
 There seemed even to Willie some sense in what I 
 said. He gazed at the forlorn heron for some little time, 
 then took a long pinch of snuff, and " Hang it, it's a 
 fool," said Willie. 
 
 To my childish mind, the idea of a fool calling anything 
 else a fool was slightly amusing. 
 
 Willie had a tabby kitten. This little puss used to 
 come to our kitchen, fully persuaded it was more comfort- 
 able than its own. Willie always came to fetch it home, 
 and the heron waited outside, but wouldn't come in. 
 Now, we had an old cat who didn't like her fireside 
 invaded, and she made a practice of thrashing the kitten 
 viciously, but at every blow the wee pussy would only 
 sing the louder. " Hang it," said Willie, " it's a fool." 
 
 One day Willie felt very ill, and the doctor was called, 
 but never a spoonful of medicine Willie would take but 
 snuff. " Man ! " he told the physician, " I knew a man 
 that took Epsom salts every mornin' o' his life, and twice 
 on Sundays, and hang it he died for a' that." 
 
 And so did Willie, clutching his friendly snuff-mull to 
 the last. 
 
 FOOL THE SECOND. 
 
 Jamie Duncan was his name — a fool that a farmer 
 kept. Found him very handy, too, among the cattle, 
 you know. If he was a fool, he was a faithful fool. 
 Whatever was entrusted to Jamie's care was as safe as if 
 placed in the Bank of England. Not that they are in the 
 habit of billeting cows in the Bank of England in time of 
 peace, but never mind. A couple of young men met Jamie 
 one night, driving home a cow from a distant market. 
 " Let us see," said one to the other, " what Jamie will do 
 if we pretend to steal the cow. I think," he continued, 
 addressing Jamie, " we better have this cow." Instan- 
 taneous action suggested itself to the fool as the only 
 way out of the difficulty ; so, with the cudgel he carried, 
 and without one word of warning, he made such a 
 tremendous onslaught on the two acting thieves that he 
 quietened them both so effectually that shutters had to 
 
Clever Idiots. 69 
 
 be procured to carry them home, and they left not their 
 beds for weeks. " They were goin' to steal ma coo," 
 Jamie explained, when he got home, " so I just slew them 
 baith, as Cain slew his brother. Maybe Abel tried to 
 steal Cain's coo. Wha kens ? " 
 
 Jamie's love of tobacco was something quite out of 
 the common. Give him a halfpenny to buy a bit of twist 
 and you made him a friend for ever. For a stick of 
 niggerhead, Jamie would have died for you. The farm 
 where Jamie lived wasfarawayin theuplands of Aberdeen- 
 shire, and Jamie's fee for his services was plenty to eat 
 and drink, and a penny a day ; and the whole of his 
 pecuniary earnings Jamie spent in tobacco. In the 
 hamlet near the farm there were one or two shops, and 
 in one of them tobacco might be bought ; but Jamie 
 dealt not there, and if asked his reason, " I dinna like 
 the wifie," he would say, "and I dinna like her 'bacca, 
 for I ken she damps it to mak it weigh, and Lord only 
 kens what she damps it wi'. I put a bit in my mooth ae 
 day, and Gory ! I thocht I was pooshened." It fairly 
 turned my stammach." 
 
 Now the shop to which Jamie carried his custom was 
 no less than ten miles away. An ounce of tobacco 
 cost Jamie threepence, so once in three days, winter and 
 summer, as certain as sunrise, Jamie went trotting off to 
 that shop after six o'clock in the evening, and was always 
 back home again by midnight as fresh as a daisy. He 
 never failed to impress upon the merchant that he " cam 
 a' the way frae Lochee for an ounce o' tobacco," and 
 doubtless he got good value for his money. I've often 
 met Jamie of a summer evening trotting away for his 
 morsel of tobacco. I think I see him now, tall, some- 
 what ragged, and ill shod, stubbly as to beard, which he 
 trimmed with a pair of scissors, his bonnet pulled well 
 over his ears, and a young tree in one hand two feet 
 higher than himself. 
 
 There was a drunken soutar (shoemaker) lived not far 
 from the village where Jamie bought his tobacco, a man 
 like Tarn O'Shanter, who " frae November till October, ae 
 market day was never sober." Now about three miles 
 
yo The Cruise of the " Wanderoo,''' 
 
 on Jamies' side of the bridge was a steep rocky ravine, 
 spanned by an old Gothic bridge, and far down beneath 
 was a brown river, which, even in fine weather, was ever 
 in a state of fret and fume with the boulders that tried to 
 bar its progress, but when swollen with the streams from 
 the mountain sides, it tore along with the speed and 
 force of a cataract. Returning as usual from the village 
 one evening of a very rainy stormy day, Jamie found 
 that the river had risen higher than ever it had been 
 known to rise before, and had almost totalh^ destroyed 
 the bridge, having torn down one entire side and nearly 
 the whole of the road, leaving only one parapet standing, 
 and that seemed tottering. This parapet was barely a 
 foot and a half wide, and of course higher in the centre. 
 " Weel," said Jamie, eyeing it for a moment, " hame's 
 hame, and ower I maun gang." 
 
 " Oh ! Lord, I wish I were hame." Jamie looked 
 speedily round, and there on a stone sat a queer-looking 
 little figure, with a yellow leathern apron on. 
 
 " Wha the deil are ye ?" said Jamie. 
 
 " Oh,'' groaned the creature, " I'm Tam the soutar, 
 and the brig's washed awa, and I'll no get hame the nicht. 
 Oh ! me, oh ! me, and when she does catch me she 11 gie 
 me a most terrible thrashin', she said she would." 
 
 " Ye're drunk, are na 3e ?" said Jamie. 
 
 " Oh, man, aye," replied the poor soutar, " I'm no 
 only drunk, but I'm just fearfully fuddled." 
 
 " Can ye say truly rural?" said Jamie. 
 
 "Whisht wi' ye, "said Tam, " I wadna even attempt it." 
 
 " Can ye stand on ae leg ?" asked Jamie. 
 
 The soutar opened his eyes as wide as he could, and 
 stared at Jamie in astonishment. "Stand upon ae leg!" 
 he cried. " Lord ! man, I can hardly stand upon the 
 twa o' them. I've been drinking for a haill week." 
 
 " The more fool you," said Jamie, biting a bit ofT the 
 end of his ounce of twist. 
 
 "What'll ye gie me," added Jamie, " to carry ye ower 
 on my back ? " 
 
 " Losh ! man," said the soutar in some surprise, "wha 
 are ye, at all at all ? " 
 
Clever Idiots. 71 
 
 " I'm daft Jamie Duncan." 
 
 "Oh ! " said Tam, settling down a<^ain, " I was sure ye 
 were either the deil or a born idiot. Man alive ! d'ye think 
 I'd trust mysel on ony body's shouthers on the topo' that 
 boilin", surgin', foamin' pot, ye gomril ? Gae awa' wi' ye." 
 "A' richt than," said Jamie, "please yoursel ; I'm aff, 
 for it'll soon be dark." And Jamie sprang lightly towards 
 the dangerous parapet. 
 
 " Stop," cried Tam, " dinna gang and leave me, man. 
 D'ye think ye really could carry me safely to the ither 
 side on your back ? " 
 
 "Just as sure as that the sun has gane down o'er the 
 hill yonder," said Jamie ; " as sure as that it'll be dark 
 in half an hoor ; as sure as that a water-kelpie '11 whip ye 
 doon the burn if I leave ye sittin' on this stane." 
 
 " Weel, weel, then," said the unhappy Tam, " I'll just 
 get up, and I maun try and think o' a bit prayer to say." 
 As he spoke he mounted the stone somewhat unsteadily, 
 and clambered thence on to Jamie's shoulders. 
 
 " Noo," said Jamie, as soon as he got him fairly up, 
 " I'm no going to let you ride cockerty-coosie on my 
 shouthers for naething, ye drunken auld deevil." 
 
 " Na, na," said the soutar, " I'll pay ye weel ; I'll gie 
 ye an ounce o' tobacco." 
 
 " That'll do," said Jamie ; but the soutar didn't hear 
 him adding ''■so far.'' 
 
 Next moment Jamie had mounted the parapet, steadied 
 himself a little, then took three or four steps forward on 
 his perilous journey, when he suddenly stopped short. 
 " For God's sake gang on," cried the terrified Tam. 
 " I dinna budge anither step," said daft Jamie, " under 
 twa ounces." 
 
 " Twa ounces, be it, then," quavered the soutar. 
 " I mean three," said Jamie. 
 " Four if you like. Oh ! in merc}^ g^riR on." 
 And daft Jamie did " gang on," till he had reached the 
 very centre and highest portion of the parapet. Here he 
 came to a dead halt. 
 
 It must be admitted that the situation for both these 
 fools was terribly appalling : it was gloaming even now, 
 
72 The Cruise of the " Wanderoo.'' 
 
 almost night above, the maddened, foaming stream 
 beneath, and the narrow foothold that seemed to totter and 
 reel with their weight. But Jamie was firm. 
 
 "Never an inch out o' this do I move, back or fore, 
 till ye promise me a pound o' the vera best niggerhead 
 that can be gotten for love or money.'' 
 
 Perhaps the soutar had swooned, for he did not 
 answer immediately. 
 
 " D'ye hear me ?" cried Jamie, giving him a shake. 
 
 '» Ah — h !" yelled Tam. " I'll gie ye ma whole fortune 
 to gang on." 
 
 " Humph," grunted Jamie ; " that's comin' to the 
 point. I thocht I'd bring ye to your senses." 
 
 And slowly, slowly on went Jamie, and all the while 
 the poor soutar was praying as he had never prayed 
 before ; praying as only the dying can pray. 
 
 Safe at last, and Jamie threw his burden most un- 
 <:eremoniously down on the grass. 
 
 Hardly had he done so when, with a noise like thunder, 
 down went the remaining parapet of the bridge, almost 
 burying them in foam and spray. 
 
 " Hech !" said Jamie, to the prostrate soutar, " ye 
 didna mak' up your mind a minute ower soon." 
 
 " So that is my story," said the engineer, laying down 
 his manuscript. 
 
 "As sure as I'm alive," said Ben, " I'll be dreaming 
 about it all the night long. And v/hat became of the pair 
 of them at last ? Did Tam, as you call him, pay the 
 fine ?" 
 
 " Jamie would have drowned him if he hadn't," replied 
 the engineer. " But Tam's repentance didn't last long ; 
 he died a drunkard's death a year or so after it." 
 
 Well, m due time the bridge was repaired, and daft 
 Jamie lived to make many hundred more journeys to the 
 distant village for his modest ounce of twist. 
 
 But one dark, stormy winter's night poor Jamie came 
 not home as usual. A search was instituted for him, 
 and next day he was found lying stark and stift^, as dead 
 as the inhospitable rock whose shelter he had courted. 
 
 " Very good indeed," said the captain, " and now then 
 heave round, Mr. Mate." 
 
The Mate Spins a Yarn. 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII, 
 
 THE MATE SPINS A YARN. 
 
 THE mate slowly sipped his coftee for a minute or 
 more, looking into the fire between each mouthful, 
 as if seeking for inspiration. 
 
 " It's a short yarn I'm trying to remember," he said 
 at last. '' There's maybe not much in it, but it was told 
 me by an old shipmate, a Yank, like myself, and I'll try 
 to give it in his own words." 
 
 " I guess it can't be much under twenty years, gentle- 
 men, since I first cast anchor off old 'Frisco. It kinder 
 makes an oldish man of me to say so ; but speak the 
 truth and shame the devil, as my paternal relative was 
 wont to observe. 'Frisco warn't much of a place then, 
 like it be now. There warn't none o' yer printing offices 
 on a monstre scale, and there war a tarnation sight more 
 mud-huts than palaces. I war then second mate o' the 
 ship ' Duncan,' which warn't so dickie for a lad o' twenty- 
 four. We were laden with rum, 'baccy, gunpowder, and 
 blankets, and sich little articles as miners spend their 
 dollars on. A rough lot these blooming miners were, 
 too, but a sorter o' tender-hearted with all their hoss-play. 
 Why, I recklect that fust night I went to the whiskey 
 stores seein' a fellow down his man, and gouge his eye 
 out in the twinkling of a turnip leaf; and, by gum, gen- 
 tlemen, he walks up to his one-eyed friend next morning, 
 just as cool and collected-like as a barrel of Greendyke 
 oysters. ' Mebbee,' says he, ' yer won't believe me, ole 
 man, but I do feel sorter sorry I started that eye o' 
 yourn.' 'Bah ! ' answers his chum, ' what matters one 
 eye back or fore ; here, old pard, give us yer hand. 
 Neow, what'll yer drink ? ' 
 
 "Well, the more I went on shore the more I wanted to 
 go, so it ain't much of a wonder that in less than three- 
 
 F 
 
74 The Cruise of the " Wan demo.'' 
 
 weeks I war down with the yellow fever, and the ' Duncan ' 
 had sailed without me. Now, if you're thinking of yellow 
 Jack and black vomit, I guess you're a bit out. It was 
 nothing of the sort, I tell ye, the only similitood of my 
 fever to yellow Jack was thirst, not for water or wine 
 either, you bet, but for gold. That was about the natur 
 of my complaint just then. 
 
 *' Well, my friends, in those days there warn't the 
 same convanience for travelling in them parts there is 
 now. Railways warn't dreamt of. Bullock waggons 
 were a treat that very few could pay for ; so, ye see, 
 most of us had to rough it. But, bless you, I didn't 
 mind that then, and I guess I wouldn't mind it 37et. 
 
 " I jined a party that war going farther north and east 
 than anybody had been yet. There were six of us, and 
 we were to be pardners in everything. We were well 
 armed, and just carried about everything with us that 
 miners had any use for. 
 
 " We started fair, and in less than a week we were 
 clear away from civilisation, and all alone in mountain 
 and forest. No, not quite all alone, for there were many 
 an ugly grizzly to encounter, and many a tarnation red- 
 skin, which we soon got to nate worse nor spotted snakes. 
 But one skunk that we caught one night a-creeping 
 around our camp we were just a-going to kill and scalp ; 
 not that we cared a pin about his dangdable dirty wig, 
 but scalping is the custom, and kinder strikes terror into 
 the hearts of the Injuns. We were about to do for this 
 un, when Rodgers, one of our pards, says, says he : 
 
 *' ' Why, he says, ' look here, bo3'S, may I never smoke 
 another pipe if this derned red-skin ain't a-wearing a 
 necklace of nuggets.' 
 
 " And I tell you, gentlemen, our precious eyes did 
 sparkle a trifle when we hauled the dusky divil to the 
 light and saw it ; every one war as big as your thumb, 
 there were twenty-one in all, and about as many bears' 
 teeth between them. Wall, I reckon we robbed that 
 wretch precious quickly ; but we didn't scalp him. No ; 
 we fed him well and gave him rum, and, what with signs 
 and what with a smattering o' Injun, we let him under- 
 
Tlic Matt Spins (J Yiirii. 75 
 
 stand he war to lead us to the gold-fields. And the very 
 next morning this skunk begs for more rum, then signs 
 us to follow him. No, we wern't a bit afeard. Rodgers 
 knew them chaps well, and he kept patting the rum bottle 
 all day and signing to the red-skin to get along, and now 
 and then he would give him a smell of it, or maybe a 
 taste. 
 
 ♦' We sort of blazed our way along for several days, 
 for we found it easier to fire the bush than scramble 
 through naterel-like. On the fourth day we came to a 
 gulch, and a stream ran through the valley ; and I could 
 tell at once, by the excited eyes of my pardners, that we'd 
 got to the land o' gold at last. And it warn't long, either, 
 till Mr. Red-skin was down on his knees, scraping away 
 among the broken quartz like iverything, and by-and-bye 
 he comes in with a nugget, and gits a 'llowance o' rum. 
 
 " ' Hurrah, boys ! ' cries Rodgers. ' This here is our 
 camping ground. Here's where we've got to make our 
 fortunes in six months' time.' 
 
 '* Fear of the red-skin ? No. If we hadn't had plenty 
 o' rum he might have run off, and brought his whole 
 yelling tribe to scalp us ; but I niver saw the Injun yet 
 would run far away from a rum bottle. 
 
 •' Wall, we were in roaring luck for once, and at the 
 end of one month we had made a considerable pile, and 
 the claims we worked still held out. 
 
 " But, gentlemen, wherever you find carrion you will 
 find corbies, and if they ain't there jus then, they won't 
 be long o' coming. So one day strangers began to 
 arrive, Yanks and Irish Mexicans, by the score. We 
 couldn't keep 'em back. O' course not ; but it did feel 
 vexing. There seemed plenty of gold, however, to last 
 all comers till doomsday ; and just in three months there 
 were quite a village all around us and several stores, where 
 3^ou could buy most anything, from a blanket to a bottle 
 of rum." 
 
 Here the mate paused for a minute or more. I never 
 saw him so long filling his pipe before nor since, and I'm 
 sure everyone could hear the great sigh he emitted when 
 he resumed his yarn. 
 
76 The Cruise of the " Wandcroo.'' 
 
 " Gentlemen," he continued, " it war at one o' them 
 stores I lost my heart. A few young girls had found their 
 way to the Red Gulch with their parents, but there warn't 
 nary a one o' them fit to hold the candle to my Katie 
 M'Guire. I can see her now, the darling, as I first saw 
 her serving out rum — her hair was just the colour of it — 
 to a parson, and smiling so tarnation sweetly that my 
 heart, eviry ounce of it, went straight away to her on the 
 spot. She war the landlord's daughter, jus new come to 
 the gulch. Tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, a bit freckled 
 about the nose, but a warmer-hearted wench there warn't 
 a 'tarnation bit o' use for. She war a good armful, I tell 
 ye, too; and no one dared make too free wi' Katie, or, as 
 cartain as sunrise, they got a wanner straight from the 
 shoulder. Queer kind o' a parsun that one war, too, I 
 tell ye. A regular down-south lookin' chap, long chafted, 
 watery-eyed, thin, and buttoned-up like, and all the blood 
 in his body were stationed in his nose. And warn't he 
 spooney on my Katie, you bet ? Now, the funniest thing 
 about this critter war this. Soon's he took to drinkin' 
 rum he guv up 'baccy slap-bang, all at once jest. Should 
 guess his 'llowance o' liquor war about a bottle a day, 
 bitters in the morning, and a dose to go to sleep upon at 
 night. 
 
 " Wall, this cuss, soon's he guv up the pipe, or may- 
 be two or three weeks arter, took the queerest disease of 
 the eyes iver I hearn of. Why, our doctor himself 
 'llowed he'd be teetotally derned, if ever he'd seen any- 
 thing like it. Bar that his eyes war a bit boiled-like as 
 to the blue part, and bar that the whites looked like 
 curried onions, and bar that them blessed optics o' his 
 always ran water when he looked at Katie, theie seem.ed 
 nothing wrong with him. Sometimes he war a sorter 
 right enough, at others everything far away seemed close 
 at hand, and vice versa. This war a sorter awkward for 
 his reverence, to say the least of it, and he jest behaved 
 as like a madman as ever you seed in your born days. 
 He never went abroad without a Derringer ; but, as 
 somebody had always drawn the charge, it considerably 
 reduced the danger. Well, I've hearn o' many com- 
 
The Mate Spins a Yarn. 77 
 
 plaints that the giving; up of 'baccy brings about, but 
 this illness of the parson chap's was the old-firedest out. 
 Why, dear me, mates, but he'd let drive at a fly not Ave 
 yards ahead of him, and think he war a-shooting an 
 eagle a mile off ; and if he did spot an eagle half a mile 
 off, he'd take it for a wasp, and wave his hands around 
 his head like a sixpenny model of a windmill. Ole 
 Twist's donkey he always took for a hare, and it gave 
 him rare sport, I can tell ye. The only sensible thing 
 about the chap was his falhng in love with my Katie, but 
 he always thought she war quite a long distance away 
 from him. ' Thou art so near and yet so far,' he would 
 say, muzzling over the bar at her. 
 
 " Wall, he told every soul in the gulch, it war the love 
 o' Katie as war making him so thin. Every soul knew 
 it war the brandy and the want of 'baccy. 
 
 " I married Kitty, and we took a store in the dear old 
 gulch, and maybe the best customer we had war this 
 mad parson. Try to cure him ? I should think we did ; 
 and we offered him weeds that would have lured the larks 
 from the sky. The cuss wouldn't have them. 
 
 "Wall, mates, the poor wretch got thinner and thinner, 
 and skinnier and skinnier every day, till there war nothing 
 left but the hide to hold the bones in position. Then he 
 took to his bed. And there warn't a soul in the gulch 
 hat didn't do all they could for him. He lived in a bit 
 of a hut about half a mile from Katie's-and-my store ; 
 and nobody was a bit surprised when, one windy, wet 
 night, the doctor looked in to have a drop of summit hot, 
 and told us that he had just left the parson, sinking fast, 
 and that he couldn't live two hours. That war true, 
 mates ; but he didn't die in bed ; for the doctor hadn't 
 quite done talking when the door opens, and in walks his 
 patient. 
 
 " I ain't much of a hand, boys, at describing death, but 
 it were imprinted on every inch of that poor mad parson. 
 His high cheek-bones, his glittering eye, his wet clothes 
 hanging loose about his shrinking frame, his thin, bony 
 hands more like birds' claws, and his deathly, quavering 
 voice. 'Twar a sight I'll never forget. He sank into a 
 
78 The Cntisc of the " Wandcroo. 
 
 chair by the fire, and Katie hastened to make him brandy 
 hot, and the dear girl held it to his lips, for he couldn't. 
 But he sucked it down. ' I see straight now, Katie,' he 
 said. ' You are near me now. But I couldn't die in bed, 
 all by myself — you know — Bless }ou, Katie — Give me a 
 cigar — Light it, light it — Bless you.' 
 
 " He clutched the weed, and lifted it towards, not to 
 his mouth. 'Twar too late. The arms fell, jaw and 
 head dropped chestwards, and there war no more of 
 that poor parson chap.* 
 
 That very night a change came over the spirit of the 
 scene. It came on the wings of a southern wmd, in the 
 shape of a dark mist, that gradually spread itself over the 
 sky, and for the first time for many days the sun was 
 overshadowed. Fresh snow, too, begn to fall, and at the 
 same time strange sounds, musical and murmuring, were 
 heard all about and around us. Every iceblock in all the 
 pack began to lift up its voice, as if longing, wishing, 
 and yet hoping soon to be free. The breaking up of the 
 great sea of ice was at hand. Next day we observed, 
 about a mile astern of us, a long rent in the pack^ 
 stretching from N.E. to S.W. Sometimes it would open 
 for two or three yards, and again it would slowly close. 
 How eagerly we watched the tantalising motions of this 
 canal ; our whole hopes were concentrated on it. If it 
 opened, we had a chance of getting away out into the 
 free ocean. If the reverse should occur, however, and 
 at the same time frost and an under-current set in, we 
 might in all probability be drifted away towards the west 
 land of Greenland, and have to remain in these dismal 
 latitudes for many months, perhaps for ever. 
 
 Next morning, what had been but a canal the day 
 before had increased during the night to a large lake. 
 Birds, too, were flying about it, and the narwhal and 
 porpoise came up to breathe and sun themselves on its 
 placid bosom. Every heart on board was gladdened, and 
 every eye was bright with joy ; nor was it owing to the 
 glass of grog to all hands alone that they left the ship 
 
The Black Mens Ball, and What It Led To. 79 
 
 singin- to proceed to the lake, their object being to hew 
 a canat from it to the vessel in order that we might get 
 her out into the water. This, although the hardest work 
 that could be performed by men's hands was executed 
 most satisfactorily after many, many hard hours toil and 
 fati-ue. The men worked with the great ice-saw, and 
 blasted the bigger blocks with powder. The large pieces 
 of ice had to be pushed along to the open water and the 
 smaller bits were sunk below the main pack. When the 
 natural spirits of the crew began to fag, they were 
 stimulated by the exhibition of artificial ditto, and when 
 they lost heart they generally found it again in the heart 
 of a bottle of rum ; so that, at last, we had the satisfac- 
 tion of seeing our gallant barque under weigh sailing 
 slowlvdown the lake. Having upwards of a hundred 
 miles" to work our vessel through before reaching clear 
 water, we did not yet dare to ship our rudder, and a lew 
 hands pulling a boat ahead of her sufficed to steer her. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BLACK MEN S BALL, AND WHAT IT LED TO. 
 
 NEXT Friday found us all together again as usual. 
 We had not yet let down our hearts, however. 
 We were a well-fortified, well-provisioned ship, 
 and there were long months of summer yet before us. 
 
 The captain was not below when the sea-pie came in. 
 He was in the Crow's Nest, having one last look round 
 lor "ferlies," as Douglas called wonders. 
 
 -Come along. Captain Ben," cried the mate as he 
 came trotting down the stair. " I knew you d sniH it 
 
 The captain took off his gloves, smiled, and rubbed 
 his hands ; then we all settled down to serious eating. 
 
8o The Cruise of the " Wandevoor 
 
 *' Robert," cried our bold skipper to the steward, as he 
 handed a monstre plate of pie down to the observant 
 bright-eyed Newfoundland, " Robert, have the men for- 
 ward had their grog ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, they've spliced the main-brace. At least 
 they're splicmg at it now, and seem all as happy as sand 
 boys." 
 
 " Well, then, after the men come the masters. Bring 
 in the coffee and fixings, as Mr. Smartie here calls them." 
 
 *' Now light your pipes." 
 
 '' Whose turn is it first ?" 
 
 •' It doesn't matter who begins," said the doctor. 
 
 " Will you yourself?" 
 
 " I don't mind that even. I shall call my yarn 
 
 THE BLACK MEN S BALL. 
 
 Luncheon, or " tiffin," as we called it, was always a 
 free-and-easy sort of a meal on board the Penguin. 
 Dyspepsia was a thing practically unknown in our mess. 
 If ever the cassowary suftered from that complaint, so 
 did we. And a little before one o'clock more than 
 one of us began to feel hungry — hungry with a healthy 
 hunger, not born of beer or nips of Highland whiskey — a 
 hunger that we weren't ashamed to own to. Even 
 Paymaster Pumpkin would rub his hands as he walked 
 briskly up and down the ward-room floor, and 
 
 " Positively, gentlemen," he would say, " I'm begin- 
 ning to feel peckish. Ah, here comes the steward to lay 
 the cloth. Now then, young Sawbones " — this was the 
 irreverent way he chose to address me — " clear away 
 those papers. And you, Mr. Soldier, away with your 
 painting; no more sketching or scribbling either till after 
 luncheon." 
 
 I daresay that a good deal of the schoolboy sticks to 
 men in alter life. Anyhow, no sooner was the cloth 
 laid than everybody suddenly got as lively as bees on 
 swarming-day. Books were pitched on one side, and 
 conversation waxed animated in the extreme ; and 
 
The Black Mens Ball, and What It Led To. 8i 
 
 when, at last, the servants marched into the mess-room, 
 trencher-laden, there was a general chorus of — 
 
 " Hurrah ! Now then, boys, sit in !" 
 
 Nobody needed an invitation. There was a general 
 scramble for chairs, and we seemed to settle around that 
 table as swiftly as swallows in a bed of osiers. 
 
 But tififin was not only a free-and-easy meal, it was 
 likewise the business meal. If a general invitation had 
 been sent to the officers of the ship for a ball or a dinner, 
 it was decided at tiffin who were to go and who were to 
 stop at home. If we were to give a hop on board, the 
 distinctive merits of vinous refreshment or a high tea 
 were discussed at the luncheon-table ; if we were to 
 challenge the Bombay Plungers to a cricket match, 
 or the Madagascar Water Rats to a boat race, or the 
 Portuguese Pee-shooters to a rifle-match, it was decided 
 during the progress of the mid-day meal when and 
 where the great events should come off; to say nothing 
 of all general mess arrangements, and such tiny matters 
 as who were going on shore for the afternoon, and what 
 was to be done when we went there, et cccteva, et ccetera. 
 
 " That Irish stew is delicious," said Pumpkin one 
 day, passing his plate to the servant for another load. 
 "Delicious! I really begin to feel better already. Penny, 
 bring me a glass of Vermouth- Gentlemen, what do 
 you think is the news from the office this morning ?" 
 
 It should be stated that the admiral of the station had 
 sailed only the day before. He was one of those officers 
 who was said to have a zeal for the service. At all 
 events, he never paid us a visit without issuing an order 
 of some kind. 
 
 " Tell us," some of us cried, while the remainder 
 listened all attention. 
 
 "Guess," said Pumpkin. 
 
 " Ashleigh has been promoted ?" 
 
 " Penguin ordered home ?" 
 
 " Sawbones to be translated ? " 
 
 " Ne'er a one of you is right," said Pumpkin. " Come, 
 1 won't keep you in tig-tire. I'll tell you. We are going 
 to have a new mess-mate." 
 
 " A new mess-mate ? " 
 
82 Tlic Cruise of tlic " Wandcroo,^' 
 
 " Yes," continued the paymaster. *' Oh, don't be 
 surprised ; he is only an additional, only a supernumerary, 
 only lent to us — and he is only a soldier." 
 
 After digesting this long string of " onlies," we felt 
 relieved ; for we did think, for a time, that some one of 
 us was to be ordered home to make a vacancy. 
 
 " Only a soldier, is he ? " said our captain of marines. 
 " Thank you, Pumpkin. But where is he going to sleep ? 
 I daresay you'll give him your cabin, Pumpkin, and take 
 to a hammock." 
 
 The idea of little fat Paymaster Pumpkin, with his 
 round, round face, and his bald billiard-ball of a head, 
 swinging in a hammock, made us all laugh. 
 
 "Nothing of the sort, Captam Stanley," replied the 
 wee man, somewhat loftily. " He is more in your line 
 than in mine." 
 
 "Oh, but, paymaster," said the marine officer, sooth- 
 ingly, " you must dispose of him decently, you know, 
 come ! Have the captain to build a cabin for him on the 
 main-deck." 
 
 " A likely thing, indeed ! " said the first lieutenant, 
 putting in his oar, " and spoil the look of the whole main- 
 deck ! Not if Pm consulted on the matter." 
 
 "Besides," added Pumpkin, refusing to be mollified, 
 " I said he was only a soldier, and, I may add, he is only 
 a griffin. Lieutenant Crook — by your leave, Royal 
 Marine Light Infantry — hardly knows the colour of deep 
 water, and hasn't been a dog's watch in the service. 
 Cabin ? No ; a hammock and a screen-berth on the 
 main-deck — that'll be Crook's form." 
 
 "And, "said thefirst lieutenant, " Pll see that that screen- 
 berth is taken down every morning before seven bells." 
 
 " You've made up your mind, then, to be down upon 
 poor Crook ? " said Stanley. 
 
 " Down on poor Crook!" repeated Smarte ; "not a bit 
 of it; only I do look upon the man as a mere innovation. 
 What do we want more marine officers for, I wonder ? "^ 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said Pumpkin, "as he is a mere 
 supernumerary, of course we'll charge him a shilling 
 more a day for his mess." 
 
The Black Mens Ball, ami What It Led To. 83 
 
 This was put to a division, and the ayes had it. 
 
 Pumpkin had a quick ear for the jingle of coin — a liv^ely 
 look-out for " bawbees.'' AH for the good of the mess, of 
 course; but still some of the motions he brought forward 
 and carried at the tiffin-hour the younger members of the 
 mess thought a trifle hard. For instance, if anyone 
 happened to break a glass, he was put down "six to one 
 for skylarking." Oh, but you ought to have heard the 
 laughing and shouting round the table that day when 
 Pumpkm himself accidentally smashed a tumbler — the 
 first that had been broken since his order became law. 
 
 " Six to one," was the cry, "six to one, six to one for 
 skylarking! Down with it, steward ! " 
 
 " But, gentlemen, gentlemen ! " Pumpkin protested ; 
 but it was all in vain. Out came the steward's tablets, 
 and it was duly chronicled, " Paymaster Pumpkin, six 
 tumblers — six to one for skylarking." 
 
 Lieutenant Crook, R.M.L.I., arrived in good time. 
 He landed at Zanzibar from the admiral's tender — a 
 saucy morsel of a gunboat that was everlastingly on the 
 move, doing all the dirty work for the big ship, and 
 catchmg slavers right and left ; the prize-money that 
 accrued from such service being duly shared with the 
 admiral, captain, officers, and crew of the flag-ship, which 
 was hard, to say the least of it, on the fighting tender. 
 
 One would have thought that young Crook, the griffin, 
 the innovation, the man with such a string of "onlies" 
 round his neck, ought to have felt a very humble indi- 
 vidual indeed. But he did nothing of the sort. He was 
 the most cool and self-possessed individual ever I came 
 across in the service. 
 
 Good-looking was Crook withal, cetat 25 ; fair hair 
 and moustache, and a delicate pink-and-white com- 
 plexion. He was every inch a soldier. The reader must 
 kindly understand me to mean that there wasn't an inch 
 of the sailor about him. He ordered the servants about 
 as if he had been in an hotel ; he made a kind of a 
 spoiled child of his own particular servant, and didn't 
 keep him in his place ; he called the steward "waiter," 
 his screen-berth his "bedroom;" he talked of going 
 
S4 The Cniise of the " IVandcroo." 
 
 ^'upstairs;" and, in fact, exhibited the utmost indiffer- 
 ence to nautical phraseology and the customs of the 
 service. He called the first lieutenant *'old fellow'' 
 before he had been three hours in the mess; he "digged " 
 Pumpkin in the small ribs on the evening of the second 
 day ; and on the Sunday forenoon he was positively seen 
 Avalking arm-in-arm with the captain himself on terms of 
 as much famiharity as if he'd been his own father. He 
 was really an innovation ; but his smile was so pleasant, 
 and everything he did or said so evidently the outcome of 
 a happy and innocent nature, that nobody could be angry 
 with him ; so before very long he was a general favourite. 
 
 Poor Pumpkin, though, before the arrival of Crook, 
 used to have a nap in the easy chair, with his handker- 
 chief on his hat, just after dinner. There was no chance 
 of enjoying any such luxury after Crook joined, except on 
 the evenings when the innovation betook himself on 
 shore. 
 
 Our young soldier was not long with us before he gave 
 ample proof to most of us that if there was one thing in 
 the world that he was fonder of than another it was 
 practical joking. And there was no end to it, either. It 
 was harmless enough, however. There was never much 
 mischief done, and the business always concluded with a 
 good laugh. 
 
 But before a month had passed a practical joke ot 
 some kind had been perpetrated on every single one 
 of us — Crook being the perpetrator, we being the 
 perpetratees. 
 
 One particularly warm day four of us were quietly 
 smoking our cigars under the quarter-deck awning. We 
 were lying at anchor close abreast of Zanzibar. Crook 
 had gone on shore, as usual, with the after tiffin boat, 
 and, as usual, in shooting rig, with gun and bag; not 
 that there was much of any consequence to shoot, but 
 he'd bring off something, dead or alive — birds or snakes, 
 a monitor lizard, a monkey, or a mongoose. 
 
 We had, as a pet, an enormous ape or ourang, which, 
 as a rule, preferred walking upright ; and, dressed as he 
 always was in blue swallow-tailed coat of serge, red baize 
 
The Bhick Men's Ball, and What It Led To. ^s 
 
 breeches, and a woollen Tarn o'Shanter with a red top, it 
 must be confessed that Daddy, as we called him, looked 
 a strong link in the Darwinian chain. Crook and he were 
 great friends ; the ape would refuse nothing the young 
 soldier offered him, and would even try to smoke to 
 please him. 
 
 " What do you think," said I, " did I find in my fiddle 
 this afternoon ? " 
 
 " Don't know," was the half-sleepy answer. 
 
 " It was filled with gigantic cockroaches ; there must 
 have been five hundred in it. As soon as I commenced 
 to play they came rushing out of the // holes, went 
 tumbling over each other towards the shoulder, and then 
 flew away for all the world like a flock of wild pigeons. 
 The air was darkened with the brutes for the space of 
 five minutes." 
 
 " I don't wonder, Sawbones," said Pumpkin, who had 
 about as much ear for music as an Alderney cow, " I 
 don't wonder at your playing creating a kind of a panic 
 among the congregation, nor at their rushing madly to 
 the// holes, as you call them ; the only wonder is how 
 Crook — for, of course, it was Crook — got all these cock- 
 roaches boxed up in your fiddle." 
 
 *' Oh," cried Watkins, " that was simple enough ; he 
 only had to pop a piece of butter inside, and set the 
 fiddle in a corner. But what do you think I found in my 
 boot this morning ? " 
 
 " Don't know." 
 
 "Why, I declare I never got such a fright in my life. 
 The boot wouldn't go on ; and when I held it upside 
 down, out dropped a lively young cobra, and went 
 scuttling away under my drawers. When I taxed Crook 
 about it he only laughed, and said, " Your toes were safe 
 enough, old fellow ; I drew the fangs." 
 
 Just at the moment up came our worthy Scotch 
 engineer, fuming. He was fuming far too much to 
 talk decent English. 
 
 " Whaur's the furst livtenint ? " he cried ; " vvhaur is 
 he?" 
 
 ** Why, what is the matter ? " we all enquired. 
 
86 TJic Cruise of the " \Va)idcroo.''' 
 
 ** What's the maitter ! " roared McGregor; "-why, 
 maitter eneuch, man, maitter eneuch for a court o'inquiry ; 
 maitter eneuch for a coort-mairshal. The service is goin' 
 to the mischief. I'll report that young Crook before I'm 
 twa hoors aulder, or may I never chew cheese again ! 
 Whaur's the furst livtenint, I'm askin' ye ? " 
 
 *' But what has Crook done ? Tell us, McGregor." 
 
 " I'll not trust mysel' to speak," said the worthy Scot, 
 "' till I licht my pipe ! Now," he continued, taking vicious 
 draws at the clay, " I'll tell ye what he's done, and I 
 think ye'll every one o' ye agree wi' me that that young 
 scoundril Crook deserves to be" — puff — " planked " — puff 
 '* drum-headed " — puff— *' cobbed, and keel-hauled. I 
 wint to my cabin just now to have a caulk, and I found 
 my bed was already okopied ! " 
 
 " By whom ? " said Watkins ; " this is interesting.'' 
 
 " Why, by Daddy, gentlemen, as drunk as a lord ; 
 Daddy in my bed, in under the sheets" — puff — "with his 
 head on the pillow " — puff — " snorin' drunk, with my 
 meerschaum in thejaws o' him " — puff, puff — " with my 
 specs on his nose, and my nicht-cap on his ugly head" — 
 puff, puff, puff. 
 
 We all agreed it was time that something should be 
 done. Reporting him would be mean, cobbing and keel- 
 hauling was out of the question ; he must be paid out in 
 his own coin. 
 
 *' I have it ! " cried I. 
 
 " Out with it, then ! " cried McGregor joyfully. 
 **■ Gather roond the doctor, gentlemen ; dinna speak loud, 
 doctor, but out wi' it, man ! " 
 
 "Well," I continued, " I met old Bumboat Sulliman 
 yesterday, and he told me there was going to be a black- 
 man's ball at Boobooboo to-morrow night. Now, you 
 know how Crook hates to go on shore in uniform ; so if 
 we could only get him to go on shore in full dress to this 
 niggers' hop, why, we should have the whip hand of him 
 for the rest of the cruise." 
 
 Poor Crook never looked nicer nor happier than he did 
 that evening, when he entered the ward-room before 
 ■dinner, all gold, and scarlet, and smiles. We were 
 
The Black Mens Ball, and What It Led To. 87 
 
 talking about the grand ball to which we were invited. 
 
 We showed Crook the '' invite," a gaily be-ribboned piece 
 
 of parchment from *' Ab del Raman Sulliman." Crook 
 
 was delighted. 
 
 '* Bother the dress part of it, though ! " he said ; 
 
 adding presently, " Never mind. Will there be many 
 
 nice girls there ? 
 
 " Sure to be," said Watkins. 
 
 Fortune seemed to favour us. Next day, at luncheon, 
 
 we heard Crook giving orders to Brown, his servant, to 
 
 take his sword and dress-case on shore. 
 
 '* I'll dress on shore," he explained, " and get a boy to 
 
 guide me to Boobooboo. Shan't come off to dinner ; I'll 
 
 have a snack at Portugee Joe's, and join you afterwards 
 
 at the ballroom." 
 
 This was enough for us. We let Private Brown into 
 
 the secret, and commissioned him to bribe Portugee Joe 
 not to let the cat out of the bag, and to provide a guide 
 that couldn't speak a word of English. 
 
 We anticipated hne fun, I can assure you. Ab del 
 Raman, we had assured Crook, was the Sultan's head 
 chief, and the ball would, therefore, be simply a splendid 
 affair. The boat was called away at seven o'clock, and 
 at half-past seven we had all — dressed in rmifti, of course 
 — landed at Boobooboo ; and there was Sulliman him- 
 self, in his bare black legs and long cotton gown, all 
 ready to guide us through the bush to the black-man's 
 ball. 
 
 It was held in a kind of hall, an immense barn of a 
 place, lighted up with oil-lamps, which gave it the 
 appearance of a kind of second-class hippodrome. 
 
 But the scene inside beggars description. The mere 
 spectators lined the walls three or four deep ; the dancers 
 — semi-nude savages every one of them — danced in a 
 wide circle round the musicians, the men waving aloft 
 torches and spears, the women bending up and down, 
 beating horn cymbals, rolling their eyes, and tossing 
 their arms around them, and ever and anon shrieking like 
 so many mad curlews, till they silenced even the scream 
 of the Arab clarionet and roll of the horrid tum-tum. 
 
88 The Cruise of the ''Wauderoo:' 
 
 We hadn't been spectators of this wild scene for over 
 five minutes, when in marched Crook, in all the glory of 
 his splendid uniform, and laughing outright. 
 
 " By George ! " he cried, coming up, " you fellows 
 have fairly sold me ! Ha, ha, ha ! I give in, but I 
 really didn't thmk there was so much in you." 
 
 Suddenly, as if by magic, music and dancing ceased ; 
 there was a fanfare of trumpets heard outside, then in 
 rushed a dozen gesticulating Arabs. 
 
 " Sameela, sameela, sameela ! "'''' they cried, and led 
 the way to a raised dais that we had not previously 
 noticed. It had a railing in front ; steps led up to it, 
 and it was covered with scarlet cloth. Two sedan-chairs 
 were borne towards it, and the occupants descended and 
 took their places. 
 
 Evidently some Arab prince and retinue ; his jewelled 
 turban and sword-belt denoted his rank ; his long white 
 hair and beard gave him a patriarchal look ; and his 
 green cloak of camel's hair showed him to be a scion of 
 the Prophet. 
 
 Not on the wealthy Arab, but on his daughter, were all 
 our eyes riveted. 
 
 " Good Heavens! what a lovely girl!" we heard Crook 
 mutter. " Wonders will never cease ! " 
 
 It seemed not, indeed, for five minutes had hardly 
 elapsed when we noticed the prince, or chief, who had 
 evidently come to the ball for amusement, talking to an 
 Arab attendant, and waving his hand in our direction. 
 
 Next moment this attendant stood salaaming before us. 
 Nay, not exactly before us, but before Crook. 
 
 "His Excellency," he said, in good English, "begs 
 the British officer will do him the honour to take a seat 
 by his side." 
 
 You ought to have seen the look of triumph Crook 
 gave us as he marched oft' with his great sword clanking 
 behind him, and was beckoned smilingly to a seat close to 
 the chief and that beautiful girl, evidently his daughter. 
 
 We noticed the chief, too, wave his hand towards us, 
 
 * " Clear the way ! " 
 
The Black Mnrs Ball, and ]VIiat It Led To. 89 
 
 as he made some remark to our gallant young soldier, 
 and smile as he received his reply. We knew/then, the 
 tables were completely turned upon us ; and when, about 
 twenty minutes afterwards, the Arab attendant returned, 
 and made the following speech, we did think that Crook 
 was making the best of his position, and adding insult 
 to injury : 
 
 "The honourable the British officer," said the Arab, 
 " bids me say there is no need for his servants — you 
 fellows — to wait. He will go home to coffee with his 
 Excellency.' 
 
 How we fumed ! We felt sick of the ball, and sorry 
 we had come. Crook was doing his best to entertain the 
 chief, and successfully too. And the glances of admira- 
 tion he was receiving from the old man's beautiful 
 daughter made us bite our lips with envy. When we 
 couldn't stand it any longer, we went off in a body, 
 laughing heartily, however, at having fallen into the pit 
 we had dug for Crook. We had a stiffish pull for it oft^ 
 to the Penguin, for it had come on to blow a bit. The 
 boat was manned only by ourselves ; for, not knowing 
 how late we might be, we hadn't cared to bother with a 
 crew. I was coxswain. Pumpkin had the bow. He 
 was the only one in the boat who growled at our late 
 escapade. 
 
 " All your fault. Sawbones," he muttered, when about 
 half-way off. " Your fault entirely." 
 
 At that very moment we shipped a sea, and Pumpkin 
 got the sharp end of it on his neck. 
 
 " Confound it all, bawbones," he cried, " you did that 
 on purpose !" 
 
 "Quite right, paymaster," I replied coolly; "it's a 
 mere exchange of civilities." 
 
 Pumpkin was silent for the rest of the time. 
 Next morning. Crook was in the captain's cabin. We 
 could see them— ay, and hear them ; they were both 
 laughing like all possessed, and we knew Crook was 
 giving a brilliant account of the black-man's ball. 
 
 That same forenoon the captain asked us, in his dry 
 sly way, and with a merry twinkle in his eye, 
 
 G 
 
go TJic Cruise of the " Wanderoo.'' 
 
 *' How did you enjoy yourselves at the ball, gentlemen ?" 
 
 And we had to reply, 
 
 '* Oh, very much. It was great fun !" 
 
 Now comes the serious ending to the story of our new 
 messmate, which I will relate as briefly as possible, for 
 it is by no means a sunny memo^3^ From the very 
 night of the ball Crook seemed in many ways a changed 
 man. He gave up practical joking entirely ; he did not 
 laugh so much as of yore ; indeed, he was often silent 
 and triste. He was a great deal on shore; and, on the 
 whole, it was evident to every one of us that Crook was 
 in love. Once or twice we attempted to banter him on 
 the subject, but, as he did not take it kindly, we desisted. 
 
 We had lain much longer at Zanzibar than we expected 
 we should ; but at last came the orders from the Admiral 
 to weigh anchor. We were to run down to Madagascar 
 with despatches, and then on to the Cape, and thence 
 again right away up to Bombay. 
 
 We were to sail at two o'clock on a Tuesday. How 
 well I remember it ! A thunderstorm had been raging 
 all the forenoon, the clouds were still black and 
 threatening over the city, and against them the palace 
 of the Sultan looked as white as marble, with the blood- 
 red flag drooping against its mast, and ever and anon 
 the forked lightning glancing and quivering around the 
 square and massive towers. 
 
 I had work to do in the sick-bay, and was busy writing 
 there, when a big gun was fired right overhead, and 
 presently another, and some time afterwards a third. I 
 sent my servant on deck to find out what the firing was 
 about. 
 
 He returned almost immediately to say that Lieutenant 
 Crook had not come off, and that the guns were merely 
 signals for his recall. At that very moment something 
 seemed to whisper to me and to tell me that poor Crook 
 would return to us no more. I had not the slightest 
 hope of his reappearance from the very first, and I said 
 as much to my messmates, though I could assign no 
 reasons. 
 
 We stopped at Zanzibar all the week, but search was 
 
The Capldin Tells a Few Sjini<^-<ilini^ Yarns. 91 
 
 unavailing. The chief and his beautiful daughter had 
 sailed a week before, but no one knew where he had gone 
 — some said Mocha, others Madras. 
 
 Had Crook followed them ? or had he been foully 
 murdered ? We never knew. He was marked in the log 
 as " Lost," not " Run ;" and his fate is a mystery until 
 this day. He took nothing with him, not even his letters 
 or keys, nor even his purse, which, as was his habit, he 
 left in his servant's care. 
 
 Here is a strange circumstance well worth noting : 
 Daddy, the ape, never touched food again after we 
 steamed away from Zanzibar ; and one morning he was 
 found stark and stiff m the very corner of the main-deck 
 where poor Crook's cot used to swing. Must there not 
 have been something good about a man that even an 
 ape so loved ? 
 
 And now Captain Benjamin Crisp the ball is with 
 you — the ball of spun-yarn. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN TP:LLS A FEW SMUGCxLING YARNS. 
 
 iiTTPTHE doctor," said Captain Ben, "has spun us a 
 I true yarn. Now, fact, like fever, is catching, 
 ^ so I'll try and follow his example. What say 
 you to a smuggling anecdote or two ?" 
 " Hear, hear." 
 
 "The wisest man the warld e'er saw," began the 
 Captain, " says" — 
 
 " ' Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret places. 
 
 " If you are at sea, sweltering, perhaps, under a tropical 
 sun, and on short allowance of water ; if, while serving 
 the water out, the quarter-master happens to turn about 
 his back for a minute or two to swear at the cook, and 
 you help yourself in the meantime to a mugful on the 
 
g2 The Cruise of the " Wanderoo.'" 
 
 sly — that, I can assure you, will seem the sweetest 
 draught ever you imbibed in your life. 
 
 " I don't know about the bread, but commend me to a 
 pipe smoked in secret places. On board ship, as I dare 
 say the reader knows, no smoking is allowed after a 
 certain hour at night, and what sailor has not experienced 
 the delight of a pipe on the quiet, and after hours. My 
 cabin in the saucy ' Thunderspell' seemed just cut out 
 for smoking stib rosa, being fitted with a nice little port, 
 which could be opened in almost all weathers. Here a 
 few of us officers used to assemble of a night, and, with 
 closed door and drawn curtain, offer up a burnt sacrifice 
 to the Nicotian deity. We used to be very glad when 
 the sentry outside on the main deck was a man with 
 badly-developed nasal sinuses. But this wasn't always 
 the case. Private Flannigan, I remember, was a man 
 with wonderful powers of scent. When he happened to 
 be doing ' sentry go' seldom were our pipes well under 
 weigh before his tip-tap was heard at the door. Next 
 moment he was grabbed, and hauled bodily inside, and 
 the door re-closed. ' It's all roight, gintlemen,' Flanni- 
 gan would say, as he polished off the half-tumblerful of 
 rum filled out for him, ' I thought I felt the smell av 
 smoke, but bedad me nose decaived me.' Sometimes 
 this man had the audacity to ' feel the smell av smoke' 
 and have his rum repeated twice in one evening. 
 
 " We were officers, you see, and we weren't found out, 
 but this same Flannigan reported Bob Carter, an able 
 seaman, whom he discovered burning a light, smoking a 
 pipe, and having a feed. Bob was brought before the 
 captain on the quarter-deck next day. Now, the captain 
 was a pompous man, and severe, and one who mouthed 
 his English tremendously. 
 
 " ' Now, sir,' he said, looking his very sternest at poor 
 Bob, ' I hear, sir, you have been having — having, sir — 
 nightly orgies, sir.' N.B. — You should never use big 
 words to a sailor. Honest Bob was out of his soundings. 
 
 " ' Well, sir,' he replied, giving a scrape with one leg 
 and a touch to his forelock, ' if you likes to call 'arf a bo^<: 
 of sardines a nightly orgie, then I did have a nightly 
 orsie.' 
 
The Captain Tells a Fcl' SniKggliiig Yarns. 93 
 
 " But Bob had three water grog for a month for his 
 Httle smoke. 
 
 " Apropos of smoking on the quiet, I'll tell you a story. 
 There is a certain personage in this country who, if he 
 lives and continues to be as good a boy as he has been 
 of late, will one day be very much more exalted than 
 he is now. Well, this personage dearly loves a smoke, 
 and once upon a time, when he was returning from abroad 
 in a ship of war, he used to long for a pipe after hours, 
 and, longing, betake himself to the junior surgeon's 
 cabin, and, in company with this officer, would smoke 
 out of the port, aye, and enjoy the stolen pipe, too, just 
 as much as you or I or any common mortal would, 
 reader. As soon as he finished he 'jined his missus.' 
 
 " Not a hundred miles from Beaul}', and not a hundred 
 years ago either, I once enjoyed a pipe of tobacco, and 
 one of the best glasses of whiskey I ever drank, in a 
 smuggler's cave. I was tired, wet, and weary, and 
 grateful for the shelter ; but, heaven forgive me, I 
 entirely forgot to run and tell the nearest exciseman ! 
 
 " Smuggling tobacco is considered — and very justl3% 
 too — a very serious oflence against the law. Still it is 
 surprising the amount of this kind of thing that goes on 
 — in a small way. In passenger ships just arrived from 
 abroad, I do not believe there is one out of every ten gen- 
 tlemen who does not try to run the blockade with a little 
 venture of a pound or two of the fragrant weed, or a box 
 of good cigars. Even ladies are not afraid to do the 
 same. There is a spice of danger and romance about 
 smuggling that commends it especially to that portion of 
 the fair sex who like to be thought fast. There is a 
 charm about a smuggled cigar — if a good one — that there 
 is about no other. I hardly think that even a member of 
 those watery-nosed gentry, the anti-tobaccoites, would 
 have the heart to refuse a cigar from the hand of a 
 beautiful girl, if she told him ' they are excellent weeds, 
 and never paid duty — / smuggled them myself. 
 
 " But, as a rule, the custom-house officers, who come 
 on board to chalk and pass your baggage, are very decent 
 fellows, and can enjo}- a glass of wane and a good cigar 
 
94 The Cruise of the " Wamlcroo.''' 
 
 as well as anyone ; so, when they civilly ask you which 
 box you will have examined, it is scarcely fair to take the 
 advantage of them too far. Although, mind you, when 
 you are smuggling your pound of tobacco, you must for 
 the time being put your honour in your pocket. After you 
 are clear of the custom-house you can take it out again. 
 
 " Captains of passenger ships are often members in 
 some way of the preventive force. I remember coming 
 from India once with a lady who belonged to one of the 
 best families in England. I remember her look of 
 innocence one day, as she leant over the table and con- 
 fided to the captain that she was in possession of two 
 boxes of cigars, and asked his advice as to the safest 
 means of smuggling them on shore. But that look was 
 quickly changed to one of terror, as the captain clapped 
 his fingers in his ears and cried, ' For goodness' sake, 
 madam, don t tell me about that. If I did my duty, I 
 should report you.' I believe she succeeded in landing 
 her cargo safely enough for all this. 
 
 " I had a Newfoundland dog once, who, I afterwards 
 learned, used to do all their smuggling for a whole com- 
 pany of marines. The ship lay about a mile from the 
 dockyard at which our boats landed, and, of course, a 
 pound of tobacco, if carried about a man in any way, would 
 have been seized at once. The dog used to be sent on 
 shore for a swim and a run. When about half-way to 
 land, a log of wood would be pitched overboard for the 
 Newfoundland, who, of course, brought it safely on 
 shore, and trundled it through the dockyard safely 
 enough, the staid-looking policemen gazing in admira- 
 tion at the noble fellow's strength, but knowing no more 
 than the dog did that there was tobacco inside the log he 
 carried ; and even had they suspected it, it would have 
 been far from easy to make the animal relinquish his booty. 
 
 " A tobacco shirt. Did ever you wear a tobacco shirt ? 
 / did once. We had just arrived at Peterhead from 
 abroad in the barque ' Pimpernel.' My share of the 
 cigars the captain had kindly hidden for me in the large 
 sealing telescope that hung in his own cabin. The 
 custom-house oflicers didn't see through that. The 
 
The Capldin Tells a Fcic Siiiiiij^i^liii^i^ Ydnis. 95 
 
 spectioneer sewed my tobacco — cakes — up into a garment 
 not unlike a coat of mail, and this I put on next my skin 
 just as the vessel entered the mouth of the harbour. 
 Presently off came the custom-house men — nice pleasant 
 fellows they were. We got smoking and drinking 
 champagne down in the cabin, and I forgot all about the 
 tobacco shirt, but not for very long. The weather was 
 warm, and coming directly from the icy North, I naturally 
 felt it more so. After a few glasses of wine, I began to 
 perspire ; then my torments commenced. Virtue, they 
 say, is its own reward ; sin in my case brought its own 
 punishment, and if I live to be as old as Methuselah, I 
 don't think I am likely to forget the nausea, the sickness, 
 and agony I endured until I got on shore, had a warm 
 bath, and about a bottle of brandy hot. 
 
 " Smuggling a few sticks of cavendish, or a bundle of 
 cigars, is a thing that everybody does. Its very naughti- 
 ness makes it nice, but no more tobacco shirts for me, 
 thank you. 
 
 "An old Irish friend of mine told me the following," 
 continued the Captain, " and I have no reason to doubt 
 the truth of it. I give it in his own words, as nearly as I 
 can." Said Rory McRae one evening as we sat together 
 by the fire : 
 
 " ' It's a good many years now, maybe, before aither a 
 one of us here, barring me ould self, was born or dreamt 
 of. The old " Vanguard" — a Queen's ship, mind you — 
 had just returned from a commission, and was lying at 
 anchor at Portsmouth, and about to pay off. Now, this is 
 just the time that aither man or officer tries to seize the 
 opportunity (small blame to them !) to smuggle a bit of 
 ship's. And the land sharks, faith, they know that well 
 enough, too, and so they keep a lively look-out. Well, 
 the old " Vanguard" had been searched and the tobacco 
 handed over — honestly, to all appearance — and the pay- 
 ing off had commenced, when one night, just as the 
 night custom-house officer was commg off in his bit of 
 a cobble to relieve his mate, what should he find, right 
 under the bows, but a shore boat ? And " Troth," says 
 he to himself, " I'll have a keek inside her." Now, there 
 
96 The Cni'isc of the ^^Wanderoo.'" 
 
 wasn't a soul on board of this boat, but there was tobacco 
 galore ; in troth she was filled with it. Well, as there 
 was nobody in her, there was nobody to blame ; so this 
 land shark simply took charge of her. Then he sent on 
 shore for advice and assistance, and the ship was searched 
 once more, but properly this time ; and sure enough, not 
 only in the lining of the ship, but in the very pump wells 
 themselves, there were oceans of 'baccy. " My eyes !" 
 said the land sharks, " here's a pretty go !"' So they 
 seized the ship forthwith, in the name of the Queen, and 
 condemned her to be sold by auction. You see, this was 
 a very pretty bit of red tape that couldn't be dispensed 
 with. So the " Vanguard" was towed into the dockyard, 
 and basined for the purpose. But, lo and behold ! on 
 the day of the sale there wasn't a single bidder at all at 
 all, nor a single soul to attend the sale aither, except the 
 Port Admiral himself; for 'deed, indeed, it's as sure as I 
 tell you, every living soul had been sent out of the dock- 
 yard hours before the auction commenced, and the gates 
 were locked. Then the "Vanguard" was duly put up; 
 and after a wee bit of haggling and " going, going, gone- 
 ing," she was knocked down to the Port Admiral for the 
 large sum of one shilling ; and so the nation got the 
 " Vanguard" back.' 
 
 "'Well done! ' said I ; ' but they are clever fellows 
 as a rule, those land sharks.' 
 
 " ' Too clever be half,' replied Rory, " at times, and 
 at times they're the biggest fools out. Bedad, it was all 
 through their cleverness that I found meself in gaol one 
 foine morning. You see, it was just like this : I was the 
 bold skipper of the saucy " Skipjack." I had been down 
 the Levant with a cargo of dried fish and sundries, and 
 was returning with a cargo of fruit and sundries ; of 
 course this had nothing to do with it, only we had plenty 
 of good 'baccy on board, and cigars, too, for the matter of 
 that. Well, we had fine weather all the way in the 
 Mediterranean, passed Gib. all right, and went staggering 
 away towards Ould England's chalky cliffs under a 
 lattling ten-knot breeze, and everything went well till we 
 were half-ways across the bay, when the weather thickened 
 
The Capiain Tills a Few Siiiiii^r^^liiic^ Yanis. 97 
 
 a bit, the wind veered round a few points, and by-and-bye 
 it came on to blow Armstrongs. I didn't like the looks 
 of it, and for the three following nights and days sorra 
 an inch of me ever turned in at all ; and troth I haidly 
 got below to me meals.' 
 
 "At the very thoughts of this Rory paused and looked 
 for a moment at the fire, dreamingly, musingly, and I 
 had to take the poker and stir it up, by way of stirring 
 Rory out of his reverie. 
 
 " ' Now,' he continued, ' we lost only a bit of bulwark, 
 a bit of canvas, and a stick or two, but we were all 
 tired ; the Channel was chafing and chopping, and occa- 
 sionally takmg aim at us with a green sea, and behaving 
 generally as if the ould divil himself was under stirring it 
 up with his tail. So you may be sure there were none of 
 us sorry when, one evening, the Needles hove in sight, and 
 the pilot came on board presently and took us in charge.' 
 
 "'Come below for half a second, ould boy,' I says, 
 says I, ' and have a tot of rum ; for, bedad, the weather's 
 both cowld and ugly.' 
 
 " ' With all the pleasure in life,' says he ; and down 
 we went. 
 
 "'Help yourself,' says I. ''Deed will I?' says he ; 
 and he did, just as pilots do, you know, putting his 
 hand well round the tumbler, and filling it to the breadth 
 of his brawny hand. 
 
 " ' Now,' says I, ' I am going to turn in a bit, so just 
 you clap that pilot coat of moine over your own. I'm a 
 bigger man than you, and it'll hould ye aisy.' 
 
 " ' It's mindful ye are, capt'n,' says he, putting on m}^ 
 coat. Then he gives a bit of a sniff, for I was sealing up 
 the 'baccy and cigars, only just leaving a bit on the table 
 for dacency sake. 
 
 " ' Fine flavoured tobacco,' says he. 
 
 " ' And right welcome ye are,' I says, ' to a pound o' 
 the best o" it.' 
 
 " So the pilot pockets the pound o' 'baccy, and stumps 
 on deck, and five minutes after I was as sound asleep 
 as ever I was in me loife, bedad. Well, next morning 
 the pilot was oft^, and away we were in harbour, and the 
 
g8 Tlic Cruise of the " Wandeyoo.'" 
 
 land sharks were on board of us. In an hour, or maybe 
 less, everything was snug, and I was congratulating 
 myself on my safe return, and longing like a bird to get 
 away on shore. 
 
 " ' Your'e sure,' says one of the sharks, ' you haven't 
 got any more tobacco but what youVe told us of.' 
 
 " ' Sure and sartin,' says I ; ' sorra the ounce but 
 what you've seen.' 
 
 " ' Then,' says the shark, ' may this be your coat ? ' 
 
 " ' 'Deed is it ? ' I says. 
 
 "'Well,' says he, pulling out the pilot's pound of 
 tobacco, which, without maning it a bit, he had left in 
 the pocket of my coat, ' you are our prisoner, and we 
 seize the ship in the name of the Queen.' 
 
 " Now, here was a pretty kettle of fish, and there was 
 no use cutting up rusty about it aither. 
 
 " ' Before the beak you go, cap'n,' says the spokesman 
 shark, ' before the beak you goes, if you were twenty 
 times capt'n.' 
 
 "And faith and sure I had always considered meself a 
 respectable member of society until then, but it quite 
 took the concate out o' me to be taken on shore and 
 popped into a cell with as little ceremoiy as you would 
 clap a dog into a kennel. Not much comfort in that 
 cell, sure enough — a wooden bed and a timber pillow. 
 But where is it a sailor couldn't sleep ? And next 
 morning, troth, it took the concate still more out o' me 
 to be marched before the beak in company with the 
 biggest set of rogues and blacklegs you could wish to 
 see ; and, bedad, there was one very fetching girl among 
 the lot, too, only she wasn't exactly sober, and she called 
 me ' old sly bones,' and she had one of the purtiest 
 black eyes ever you saw in your life. ' Och, Rory,' 
 says I to myself. ' Rory, you old rogue, what do you 
 think o' yerself now thin ? ' 
 
 " ' Well,' said I, ' and how did you get out o' the 
 scrape, Rory ? ' 
 
 " ' Troth,' Rory replied, ' not quite so aisy as I got 
 into it ; but ye don't catch me giving 'baccy to pilots 
 any more, if they wear my coat and all.' 
 
 " And now, boys, hammock's the word." 
 
Dr. Dibsoii Again. yg 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 DK. DIBSON AGAIN 
 
 '' "|"LL read you to-night," said the Doctor on the 
 I next sea-pie night, " a study in psychology. 
 -*^ Let me call it 
 
 "THE CURIOUS CASE OF JONES PERE. 
 
 " During several years as a physician in general 
 practice one naturally meets with a great many cases 
 vvliich, if reported, would be found interesting, not only 
 to the medical man and students of psychology, 
 but to the general reader as well. I have taken notes 
 of many of these ; yet with me the secrets of my patients 
 are safe. In black and white, passages from the life 
 history — often ver}'^ sad, sometimes humorous enough 
 — though many of them are, no eye but mine dare 
 scan them ; they are there in that large book of mine, 
 in yonder glass case. The book itself is locked, the 
 case is locked, and I keep the keys. Probably, when 
 these bones of mine are mingling with their kindred 
 dust, some of these sketches may see the light of day ; 
 but, even then, the names of persons and places will be 
 altered, so that not even the families with which they 
 are connected will know that they are reading about 
 their own relatives. 
 
 " But the case oi Jones p ere is of so curious a nature, 
 and so unique, that I have yielded to the solicitations of 
 many friends, and consented to give a short sketch 
 of it. I have been all the more easily persuaded to do 
 so, inasmuch as this particular Jones is dead and gone, 
 and his friends have long since left for other lands. 
 
 " There were two Joneses — you will have guessed this 
 from the title of this paper — father and son. 
 
loo The Cruise (>f the " IVaiicIeroo.'^ 
 
 '']ones pere was a middle-aged man when I first knew 
 him. At all events, he confessed to forty-five ; although, 
 for the matter of that, he was far more strong and hale 
 than most of the young men we see about us to-day. 
 Jones was a neighbour of mine, living in an adjoining 
 villa in the pleasant little village of Sonning. 
 
 " His younger days Jones had spent in the City, and it 
 was only lately he had come to live in this quiet place, 
 having amassed what he was pleased to call a goodly 
 nest eg^, which nest egg he trusted his only son Thomas 
 would keep rolling. Thomas was about twenty, and 
 apparently just the lad to follow in his father's footsteps. 
 
 ** Jones pere used to go up to town regularly every 
 Saturday, 'just to see how the world wagged ' — Jones's 
 own words — and as regularly as the postman, the same 
 evening, he returned, accompanied by his son ; and the 
 two were never a moment apart until Monday morning. 
 They dined together ; together they walked or rode, for 
 they were both capital horsemen ; and on Sundays they 
 went arm-in-arm to church together. 
 
 " As Jones pere didn't keep much company, he used to 
 be lonely enough upon the week-days, and was never 
 better pleased than when I could manage to spend the 
 evening with him, dining, cracking a bottle of old wine, 
 or playing a game of chess. But life is rather short for 
 chess — a doctor's life is, at all events ; and I was often- 
 times obliged to bid my friend a hurried good night in 
 the middle of a most interesting game, and rush off to 
 take my place at the bedside of sickness or in the 
 chamber of death. 
 
 " In appearance Jones was not unprepossessing. He 
 was rather undersized in build, to be sure, and was 
 slightly, very slightly, inclined to corpulency ; but he 
 had a grand and massive head — albeit he did let his grey 
 hair grow rather long for my taste — and a face of great 
 intelligence and decision of character. Very active, too, 
 he was in all his habits, and very temperate. Though 
 he didn't go to bed with the lark, he generally rose soon 
 after that interesting songster. ' Little sleep satisfies 
 me,' Jones would say; and, sure enough, early on the dewy 
 
Dr. Dibsoi! Ai^aui. loi 
 
 summer mornings, you might have seen him out in his 
 garden, tending the roses or culling a flower to adorn the 
 dinner table. Jones never employed a gardener; and — 
 good sign ! — working made him hungry and happy too. 
 Well, even when Jones was quite hidden from view 
 among the peas, or behind the raspberry canes, you 
 could tell ' by the smoke that so gracefully curled ' that 
 he was there, for Jones was seldom without a pipe in his 
 mouth. 
 
 " There are two kinds of medical practitioners in this 
 world whom I have always dreaded to meet in con- 
 sultation — your total abstainer and your anti-tobaccoite. 
 I have always preached moderation and temperance in 
 everything, and why should not one accept the gifts that 
 God sends him ? Talk of stimulants, indeed ! there is 
 stimulant — even alcoholic — in the very food we eat ; talk 
 of narcotics ! then why not refuse to eat an onion or a 
 lettuce ? Man is a machine ; sometimes the machine 
 needs oiling, or it may tend to stop. At times the 
 wheels fly all too fast, and thus may soon wear out. In 
 the former case, what better oil than wine ? in the latter, 
 what more gentle curb than a simple pipe ? If we 
 could live the lives of the beasts of the field, then, I 
 grant you, neither wine nor tobacco would be any longer 
 necessaries. But I digress. It was not so much the 
 quantity Jones pere smoked which I objected to — it was 
 the quality. He seemed to have no taste in the way of 
 good tobacco ; I, on the other hand, have always been 
 epicurean in this matter. But it seemsd quite a matter 
 of indifterence to Jones, so long as he had a pipe in his 
 mouth, what vile compound was inside of it ; and I've 
 often seen him pitch away the end of one of my most 
 fragrant weeds, and proceed at once to fill his dhudeen or 
 meerschaum with the commonest twist ; he didn't seem 
 to appreciate the difference. Indeed, when at last I fell 
 into the habit of spending about three evenings out of 
 seven at Jones's, I used invariably to keep two coats 
 there ; an old one for Jones's company, and a non- 
 fumigated one, to slip into, after a wash, when sud- 
 denly called to attend my patients. 
 
102 Tlie Cruise of the ^^Wniuleroo.'" 
 
 " Jones wasn't a widower, but one word about his 
 wife will sufiice. She was an insipid wee woman, of an 
 undecided temperament, but inclining to the nervous ; 
 fair as to hair, milky in complexion, easily melted to 
 tears, and not the sort of person one would care to have 
 as his first lieutenant in a sick room, if death were 
 hovering around. The only other constant member of 
 the household was a tall, rawboned, dark lady, a relative, 
 of matured opinions. She kept the keys, gave out the 
 tea, and treated Mrs. Jones like a spoiled child. Then 
 there was Biddy the maid, and Jane the cook, and Tom 
 the man-of-all-work, who cleaned the knives, blacked the 
 boots, and brought round the cob or the one-horse shay. 
 
 " It was one beautiful evening in early autumn that I 
 first noticed something strange about Jones par. We 
 were smoking together in the greenhouse, over the 
 chess-board. Jones had made several unthinking moves 
 before he stopped abruptly, and looked me in the face. 
 
 " ' What like 's my tongue, doctor ? ' he asked. 
 
 " It was silvery white, but not much furred — the 
 nervous tongue. 
 
 " ' Feel my pulse ' was his next demand, as he 
 stretched his hand over the table. 
 
 " ' Don't be silly, friend Jones,' I said, gently pushing 
 back his arm, and proceeding to light a fresh cigar; 
 ' Your pulse is a first-rate one, I've no doubt. I don't 
 want you to give up smoking, mind you,' I continued, 
 talking emphatically ; * but I do wish you would change 
 that beastly pigtail for something decent, Jones.' 
 
 "We continued the game in silence, and I thought my 
 friend had forgotten the conversation ; but when we 
 were done, and Jones beaten — and that was unusual — he 
 threw himself back in his chair, and laughed till the roof 
 rang again. ' Something decent !' he kept repeating 
 between each burst of merriment; 'a jolly good joke, 
 too — something decent ! — ha ! ha ! ha !' 
 
 "'Good night, Jones,' said I, feeling sure he had 
 taken more wine than was good for him. 
 
 " After the gate was shut, I could hear Jones's retreat- 
 ing footsteps on the gravel, and hear him repeating to 
 
Dr. Dihsoii Attain. 103 
 
 himself, again and again, 'Something decent! — deuced 
 fine, too! — ha! ha! ha!' 
 
 •' About this time I took my annual trip to the Con- 
 tinent for six weeks. 1 returned on a Thursday, and was 
 somewhat surprised, on entering the parlour of Jones 
 pere, to find Thomas the son there, and all alone. 
 Something else struck me as strange : there were no 
 pipes about, but plenty of flowers, and fresh curtains 
 were hung, and there was an entire absence of the smell 
 of stale twist that alarmed me ; and I hastily inquired 
 about my friend. Was he ill ? 
 
 " ' No — that is — sit down, doctor ; sit down,' said 
 Thomas. ' To tell you the truth, sir, there's been some- 
 thing funny about father of late. He is a kind of oft' 
 his feed ; he doesn't get much sleep of a night ; he has 
 been attending some of the meetings, and' — here was a 
 climax ! — 'he's given up smoking.' 
 
 " ' Is there anything peculiar in his manner ?' I asked, 
 with much concern. 
 
 " ' Well,' said Thomas, ' he is quiet, you know, and 
 all that ; but — hush ! here he comes ; you'll soon find 
 out." 
 
 "Jones pere was thinner; there wasn't a doubt about 
 that. His face, too, was pale, and there, in his eye, 
 smouldered a living fever. 
 
 " He greeted me kindly, but just as if he had seen me 
 only the day before, and at once proposed a glass of wine 
 and a game of chess. Jones pere refused to drink 
 himself, on the plea that it heated him, which I could 
 easily believe. When I offered him a cigar, ' What !' he 
 cried, in the grandiloquent tones of a paid lecturer, 
 ' sacrifice body and soul on the shrine of a filthy weed ? 
 Nevermore ! The move's with you.' 
 
 Presently, and apparently with a purpose, Thomas 
 began to read aloud an account of a terrible accident in 
 a coal-pit. As he proceeded, Jones pere brightened up 
 in the most surprising manner ; his face became radiant 
 with smiles, till, when his son came to the mournful 
 scenes at the pit's mouth, on the recognition of the dead 
 by their relatives, Jones ^<V<? seemed unable to contain 
 
I04 Tilt- Cruise of tlie ^^Wniuhroo.'"' 
 
 himself a moment longer, but laughed till the tears rolled 
 down his cheeks, swore he had never heard of anything 
 half so funny, then slapped his thigh and laughed agam ; 
 till, positively, we couldn't help laughing too, and 3'ou 
 would have said we were all mad together. Then, 
 thinking it was a pity Jones shouldn't have something 
 proper to laugh at, I began to tell him an exceedingly 
 funny anecdote I had that day read in a Yankee paper. 
 Jones's face elongated and saddened at once, and, by 
 the time I had iinished, poor Jones was crying. 
 
 "' For goodness sake, if you love me, say no more,' 
 he entreated. 
 
 " ' But,' I insisted, ' my dear friend, you don't seem to 
 see the pith of the joke — this old lady' • 
 
 " ' Oh !' cried Jones, piteously wringing his hands, 
 ' for God's sake, doctor, don't tell me the pitli of the joke.' 
 
 " I sat long musing over the fire that night before 
 going to bed. I never before read or heard of a similar 
 case to Jones pcre's — a man to weep at fun, and go mad 
 with joy at a tale of woe ! ' Why,' I concluded, starting 
 up to undress, ' Jones is mad. There aren't two ways 
 about it ; his brain seems turned bottom upwards.' 
 
 " I found Jones next morning seated at breakfast. He 
 was reading aloud, in a voice choked with sobs and 
 emotion, an account of the elopement of a coal-heaver's 
 daughter with a cabman, of the pursuit by the father, 
 and capture of the fugitives in a public-house ; of the 
 oceans of whiskey that followed, and the vows between 
 the three of eternal friendship ; and of the wind-up of 
 the whole in the police cells. 
 
 "An alarming fire — same newspaper— with sad loss of 
 life, caused Jones to laugh until he had to leave the 
 table, half-choked. Thomas told me privately that even 
 at the church on Sunday Jones pere had insulted the 
 parson. He had been moved to tears by his raciest 
 remarks, but when the reverend gentleman launched 
 forth into the pathetic, and when Jones ought to have 
 cried, if any crying were to be done, he had stuffed his 
 handkerchief into his mouth, and tittered till he nearly 
 set the congregation in a roar. 
 
Dr. Dihson Again. 105 
 
 " Things looked more serious than I cared to admit. 
 The case, in my experience, had no precedent, and I 
 was fairly puzzled. Of one thing, however, I felt con- 
 vinced : until I could induce my friend to resume the use 
 oi good tobacco, in some form, I could have no hopes of 
 the case. 
 
 " Matters went on pretty much the same for a week, 
 then one morning, just as I was making up my visiting 
 slip, Tom, the man, burst into my surgery, grinning 
 from ear to ear. ' Lord ! sir,' cried the fellow, ' master 
 ha gone clean off his chump, he have.' 
 
 *' I didn't wait to strangle the brute, but rushed off 
 to the house of my friend, whom I hadn't far to look for. 
 I found him at the foot of the garden, standing, bare- 
 headed, beside an open grave, near which lay what at 
 first I took for a baby's coffin, but it turned out to be 
 Jones pere's fiddle-case, and in it was Jones pere's 
 biggest meerschaum pipe. Jones had on a long night- 
 gown, that belonged to his wife I suppose, over a pair of 
 black gaiters, and was reading the burial service. I stood 
 silently by until the burial was finished, then I advanced. 
 
 " ' This is a solemn occasion, Jones,' I said. 
 
 *' * It is the happiest day in my life,' said Jones, 
 smiling through his tears. 
 
 " As usual with me when puzzled, I took a pinch of 
 snuff, and mechanically handed the box to Jones. Jones 
 took a long pinch, Jones took a strong pinch, and before 
 he returned the box he repeated the dose no less than 
 three times. 
 
 " ' Hurrah !' I shouted. And next moment I was 
 dancing wildly round the grave singing, ' Corn Cobs, 
 twist your hair.' My difficulty was at end — ^Jones had 
 forgotten that snuif itjas tobacco. 
 
 " The best of the joke was that Jones imagined that / 
 had gone suddenly mad ; and, poor fellow, for weeks 
 afterwards his anxiety for the state of my health was 
 quite amusing, if not to say affecting. I humoured him 
 in every way. I even consented to go to town with him 
 to consult a famous physician, in order that he might 
 prescribe for me. 
 
 H 
 
io6 The Cruise of the " Wanderoo.'''' 
 
 " My plan of treatment lay clear before me from the 
 very day of the fiddle-case funeral. Every one of us took 
 to snuffing; every one of us carried a 'mull,' and we 
 constantly pestered Jones to partake, which he seldom 
 refused to do. I snuffed, and Thomas snuffed, and 
 delicate Mrs. J. took a pinch, and the tall dark lady, who 
 kept the keys and gave out the tea, snuffed more than 
 all of us, and even Tom, the man-of-all-work, when he 
 brought round the cob or the one-horse shay, took a 
 pinch and handed the box to his master. 
 
 " But we cured Jones pere between us. In six months' 
 time, what with attention to the rules of health, simple 
 medicines, simple food, and snuff, Jones was once more 
 ' clothed and in his right mind,' and smoking again, like 
 a man, but decent tobacco, mind you ! 
 
 " Jones had forgotten all about the funeral of the 
 fiddle-case and the meerschaum pipe. They were never 
 dug up in his time, and for my part I did not wish them 
 so, but sincerely hoped they would rest in their grave 
 until the day of resurrection. 
 
 " This, then, is the curious case of Jones ^^r<?. 
 
 " Thank you, doctor ; a kind of temperance story with 
 a moral through it," said the Mate. " But who comes 
 next ?" 
 
 " Why, yourself," said the Doctor. 
 
 " Well, ahem !" began the Mate, pulling out a roll of 
 manuscript, " not being much of a story-teller, I 
 thought I'd throw a few facts together and give 'em a 
 name." 
 
 " It's all about an inn at a village where I resided 
 some years ago. I have made one or two sketches, and 
 call my yarns, ' The Inn of the Jolly Tapsters.' " 
 
The Iiui of the '■'■ Jolly Tapsters.'" 107 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE INN OF THE "JOLLY TAPSTERS." 
 A Village Absurdity. 
 
 WHERE Stands my village ? Away down in the 
 green and tree - clad bosom of the shire of 
 Blank. " Blank ? " you cry, and you look 
 blank ; "why, there is no such shire." But there is such 
 a word, and a handy one it is, especially in print. Let 
 us see what the dictionary says of the word. I turn me 
 to my " Maunder." "Blank ;" yes, here it is^ — " Blank, 
 a void,'' and void means empty ; that is what the land- 
 lord of the "Jolly Tapsters' " barrels never were of good 
 beer, nor his cosy bar-room, of a winter's evening, of 
 good company. Again, " Blank, white ;'' that does cer- 
 tainly not refer to the faces of the happy folk that, nifht 
 after night in winter, surround the Tapsters' roaring fire 
 nor to the houses in the sweet wee village itself; they are 
 hoary with years, they had the quaintness of a bygone 
 age ; they look as if they had stood for a thousand 
 3'ears, and had quite made up their minds to put in 
 another thou. ; no, white won't do. Once more, 
 " Blank, dull.'' Bless your soul, sir, no ; that is 
 worse and worse ; quiet we may be, sometimes, while 
 drawing nectar from our pipes and listening to a sono- or 
 an interesting story, but dull ? never ; I scorn the im- 
 peachment, and, as the last meaning " Maunder" gives 
 
 namely, " confused,^' hints at drinks for drunk, instead of 
 
 drinks for dry, I pitch the old gentleman to the dev , 
 
 ahem ! for, however blank the shire might have been, 
 there was nothing blank about the dear little village of 
 Twintleton. It lay before many a coming stranger in 
 
 "A sweat, green coombe, thro' which ftesh brooklets run, 
 And the great hostel sleeping in the sun," 
 
io8 The Cniise of the ^'Wafideroo.'" 
 
 The great hostelry was the "Jolly Tapsters," and 
 wasn't it great ? Didn't it lie a bit back from the main 
 road on the top of a high, green bank, shaded in summer 
 by two giant-spreading oaks, with benches beneath ; 
 hadn't it queer, old-fashioned windows, queer, tall 
 chimneys, and queer everything, and a bowling-green ta 
 boot, away behind, and gardens besides ? Strangers 
 often came to the village, and we never were known to 
 " 'eave 'arf a brick" at the head of any one of them. They 
 were always welcome to a snug corner of the bar, a pipe, 
 and a pull at a pot. That's the sort of people we were» 
 The landlord was just the kind of man you would have 
 expected to see in such a place. A burly, but genial 
 old fellow, big enough to fill any armchair that ever was 
 built, so the neighbours called him Big BrvIow, with the 
 emphasis on the last syllable. A bit fond of laying 
 down the law was Big Barlow at times, and maybe a 
 triiie self-opinionated ; but then he was certainly old 
 enough to have an opinion of his own. Barlow had twO' 
 pretty daughters, consequently he could afford to smoke 
 his pipe and drink his pot in the bar, while they brought 
 in the needful, and attended to the wants of the customers^ 
 This was all as it should be, good old-fashioned style. 
 
 I don't think I had been three weeks residing at 
 Twintleton ere I became acquainted with Billy Webster. 
 He was, indeed, an oddity. The landlord was referring to 
 him in his talk, one winter's evening, as I entered the 
 bar-parlour of the "Jolly Tapsters," stopping for a 
 moment on the threshold to shake the thick, dry flakes of 
 snow from off my topcoat. 
 
 " Bring a broom, Kitty," cried Big Barlow. " Isn't 
 it snowing, sir, just ? We be going to have a heavy 
 fall, I knows." Then the charming Kitty hastened to 
 obey, and, having made my leet comfortable, I joined 
 the group and lit my pipe, and the landlord quietly 
 resumed the conversation. 
 
 "There is no denying it, neighbours, Billy Webster 
 is a thin man," and Big Barlow took the pipe from his 
 mouth — a nice, long, cool churchwarden — and smiled up 
 at the ceiling as he made the remark ; " ay, neighbours^ 
 
The Inn of the ''Jolly Tapstevsr 109 
 
 Billy be r^d^-markably thin ; their aint no getting out o' 
 that." 
 
 And the neighbours smiled, too, without removing 
 their clays ; smiled and nodded through the reek, and 
 the landlord laughed and went on — 
 
 " He be thin, and the worst of it is, he aint no shape, 
 either ; just look how them clothes o' his 'ang around 
 him. There aint no tailor as ever lived that could fit 
 Billy. And look at him, behind, again. Behind be 
 blowed ; why, neighbours, he aint got any. 
 
 " But, neighbours" — and here the honest landlord 
 grew serious all at once, and looked around him almost 
 savagely, as if defying contradiction — " Billy's like the 
 bad place ; Billy's bottomless, but there the likeness 
 ends ; Billy aint like the bad place in any other way 
 whatsomedever. I dares anyone o' ye to say he is." 
 
 Whether or not there was anyone in that room bold 
 enough to give the lie to the landlord's assertion, I cannot 
 say ; I think it highly improbable, for Big Barlow was a 
 bit of an authority in his own good bar of the " Jolly 
 Tapsters." However, the conversation was here cut 
 short by the entrance of no less a personage than Billy 
 Webster himself. He didn't come in; he burst in, he 
 fussed in, with a *• Here we goes again, good folks," 
 and " Aint it jolly cold just, my eye ! aint it wintry 
 though ?" And Billy rubbed his hands, and rubbed his 
 thighs, and, m fact, he had a kind of a general rub all 
 over. Everybody made room for Billy at once, and Kitty 
 ran off to draw him with her own fair fingers his modest 
 pint of " 'arf-and-'arf" 'gainst he might order it. But 
 Billy was in no hurry to settle, that was evident ; in 
 those days this little man was about the most nervous 
 cuss you can well imagine. A blue-bottle fly wasn't a 
 patch upon him ; he buzzed round the room and round the 
 room, laughing at goodness knows what, and asking a 
 dozen questions without waiting to get an answer to any 
 single one of them, till first one of the neighbours 
 laughed, probably because Big Barlow did the same ; 
 then another joined, and another, till at last it became a 
 general chorus ; platoon firing was nothing to it ; a 
 
no The Cniise of the ^^ Wanderoo.'' 
 
 rookery in nesting season was nothing to it ; nothing 
 was nothing to it ; and when he couldn't stand it any 
 longer without the danger of disintegration, the landlord 
 got out of his chair and fairly pulled Billy Webster by 
 the tails of his coat into an empty seat ; then Kitty 
 brought his pint, and peace was restored. 
 
 This little scene only gives the reader an idea of 
 Billy's usual form. 
 
 In those days a pipe or cigar was never seen within 
 the lips of my friend and neighbour, Billy Webster. 
 But bide a wee — tempova nuitantur ; and Billy changed 
 with them. 
 
 The landlord was right about Billy's outfit. His 
 tailor had certainly failed to fit him. There was a sad, 
 an almost solemn laxity about his nether garments, for 
 example, that suggested stick legs, and brought scare- 
 crows to the mind of the beholder. His coat, too, was a 
 study in drapery worthy of a Whistler. A little swallow- 
 tailed blue one it was, with two rows of gilt buttons in 
 front and two single ones behind ; and didn't those 
 buttons shine, too ! In the manufacture of this coat the 
 tailor was so far to blame in that he had made the waist 
 of it a mile too long ; and when Billy went a-fussing 
 and a-bobbing-round, and those little coat tails of his 
 went a-dancing and a-wiggle-waggling about, you would 
 have laughed at Billy even had you been just about to 
 make your last will and testament. And there was 
 nothing to fill out Billy's anatomy, nor to swell his little 
 coat tails. 
 
 The best-natured little man in the world notwith- 
 standing ; couldn't have put him out had you tried ever 
 so hard. Tc a certain extent Billy was always merry ; 
 when he endeavoured to look solemn everybody laughed 
 at him. Sage remarks didn't seem to roll easily over 
 Billy's tongue. On the other hand, he had never been 
 really in a rage, except once in his life, "And then," said 
 Billy, " everybody laughed at me, and I never saw the 
 fun of getting angry again." 
 
 Nobody knew how old Billy was, and nobody seemed 
 to care to ask ; he might have been forty, fifty, or a 
 
The Inn of the ''Jolly Tapsters^ iii 
 
 hundred, or over. He lived all by himself in a morsel 
 of a cottage in the corner of a field, and there was a 
 morsel of a garden attached thereto as w^ell, and both 
 the cottage and garden belonged to Bill}'. He owned no 
 landlord, and yet the village of Twintleton never troubled 
 its head to wonder where on earth Billy had made the 
 money to pay for these luxuries ; for look here, in 
 Twintleton, so long as you call for your pint or your pot, 
 and pay for it like a man, Twintleton doesn't care a 
 crooked sixpence where you were raised, or who was 
 your grandfather. That's what Twintleton is like. 
 
 Now, in these days there lived in this dear wee village 
 one who rejoiced in the somewhat euphonic name of Sally 
 Bunny. A widow was Sally, and she lived in the alms- 
 houses. Sally's husband had been a " brute," I have 
 her own words for that, and the greatest favour he had 
 ever done Sally was to let his jaw drop, and allow him- 
 self to be quietly put under the sod. A very little and 
 very old dumpling of a woman was Sally ; she didn't 
 walk, she waddled, so fat and round she was. Her face 
 was exceedingly wrinkled and gathered into many 
 puckers, after the fashion and shape of a Malaga raisin ; 
 her mouth might have been made, or say drilled, with 
 the end of a kitchen poker, and her eyes blinked bead- 
 like at you over her faded cheeks. She could laugh, 
 could Sally, and that, too, right heartily ; and she could 
 weep, too, at a moment's notice. Like an April morning, 
 she was all sunshine and showers. Although this 
 interesting little widow lived in the almshouse, it wasn't 
 living altogether in clover ; the bare necessaries of life 
 were allowed her, for its luxuries Sally had to toil, and 
 that right hard. " I do like a pinch of snuff,'' she would 
 tell you, " and I works well to earn it, too." The scene 
 of Sally's labours was the great highway betwixt Bath 
 and London, her tools were a barrow, a broom, and a 
 shovel, her stock-in-trade the horse dung, which she sold 
 for her neighbours' gardens. Wet day or dry day, Sally 
 was out ; but industrious as she was, if you met her 
 returning in the gloaming towards her home, and gave 
 her kindly *' good evening," she was always glad to stop 
 
112 The Cruise of the ^^Wanderoo^ 
 
 and gossip. She would always tell you about her 
 " daughter in Amerikay," about her son in Twintleton 
 who was never well out of one scrape till he was into 
 another — here she would weep — and about the fifty little 
 school imps who had that day chased her, singing " Sally 
 Bunny, Sally Bunny, Sally Bunny," till her poor old 
 head ached again, and then she would gasp and look 
 plaintive as she wound up by telling you — "My back, sir, 
 my poor back, sir, do ache, for I've been a dunging all day, 
 sir, and it be hard work for an old creature like I." Sally 
 referred to her arduous profession of manure collector. 
 
 Now, Twintleton is naturally a quiet place, but when 
 one morning news came that Sally's " daughter in 
 Amerikay " had died and left her mother a hundred 
 pounds a year, then Twintleton for the time being simply 
 took leave of its senses. Sally was a lady now ; she 
 left the almshouse, she left off " dunging," she had a 
 complete new outfit, and went to church holding up her 
 head with the best of us. And now, too, a change came 
 suddenly o'er the spirit of Billy Webster's dream. He 
 still frequented the bar-room of the "Jolly Tapsters," 
 but, to the astonishment of everybody, he changed his 
 tipple to hot Scotch, and he lost much of his former 
 brusqueness of manner. Murder will out, and when one 
 evening Bill}' told the neighbours that he was in love, 
 and that his flame was no other than the youthful Sally, 
 great indeed was the rejoicing, and the joy was general. 
 There was such a rattling of pewter mugs as had never 
 before been heard in Twintleton, and a regular chorus of 
 " go in and win, Billy, go in and win. Hurra ! for 
 Billy Webster." 
 
 Billy thought he would lose no time about it. After 
 such encouragement failure seemed impossible ; the 
 word wasn't in Billy's lexicon at all. So the very next 
 evening, as fate would have it, Billy met Sally — 
 accidentally, of course — coming waddling home from 
 Wargrave. 
 
 " What ! " cried Sally, on hearing her lover's proposal, 
 " what ! marry thee ? he ! he ! he ! not if I knows it, 
 he ! he ! you're far to thin a young man for I. 
 
The Inn of the ''Jolly Tapsters:' 113 
 
 As Sally spoke she caught poor Billy by the coat lapel, 
 and spun him round and round as you might a top, and 
 she eyed him up and she eyed him down, and she 
 scanned him fore and she scanned hirxi aft, and she 
 laughed poor Billy to scorn. 
 
 This was hard upon my hero, but Billy was none of 
 3'our chicken-hearted chaps that one blow knocks down 
 never to get up again. Billy made a resolve, a firm 
 resolve. " I'll get tat," says Billy, " and Sally will have 
 me ; I'll get fat, or die in the attempt, so help me 
 Moses." 
 
 Then Billy sent to town, and he bought the book by 
 Banting, and Billy studied that book by night and by 
 day, and acted upon its precepts, upside down, as it 
 were ; for all things that fat folks might not eat, Billy 
 ate, and the things that fat folks were to avoid, these did 
 Billy do, and he lived like a fighting-cock. But, woe is 
 me, Billy seemed to get thinner than ever, so that the 
 neighbours oftenimes shook their heads and murmured, 
 *' Billyhs booked." 
 
 Now, I've already said that Billy never smoked, but 
 when one evening the landlord of the " Jolly Tapsters " 
 said, "Why doan't 'ee try a churchwarden, Billy?" 
 " I'm dashed if I don't," cried Billy emphatically. And 
 he did, too. Night after night you might have seen 
 Billy quietly sitting behind his long clay. The effect 
 was wonderful, it was astonishing, it was p.tupendous. 
 The kindly narcotic soothed his overwrought nervous 
 system ; Billy no longer pricked about like a parched pea 
 in a frying-pan, and he soon began to lay on flesh and 
 alter in shape in a remarkable manner ; even his coat 
 tails filled out, and his breeches were no longer baggy. 
 
 Sally herself noted the change, and her heart yearned 
 towards him. " La ! she said, one day, " you be getting 
 a fine fellow, Mr. Webster." 
 
 With lively recollections of his first attempt at wooing, 
 I believe Billy Webster would now have held proudly 
 aloof; but there was that hundred a year of Sally 
 Bunny's in the balance. Billy couldn't forget that ; so 
 one beautiful summer evening two fat little old figures 
 
114 ^^'^ Cmise of the " Wnuderoo.'' 
 
 were seen waddling home from Wargrave arm-in-arm, 
 and everyone knew that Sally Bunny and Billy Webster 
 would soon be made one flesh. And so they were. 
 And the village of Twintleton rejoiced exceedingly. 
 
 O ! praise be unto the weed divine, for Billy still lives 
 with his Sally in peace and joy, a jolly little, fat little 
 farmer. And everything around him is fat and jolly. 
 His pigs are fat, his geese are simply butter, and his 
 Brahma fowls — those big beggars, you know, with 
 breeches on — why, their legs are like composite candles, 
 three to a pound. And children are rising up around 
 Billy and calling him blessed and fat — why, fat isn't the 
 word to describe the startling amount of adiposity that 
 everywhere surrounds the bairns of Billy Webster. 
 
 It's a queer world. 
 
 Sometimes, of an afternoon, there would drop into the 
 inn of the " Jolly Tapsters" a bicyclist, looking tired and 
 weary enough, and wishful for tea and a break in his 
 journey townward or down south. Pray, don't turn up 
 your nose at the mention of tea. You wouldn't have 
 turned up your nose at the tea they placed before you at 
 the " Jolly Tapsters." The spotless cloth would belaid 
 in the cosiest room in the best of styles ; the knives 
 glittered, and the forks shone like silver, if they weren't. 
 Then there was the fragrant congou itself, the delicious 
 country cream, and the butter — rich in colour as the 
 golden cowslip, sweet as an early primrose, to say 
 nothing of those crisp and lovely rashers, and the pearly 
 eggs with yolks of the deepest red. No, your nose 
 would have naturally been turned in quite another di- 
 rection. 
 
 " Occasional Tapsters " we used to call those wan- 
 dering bicyclists, and most excellent fellows some of 
 them turned out to be, and redolent of mirth and fun. 
 True, the anecdotes they dispensed might have been 
 told at many a table in far-off London town. What did 
 that matter ? they were all fresh and new to us simple- 
 minded Twintletonians. They — these bicyclists — would 
 
The Inn of the ''Jolly Tapsters r 115 
 
 look shyly into" the room at first, apparently envying- 
 our comfortable attitudes around the parlour fire, taking 
 a glance at the pewters and a look at the pipes. They 
 would stand for a moment half-apologetically, with the 
 door in hand, as if they wished to ask, " Is this room 
 private ? Would it be intrusion to venture in ? " But 
 where will you find men more hospitable and kind — or, 
 to use a Scottish phrase, more " good-willy " — than your 
 genume smoker ? Echo answers " nowhere." They 
 were always welcomed in, and, as far as I can remember, 
 they invariably made themselves perfectly at home in a 
 free and easy way, as gentlemen of the world ought. I 
 made the acquaintance — nay, more, I gained the friend- 
 ship — of one of these, whom I am never likely to forget. 
 He dropped in promiscuously one evening, when we Tap- 
 sters were mustered pretty strongly, but we sent for 
 another chair at once. From his dress, and the cut of 
 his jib, I immediately put him down as a sailor — the 
 first mate, perhaps, of some swift clipper or bounding: 
 barque that sailed periodically to the China seas. I was 
 so far right in my conjecture, he was a sailor doctor. 
 
 He had travelled much in America, the land of big 
 licks, and many a humorous yarn did he spin us about 
 his friends the Yanks. However, to his credit be it said, 
 he never insisted on your believing his wonderful stories. 
 " Of course, gentlemen," he would say, " my tales are 
 all true. They are all facts — ordinary facts, however, 
 and go down better if you take a pinch of salt with them. 
 That's so." 
 
 This Occasional Tapster, I think, grew fond of us — 
 well, at least, he was fond of fishing, and would stop for 
 weeks at a time in Twintleton, for sake of the sport 
 which our quiet streams afforded. And some glorious 
 Jacks fell to his rod, too, of which he was justly proud. I've 
 often said of this, that, or t'other friend of mine, that he 
 was the "tallest" smoker ever I knew; but at this 
 moment I feel convinced in my own mind that Dick 
 Arnold — for that was our bold sailor's name — was the 
 smoker of smokers. Unless when eating, the pipe — or, 
 rather, a pipe — was never out of his mouth ; and I 
 
ii6 The Cniise of the ^'Wanderoo." 
 
 believe he smoked himself nightly into oblivion. Many 
 a long, delicious ramble Dick and I had together, by 
 streams and in woods, and among the numerous sweet, 
 wee villages that nestle here and there on the banks of 
 the winding Thames. When the fish wouldn't bite we 
 took to boating, landing here, there, or anywhere, wher- 
 ever there was aught to be seen, or an enticing-looking 
 hostelry that promised the allurement of a cooi glass of 
 beer. There wasn't much to be seen in the streets of 
 the little towns we sauntered up through ; but Dick had 
 one universal remedy for eiiiiui. It was embodied in the 
 simple sentence, " Let's buy a pipe." If a village dinner 
 hadn't been satisfactory, or the beer had been hard, 
 "Nevermind," Dick would say, "let's go and buy a 
 pipe." If Dick went too early to the station, what did it 
 matter ? there was just time to buy a pipe. Buying a 
 new pipe was Dick's panacea for all the ills of life. 
 *' Did you ever," he said to me one Sunday as we left 
 the church ; "did you ever hear such a drone of a parson ? 
 And the worst of it is," he added, almost savagely, " one 
 can't go and buy a pipe." This was hard on Dick. Dick, 
 when he purchased a new pipe, never threw away the 
 old one ; he simply dropped it into the right-hand pocket 
 of his monkey jacket, and forthwith loaded and lit up the 
 new favourite, with a celerity which almost bounded on 
 the nervous. 
 
 " How does it go, Dick ? " I would ask, as soon as he 
 was in full blast. 
 
 Dick would be far too full of blissful contentment to 
 give a long answer. 
 
 " Prime ! " was the usual laconic repl}'. 
 
 For reasons to be hereafter named, Dick Arnold took 
 apartments in the village of Mossfield, and thither he 
 transported all his goods and chattels. He fain would 
 have kept a boat, for the river runs cheek by jowl with 
 the little town ; but, as Dick himself said, it wouldn't 
 run to it. Among his goods and chattels were, of course, 
 his pipes. After he had fairly settled down, I went to 
 see him, to smoke in his rooms the calumet of peace. 
 Surely rooms before were never so crowded with pipes. 
 
The Inn of the ''Jolly Tapsters:' 117 
 
 They were of all sizes, from the Highland cutty up to 
 the Turkish hubble-bubble ; of all shapes, from the long 
 clay to the hookah ; and of all textures, from humble 
 briar to princely meerschaum. There they were, hung 
 on the walls, lying on the mantel-piece, crowding drawers 
 and cupboards, and all over the house, too, from cellar 
 to attic — pipes, pipes, pipes ! Had Dick Arnold been 
 pipe-major to the 92nd Highlanders, he could have given 
 every man in the regiment a pipe, and two each to the 
 officers. That was the sort of man Dick was. 
 
 Dick's yarns were never long ones — pithy and 
 humorous enough, but never long. 
 
 I was at the riverside, one day, with Dick, when he 
 pulled above water the nose — nothing more — of what 
 might have been a shark, or a hundred-year-old pike, or 
 anything a size less than a whale. Next moment Dick 
 was reeling up a broken line — hooks, and gut, and all 
 were gone. 
 
 "Well I'm blowed ! " said Dick. " Why, he was as 
 big as the salmon I got put in gaol for. Let's go and 
 buy a pipe." 
 
 Same evenmg Dick might have been seen sitting by the 
 parlour fireside of the "Jolly Tapsters," with his bare 
 feet in his slippers and his knickerbockers loosened at 
 the knee, scarcely hiding his shapely legs. He had a 
 new pipe in each hand, and he was looking somewhat 
 puzzled, first at one, then at the other. 
 
 " I ought not to have bought two at once," he said, 
 " but I won't make either jealous. Landlord, I'd like a 
 long clay." 
 
 " Dick," said I, " what about that big salmon you got 
 put in limbo for ? " 
 
 Dick laughed. "There is really nothing in it, you 
 know," he said ; " but once, when I was a medical 
 student, and had been working pretty hard to pass an 
 exam., I took it into my head that a breath of Highland 
 air might do me good. I could ill aftbrd such a luxury, 
 but I scraped together all the cash I could, and off 
 I started for the Trossachs, and took lodgings in a 
 small, out-lying house, not far from Callander. I took 
 
Ii8 The Cruise of the ^^ Wanderoo.'' 
 
 the rooms for a month, and paid for them beforehand, 
 to make sure of paying them at all. On the money I 
 had over I thought I would just manage to exist. I had 
 plenty of books and plenty of tobacco, and pipes galore. 
 It was a good thing, too, that I had tobacco ; for by the 
 time I had been two weeks in the place, what with my 
 own lack of thrift and the Highland air making me so 
 hungry, I was reduced to my last pound. I could only 
 afford two meals a day, and my luncheon was a long, 
 long smoke. It was the season of the year when the 
 salmon come up the tiny streamlets to spawn ; there 
 they were in thousands, you could have thrown them out 
 on the banks in armfuls. Of course they were well 
 watched ; there was a keeper for every two or three 
 hundred yards. So no one could touch the salmon ; but 
 y^ou might look at them. And that is what I did. I 
 used to wander up and down the banks of the streamlets, 
 smoking, and gaze hungrily down at the fish. 
 
 "'Foul fish and all, as they are,' I used to say to 
 myself, ' half a pound or so would go down nicely with a 
 few mashed potatoes.' 
 
 " In this strain I must have been thinking aloud one 
 day, when a great shoulder of mutton fist was laid on 
 my back, and on looking round, behold ! the brown 
 beard and red face of Donald Oak. 
 
 " ' How you pe ?' says Donald ; 'you pe strongly, sir ? ' 
 
 " ' As a rule,' said I. 
 
 " ' Och, then,' says Donald, ' her nainsel is a Hielan' 
 shentleman, but she'll no pe liking to see folks hungry, 
 and for a pit of topacco, troth she'll gaff you a fish.' 
 
 " I gripped the Highlander's hand. I squeezed it. 
 
 " ' Brave man !' I said, ' gaff me a fish ; gaff me a big 
 one, and a pound of tobacco shall be your guerdon.' 
 
 " After dark, for the law was strict, I met Donald and 
 the fish. And it was a whopper; I could hardly carry it, 
 and when I stowed it away in my big sea-chest, even 
 there it hardly had room enough. 
 
 " Well, for days after that I had salmon for breakfast, 
 dinner, and supper. I don't know whether my landlady 
 smelt a rat or not, only she held her peace. Smelt a rat, 
 
The Inn of the ''JoUy Tapsters:' 119 
 
 did I say ? Horror of horrors ! one fine morning I 
 smelt something infinitely worse. I made the dire dis- 
 covery that I couldn't eat my fish fast enough. He was 
 going off — he was crying aloud for burial ; and, by hook 
 or by crook, buried he must be. The Booie woods weren't 
 far away, and that same night, in then- darkest depths, 
 I dug a grave. And next night I wrapped my fish in the 
 columns of the Daily News, and sallied forth like a felon 
 to bury him. But, woe is me ! hardly had I finished my 
 eerie work, when I found myself fast in the clutches of 
 two stalwart bobbies. 
 
 "'Clap on the darbies, Jamie !' cried one; 'Quick! 
 he's like an eel.' 
 
 " Resistance was out of the question, and, one hour 
 after, I was being whirled along the road to Stirling gaol. 
 I wasn't quite sure, even then, what I was arrested for, 
 but it soon came out. 
 
 " 'Wha was the mither o't ?' said one of the bobbies. 
 
 "'The mither o' what?' said I; 'the mither o' that 
 foul fish ? ' 
 
 "'The mither o' the bairn 3'e buried,' was the stern 
 reply. 'O ye hardened young villain, ye'll hang as 
 high as Haman for this nicht's wark. 
 
 " Next day I was arraigned for murder, sure enough, 
 before a Stirling bailie. And there was no small amuse- 
 ment in court when I told the story of the salmon. But 
 I was kept under lock and key until the truth of my tale 
 was established, and the fish exhumed. Then I was let 
 off with a fine." 
 
 " And went right away and bought a pipe, I suppose," 
 said I. 
 
 "That I did,'' said Dick, laughing; "and I'm not 
 sure I didn't buy two." 
 
 The reason why Dick had taken apartments at Moss- 
 field was this : he had fallen in love. Aye, and was to 
 have been married too, and a charming girl his intended 
 was. But the marriage never came off. Ah ! dear me, 
 that dark and sullen Thames, how many a life it has to 
 account for ! Yes, reader, Dick was drowned, drowned 
 almost close to where his bride-affianced dwelt. He'll 
 never buy another pipe. 
 
I20 The Cruise of fJie ^'■Wanderoo.'' 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 DRAWING THE LONG BOW. 
 
 OUR mate was a good story-teller, and by no means 
 loath to oblige us. That he sometimes did draw 
 the long bow can, I fear, hardly be denied, after 
 the following brief yarn of his when we had all assembled 
 in the saloon next sea-pie night. 
 
 " It is bitterly cold," the doctor said, as he held his 
 palms in front of the stove. 
 
 " Is it ?" said the mate. "Well, now, I've known it 
 colder." 
 "Tell us." 
 "Well, then," he began, 
 
 "HOW IS THIS FOR COLD?" 
 
 It was away up Spitzbergen way we were, and heading 
 away farther north still as fast as the ice would let us, 
 and the farther north we went the colder it seemed to 
 get. I used to think it strange at first to have to ease 
 an inch or two of ice ofT my breakfast cup of a morning 
 before I could drink my drop of coffee. But I soon got 
 used to that. One day on coming down to dinner I 
 found a round brown cake-looking thing put on the table 
 before each officer. 
 
 "What are these queer round brown things ?" says I 
 to the stevv^ard. 
 
 " Don't you know ?" says he, " them's the soup." 
 
 I thought that somewhat funny, but I wasn't used to 
 the cold yet. The captain ordered a bottle of rum one 
 day between the first mate and himself — people can 
 stand a good drop up in these latitudes — the steward 
 broke the bottle with the poker and placed the rum on 
 the table in front of them ; it was all in a lump, and they 
 had a bradawl each to eat it with. I thought that funny. 
 
Draw hi i^ the Lout[^- Bow. 12 [ 
 
 The captain had a slight cold once, and took half 
 an ounce of Dover's powder at bedtime and put a bottle 
 of boiling water to his feet ; he did sweat, and no 
 mistake, but I little guessed the effect it would have ; 
 the sweat got frozen during the night, and we had to put 
 him down, bed and all, for two hours in front of the stove 
 before we got him clear. It was for all the world like 
 opening a mummy. That I also thought funny. 
 
 I used to wonder at first why, when one man went to 
 relieve another at the wheel, he always took a kettle of 
 boiling water with him, but this was merely to pour over 
 him, as the poor fellow was always frozen to the spokes. 
 One day the skipper sent six men aloft to reef the fore- 
 top sail ; they were all frozen to the yard in less than five 
 minutes, and looked like so many turkeys roosting on a 
 roller. Got them off? Yes, we got them oft', but the 
 yard had to be lowered, and the whole business sent 
 oelow to the engine-room to thaw first. 
 
 Cold ! I should think it was cold, and no mistake. 
 The thermometer had to be kept constantly in a sauce- 
 panful of water over the stove, else it wouldn't have 
 worked at all. At first we used to man the winch every 
 night to wind the clock up, it was so clogged and stiff 
 with the frost ; but finally it refused duty entirely, and 
 then the only way we had of telling the time was to keep 
 count of the number of bottles of rum we got through in 
 the day ; when we had eaten one each, it was luncheon 
 time ; when we had got outside three it was time for tea, 
 and when we had swallowed seven each it was nearly 
 time for bed. 
 
 I'll ust give you one little instance of the severity 
 of the cold. Truthfulness is one of the traits of my 
 character. Everybody knows that ; I believe that, if 
 there was no one in the room except the cat, I could say 
 without fear of contradiction that I never told a story in 
 my life. Well, one night when the frost was at its 
 bitterest, the skipper and myself were in the cabm 
 finishing our seventh bottle and talking about the intense 
 heat of the summer weather out Jamaica way — on very 
 cold nights we always talked about the tropics and tried 
 
 I 
 
122 Tlie Cruise of the " Wauderoo.'''' 
 
 to believe we were in them. I could see the skipper's 
 lips moving and I dare say he saw mine. But never a 
 word could we hear, for of course the words froze as soon 
 as they came out of our mouths and fell down on the 
 deck. Well, I told the skipper just one good story to 
 close up with — a true story of course — and then went off 
 to bed. Next morning the weather was very much 
 warmer, and before I drew back my curtain, I could 
 distinctly hear someone in the cabin begin to tell a story. 
 I listened for a bit, for I like a good yarn, but, dash it all, 
 this one was more than even I could swallow. I couldn't 
 stand it, so without drawing back the curtain to see who 
 was speaking, I sang out. "Well," I cried, "of all the 
 big story-tellers that ever I heard try it, I must say you 
 are the biggest, and I don't care a pennypiece who you 
 are." 
 
 With that I pulled back the curtain — there wasn't a 
 soul in the cabin, sir — it was the very story that I had 
 told the skipper for naked truth the night before. The 
 steward had swept the frozen words up into a corner 
 and now they were simply thawing and coming up again. 
 How was that for cold ? 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I READ A PAPER. 
 
 T 
 
 HE captain turned to me. " Heave round," he 
 said, " with your yarn, Gordon." I pulled out 
 my paper like a man, and read as follows, not 
 being much of an extemporaneous talker. 
 
 A DIATRIBE ON TAILS. 
 
 " Had you in your mind 
 Such stores as silent thought can bring, 
 Then, gentle reader, you would find — 
 Tongues in trees, books in running brooks — 
 And the tail of the serpent over them all — 
 
 List, list, O! list!" 
 
/ Read a Paper. 123 
 
 I have been chewing the end of my quill, and gazing 
 meditatively at the above quotation for the last five 
 minutes. It does not seem altogether correct, somehow. 
 But there it is, and there it must stand. I shall not 
 waste precious space in mourning over it. • • t 
 
 One glance at my title— and a very pretty one it is, I 
 like that word '^ diatribe"— one glance I say at the title 
 will convince the gentle reader that this paper is devoted 
 to a branch of natural history that has not been very 
 much studied. In fact, the field is almost a new one, 
 the pasture fresh, and so extensive is it, too, that when I 
 have said my say and retired, it will be with the con- 
 sciousness that I have taken a mere nibble, a bite in the 
 by-going. 
 
 " Come hither, hithei, my little page." 
 My little page jumps up at the first sound of my voice. 
 He comes trotting towards me, and stands there in front 
 of me, with his head cocked consideringly a little bit to 
 one side, his ears well forward, and an enquiring look m 
 those loving brown eyes of his. 
 
 My little page in this instance is a gigantic Newfound- 
 land dog. 
 
 Now watch and listen, ladies and gentlemen. Here 
 is no deception, I assure you ; the conversation that 
 takes place is a genuine one. I talk with my lips and 
 tongue, he speaks with his hazel eyes, his ears, and that 
 great saucy tail that he carries behind him, and finds so 
 
 handy. , 
 
 / ; shaking a finger and speaking emphatically, " You 
 
 old rascal !" , 
 
 The Dog : " It's all right, master ; I know you don t 
 
 mean it." 
 
 I : " But I do mean it. You are an old rascal. lell 
 me this : Who went and buried his biscuit this morning 
 in a flower-bed because he found he couldn't eat it ?" 
 
 The tail has ceased to wag, the ears are no longer 
 forward, the eyes are half shut, and the guilty head 
 begins to droop. 
 
 / : " But don't grieve, dear boy. There, I pat you, I 
 forgive you, and forget your crime." 
 
124 ^^'^' Cmisc of the '■''Waudevoo.''' 
 
 The ears are once more erect, the eyes get bright, and 
 the tail begins to wag anew. 
 
 / ; " And so, because you see me with my hat on, you 
 expect I'm going out, don't you ?" 
 
 A convulsive movement of the tail, a witchy glance 
 from each hazel eye, a little glad spring, as if he felt it 
 would do him good to jump on my shoulders and 
 embrace me. 
 
 Then he stands still again, waiting for further develop- 
 ments on my part. 
 
 /; "Fetch my stick, then. Thanks. Now my 
 gloves. Thank you ; but go back for the other. You 
 might have saved yourself that journey." 
 
 And now we are outside, and neither the movements 
 of the tail nor the movements of the dog himself can any 
 more be studied. For at times it is impossible to say 
 whether the dog has charge of the tail, or the tail has 
 charge of the dog. They are whirling round and round 
 together, they are describing circles, describing /a/'rtZ^c/^^ 
 describing all sorts of figures. Ail I can see is a mist of 
 blackness, which I believe to be my dog, a touch of 
 vermilion, which I believe is his tongue, and a gleam, 
 of white, which I daresay represents his teeth. 
 
 Now, it would serve no useful purpose were I to tackle 
 the question — Why does a dog wag his tail ? Answer I 
 could, and that, too, in a most satisfactory manner ; but 
 I should have to bring forward such a host of eminent 
 authorities on comparative anatomy ; I should have ta 
 name so many nerves and mention so many muscles that 
 this diatribe of mine would be dubbed dry reading, and 
 I myself voted a bore. No. Let me rather attempt to 
 describe a few of the uses to which dogs' tails are put, 
 and the tails of other animals, in the economy of Nature. 
 A dog's tail, then, is useful to him in a variety of ways. 
 It is to a large extent by means of his tail that he makes 
 known either to a human being, or to another dog, the 
 state of his feelings and his sentiments with regard to 
 any particular subject. Here are two examples m proof 
 of what I say. 
 
 First example. If you are doing anything or saying 
 
/ Read a Paper. 125 
 
 anything to give pleasure to a dog, he wags his tail — 
 that is as much to say : 
 
 " What you are doing or saying gives me much 
 delight. Keep it up, keep on at it, in the same way that 
 I keep on wagging this tail of mine." 
 
 Second example. A pointer in the field stands at a 
 bird ; he stands as steady as a statue, and a deal more 
 naturally than many statues I could name. There isn't 
 a movement in the body, the tail is as straight as a rush. 
 He is speaking to you with that tail. 
 
 " Come quietly up," he says; " here is a bird ; make 
 no more noise than I am now making with my tail ; be 
 steady as my tail is steady ; hold as straight, and you'll 
 have the bird." 
 
 When swimming in the water, a Newfoundland dog 
 invariably makes use of his tail as a rudder when he 
 wishes to go to starboard or port. 
 
 When coursing, a greyhound does precisely the same 
 thing. 
 
 A dog uses his tail as a flag of defiance. If two dogs 
 meet on the street with tails erect and motionless, there 
 will be a fight. 
 
 If both dogs are wagging their tails, they are merely 
 saying, " Good morning," or " Have you had your 
 dinner yet ? " 
 
 If two dogs meet, and one lowers his tail, the other 
 lets him pass on, merely saying, by way of caution : 
 
 *'That is right. Always lower your tail in a respect- 
 ful mannner when you meet me, and I may let you live 
 ever so long yet." 
 
 The immense bushy tail of the Highland collie is used 
 as a protection against cold, when the animal is on the 
 hill-side or lying among the snow. He then simply curls 
 himself up into a knot, and puts his tail over his face, 
 and thus defies the weather. 
 
 It may be new to some of my readers to know that at 
 dog shows the judges, in awarding the prizes, always 
 take into consideration the carriage and shape of the 
 tails of the specimens that are led out before them. 
 Some breeds of dogs are graciousl}' perr^itted and even 
 
126 The Cniise of the ^^Wanderoo.'" 
 
 encouraged to curl their tails — pugs for example. On 
 the other hand, a St. Bernard or mastiff that twirled his 
 tail over his rump would at once be ordered out of the 
 ring. 
 
 Judges, then, and writers on dogs insist upon the 
 following tail-characteristics, which, non-sensical though 
 they may seem to many, there really is something in 
 after all : — 
 
 1. Hounds including stag or foxhounds, bloodhounds 
 and harriers, shall carry their tails gaily, and shall be 
 permitted to have rough hair at the lower side, but this 
 must not approach to the appearance of a flag or brush. 
 Nor shall they, on pain of excommunication from the 
 show-ring, curl said tails. 
 
 2. A St. Bernard, a Newfoundland, or collie shall not 
 carry his tail gaily, but downwards and backwards with 
 a graceful sweep. 
 
 3. The German banger-hound, or Dachshund, shall 
 carry his tail after the shape and fashion of the village 
 pump, with a kind of pot-hook bend near the lower end 
 thereof. 
 
 4. Fox terriers and most spaniels may enter the ring 
 with their tails docked according to regulation pattern. 
 
 5. A Newfoundland or mastiff who shall enter the 
 ring with even one joint of his tail absent, shall forfeit 
 all right to win a prize. 
 
 6. A greyhound shall have a tail like a rat. 
 
 7. A deerhound may have the end of his tail slightly 
 ringed. 
 
 8. The bulldog may have his tail somewhat crooked, 
 but shall carry it downwards. On no account shall he 
 raise it above the level of his back. 
 
 g. The Skye terrier shall not have too long a tail, nor 
 may he be allowed to carry it gaily, but straight be- 
 hind him. 
 
 10. The Scotch terrier shal wear a short tail roughl}- 
 fringed, length about seven inches, with a slight bend, 
 and he may on occasion carry it gaily. 
 
 11. The English terrier shall wear a fine and taper 
 tail, and must not raise it above the horizontal. 
 
/ Rencf a Paper. 127 
 
 12. The Irish terrier shall carry his tail invariably 
 docked ; there must be neither fringe nor feather 
 thereon. Nor shall the Irish terrier be permitted to 
 curl his tail. 
 
 N.B. — It would seem from reading the above that the 
 Irish terrier is somewhat hardly dealt with. Neverthe- 
 less, such are the law and rules of the show-ring, and 
 probably the liberty of even an Irish dog needs C7^r-tailing. 
 
 But to the pug dog is granted the largest amount of 
 freedom as regards the carriage of tail ; for not only is 
 this consequential little animal permitted to carry his tail 
 gaily, but he may curl it twice or even three times, into 
 a little ball, in fact. Only the female dog is advised to 
 carry hers on the left side of the spine, the male his upon 
 the right. But this is not always insisted on. 
 
 So tightly IS a well-bred pug's tail curled, that your 
 genuine dog-fancier would imagine the world was coming 
 to an end if he saw him letting it down. And yet I have 
 seen a champion-bred pug untwist his tail, and clap it 
 between his legs as in mortal terror ; he was running 
 away from a peacock. 
 
 Cattle use their tails chiefly, I think, as fly-dispersers, 
 for they are very tender in the hide, and object to have 
 insect eggs laid therein. Sometimes, on very hot days 
 in summer, one cow says to another, " Come, let us run 
 away from these teasing insects." And the other cows 
 all reply, " Come on, then." Then they all cock their 
 tails straight up in the air, and gallop in a body to the 
 other end of the field, sometimes kicking with their hind 
 legs and crying, " Boh ! " It is very funny to see them. 
 
 When the water- buftaloes in India are tired swishing 
 their tails about, and the mosquitoes won't take the hint, 
 they go and wallow in a pond. When done wallowing, 
 they lie down on their sides on the grass and go to sleep, 
 and the crows all come down out of the banian trees and 
 hop about on them, and eat the flies and things. The 
 water-buffaloes of India are very wise. So are the crows. 
 
 Fishes use their tails in the water and birds in the air 
 as rudders. 
 
 Fishes and cetaceans also use their tails as a means of 
 
128 71ic Cruise of the '' Waiideroo/' 
 
 propulsion ; sometimes also as a weapon of defence. A 
 friend of mine once found himself very high up in the 
 air with nothing to hold on to. He had been sent up on 
 a voyage of discovery by the tail of a whale. 
 
 The kangaroos use their tails as vaulting-poles. 
 
 When a salmon wants to jump over a weir, he takes 
 his tail in his mouth. Next instant he lets go, straightens 
 out, and over he goes like half-a-yard of whalebone. 
 
 The ornithorynchus, like the Scotch collie, uses its 
 tail to keep its face warm when it curls up ; so does my 
 old friend the Arctic fox. 
 
 Many birds hold their tails aloft by wa}^ of defiance to 
 other birds. 
 
 "Defence, not defiance," is the motto of many animals 
 who wear tails, such as the scaly anteaters. 
 
 I'm not quite sure about beavers' tails ; I believe they 
 do a bit of plastering with them, but I don't think they 
 carry the mortar. 
 
 Some lizards have enormous tails, but I think they 
 must be an inconvenience. I have seen many monster 
 lizards in the bush in Africa, but most of them had lost 
 pieces off their tails, and some of them looked quite 
 disreputable in consequence. 
 
 The tails of many monkeys are only made for 
 ornament, but others, such as the spider monkeys, can 
 catch branches with their tails, and swing therefrom. 
 This sight must be very galling to those monkeys who 
 can't swmg like that. 
 
 The hedgehog hasn't a tail, and says he doesn't want 
 one. 
 
 Neither the rhea nor kiri-kiri has a tail, but get on 
 very well without one. 
 
 On the other hand, some animals seem to be all tail, 
 the common garden worm for example. The arrange- 
 ment seems to be a handy one, for the animal can go 
 either way without troubling himself to turn round. 
 
 By-the-bye, as I was passing down the path that leads 
 through my lawn, the other day, I saw an enormously 
 large earth worm coming rapidly up out of his hole. I 
 stooped down to pick him up, meaning to give him a 
 
I Read n Paper. 129 
 
 friendly help on to the lawn, for fear of his being trampled 
 on. Instead of drawing back into his hole, as worms 
 generally do, he continued to come up. 
 
 *' Out of my way, sir, please,"' he seemed to say, " I'm 
 in a fearful hurry." 
 
 As soon as he was all out, I found that a horrid creepie- 
 creepie, namely, a larva of the disgusting beetle called 
 the " Devil's Coach-horse,'" was fast to the worm's tail, 
 and had actually eaten the end of it off. The larva was 
 more than an inch long, with a very large head, and 
 powerful cutting mandibles. It turned fiercely on the 
 twig with which I knocked it off from the worm's tail, 
 and bit at that. Then I put it in spirits of wine, and it 
 died drunk. So even earth worms have their sorrows. 
 
 Were I not afraid of wearing out the reader's patience, 
 I could tell some queer anecdotes about monkeys' tails. 
 I am afraid ; so there is an end to it. But this I must 
 remark : Animals with long tails are not always conscious 
 as to where those tails are, or what they may be doing, 
 while the mind of the owner is otherwise engaged. 
 I account for that in this way. The spinal marrow does 
 not penetrate very far into the tail, only down two or 
 three of the vertebras, and the organ is not so well 
 supplied with nerves as it might be. 
 
 Examples : — A monkey is perched aloft eating a nut ; 
 it has quite forgotten that its long tail is hanging down 
 loose, until another monkey spies it and makes a bell- 
 rope of it, or draws it over a beam and goes in for 
 calisthenics. I had a very savage Dandie Dinmont, 
 that when it had nothing else to quarrel with, used to 
 make war on its own tail because it wagged, and often 
 bit it till it bled, then howled and bit it again. 
 
 A dog — a big one — will often stand so close to the fire 
 that he gets his tail singed and burned. Then he jumps 
 and looks inquiringly round. 
 
 In fact, tails require constant looking after to keep 
 them out of mischief. 
 
 Now, there is my big Newfoundland, " Hurricane 
 Bob ; " well, his tail is always getting him into hot 
 water. Only yesterday he came marching solemnly out 
 
130 The Cruise of the *' WanderooS' 
 
 of the dairy. His great fringe of a tail was dripping 
 with cream ; he had all unconsciously wagged it across 
 a basin of milk. In the evening he marched into the 
 room where we were having tea. He lay down under 
 the table. If he had stayed there it would have been all 
 right. But a lady he loves came in, and " Hurricane 
 Bob " must rush to meet her and wag his great tail as a 
 matter of course. Down went two blue china cups and 
 the cream-jug. 
 
 '* Oh ! my beautiful cups !" cried my wife, 
 
 I opened the door to give my favourite speedy exit. 
 
 He cast one half-sorrowful, half-angry glance at his tail. 
 
 " The second scrape you've got me into to-day," he 
 
 appeared to say. " Will you never learn to keep quiet 
 
 and still ?" 
 
 Then, holding the offending member low down between 
 his legs, as if to make sure it would do no more mischief, 
 he trotted away out to his kennel in grief. 
 
 I have several times been shipmates with rats, and 
 know nearly all about the tricks and manners of these 
 gentry that I care to. One thing I know is that they 
 make a good use of their tails in a foraging way, for I 
 have seen them dip these caudal appendages into a milk- 
 jug, or among beer or grease that they could not other- 
 wise reach, then quietly sit down and lick them dry. 
 
 Cats, I believe, are very proud of their tails, and, like 
 dogs, cock them in defiance at an advancing foe. But a 
 cat does not wag its tail when pleased, but when angry or 
 excited. 
 
 A good old cat of mine lately shuffled off his mortal 
 coil. A most disreputable-looking beast he was as ever 
 you beheld. Bold, black, and fierce to all but his own 
 friends, his ears in ribbons, and his head and body 
 scarred. 
 
 Yorick was his name. Alas ! poor Yorick ! A dog- 
 cart ran him down, and so severed his tail that it had to 
 be amputated close to the root. Yorick was able to be 
 about as usual in a day or two. Then he found his tail 
 in the ashpit, and brought it and sat down by the back 
 kitchen door and mourned over it. This he did for days. 
 
/ Read a Paper. 131 
 
 No one had the heart to take that tail away from him 
 At last he took it away and buried it. Perhaps it was 
 time. But the fun of the thing is this, he used to scrape 
 It up again, and sit and sing to it. I suppose he sang — 
 
 " Should auld acquaintance be forgot 
 And never brought to mind." 
 
 I had a noble fellow of a dog of the great Dane or 
 boarhound breed, taller than a mastiff, and as lithe and 
 graceful as a greyhound. Slate-grey in colour, even his 
 little twinkling eyes were slate-grey. Although a terrible 
 dog to look at, and a caution to tramps, he was the 
 quintessence of good nature. Too much so, for it defied 
 him to keep his enormous tail still a moment if you 
 talked to or looked at him. The consequence was that 
 the tail was constantly bleeding at the tip, from being 
 lashed about against whatever happened to be next to it. 
 
 As the tail would not heal, it was determined to cut off 
 a joint, make a scientific flap, dress it and let it heal. 
 This was good enough in theory. Practice proved the 
 operation was unavailing. Prince soon switched ofi' the 
 dressing. In two weeks more another operation was 
 performed, and now a bag was made for the tail, and a 
 whole suit of leather and rope harness to keep it on. 
 The bottom of the bag was filled with soft tow, and the 
 dog was tethered in a field, so that it was impossible for 
 him to knock his tail against anything. The harness 
 was of no avail. Put it on in any way we pleased, and 
 rope him all over, with an iron muzzle on besides, Prince 
 had wriggled clear before morning, and was wagging his 
 bleeding tail as meriily as ever. 
 
 I would have backed that dog against the Davenport 
 Brothers for the rope trick. 
 
 As a last resource, and at a suggestion of my hench- 
 man, we fastened a garden syringe on Prince. It was 
 nearly a yard long, and the tail just fitted into it. Prince 
 wore this garden syringe for weeks, and the point of the 
 tail became nearly healed. But the syringe cut the root 
 of the tail, and had at last to be abandoned. 
 
 However, it was a sight to see the great dog marching 
 
132 TJic Cruise of the " IVdiideroo.'' 
 
 solemnly along the street, with a yard of pewter piping 
 sticking straight out behind him. He often hit people 
 on the shins with it and made them jump, he wagged it 
 across school-children and they fell on their backs, he 
 wagged it at windows and glass flew in splinters. 
 
 People used to look at him and smile aloud, and to 
 this day he is known in our little village as " the dog 
 with the iron tail." 
 
 Poor dear Prince ! the responsibility of that tail was 
 almost too much for him ! 
 
 I parted with Prince at last to a gentleman who said 
 he felt certain he could cure him. 
 
 Well, he did. But the cure was a very radical one, 
 for he cut the tail off close by the root, and when I next 
 saw Prince, he was like Tam O'Shanter's good mare 
 Meg— 
 
 "The fient a tail he had to shake." 
 
 " Talking of tails," said the engineer, " I once had a 
 dog"- 
 
 '* Hurrah !" we shouted, " the story of a dog with a 
 tail." 
 
 " No, gentlemen, but the story of a dog without a tail. 
 Listen." 
 
Wagga-Wagna. 133 
 
 CHAPTP:R XII. 
 
 WAC.GA-WAGGA. 
 
 MY friends often send me hampers. I do not 
 object to this, because they often contain what 
 is nice, and sometimes what is very curious. 
 Wagga-Wagga came to me in a hamper. Wagga- 
 Wagga is still alive and well, and may be seen any day 
 running about the streets as independent as a prince. 
 
 When the hamper in question came, then, I hastened 
 to undo the fastenings, when, on opening the lid, lo 1 
 and behold, Wagga-Wagga. 
 
 The first thing that occurred to me was that the 
 doggie was wonderfully small ; the second thing that 
 occurred to me was that it was desperately wicked. 
 N.B. — This occurred to me while the animal was 
 holding on to my thumb, very much to his own satis- 
 faction, by his front teeth. Having refreshed himself in 
 this fashion, he condescended to let me put him on the 
 table for further investigation. In size he is capable of 
 insertion, head foremost, into a pint pot. Weight, four 
 pounds to a grain. Colour, black, with tan points. 
 Coat, rather long, and feather as hard as hair-pms. 
 Head, of the cocoanut fashion, and feathered like the 
 body. Eyes large and round, and showing a good bit of 
 the bull, and a large spice of the devil. Of tail he 
 hasn't a vestige, so there can't be a morsel of con- 
 troversy on that head. He is pretty straight on his 
 pins, but roaches his back like a cat doing an attitude of 
 defiance. A collie dog gave him two lines of his mmd 
 last week, and he now roaches his back much more. 
 I baptized him Wagga-Wagga on the spot, because he 
 hasn't a tail to wag. 
 
 The prevailing disposition of Wagga-Wagga's mind 
 is that of morosity, combined with bad temper. There 
 is nothing on four legs that he won't fly at, and nothing^ 
 
134 ^^'^ Cruise of the " Wnndcroo."' 
 
 on two either ; so, instead of spending the day in the 
 garden, he spends it out on the highway, fighting with 
 the school children, and attacking other dogs. From 
 these latter he gets, on an average, three thrashings a 
 day. Three thrashings a day don't make the slightest 
 impression on Wagga-Wagga, but the fun of the thing 
 is that when a big dog makes up his mind to thrash 
 Wagga-Wagga he has to lie down to do it, and catch 
 him between his fore-paws as he would a biscuit. Pro- 
 voked beyond measure the other day, my St. Bernard 
 lay down to thrash Wagga-Wagga ; half an hour after- 
 wards, the St. Bernard entered the room where I was 
 sitting and said, " Master, will you kindly remove this 
 little i/7//'ediment from my nose ? It obstructs my 
 breathing." The little /;;//)ediment was Wagga-Wagga. 
 But I am convinced of one thing — viz., that it is the 
 want of a tail, that forms the clouding sorrow of Wagga- 
 Wagga's existence. I have no doubt that it was when 
 he found that every other dog except himself possessed 
 an appendage of this sort, that lie alone was deprived by 
 nature of caudacity, that his temper got soured, and he 
 fled to the wilderness of Cairney Mount," and tried to 
 hide his deprivement and sorrow among the blooming 
 heather. If you want to offend Wagga for a week, you've 
 only to tell him to " catch his tail." His deformity, 
 too, is " spotted " at a glance by every dog he meets. 
 A dog that would otherwise have trotted quietly past, 
 suddenly stops and stares, and eyeing Wagga imper- 
 tinently, '* Why,'' he cries, "you are a fright! How- 
 ever, did your master let you come out like that ? " 
 *' Bother you !" growls Wagga- Wagga, and goes at him, 
 and then there's a row on the road ; and I don't wonder 
 in the least at the St. Bernard getting his nose bitten, 
 for he is always chaffing Wagga-Wagga on the sore 
 subject, in a nasty, dry, sarcastic way, every time he 
 meets him. For instance, he will stretch his neck out, 
 and take an earnest look for the absent member, and 
 then say, " No signs yet, Waggie, eh ? " or, " Well it is 
 
 '■"^ The name of the hill where Wagga was first found unning wild. — G. S. 
 
TJiat Skyc Tcn-ier — A Burlesque. 135 
 
 curious, after all, old boy;" and Waggie may reply, 
 " Can't you leave a fellow's tai — " and then stops short. 
 
 " Let a fellow's tail alone," laughs the St. Bernard, 
 ''out with it, Waggle. Oh lor! Oh lor!" and then the 
 bio^ dog hums in a low key the song of " Bo-peep," and 
 when he comes to the sheep bringing their tails behind 
 them, he gives a sigh, and adds, " It's more'n ever you'll 
 do, Wag." Now this would try the temper of any dog. 
 However, I thought of a plan to mitigate in some 
 measure the affliction of this Scotch terrier. I got him 
 a squirrel's tail, and fastened it on with wire, and for the 
 whole week that he wore it, I don't think there was a 
 prouder dog in Christendom. But the kittens stole poor 
 Waggie's tail, and plunged him once more into the 
 deepest grief. 
 
 "Thank you, Douglas," said Capt. Crisp. 
 
 " And that reminds me," said the mate, " I had a dog 
 once, and his name was Wasp." 
 
 " Trot him out," we cried. 
 
 " Here goes then, gentlemen." 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 THAT SKYE TERRIER— A BURLESQUE 
 
 «i 
 
 H 
 
 E'S a good bred 'un, sir." This is the some- 
 what unclassical English with which Wasp's 
 Yorkshire master introduced the puppy to 
 me as he consigned it to my care, in return for which I 
 crossed his hand five times with yellow gold. "And," 
 he added, " he's a game 'un besides." 
 
 I knew the former of these statements was quite 
 correct from young Wasp's pedigree, and of the latter I 
 was so convinced, before a week was over, that I con- 
 sented to sell hirn to a parson for the same money I gave 
 for him — and glad enough to get rid of him even then. 
 
136 Tlic Cruise of the " Wandcroo.'" 
 
 At this time the 3'outhful Wasp was a mere bundle of 
 black fluff, with wicked blue eyes, and flashing teeth of 
 unusually piercing properties. He dwelt in a distant 
 corner of the parson's kitchen, in a little square basket or 
 creel, and a servant was told off to attend upon him ; 
 and, indeed, that servant had about enough to do. 
 Wasp seemed to know that Annie was his own particular 
 " slavey," and insisted on her being constantly within 
 hail of him. If she dared to go upstairs, or even to 
 attend the door-bell. Wasp let all the house hear of it, and 
 the poor good-natured girl was glad to run back for 
 peace's sake. Another thing he insisted on was being 
 conveyed, basket and all, to Annie's bedroom when she 
 retired for the night. He also intimated to her that he 
 preferred eating the first of his breakfasts at three o'clock 
 every morning sharp, upon pain of waking the parson ; 
 his second at four, third at five, and so on until further 
 notice. I was sorry for Annie. 
 
 From the back of his little basket, where he had 
 formed a fortress, garrisoned by Wasp himself, and 
 provisioned with bones, boots, and slippers enough to 
 stand a siege of any length of time, he used to be always 
 making raids and forays on something. Even at this 
 early age the whole aim of his existence seemed to be 
 doing mischief. If he wasn't tearing Annie's Sunday 
 boots, it was because he was dissecting the footstool ; 
 footstool failing, it was the cat. The poor cat hadn't a 
 dog's life with him. He didn't mind pussy's claws a bit : 
 he had a way of his own of backing " stern on " to her 
 which defied her and saved his eyes. When close up he 
 would seize her by the paw, and shake it till she 
 screamed with pain. I was sorry for the cat. 
 
 If you lifted Wasp up in your arms to have a look at 
 
 him, he flashed his alabaster teeth in your face one 
 
 • moment, and fleshed them in your nose the next. He 
 
 never looked you straight in the face, but aslant, from 
 
 the corners of his wicked wee eyes. 
 
 In course of time — not Pollok's — Wasp's black puppy- 
 hair fell off, and discovered underneath the most beautiful 
 silvery-blue coat ever you saw in your life ; but his puppy 
 
That Skyc Terrier — A Burlesque. 137 
 
 manners did not mend in the least. In his case the 
 puppy was tlie father of the dog, and if anything the 
 son was worse than the father. 
 
 Talk of growing, oh ! he did grow : not to the height 
 — don't make any mistake, please ; Wasp calculated he 
 was plenty high enough already — but to the length, if you 
 like. And every da}' when I went down to see him, 
 Annie would innocently ask me — 
 
 '* See any odds on him this morning, doctor ? " 
 
 *' Well, Annie," I would say, " he really does seem to 
 get a little longer about every second day." 
 
 "Lor! yes, sir, he do grow," Annie would reply — 
 " 'specially when I puts him before the fire awhile." 
 
 Indeed, Annie assured me she could see him grow, and 
 that the little blanket with which she covered him of a 
 night would never fit in the mornmg, so that she had to 
 keep putting pieces to it. 
 
 As he got older. Wasp used to make a flying visit up- 
 stairs to see the parson, but generally came flying down 
 again ; for the parson wasn't blessed with the best of 
 tempers, anyhow. Quickly as he returned. Wasp was 
 never down in time to avoid a kick from the clergyman's 
 boot, for the simple reason that when Wasp's fore-feet 
 were at the kitchen door, his hind-quarters were never 
 much more than half-way downstairs. 
 
 N .B, — I forgot to say that this story may be taken 
 with a grain of salt, if not found spicy enough to the 
 taste. 
 
 There was a stove-pipe that lay in a back room ; the 
 pipe was about two yards long, more or less. Wasp used 
 to amuse himself by running in at one end of it and out 
 at the other. Well, one day he was amusing himself in 
 this sort of way, when just as he entered one end for the 
 second time, what should he perceive but the hind- 
 quarters of a pure-bred Skye just disappearing at the 
 other. (You will please to remember that the stove- 
 pipe was two yards long, more or less,) Day after day 
 Wasp set himself to pursue this phantom Skye, through 
 the pipe and through the pipe, for Wasp couldn't for the 
 life of him make out why the animal always managed to 
 
 K 
 
138 The Cruise of the " Wanderoo.'' 
 
 keep just a little way ahead of him. Still he was happy 
 to think that day after day he was gaining on his foe, so 
 he kept the pot a-boiling. And one day, to his intense joy, 
 he actually caught the phantom by the tail — in the pipe. 
 Joy, did I say ? 1 ought to have said sorrow, for the tail 
 was his own ; but, being a game 'un, he wouldn't give 
 in, but hung on like grim death until the plumber came 
 and split the pipe and relieved him. (Don't forget the 
 length of the pipe, please.) Even after he was clear, he 
 spun round and round like a St. Catherine's wheel, unti! 
 he had to give in from sheer exhaustion. Yes, he was a 
 long dog. 
 
 And It came to pass, or was always coming to pass, 
 that he grew and he grew, and he grew, and the more he 
 grew the longer and thicker his hair grew, till, when he 
 had grown his full length — and I shouldn't Hke to say 
 how long that was — you couldn't have told which was 
 his head and which was his tail till he barked ; and even 
 Annie confessed that she frequently placed his dish down 
 at the wrong end of him. It was funny. If you take 
 half-a-dozen goat-skins and roll them separately, in 
 cylinders, with the hairy side out, and place them end to 
 end on the floor, you will have about as good an idea of 
 Wasp's shape and appearance as any I can think about. 
 You know those circular sweeping-machines with which 
 they clean the mud off the country roads ? Well, Wasp 
 would have done excellently well as the roller of one of 
 those ; and, indeed, he just looked like one of them — 
 especially when he was returning from a walk on a 
 muddy morning. It was funny, too, that any time he 
 was particularly wet and dirty he always came to the 
 front door, and made it a point of duty always tu visit 
 the drawing-room, to have a roll on the carpet previously 
 to being kicked downstairs. 
 
 Getting kicked downstairs was Wasp's usual method 
 of going below. I believe he came at last to prefer it — 
 it saved time. 
 
 Wasp's virtues as a house dog were of a very high 
 order : he always barked at the postman, to begin with ; 
 he robbed the milkman and the butcher, and bit a half- 
 
That Skyc Terrier — A Burlesque. 139 
 
 pound piece out of the baker's leg. No policeman was 
 safe who dared to live within a hundred yards of him. 
 One day he caught one of the servants of the gas com- 
 pany stooping down taking the state of the meter. This 
 man departed m a very great hurry, to buy sticking- 
 plaister and visit his tailor. 
 
 I lost sight of Wasp for about six months. At 
 the end of that time I paid the parson a visit. 
 When I enquired after my longitudinal friend, that 
 clergyman looked very grave indeed. He did not 
 answer me immediately, but took two or three 
 vigorous draws at his meerschaum, allowing the smoke 
 to curl upwards towards the roof of his study, and follow- 
 ing it thoughtfully with his eyes ; then he slowly rose, 
 and extracted a long sheet of blue foolscap from his desk, 
 and I imagined he was going to read me a sermon or 
 something. 
 
 " x^hem ! " said. the parson. " I'll read you one or two 
 casual items of Wasp's bill, and then you can judge for 
 yourself how he is getting on." 
 
 Wasp's Little Bill. 
 
 To three pairs of slippers, >£'^ los. .. •• £^ 
 
 Tearing surplice and gown . . . . . . o 
 
 Demolishing a flowerpot-stand . , . . i 
 
 Ditto hardware .. .. .. .. o 
 
 Killing fowls (minus salvage) . . . . . . o 
 
 Killing a neighbour's cat .. .. .. i 
 
 New Sunday's bonnet for Annie .. .. o 
 
 Pair of Sunday's boots for Annie . . . . o 
 
 New muff for Annie . . . . . . . . o 
 
 Sundries for Annie . . . . . . . . o 
 
 Solatium to a father for his bitten brat . . 2 
 
 License for Wasp . . . . . . . . o 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Total . . . . ;^9 iS 6 
 
 There is no mistake about it — 
 
 Wasp was a " well bred 'un and a game 'un." At the 
 same time, I was sorry for the parson. 
 
 "Thank you mate," said the Captain. "And now, 
 boys," he added, " I'm going to bed to dream about that 
 Skye terrier." 
 
140 The Cruise of the " Wauderoo.'' 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DOCTOR SPINS AGAIN— OUR MAD SURGEON. 
 
 WISEMAN he was called — Assistant -Surgeon 
 Wiseman, which, it must be confessed, is a 
 strange name for a madman. But, although 
 he was pronounced mad by more people than one, during 
 what I may term his illness, poor Fred was just as sane 
 as those who sent him to hospital ; however, he was 
 afflicted with one of the strangest nervous diseases I ever 
 remember seeing. I myself was then " surgeon's mate," as 
 the men somewhat irreverently termed me, of the frigate 
 " Narwhal ; " and Fred, who had been loafing around 
 Cape Town, domg a two months' spell of leave, was the 
 other. It wasn't leave quite, however ; the truth is, Fred 
 had been sent out as supernumerary in the old 
 *' Valorous," to join us ; we being cruising up the 
 'Bique, Fred thought he couldn't do better than enjoy 
 himself till we came. Now, at the best of times, a 
 sailor's idea of enjoyment on shore does not form the 
 best tonic for his constitution ; and Fred, instead of 
 roaming about among the beautiful mountains and 
 defying the snakes, or going out into the bush, gun in 
 hand, spent too much of his time at hotels and " hops ; " 
 and the Cape lassies can dance, too. By Jingo ! they do 
 take it out of you ! Fred told me, long after he was 
 better, that he hadn't been a month at the Cape until he 
 felt his nerves going ; feo, being always a moderate 
 smoker, he now became a furious one. As a rule. Cape 
 Town tobacco is harsh and vile, but if he had stuck to 
 the 'baccy alone it wouldn't have been so bad ; but, being 
 a little weakened with his gentle dissipation, and con- 
 sequently going up the steep streets making him pant, 
 the doctor took it into his head he was asthmatical, and 
 so took to mixing his smoking mixture with stramonium. 
 The effect of this was to make him worse. 
 
TJic Doctor Spins Ai^ain — Ony Mad Surgeon. 141 
 
 "And, by gum," he said, describing his state to me, 
 *' I was so confoundedly nervous I didn't know what to 
 do, and I couldn't keep quiet ; I was like a fly among 
 treacle, the more I kicked the deeper I sank. And some- 
 times I would give up smoking for a whole day, then I 
 felt so peevish and cross I wanted to quarrel with every- 
 body, break lamps, and pitch stones through the church 
 windows. No wonder my beautiful Malay girl told me I 
 was 'jus' like one dam great racoon.' " 
 
 Fred was a little fellow, with a somewhat comical face ; 
 and when in health would keep the table in roars for 
 hours at a spell. 
 
 Well, one day my friend got word that his ship had 
 arrived at Symon's Bay, so there was nothing for it but 
 mount the waggon one line morning, and be off to join 
 her. 
 
 Fred's illness, let me tell you, was a species of St. 
 Vitus's dance ; he had no power, when excited, over the 
 motions of his muscles. 
 
 His reporting himself to the commander was rather 
 funny ; he shuffled up to him, gave a scrape with one 
 leg, and touched his hat, but it was for all the world like 
 " taking a sight." '^' " Co-co-come on board, sir," said 
 Fred. " Thank you," said the commander, looking rather 
 stern, and, turning on his heel, he walked away. Now, 
 our commander was very ugly, and knew it, and he had 
 one eye that looked in towards his nose. No sooner had 
 he turned his back than poor Fred struck an involuntary 
 attitude, and, when the commander wheeled again, there 
 was Fred taking a sight at him, making monkey mouths, 
 and with both his eyes turned in towards his nose, while 
 the officers all around were choking with the laugh they 
 daren't indulge in. 
 
 Our commander wasn't the best tempered man in the 
 world, but had he been so he could hardly have been 
 expected to stand an insult like this, on her ^Majesty's 
 quarter-deck, and before all the officers. 
 
 * " Taking a sight." Sailor lingo for that action in which you place the point 
 of the thumb to the point of the nose and spread out the fingers. — G. S. 
 
14-2 The Cniise of the " WcDidcroo.'" 
 
 "Thunder!" he roared, confronting the Httle doctor, 
 " What do you mean, sir ? " 
 
 " I really co-co-couldn't help it, sir," said Fred, looking 
 ridiculously solemn all at once." 
 
 "Go instantly down below under arrest, sir." 
 
 " Ay ! ay ! sir," said Fred ; but as he hurried off, and 
 just as he was disappearmg down the companion ladder, 
 he took another sight, and pulled another face, that 
 seemed almost to send the soul out of the ugly com- 
 mander. 
 
 In the wardroom Fred met the surgeon, a fussy wee 
 Irishman, five feet two, with a frock coat a mile too long 
 in the waist for him, pug-nosed and pock-marked, but 
 terribly proud for his mches. Not having heard the row 
 on deck, he stepped briskly forward and held out his 
 hand to welcome the new assistant. I suppose Fred 
 meant to salute, and would have completed this act of 
 courtesy had his fingers not spread themselves out just 
 as his thumb was opposite his nose, and this made it 
 look so confoundedly like taking a sight, you know. 
 " Drunk, by Jove ! " said the surgeon, wheeling in wrath, 
 and walking away. When he turned again, lo ! and 
 behold ! the unfortunate Fred apparently holding up his 
 nose with one finger to make it a snub, bobing his head 
 up and down as if taking stock of the wee man's height, 
 and seemingly bursting with merriment. 
 
 The poor little doctor couldn't speak with passion ; he 
 could but seiEe his cap, and rush on deck to report the 
 insolent and insubordinate conduct of his junior. 
 
 Hardly had the doctor donetalking withthecommander, 
 than up rushes the marine officer, and gave the salute ; 
 " he had been twenty years in the service, and had never 
 been so insulted before, &c., &c." 
 
 "Confound him!" cried the commander, "he's in- 
 sulting all hands." 
 
 " He's drunk," said the doctor. 
 
 " He's a fool, ' said the marine officer. 
 
 "He's mad, mad, mad!" roared the commander; 
 and I'll be hanged if I sail with a madman. I'll clap 
 the fellow in irons at once, see if I don't." 
 
The Doctor Spins Ap;ai)i — Our Mad Sur<^con. 143 
 
 And that was how poor Fred really spent his first and 
 only night on board the frigate " Narwhal." Next day 
 he was brought before the captain, a tall, good-looking, 
 gentlemanly man, between whom and the commander 
 there was but little love lost. 
 
 And now, when first brought up, though looking pale 
 and nervous, Fred seemed perfectly sane. 
 
 " Do you drink ?" said the captain mildly. 
 
 " No, sir," said Fred, " I smoke when I can ge-ge-get 
 the chit-chit-chit-chance." 
 
 It was all right with Fred as long as he addressed the 
 captain ; but no sooner did his eyes rest on the com- 
 mander than in went his optics towards his nose, and he 
 became convulsed in a moment ; and when he turned 
 and saw the wee doctor, he seemed to go off in quite a 
 fit of suppressed merriment, and I really think that on 
 the whole the captain thought it good fun. 
 
 " I'd send him to hospital," said the captain quietly. 
 
 " I'd send him to the devil !" muttered the commander 
 savagely. 
 
 But Fred didn't go to the devil just then ; and, though 
 he is dead, I don't think he is there now. He went to 
 the hospital, however, and soon got well ; but the last 
 thing the commander saw, as he peeped over the bulwarks 
 as the boat shoved off, was little Fred sitting in the 
 stern-sheets, with both his eyes turned in towards his 
 nose, making monkey mouths and taking vicious sights 
 at him. 
 
144 ^^^'-^ Cruise of the '* IVaiideroo.'' 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ONE MORE YARN FROM THE JOLLY TAPSTERS. 
 
 PTOSIS. 
 
 PTOSIS ?" I think I hear you query. " What a 
 strange title to choose for a tale ! What the 
 dickens, or what the deuce is it at all ?" 
 
 And you use the word " dickens " or the word "deuce" 
 according to the comparative amount of your moralit)\ 
 Well, I didn't choose the title. It chose itself — it came, 
 as it were, as all good names and titles do. 
 
 The word Ptosis, then, the doctor here tells me, is 
 derived from the Greek ttt^w, to fall, and is applied by the 
 medicine men to a curious affection of the upper eyelid, 
 or rather of the nerve that supplies it ; for this latter, 
 failing in the performance of its duty, allows the lid to 
 drop as if the owner were only just about half-awake. 
 That's Ptosis. Now do you see ? Of course } ou do, 
 and you will at once jump to the conclusion that the 
 subject of my present moral yarn, namely, my good 
 friend Findlay, was afflicted with this ailment. You are 
 right. Only, mark me, the symptoms in his case were 
 what I might call circumbended ; for it wasn't a falling 
 down of the upper eyelid that he suffered from, but a 
 morbid elevation of the lower one. It was a kind of 
 Irish Ptosis. Don't smile, please ; you'll be sorry for 
 Findlay ere my tale is finished. Now bear this in mind, 
 that wicked lower eyelid of Findlay's wasn't always 
 elevated, any more than Findlay was himself. It would 
 have been far better for the unhappy man if it had been 
 glued or gummed up, and always kept in the same posi- 
 tion ; but, on the contrary, at most times the eyelid was 
 like anybody else's, stationary and steady enough, and 
 
One More Yarn From the ^olly Tapsters. 145 
 
 all at once it would give one little jump upwards, then 
 fall back again into its place, and there would be an end 
 of it for the time being.* Ah ! yes, for the time being, 
 but, unfortunately for Findlay, in that little moment of 
 time, in the ghost of a second, the mischief was done, 
 and my poor friend in many instances found himself in 
 a scrape. 
 
 Now, had friend Findlay been a great big lump of a 
 Findlay, with shoulder of mutton fists, a fighting heart, 
 science, and all that sort of thing, it would have been an 
 easy matter to have got out of the scrapes which his 
 winking eye — girls called it his wicked eye — got him into. 
 But he wasn't, he was a mite of a man ; as to his hand, 
 he wore six and three-quarters ; as to a fighting heart, 
 bless you, our friend Findlay would have run a mile any 
 day rather than fight a minute ; and yet a better-hearted 
 little soul than Fmdlay never entered the doors of the 
 *' Jolly Tapsters." He was honest and industrious, tem- 
 perate though pimply-faced, beardless and virtuous. His 
 motto was, like the Yankee's, 
 
 " Early to bed, and early to rise, 
 Nev'er get tight, and advertise." 
 
 Tight ! no. I defy the whole of Twintleton to say 
 they ever saw Findlay tight. Just a leetle elevated 
 sometimes, you might say, and had he held his tongue 
 even then nobody would have been a bit the wiser ; but 
 whenever Findlay got "just a wee drap in his ee," he 
 would persist in smging, in a dulcet but half-choked 
 voice, the melting chorus of — 
 
 " 'Tis but a little faded flower." 
 
 Whenever you heard Findlay at this you might take your 
 oath he was happy. 
 
 Again, to show you what a thoroughly good little soul 
 Findlay was, I may tell you that he never smoked, and 
 that his pet oath was "Jumping Moses ! " 
 
 * This spasmodic twitching of the lower eyelid, I may mention seriously, 
 is a not uncommon accompaniment of dyspepsia in people of the nervous 
 lemperament. 
 
146 The Cniisc of the " JVaiideroo.'" 
 
 Findlay often swore by Jumping Moses that he would 
 never smoke in this world. Whether or not Findlay 
 looked forward with joy to the worship of the blessed 
 goddess Nicotina in the other world or not I cannot say. 
 Such was Findlay. 
 
 And I will now relate to you one or two of the scrapes 
 that Ptosis got this poor little man into. I could relate 
 hundreds, but I only give specimens. 
 
 I can tell you, for instance, how Findlay lost a friend. 
 This friend and he, with a third party, were standing one 
 day at the bar of the "Jolly Tapsters," having a quiet 
 chat upon turf matters. 
 
 " ril take ten to one on Gamester," says the third 
 party, addressing Fmdlay's friend. 
 
 Now Findlay had, in his earlier days, been very near 
 getting on for a jockey, and he was still considered large 
 on all matters horsey. It was most unlucky, then, that 
 just as the third party spoke Findlay should happen to 
 glance at his friend, and that at the same time his wicked 
 eye should twitch. 
 
 " On with you for a fiver !" roared his friend. 
 
 " Done with you !" cried the third party. 
 
 "Jumping Moses ! " cried Findlay, but it was too late; 
 and so, when the day came and the race w^as run, 
 Findlay's friend found himself minus his money, and 
 friend Findlay was minus a friend. 
 
 More than once, at the bar of the " Jolly Tapsters," 
 Findlay offended people who did not know him by, as 
 they thought, winkmg at them ; and more than once he 
 got into a row in consequence. 
 
 " You winked at me ! " cried on irascible commercial,, 
 one evening. 
 
 " 'Tis but a little fa — a — aded flower," sang Findlay. 
 
 " You winked, I say!" roared the commercial. "I 
 consider it a piece of impertinent familiarity." 
 
 " I've got a weakness in my left eye," said Findlay. 
 
 " Blow your eye ! come to the door, and Til blacken 
 'em both," said the traveller. 
 
 Findlay bristled up ; he was very brave indoors. 
 
 " You blacken my eye ! Have you the famtest notion 
 
One More Yarn From tJic jfolly Tapsters. 147 
 
 you are talking to Findlay, sir — to fighting Findlay, sir ? 
 Out you go — I'll show you Ben Caunt. Jumping Moses 1 
 
 " I'm not going to leave my beer, though," said 
 r'indlay, as they were both at the door. " Jumping 
 Moses ! no." 
 
 The honourable commercial naturalh' thought he 
 would follow, and went out. Findlay didn't. He knew 
 a trick worth a dozen of that. He coolly drank his beer, 
 and then popped out of the other door, and so got out of 
 that scrape. 
 
 But Findlay wasn't always so fortunate. One fine 
 day, for example, he was travelling by train ; it was 
 a market day, and the carriages were somewhat crowded, 
 the joskin element largely predominating. Right opposite 
 to Findlay sat a pretty country girl, and by her side her 
 big-mouthed rustic lover. Well, during the journey 
 Findlay looked at this pretty girl, and, as ill-luck would 
 have it, his wicked eyehd gave a twitch. 
 
 The lover took his pipe out of his mouth, and, nodding 
 to Findlay — 
 
 " I had my eye on yourn just then," says he. 
 
 " Oh ! had ye ? " says Findlay, with a little laugh. 
 
 The rustic lover resumed his pipe, and said no more : 
 and poor Findlay thought no more would be said, and 
 was pleased in consequence. But that lover came to the 
 front again, and a mob of other lovers, as soon as they 
 had left the terminal station. 
 
 " Look 'ee here, sir," he cried, '' ye beant a-going like 
 that. Not if I knows it, I can tell ye. You would wink 
 at my Sally, would ye? Hold my coat, mates. Give us 
 a ring. I ain't going to stand it. Bust me if I does." 
 
 There was no getting through that rustic ring. He 
 made several maudlin attempts to force it, butting at it 
 with his head down ; but he was invariably thrust rudely 
 back and asked to stand up and be a man. Now, that 
 was the very last thing that Findlay would have thought 
 about. He wasn't a fool. Next day would be Sunday, 
 and he had no wish to appear at church looking as 
 though he had just been through a sausage machine. 
 
 " Look here, lads," he began, trying to get a hearing. 
 
14S J lie Crmse of the " Waiuhroo.'' 
 
 They listened, as louts do when told to. 
 
 " I did wink at the girl, and now I'm willing to stand 
 treat all round. I'll pay for the wink." 
 
 *' Bravo ! " was the chorus, as friend Findlay led the 
 way to an adjoining inn to pay f^r his wink. 
 
 Findlay paid for his wink another day in quite a 
 different fashion. This was likewise a travelling 
 adventure, for once again did Findlay find himself sitting 
 in front of a pretty girl ; indeed, one would be inclined 
 to think that Findlay had a partality for pretty girls. 
 However, cheek-by-jowl with this particular pretty girl 
 was a by no means ver}- pretty specimen of a mother. 
 A most antediluvian-lookmg specimen she was, too, and 
 her dress was a dark stuff gown and a merino mantle ; 
 her goods and chattels were her daughter and a huge 
 umbrella, besides a reticule basket with Banbury cakes 
 and a bottle of gin. 
 
 "Aha!" suddenly exclaimed this antiquated dame, 
 poking a skinny finger towards friend Findlay. " Aha ! 
 I seed it that time. Oh ! ye old good-for-nothing 
 wagabone. You would wink at my precious darter, would 
 ye ? You would outrage a mother's feelings, would ye ?" 
 
 " Really, really,"' stammered Findlay, "I assure you 
 my lady, that is ma'am, I had no intention. It is only 
 my weakness. I — I — I — Oh ! Jumping Moses ! I dare- 
 say I'm in for it again." 
 
 All the rest of the journey the watchful mother kept 
 her eye on Findlay — Findlay kept his on the ceiling — 
 frequently muttering to herself, "Aha! his weakness, 
 indeed ; I'll show him my weakness." 
 
 As she made an application to the bottle every time 
 she spoke, Findlay flattered himself she referred to the 
 gin. 
 
 He was cruelly undeceived when they landed, however. 
 The old lady undeceived him with her umbrella. Oh ! 
 didn't she lay it on with a will, too ? 
 
 Poor Findlay hopped all round the station calling out, 
 '' Jumping Moses! " 
 
 " I'll give you Moses !" cried the old lady. 
 
 " Well done, old girl, give it to him !" cried the mob. 
 
One More Yarn From flic Jolly Tapsters. 149 
 
 She wound up at last with one cruel dig in the ribs, 
 which sent him sprawling on his face, and the old lady 
 looked down upon him triumphantly. 
 
 " That's my weakness," says she. " Aha ! " 
 
 Only one other example, and it happened not an hour 
 afterwards. Friend Findlay was walking soberly along 
 the pavement in a quiet side street, when he met a 
 very much over-dressed gentleman with a very much 
 over-dressed lady on his arm. I suppose Findlay 
 looked at them : he was in a pensive, thoughtful mood, 
 for his ribs were painful and his shoulders were stiff. 
 He swears till this day that if upon this occasion his 
 eyelid did twitch, he was not aware of it. 
 
 "You scoundeeral !" roared the gentleman, who was 
 French. " Vat you mean, sare ? Vat you vink at m}- 
 vifefor?" 
 
 Findlay denied it stoutly. 
 
 " It vas a vink, I tell you, sare," persisted the French- 
 man ; " it vas a vink, and a sly one too — a devilish sly 
 vink. I fight you, sare, English style." 
 
 Now here was a chance which Findlay should not 
 have missed, for surely anybody could fight a French- 
 man — English style. But I am ashamed to say that 
 Findlay declined the combat, and — fled. He thought he 
 had had quite enough for one day. 
 
 Now all this was terribly hard on Findlay, and no 
 wonder that at last he made up his mind to consult a 
 doctor. 
 
 Well, he did, not one doctor only, but a score at least, 
 and never less than three at a time ; and as he tried to 
 obey them all at once, and swallowed oceans of medicine 
 and pecksful of pills, it is no wonder the little man got 
 nervous and ill. And the twitching got worse ; he 
 wouldn't look at a girl ; he was almost afraid to look his 
 own mother in the face, for fear of being accused of 
 unfilial impertinence ; and one day he actually winked at 
 the parson in the pulpit. After this Findlay kept at 
 home; he wouldn't go out, nor he wouldn't go any- 
 where. So low in spirits had he become that he asked 
 his old landlady, with tears in his eyes, to please not 
 
150 Tlic Cruise of tJw " Waiidcroo.'" 
 
 think him rude if he winked at her, and please not to 
 give him warning, as he had nowhere else to go. 
 
 About a month after this, one dark sleety evening, a 
 knock came to my door, and, on going myself to open it, 
 
 " Oh ! please do come quick," says Findlay's old land- 
 lady, "which my lodger have been and gone and bought 
 a bottle of P — russic assid, and I know he means to do 
 for his little self." 
 
 Things looked serious, and I went away with the old 
 creature at once. Not empty-handed, however. She 
 had described the bottle — a common ounce poison phial 
 — to me, and I gave her one exactly similar, with a nice 
 strong sleeping draught in it, and as we hurried through 
 the sleet, I described to his landlady how she was to 
 change the bottle while I kept Findlay talking. 1 have 
 been at many a death-bed scene, but never like this one 
 of Findlay's. You see his old woman, as he called her, 
 had managed matters capitally ; and there was I, sitting 
 on the end of friend Findlay's bed, chewing the end of 
 my meerschaum nearly off to stifle the laugh ; and there 
 was Findlay lying with his white night-cap on, and 
 thinking himself on the brink of eternity, and looking as 
 solemn as I can't tell you what ; but, by George ! I 
 smile when I think of him, and I smile when I think of 
 the start he gave when I said to him, " Have a smoks — 
 it'll cure you of winking." 
 
 ''Jumping Moses! no!" he said; "I said I never 
 would smoke in this world, and you'll find I wont.'' 
 
 He brought out the last five words in a voice that was 
 really sepulchral. " Good night, then," I said ; " I hope 
 you'll sleep sound." 
 
 " Good night," he groaned ; I know I shall." 
 
 "Hullo!" I cried next morning, bursting into Findlay's 
 room, splitting with laughter. "What not dead yet ?" 
 
 " Good heavens !" he exclaimed, " is it you ?" 
 
 " Only me," I said ; " did you think it was the evil one ? 
 And now, Findlay, have a weed ; you're out of the world 
 now, and dead, you know." 
 
 Findlay saw the trick at once that I had played him, 
 
One More Yani From the Jolly Tapsters. 151 
 
 and, like a wise man, he lit a cigar, then lay peacefully 
 back on the pillow and smoked and smiled, then smiled 
 and smoked again. 
 
 Findlay's cure was slow, but complete, and he sticks 
 to his weed now like a man, and he never winks unless 
 
 he wants to. 
 
 • •*♦•***« 
 
 After this yarn we all turned in, and slept the sleep of the 
 good and the virtuous. 
 
 Every man Jack, fore and aft, 'low and aloft, has 
 unbent his foul-weather toggery — or, in 'long-shore par- 
 lance, has cast aside his winter clothmg. Furs and 
 skins, mittens and gloves are stowed away in locker and 
 sea-chest. Even the useful sou'-wester, with its broad 
 flap aft, has given place to the jaunty hat or the saucy 
 glengarry, and white ducks and jackets of blue are all 
 the rage ; for we have left far behmd us the Sea of Ice, 
 the sea of mystery and adventure, and a fair wind 
 has speeded us into a warmer and more genial clime. 
 Rippling waves are all around us, sparkling brightly in a 
 summer's sun, the decks are as white as the snows we 
 have left, and the good ship is clad in canvas from deck 
 to truck, and looks as gay as a maiden on her marriage 
 morning. And she swings along, dipping and coquetting 
 and toying with the billows, as if keeping time to the 
 song of yonder group of merry sailors, that sit in the lea 
 of the fox'le, discussing in comfort their forenoon grog, 
 with a 
 
 " Hey ! my lads, and a ho ! my men, 
 For we are homeward bo-o-ound, 
 For a we-e-e are homeward bound," 
 
 dipping to leeward with the "Hey!" swinging to star- 
 board with the " Ho !" and raising her bows with the 
 " bo-o-ound," till her jib points right to the zenith. 
 Don't tell me that a ship isn't a thing of life, because I'd 
 never believe you. 
 
 The great Newfoundland is basking in the sunshine, 
 with his red ribbon of a tongue lolling over his teeth. He 
 sniffs the land, and land it is, and not far off either, the 
 
152 TJic Cruise of flic " Wnudcroo.'' 
 
 beetling green-topped cliffs of Ultima Thule. I wonder 
 what that dog is thinking of, as he eyes with superstitious 
 suspicion the well-battered telescope that the skipper 
 hugs under his arm, as he passes and repasses him. 
 The poor animal hates that glass now more than a sixty- 
 pounder Armstrong. The truth is, we induced him to 
 take a keek through it this morning at the land. Good 
 heavens ! he saw a cow switching her tail, and real green 
 grass under her, and a real cottage not far off, and real 
 ragged children making garlands of seaweed in front 
 thereof; besides a girl with a creel of peats, and an old 
 witch smoking a pipe, and all as large as life, and all in 
 that little bit of a tube ! The dog made one wild spring 
 backwards, left the doctor and I sprawling on the deck, 
 and stood afar and barked at us. Were we wizards, he 
 wanted to know, or what ? Such conduct beat cock- 
 fighting ; it beat anything he had seen on the Lone Lome 
 Land. And so on and so forth, and I'll give odds the 
 poor dog remembered that spy-glass to his dying day. 
 
 Haul down the blue flag, and clew sails. The 
 Wanderoo is safe in harbour, and we are home again. 
 We have had many strange and stirring adventures, and 
 seen a few '* ferlies," though we haven't seen the Pole. 
 But as my old gardener says, " No more hasn't nobody 
 else, sir." 
 
 The End. 
 
 PRINTED BV ILII'FE AND SON, LONDON AND COVENTRY. 
 
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ivi315191