“‘That’s a lie!’ cried Sam; ‘he was with my wife. False papers! Here are mine;’ and he pulled out his tin case, and handed them to the court.

  “The judge said that this was not the way to try people and that Sam must hold his tongue; so the trial went on, and at first they had it all their own way. Then our turn came, and I was called up to prove what had passed, and I stated how the man was with Sam’s wife, and how he, having the harpoon-iron in his hand, had run it through his body. Then they compared the certificates, and it was proved that the little Jezebel had married them both; but she had married Sam first, so he had the most right to her; but fancying the other man afterwards, she thought she might as well have two strings to her bow. So the judge declared that she was Sam’s wife, and that any man, even without the harpoon in his hand, would be justified in killing a man whom he found in bed with his own wife. So Sam went scot-free; but the judge wouldn’t let off Sam’s wife, as she had caused murder by her wicked conduct; he tried her a’terwards for biggery, as they call it, and sent her over the water for life. Sam never held up his head a’terwards; what with having killed an innocent man, and the ‘haviour of his wife, he was always down. He went out to the fishery, and a whale cut the boat in two with her tail; Sam was stunned, and went down like a stone. So you see the mischief brought about by this little Jezebel, who must have two husbands, and be damned to her.”

  “Well, that’s a good yarn, father,” said Tom, as soon as it was finished. “I was right in saying I would hear it. Wasn’t I?”

  “No,” replied old Tom, putting out his large hand, and seizing his son by the collar; “and now you’ve put me in mind of it, I’ll pay you off for old scores.”

  “Lord love you, father, you don’t owe me anything,” said Tom.

  “Yes, I do; and now I’ll give you a receipt in full.”

  “O Lord! they’ll be drowned,” screamed Tom, holding up both his hands with every symptom of terror.

  Old Tom turned short round to look in the direction, letting go his hold. Tom made his escape, and burst out a-laughing. I laughed also, and so at last did his father.

  I went on shore, and found that old Tom’s report was correct — the Dominie was at breakfast with Mr Drummond. The new usher had charge of the boys, and the governors had allowed him a fortnight’s holiday to visit an old friend at Greenwich. To save expense, as well as to indulge his curiosity, the old man had obtained a passage down in the lighter. “Never yet, Jacob, have I put my feet into that which floateth on the watery element,” observed he to me; “nor would I now, but that it saveth money, which thou knowest well is with me not plentiful. Many dangers I expect, many perils shall I encounter; such have I read of in books; and well might Horace exclaim— ‘Ille robur et aes triplex,’ with reference to the first man who ventured afloat. Still doth Mr Drummond assure me that the lighter is of that strength as to be able to resist the force of the winds and waves; and, confiding in Providence, I intend to venture, Jacob, ‘te duce.’”

  “Nay, sir,” replied I, laughing at the idea which the Dominie appeared to have formed of the dangers of river navigation, “old Tom is the Dux.”

  “Old Tom; where have I seen that name? Now I do recall to mind that I have seen the name painted in large letters upon a cask at the tavern bar of the inn at Brentford; but what it did intend to signify I did not inquire. What connection is there?”

  “None,” replied I; “but I rather think they are very good friends. The tide turns in half-an-hour, sir; are you ready to go on board?”

  “Truly am I, and well prepared, having my habiliments in a bundle, my umbrella and my great-coat, as well as my spencer for general wear. But where I am to sleep hath not yet been made known to me. Peradventure one sleepeth not— ‘tanto in periculo.’”

  “Yes, sir, we do. You shall have my berth, and I’ll turn in with young Tom.”

  “Hast thou, then, a young Tom as well as an old Tom on board?”

  “Yes, sir; and a dog, also, of the name of Tommy.”

  “Well, then, we will embark, and thou shalt make me known to this triad of Thomases. ‘Inde Tomos dictus locus est.’ (Cluck, cluck.) Ovid, I thank thee.”

  Chapter Eleven.

  Much learning Afloat — Young Tom is very Lively upon the Dead Languages — The Dominie, after experiencing the Wonders of the Mighty Deep, prepares to revel upon Lobscouse — Though the Man of Learning gets Many Songs and some Yarns from Old Tom, he loses the Best Part of a Tale without knowing it.

  The old Dominie’s bundle and other paraphernalia being sent on board, he took farewell of Mr Drummond and his family in so serious a manner, that I was convinced that he considered he was about to enter upon a dangerous adventure, and then I led him down to the wharf where the lighter lay alongside. It was with some trepidation that he crossed the plank, and got on board, when he recovered himself and looked round.

  “My sarvice to you, old gentleman,” said a voice behind the Dominie. It was that of old Tom, who had just come from the cabin. The Dominie turned round, and perceived old Tom.

  “This is old Tom, sir,” said I to the Dominie, who stared with astonishment.

  “Art thou, indeed? Jacob, thou didst not tell me that he had been curtailed of his fair proportions, and I was surprised. Art thou then Dux?” continued the Dominie, addressing old Tom.

  “Yes,” interrupted young Tom, who had come from forward, “he is ducks, because he waddles on his short stumps; and I won’t say who be goose. Eh, father?”

  “Take care you don’t buy goose, for your imperance, sir,” cried old Tom.

  “A forward boy,” exclaimed the Dominie.

  “Yes,” replied Tom “I’m generally forward.”

  “Art thou forward in thy learning? Canst thou tell me Latin for goose?”

  “To be sure,” replied Tom; “Brandy.”

  “Brandy!” exclaimed the Dominie. “Nay, child, it is anser.”

  “Then I was right,” replied Tom. “You had your answer!”

  “The boy is apt.” Cluck cluck.

  “He is apt to be devilish saucy, old gentleman; but never mind that, there’s no harm in him.”

  “This, then, is young Tom, I presume, Jacob?” said the Dominie, referring to me.

  “Yes, sir,” replied I. “You have seen old Tom, and young Tom, and you have only to see Tommy.”

  “Want to see Tommy, sir?” cried Tom. “Here, Tommy, Tommy!”

  But Tommy, who was rather busy with a bone forward, did not immediately answer to his call, and the Dominie turned round to survey the river. The scene was busy, barges and boats passing in every direction, others lying on shore, with waggons taking out the coals and other cargoes, men at work, shouting or laughing with each other. “‘Populus in fluviis,’ as Virgil hath it. Grand indeed is the vast river, ‘Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum,’ as the generations of men are swept into eternity,” said the Dominie, musing aloud. But Tommy had now made his appearance, and Tom, in his mischief, had laid hold of the tail of the Dominie’s coat, and shown it to the dog. The dog, accustomed to seize a rope when it was shown to him, immediately seized the Dominie’s coat, making three desperate tugs at it. The Dominie, who was in one of his reveries, and probably thought it was I who wished to direct his attention elsewhere, each time waved his hand, without turning round, as much as to say, “I am busy now.”

  “Haul and hold,” cried Tom to the dog, splitting his sides, and the tears running down his cheeks with laughing. Tommy made one more desperate tug, carrying away one tail of the Dominie’s coat; but the Dominie perceived it not, he was still “nubibus,” while the dog galloped forward with the fragment, and Tom chased him to recover it. The Dominie continued in his reverie, when old Tom burst out —

  “O, England, dear England, bright gem of the ocean,

  Thy valleys and fields look fertile and gay,

  The heart clings to thee with a sacred devotion,

  And memory adores when in far lands away.”

  The song gradually called the Dominie to his recollection; indeed, the strain was so beautiful that it would have vibrated in the ears of a dying man. The Dominie gradually turned round, and when old Tom had finished, exclaimed, “Truly it did delight mine ear, and from such — and,” continued the Dominie, looking down upon old Tom— “without legs too!”

  “Why, old gentleman, I don’t sing with my legs,” answered old Tom.

  “Nay, good Dux, I am not so deficient as not to be aware that a man singeth from the mouth; yet is thy voice mellifluous, sweet as the honey of Hybla, strong—”

  “As the Latin for goose,” finished Tom. “Come, father, old Dictionary is in the doldrums; rouse him up with another stave.”

  “I’ll rouse you up with the stave of a cask over your shoulders, Mr Tom. What have you done with the old gentleman’s swallow-tail?”

  “Leave me to settle that affair, father: I know how to get out of a scrape.”

  “So you ought, you scamp, considering how many you get into; but the craft are swinging and heaving up. Forward there, Jacob, and sway up the mast; there’s Tom and Tommy to help you.”

  The mast was hoisted up, the sail set, and the lighter in the stream before the Dominie was out of his reverie.

  “Are there whirlpools here?” said the Dominie, talking more to himself than to those about him.

  “Whirlpools!” replied young Tom, who was watching and mocking him; “yes, that there are, under the bridges. I’ve watched a dozen chips go down, one after the other.”

  “A dozen ships!” exclaimed the Dominie, turning to Tom; “and every soul lost?”

  “Never saw them afterwards,” replied Tom, in a mournful voice.

  “How little did I dream of the dangers of those so near me,” said the Dominie, turning away, and communing with himself. “‘Those who go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters;’— ‘Et vastas aperit Syrtes;’— ‘These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.’— ‘Alternante vorans vasta Charybdis aqua.’— ‘For at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof.’— ‘Surgens a puppi ventus. — Ubi tempestas et caeli mobilis humor.’— ‘They are carried up to the heavens, and down again to the deep.’— ‘Gurgitibus miris et lactis vertice torrens.’— ‘Their soul melteth away because of their troubles.’— ‘Stant pavidi. Omnibus ignoiae mortis timor, omnibus hostem.’— ‘They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man.’”

  “So they do, father, don’t they, sometimes?” observed Tom, leering his eye at his father. “That’s all I’ve understood of his speech.”

  “They are at their wit’s end,” continued the Dominie.

  “Mind the end of your wit, master Tom,” answered his father, wroth at the insinuation.

  “‘So when they call upon the Lord in their trouble’— ‘Cujus jurare timent et fallere nomen’— ‘He delivereth them out of their distress, for he makest the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still;’ yea, still and smooth as the peaceful water which now floweth rapidly by our anchored vessel — yet it appeareth to me that the scene hath changed. These fields met not mine eyes before. ‘Riparumque toros et prata recentia rivis.’ Surely we have moved from the wharf?” — and the Dominie turned round, and discovered, for the first time, that we were more than a mile from the place at which we had embarked.

  “Pray, sir, what’s the use of speech, sir?” interrogated Tom, who had been listening to the whole of the Dominie’s long soliloquy.

  “Thou asketh a foolish question, boy. We are endowed with the power of speech to enable us to communicate our ideas.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought, sir. Then pray what’s the use of your talking all that gibberish, that none of us could understand?”

  “I crave thy pardon, child; I spoke, I presume, in the dead languages.”

  “If they’re dead, why not let them rest in their graves?”

  “Good; thou hast wit.” (Cluck, cluck.) “Yet, child, know that it is pleasant to commune with the dead.”

  “Is it? then we’ll put you on shore at Battersea churchyard.”

  “Silence, Tom. He’s full of his sauce, sir — you must forgive it.”

  “Nay, it pleaseth me to hear him talk; but it would please me more to hear thee sing.”

  “Then here goes, sir, to drown Tom’s impudence: —

  “Glide on my bark, the morning tide

  Is gently floating by thy side;

  Around thy prow the waters bright,

  In circling rounds of broken light,

  Are glittering, as if ocean gave

  Her countless gems unto the wave.

  “That’s a pretty air, and I first heard it sung by a pretty woman; but that’s all I know of the song. She sang another —

  “I’d be a butterfly, born in a bower.”

  “You’d be a butterfly!” said the Dominie, taking old Tom literally, and looking at his person.

  Young Tom roared, “Yes, sir, he’d be a butterfly, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t very soon. His legs are gone, and his wings aren’t come: so he’s a grub now, and that, you know, is the next thing to it. What a funny old beggar it is, father — aren’t it?”

  “Tom, Tom, go forward, sir; we must shoot the bridge.”

  “Shoot!” exclaimed the Dominie; “shoot what?”

  “You aren’t afraid of fire-arms, are ye, sir?” inquired Tom.

  “Nay, I said not that I was afraid of fire-arms; but why should you shoot?”

  “We never could get on without it, sir; we shall have plenty of shooting, by-and-by. You don’t know this river.”

  “Indeed, I thought not of such doings; or that there were other dangers besides that of the deep waters.”

  “Go forward, Tom, and don’t be playing with your betters,” cried old Tom. “Never mind him, sir, he’s only humbugging you.”

  “Explain, Jacob. The language of both old Tom and young Tom are to me as incomprehensible as would be that of the dog Tommy.”

  “Or as your Latin is to them, sir.”

  “True, Jacob, true. I have no right to complain; nay, I do not complain, for I am amused, although at times much puzzled.”

  We now shot Putney Bridge, and as a wherry passed us, old Tom carolled out —

  “Did you ever hear tell of a jolly young waterman?”

  “No, I never did,” said the Dominie, observing old Tom’s eyes directed towards him. Tom, amused by this naïveté on the part of the Dominie, touched him by the sleeve, on the other side, and commenced with his treble —

  “Did you ne’er hear a tale

  Of a maid in the vale?”

  “Not that I can recollect, my child,” replied the Dominie.

  “Then, where have you been all your life?”

  “My life has been employed, my lad, in teaching the young idea how to shoot.”

  “So, you’re an old soldier, after all, and afraid of fire-arms. Why don’t you hold yourself up? I suppose it’s that enormous jib of yours that brings you down by the head.”

  “Tom, Tom, I’ll cut you into pork pieces if you go on that gait. Go and get dinner under weigh, you scamp, and leave the gentleman alone. Here’s more wind coming.

  “A wet sheet and a flowing sea,

  A wind that follows fast,

  And fills the white and rustling sail,

  And bends the gallant mast.

  And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

  While, like the eagle free,

  Away the good ship flies, and leaves

  Old England on the lee.”

  “Jacob,” said the Dominie, “I have heard by the mouth of Rumour, with her hundred tongues, how careless and indifferent are sailors unto danger; but I never could have believed that such lightness of heart could have been shown. Yon man, although certainly not old in years, yet, what is he? — a remnant of a man resting upon unnatural and ill-proportioned support. Yon lad, who is yet but a child, appears as blythe and merry as if he were in possession of all the world can afford. I have an affection for that bold child, and would fain teach him the rudiments, at least, of the Latin tongue.”

  “I doubt if Tom would ever learn them, sir. He hath a will of his own.”

  “It grieveth me to hear thee say so, for he lacketh not talent, but instruction; and the Dux, he pleaseth me mightily — a second Palinurus. Yet how that a man could venture to embark upon an element, to struggle through the horrors of which must occasionally demand the utmost exertion of every limb, with the want of the two most necessary for his safety, is to me quite incomprehensible.”

  “He can keep his legs, sir.”

  “Nay, Jacob; how can he keep what are already gone? Even thou speakest strangely upon the water. I see the dangers that surround us, Jacob, yet I am calm: I feel that I have not lived a wicked life— ‘Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,’ as Horace truly saith, may venture, even as I have done, upon the broad expanse of water. What is it that the boy is providing for us? It hath an inviting smell.”

  “Lobscouse, master,” replied old Tom, “and not bad lining either.”

  “I recollect no such word — unde derivatur, friend?”

  “What’s that, master?” inquired old Tom.

  “It’s Latin for lobscouse, depend upon it, father,” cried Tom, who was stirring up the savoury mess with a large wooden spoon. “He be a deadly lively old gentleman, with his dead language. Dinner’s all ready. Are we to let go the anchor, or pipe to dinner first?”

  “We may as well anchor, boys. We have not a quarter of an hour’s more ebb, and the wind is heading us.”

  Tom and I went forward, brailed up the mainsail, cleared away, and let go the anchor. The lighter swung round rapidly to the stream. The Dominie, who had been in a fit of musing, with his eyes cast upon the forests of masts which we had passed below London Bridge, and which were now some way astern of us, of a sudden exclaimed, in a loud voice, “Parce precor! Periculosum est!”

  The lighter, swinging short round to her anchor, had surprised the Dominie with the rapid motion of the panorama, and he thought we had fallen in with one of the whirlpools mentioned by Tom. “What has happened, good Dux? tell me,” cried the Dominie to old Tom, with alarm in his countenance.