Pearl-Fishing; Choice Stories from Dickens' Household Words; First Series

“Well, well!” rejoined the middy, with a laugh half-forced. “Take care what you are about, or, by Jove, I’ll inform against you.”

“What for?”

“Why, for preaching without a license. Besides, you were once as bad as you pretend I am.”

“I own it with sorrow; but I was warned in time by the wretched end of poor James Barber – ”

“Of whom?” asked the elder brother, starting back as he pushed his glass along the table. “You don’t mean Jovial Jemmy, as we used to call him; once my messmate in the brig ‘Rollock.’ ”

“Yes, I do.”

“What! dead?”

“Yes.”

“Why, it was one of our great delights, when in harbor and on shore, to ‘go the rounds’ – as he called it – with Jovial Jemmy. He understood life from stem to stern – from truck to keel. He knew everybody, from the First Lord downwards. I have seen him recognized by the Duke one minute, and the next pick up with a strolling player, and familiarly treat him at a tavern. He once took me to a quadrille party at the Duchess of Durrington’s, where he seemed to know and be known to everybody present, and then adjourned to the Cider Cellars, where he was equally intimate with all sorts of queer characters. Though a favorite among the aristocracy, he was equally welcome in less exclusive societies. He was ‘Brother,’ ‘Past Master,’ ‘Warden,’ ‘Noble Grand,’ or ‘President’ of all sorts of Lodges and Fraternities. Uncommonly knowing was Jemmy in all sorts of club and fashionable gossip. He knew who gave the best dinners, and was always invited to the best balls. He was a capital judge of champagne, and when he betted upon a horse-race everybody backed him. He could hum all the fashionable songs, and was the fourth man who could dance the polka when it was first imported. Then he was as profound in bottled stout, Welsh rabbits, Burton ale, devilled kidneys, and bowls of Bishop, as he was in Roman punch, French cookery, and Italian singers. Afloat, he was the soul of fun: – he got up all our private theatricals, told all the best stories, and sung comic songs that made even the Purser laugh.”

“An extent and variety of knowledge and accomplishments,” said Lieutenant Fid, “which had the precise effect of blasting his prospects in life. He was, as you remember, at last dismissed the service for intemperance and incompetence.”

“When did you see him last?”

“What, alive?” inquired Ferdinand Fid, changing countenance.

“Of course! Surely you do not mean to insinuate that you have seen his ghost!”

The lieutenant was silent; and the midshipman took a deep draught of his favorite mixture – equal portions of rum and water – and hinted to his younger brother, the lieutenant, the expediency of immediately confiding the story to the Marines; for he declined to credit it. He then ventured another recommendation, which was that Ferdinand should throw the impotent temperance tipple he was then imbibing “over the side of the Ship” – which meant the tavern of that name in Greenwich, at the open bow-window of which they were then sitting – and clear his intellects by something stronger.

“I can afford to be laughed at,” said the younger Fid, “because I have gained immeasurably by the delusion, if it be one; but if ever there was a ghost, I have seen the ghost of James Barber. I, like yourself and he, was nearly ruined by love of amusement and intemperance, when he – or whatever else it might have been – came to my aid.”

“Let us hear. I see I am ‘in’ for a ghost story.”

“Well; it was eighteen forty-one when I came home in the ‘Arrow’ with despatches from the coast of Africa: you were lying in the Tagus in the ‘Bobstay.’ Ours, you know, was rather a thirsty station; a man inclined for it comes home from the Slaving Coasts with a determination to make up his lee way. I did mine with a vengeance. As usual, I looked up ‘Jovial Jemmy.’ ”

“ ’Twas easy to find him if you knew where to go.”

“I did know, and went. He had by that time got tired of his more aristocratic friends. Respectability was too ‘slow’ for him, so I found him presiding over the ‘Philanthropic Raspers,’ at the ‘Union Jack.’ He received me with open arms, and took me, as you say, the ‘rounds.’ I can’t recall that week’s dissipation without a shudder. We rushed about from ball to tavern, from theatre to supper-room, from club to gin-palace, as if our lives depended on losing not a moment. We had not time to walk, so we galloped about in cabs. On the fourth night, when I was beginning to feel knocked up, and tired of the same songs, the same quadrilles, the bad whiskey, the suffocating tobacco smoke, and the morning’s certain and desperate penalties, I remarked to Jemmy that it was a miracle how he had managed to weather it for so many years. ‘What a hardship you would deem it,’ I added, ‘if you were obliged to go the same weary round from one year’s end to another.’ ”

“What did he say to that?” asked Philip.

“Why, I never saw him so taken aback. He looked quite fiercely at me, and replied, ‘I am obliged!’ ”

“How did he make that out?”

“Why, he had tippled and dissipated his constitution into such a state that use had become second nature. Excitement was his natural condition, and he dared not become quite sober for fear of a total collapse – or dropping down like a shot in the water.”

The midshipman had his glass in his hand, but forebore to taste it. – “Well, what then?”

“The ‘rounds’ lasted two nights longer. I was fairly beaten. Cast-iron could not have stood it. I was prostrated in bed with fever – and worse.” Ferdinand was agitated, and took a large draught of his lemonade.

“Well, well, you need not enlarge upon that,” replied Phil Phid, raising his glass towards his lips, but again thinking better of it; “I heard how bad you were from Seton, who shaved your head.”

“I had scarcely recovered when the ‘Arrow’ was ordered back, and I made a vow.”

“Took the pledge, perhaps!” interjected the mid, with a slight curl of his lip.

“No! I determined to work more and play less. We had a capital naval instructor aboard, and our commander was as good an officer as ever trod the deck. I studied – a little too hard perhaps, for I was laid up again. The ‘Arrow’ was, as usual, as good as her name, and we shot across to Jamaica in five weeks. One evening as we were lying in Kingston harbor, Seton, who had come over to join the Commodore as full surgeon, told me what he had never ventured to divulge before.”

“What was that?”

“Why, that, on the very day I left London, James Barber died of a frightful attack of delirium tremens!”

“Poor Jemmy!” said the elder Fid, sorrowfully, taking a long pull of consolation from his rummer. “Little did I think, while singing some of your best songs off Belem Castle, that I had seen you for the last time!”

“I hadn’t seen him for the last time,” returned the lieutenant, with awful significance.

Philip assumed a careless air, and said, “Go on.”

“We were ordered home in eighteen forty-five, and paid off in January. I went to Portsmouth; was examined, and passed as lieutenant.”

This allusion to his brother’s better condition made poor Philip look rather blank.

“On being confirmed at the Admiralty,” continued Ferdinand, “I had to give a dinner to the ‘Arrows;’ which I did at the Salopian, Charing Cross. In the excess of my joy at promotion, my determination of temperance and avoidance of what is called ‘society’ was swamped. I kept it up once more; I went the ‘rounds,’ and accepted all the dinner, supper, and ball invitations I could get, invariably ending each morning in one of the old haunts of dissipation. Old associations with James Barber returned, and like causes produced similar effects. One morning while maundering home, I began to feel the same wild confusion as had previously commenced my dreadful malady.”

“Ah! a little touched in the top-hamper.”

“It was just day-light. Thinking to cool my self, I jumped into a wherry to get pulled down here to Greenwich.”

“Of course you were not quite sober.”

“Don’t ask! I do not like even to allude to my sensations, for fear of recalling them. My brain seemed in a flame. The boat appeared to be going at the rate of twenty miles an hour. Fast as we were cleaving the current, I heard my name distinctly called out. I reconnoitred, but could see nobody. I looked over on one side of the gun-wale, and, while doing so, felt something touch me from the other; I felt a chill; I turned round and saw – ”

“Whom?” asked the midshipman, holding his breath.

“What seemed to be James Barber.”

“Was he wet?”

“As dry as you are.”

“I summoned courage to speak. ‘Hillo! some mistake!’ I exclaimed.

“ ‘Not at all,’ was the reply. ‘I’m James Barber. Don’t be frightened, I’m harmless.’

“ ‘But – ’

“ ‘I know what you are going to say,’ interrupted the intruder. ‘Seton did not deceive you – I am only an occasional visitor up here.’

“This brought me up with a round turn, and I had sense enough to wish my friend would vanish as he came. ‘Where shall we land you?’ I asked.

“ ‘Oh, any where – it don’t matter. I have got to be out every night and all night; and the nights are plaguy long just now.’

“I could not muster a word.

“ ‘Ferd Fid,’ continued the voice, which now seemed about fifty fathoms deep; and fast as we were dropping down the stream, the boat gave a heel to starboard, as if she had been broadsided by a tremendous wave – ‘Ferd Fid, you recollect how I used to kill time; how I sang, drank, danced, and supped all night long, and then slept and soda-watered it all day. You remember what a happy fellow I seemed. Fools like yourself thought I was so; but I say again, I wasn’t,’ growled the voice, letting itself down a few fathoms deeper. ‘Often and often I would have given the world to have been a market-gardener or a dealer in chick-weed while roaring “He is a jolly good fellow,” and “We won’t go home till morning!” as I emerged with a group from some tavern into Covent Garden market. But I’m punished fearfully for my sins now. What do you think I have got to do every night of my – never mind – what do you think is now marked out as my dreadful punishment?’

“ ‘Well, to walk the earth, I suppose,’ said I.

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘To paddle about in the Thames from sunset to sun-rise?’

“ ‘Worse. Ha, ha!’ (his laugh sounded like the booming of a gong). ‘I only wish my doom was merely to be a mud-lark. No, no, I’m condemned to rush about from one evening party and public house to another. At the former I am bound for a certain term on each night to dance all the quadrilles, and a few of the polkas and waltzes with clumsy partners; and then I have to eat stale pastry and tough poultry before I am let off from that place. After, I am bound to go to some cellar or singing place to listen to “Hail smiling morn,” “Mynheer Van Dunk,” “The monks of old,” “Happy land,” imitations of the London actors, and to hear a whole canto of dreary extempore verses. I must also smoke a dozen of cigars, knowing – as in my present condition I must know, – what they are made of. The whole to end on each night with unlimited brandy (British) and water, and eternal intoxication. Oh, F. F., be warned! Take my advice; keep up your resolution, and don’t do it again. When afloat, drink nothing stronger than purser’s tea. When on shore be temperate in your pleasures; don’t turn night into day; don’t exchange wholesome amusements for rabid debauchery, robust health for disease and – well, I won’t mention it. When afloat, study your profession and don’t get cashiered and cold-shouldered as I was. Promise me – nay, you must swear!’

“At this word I thought I heard a gurgling sound in the water.

“ ‘If I can get six solemn pledges before the season’s over, I’m only to go these horrid rounds during the meeting of Parliament.’

“ ‘Will you swear?’ again urged the voice, with persuasive agony.

“I was just able to comply.

“ ‘Ten thousand thanks!’ were the next words I heard; ‘I’m off, for there is an awful pint of pale ale, a chop, and a glass of brandy and water overdue yet, and I must devour them at the Shades.’ (We were then close to London Bridge.) ‘Don’t let the waterman pull to shore; I can get there without troubling him.’

“I remember no more. When sensation returned, I was in bed, in this very house, a shade worse than I had been from the previous attack.”

“That,” said Philip, who had left his tumbler untasted, “must have been when you had your head shaved for the second time.”

“Exactly so.”

“And you really believe it was Jovial James’ ghost,” inquired Fid, earnestly.

“Would it be rational to doubt it?”

Philip rose and paced the room in deep thought for several minutes. He cast two or three earnest looks at his brother, and a few longing ones at his glass. In the course of his cogitation, he groaned out more than once an apostrophe to poor “James Barber.” At length he declared his mind was made up.

“Ferd!” he said, “I told you awhile ago to throw your lemonade over the side of the Ship. Don’t. Souse out my grog instead.”

The lieutenant did as he was bid.

“And now,” said Fid the elder, “ring for soda water; for one must drink something.”

Last year it was my own good fortune to sail with Mr. Philip Fid in the “Bombottle” (74). He is not exactly a tee-totaller; but he never drinks spirits, and will not touch wine unmixed with water, for fear of its interfering with his studies, at which he is, with the assistance of the naval instructor (who is also the chaplain), assiduous. He is our first mate, and the smartest officer in the ship. Seton is our surgeon.

One day, after a cheerful ward-room dinner (of which Fid was a guest), while we were at anchor in the Bay of Cadiz, the conversation happened to turn upon Jovial Jemmy’s apparition, which had become the best-authenticated ghost story in Her Majesty’s Naval service. On that occasion Seton undertook to explain the mystery upon medical principles.

“The fact is,” he said, “what the commander of the ‘Arrow’ saw (Ferdinand had by this time got commissioned in his old ship) was a spectrum, produced by that morbid condition of the brain, which is brought on by the immoderate use of stimulants, and by dissipation; we call it Transient Monomania. I could show you dozens of such ghosts in the books, if you only had patience while I turned them up.”

Everybody declared that was unnecessary. We would take the doctor’s word for it; though I feel convinced not a soul besides the chaplain and myself had one iota of his faith shaken in the real presence of Jovial Jemmy’s post-mortem appearance to Fid the younger.

Ghost or no ghost, however, the story had had the effect of converting Philip Fid from one of the most intemperate and inattentive to one of the soberest and best of Her Majesty’s officers. May his promotion be steady!

X.

A Tale of the Good Old Times

AN alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of the parish of St. Wulfstan’s in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with profound veneration to the griffins which formed the water-spouts of St. Wulfstan’s Church, and he almost worshipped an old boot under the name of a black jack, which on the affidavit of a forsworn broker, he had bought for a drinking vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had petitioned Parliament against every just or merciful change, which, since he had arrived at man’s estate, had been made in the laws. He had successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, waterworks, infant schools, mechanics’ institute, and library. He had been active in an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public health, and being a strong advocate of intramural interment, was instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing the pig-market from the middle of the High Street. Through his influence the shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to remain where they were; namely, close to the Town-Hall, and immediately under his own and his brethren’s noses. In short, he had regularly, consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that was proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For this conduct he was highly esteemed and respected; and, indeed, his hostility with any interference of disease, had procured him the honor of a public testimonial; – shortly after the presentation of which, with several neat speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury.

The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop’s views on the subject of public health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the rate-payers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist. Moreover, he was a jovial fellow, – a boon companion; and his love of antiquity leant particularly towards old ale and old port wine. Of both of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a visitation-dinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the deputy-registrar. One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr. Blenkinsop.

He lived in a remote part of the town, whither, as he did not walk exactly in a right line, it may be allowable, perhaps, to say that he bent his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High-street, awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below, singing, not very distinctly, were indebted, little as they may have suspected it, to Alderman Blenkinsop, for their serenade.

“With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,”

In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine mediæval structure, supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once Mayor of Beetlebury, and a great benefactor to the town; in which he had founded alms-houses and a grammar-school, A. D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St. Wulfstan; but De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in Cromwell’s time, and promoted to the vacant pedestal, vice Wulfstan, demolished. Mr. Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now stopped to take a view of it by moonlight. In that doubtful glimmer, it seemed almost life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet he could well nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his bonnet, beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm. So vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophize the Statue.

“Fine old fellow!” said Mr. Blenkinsop. “Rare old buck! We shall never look upon your like again. Ah! the good old times – the jolly good old times! ‘No times like the good old times – my ancient worthy. No such times as the good old times!”

“And pray, Sir, what times do you call the good old times?” in distinct and deliberate accents, answered – according to the positive affirmation of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses – the Statue.

Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question between him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale, simply as stated by himself, are here submitted.

When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. Blenkinsop says, he certainly experienced a kind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of consternation. But this soon abated in a wonderful manner. The Statue’s voice was quite mild and gentle – not in the least grim – had no funeral twang in it, and was quite different from the tone a statue might be expected to take by anybody who had derived his notions on that subject from having heard the representative of the class in “Don Giovanni.”

“Well; what times do you mean by the good old times?” repeated the Statue, quite familiarly. The churchwarden was able to reply with some composure, that such a question coming from such a quarter had taken him a little by surprise.

“Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop,” said the Statue, “don’t be astonished. ’Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favorite police, the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don’t you know that we statues are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I will help you to answer my own questions. Let us go back step by step; and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean the reign of George the Third?”

“The last of them, Sir,” replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, “I am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days.”

“I should hope so,” the Statue replied. “Those the good old times? What! Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with a child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France, which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed it cost, has left you saddled with the national debt. Surely you will not call these the good old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop?”

“Not exactly, Sir: no; on reflection I don’t know that I can,” answered Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now, it was such a civil, well-spoken statue – lost all sense of the preternatural horror of his situation, and scratched his head just as if he had been posed in argument by an ordinary mortal.

“Well, then,” resumed the Statue, “my dear Sir, shall we take the two or three reigns preceding. What think you of the then existing state of prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery unspeakable. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned cell with the Ordinary for their pot companion. Flogging, a common punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the risk of being hustled and robbed even in the day-time? When not only Hounslow and Bagshot Heath, but the public road swarmed with robbers, and a stagecoach was as frequently plundered as a hen-roost. When, indeed, ‘the road’ was esteemed the legitimate resource of a gentleman in difficulties, and a highwayman was commonly called ‘Captain’ if not respected accordingly. When cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting were popular, nay, fashionable amusements. When the bulk of the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time between fox-hunting and guzzling. When a duellist was a hero, and it was an honor to have ‘killed your man.’ When a gentleman could hardly open his mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When the country was continually in peril of civil war through a disputed succession; and two murderous insurrections, followed by more murderous executions, actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage, brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it, Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as constituting the good old times, respected friend?”

“There was Queen Anne’s golden reign, Sir,” deferentially suggested Mr. Blenkinsop.

“A golden reign!” exclaimed the Statue. “A reign of favoritism and court trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of Bolingbroke’s, and Harley’s, and Churchill’s intrigues. The reign of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Mrs. Masham. A golden fiddlestick! I imagine you must go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop.”

“Well,” answered the churchwarden, “I suppose I must, Sir, after what you say.”

“Take William the Third’s rule,” pursued the Statue. “War, war again; nothing but war. I don’t think you’ll particularly call these the good old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were they the good old times when Judge Jeffries sat on the bench? When Monmouth’s rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize. When the King tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in consequence. Does your worship fancy that these were the good old times?”