Jacob Faithful Part 34

"But, father, don't you recollect," interrupted Tom, "what the parson said last Sunday, that faith saved men? Now, Master Dominie, may it not be faith that a man has in the _caul_ which may save him?"

"Young Tom, thou art astute."

"Well, perhaps I am, as father said, for I don't know what that is. You knock us all down with your dictionary."

"Well I do love to hear people make use of such hard words," said Mary, looking at the Dominie. "How very clever you must be, sir! I wonder whether I shall ever understand them?"

"Nay, if thou wilt, I will initiate--sweet maiden, wilt steal an hour or so to impregnate thy mind with the seeds of learning, which, in so fair a soil, must needs bring forth good fruit!"

"That's a fine word, that _impregnate_--will you give us the English of it, sir?" said young Tom to the Dominie.

"It is English, Tom, only the old gentleman _razeed_ it a little. The third s.h.i.+p in the lee line of the Channel fleet was a eighty, called the _Impregnable_, but the old gentleman knows more about books than sea matters."

"A marvellous misconception," quoth the Dominie.

"There's another," cried Tom, laughing; "that must be a three-decker.

Come, father, here's the bottle, you must take another gla.s.s to wash that down."

"Pray what was the meaning of that last long word, sir," said Mary, taking the Dominie by the arm, "mis--something."

"The word," replied the Dominie, "is a compound from conception, borrowed from the Latin tongue implying conceiving; and the _mis_ prefixed, which negatives or reverses the meaning; misconception, therefore, implies not to conceive. I can make you acquainted with many others of a similar tendency as _mis_-conception; videlicet, _mis_- apprehension, _mis_-understanding, _mis_-contriving _mis_-applying, _mis_--"

"Dear me, what a many _misses_," cried Mary, "and do you know them all?"

"Indeed do I," replied the Dominie, "and many, many more are treasured in my memory, _quod nunc describere tongum est_."

"I'd no idea that the old gentleman was given to running after the girls in that way," said old Tom to Stapleton.

"Human natur'," replied the other.

"No more did I," continued Mary; "I shall have nothing to say to him;"

and she drew off her chair a few inches from that of the Dominie.

"Maiden," quoth the Dominie, "thou art under a mistake."

"Another miss, I declare," cried Tom, laughing.

"What an old Turk!" continued Mary, getting further off.

"Nay, then, I will not reply," said the Dominie indignantly, putting down his pipe, leaning back on his chair, and pulling out his great red handkerchief, which he applied to his nose, and produced a sound that made the windows of the little parlour vibrate for some seconds.

"I say, master Tom, don't you make too free with your betters," said old Tom, when he saw the Dominie affronted.

"Nay," replied the Dominie, "there's an old adage which saith, 'As the old c.o.c.k crows, so doth the young.' Wherefore didst thou set him the example?"

"Very true, old gentleman, and I axes your pardon, and here's my hand upon it."

"And so do I, sir, and here's my hand upon it," said young Tom, extending his hand on the Dominie's other side.

"Friend Dux, and thou, young Tom, I do willingly accept thy proffered reconciliation; knowing, as I well do, that there may be much mischief in thy composition, but naught of malice." The Dominie extended his hands, and shook both those offered to him warmly.

"There," said old Tom, "now my mind's at ease, as old Pigtown said."

"I know not the author whom thou quotest from, good Dux."

"Author!--I never said he was an author; he was only captain of a schooner, trading between the islands, that I sailed with a few weeks in the West Indies."

"Perhaps, then, you will relate to the company present the circ.u.mstances which took place to put old Pegtop's--(I may not be correct in the name)--but whoever it may be--"

"Pigtown, master."

"Well, then--that put old Pigtown's mind at ease--for I am marvellously amused with thy narrations, which do pa.s.s away the time most agreeably, good Dux."

"With all my heart, old gentleman; but first let us fill up our tumblers. I don't know how it is, but it does appear to me that grog drinks better out of a gla.s.s than out of metal and if it wasn't that Tom is so careless--and the dog has no respect for crockery any more than persons--I would have one or two on board for particular service; but I'll think about that, and hear what the old woman has to say on the subject. Now to my yarn. D'ye see, old Pigtown commanded a little schooner, which plied between the isles, and he had been in her for a matter of forty years, and was as well-known as Port Royal Tom."

"Who might Port Royal Tom be?" inquired the Dominie; "a relation of yours?"

"I hope not, master, for I wanted none of his acquaintance; he was a shark about twenty feet long who rode guard in the harbour, to prevent the men-of-war's men from deserting, and was pensioned by government."

"Pensioned by government! nay, but that soundeth strangely. I have heard that pensions have been most lavishly bestowed, but not that it extended so far. Truly it must have been a _sinecure_."

"I don't know what that last may be," replied old Tom, "but I heard our boatswain, in the _Minerve_, who talked politics a bit, say, 'as how half the pensions were held by a pack of d.a.m.ned sharks;' but in this here shark's case, it wasn't in money, master; but he'd regular rations of bullock's liver to persuade him to remain in the harbour, and no one dare swim on sh.o.r.e when he was cruising round and round the s.h.i.+ps.

Well, old Pigtown, with his white trousers and straw hat, red nose and big belly, was as well-known as could be, and was a capital old fellow for remembering and executing commissions, provided you gave him the money first; if not, he always took care to forget them. Old Pigtown had a son, a little dark or so, which proved that his mother wasn't quite as fair as a lily, and this son was employed in a drogher, that is, a small craft which goes round to the bays of the island, and takes off the sugars to the West India traders. One fine day the drogher was driven out to sea, and never heard of a'terwards. Now, old Pigtown was very anxious about what had come of his son, and day after day expected he would come back again; but he never did, for very good reasons, as you shall hear by-and-by; and every one knowing old Pigtown, and he knowing everybody, it was at least fifty times a day that the question was put to him, 'Well, Pigtown, have you heard anything of your son?'

And fifty times a day he would reply, 'No; and _my mind's but ill at ease_.' Well, it was two or three months afterwards, that when I was in the schooner with him, as we lay becalmed between the islands, with the sun frizzing our wigs, and the planks so hot that you couldn't walk without your shoes, that we hooked a large shark which came bowling under our counter, got him on board and cut him up. When we opened his inside, what should I see but something s.h.i.+ning. I took it out, and sure enough it was a silver watch. So I hands it to old Pigtown. He looks at it very 'tentively, opens the outside case, reads the maker's name, and then shuts it up again. 'This here watch,' says he, 'belonged to my son Jack. I bought it of a chap in a South whaler for three dollars and a roll of pigtail, and a very good watch it was, though I perceive it to be stopped now. Now, d'ye see, it's all clear--the drogher must have gone down in a squall--the shark must have picked up my son Jack, and must have _digested_ his body, but has not been able to _digest_ his watch. Now I knows what's become of him, and so--_my mind's at ease_.'"

"Well," observed old Stapleton, "I agrees with old Poptown, or whatever his name might be, that it were better to know the worst at once than to be kept on the worry all your days; I consider it's nothing but human natur'. Why, if one has a bad tooth, which is the best plan, to have it out with one good wrench, or to be eternally tormented, night and day."

"Thou speakest wisely, friend Stapleton, and like a man of resolve--the antic.i.p.ation is often, if not always, more painful than the reality.

Thou knowest, Jacob, how often I have allowed a boy to remain unb.u.t.toned in the centre of the room for an hour previous to the application of the birch--and it was with the consideration that the impression would be greater upon his mind than even upon his nether parts. All of the feelings in the human breast, that of suspense is--"

"Worse than _hanging_," interrupted young Tom.

"Even so, boy [_cluck, cluck_], an apt comparison, seeing that in suspense you are hanging, as it were, in the very region of doubt, without being able to obtain a footing even upon conjecture. Nay, we may further add another simile, although not so well borne out, which is, that the agony of suspense doth stop the breath of a man for the time, as hanging doth stop it altogether, so that it may be truly said, that suspense is put an end to by suspending." [_cluck, cluck_.]

"And now that you've got rid of all that, master, suppose you fill up your pipe," observed old Tom.

"And I will fill up your tumbler, sir," said Mary; "for you must be dry with talking such hard words."

The Dominie this time made no objection, and again enveloped Mary and himself in a cloud of smoke, through which his nose loomed like an Indiaman in a Channel fog.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE DOMINIE'S BOSOM GROWS TOO WARM; SO THE PARTY AND THE FROST BREAK UP--I GO WITH THE STREAM AND AGAINST IT; MAKE MONEY BOTH WAYS--COOLNESS BETWEEN MARY AND ME--NO CHANCE OF A THAMES' EDITION OF ABELARD AND ELOISE--LOVE, LEARNING, AND LATIN ALL LOST IN A FIT OF THE SULKS.

"I say, Master Stapleton, suppose we were to knock out half a port,"

observed old Tom, after a silence of two minutes; "for the old gentleman blows a devil of a cloud: that is, if no one has an objection."