Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/448

19, 1859.]  the state of the weather, and includes a rough tarpaulin coat, in which he invests himself on very rainy or cold wintry days. Otherwise the Guernsey frock, red flannel nightcap, and dubious trousers—originally brown canvass, but now a composition of tar, smoke, and soot—constitute his daily habiliments. Having no watch to keep at night, he is an early riser; and a huge bucket of salt water, soap, and a scrubbing brush make his polished skin shine like ebony. Breakfast is no important tax upon his abilities, except perhaps as regards the cabin, and here it is sometimes a perplexing mental question as to whether salt pork or salt beef fried with a liberal supply of onions, and perhaps seasoned with a little curry powder, would prove most savoury for the cabin gourmands.

After breakfast the serious duties of the doctor commence. He has then to visit the harness cask (as the salt provision casks are called, and by the way rather suspiciously savouring, as harness does, of salt horse), and pick and choose suitable joints for the cabin and fo’castle. The soaking of this meat, the peeling of potatoes and onions, preparation of duff or pease-pudding, occasional lending a hand to “haul upon the bowline, the maintop bowline,”—sabbath executions of poultry or pork, interspersed with some score or two of pipes during the forenoon, and friendly admonitions to the poor cabin-boy as he washes up the plates and dishes—these constitute the every-day life of my excellent friend the doctor when at sea. The exceptions are high days and holidays, when potted meat and bottled fruit are brought into play, and when all the energy and skill of the doctor are taxed in the construction of savoury meat pies, pudding, and pastry. The afternoon and evening, weather permitting, he usually de votes to literature and anecdote, and great is the enthusiasm with which the other sailors receive his often-repeated story of how in such and such a year, at some small town in the West Indies—Cook being then a mere hop o’ my thumb—he and a lot of others contrived to entice and entrap a whole battalion of turkeys and a fleet of geese by means of skilfully baited fish-hooks; and so, putting manfully to sea, dragged these unwilling victims over the waves and into the ship’s caboose, much to the astonishment and terror of the natives, who conceived their poultry labouring under the same influence as the wretched swine of the Gergesenes.

But to see my friend the doctor in the height of his glory and enthusiasm, you must behold him freshly arrived, after a lengthened sea-voyage, at some foreign port, with a score or two of bum-boats flying round the vessel. Who dares interfere with his behests then? From the captain downwards everybody confides in his skill and taste, both as regards bargaining and as to the articles of consumption to be purchased. With his ivory teeth gleaming satisfaction out of their ebony frame, my friend the doctor struts the deck barefooted, and still crowned with the greasy red night-cap, an object of veneration to the butchers, the bakers, the poulterers, the dealers in fruit and vegetables, &c., that are plying alongside. Strictly he scrutinises each article—positive is the price he fixes. Gradually the caboose assumes the appearance of a green-grocer’s, with a poulterer’s and a butcher’s hard by; whilst the long-boat has been converted into a fruit-shop. The skipper and half the crew have gone ashore, the mates and the remainder are busy investigating baskets of oranges, bananas, lemons, &c. By some winked-at contrivance, “strong waters” have been smuggled on board, and whilst speculating upon the astounding results that his caboose will produce about dinner-time—the soup and the boiled fish, and the baked mutton, puddings, pies, tarts, &c.—my friend the doctor squats down like a black thrush amidst a profusion of foliage; and labouring under the influence of heat, the black cutty-pipe, and perhaps something else, nods complacently to the gentle rise and fall of the anchored schooner, until savoury odours recall him once more to a sense of the arduous duties that a nautical doctor has to perform.

F. A. N.

.—It is not a little singular that of the score or so of peers who have died since the commencement of the year, there are sixteen whose united ages amount to no less than 1229 years, giving an average of 76 years and a-half to each. The list of noble Lords is as follows:—The Earl of Aylesford (aged 72); Lord Northwick (81); the Earl of Ripon (76); the Marquis of Bristol (89); the Earl of Devon (81); the Bishop of Bangor (86); the Duke of Leeds (60); the Earl of Moray (63); the Earl of Tankerville (83); Earl Cathcart (76); the Earl of Harborough (62); the Earl of Minto (76); Viscount St. Vincent (92); the Earl of Jersey (86); the Earl of Westmorland (75); and Earl Waldegrave (71).

noon is brightening Upon a joyous scene Of Beauty mid the chestnut glades, And youth upon the green.

One mingles with the festive throng Of girlhood bright and free, And scarce may tell who bears the bell Of that sweet coterie.

But when the light-wing’d hours have fled, The happy fêtes are done, Of forms that seem’d resistless then, His memories seek but one.

One of them all most loveable, One of them all most fair, With the blue of heaven in her eye, Its sunshine in her hair.

He battles with the dream of her, He fears to dream too much: But a soft hand-pressure comes again And thrills him at the touch;

Till in his wild idëal A cottage home is seen (He the proud monarch of the spot, And she its graceful queen):