I soon afterwards left my young friend, greatly delighted with all I had seen—a feeling which I may venture to say was shared by all the visitants of the fleet.
The local papers of this day (6th September) state that “yesterday afternoon six of the war ships sailed from the Tail of the Bank, and proceeded to sea.” It is added, “The spectacle of so many large ships, and all so near each other, spreading their ample wings to invite the breeze, and passing onwards so majestically under a press of canvas, was highly impressive, as well as the skill and dexterity evinced by those employed in handling the vessels when staying.”
WITHIN TWENTY MILES OF LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
A desire to take rubbings of some ancient brasses led me a few days since to the quaint little church of , in Surrey, where I found so much that was interesting in the edifice itself, its curiously sculptured monuments, and the information freely given by the pleasant old clerk, that evening drew on before my task was half completed.
Unwilling to leave the neighbourhood without fully accomplishing the errand that led me into it, I made my way to a clean little hostelry where a comfortable bed was promised; and to wile away an hour or two, turned into the tap-room to fraternise with the good folks there, who were sleepily boosing over a roaring wood fire.
My entrance caused a little sensation, which might have been flattering to my vanity—(I have my share)—had not my nearest neighbour loudly whispered his impression that I was a packman, in which opinion the general company seemed instantly to coincide, for I was greeted with civil inquiries as to how I found business. With equal civility I assured them that it was tolerable, and knowing the Englishman to be a thirsty animal, who, while he would undoubtedly turn up his nose at the bread and salt of the Oriental, may be easily propitiated with malt liquor, ordered in some ale, which immediately put us on an amicable footing, and secured me the seat of honour in the chimney corner, where I underwent all the phases of hot, hotter, and intolerably hot, until I became as used to it as the rest of my new acquaintances.
Through the tobacco mist which floated round us, I surveyed the villagers as curiously, if less openly, as they had inspected me. Opposite, with his knees in constant danger of singeing, sat a blacksmith—old, ugly, and smutty as his great forefather, Vulcan. Next to him, a punch-like drayman, from the little brewery close by, which was apparently built on the model of my sister’s doll-house. By his side lounged a tall, round-shouldered sawyer, the only one of the party who seemed interested in the newspaper, which he was spelling out in whispers to himself. There was also a shepherd redolent of haystack and cow-house, and three or four labourers from the adjacent farms, who had dropped in to enjoy an extra pint on the strength of its being Friday, or pay-night.
Conversation commenced with the weather, soaring to the moon, about which capricious lady a dispute arose, Bill contending that she changed her quarters at one o’clock; Jack standing out for another five minutes. An almanack proving both in the wrong, we fell back to earth and the crops, where I became hopelessly involved in wheat, wuts, folium, roy grass, and turmuts, receiving some excellent information, which shall be forwarded to my agricultural friends, as soon as it rises to the surface of my absorbing mind, in which it lies at the present moment too deeply embedded for extrication.
Our circle now received an addition, in the person of a middle-aged, hard-featured dame, who had been to “shop,” and called with true feminine thoughtfulness to take “her Jack” safe home along with her. Jack somewhat ungraciously grunted out a command to sit down and wait till he was ready, so the seat I rose to offer was accepted, and Mrs. Jack warmed her feet, and nodded across the room to the sawyer, who, she confidentially told me, was a sort of relation. A very dry sort he looked; but we were not yet sufficiently intimate to venture on further inquiries.
Labourer Bill took his pipe out of his mouth to ask after Simpson. Mrs. Jack shook her head at the question—“He just is bad, poor man! norful bad! I looked in as I came by, and it’s sad to see him; no rest, his missus says, night nor day. Ah! there’s something about that chap more nor most people thinks!”
“What does the doctor say to un?” asked the blacksmith.
“Well,” she answered, “he don’t say much, and he don’t do un a mortal of good. He says better send un to a hospital; but what’s the use on it? Depend upon it there’s a spell on him, and we pretty well guess who’s done it.”
“Do you believe such a thing possible, ma’am?” I exclaimed, opening my eyes with astonishment.
“Lord, sir!” she cried, turning sharply round on me, “ain’t it in the Bible about sperits and sich like? Don’t you never read it? I ain’t scholard enough myself, and Jack’s eyes is bad; but our gal, she just do read it off quite pretty.”
Mrs. Jack was too much for me, so I subsided into my Turkish bath, and heard without further comment.
The sawyer had laid down his paper and was looking up with an evident desire to proceed with Simpson’s case.
“Then you think that’s what ails him, missus?”
“There ain’t no doubt about it,” was the prompt reply, “and I just do feel for him, for I knows what it is myself.”
The blacksmith put the question I was dying to ask.
“Did you ever have a spell?”
“Ah! didn’t I!” she answered, “when I was a gal about twenty, and bad enough I lay all through the summer. We knowed who did it well enough; she wer the mother of the young man as courted me then, and she didn’t like as us two should come together. So, at last, mother up and sent for a cunning man, and worn’t he a clever one for fits! I knows lots he cured about here; it’s a pity such clever folk should ever die, ain’t it? Well, when he come, he says, ‘You mustn’t let any one in while I’m here!’ But mother she wer