There is scarcely a day of my life on which I do not receive a lesson: and the difference betwixt me and a fool is that I receive, and he scorns it. And a finer lesson I have rarely had than for letting Joe Jenkins into my well-conducted cottage, for no better reason than that the “Welcome to Town” was out of beer. I ought to have known much better, of course, with a fellow too young to shave himself, and myself a good hearty despiser of schism, and above all having such a fine connection with the Church of England. But that fellow had such a tongue—they said it must have come out of the butter. I gave him a glass of my choicest rum, when all he deserved was a larruping. And I nearly lost the church-clock through it.
When I heard of this serious consequence, I began to call to mind, too late, what the chaplain of the Spitfire—thirty-two-gun razy—always used to say to us; and a finer fellow to stand to his guns, whenever it came to close quarters, I never saw before or since. “Go down, parson, go down,” we said; “sir, this is no place for your cloth.” “Sneaking schismatics may skulk,” he answered, with the powder-mop in his hand; for we had impressed a Methody, who bolted below at exceeding long range; “but if my cloth is out of its place, I’ll fight the devil naked.” This won over to the side of the Church every man of our crew that was gifted with any perception of reasoning.
However, I never shall get on if I tell all the fine things I have seen. Only I must set forth how I came to disgrace myself so deeply that I could not hope for years and years to enjoy the luxury of despising so much as a lighterman again. The folk of our parish could hardly believe it; and were it to be done in any way consistent with my story, I would not put it on paper now. But here it is. Make the worst of it. You will find me redeem it afterwards. The famous David Llewellyn, of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, took a berth in a trading-schooner, called the “Rose of Devon!”
After such a fall as this, if I happened to speak below my mark, or not describe the gentry well, everybody must excuse me: for I went so low in my own esteem, that I could not have knocked even Anthony Stew’s under-keeper down! I was making notes, here and there, already, concerning the matters at Sker House, and the delicate sayings of Bardie, not with any view to a story perfect and clear as this is, but for my own satisfaction in case of anything worth going on with. And but for this forethought, you could not have learned both her sayings and doings so bright as above. And now being taken away from it, I tried to find someone with wit enough to carry it on in my absence. In a populous neighbourhood this might have been; but the only man near us who had the conceit to try to carry it on a bit, fell into such a condition of mind that his own wife did not know him. But in spite of the open state of his head, he held on very stoutly, trying to keep himself up to the mark with ale, and even Hollands; until it pleased God that his second child should fall into the chickenpox; and then all the neighbours spoke up so much—on account of his being a tailor—that it came to one thing or the other. Either he must give up his trade, and let his apprentice have it—to think of which was worse than gall and wormwood to his wife—or else he must give up all meddling with pen and ink and the patterns of chickenpox. How could he hesitate, when he knew that the very worst tailor can make in a day as much as the best writer can in a month?
Upon the whole I was pleased with this; for I never could bear that rogue of a snip, any more than he could put up with me for making my own clothes and Bunny’s. I challenged him once on a buttonhole, for I was his master without a thimble. And for this ninth part of a man to think of taking up my pen!
The name of our schooner, or rather ketch—for she was no more than that (to tell truth), though I wished her to be called a “schooner”—was, as I said, the “Rose of Devon,” and the name of her captain was “Fuzzy.” Not a bad man, I do believe, but one who almost drove me wicked, because I never could make him out. A tender and compassionate interest in the affairs of everybody, whom it pleases Providence that we should even hear of, has been (since our ancestors baffled the Flood, without consulting Noah) one of the most distinct and noblest national traits of Welshmen. Pious also; for if the Lord had not meant us to inquire, He never would have sent us all those fellow-creatures to arouse unallayed disquietude. But this man “Fuzzy,” as everyone called him, although his true name was “Bethel Jose,” seemed to be sent from Devonshire for the mere purpose of distracting us. Concerning the other two “stone-captains” (as we call those skippers who come for limestone, and steal it from Colonel Lougher’s rocks), we knew as much as would keep us going whenever their names were mentioned; but as to Fuzzy, though this was the third year of his trading over, there was not a woman in Newton who knew whether he had a wife or not! And the public eagerness over this subject grew as the question deepened; until there were seven of
