Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 1 (of 2)

Among the few survivors of our "glorious" sea-fights which the Peace sent home to Gainsbro', a busy little port on the Trent, was old Matthew Hardcastle, a veteran of threescore and ten, and something more. It was said that Matthew might have been discharged from ship-board some years earlier; but his attachment to the sea was extreme, and he was at length, to speak plainly, forced out of the navy.

Gainsbro' was, at that particular period, somewhat fertile in the production of eccentric folk, for Joe Hornby was then to be seen in it, with his hat stuck full of field flowers, and sometimes, to the peril of its "crown," fixed on his head wrong side upwards, because "the world was turned upside down;" and the septuagenarian spinster, Nelly Fish, might be seen flaunting along the narrow causeway, her strange pile of five or six straw hats, which she wore one upon another, to show that "she knew all the fashions that had been, as well as those that were;"—and Martin Jackson would, ever and anon, sally forth in some odd guise that demonstrated his lunacy; for to-day he might be seen covered with papers on which were written all kinds of queer criticisms on the rulers of the day, and to-morrow he would go through the streets clad in his wife's chemise for an outer robe, and wearing an old horseman's helmet with a fox's tail for a plume, while half-a-dozen terriers yelped away at his heels, following thick and fast to the mad hunter's cries of "Yo-ho! yo-ho! Hark forward! Tantivy! Yo-ho! yo-ho!"

Such were some of the strange relics of humanity which afforded grave problems for those who were able to moralise, or thought they were, at that time, in Gainsbro'; but, amidst all and sundry of its human catalogue, none of the curious articles thereof attracted more general attention, as they passed to and fro in the streets of the little town, than the veteran warrior-seaman, Matthew Hardcastle. Indeed, Matthew was beheld, by "gentle and simple," in a different light to the eccentrics, poor things! before mentioned. The world, in spite of its conviction that it is wrong to laugh, laughs on at the antics and whims of the helpless beings it calls "insane;" and Gainsbro' followed the way of the world in laughing, too often, at poor Joe Hornby, and Nelly Fish, and Martin Jackson; but it was by no means a custom to laugh at Matthew Hardcastle.

Matthew was a tall, well-built old fellow, and did not lose an inch of his height, notwithstanding his very advanced age. His brave face resembled more the gnarled bark of an old oak than any other thing that ever existed; it was a real sea-faring face, was Matthew's, if ever a man wore one in this world. And then his wig! All the town talked of Matthew Hardcastle's wig. It did not fall below the shoulders, like the princely-looking old wigs of the days of Marlborough; but it was a very grand, burly wig, for all that. It reached below the ears of the fine old man, considerably; and it displayed five tiers of curls,—glorious curls they were! Matthew's grand three-cocked hat, too,—for he and old George Laughton, the currier, with his soul of independence, and Charley Careless, the little high-spirited silversmith, were the three last men in Gainsbro' who refused to put away the splendid head-covering of their forefathers for the paltry upper gear of modern times,—Matthew's three-cocked hat stood higher behind than it did before, and, conjoined with the grandeur of his wig, caused Matthew to look as bold and imposing as a brigadier major! And whoever met Matthew on the causeway, rocking as he went with a regular naval kind of motion, and supporting his aged steps by a bamboo in either hand, was sure to say, "Good morning to you, Matthew! I hope you are quite well this morning!" if they were considered to be his equals or superiors in rank; while all the little boys and girls were wont to stop and bow or courtesy to him, and say, "Your sarvant, Matthew!" Such was the real honour paid to the aged sailor who had fought "the battles of his country," as they were called.

The time came, however, when all this show of respect to the brave old sailor ceased, for he lived too long! Twenty more years made his age hard upon one hundred. That was a rare age to live; but it would have been better for Matthew if he had died ten years earlier, for he lived till the effects of the "glorious" battles in which he had been engaged began to be felt—and felt grievously, even in that district, which you will deem comparatively happy when viewed after your mind's eye has been dwelling on the fathomless miseries of our dense hives of manufacture. He lived till hungry and ragged labourers began to stand daily in melancholy groups, and with folded arms, in the streets, and till the parish authorities began to talk of pulling down the old workhouse, to build a new "bastile" on the lovely green spot where the children used to resort to play at sand-mills!

Matthew felt the change in the "civilisation," as it was called, of the times, sensibly, as old as he was; but there was an inexhaustible spring of vivacity in the old seaman's noble nature, and in spite of age, infirmities, and bad times, Matthew Hardcastle was the merriest, as well as the oldest man in Gainsbro'. "Butter your shirt, sing tantara-bobus make shift!" Matthew would say, morning, noon, and night, when the poor would be uttering their plaints in his ears; and the whimsical saying, together with the jolly old fellow's way of uttering it, many a time turned the mourning of his neighbours into mirth.

One day, a stranger heard this singular saying, as he was journeying through the town, and passing by the street end of the alley where Matthew was leaning on his two sticks to take the evening air, and chatting with his neighbours, according to his custom. The traveller could not fail to be struck with the saying, for he had heard it before; and he had seen the veteran who uttered it before, though it was many a long year since. The traveller stopped, and gazed on the old sailor for a moment or two, and then stretched out his aged hand—for he, too, was an old man—to grasp the hand of his ancient friend.

"Matthew Hardcastle! what, old Matthew!" he exclaimed.

Matthew stared, and seemed at a loss for a few seconds; but, at length, he let one stick fall, as it were mechanically, and, clasping his old friend's hand with the hearty gripe of a true sailor, cried aloud, while the fire of his youth seemed once more to gleam from his eyes,—

"What! Paul Perkins! God bless thy heart! Why, I thought—but God bless thy heart and soul, how art thou?—I thought thou hadst gone to Davy's locker ten or fifteen years ago!"

"And I little thought that ever these old eyes were again to look upon Matthew Hardcastle," replied Paul; "why, Lord save us, you must be an amazing age! I am nearly threescore and ten, but you were a man in your prime when I was but little older than a child, you know."

"Butter your shirt, sing tantara-bobus make shift!" answered jolly old Matthew; "what matters it how old one may be? We shall live till we die—kill us that dare!" And the pair of sound-hearted old tars burst into a merry laugh that came up so clearly from the well-spring of their hearts as to create a kindred merriment through the curious crowd, which had by this time begun to gather round them, in the narrow street.

"Well, but come, shipmate, this must not be a dry meeting," said Paul; "suppose we step into the Red Lion, or the Black Horse, that I see on the signs here, hard by, and wet our whistles together, once more. It may be for the last time, you know, in this world."

"Avast, heaving!" replied Matthew; "I have no objection for Molly Crabtree, here, to fetch us a jack of rum or so, and we can have it in my little berth; but my old head won't bear the racket of a public-house now, Paul."

"Well, well, have it your own way, Mat," replied the other; and the two ancient men adjourned, as fast as their stiffened limbs would permit them, to Matthew's little dwelling in the alley.

Matthew's hammock—for he could never be persuaded to sleep in a bed—was slung at one corner of the narrow room, and just under it was placed his arm-chair. He would fain have given up his usual seat, on this occasion, to his friend; but Paul Perkins had too much real and untaught courtesy to accept of it.

"No, no, keep on board your own ship, Matthew," he cried; "I won't do any such thing: sit ye down, sit ye down."

And so Matthew sat down, with this entreaty, and reared his two sticks against the wall, and doffed his rare hat, and showed his wig in all its glory. Paul looked round the room, and could not help indulging in the natural exultation of a sailor. Nelson, and Howe, and Duncan, and Rodney, showed their gallant faces, according to the best skill of some humble limner, over the little mantelpiece: a fine model of a first-rate man-of-war—the work of Matthew's own fingers in his younger days—stood, in unapproachable pride, upon a little dresser on the opposite side of the dwelling; and, above it, a curious tobacco-pipe, from some foreign shore, curled its enormous length around three or four nails driven into the wall, and displayed the painted image of a black-a-moor's head, at its extremity. Other odd fragments of a sailor's fondness, such as small carved "figure-heads" of vessels, wrought with the pocket-knife, to relieve hours of tedium, pouches of kangaroo-skin, the favourite repositories of the sailor's favourite weed, pipe-stoppers of bone, cut into grotesque shapes, and such-like nick-knackeries decorated the walls, till scarcely a bare patch of them could be seen.

"Well, and I suppose you're at home here, Mat, eh?" said Paul, his face beaming with pleasure as he asked the question.

A sudden and unwonted shade came over Matthew's countenance: "Hum!" said he, gloomily, "liked the old Dreadnought better; but she's now—God bless her!—only a hull, like me. But butter your shirt!" cried the gallant-hearted old fellow, bursting into his prevailing gaiety,—"sing tantara-bobus make shift! we shall live till we die—kill us that dare!" And again the old lads set up a merry laugh in unison, and were as happy, for the nonce, as the proudest monarchs in christendom.

Molly Crabtree now entered with the rum, and began to prepare the grog, that real nectar for the sailor. The precious glass was mixed, and went round over and over again; nor would the old sailors be said "nay" when Molly looked modest about it: she was compelled to take a sip each time when it came to her turn. Old shipmates were named, and the bravery and virtues of the dead were honoured; hearty and kind wishes for the welfare of the living were expressed; old stories were told, and the joys of old times were recorded with a sigh; but sighing usually was followed by a laugh amid the utterance of old Matthew's singular expletive, "Butter your shirt! sing tantara-bobus make shift!"

"Upon my honour, Mat," at length said Paul, for, as it began to grow towards midnight, the phraseology of the ancient mariners began to grow more consequential,—more by token that the "jack" of rum had now been repeated, for the third time—"upon my honour, Mat, you and I were no skinkers in that hot action when you first wore the buttered shirt."

"Why, Lord ha' marcy on us!" cried Molly Crabtree, who had been listening all along, and staring like an owl at twilight, during the successive strange recitals of the two old seafarers,—"did Matthew ever wear a real buttered shirt, then? For Heaven's sake tell us the meaning on't!"

"That I will, ma'am," said Paul touching his hat as gallantly as an admiral; "you see, it was during a severe engagement with the Dutchmen that Mat and I were ordered to the main-top,—but hardly had we reached it, when a shot from the enemy cut our mainmast fairly in two, and hurled us both on to the enemy's deck, in the midst of more than a hundred heavy-bottomed Dutchmen! To dream of fighting against such odds, ma'am, you'll understand was, of course, out of all question; so we quietly walked our bodies, to the tune of 'donner and blitzen,' down below, to become close prisoners under hatches. Now it so happened, d'ye see, ma'am? that the only fellow-prisoners we found in the hole where they crammed us were cheeses and queer big tubs; and we felt a nat'ral sort of a curiosity to rummage about the hole, when left in the dark by ourselves. Clambering up some o' these huge tubs at one end of the hole, we both lost footing together, and fell head over heels into the midst of something that was remarkably soft; and there we struggled, and struggled hard, too,—but 'twas all in vain, we could not flounder out,—and so were content to remain closed on all sides up to the neck, with just our heads bobbing out, and gasping for breath. Shiver my timbers, if ever I was so pickled before or since! At length the Dutchman was taken; and when some of our lads made their way into the dark hole where we were, we began to hail 'em."—"Dreadnought a-hoy!" said Mat: "The Union Jack a-hoy!" said I: "Who's there, in the devil's name?" cried one: "Why that's old Mat Hardcastle's growl—where the devil is he?" said first one of our lads and then another. And, as sure as you're there, ma'am," continued Paul, growing more polite and gallant as he proceeded, "what with one noise or another, it wasn't until the lads had driven their marling-spikes through almost every cask in the hole, that Mat and I were discovered up to the neck in one of the Dutchmen's big butter firkins. We were a good deal ashamed, ma'am, o' course, being as how we were soaked to the skin in the grease, for it warmed, as we stuck in it; and no doubt by its melting, we should ha' been able to have got out of it without help, if we had had to stay much longer before we had been found. The worst of it was, we could not get time to strip for some hours after, and this made us both mighty uneasy, for many was the joke that was passed upon us as to how we liked our buttered shirts. But Mat's heart was always light, all his life long; and he answered all who asked that saucy question, just as he puts by all sorrow now, with "Butter your shirt! Sing tantarara-bobus make shift!—and ever since then Matthew has kept his saying; and it is not a bad one, either, let me tell you, ma'am! what think ye?" concluded Paul Perkins, and took a stiffer pull at the grog than he had ever done that night, thinking that he deserved it for his cleverness, and feeling himself entitled to a double pull because he had missed his turn by telling this yarn.

Molly Crabtree only answered with a hearty laugh, and Paul laughed too, but Matthew laughed louder and longer than either of them, for he was 'a practised laugher, and lived by it,' as he used jokingly to say. But now the fourth measure of grog was done, and it was too late to buy more; so the conversation began to grow less boisterous. Molly rose to depart; and the two veterans were left by themselves. Paul urged Matthew to get into his hammock, and Matthew urged Paul; but neither could prevail on the other, and so at last they fairly fell asleep in their chairs, and neither of them awoke,—though they each snored as loud as a rhinoceros,—until Molly Crabtree came and opened the shutters some hours after sunrise the ensuing morning. Their limbs were tolerably stiff, and their heads ached beyond a joke, it may easily be guessed, for it was many a long day since either of them had gone to sleep groggy. They made the best of their aches and pains, however, when they awoke, and, after a hearty renewed gripe of friendship, thrust each a lumping quid of tobacco into his mouth, and then quietly awaited the preparation of breakfast by Molly Crabtree.

Now, as natural as our forefathers always reckoned it to be to get drunk, or, at least, tipsy, with an old friend, when you met him after a long absence or separation, yet it was always felt to be not less natural that the cosy companions of the preceding night talked like sober men the next morning. So it was with Matthew Hardcastle and Paul Perkins.

"Matthew,—I've been thinking," began Paul, very measuredly, as he was sipping the cocoa-sop out of a bright brown earthen porringer, with a spoon, in imitation of his host,—"I've been thinking,—we shall soon be in our last port."

"True, very true," said Matthew, "and, d'ye know, Paul? I would not much care if we had the same voyage to go again, save and except a little at the end on't."

"Then we don't think alike," said Paul, dropping his spoon into the porringer, and looking thoughtful: "I'm sure, Mat, you'll bear me witness that I'm no skinkerly coward; but, splice me, if I don't think that all this warring and fighting, and blowing up of poor men's limbs is, after all, a great piece of wickedness. And, besides that, I've thought very much of late,—and particularly since I've seen the times change so much,—that this setting of poor Englishmen on to fight poor foreigners, and poor foreigners to fight poor Englishmen, is only a deep scheme, on the part of the rich abroad and the rich at home, to keep the poor down."

"Say you so, Paul?" exclaimed Matthew, also resting his spoon on the brim of the porringer, and looking very intently upon his friend; "why, you know, Paul, if we had not gone to fight the foreigners, they would have come to fight us."

"But who amongst 'em was it that wanted to fight? just think of that, Matthew," rejoined Paul, very earnestly. "You and I had no quarrel with the French, or the Dutch, or the Spaniard, you know. And what poor foreigners, think you, had any quarrel with the people here? No, no, depend on it, Matthew, the poor never made these wars, nor ever thought of fighting, or wished to fight, on either side: it was the rich—'our betters,' as they are called—who began the quarrel, and then pushed us, or dragged us, into it, to lose our limbs, or shed our blood, or escape if we could."

"'Pon my word," said Matthew, shaking his wig, very significantly, "I've had some such thoughts as these now and then,—and you're making a strong yarn on't, Paul, I confess,—but what's the use of muddling one's old brains with such things? You know what I always say, Paul,—'Butter your shirt——"

"Nay, but avast a bit, Mat," said Paul, looking invincibly serious; "we are getting fast into our last port, as I said before; and, if we have been unthinking fools all our lives, I don't see why we should not open our eyes and look about us a bit, before we step on the last shore. Times are harder now than ever you and I knew 'em; and, as much fuss as there used to be made about an old seaman, all that sort of thing is gone. I question if you and I live a few years longer, and grow cranky,—and, God knows, I begin to feel queer, night and morning,—but folks will grow weary of waiting on us, and the parish wolves will haul us away to the workhouse, and pocket our little pensions."

"God Almighty forbid!" ejaculated Matthew, very fervently.

"But 'tis very likely to come to pass, however, let me tell you," rejoined Paul; "you knew Jerry Simpson: he was berthsman with us, if you remember, and lost an arm at Trafalgar. He wouldn't go into Greenwich college, but went and settled in Shoreditch, with his old sister. She died two twelvemonths ago, and poor old Jerry soon grew helpless—so they took him into the parish poor-house, pocketing his pension, and he died there, of sheer grief, about six months ago. That was a rum reward for fighting for his country so bravely as Jerry did——"

"By G—d it was!" exclaimed old Matthew, involuntarily—for the fine old fellow had not uttered an oath for years before: "the Lord ha' mercy upon me for swearing, poor old sinner that I am!" he continued:—"but you don't say that that's true about Jerry Simpson, do you, Paul? why he used to rush into a gun-boat like a ravenous wolf! Shiver my old timbers! but a braver sailor than Jerry never stepped upon deck!"

"'Pon the word of a sailor, what I have said is true," replied Paul, "for I saw it with my own sorrowful eyes. But now don't you perceive, Matthew," resumed Paul, eager to take advantage of the impression this fact had made, "that the change in the state of things is owing to the heavy taxes caused by the war, and——"

"Why, you see, Paul, I don't understand these things," said Matthew, impatiently; "but I feel you are right about us poor dogs never wishing to bite the foreigners—for I never had such a thought till I got on board ship. But why is it that great folks wish to shed blood at such a rate? What do they want, and what would they have? 'Zounds! if I have but my bit o' bacco, and can rest at night, I'm as happy as any of 'em. And then, again, Paul, why is it—excuse me, Paul, if I seem to talk foolish; I'm older than you, but you always had more book larning, I'm well aware—why is it that the poor don't let the rich fight their battles themselves, if they want any fighting?"

"Why, there, now, you old billy-goat!" exclaimed Paul, laughing; "you know that both you and I were dragged off by the press-gang, just as we were about to step on shore at Wapping; and were not thousands hauled away, in the same manner, throughout the war? 'Why is it that we don't let 'em fight their own battles themselves' indeed! why, you know, Mat, the poor dogs are compelled to obey the rich ones, in this world. What I want you to see is that the rich dogs make these wars on purpose to keep the poor dogs under. And yet I don't know, Matthew, that either you or I can alter things: it is past our time o' life; and, besides, I believe the whole consarn will before long tumble to pieces of itself, for the world's about tired of it."

"Blow me!" exclaimed Matthew, completely wearied of the subject, and anxious to resume his usual careless and happy vein, "if I can see the use of all your palaver, Paul: you may be right, in the main, but then you make no sail, take as many tacks as you will. You still end by saying the poor dogs are forced to bark and bite as the rich dogs bid 'em; and you own that we're both too old to do aught towards bettering things; and, besides, you say the consarn's doomed to fall to pieces by its own rottenness; and so, instead of bothering my old brains about it, I still say, as I did when we got out of the Dutchmen's firkin, 'Butter your shirt! sing tantarara-bobus make shift!'"

The argument was ended with a hearty laugh on both sides, for, as toughly as Paul had spun his yarn, it was clear, from his last observation, that he was beginning to esteem his work as "labour in vain." That day and another passed in calling old times to mind; and, on the fourth day, the two ancient friends and fellows in many a storm and broil, parted, never to meet again on the lee-shore of Time.

Old Matthew Hardcastle kept up his gaiety of heart till his last day, though that day was, to the full, as doleful as his trusty friend Paul Perkins had prognosticated it would be. Reader,—if ever it falls in your way to visit old Gainsbro', you will learn that, in the main, what I am about to relate is too true. In proportion as Matthew became helpless, people were wearied with waiting upon him; and, disgraceful to relate! the old warrior-seaman was, at length, neglected till his aged body swarmed with filth. Instead of respect, disgust was now expressed for him, by an unreasonable world. Paul Perkins' prophecy came true to the letter: the parish "worthies" came to "take care of him;" they took him to the poor-house; he was stripped stark-naked in the wash-house; and cold water was "swabbed," as he himself would have said, upon his aged body to cleanse him! Even in that moment, the brave companion of Howe and Nelson strove to keep up the gaiety of his noble heart, and once essayed his old saying, "Butter your shirt! sing"——But his aged lips quivered, and his jaws chattered with the cold,—and his bold old heart broke with the barbarous treatment he was undergoing!

Oh! this is a world of wrong; and it will take a great deal of effort to right it, if ever it be righted at all. Reader! if you even think, with Paul Perkins, that the bad system under which so many groan, will, at length, fall to pieces by virtue, or rather by the vice, of its own imperfections,—is it not, still, sensible and philanthropic to be doing what little we can to hasten what we feel to be "a consummation devoutly to be wished?"