savings he had purchased the little village alehouse, and intended to convert it into a respectable hotel under the attractive title of the Farmington Arms, thus showing his gratitude and good taste at one and the same time. 66 Of Charles Farmington Matthew had heard nothing for some time. Mr. Polisher could only tell him that he was still in the Peninsula, a fighting of the French;" but, soon after Mr. Polisher's return to Ashmoor, Matthew saw in one of the daily papers an account of the captain's marriage with the daughter of a brother officer. He communicated the interesting news to his wife and his two children, and drank health and prosperity to the newly-married couple in port wine, of which he felt justified on such a momentous occasion in tapping a quart bottle. The tide of time rolled on. Rumours of victory after victory achieved by British arms and British hearts reached the shores of England. The crowning event, the triumph at Waterloo and the utter ruin of Napoleon, reached the ears of Matthew as he sat at his desk fondly eyeing the progress of his son, now his clerk, through the partition rails which divided their desks. He sought eagerly for a paper containing a list of the killed and wounded, and to the detriment of public business, and the annoyance of the solicitors and clerks, read it carefully through until he came to the name of Captain Charles Farmington, which was among the class of those severely but not mortally wounded. Matthew threw down his pen, locked his desk, and left the office to communicate the sad tidings at home. How he found his way to Clerkenwell he could not tell, for the tears trickled or rather flowed from his eyes so freely as to impede his sight. He would gladly have gained further information on the subject of his friend's wounds, but he knew not where to apply for it. Thousands. of our brave countrymen were dead, wounded, and dying. Amidst the general rejoicings in the victory gained, hundreds in their silent homes were weeping over the loss of fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers, and friends. The general illumination was accompanied by an almost general mourning. There was scarcely a house in which "there was not one dead." It occurred to Matthew, at last, to write to Captain Farmington. He did so, and ascertaining that his regiment was with others in the neighbourhood of Brussels, he directed his letters thither. After two months anxious suspense he received an answer from Mrs. Farmington thanking him for his kind inquiries, and informing him that though all danger was over, it would be necessary for her husband to remain for some months in Brussels, to recover from the effects of a gun-shot wound which had shattered the bone of the right thigh. The other wound, a severe sabre cut over the right eye, she added, was already healed, but had left a deep unseemly scar, which had sadly altered the captain's appearance. She apologised for not having answered his inquiries sooner upon the plea of illness and subsequent weakness. The sight of her husband's mutilated body, added to the intensity of her excitement while the battle raged, and reports of failure and defeat reached her ears, brought on premature labour. With great difficulty the lives of herself and her infant son were saved. She had only the services of compassionate females around her to depend upon-every surgeon was with the army, engaged with the wounded and the dying. In a postscript, which seemed to be more studied and more carefully, and, as it were, more reluctantly written than the letter itself, was a request that if Mr. Scrawler could conveniently spare the loan of 501. for a few months, he would do so, as it would be of great service, their expenses being very heavy and the captain having now nothing but his pay to rely upon. Matthew was in his office when this letter arrived. He read it partly through, and then forcing his way, with tearful eyes, through the crowd of solicitors who were waiting for warrants, and other documents, he rushed into the master's private room, which happened to be vacant. There he read it carefully over. The scene it brought vividly before his eyes was melancholy in the extreme. He saw an ill-furnished room in a foreign land, devoid of all English comforts and even necessaries; the mutilated, disfigured body of the fine young officer, whom he had last seen in all the pride of manly beauty, lay stretched upon a couch, while the delicate person of the young wife and recent mother, with the weakly infant at her breast, reclined by his side, unable though wishing to render him those services which none but the hand of love can render effectually. In addition to these miseries, Matthew pictured to himself the want of proper attendants, proper food and medicines, the result of the want of means for procuring them. He was aroused from the reverie into which these sad thoughts had plunged him by the entrance of Master Snug, who kindly pardoned the intrusion of his clerk into his private apartment, when the cause of it was explained to him. He did more. He released his clerk from the duties of his office for the day, and begged him to draw upon his banker for the 501., if it were inconvenient for him to comply with his wounded friend's wishes, out of his own limited resources Matthew availed himself of the leave of absence, but declined the offer of the loan with thanks and eyes beaming with gratitude for his patron's kindness. He hurried into the city, and shortly placed a bank post-bill for 1007. double the amount required, in the hands of the agent through whom he had been requested to remit it. A few days brought an acknowledgment of its having been safely received. To say that this acknowledgment was couched in grateful terms would be but a weak description of it. The supply had arrived at a moment when their resources had nearly failed them, and when we know that a woman's heart conceived-a wife, a mother, indited the terms in which their thanks were to be conveyed to the kind and humble friend who had relieved their necessities, we cannot doubt for a moment that the kind and humble friend was more than satisfied that his kindness was appreciated. Gratified and delighted as Matthew was at the reception of this letter from Mrs. Farmington, the short postscript attached to it gratified him still more. Is was a mere "thank you, my kind friend," in an almost illegible scrawl, but that was in the handwriting of his former playmate the son of his patroness, Charles Farmington. Matthew felt that he, the poor charity-boy-he who had worn the livery of the charity-school-who had travelled up to London on the bounty of a kind lady, had by patient industry, and a well-directed use of her judicious liberality been enabled to repay, in some degree, the kindnesses bestowed upon him in his youth. And Matthew felt a justifiable pride within his bosom. THE SEA-LAWYER. 66 JUST before the Regency devolved upon the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., there seemed to be a sort of struggle going forward between that numerous body who lived by forgery in all its ramifications, and the commercial classes; and much ink and much blood were shed in the contest. Those who had to pay for the waste of a few drops of black fluid with young and healthy lives, might be deemed to be fighting at a great disadvantage, yet they fought on and swung by dozens, and the extermination of individuals only increased the magnitude of the band. Authority grew callous and angry, and placing Justice with her bared sword on the judgment-seat, ordered Mercy out of the court. The more certainly that convictions followed forgeries, did death ensue upon convictions. At this time there lived a Jew salesman at Portsmouth in very flourishing circumstances. He had a handsome villa at a very romantic village on the road to Winchester. He banked with the principal banker in his own neighbourhood, and though he did not keep his carriage, it was the boast of himself and his family that he could if he chose. His place of business in Portsmouth was, however, of the meanest and most sordid description. The windows of his shop or warehouse were incrusted with the undisturbed dust of years, and consequently its exterior was remarkably, and we believe intentionally, obscure. A little degree of darkness proves very serviceable when one has to sell second-hand clothes "that wash bettersh than new." Moses Myers dealt in everything that could and could not possibly be required by the seamen, his principal customers. All articles, from the most expensive sextant down to the cheapest tobacco-stopper, from the gold and jewelled watch to the pinchbeck ornaments for Poll of the Common-Hard, were to be found in his emporium. Slops and all manner of nautical habiliments, impeded his doorway and loaded his counters. Yes, Moses was the sailor's factotum. When Jack was alive, Moses would obligingly supply him with everything for a "considerashun;" when present, he loaded him with the most servile civility; when absent he sought to be his agent-when dead, his executor. Moses was also a great dabbler and dealer in powers of attorney, and mariners' wills. He throve accordingly. Sometimes a poor broken-down woman, in faded widow's weeds, would be seen hanging about his shop, her features pinched by famine, and even with despair. If admitted to an audience by Moses, everything seemed apparently fair and legal: there were seals, and parchment, and signatures, such as "Thomas Bowling," scrawled over an amazingly broad space, or "Thomas Bowling, his X," or anybody else's, all very duly witnessed. If all this attorneyed and imposing pomp and circumstance of parchment awed not the bereaved wife into acquiescence, and silenced not her clamours, the indignant and wronged virtue of Moses Myers assumed a very high tone, and she was handed over to the tender mercies of his eldest son, Aaron Gent., one &c. &c., that is to say, a sharp-practice lawyer, who always drew up and generally witnessed all the wills and powers of attorney in favour of his respectable father. But little was the sensation created in Portsmouth by these infrequent explosions. Moses knew how fatal they must prove to his reputation, so he was always careful to anticipate them when apprehended, and to hush them up when they actually occurred. He was an elderly, fat, well-shaven man, very plausible in his address, and had a great deal more of sea-slang than Jack himself. Did a blue-jacket pass his door, it was with him, "What cheer, messmate ?" and if not a very seedy looking blue-jacket indeed, the hail was accompanied by an invitation to the said newly-invested messmate, " to bear up, come to an anchor, and freshen his hawse." These were very captivating manners to a thirsty sailor, and over the grog he pronounced the inviter the least of a Jew of all the seed of the patriarchs. Strong grog, long credit, and plenty of soft soap down Jack's backbone, and Moses was pronounced a jewel of a Jew. Myers, "like Japhet, the judge of Israel, had one daughter, and she was surpassing fair." But we will not speak of her just now, mingled up with forgeries, rum-and-water, and "old clo"." We will merely say that she was named Dinah. We have before stated that Moses Myers begat Aaron, and we go on to state that Aaron, by the means of his indentures, and five hundred pounds premium, begat a very active and acute lawyer, in his own person, eminently qualified to spoil the Gentiles, and particularly those "who go down in ships on the mighty waters." Whilst he was completing his apprenticeship, the hero of our short story first got acquainted with the Hebrew family, and strangely enough the yarn of his life (shore-going folks would call it the thread) became inseparably intermingled with theirs. Edmund Desborough was the son of a yeoman in good circumstances, could trace back his family for several generations, and who possessed no small share of that straightforward English independence which was called by his superiors insolence, and by his inferiors upstart pride. His son Edmund, in very early youth, so early that we blush to mention it, got entangled with a woman thrice his age, in what is foolishly called a love-affair. The woman had great capacity of oath, and the surrounding squires and magistrates were much amused at the idea of the boy-father, and some of them were basely gratified at this opportunity of mortifying Giles Desborough, for the said sturdy Giles rode better horseflesh than most of them, and would neither sell nor give away a favourite hound or hunter when any of his aristocratic neighbours condescended to require it. In order to avoid all the talk and disgrace of this awkward affair, Giles resolved to send Edmund, who was nothing loath, to sea for a short trip up the Mediterranean with a friendly skipper. It proved to be an unfortunately long one. Edmund was pressed, and drafted from one man-of-war to another until he had visited most places on the face of the waters, and fought his country's battles in many of them. During this time old Giles broke his neck by riding an ill-broken horse at a fox-chase against the whippers-in of the pack, and the rector of the parish. Every one then discovered what an honest neighbour and Jan.- -VOL. LXIV. NO. CCLIII. D excellent companion he had lost. Edmund's elder and only brother inherited all Giles's estate and wealth. When, after ten years' absence, Edmund returned to his paternal home, instead of the fatted calf being killed to welcome him, he was only offered the cold shoulder of a man, and that man the only living relation he had on earth, So Edmund took up his bundle, and literally "cut his stick," from the blackthorn hedge that bounded the property he once was taught he would equally possess with his brother. This was a trespass, certainly, but one that will surely be forgiven him, since he forgave his brother his avarice and his hardness of heart. Equally flush of money and indignation, the young sailor returned to Portsmouth. He had a long-service ticket of leave in his pocket, of which more than three weeks were unexpired, and with a sort of ferocious feeling of independence, one beautiful summer's eve, he found himself near the door of Moses Myers. The oily-visaged Hebrew was at his usual stand, and when Edmund approached him there was the accustomed wily smile on his countenance, accompanied by the usual "What cheer, messmate?" "Very poor," said Edmund, surveying his accoster with a glance that displayed as much contempt as his extreme goodnature would admit of. "The ship has tumbled overboard, and the marines won't go in the boat to pick her up, so they've cut adrift the main hatchway, hoisted the pig ballast for a jury-jib spanker, and gone in chase.” "Ah, you're a vag! ash the quarter-mashter said to the dogvane, can't you be still till I seesh how the vind blowsh," replied Moses to the seaman's banter. "A south-veshta. vind in the breadbag; ish't it so, my hearty?" "Not a bit of it, Nabachasneazer. Do you hear how the rhino rattles?" said Edmund, slapping his trousers-pocket. "Ah, I see you do, for your mouth waters like a hungry dog's at the sight of a hogpudding." "Ah, my good friend," said Moses, rubbing his hands cheerfully, "you musht come in vid me and freshen your hawsh." "But who stands cook? I'll be tinkered if I do," said Edmund. Vy, my good friend, I invitesh you as my guest. You shall tell me all about your cuttingsh-outs, and your fights in big ships, and your prize-money and so fortsh." "Ah, prize-money! Heave a-head, old joker, or shall I take you in tow by the beard! Why, Moses, by the holy, what have you done with your beard? beard? You shave too close, Moses." And thus with rude and unmannered hustling did Edmund hurry the Jew through his shop into his back parlour, and then as they tumbled into the apartment together, suddenly the boisterous seaman remained motionless, as if struck into the figure-head of Silence. It was not the abrupt transition from the gloomy and close shop into a light and airy place, nor the comparative splendour of the room itself, nor the fragrance of the small but well-stocked garden into which the windows of that room opened, that thus, for more than a moment, paralyzed the honest sailor. When the short stupefaction of astonishment had passed off, he seemed to have changed his nature; he was no longer the rough devil-may-care tarpaulin. He assumed, or rather resumed, a courteous manliness, and with a grace that makes humility its greatest |
