“ Why yes, sir: one of the first things as I recollect was my mother holding me up to see the masts and bowsprit of the 1 Eoyal George ’ just after she - went down, and I wras in the glorious 1st of June along with Lord Howe, in the year 1794. There was thirty -five sail of the line; so after we had had our breakfastes, we hoists the bloody fiag and goes down right among 'em, and we took a three-decker, 1 La Montagne,’ they called her. We killed a terrible sight of men that day. and ail next day we was a heaving of ’em overboard At last we come to one man who had got no legs, and he begged and prayed not to be heaved overboard, cause why, he warn’t dead. So the officer come’s along, and we axed him what was to be done with this ere Frenchman who said he warn't dead. So he said, ‘ Oh, yes, he ain’t no good, he’s sure to die sooner or later, heave him overboard so we heaved him overboard, and we never seed him again.” 11 But did you never get wounded yourself, Uncle? you have lost an eye, have you not?” “ Lord, no, sir,” said the old man; “ I got two as good eyes as any man in the harbour”—and the old man lifted up his great shaggy eyebrows and showed us a couple of piercers—u but I did get a wound once, and that was in the year 1798.” “ Where were you wounded, Uncle?” u Oh! I was wounded on this ere leg, as I’m carrying

28 uncle’s complaints.

about along with me now. I’m tarnation sorry as how I did not have him slewed off at once and a done with him, as George there had done with his arm. This leg of mine has the rheumatics in him a long time, and torments me terrible of nights. If I had had him slewed off, I would have been much more thought of now; I’d a had a penny a day more pension, and that would have been more use to me than my leg, a precious sight; he will never be no good to me as long as he’s on, and that’s the very identical.” “ But what luck have you had with the fish to-day, Uncle?” u Lord, sir, I have been out since four o’clock this morning, and ain’t catched a pennyworth.” “ O’ course he ain’t ” said old George; he’s been shifting about all the time, but he’s a goodhearted old man; he never hurt a worm in all his life, unless it was to put her on a hook. Here Uncle, the gentleman says, will you have a drop of grog?” “ Thank ye, my son, I am terrible dry.* But I ain’t got nothing to put the liquor in: never mind, here’s my lug pot,I that will do.” So the old man produced an old tin mug, one mass of rust. He threw out the lug

I frequently saw this poor dear old man afterwards. He used to watch for Robinson Crusoe and myself going out fishing at “ the wracks ” and used to pull alongside. He always called me “my son.” + Lng. The lug-worm, used for bait.

Crusoe’s experiences of horses. 29

worms, washed the cup in the sea, and drank up the beer, smacking his lips after it. “ Did you ever eat a lug, Uncle?” said I. “ Lord, ay, my son, to be sure I have. They are as bitter as soot, if you eats ’em raw, but they are as sweet as sugar if you cooks ’em. I knows it, because I’ve eaten many a one when I cooked ’em in the

fish.” The old man seemed impatient to be off, so we gave him a little money to buy himself some tobacco, and away went the poor old fellow back again into the harbour. May good luck follow him! “ George,” said I, when the old man was gone, 61 did you ever ride on horseback? We will give you a job in the 2nd Life Guards if you like.” “ Me ride! Lor sir, I am terrible frightened of a horse, more than I am of a Bengal tiger; I never was on a horse but once in my life, and then I fell off, and got a lump on my forehead as big as a coker nut. I’d sooner sit on a ship’s truck in a gale of wind than I would on a horse. There’s fish in the sea, little fellows as got heads for all the world like a horse, and prances about with their flippers just the same as a horse prances: they brings ’em up sometimes in buckets off Jersey.* There’s things they call sea horses as well, up away round the Horn; ugly things as big as elephants, with great teeth

The Hippocampus.

so DOUBLE-HEADED MACKEREL.

under their chins. They are quiet enough unless you comes foul of ’em and molestes ’em; but if you knocks ’em over the nose they are done for directly. They are no sea horses, they are walruses, and a walrus is a walrus: they lives on the ice along with the seals and bears and a precious set of ugly varment besides.” “ Did you ever come across any pirates or smugglers, George, in the course of your travels?”

“Well, sir, I have been out a pirate-catching once

’ frigate, withor twice when I was aboard the ‘ Naiad Captain Spencer. There’s a wonderful sight of pirates in the Mediterranean. What pirates we did not kill, we sunk; they shows you no mercy, and we shows them none; we kept any one what was any good, but them that was any good was as scarce as birds of paradise. A cowardly set of vagabonds is them pirates: a British sailor detests a pirate; he will either hang him or sink him.” “ But how about the smugglers, George?”

‘* Oh! I knows something about them chaps. One night when I was out, close handy here, a pout-catching ’ wrack, I sees two men in a boat cruis-off the ‘ Boyne ing about backwards and forwards: so they comes alongside, and says, ‘ What are you fishing for, old man?’ ‘For what I can catch,’ says I. ‘Do you ever catch any double-headed mackerel about here?’ says they. ‘There’s somebody watching you on the Castle with a

spy-glass,’ says I; c you had better cut and run. I knows what’s what, I arn’t quite such a fool as I looks.’ So presently, off comes a six-oared cutter, with the coast-guard’s men. And the captain of her says, 1 Where’s the buoy’s chain lay, Robinson Crusoe?’ 1 Right under the buoy,’ says I. So they weighed the chain then and there, and they got eighty-five tubs of spirits as had got foul of the chain. The owner of ’em know’d this before, but the preventive men never know’d it, and the owner has got hisself, fool as he was, to thank for showing the Custom-house officers where a hovering round the wrack, like athey was;—laying gull over a dead whale.” It is some time now since I saw good old Robinson Crusoe. But I should like to tell the reader the last I know of him. I invited a friend in the 1st Life Guards to go down and have a day or two’s fishing with him. So I wrote to Robinson Crusoe, to say we were coming, and to tell him where to meet us. What was my horror, when I introduced my friend, to find that Robinson Crusoe had been to the barber’s, and had his hair cut, and beard shaved. He had also got a clean shirt, and a new suit of clothes, so that he was quite spoilt as regards his Robinsor^ Crusoe-like appearance. I was much pleased to fmd that my writing about him had done the old man good, for he told us that one day a lady on board a yacht hailed him, and asked him if he was

Eobinson Crusoe that Mr. Buckland had papered. When the lady heard that he was Eobinson Crusoe, she ordered him to go down and get his dinner with the men. When he came on deck again, the lady presented him with a new boat that belonged to the yacht, and told him to take it away there and then. Eobinson Crusoe was very grateful, and as proud as possible of her; but still he would not use her, preferring to

go out fishing in his rotten old bit of a tub, which, as I have stated before, cost one sovereign seven years

back. Eobinson Crusoe came out to us, on our second visit, in his old boat, and my friend and I determined we would get hold of it somehow, or the old man, (though he had a new boat), would continue to go out in her till one day she would fall to pieces at sea and drown him. After a deal of trouble, we got Eobinson Crusoe to accept a price for her, about ten times her value. The bargain concluded, we hauled her up on the beach, and taking a run, my friend and I simultaneously gave her sides a good kick. This was quite enough: she fell to bits like an orange box; and with a big stone or two, we soon broke her into pieces so small that even Eobinson Crusoe could not put her together again. While we were doing this, the poor old fellow toned his back upon us. Tears ran down his manly, weather-beaten face as he sadly looked on at our work of destruction.

Crusoe’s present address. 33

“ Don’t ye behave cowardly towards the poor old thing, gentlemen,” said he; “ she has been a good servant in her day, and I wants the copper nails out of her,

for she is true copper fastened.” We left our good old friend picking out the copper nails, and singing to himself the following Tennysonian ditty— And as a token of true love, Her gold ring she broke in two; One half she gave to her own true love, The other she sold to a Jew.

I strongly advise visitors to Eyde or Southsea, who wish for a good day’s sea-fishing, to engage Eobinson Crusoe. His address is—George Butler (Eobinson Crusoe), “ The Lord Nelson ” public-house, Gosport.

SER. HI. D

VISIT TO KNARESBOROUGH,

YORKSHIRE.

In September 1863, 1 obtained leave of absence from my medical duties as Assistant- Surgeon of the 2nd Life Guards, and made the town of Knaresborough my headquarters during my short holiday. At first sight, Knaresborough did not promise at all well, but eventually I found that there was “ sport ” to be had, as the following few pages will show.

My first visit was to the well-known Dropping-well. I entered the enclosure where it is situated with a certain amount of fear, lest I myself should in a moment be converted into stone by this modem wholesale statue-maker; but I summoned up courage, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a civil Yorkshire lassie, and we saw before us this natural curiosity—-a massive frowning rock, over which a perpetual shower of water fell incessantly, with a musical and somewhat melancholy sound, into the clear pool below. About half-way down, on the face of the rock, were suspended a number

of curious-looking objects. I asked the girl to explain

them. Pointing to them, she at once began with a true Yorkshire accent and with wonderful volubility of tongue-u There you will see a pumkin and a stocking-squirrel and a stock-dove—a small hotter, and a nedgeog (hedgehog)—a branch and a pheasant—a man’s hat and a sponge—a moss basket and a bird’s nest—a weasel and a wig.” u For goodness’ sake, my girl, gently, gently, give us the list over again,” but she was gone, other visitors had knocked at the door; they also came down to where we were standing, and the girl began again, u a pumkin and a stocking, a small hotter and a nedgeog” down to the wig at the end of the sentence. “ Where’s my dog? ” said my friend. “ He is gone,” said the girl. “ We wants a curly dog, and if I catch him, I’ll just hang im oop in t’well and petrify him.” Poor Brittle had evidently taken warning from the fate of the “ small hotter and a nedgeog,” and had fairly bolted for it, his tail between his legs, lest he should be “ hung oop ” and become petrified.

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