Afloat and Ashore Part 11

came next. Then followed the call of "All hands." It was plain enough my notice had set everything in motion in that quarter. Talcott now came running forward to say he thought, from some movements on board the lugger, that her people were now first apprised of the vicinity of the s.h.i.+p. I had been sadly disappointed at the call for all hands on board the s.h.i.+p, for it was in the manner of a merchantman, instead of that of a vessel-of-war. But we were getting too near to remain much longer in doubt. The Amanda was already sweeping up on the Englishman's bows, not more than forty yards distant.

"She is an English West-Indiaman, Mr. Wallingford," said one of my oldest seamen; "and a running s.h.i.+p; some vessel that has deserted or lost her convoy."

"Do you _know_ anything of the lugger?" demanded an officer from on board the s.h.i.+p, in a voice that was not very amicable.

"No more than you see; she has chased me, close aboard, for the last twenty minutes."

There was no reply to this for a moment, and then I was asked--"To tack, and give us a little chance, by drawing him away for a few minutes. We are armed, and will come out to your a.s.sistance."

Had I been ten years older, experience in the faith of men, and especially of men engaged in the pursuit of gain, would have prevented me from complying with this request; but, at eighteen, one views these things differently. It did appear to me ungenerous to lead an enemy in upon a man in his sleep, and not endeavour to do something to aid the surprised party. I answered "ay, ay!" therefore, and tacked directly alongside of the s.h.i.+p. But the manoeuvre was too late, the lugger coming in between the s.h.i.+p and the brig, just as we began to draw ahead again, leaving him room, and getting a good look at us both. The Englishman appeared the most inviting, I suppose, for she up helm and went on board of him on his quarter. Neither party used their guns. We were so near, however, as plainly to understand the whole, to distinguish the orders, and even to hear the blows that were struck by hand. It was an awful minute to us in the brig. The cries of the hurt reached us in the stillness of that gloomy morning, and oaths mingled with the clamour.

Though taken by surprise, John Bull fought well; though we could perceive that he was overpowered, however, just as the distance, and the haze that was beginning to gather thick around the land, shut in the two vessels from our view.

The disappearance of the two combatants furnished me with a hint how to proceed. I stood out three or four minutes longer, or a sufficient distance to make certain we should not be seen, and tacked again. In order to draw as fast as possible out of the line of sight, we kept the brig off a little, and then ran in towards the English coast, which was sufficiently distant to enable us to stand on in that direction some little time longer. This expedient succeeded perfectly; for, when we found it necessary to tack again, day began to dawn. Shortly after, we could just discern the West-Indiaman and the lugger standing off the land, making the best of their way towards the French coast. In 1799, it is possible that this bold Frenchman got his prize into some of his own ports, though three or four years later it would have been a nearly hopeless experiment. As for the Amanda, she was safe; and Nelson did not feel happier, after his great achievement at the Nile, than I felt at the success of my own expedient. Talcott congratulated me and applauded me; and I believe all of us were a little too much disposed to ascribe to our own steadiness and address, much that ought fairly to have been imputed to chance.

Off Dover we got a pilot, and learned that the s.h.i.+p captured was the Dorothea, a valuable West-Indiaman that had stolen away from her convoy, and come in alone, the previous evening. She anch.o.r.ed under Dungeness at the first of the ebb, and, it seems, had preferred taking a good night's rest to venturing out in the dark, when the flood made. Her berth was a perfectly snug one, and the lugger would probably never have found her, had we not led her directly in upon her prey.

I was now relieved from all charge of the brig; and a relief I found it, between shoals, enemies, and the tides, of which I knew nothing. That day we got into the Downs, and came-to. Here I saw a fleet at anchor; and a pretty stir it made among the man-of-war's-men, when our story was repeated among them. I do think twenty of their boats were alongside of us, to get the facts from the original source. Among others who thus appeared, to question me, was one old gentleman, whom I suspected of being an admiral. He was in sh.o.r.e-dress, and came in a plain way; the men in his boat declining to answer any questions; but they paid him unusual respect. This gentleman asked me a great many particulars, and I told him the whole story frankly, concealing or colouring nothing. He was evidently much interested. When he went away, he shook me cordially by the hand, and said--"Young gentleman, you have acted prudently and well. Never mind the grumbling of some of our lads; they think only of themselves. It was your right and your duty to save your own vessel, if you could, without doing anything dishonourable; and I see nothing wrong in your conduct. But it's a sad disgrace to us, to let these French rascals be picking up their crumbs in this fas.h.i.+on, right under our hawse-holes."

CHAPTER X.

"How pleasant and how sad the turning tide Of human life, when side by side The child and youth begin to glide Along the vale of years: The pure twin-being for a little s.p.a.ce, With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face.

Too young for woe, though not for tears."

ALLSTON.

With what interest and deference most Americans of any education regarded England, her history, laws and inst.i.tutions, in 1799! There were a few exceptions--warm political partisans, and here and there an individual whose feelings had become embittered by some particular incident of the revolution--but surprisingly few, when it is recollected that the country was only fifteen years from the peace. I question if there ever existed another instance of as strong provincial admiration for the capital, as independent America manifested for the mother country, in spite of a thousand just grievances, down to the period of the war of 1812. I was no exception to the rule, nor was Talcott.

Neither of us had ever seen England before we made the Lizard on this voyage, except through our minds' eyes; and these had presented quant.i.ties of beauties and excellencies that certainly vanished on a nearer approach. By this I merely mean that we had painted in too high colours, as is apt to be the case when the imagination holds the pencil; not that there was any unusual absence of things worthy to be commended.

On the contrary, even at this late, hour, I consider England as a model for a thousand advantages, even to our own inappreciable selves.

Nevertheless, much delusion was blended with our admiration.

English history was virtually American history; and everything on the land, as we made our way towards town, which the pilot could point out, was a source of amus.e.m.e.nt and delight. We had to tide it up to London, and had plenty of leisure to see all there was to be seen. The Thames is neither a handsome, nor a very magnificent river; but it was amazing to witness the number of vessels that then ascended or descended it.

There was scarce a sort of craft known to Christendom, a few of the Mediterranean excepted, that was not to be seen there; and as for the colliers, we drifted through a forest of them that seemed large enough to keep the town a twelvemonth in fire-wood, by simply burning their spars. The manner in which the pilot handled our brig, too, among the thousand s.h.i.+ps that lay in tiers on each side of the narrow pa.s.sage we had to thread, was perfectly surprising to me; resembling the management of a coachman in a crowded thoroughfare, more than the ordinary working of a s.h.i.+p. I can safely say I learned more in the Thames, in the way of keeping a vessel in command, and in doing what I pleased with her, than in the whole of my voyage to Canton and back again. As for Neb, he rolled his dark eyes about in wonder, and took an occasion to say to me--"He'll make her talk, Ma.s.ser Miles, afore he have done." I make no doubt the navigation from the Forelands to the bridges, as it was conducted thirty years since, had a great influence on the seamans.h.i.+p of the English. Steamers are doing away with much of this practice, though the colliers still have to rely on themselves. Coals will scarcely pay for tugging.

I had been directed by Captain Williams to deliver the brig to her original consignee, an American merchant established in the modern Babylon, reserving the usual claim for salvage. This I did, and that gentleman sent hands on board to take charge of the vessel, relieving me entirely from all farther responsibility. As the captain in his letter had, inadvertently I trust, mentioned that he had put "Mr. Wallingford, his _third_ mate," in charge, I got no invitation to dinner from the consignee; though the affair of the capture under Dungeness found its way into the papers, _via_ Deal, I have always thought, with the usual caption of "Yankee Trick." Yankee trick! This phrase, so often carelessly used, has probably done a great deal of harm in this country.

The young and ambitious--there are all sorts of ambition, and, among others, that of being a rogue; as a proof of which, one daily hears people call envy, jealousy, covetousness, avarice, and half of the meaner vices, ambition--the young and _ambitious_, then, of this country, too often think to do a _good_ thing, that shall have some of the peculiar merit of a certain other good thing that they have heard laughed at and applauded, under this designation. I can account in no other manner for the great and increasing number of "Yankee tricks" that are of daily occurrence among us. Among other improvements in taste, not to say in morals, that might be introduced into the American press, would be the omission of the histories of these rare inventions. As two-thirds of the editors of the whole country, however, are Yankees, I suppose they must be permitted to go on exulting in the cleverness of their race. We are indebted to the Puritan stock for most of our instructors--editors and school-masters--and when one coolly regards the prodigious progress of the people in morals, public and private virtue, honesty, and other estimable qualities, he must indeed rejoice in the fact that our masters so early discovered "a church without a bishop."

I had an opportunity, while in London, however, of ascertaining that the land of our fathers, which by the way has archbishops, contains something besides an unalloyed virtue in its bosom. At Gravesend we took on board _two_ customhouse officers, (they always set a rogue to watch a rogue, in the English revenue system,) and they remained in the brig until she was discharged. One of these men had been a gentleman's servant, and he owed his place to his former master's interest. He was a miracle of custom-house integrity and disinterestedness, as I discovered in the first hour of our intercourse. Perceiving a lad of eighteen in charge of the prize, and ignorant that this lad had read a good deal of Latin and Greek under excellent Mr. Hardinge, besides being the heir of Clawbonny, I suppose he fancied he would have an easy time with him.

This man's name was Sweeney. Perceiving in me an eager desire to see everything, the brig was no sooner at her moorings, than he proposed a cruise ash.o.r.e. It was Sweeney who showed me the way to the consignee's, and, that business accomplished, he proposed that we should proceed on and take a look at St. Paul's, the Monument, and, as he gradually found my tastes more intellectual than he had at first supposed, the wonders of the West End. I was nearly a week under the pilotage of the "Admirable Sweeney." After showing me the exteriors of all the things of mark about the town, and the interiors of a few that I was disposed to pay for, he descended in his tastes, and carried me through Wapping, its purlieus and its scenes of atrocities. I have always thought Sweeney was sounding me, and hoping to ascertain my true character, by the course he took; and that he betrayed his motives in a proposition which he finally made, and which brought our intimacy to a sudden close. The result, however, was to let me into secrets I should probably have never learned in any other manner. Still, I had read and heard too much to be easily duped; and I kept myself not only out of the power of my tempter, but out of the power of all that could injure me, remaining simply a curious observer of what was placed before my eyes. Good Mr. Hardinge's lessons were not wholly forgotten; I could run away from him, much easier than from his precepts.

I shall never forget a visit I made to a house called the Black Horse, in St. Catherine's Lane. This last was a narrow street that ran across the site of the docks that now bear the same name; and it was the resort of all the local infamy of Wapping. I say _local_ infamy; for there were portions of the West End that were even worse than anything which a mere port could produce. Commerce, that parent of so much that is useful to man, has its dark side as everything else of earth; and, among its other evils, it drags after it a long train of low vice; but this train is neither so long nor so broad as that which is chained to the chariot-wheels of the great. Appearances excepted, and they are far less than might be expected, I think the West End could beat Wapping out and out, in every essential vice; and, if St. Giles be taken into the account, I know of no salvo in favour of the land over the sea.

Our visit to the Black Horse was paid of a Sunday, that being the leisure moment of all cla.s.ses of labourers, and the day when, being attired in their best, they fancied themselves best prepared to appear in the world. I will here remark, that I have never been in any portion of Christendom that keeps the Sabbath precisely as it is kept in America. In all other countries, even the most rigorously severe in their practices, it is kept as a day of recreation and rest, as well as of public devotion. Even in the American towns, the old observances are giving way before the longings or weaknesses of human nature; and Sunday is no longer what it was. I have witnessed scenes of brawling, blasphemy and rude tumult, in the suburbs of New York, on Sundays, within the last few years, that I have never seen in any other part of the world on similar occasions; and serious doubts of the expediency of the high-pressure principle have beset me, whatever may be the just constructions of doctrine. With the last I pretend not to meddle; but, in a worldly point of view, it would seem wise, if you cannot make men all that they ought to be, to aim at such social regulations as shall make them as little vile as possible. But, to return to the Black Horse in St. Catherine's Lane--a place whose very name was a.s.sociated with vileness.

It is unnecessary to speak of the characters of its female visiters.

Most of them were young, many of them were still blooming and handsome, but all of them were abandoned. "I need tell you nothing of these girls," said Sweeney, who was a bit of a philosopher in his way, ordering a pot of beer, and motioning me to take a seat at a vacant table--"but, as for the men you see here, half are house-breakers and pickpockets, come to pa.s.s the day genteelly among you gentlemen-sailors.

There are two or three faces here that I have seen at the Old Bailey, myself; and how they have remained in the country, is more than I can tell you. You perceive these fellows are just as much at their ease, and the landlord who receives and entertains them is just as much at _his_ ease, as if the whole party were merely honest men."

"How happens it," I asked, "that such known rogues are allowed to go at large, or that this inn-keeper dares receive them?"

"Oh! you're a child yet, or you would not ask such a question! You must know, Master Wallingford, that the law protects rogues as well as honest men. To convict a pickpocket, you must have witnesses and jurors to agree, and prosecutors, and a sight of things that are not as plenty as pocket-handkerchiefs, or even wallets and Bank of England notes.

Besides, these fellows can prove an alibi any day in the week. An alibi, you must know--"

"I know very well what an alibi means, Mr. Sweeney."

"The deuce you do!" exclaimed the protector of the king's revenue, eyeing me a little distrustfully. "And pray how should one as young as you, and coming from a new country like America, know that?"

"Oh!" said I, laughing, "America is just the country for _alibis_--everybody is everywhere, and n.o.body anywhere. The whole nation is in motion, and there is every imaginable opportunity for _alibis_."

I believe I owed the development of Sweeney's "ulterior views" to this careless speech. He had no other idea of the word than its legal signification; and it must have struck him as a little suspicious that one of my apparent condition in life, and especially of my years, should be thus early instructed in the meaning of this very useful professional term. It was a minute before he spoke again, having been all that time studying my countenance.

"And pray, Master Wallingford," he then inquired, "do you happen to know what _nolle prosequi_ means, too?"

"Certainly; it means to give up the chase. The French lugger under Dungeness entered a _nolle prosequi_ as respects my brig, when she found her hands full of the West-Indiaman."

"So, so; I find I have been keeping company all this time with a knowing one, and I such a simpleton as to fancy him green! Well, that I should live to be done by a raw Jonathan!"

"Poh, poh, Mr. Sweeney, I can tell you a story of two of our naval officers, that took place just before we sailed; and then you will learn that all hands of us, on the other side of the Big Pond, understand Latin. One of these officers had been engaged in a duel, and he found it necessary to lie hid. A friend and s.h.i.+pmate, who was in his secret, came one day in a great hurry to tell him that the authorities of the State in which the parties fought had entered a _nolle prosequi"_ against the offenders. He had a newspaper with the whole thing in it, in print.

"What's a _nolle prosequi_, Jack?" asked Tom. "Why, it's Latin, to be sure, and it means some infernal thing or other. We must contrive to find out, for it's half the battle to know who and what you've got to face." "Well, you know lots of lawyers, and dare show your face; so, just step out and ask one." "I'll trust no lawyer; I might put the question to some chap who has been fee'd. But we both studied a little Latin when boys, and between us we'll undermine the meaning." Tom a.s.sented, and to work they went. Jack had the most Latin; but, do all he could, he was not able to find a "_nolle_" in any dictionary. After a great deal of conjecture, the friends agreed it must be the root of "knowledge," and that point was settled. As for "_prosequi_" it was not so difficult, as "sequor" was a familiar word; and, after some cogitation, Jack announced his discoveries. "If this thing were in English, now," he said, "a fellow might understand it. In that case, I should say that the sheriff's men were in "pursuit of knowledge;" that is, hunting after _you_; but Latin, you remember, was always an inverted sort of stuff, and that '_pro_' alters the whole signification. The paper says they've '_entered_ a _nolle prosequi;_' and the 'entered'

explains the whole. 'Entered a nolle' means, have entered on the knowledge, got a scent; you see it is law English; 'pro' means 'how,'

and 'sequi,' 'to give chase.' The amount of it all is, Tom, that they are on your heels, and I must go to work and send you off, at once, two or three hundred miles into the interior, where you may laugh at them and their 'nolle prosequis' together." {*]

{Footnote *: There is said to be foundation for this story.]

Sweeney laughed heartily at this story, though he clearly did not take the joke, which I presume he fancied lay concealed under an American flash language; and he proposed by way of finis.h.i.+ng the day, to carry me to an entertainment where, he gave me to understand, American officers were fond of sometimes pa.s.sing a few minutes. I was led to a Wapping a.s.sembly-room, on entering which I found myself in a party composed of some forty or fifty cooks and stewards of American vessels, all as black as their own pots with partners of the usual colour and bloom of English girls I have as few prejudices of colour as any American well can have; but I will confess this scene struck me as being painfully out of keeping. In England, however, nothing seemed to be thought of it; and I afterwards found that marriages between English women, and men of all the colours of the rainbow, were very common occurrences.

When he had given me this ball as the climax of his compliments, Sweeney betrayed the real motive of all his attentions. After drinking a pot of beer extra, well laced with gin, he offered his services in smuggling anything ash.o.r.e that the Amanda might happen to contain, and which I, as the prize-master, might feel a desire to appropriate to my own particular purposes. I met the proposal with a little warmth, letting my tempter understand that I considered his offer so near an insult, that it must terminate our acquaintance. The man seemed astounded. In the first place, he evidently thought all goods and chattels were made to be plundered, and then he was of opinion that plundering was a very common "Yankee trick." Had I been an Englishman, he might possibly have understood my conduct; but, with him, it was so much a habit to fancy an American a rogue, that, as I afterwards discovered, he was trying to persuade the leader of a press-gang that I was the half-educated and illegitimate son of some English merchant, who wished to pa.s.s himself off for an American. I pretend not to account for the contradiction, though I have often met with the same moral phenomena among his countrymen; but here was as regular a rogue as ever cheated, who pretended to think roguery indigenous to certain nations, among whom his own was not included.

At length I was cheered with the sight of the Crisis, as she came drifting through the tiers, turning, and twisting, and glancing along, just as the Amanda had done before her. The pilot carried her to moorings quite near us; and Talcott, Neb and I were on board her, before she was fairly secured. My reception was very favourable, Captain Williams having seen the account of the "Yankee trick" in the papers; and, understanding the thing just as it had happened, he placed the most advantageous construction on all I had done. For myself, I confess I never had any misgivings on the subject.

All hands of us were glad to be back in the Crisis again. Captain Williams had remained at Falmouth longer than he expected, to make some repairs that could not be thoroughly completed at sea, which alone prevented him from getting into the river as soon as I did myself. Now the s.h.i.+p was in, we no longer felt any apprehension of being impressed, Sweeney's malignancy having set several of the gang upon the scent after us. Whether the fellow actually thought I was an English subject or not, is more than I ever knew; but I felt no disposition myself to let the point be called in question, before my Lord Chief Justice of a Rendezvous. The King's Bench was more governed by safe principles, in its decisions, than the gentlemen who presided in these marine courts of the British navy.

As I was the only officer in the s.h.i.+p who had ever seen anything of London, my fortnight's experience made me a notable man in the cabin. It was actually greater preferment for me than when I was raised from third to be second-mate. Marble was all curiosity to see the English capital, and he made me promise to be his pilot, as soon as duty would allow time for a stroll, and to show him everything I had seen myself. We soon got out the cargo, and then took in ballast for our North-West voyage; the articles we intended to traffic with on the coast, being too few and too light to fill the s.h.i.+p. This kept us busy for a fortnight, after which we had to look about us to obtain men to supply the places of those who had been killed, or sent away in _la Dame de Nantes_. Of course we preferred Americans; and this so much the more, as Englishmen were liable to be pressed at any moment. Fortunately, a party of men that had been taken out of an American s.h.i.+p, a twelvemonth before, by an English cruiser, had obtained their discharges; and they all came to London, for the double purpose of getting some prize-money, and of obtaining pa.s.sages home. These lads were pleased with the Crisis and the voyage, and, instead of returning to their own country, sailor-like, they took service to go nearly round the world. These were first-rate men--Delaware-river seamen--and proved a great accession to our force.

We owed the windfall to the reputation the s.h.i.+p had obtained by her affairs with the letter-of-marque; an account of which, copied from the log-book and a little embellished by some one on sh.o.r.e, he consignee had taken care should appear in the journals. The history of the surprise, in particular, read very well; and the English were in a remarkably good humour, at that time, to receive an account of any discomfiture of a Frenchman. At no period since the year 1775, had the American character stood so high in England as it did just then; the two nations, for a novelty, fighting on the same side. Not long after we left London, the underwriters at Lloyd's actually voted a handsome compliment to an American commander for capturing a French frigate. Stranger things have happened than to have the day arrive when English and American fleets may be acting in concert. No one can tell what is in the womb of time; and I have lived long enough to know that no man can foresee who will continue to be his friends, or a nation what people may become its enemies.

The Crisis at length began to take in her bales and boxes for the North-West Coast, and, as the articles were received slowly, or a few packages at a time, it gave us leisure for play. Our captain was in such good humour with us, on account of the success of the outward-bound pa.s.sage, that he proved very indulgent. This disposition was probably increased by the circ.u.mstance that a s.h.i.+p arrived in a very short pa.s.sage from New York, which spoke our prize; all well, with a smacking southerly breeze, a clear coast, and a run of only a few hundred miles to make. This left the almost moral certainty that _la Dame de Nantes_ had arrived safe, no Frenchman being likely to trust herself on that distant coast, which was now alive with our own cruisers, going to or returning from the West Indies.

I had a laughable time in showing Marble the sights of London. We began with the wild beasts in the Tower, as in duty bound; but of these our mate spoke very disparagingly. He had been too often in the East "to be taken in by such animals;" and, to own the truth, the c.o.c.kneys were easily satisfied on the score of their _menagerie_. We next went to the Monument; but this did not please him. He had seen a shot-tower in America--there was but one in that day--that beat it out and out as to height, and he thought in beauty, too. There was no reasoning against this. St. Paul's rather confounded him. He frankly admitted there was no such church at Kennebunk; though he did not know but Trinity, New York, "might stand up alongside of it." "Stand up along side of it!" I repeated, laughing. "Why, Mr. Marble, Trinity, steeple and all, could stand up in it--_under_ that dome-and then leave more room in this building than all the other churches in New York contain, put altogether."

It was a long time before Marble forgave this speech. He said it was "unpatriotic;" a word which was less used in 1799 than it is used to-day, certainly; but which, nevertheless, _was_ used. It often meant then, as now, a thick and thin pertinacity in believing in provincial marvels; and, in this, Marble was one of the most patriotic men with whom I ever met. I got him out of the church, and along Fleet street, through Temple Bar, and into the Strand, however, in peace; and then we emerged into the arena of fas.h.i.+on, aristocracy and the court. After a time, we worked our way into Hyde Park, where we brought up, to make our observations.

Marble was deeply averse to acknowledging all the admiration he really felt at the turn-outs of London, as they were exhibited in the Park, of a fine day, in their season. It is probable the world elsewhere never saw anything approaching the beauty and magnificence that is here daily seen, at certain times, so far as beauty and magnificence are connected with equipages, including carriages, horses and servants. Unable to find fault with the _tout ensemble_, our mate made a violent attack on the liveries. He protested it was indecent to put a "hired man"--the word _help_ never being applied to the male s.e.x, I believe, by the most fastidious New England purist--in a c.o.c.ked hat; a decoration that ought to be exclusively devoted to the uses of ministers of the gospel, governors of States, and militia officers. I had some notions of the habits of the great world, through books, and some little learned by observation and listening; but Marble scouted at most of my explanations. He put his own construction on everything he saw; and I have often thought, since, could the publishers of travels have had the benefit of his blunders, how many would have profited by them. Gentlemen were just then beginning to drive their own coaches; and I remember, in a particular instance, an ultra in the new mode had actually put his coachman in the inside, while he occupied the d.i.c.key in person. Such a gross violation of the proprieties was unusual, even in London; but there sat Jehu, in all the dignity of cotton-lace, plush, and a c.o.c.ked hat. Marble took it into his head that this man was the king, and no reasoning of mine could persuade him to the contrary. In vain I pointed out to him a hundred similar dignitaries, in the proper exercise of their vocation, on the hammer-cloths; he cared not a straw--this was not showing him one _inside_; and a gentleman inside of a carriage, who wore so fine a coat, and a c.o.c.ked hat in the bargain, could be nothing less than some dignitary of the empire; and why not the king! Absurd as all this will seem, I have known mistakes, connected with the workings of our own inst.i.tutions, almost as great, made by theorists from Europe.

While Marble and I were wrangling on this very point, a little incident occurred, which led to important consequences in the end.

Hackney-coaches, or any other public conveyance, short of post-chaises and post-horses, are not admitted into the English parks. But gla.s.s-coaches are; meaning by this term, which is never used in America, hired carriages that do not go on the stands. We encountered one of these gla.s.s-coaches in a very serious difficulty. The horses had got frightened by means of a wheelbarrow, aided probably by some bad management of the driver, and had actually backed the hind-wheels of the vehicle into the water of the ca.n.a.l. They would have soon had the whole carriage submerged, and have followed it themselves, had it not been for the chief-mate and myself. I thrust the wheelbarrow under one of the forward-wheels, just in time to prevent the final catastrophe; while Marble grasped the spoke with his iron gripe, and, together, he and the wheelbarrow made a resistance that counterbalanced the backward tendency of the team. There was no footman; and, springing to the door, I aided a sickly-looking, elderly man--a female who might very well have been his wife, and another that I took for his daughter--to escape. By my agency all three were put on the dry land, without even wetting their feet, though I fared worse myself. No sooner were they safe, than Marble, who was up to his shoulders in the water, and who had made prodigious efforts to maintain the balance of power, released his hold, the wheelbarrow gave way at the same moment, and the whole affair, coach and horses, had their will, and went, stern foremost, overboard. One of the horses was saved, I believe, and the other drowned; but, a crowd soon collecting, I paid little attention to what was going on in the carriage, as soon as its cargo was discharged.

The gentleman we had saved, pressed my hand with fervour, and Marble's, too; saying that we must not quit him--that we must go home with him. To this we consented, readily enough, thinking we might still be of use. As we all walked towards one of the more private entrances of the Park, I had an opportunity of observing the people we had served. They were very respectable in appearance; but I knew enough of the world to see that they belonged to what is called the middle cla.s.s in England. I thought the man might be a soldier; while the two females had an air of great respectability, though not in the least of fas.h.i.+on. The girl appeared to be nearly as old as myself, and was decidedly pretty. Here, then, was an adventure! I had saved the life of a damsel of seventeen, and had only to fall in love, to become the hero of a romance.