from one of them critters. I've tried 'em on one or two. They're precious hard to take alive. They're yours-take 'em. I wouldn't give 'em to every one. I like the looks of you." I said, "Oh, if they 're so precious, I will not deprive you" He interrupted me violently, "Keep 'em; not in your hind pocket -they might get out. Carry them in your vest, and then you can keep your eye on them. But take 'em you shall." Trembling, I made an attempt to grasp the bottle. (To be continued.) MRS. RAMSBOTHAM thinks the greatest luxury at dinner is, when they're in season, to have a dish of Plumber's Eggs. "They must be expensive," she adds, in a letter to her Niece; because, when I mentioned my taste to Mr. WAGSTAFFE, he informed me these Plumber's Eggs came from a long way off, being generally found among the Glaziers of the Swiss Mountains, being laid by the seabirds (a sort of duck) that stay at home with their Mère de Glass." THE HERRING HARVEST. "About 100 boats entered Whitby Harbour the other day with catches of enormous, and special trains had to be put on to get it away."-Standard. herrings ranging from 5000 to 40,000 per boat. The total quantity was Он, merry is the herring that swims within the sea, Oh, dainty is the herring that lies upon the dish, 66 ON BOARD THE AMARINTHA." WE have hauled up our peak, we have squared our halliards, we have taken in taykel, we have hauled up the stay-sail. We fly along, we don't use the spinnaker, the hatches are battened down, the tiller is tied with a rope, and the man at the tiller holds on by another rope. HAILSHER, wrapped up in patent leggings, mackintosh, and with a sou' wester tied over his ears, is curled up on the taffrail examining the waves through his eyeglass. BOLBY, in an entirely fresh suit, consisting of a rough pilot coat, an oilskin hat, and a pair of seven-leagued boots reaching up over his knees, reminds me of the theatrical portrait of "Mr. So-and-So as Will Watch, the Bold Smuggler," only without the belt and pistols, though he might have easily stowed these away under his capacious pilot-jacket; while CULLINS, whose complexion at this moment has assumed the faint tint of a Spanish olive that has been some time out of bottle, might, on account of his limp and dejected appearance, be taken for a prisoner, whom the Bold Buccaneer, sailing under the burgee of the Death'shead and Cross-bones, is conveying to a secret cavern in some distant Pirate's Isle, with a view to a subsequent ransom being offered by the Composer's "friends at a distance," who under these circumstances would be "requested to take notice," and stump up. Were this really the case, I fancy the Buccaneer's speculation would be a bad one. With every button of my Ulster doing its duty, my collar turned up, and my deerstalker pressed tightly down, I defy the elements, stand by a bulwark, and keep a firm grip on the rigging. Here's a wave coming-up we go-down we go. Here's another bigger than the first-bang-and though we dodge, and though, without daring to let go of my rope, I get as much as I possibly can of myself hidden for a second behind the bulwark, it bursts over us with the force of a small waterspout, and we are shaking ourselves like Newfoundland dogs after a bath, and laughing, to show what careless, hardy, daring, devil-may-care Rovers we all are-all except the Composer, who takes what he gets of his ducking with the utterly resigned air of a man who has given up all hope, and to whom I quote the Shakspearian line, "Let Hercules himself do what he may, The" when he stops me with a sad reproachful look, which lasts but the space of a flash of summer lightning, and then his eyes resume the fixed, vacant stare of one of Madame TUSSAUD's life-like effigies in wax, to which, on the whole, in colour and rigidity of position, he bears a striking resemblance. Waves come at us from every direction. There are a lot of waves going, as it were, the wrong way; these, coming into sharp collision with others going the right way, jump up, flood the deck, wet the Composer's shoes-(he has twice tried to tuck his feet in under the chair, but the water "made for them" with malice aforethought, running in at them each time as a cat might after a mouse, and so he has given up even this slight attempt at making himself comfortable), -and then rush out tumultuously at the open scuppers. Personally, I am glad of the wind and wetting; it keeps me fresh-and well. I think I'm well. The excitement of this ocean steeple-chase-the ship being the sea-horse, and taking all its fences magnificently-prevents my experiencing any decided qualmishness, and I exclaim aloud, "Ah! this is indeed enjoyable!"" "Isn't it ?" cries the Dean. 66 Delightful!" says HAILSHER, politely nodding his approval of the sea's proceedings up to this point. "Capital fun!" seems to shout, by way of returning our compliments, the biggest wave we've yet had,-a wave that staggers us all, causing me to lose my rope, when I am swung forcibly round, and find myself sprawling over the top of the state-cabin skylight. The Steward has crept up the Companion, and the Steward's head, coming out, announces "Luncheon!" and guarding his head as if expecting some practical joke from an exuberant wave. The Composer nods assent. I am hungry, and a yacht's cabin is not like a steamboat's saloon. I will risk it; and, after a cheerful nod to CULLINS, intended in a charitable spirit to impress him with the notion of how very well I am, I watch my opportunity, make a fairly good shot for the opening, and descend backwards. My sea-conscience says, "Are you doing the right thing?" I have my doubts. I fall against two wrong doors, and then reel into the cabin. The Steward is there, all sideways, with a tray, apparently making a violent but vain effort to walk up a hill; the Dean is there, slanting in a totally different direction; HAILSHER is standing up at what was a sober, sensible table, but which is now only an intoxicated eccentricity, sloping downwards, and doing its best to shake everything off on to the cabin floor. The piano is going up in the air, the chairs are dancing-I don't know which way to go-I grasp at nothing in the air like an afterdinner Macbeth seeing several daggers-and, worst of all, there's the whole scene before me repeated in the looking-glass, where the muddle seems to be made twenty times worse. Oh, dear! now there are two HAILSHERS struggling with ham, and two Stewards going up hills with brandies and sodas on trays, and two Deans rolling about with loaves of bread, and an awful figure, with staring eyes, yellow face, and rough hair, bearing a strong family likeness to myself, but startlingly suggestive of what my appearance might be after a few years of life as a bushranger, and before I have recovered from the shock which the mirror's reflection of myself has given me, someone or something-I fancy at the moment it's a chair-hands me a plateful of ham and some bread, when, all at once, I am seized with an uncontrollable yearning for mustard, and I say, "I'll come for it," meaning the mustard-pot, when, in making one step to the right towards the table, I find myself shot off by some invisible force in exactly the opposite direction, where I arrive, in an attitude of supplication, clutching the edge of the sofa with one hand and saving my plate with the other. Then I pause for breathing time, and all I notice is that the Steward is still vainly toiling up hill with the same brandy and soda on a tray, which he is vainly trying to deliver to HAILSHER, who seems as far off as ever. I get on to my knees, and collect my food. I am still determined as to mustard. The Dean's voice-I only see a shadowy form of him, with an uncertain outline, in the glass-says, "Here it is!" and on all fours I make for the direction whence the voice proceeded, leaving my plate on the floor. Somehow, HAILSHER hands me the mustard-that is, I am suddenly thrown forward with a lurch to receive it, and find myself on a level with HAILSHER's hand in which is the mustard-pot. The Steward is slanting backwards on his heels, engaged, apparently, in a frantic struggle with a cupboard. A minute more of this topsy-turveydom, and it will be all over with me. Happy Thought.-Champagne! One glass! The Dean, who seems to be rolling about the place, gives me the champagne,-I think it's the Dean who does this, though the Steward's legs are mixed up with it somehow, but anyhow I know it isn't HAILSHER, as he appears to be "setting," as they say in quadrilles, Shall IP or shan't I? to the ham, and he and his vis-à-vis are doing an eccentric dance Diagram showing relative positions of Yacht, Can I? or can't I? I from side to side. I just see this, as I drink off my champagne, Table, and Ourselves. (Yacht looks a little too am all right on deck-which I take kneeling, as though I were a Jacobite pledging the like a tee-to-tum, but the intention is clear.) couldn't be better. But king over the water," and then feeling that one second more A.A. Yacht. B.B. Ourselves and swing-table. to go below-is it not as below will settle, or rather unsettle me effectually, I make a wild it were to tempt Provi- dash for where I think the door is, bump up against the side, jerk dence? Will not the cabin be stuffy? It has been shut up all the to the right, stagger to the left, fall sideways into a recess where the morning; and won't everything be see-sawing. water-proofs ought to be, stagger out of this, go head foremost against "I shan't come down," the Composer says, shortly and decisively, a side cabin-door which doesn't yield to pressure (thank goodness!) in answer to the Dean's hearty invitation. then fall back on the second step of the companion, seize the companion-rail, dash up the stairs-bang my head against the cover which has been shut down, ejaculate forcibly, struggle to remove 66 C.C.C. Evident. Shall I send you a sandwich and a glass of brandy-and-water on deck?" asks HAILSHER, very cautiously descending the Companion, it, crawl out on deck, stagger upon my legs once more, gasp, regain my position, and my firm grip on the rope of safety! How do I feel? How am I? I think I'm all right. I question whether taking just that extra inch of ham was quite judicious, but the champagne, coupled with my determination to come on deck, saved me. Another five minutes! No more qualms a magnificent wave is coming full at us! I will not duck my head! Prepare to receive wave! Shoulder arms! Present! Water!! Bang !!!.. Delicious! Delightful! I am a giant refreshed with salt water! And-which is everything to me-I am warm and comfortable, an effect that I feel is entirely due to that one glass of Pommery! If challenged to make another rhyme, I would sing the praises of that glorious vintage of champagne," as a certain remedy for mal de mer. I will tell this to the Composer. It will do him good. Where is he? There is the vacant chair. Has he while we've been carousing below-has he been washed overboard at last? The man at the helm will know. He says that the Gentleman didn't feel quite right -he has gone below. 66 So the day wears on. Rougher and rougher-and always more or less within sight of Ailsa Craig, covered with seabirds, like white pocket-handkerchiefs spread out to dry. Arran in view. Comparatively still water. I descend to see after CULLINS. I find him behind the cabin-door. Better in colour and general tone but inclined to take a despondent view of the future. He freshens up and when we are once more anchored stem and stern in Lamlash Bay, he is as ready for dinner as the rest of us. We notice that he is more amenable, and less grumpy. He is almost cheerful, and very nearly polite, if not absolutely considerate. He does not feel up to music, so we sit silently enjoying the calm beauties of a moonlight night in Lamlash Bay, and then turn in. All tired. "I say," observes my "stable companion," as he sits by the side of his berth, en déshabillé, rubbing his knees thoughtfully, "I sayI am all attention. "You're going away after a week of it, ain't you?" I point out to him that this course will be most rash; that he is throwing away six weeks of pleasure because he has had one day's bad experience: I assure him that he will get more and more accustomed to it as he goes on: I remind him that NELSON was always ill, "at starting" I add emphatically, foreseeing his objection to the eminent example as a case in point of not having got over it: and I finish with, heartily, "You stick to the ship, and you won't be ill again!" "Ah!" he exclaims, with a dissatisfied air, "I don't so much mind being ill; but" and here, in his classic costume, he climbs into his berth, and shivers. "You don't mind being ill!" I repeat, astonished. "But-what?" "Well, I don't mind so much being ill," he returns, in a tone of most intense annoyance," but everything's so damp!' I have no answer to this. Our conversation ends. He is right; there is a good deal of dampness about, specially in the berths. The things have a way of clinging affectionately to you, and you do feel strongly inclined to find fault with somebody for their not having been thoroughly aired. But I say to him, "Isn't it often the same at the sea-side ?" "Not exactly the same," the Composer replies, discontentedly, as he turns his face to the wall, and in a few minutes we are both sweetly asleep in the utter calm of Lamlash Bay. 66 LEEDS AND LEADS. (Cross Questions Concerning the Coming Speech.) WHAT Will he say? Will he smash the Fair Traders ? What will he play? Oh, we know he can stump it, But wait to find out what he leads with at Leeds. Fire-Water. GODALMING has achieved a triumph. Its fireworks are waterworks, and the little town is electrically lighted by water-power. How do you do it ?" inquired a simple stranger. The Godalminger took him down to the water's edge and fully answered the question by saying, as he pointed to the river, "That is the Wey." ROBERT AT THE SEA-SIDE. I'VE bin spending my long Wacation of a fortnite at Northgate. Northgate's a nice quiet place, Northgate is, tho' it quite fails in most things that constitoots reel injoyment at the sea-side, such as Bands and Niggers and Minsterels and all that. It's a grand place for weather, for it generally blows hard at Northgate, and wen it doesn't blow hard it rains hard, which makes a nice change, and a change is wot we all goes to the sea-side for. It seems a werry favrite place for inwaleeds, for the place is full on 'em, Bath cheers is in great demand and all the seats on the Prade is allus occypied by 'em. Dr. SCRATCHEм too sends most of his favrite cases there, and you can't walk on the Peer without facing lots on 'em. BROWN says the place makes him as sollem as a Common Cryer, and he hasn't had a good hearty larf since he came here, but then BROWN isn't quite sattisfied with his Lodgings, and has acshally recommended his Land Lady to turn her house into the Norfolk Howard Hotel, Unlimited, so perhaps she may account for his want of spirits. Northgate's rather a rum place as regards the tide. Wen it's eye it comes all over the place and makes such a jolly mess, and wen it's low it runs right out to sea and you can't see it. BROWN tried to persuade me as how as one werry eye tide was a spring tide, but as it was in September I wasn't so green as to beleeve that rubbish. It seems quite a pet place for Artists, I mean Sculpchers, at least s'pose they must be Sculpchers, and that they brings their Moddels with 'em, for the Bathing Machines is stuck close to the Peer, so dreckly after breakfast the Moddels goes and bathes in the Sea, and the Sculpchers goes on the Peer, and there's nothink to divert their attention from their interesting studdys, and many on 'em passes ours there quietly meditating among the Bathing Machines. I BROWN says, in his sarcastic way, it's the poor Sculpchers as comes here, who can't afford to pay for their Moddels, so they comes here and gets 'em free gratis for nothink. There's sum werry nice walks in the nayberhood but I never walks 'em, for it seems to me that the grate joke of every Buysicler and Trysicler, and the place swarms with 'em, is to cum quietly behind you and see how close he can go by you without nocking you down. I'm sure the jumps and the starts and the frites as I had the fust day or too, kep my Art in my mouth till I thort it would have choked me. How Ladys, reel Ladys too, can expose theirselves on such things I can't make out. I herd a young Swell say that wot with them and what with the Bathing Moddels it was as good as a Burlesk! We've got werry cumferrabel Lodgings, we have, just opposite the Gas Works and near a Brick Field. When the wind is South or West we smells the bricks and when its East we smells the Gas, but when its doo North we don't smell nuffen excep just a trifle from the Dranes, and so long as we keeps quite at the end of the werry long Peer we don't smell nuffen at all excep the sea weed. Our Landlord's a werry respeckabel man and the Stoker on our little Railway, and so werry fond of nussing our little children that they are allus as black as young Sweeps. Their gratest treat is to go with him to the Stashun and stand on the ingin when they are shuntin, so preshus little they gits of the sea breezes. We've had a fust rate Company staying here. I've seen no less than 2 Aldermen and 1 Warden of a City Compny, but they didn't stay long. I don't think the living was good enuff for 'em. It must be a werry trying change, from every luxery that isn't in season, to meer beef and mutton and shrimps! and those rayther course. I think our Boatmen is about the lazyest set of fellows as ever I seed. So far from begging on you to have a soft Roe with the Tide, or a hard Roe against it, they makes all sorts of egseewses for not taking you, says they're just a going to dinner, or they thinks the wind 's a gitting up, or there ain't enuff water! Not enuff water in the Sea to flote a Bote! wen any one could see as there was thousands of galluns there. I saw some on 'em this mornin bringin in sum fish, and asked the price of a pair of Souls, but they axshally said they didn't dare sell one, for every man Jack of 'em must be sent to Billingsgate! but werry likely sum on 'em might be sent back again in the arternoon and then I could get some at the Fishmonger's! What a nice derangemunt! There was the butiful fresh fish reddy for eating, there was me and my family reddy to eat 'em, but no, they must be packed in boxes and carried to the Station and then sent by Rale to London, and then sent by Wan to Billingsgate, and that takes I'm told ever so many hours, and then carried back to the London Stashun, and then sent by Rale to Northgate, and then carried from the Stashun to the Fishmonger's and then I'm allowed to buy 'em! Well if that isn't a butiful business like arangement, my Lord Mare, I should like to know what is. However, as I wunce herd a Deputy say, when things cums to their wust, things is sure to mend, and I don't think that things can be much wusser than that. (Signed) ROBERT. |