Fifty Bab Ballads Part 12

They waited on the Secretary, somewhere in Whitehall, Who said he would receive them any day they liked to call.

"Consider, sir, the hardship of this interesting case: A prison life brings with it something very like disgrace; It's telling on young WILLIAM, who's reduced to skin and bone - Remember he's a gentleman, with money of his own.

"He had an ample income, and of course he stands in need Of sherry with his dinner, and his customary weed; No delicacies now can pa.s.s his gentlemanly lips - He misses his sea-bathing and his continental trips.

"He says the other prisoners are commonplace and rude; He says he cannot relish uncongenial prison food.

When quite a boy they taught him to distinguish Good from Bad, And other educational advantages he's had.

"A burglar or garotter, or, indeed, a common thief Is very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef, Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens can afford, - A cut above the diet in a common workhouse ward.

"But beef and mutton-broth don't seem to suit our WILLIAM'S whim, A boon to other prisoners--a punishment to him.

It never was intended that the discipline of gaol Should dash a convict's spirits, sir, or make him thin or pale."

"Good Gracious Me!" that sympathetic Secretary cried, "Suppose in prison fetters MISTER WILLIAM should have died!

Dear me, of course! Imprisonment for LIFE his sentence saith: I'm very glad you mentioned it--it might have been For Death!

"Release him with a ticket--he'll be better then, no doubt, And tell him I apologize." So MISTER WILLIAM'S out.

I hope he will be careful in his ma.n.u.scripts, I'm sure, And not begin experimentalizing any more.

Ballad: THE b.u.mBOAT WOMAN'S STORY.

I'm old, my dears, and shrivelled with age, and work, and grief, My eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, the Thief!

For terrible sights I've seen, and dangers great I've run - I'm nearly seventy now, and my work is almost done!

Ah! I've been young in my time, and I've played the deuce with men!

I'm speaking of ten years past--I was barely sixty then: My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing toast of the Royal Fleet!

A b.u.mboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships With apples and cakes, and fowls, and beer, and halfpenny dips, And beef for the generous mess, where the officers dine at nights, And fine fresh peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites.

Of all the kind commanders who anch.o.r.ed in Portsmouth Bay, By far the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.'

LIEUTENANT BELAYE commanded the gunboat Hot Cross Bun, She was seven and thirty feet in length, and she carried a gun.

With a laudable view of enhancing his country's naval pride, When people inquired her size, LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied, "Oh, my ship, my ship is the first of the Hundred and Seventy- ones!"

Which meant her tonnage, but people imagined it meant her guns.

Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below, "Come down, Little b.u.t.tercup, come" (for he loved to call me so), And he'd tell of the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part, And so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S heart!

But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he, "I'm ordered to sail with the Hot Cross Bun to the German Sea."

And the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day, For every Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

And I went to a back back street, with plenty of cheap cheap shops, And I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops, And I went to LIEUTENANT BELAYE (and he never suspected ME!) And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea.

We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one, - Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the Hot Cross Bun, I'm sorry to say that I've heard that sailors sometimes swear, But I never yet heard a Bun say anything wrong, I declare.

When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a "Messmate, ho! What cheer?"

But here, on the Hot Cross Bun, it was "How do you do, my dear?"

When Jack Tars growl, I believe they growl with a big big D- But the strongest oath of the Hot Cross Buns was a mild "Dear me!"

Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them slick: Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick; And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair, They spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair.

They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run, And they screamed when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun.

And as he was proud of his gun--such pride is hardly wrong - The Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long.

They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said That BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red - That JOE looked quite his age--or somebody might declare That BARNACLE'S long pig-tail was never his own own hair.

BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him, "But, then," he would say, "there is little to do on a gunboat trim I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too - And it IS such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew."

I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped!

Reef topsails! Make all taut! There's dirty weather ahead!

(I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun: In THAT case, I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done!)

After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one day, And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE, And after a long long week had pa.s.sed (and it seemed like a life), LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife!

He up, and he says, says he, "O crew of the Hot Cross Bun, Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!"

And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits, And all fell down in so many separate fainting-fits.

And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me, Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array, To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

It's strange to think that _I_ should ever have loved young men, But I'm speaking of ten years past--I was barely sixty then, And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow!

And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their l.u.s.tre now!

Ballad: LOST MR. BLAKE.

MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner, Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak, He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a gla.s.s of grog on a Sunday after dinner, And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or--if Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it--three times a week.

He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray, And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's distresses, He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner sort of way.

I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics, When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the proper width of a chasuble's hem; I have even known him to sneer at albs--and as for dalmatics, Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for THEM.

He didn't believe in persons who, not being well off themselves, are obliged to confine their charitable exertions to collecting money from wealthier people, And looked upon individuals of the former cla.s.s as ecclesiastical hawks; He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with his priest's robes than with his church or his steeple, And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because somebody over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to dress himself up like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.

This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS.

She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had always been particularly blameless; Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence, owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter of figs.

She was an excellent person in every way--and won the respect even of MRS. GRUNDY, She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn't have wasted a penny if she had owned the Koh-i-noor.

She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday, And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends (when she had quite done with them), and made them into an excellent soup for the deserving poor.

I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE--that outcast of society, And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to look dubious and to cough, She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety, And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was uncommonly well off.