Original Penny Readings Part 17

And Mrs Martha Jinks went.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

If there is any one thing in which I like to see a boy excel, it is in swimming. Now, we upright walking animals seem to be naturally the worst swimmers, and the higher and more n.o.bly proportioned our forehead, the worse for us if in the disagreeable predicament of "a man overboard." Horses, oxen, dogs, cats, pigs, all take to the water readily, or unreadily, and swim with ease, keeping those conveniently placed nostrils just out of water; while poor we, with all our sense and reason, unless we go through a pretty long course of preparation, paddle, splash, flounder, and most likely get drowned. Of course the princ.i.p.al reason for this is the large weight of head above the nostrils, this weight keeping our breathing-apertures beneath the water; while as for Sir Walter Scott, with that tremendously high forehead of his, in spite of all his knowledge he must have been one of the worst of watermen. People well acquainted with such matters tell us that to float, all we have to do is to put our hands behind us, throw back our head, and point our nose impudently at the sky; the mobile fluid will then be just round our face, and we shall float in smooth water.

Now, that all sounds very pretty, and so easy; but though perhaps quite possible of accomplishment to some people, I, for one, must confess that it is out of my reach. Perhaps if I had persevered I might have succeeded, for perseverance is a fine thing; but a stifling snort, a choking cough, the sensation of fluid lead in my brain, thunder in my ears, and a great difficulty in getting upon my legs again in shallow water, proved quite sufficient for me, and I have not since tried the experiment.

But after all there is something delightful in a good bathe; and I look back with brightened eye at the old bathing-place down the meadows where we used to take headers into the clear stream, and dive, and float, and go dogs' paddle, and porpoise fashion, on many a sunny half-holiday.

Those were pleasant days, and the light from them often shines into middle-aged life. I often call to mind the troop of paddling and splashing young rascals standing in the shallows, and more than once I have stood on the Serpentine bridge to look at similar groups.

Now, of course, I do not mean in the depth of winter; though there is always a board up, telling the public that they may bathe there before eight o'clock am, very few respond to the gracious permission of the ranger; for only fancy, dressing on the gravelly sh.o.r.e when the keen north wind blows. I am more eagleish in my aspirations and shun such gooseskinism.

But of all things I think that a boy should learn to be a tolerably proficient swimmer; though, while learning, let him have courage tempered with prudence. I remember having a very narrow escape myself through listening to the persuasion of my schoolfellows, and trying to swim across our river before I possessed either the strength, skill, or courage. Fortunately I was saved; but not before I was nearly insensible, and far out of my depth. But the incident I am about to relate occurred in that well-known piece of water in Hyde Park, and made such an impression upon, my mind, as will, I am sure, never be effaced; for even now, twenty-five years since, it is as fresh as if of yesterday.

I was standing on the bridge watching the splashing youngsters on a fine evening in July, when my attention was suddenly attracted by a boy, apparently of fifteen or sixteen, who had left the shallow parts, and was boldly striking out as if to swim across. He could not have been above forty yards from the bridge, and just above him, as I was, I could gaze admiringly upon his bold young limbs in their rapid strokes, as he manfully clove his way through the clear water. It was a lovely evening, and the water looked beautifully transparent, so that every motion was perfectly plain.

I kept up with him and took quite an interest in his proceedings, for it soon became apparent that he did not mean to turn back, but to go right across; and I remember thinking what a tremendous distance it seemed for so young a swimmer. However, on he went, striking boldly out, and sending the glittering water bubbling, beading, and sparkling away, right and left, as he struggled on "like a stout-hearted swimmer, the spray at his lip--"

On he went, slowly and apparently surely; first a quarter, then a third, then half the distance; and, being so near the bridge, the bal.u.s.trade soon formed a leaning-place for a good many interested spectators; for it is not every boy who can take so long a swim--the swim across generally entailing the necessity for return to the warm clothes waiting upon the bank, in company with that agreeable producer of glow and reaction called a towel.

It soon, however, became evident that the lad beneath us would not take the return swim, and I felt the hot blood flush up into my face as the truth forced itself upon my mind that he was fast growing tired.

Yes, it was soon unmistakable: he was getting tired, and, with his fatigue, losing nerve; for his strokes began to be taken more and more rapidly; he made less way; and now he was but little beyond half-way over, and there were many feet of water beneath him.

I was but a youth then, but I remember well the horror of the moment: the feeling that a fellow-creature was about to lose his life just beneath me, and I powerless to save. There were the Royal Humane Society's boats, but far enough off. Help from the sh.o.r.e was impossible; and now, above the murmured agitation of the crowd upon the bridge, came at intervals the poor boy's faint cry--

"Help--help--boat!"

Those were awful moments; and more than one turned hurriedly away. I could not, though, for my eyes were fixed on the swimmer--nay, struggler now, as at last, rapidly beating the water and crying wildly for aid, he slowly went down with his white form visible beneath the clear water, now agitated and forming concentric rings where he sank.

The cries from the bridge had attracted the notice of one of the Society's men, and he was now rowing up fast; but it was plain to all that he must be too late, when from just by where I stood there was a slight movement and clambering; and then, like an arrow from a bow, with hands pointed above his head, down with a mighty rush right into the spray-splashing water, went a figure accompanied by a ringing cheer from those around.

Up rose the water, and then closed like a boiling cauldron above the gallant swimmer's head. Then followed moments of intense excitement, as nothing but agitated water was visible till the daring one's head rose above the surface for an instant, when he shook the water from his face, dived again, and in a few seconds rose to the surface, with the drowning boy clinging to him.

But now there was fresh help at hand, and in another instant the gallant young man and the boy were in the boat that came up; while with a sobbing sigh of relief I went home, thinking to myself that I would sooner have been that brave man than the greatest hero of yore.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE EVILS OF A WIG.

Now it's all very well to say that truth is strange--stranger than fiction; but the saying won't wash, it isn't fast colours, but partakes of the nature of those carried by certain Austrian regiments--it runs; for there is no rule without an exception, and no person in the full enjoyment of his mental faculties will pretend to say that truth was stranger than fiction in the case of Mr Smith's wig, for the fiction-- the wig--was, to all intents and purposes, stranger than the truth--the genuine head of hair.

Mr Smith--Mr Artaxerxes Smith--in his younger days had often visited the hairdresser's, to sit in state with a flowing print robe tucked in all round his neck, but not so close but the tiny snips and chips from his Hyperion curls would get down within his shirt-collar, and tickle and tease for hours after; he had listened while the oily-tongued-- scented oily-tongued--hairdresser had snipped away and told him that his hair was turning a little grey, or that it was growing thin at the crown, or very dry, or full of dandriff, or coming off, or suffering from one of those inevitable failings which are never discoverable save when having one's hair cut. "Our Philo-h.o.m.o-coma Brus.h.i.tinibus would remove the symptoms in a few days, sir," the hairdresser would say; "remove the dandriff, clarify the scalp, soften the hair, and bring up a fine soft down that would soon strengthen into flowing locks." But though in the gla.s.s before him Mr Smith could see the n.o.ble hair and brilliant whiskers of his operator, he would not listen, he only growled out, "Make haste," or "Never mind," or something else very rude, and the consequence was that he suffered for his neglect of the good hairdressers advice, so that at last Mr Smith couldn't have given any one a lock of his hair to save his life. He was bald--completely bald-- his head looked like vegetable ivory, and in despair he consulted a Saville-row physician.

"Nature, sir, nature," said the great man; "a peculiarity of const.i.tution, a failing in the absorbents and dessicating, wasting in the structural development of the cuticle and sub-cuticle--the hair being a small filament issuing from the surface of the scalp from a bulbous radix, and forming a capillary covering; which covering, in your case, has failed, sir, failed."

Mr Smith knew that before he made up his mind to invest a guinea, but he only said--

"And what course should you pursue in my case?"

"Well, yes--er--er--um, ah! I should--er--that is to say, I should wear a wig."

That was just what Mr Smith's hairdresser had told him for nothing, though, certainly, with sundry ideas _in petto_ that it might fall to his task to make this wig; but Mr Smith had expected something else from a man who put MD at the end of his name.

"Too big for his profession," said Mr Smith, and he bought a pot of the Count de Caput Medusae's Golden Balm, prepared from the original recipe given by that inventive Count to the aunt's cousin's uncle of the proprietor.

"Try another pot, sir," said the vendor, examining the bare head with a powerful magnifying gla.s.s. "Perfect down on the surface, sir, though not plain to the naked eye. I should advise the large twenty-two shilling pots, sir, and the vigorous rubbing in, to be continued night and morning."

But if there had been any down it knew better than to stop and suffer the scrubbing inflicted by Mr Smith upon his bare poll, and a month only found him with the scalp turned from waxy-white to pinky-red, while his head was sore to a degree.

"Jackal's formula produces hair, beard, or whiskers upon the smoothest skin."

But, perhaps, Mr Smith's was not the smoothest skin, but not for want of rubbing and polishing, and the formula did not produce anything but a great many naughty words, while "Brimstone Degenerator," "The Capillary Attraction," and a score of other things, only made holes in several five-pound notes, while Mr Smith, unable to discover any more filaments issuing from the surface of his scalp from bulbous radices, came to the conclusion that he really must have a wig.

He had it; and found it light and warm, and tried to make himself believe that it could not be told from the real thing. He would brush it before the gla.s.s, or run his hands through the curls when any one was looking, and pretend to scratch his head, but the brute of a thing would slip on one side, or get down over his forehead, or go back, or do something stupid, as if of impish tendencies and exclaiming to the world at large, "I'm a wig, I am!"

Brushed up carefully was that wig every now and then by the maker, who would send it back glossed and pomatumed to a wonderful degree of perfection; when again Mr Smith would try and persuade himself that with such a skin parting no one could fail to be deceived, but the people found him out when he lost his hat from a puff of wind, which jumped it off and sent it rolling along the pavement.

We have most of us chased our hats upon a windy day, now getting close up, now being left behind, and have tried, as is the correct thing, to smile; but who could smile if the pomatum had adhered to the lining of the hat, and he was scudding under a bare pole in chase of hat and wig.

After that episode in his life, Mr Smith brushed up his wig himself, and always used oil; while he found his wig decidedly economical, for it never wanted cutting.

Being a bachelor with plenty of time on his hands, Mr Smith used to spend it as seemed good in his own eyes, and a very favourite pursuit of his was visit-paying to the various cathedral towns, for the purpose of studying what he termed the "architectural points." The consequence was, that after spending an afternoon examining nave and chancel; chapel, window, pillar, arch, and groin; frowning at corbels, and grinning at the grotesque gutter-bearers; Mr Smith found himself seated at dinner in that far-famed hostelry known as the "Golden Bull," in the cathedral town of Surridge.

The dinner was good, the wine might have been worse, the linen and plate were clean, and at length, seated in front of the comfortable fire, sipping his port, Mr Smith mused upon the visit he had paid to the cathedral. After a while, from habit, he scratched his head and drew the wig aside, which necessitated his rising to adjust the covering by the gla.s.s, after which Mr Smith sighed and filled his gla.s.s again.

At length the bell brought the waiter, and the waiter brought the boots, and the boots brought the boot-jack and the slippers, and then the chambermaid brought the hand candlestick, and the maiden ushered the visitor up to Number 25 in the great balcony which surrounded the large yard, where even now a broken-winded old stagecoach drew up once a week, as if determined to go till it dropped, in spite of all the railways in the kingdom.

But Mr Smith had not been five minutes in his bedroom, and divested himself of only one or two articles of his dress, when he remembered that he had given no orders for an early breakfast, so as to meet the first up-train.

The bell soon brought the chambermaid, who looked rather open-mouthed as Mr Smith gave his orders. He then prepared himself for bed, wherein, with a comfortable cotton nightcap pulled over his head, he soon wandered into the land of dreams.

About an hour had pa.s.sed, and Mr Smith was mentally busy making a drawing of a grim old corbel--a most grotesque head in the cathedral close, when he was terribly bothered because the moss-covered, time-eaten old stony face would not keep still: now it winked, now it screwed up its face, now it thrust its tongue first into one cheek and then into the other, making wrinkles here, there, and everywhere, till he put down his pencil, and asked what it meant. But instead of answering, the face nodded and came down nearer and nearer, backing him further and further away, till he was shut up in one of the cloisters, and hammering at the door to get out.

"Open the door!" he roared again and again; till he woke to find that it was somebody outside knocking at his door and thundering to get in.

"Here, open the door now, or it'll be the wuss for yer!" growled a hoa.r.s.e voice, whereupon tearing off his cap, Mr Smith leaped out of bed, and into some garments, and then stood shivering and wondering whether the place was on fire.

"What's all the noise?" cried some one in the gallery.

"Madman, sir, outer the 'sylum, and keepers want to ketch him."

"Poor fellow," was the response; and then came the demand for admittance, and the thundering again.