Part 18 (1/2)

Tennyson was fast losing hope.

Worn out with early rising, they engaged a retired Pullman-car porter to take up his quarters, and being a negro his presence added a touch of colour to their life.

The poet also engaged a neighbouring divine at fifty cents an evening to read to the child the best hundred books, with explanations. The May Queen tolerated him, and used to like to play with his silver hair, but protested that he was prosy.

At the end of his resources the poet resolved upon desperate measures.

He chose an evening when the cottager and his wife were out at a dinner-party.

At nightfall Tennyson and his accomplices entered the girl's room.

She defended herself savagely with her brick, but was overpowered.

The negro seated himself upon her chest, while the clergyman hastily read a few verses about the comfort of early rising at the last day.

As he concluded, the poet drove his pen into her eye.

”Last call!” cried the negro porter triumphantly.

III.-OLD MR. LONGFELLOW ON BOARD THE HESPERUS.

”It was the schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintry sea, And the skipper had taken his little daughter to bear him company.”-LONGFELLOW.

There were but three people in the cabin party of the Hesperus: old Mr. Longfellow, the skipper, and the skipper's daughter.

The skipper was much attached to the child, owing to the singular whiteness of her skin and the exceptionally limpid blue of her eyes; she had hitherto remained on sh.o.r.e to fill lucrative engagements as albino lady in a circus.

This time, however, her father had taken her with him for company. The girl was an endless source of amus.e.m.e.nt to the skipper and the crew. She constantly got up games of puss-in-the-corner, forfeits, and Dumb Crambo with her father and Mr. Longfellow, and made Scripture puzzles and geographical acrostics for the men.

Old Mr. Longfellow was taking the voyage to restore his shattered nerves. From the first the captain disliked Henry. He was utterly unused to the sea and was nervous and fidgety in the extreme. He complained that at sea his genius had not a sufficient degree of lat.i.tude. Which was unparalleled presumption.

On the evening of the storm there had been a little jar between Longfellow and the captain at dinner. The captain had emptied it several times, and was consequently in a reckless, quarrelsome humour.

”I confess I feel somewhat apprehensive,” said old Henry nervously, ”of the state of the weather. I have had some conversation about it with an old gentleman on deck who professed to have sailed the Spanish main. He says you ought to put into yonder port.”

”I have,” hiccoughed the skipper, eyeing the bottle, and added with a brutal laugh that ”he could weather the roughest gale that ever wind did blow.” A whole Gaelic society, he said, wouldn't fizz on him.

Draining a final gla.s.s of grog, he rose from his chair, said grace, and staggered on deck.

All the time the wind blew colder and louder.

The billows frothed like yeast. It was a yeast wind.

The evening wore on.

Old Henry shuffled about the cabin in nervous misery.

The skipper's daughter sat quietly at the table selecting verses from a Biblical clock to amuse the s.h.i.+p's bosun, who was suffering from toothache.

At about ten Longfellow went to his bunk, requesting the girl to remain up in his cabin.