Book: The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Part 4.
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Robert Seymour >> The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Part 4.
All in the basket Tommy stow'd
The piscatory spoil;
Says Nobbs, "We've netted two at least,
Albeit we've no toil."
Amazed at his own luck, he threw
The tempting bait again,
And presently a nibble had--
A bite! he pull'd amain!
His rod beneath the fish's weight
Now bent just like a bow,
"What's this?" cried Nobbs; his son replied,
"A salmon, 'tis, I know."
And sure enough a monstrous perch,
Of six or seven pounds,
He from the water drew, whose bulk
Both dad and son confounds.
"O! Gemini!" he said, when he
"O! Pisces!" should have cried;
And tremblingly the wriggling fish
Haul'd to the bridge's side.
When, lo! just as he stretched his hand
To grasp the perch's fin,
The slender line was snapp'd in twain,
The perch went tumbling in!
"Gone! gone! by gosh!" scream'd Nobbs, while Tom
Too eager forward bent,
And, with a kick, their basket quick
Into the river sent.
THE PRACTICAL JOKER.--No. I.
Those wags who are so fond of playing off their jokes upon others,
require great skill and foresight to prevent the laugh being turned
against themselves.
Jim Smith was an inveterate joker, and his jokes were, for the most part,
of the practical kind. He had a valuable tortoiseshell cat, whose beauty
was not only the theme of praise with all the old maids in the
neighbourhood, but her charms attracted the notice of numerous feline
gentlemen dwelling in the vicinity, who were, nocturnally, wont to pay
their devoirs by that species of serenades, known under the cacophonous
name of caterwauling.
One very ugly Tom, (who, it was whispered abroad, was a
great--grandfather, and scandalously notorious for gallantries unbecoming
a cat of his age) was particularly obnoxious to our hero; and, in an
unlucky moment, he resolved to 'pickle him,' as he facetiously termed it.
Now his process of pickling consisted in mixing a portion of prussic acid
in milk. Taking the precaution to call in his own pet and favorite, he
placed the potion in the accustomed path of her long-whiskered suitor.
Tom finding the coast clear slipped his furry body over the wall, and
dropped gently as a lady's glove into the garden, and slily smelling the
flower-borders, as if he were merely amusing himself in the elegant study
of botany, stealthily approached the house, and uttering a low plaintive
'miau,' to attract the attention of his dear Minx, patiently awaited the
appearance of his true-love.
Minx heard the voice she loved so well, and hurried to meet her ancient
beau. A slight noise, however, alarmed his timidity, and he scaled the
wall in a twinkling.
Presently the screams of the maid assured him that 'something had taken
place;' and when he heard the words, "Oh! the cat! the cat!" he felt
quite certain that the potion had taken effect. He walked deliberately
down stairs, and behold! there lay Miss Minx, his own favorite,
struggling in the agonies of death, on the parlor rug. The fact is, he
had shut the doors, but forgotten that the window was open, and the
consequence was, the loss of poor Minx, who had drunk deep of the
malignant poison designed for her gallant.
This was only one of a thousand tricks that had miscarried.
Having one day ascertained that his acquaintance, Tom Wilkins, was gone
out 'a-shooting,' he determined to way-lay him on his return.
It was a beautiful moonlight night in the latter end of October.
Disguising himself in a demoniac mask, a pair of huge wings, and a forked
tail, he seated himself on a stile in the sportsman's path.
Anon he espied the weary and unconscious Tom approaching, lost in the
profundity of thought, and though not in love, ruminating on every miss
he had made in that day's bootless trudge.
He almost, touched the stile before his affrighted gaze encountered this
'goblin damned.'
His short crop bristled up, assuming the stiffness of a penetrating hair
brush.
For an instant his whole frame appeared petrified, and the tide and
current of his life frozen up in thick-ribbed ice.
Jim Smith, meanwhile, holding out a white packet at arm's length,
exclaimed in a sepulchral tone,
"D'ye want a pound of magic shot?"
THE PRACTICAL JOKER.--No. II.
Awfully ponderous as the words struck upon the tightened drum of Tom's
auriculars, they still tended to arouse his fainting spirit.
"Mer-mer-mercy on us!" ejaculated he, and shrank back a pace or two,
still keeping his dilating optics fixed upon the horrible spectre.
"D'ye want a pound of magic shot?" repeated Jim Smith.
"Mur-mur-der!" screamed Tom; and, mechanically raising his gun for action
of some kind appeared absolutely necessary to keep life within him, he
aimed at the Tempter, trembling in every joint.
Jim, who had as usual never calculated upon such a turning of the tables,
threw off his head--his assumed one, of course, and, leaping from the
stile, cried aloud--
"Oh! Tom, don't shoot--don't shoot!--it's only me--Jim Smith!"
Down dropped the gun from the sportsman's grasp.
"Oh! you fool! you--you--considerable fool!" cried he, supporting
himself on a neighbouring hawthorn, which very kindly and considerately
lent him an arm on the occasion. "It's a great mercy--a very great
mercy, Jim--as we wasn't both killed!--another minute, only another
minute, and--but it won't bear thinking on."
"Forgive me, Tom," said the penitent joker; "I never was so near a corpse
afore. If I didn't think the shots were clean through me, and that's
flat."
"Sich jokes," said Tom, "is onpardonable, and you must be mad."
"I confess I'm out of my head, Tom," said Jim, who was dangling the huge
mask in his hand, and fast recovering from the effects of his fright.
"Depend on it, I won't put myself in such a perdicament again, Tom. No,
no--no more playing the devil; for, egad! you had liked to have played
the devil with me."
"A joke's a joke," sagely remarked Tom, picking up his hat and fowling
piece.
"True!" replied Smith; "but, I think, after all, I had the greatest cause
for being in a fright. You had the best chance, at any rate; for I could
not have harmed you, whereas you might have made a riddle of me."
"Stay, there!" answered Tom; "I can tell you, you had as little cause for
fear as I had, you come to that; for the truth is, the deuce a bit of
powder or shot either was there in the piece!"
"You don't say so!" said Jim, evidently disappointed and chop-fallen at
this discovery of his groundless fears. "Well, I only wish I'd known it,
that's all!"--then, cogitating inwardly for a minute, he continued--"but,
I say, Tom, you won't mention this little fright of yours?"
"No; but I'll mention the great fright--of Jim Smith--rely upon it," said
Tom, firmly; and he kept his word so faithfully, that the next day the
whole story was circulated, with many ingenious additions, to the great
annoyance of the practical joker.
FISHING FOR WHITING AT MARGATE.
"Here we go up--up--up;
And here we go down--down--down."
"Variety," as Cowper says, "is the very spice of life"--and certainly, at
Margate, there is enough, in all conscience, to delight the most
fastidious of pleasure-hunters.
There sailors ply for passengers for a trip in their pleasure boats,
setting forth all the tempting delights of a fine breeze--and woe-betide
the unfortunate cockney who gets in the clutches of a pair of plyers of
this sort, for he becomes as fixed as if he were actually in a vice,
frequently making a virtue of necessity, and stepping on board, when he
had much better stroll on land.
Away he goes, on the wings of the wind, like--a gull! Should he be a
knave, it may probably be of infinite service to society, for he is
likely ever afterwards to forswear craft of any kind!
Donkies too abound, as they do in most watering placesand, oh! what a
many asses have we seen mounted, trotting along the beach and cliffs!
The insinuating address of the boatmen is, however, irresistible; and if
they cannot induce you to make a sail to catch the wind, they will set
forth, in all the glowing colors of a dying dolphin, the pleasurable
sport of catching fish!
They tell you of a gentleman, who, "the other day, pulled up, in a single
hour, I don't know how many fish, weighing I don't know how much." And
thus baited, some unwise gentleman unfortunately nibbles, and he is
caught. A bargain is struck, 'the boat is on the shore,' the lines and
hooks are displayed, and the victim steps in, scarcely conscious of what
he is about, but full well knowing that he is going to sea!
They put out to sea, and casting their baited hooks, the experienced
fisherman soon pulls up a fine lively whiting.
"Ecod!" exclaims the cockney, with dilated optics, "this is fine--why
that 'ere fish is worth a matter of a shilling in London--Do tell me how
you cotched him."
"With a hook!" replied the boatman.
"To be sure you did--but why did'nt he bite mine?"
"'Cause he came t'other side, I s'pose."
"Vell, let me try that side then," cries the tyro, and carefully changes
his position.--"Dear me, this here boat o'yourn wobbles about rayther,
mister."
"Nothing, sir, at all; it's only the motion of the water."
"I don't like it, tho'; I can tell you, it makes me feel all over
somehow."
"It will go off, sir, in time; there's another," and he pulls in another
wriggling fish, and casts him at the bottom of the boat. "Well, that's
plaguey tiresome, any how--two! and I've cotched nothin' yet--how do you
do it?"
"Just so--throw in your hook, and bide a bit--and you'll be sure, sir, to
feel when there's any thing on your hook; don't you feel any thing yet?"
"Why, yes, I feels werry unwell!" cries the landsman; and, bringing up
his hook and bait, requests the good-natured boatman to pull for shore,
'like vinkin,'--which request; the obliging fellow immediately complies
with, having agreeably fished at the expense of his fare; and, landing
his whitings and the flat, laughs in his sleeve at the qualms of his
customer.
But there is always an abundant crop of such fools as he, who pretend to
dabble in a science, in utter ignorance of the elements; while, like
Jason of old, the wily boatman finds a sheep with a golden
fleece,--although his brains are always too much on the alert to be what
is technically termed--wool-gathering. Some people are desirous of
seeing every thing; and many landsmen have yet to learn, that they may
see a deal, without being a-board!