To moan their loss who hazard ran; I love to take an honest part, Love beauty, with a spotless heart, By manners love to show the man; First made me dote on lovely Nan.' And so on, and so on, with gentle Anna and buxom Nan; and poor Fanny, who drowned herself in the waves near to the place where hung the trembling pines; and poor Peggy, who loved a soldier lad (a marine, without doubt); and bonny Kate, who lived happily afterwards with Tom Clueline. Ellen joined in the choruses with her sweet voice; but, strange to say, she had not been asked to sing until the Old Sailor, struck perhaps by a sudden remorse at monopolising the harmony, called upon her for a song. Ellen, nothing loth, asked what song; and Joshua said, Sing the song you learnt of mother, Ellen.' Ellen. "Yes, "Bread - and - Cheese and Kisses.". 'Tisn't quite a girl's song, sir' (to the Old Sailor); 'but it is a good song, and Ellen sings it nicely.' Hooray, then, for "Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses!" cried the Old Sailor, casting a glance of intense admiration at Ellen, who, without more ado, sang as follows: BREAD-AND-CHEESE AND KISSES. One day, when I came home fatigued, I said to Kate, my darling wife, In whom my whole life's bliss is, 'What have you got for dinner, Kate ?' "Why, bread-and-cheese and kisses!' Though worn and tired, my heart leaped up Than mine's more thickly buttered? 'What's that?' she asked. 'Why, this is.' I kissed her. Ah, what sweeter meal Than bread-and-cheese and kisses ? I gazed at her with pure delight; When I but think of you, dear girl, I pity those fine misses Who turn their noses up and pout At bread-and-cheese and kisses. And when I look on your dear form, And bread-and-cheese and kisses.' Thus ended the happy day. CHAPTER IX. MINNIE AND HER SHELL. So the simple ways of Joshua's simple life were drawing to a close. He had chosen his career, and to-morrow he would be at the end of the quiet groove in which he had hitherto moved, and would step upon rougher roads, to commence the battle which dooms many a fair-promising life to a despairing death, and out of which no one comes without scars and wounds which art and time are powerless to heal. To-morrow he was to leave a father almost too indulgent; a mother whose heart was as true in its motherly affection for him as the needle is to the pole; a friend who gave him a love as tender and as pure as that which angels could feel. During the past week he had been busily engaged in leave-taking, and he had been surprised to find what a number of friends he had. There was not one of the poor neighbours, in the poor locality in which he had passed his boyhood's days, who had not kind words and good wishes for him, and who did not give them heartily and without stint. Many a Many a hearty hand-shake from men whose hands he had never touched before, and many a motherly kiss from women he had been in the habit of saying only Good-morning to, did Joshua receive. There is a stronger knitting of affection between poor people in poor neighbourhoods than there is among the rich in their wider thoroughfares. Perhaps it is the narrow streets that draw them closer to each other; perhaps it is the common struggle to keep body and soul together in which they are all engaged; perhaps it is the unconscious recognition of a higher law of humanity than prevails elsewhere; perhaps it is the absence of the wider barriers of exclusiveness, among which the smaller and more beautiful flowers of feeling-being so humble and unassuming-are in danger of being lost or overlooked. Anyhow the ties of affection are stronger among the poor. Putting necessity and sickness aside, more mothers nurse their babes from love among the poor than among the rich. The secret of this unanimity of good-will towards Joshua lay in his uniformly quiet demean VOL. I. N |
