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- in a vessel is displaced and expelled, as the liquid rises higher and
higher in it.
But as for Danby, the miserable Yankee grows sour on good cheer, and
dries up the thinner for every drop of fat ale he imbibes. It is plain
and demonstrable, that much ale is not good for Yankees, and operates
differently upon them from what it does upon a Briton: ale must be
drank in a fog and a drizzle.
Entering the sign of the Clipper, Jackson ushered us into a small room
on one side, and shortly after, Handsome Mary waited upon us with a
courtesy, and received the compliments of several old guests among our
crew. She then disappeared to provide our supper. While my shipmates
were now engaged in tippling, and talking with numerous old
acquaintances of theirs in the neighborhood, who thronged about the
door, I remained alone in the little room, meditating profoundly upon
the fact, that I was now seated upon an English bench, under an English
roof, in an English tavern, forming an integral part of the English
empire. It was a staggering fact, but none the less true.
I examined the place attentively; it was a long, narrow, little room,
with one small arched window with red curtains, looking out upon a
smoky, untidy yard, bounded by a dingy brick-wall, the top of which was
horrible with pieces of broken old bottles, stuck into mortar.
A dull lamp swung overhead, placed in a wooden ship suspended from the
ceiling. The walls were covered with a paper, representing an endless
succession of vessels of all nations continually circumnavigating the
apartment. By way of a pictorial mainsail to one of these ships, a map
was hung against it, representing in faded colors the flags of all
nations. From the street came a confused uproar of ballad-singers,
bawling women, babies, and drunken sailors.
And this is England?
But where are the old abbeys, and the York Minsters, and the lord
mayors, and coronations, and the May-poles, and fox-hunters, and Derby
races, and the dukes and duchesses, and the Count d’Orsays, which, from
all my reading, I had been in the habit of associating with England?
Not the most distant glimpse of them was to be seen.
Alas! Wellingborough, thought I, I fear you stand but a poor chance to
see the sights. You are nothing but a poor sailor boy; and the Queen is
not going to send a deputation of noblemen to invite you to St.
James’s.
It was then, I began to see, that my prospects of seeing the world as a
sailor were, after all, but very doubtful; for sailors only go _round_
the world, without going _into_ it; and their reminiscences of travel
are only a dim recollection of a chain of tap-rooms surrounding the
globe, parallel with the Equator. They but touch the perimeter of the
circle; hover about the edges of terra-firma; and only land upon
wharves and pier-heads. They would dream as little of traveling inland
to see Kenilworth, or Blenheim Castle, as they would of sending a car
overland to the Pope, when they touched at Naples.
From these reveries I was soon roused, by a servant girl hurrying from
room to room, in shrill tones exclaiming, “Supper, supper ready.”
Mounting a rickety staircase, we entered a room on the second floor.
Three tall brass candlesticks shed a smoky light upon smoky walls, of
what had once been sea-blue, covered with sailor-scrawls of foul
anchors, lovers’ sonnets, and ocean ditties. On one side, nailed
against the wainscot in a row, were the four knaves of cards, each Jack
putting his best foot foremost as usual. What these signified I never
heard.
But such ample cheer! Such a groaning table! Such a superabundance of
solids and substantial! Was it possible that sailors fared thus?—the
sailors, who at sea live upon salt beef and biscuit?
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