380 Old Neighbours — An Admiral on Shore. [April, 



of labour. Under his wise direction and discreet patronage, a peacs 

 was patched up between the admiral and his rebelHous handmaids. A 

 general amnesty was proclaimed, with the solitary exception of an old 

 crone of a she-cook, who had, on some occasion of culinary interference, 

 turned her master out of his own kitchen, and gai-nished Bill Jones's 

 jacket with an unseemly rag yclept a dishclout. She was dismissed by 

 mutual consent ; and Sally the kitchen maid, a pretty black-eyed girl, 

 promoted to the vacant post^ which she filled with eminent ability. 



Soothed, guided, and humoured by his trusty adherent, and influenced 

 perhaps a little by the force of example and the effect of the land breeze, 

 which he had never breathed so long before, our worthy veteran soon 

 began to shew symptoms of a man of this world. The earth became, so 

 to say, his native element. He took to gardening, to farming, for which 

 Bill Jones had also a taste ; set free his prisoners in the basse-cour, to 

 the unutterable glorification of crowing of cock and hen, cackling and 

 gabbling goose and turkey, and enlarged his own walk from pacing 

 backwards and forwards in the dining-room, followed by his old ship- 

 mates, a Newfoundland dog and a tame goat, into a stroll round his 

 own grounds, to the great delight of those faithful attendants. He even 

 talked of going pheasant shooting, bought a hunter, and was only saved 

 from following the fox-hounds by accidentally taking up Peregrine Pickle, 

 which, by a kind of Sortes Virgilianai, opened on the mischances of 

 lieutenant Hatchway and Commodore Trunnion in a similar expedition. 



After this warning, which he considered as nothing less than provi- 

 dential, he relinquished any attempt at mounting that formidable animal, 

 a horse, but having found his land legs, he was afoot all day long in his 

 farm or his garden, setting people to rights in all quarters, and keeping up 

 the place with the same scrupulous nicety that he was wont to bestow on 

 the planks and rigging of his dear Mermaiden. Amongst the country 

 people, he soon became^popular. They liked the testy little gentleman, 

 who dispensed his beer and grog so bountifully, and talked to them so 

 freely. He would have his own way, to be sure, but then he paid for 

 it ; besides, he entered into their tastes and amusements, promoted May 

 games, revels, and other country sports, patronized dancing-dogs and 

 monkies, and bespoke plays in barns. Above all, he had an exceeding 

 partiality to vagrants, strollers, gipse) s and such like persons ; listened 

 to their tales with a delightful simplicity of belief; pitied them ; relieved 

 them ; fought their battles at the bench and the vestry, and got into 

 two or three scrapes with constables and magistrates, by the activity of 

 his protection. Only one counterfeit sailor with a sham wooden-leg 

 he found out at a question, and by aid of Bill Jones ducked in the horse- 

 pond, for an impostor, till the unlucky wretch, who was, as the worthy 

 seaman suspected, totally unused to the water, a thorough land lubber, 

 was nearly drowned ; an adventure which turned out the luckiest of his 

 life, he having carried his case to an attorney, who forced the admiral 

 to pay fifty pounds for the exploit. 



Our good veteran was equally popular amongst the gentry of the 

 neighboui-hood. His own hospitality was irresistible, and his frankness 

 and simplicity, mixed with a sort of petulant vivacity, combined to 

 make him a most welcome relief to the dulness of a country dinner 

 party. He enjoyedsociety extremely, and even had a spare bed erected 

 for company; moved thereunto by an accident which befel the fat Rec- 

 tor of KintoD, who having unfortunately consented to sleep at Hannonby 



