Jacob Faithful | Page 3

but taking the pipe out of his mouth,
dropped the bowl of it in a perpendicular direction till it landed softly
on the deck, then put it into his mouth again, and puffed mournfully.
"Why, you don't mean to say he is overboard?" screamed my mother.
My father nodded his head, and puffed away at an accumulated rate. A
torrent of tears, exclamations, and revilings succeeded to this
characteristic announcement. My father allowed my mother to exhaust
herself. By the time when she had finished, so was his pipe; he then
knocked out the ashes, and quietly observed, "It's no use crying; what's
done can't be helped," and proceeded to refill the bowl.
"Can't be helped!" cried my mother; "but it might have been helped."
"Take it coolly," replied my father.

"Take it coolly!" replied my mother in a rage--"take it coolly! Yes,
you're for taking everything coolly: I presume, if I fell overboard you
would be taking it coolly."
"You would be taking it coolly, at all events," replied my imperturbable
father.
"O dear! O dear!" cried my poor mother; "two poor children, and lost
them both!"
"Better luck next time," rejoined my father; "so, Sall, say no more
about it."
My father continued for some time to smoke his pipe, and my mother
to pipe her eye, until at last my father, who was really a kind-hearted
man, rose from the chest upon which he was seated, went to the
cupboard, poured out a teacupful of gin, and handed it to my mother. It
was kindly done of him, and my mother was to be won by kindness. It
was a pure offering in the spirit, and taken in the spirit in which it was
offered. After a few repetitions, which were rendered necessary from
its potency being diluted with her tears, grief and recollection were
drowned together, and disappeared like two lovers who sink down
entwined in each other's arms.
With this beautiful metaphor, I shall wind up the episode of my
unfortunate brother Joe.
It was about a year after the loss of my brother that I was ushered into
the world, without any other assistants or spectators than my father and
Dame Nature, who I believe to be a very clever midwife if not
interfered with. My father, who had some faint ideas of Christianity,
performed the baptismal rites by crossing me on the forehead with the
end of his pipe, and calling me Jacob: as for my mother being churched,
she had never been but once to church in her life. In fact, my father and
mother never quitted the lighter, unless when the former was called out
by the superintendent or proprietor, at the delivery or shipment of a
cargo, or was once a month for a few minutes on shore to purchase
necessaries. I cannot recall much of my infancy; but I recollect that the

lighter was often very brilliant with blue and red paint, and that my
mother used to point it out to me as "so pretty," to keep me quiet. I
shall therefore pass it over, and commence at the age of five years, at
which early period I was of some little use to my father. Indeed I was
almost as forward as some boys at ten. This may appear strange; but the
fact is, that my ideas although bounded, were concentrated. The lighter,
its equipments, and its destination were the microcosm of my infant
imagination; and my ideas and thoughts being directed to so few
objects, these objects were deeply impressed, and their value fully
understood. Up to the time that I quitted the lighter, at eleven years old,
the banks of the river were the boundaries of my speculations. I
certainly comprehended something of the nature of trees and houses;
but I do not think that I was aware that the former grew. From the time
that I could recollect them on the banks of the river, they appeared to be
exactly of the same size as they were when first I saw them, and I asked
no questions. But by the time that I was ten years old, I knew the name
of the reach of the river, and every point--the depth of water, and the
shallows, the drift of the current, and the ebb and flow of the tide itself.
I was able to manage the lighter as it floated down with the tide; for
what I lacked in strength I made up with dexterity arising from constant
practice.
It was at the age of eleven years that a catastrophe took place which
changed my prospects in life, and I must, therefore, say a little more
about my father and mother, bringing up their history to that period.
The propensity of my mother to ardent spirits