Scotland/Scots > Wilson's tales of the Borders and of Scotland > Volume 3

4
TALES 09 THE BOIIDLUS.
•were sitting in a public-house in North Shields, which 1
shall please to speak of as the sign of the Old Ship; and
its landlord I shall call Mr. Danvers. The name of the one
sailor was William Stanley, the other Jack Jenkins. Jack
was but a plain fellow, though no lubber; but Bill was a
glorious young fellow—the admiration of everybody; though
only the son of a poor laundress, who wrought hard to bring
him up, while a boy, he had contrived to get knowledge
and book-learning enough to have been made commodore
of a college. I may here tell you, too, that old Danvers had
a daughter called Mary—one of the best and prettiest girls
on all Tyneside. She was Bill’s consort on all occasions ;
and they were true to each other as a needle is to the Pole.
Jack and he were friends and shipmates ; and being sitting
together—
“ ‘ I say Bill,’ said his comrade, ‘ as we are to sail upon
a long voyage to-morrow, what say you for a run up to
Newcastle to the theatre to-night? You shall take Polly
Danvers, and I shall take my old woman.’ ” For Jack was
married.
“ ‘ It is of no use thinking of it,’ answered he; ‘I am
brought up here as though it were my last mooring.’
“‘Whew! whew!’ whistled the other—‘with pretty
Polly for a chain cable. But I don’t ask you to part com¬
pany with each other. So let us make ready and start.’
“ ‘ No,’ added Stanley; ‘ the best play and the best actors
in the world, would be to me to-night like a land-lubber
sitting smiling and piping upon a flute on the sea-banks,
while I was being dashed to pieces by the breakers under
his feet.
“ ‘ What are you drifting at, Bill?’ said Jenkins; ‘your
upper works seem to have hoisted a moon-raker.’
“ ‘ I am unhappy, Jack,’ said he, earnestly, ‘ and the
cause presses like lead upon my heart. It throbs like fire
within my forehead. For more than twenty years I have