Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
shook hands with and recognized several; but dear Mrs.
Beattie, who sent me the gingerbread and milk on board
ship, twenty-four years ago, held my hand in hers, patting
it, and crooning as if I were again “Johnny Gough,”
“Bless his heart—he’s got his dear mother’s mouth!—but
come into the house.” I inquired the name of the person
living there, and was told; and that she expected me, and
had “tidied up a bit,” in view of my visit. On entering
the room, I stood for a few minutes looking round it; tears
were in the eyes of the good women; at last I said, “That
cupboard-door used to be blue.” “Yes,” said the woman,
“my boy thought he’d try his hand at graining; but it
is blue underneath the brown;” and actually took a knife
and scraped off a portion of the “graining” to show me
the blue. “Where’s the trap-door for the coal-hole?”
“Here! under this rug.” “Let me go down in the cellar;
I want to see the closet where my mother ‘stirred me up.’”
There was the closet: I went into it, and would have been
mightily pleased to receive the most vigorous “stirring
up” that boy ever experienced could my dear mother be
there to “stir me.” As I came up the stairs, I said,
“There’s the nail where I used to hang my cap and bag.”
“Yes,” said the woman, “and that’s the same nail.”
“How’s that?” I asked. “Why, when your poor dear
mother left the house, she said: ‘There’s John’s old cap
and bag, that he hung up before he went away, and I
have never taken them down;’and I said: ‘Well, Mrs.
Gough, I’ll keep the nail there as long as it’ll stay,’—and
that’s the same nail; but your mother took away the cap
and bag.”
As we came out, Mrs. Beattie said: “All the Sandgaters
are going to Folkestone to hear you speak; and I am
going toe; and I shall walk.” “No,” I said, “that you
shall not; you shall ride with me.” I left them, promis-