Senor 'Bispo!" On Which Summons The Poor Old Man,
Looking Ruefully Round Him Once More, Put His Square Cap Under His
Arm, Tucked Up His Long Black Petticoats, So As To Show His Purple
Stockings And Jolly Fat Calves, And Went Trembling Down The Steps
Towards The Boat.
The good old man!
I wish I had had a shake of
that trembling podgy hand somehow before he went upon his sea
martyrdom. I felt a love for that soft-hearted old Christian. Ah!
let us hope his governante tucked him comfortably in bed when he
got to Faro that night, and made him a warm gruel and put his feet
in warm water. The men clung around him, and almost kissed him as
they popped him into the boat, but he did not heed their caresses.
Away went the boat scudding madly before the wind. Bang! another
lateen-sailed boat in the distance fired a gun in his honour; but
the wind was blowing away from the shore, and who knows when that
meek bishop got home to his gruel?
I think these were the notables of our party. I will not mention
the laughing ogling lady of Cadiz, whose manners, I very much
regret to say, were a great deal too lively for my sense of
propriety; nor those fair sufferers, her companions, who lay on the
deck with sickly, smiling female resignation: nor the heroic
children, who no sooner ate biscuit than they were ill, and no
sooner were ill than they began eating biscuit again:
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