Robert Ridley is a retired mariner. He never rose to a higher grade than that of second mate. In which capacity indeed he acted without a certificate, having for the most part of his life sailed in a species of ship upon whose commanders find officers the State makes few or no demands in an educational sense.
Robert Ridley, having on several occasions served as a second mate, and conce as an only mate, returned to his earlier condition of able seaman, and while still acting in that capacity quiitted the ocean forever and settled down as a gentleman ashore in a comfortable, little cottage by the seaside. This achievement of independence the population of a great maritime country will not for an instant suppose was the result of his commercial prosperity as a foremast hand. After twenty years of working like a dog at sea, all that Robert Ridley had to show in the shape of "effect*" was comprised In a small sea-chest half full of clothes and a suit of oilskins, with perhaps a matter of eight pounds lodged in a Postoffice savings bank.
No! My friend Bob Ridley gained an independence not through old ocean—that most beggarly of callings—but through an uncle who had been an Italian warehouseman, and who left the worthy fellow, to his astonishment and joy, the handsome sum (to an able seaman) of six thousand pounds.
I was recently in the town where Bob Ridley lives, and spent an hour with him. We smoked our pipes together, drank to each other in a glass of Hollands and talked of the sea. He carried me into his little garden, and with much pride pointed to the various flowers and to what he called his kitchen-garden, a considerable bed of soil full of carrots, cabbage and the like At the extremity of his half acre of land stood a summer arbor, the fruit of his own skill, for he had been a ship's carpenter In his day, and few men were smarter with the chisel and the saw than he. On entering this building I observed a little wooden obelisk about three feet in height erected in the center of it. On the apex rested a piece of carving in wood, of which I could make neither head nor tail. Upon the body of the obelisk were carved the words:
IN MEMORY OF JACKSON
SUNDAY MORN, MDCCCLXXV.
At the hinder base of this queer little structure was the model of a wreck. Many queer devices representing mermaids, the sun, anchors, hearts, and so forth were artfully chiseled on the sides.
"Pray what have you here, Ridley?" said l.
"A memorial," he answered.
"Ay, that's clear enough. But what sailor friend of yours lies buried here?"
"No sailor friend at all," he answered laughing. "Jackson was a dog, and he, poor beast, doesn't lie here either. I wish he did. It wouId sometimes give my mind a sort of satisfaction to feel that his remains lay snug under this here mark."
"And what," cried I, peering at the little bit of carving on top of the obelisk, "is this?"
"lt's the portrait of the half of a vessel's caboose, sir—a vessel that was lost on a Sunday morning."
By the word "caboose" he signified galley, or the kitchen of a little ship. I could now make out that it was the representation of the roof and a portion of the sides of a caboose, as he called it, with a hole atop for the reception of a chimney.
"I see there is a yarn here," said I.
"Not much of a yarn," he answered; "just the tale of a poor beast of a dog that in time I got to love as truly as if he'd been a Christian man and a brother. That's where I fell in with him," said he, pointing to the model of the wreck, "and that," he added, indicating the fragment of miniature caboose, "is where he died."
I looked at my watch.
"Come," said I, "you shall tell me the story of Jackson whilst we sit here and smoke our pipes and survey your clever piece of carpentry. There's no hurry," and so saying I seated myself and he alongside of me, slowly extracting a brass tobaccobox out of his breeches pocket as he did so.
"Well," be began, with a sort of groping look around the summer arbor, and then bringing his eyes to bear in a squint of earnest memory upon his obelisk, "this was how it fell out. I was able seaman aboard a little bark, and we were bound for the River Thames from Porto Allegre. We fell in with a deal of bad weather which drove us well to the east'ard, and then for three weeks we were stagnated with calms, so that putting the fine weather along with the bad we reckoned that the vessel had lost her luck, and that ne'er a man of our little company was to consider it well with us till we were in a situation to pick up our bundles and step over the side on to good English dock-yard soil.
