And the Little Unknown

'Twas August--Hastings every day was filling--Hastings, that "greenest spot on memory's waste"!With crowds of idlers willing and unwillingTo be bedipped--be noticed--or be braced,And all things rose a penny in a shilling.Meanwhile, from window, and from door, in haste"Accommodation bills" kept coming down,Gladding "the world of-letters" in that town.

Each day poured in new coachfuls of new cits,Flying from London smoke and dust annoying,Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits,And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toying,Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits,And Quakers of both sexes, much enjoyingA morning's reading by the ocean's rim,That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim.

And lo! amongst all these appeared a creature,So small, he almost might a twin have beenWith Miss Crachami--dwarfish quite in stature,Yet well proportioned--neither fat nor lean,His face of marvellously pleasant feature,So short and sweet a man was never seen--All thought him charming at the first beginning--Alas, ere long they found him far too winning!

He seemed in love with chance--and chance repaidHis ardent passion with her fondest smile,The sunshine of good luck, without a shade,He staked and won--and won and staked--the bileIt stirred of many a man and many a maid,To see at every venture how that vileSmall gambler snatched--and how he won them too--A living Pam, omnipotent at loo!

Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box,'Twas handsome rosewood, and inlaid with brass,And dreamt three times she garnished it with stocksOf needles, silks, and cottons--but, alas!She lost it wide awake. We thought Miss CoxWas lucky--but she saw three caddies passTo that small imp;--no living luck could loo him!Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him!

And so he climbed--and rode--and won--and walked,The wondrous topic of the curious swarmThat haunted the Parade. Many were balkedOf notoriety by that small formPacing it up and down: some even talkedOf ducking him--when lo! a dismal stormStopped in--one Friday, at the close of day--And every head was turned another way--

Watching the grander guest. It seemed to riseBulky and slow upon the southern brinkOf the horizon--fanned by sultry sighs--So black and threatening, I cannot thinkOf any simile, except the skiesMiss Wiggins sometimes shades in Indian ink--Mis-shapen blotches of such heavy vapor,They seem a deal more solid than her paper.

As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave,And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash onThe stony-hearted beach;--some bards would haveIt always rampant, in that idle fashion--Whereas the waves rolled in, subdued and grave,Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion,Who meekly settle in and take their places,With a very quiet awe on all their faces.

Some love to draw the ocean with a head,Like troubled table-beer--and make it bounce,And froth, and roar, and fling--but this, I've said,Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce:But then, a grander contrast thus it bredWith the wild welkin, seeming to pronounceSomething more awful in the serious ear,As one would whisper that a lion's near--

Who just begins to roar: so the hoarse thunderGrowled long--but low--a prelude note of death,As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under,But still it muttered to the sea beneathSuch a continued peal, as made us wonderIt did not pause more oft to take its breath,Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather,And hardly cared to wed two words together,

But watched the surly advent of the storm,Much as the brown-cheeked planters of BarbadoesMust watch a rising of the Negro swarm:Meantime it steered, like Odin's old Armadas,Right on our coast;--a dismal, coal-black form;Many proud gaits were quelled--and all bravadoesOf folly ceased--and sundry idle jokersWent home to cover up their tongs and pokers.

So fierce the lightning flashed. In all their daysThe oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing,And they are used to many a pretty blaze,To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashingWith hostile cutters in our creeks and bays:And truly one could think, without much lashingThe fancy, that those coasting clouds, so awfulAnd black, were fraught with spirits as unlawful.

The gay Parade grew thin--all the fair crowdVanished--as if they knew their own attractions,--For now the lightning through a near-hand cloudBegan to make some very crooked fractions--Only some few remained that were not cowed,A few rough sailors, who had been in actions,And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's,Lest it should blow,--were pulling up the Rose:

(No flower, but a boat)--some more were haulingThe Regent by the head:--another crewWith that same cry peculiar to their calling--Were heaving up the Hope:--and as they knewThe very gods themselves oft get a maulingIn their own realms, the seamen wisely drewThe Neptune rather higher on the beach,That he might lie beyond his billows' reach.

And now the storm, with its despotic power,Had all usurped the azure of the skies,Making our daylight darker by an hour,And some few drops--of an unusual size--Few and distinct--scarce twenty to the shower,Fell like huge teardrops from a giant's eyes--But then this sprinkle thickened in a triceAnd rained much harder--in good solid ice.

Oh for a very storm of words to showHow this fierce crash of hail came rushing o'er us!Handel would make the gusty organs blowGrandly, and a rich storm in music score us:--But ev'n his music seemed composed and low,When we were handled by this Hailstone Chorus;Whilst thunder rumbled, with its awful sound,And frozen comfits rolled along the ground--

As big as bullets:--Lord! how they did batterOur crazy tiles:--and now the lightning flashedAlternate with the dark, until the latterWas rarest of the two!--the gust too dashedSo terribly, I thought the hail must shatterSome panes,--and so it did--and first it smashedThe very square where I had chose my stationTo watch the general illumination.

Another, and another, still came in,And fell in jingling ruin at my feet,Making transparent holes that let me winSome samples of the storm:--Oh! it was sweetTo think I had a shelter for my skin,Culling them through these "loopholes of retreat"--Which in a little we began to glaze--Chiefly with a jacktowel and some baize!

But which, the cloud had passed o'erhead, but playedIts crooked fires in constant flashes still,Just in our rear, as though it had arrayedIts heavy batteries at Fairlight Mill,So that it lit the town, and grandly madeThe rugged features of the Castle HillLeap, like a birth, from chaos into light,And then relapse into the gloomy night--

As parcel of the cloud;--the clouds themselves,Like monstrous crags and summits everlasting,Piled each on each in most gigantic shelves,That Milton's devils were engaged in blasting.We could e'en fancy Satan and his elvesBusy upon those crags, and ever castingHuge fragments loose,--and that we felt the soundThey made in falling to the startled ground.

And so the tempest scowled away,--and soonTimidly shining through its skirts of jet,We saw the rim of the pacific moon,Like a bright fish entangled in a net,Flashing its silver sides,--how sweet a boonSeemed her sweet light, as though it would beget,With that fair smile, a calm upon the seas--Peace in the sky--and coolness in the breeze!

Meantime the hail had ceased:--and all the broodOf glaziers stole abroad to count their gains;At every window there were maids who stoodLamenting o'er the glass's small remains,--Or with coarse linens made the fractions good,Stanching the wind in all the wounded panes,--Or, holding candles to the panes, in doubtThe wind resolved--blowing the candles out.

No house was whole that had a southern front,--No greenhouse but the same mishap befell;Bow-windows and bell-glasses bore the brunt,--No sex in glass was spared!--For those who dwellOn each hill-side, you might have swum a puntIn any of their parlors;--Mrs. SnellWas slopped out of her seat,--and Mr. HitchinHad a flower-garden washed into a Kitchen.

But still the sea was mild, and quite disclaimedThe recent violence.--Each after eachThe gentle waves a gentle murmur framed,Tapping, like woodpeckers, the hollow beach.Howbeit his weather eye the seaman aimedAcross the calm, and hinted by his speechA gale next morning--and when morning broke,There was a gale--"quite equal to bespoke."

Before high water--(it were better farTo christen it not water then, but waiter,For then the tide is serving at the bar)Rose such a swell--I never saw one greater!Black, jagged billows rearing up in warLike ragged roaring bears against the baiter,With lots of froth upon the shingle shed,Like stout poured out with a fine beachy head.

No open boat was open to a fare,Or launched that morn on seven-shilling trips;No bathing woman waded--none would dareA dipping in the wave--but waived their dips;No seagull ventured on the stormy air,And all the dreary coast was clear of ships;For two lea shores upon the River LeaAre not so perilous as one at sea.

Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the sceneBefore us in such horrid hurly-burly,--A boiling ocean of mixed black and green,A sky of copper color, grim and surly,--When lo, in that vast hollow scooped betweenTwo rolling Alps of water,--white and curly!We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming,Much like a first or last attempt at swimming!

Sometimes a hand--sometimes a little shoe--Sometime a skirt--sometimes a hank of hairJust like a dabbled seaweed rose to view,Sometimes a knee--sometimes a back was bare--At last a frightful summerset he threwRight on the shingles. Any one could swearThe lad was dead--without a chance of perjury,And battered by the surge beyond all surgery!

However, we snatched up the corse thus thrown,Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it,And after venting Pity's sigh and groan,Then curiosity began with her fit;And lo! the features of the Small Unknown!'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit!And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies,We found a contract signed with Mephistopheles!

A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gaveHis forfeit soul to Satan in reversion,Providing in this world he was to haveA lordship over luck, by whose exertionHe might control the course of cards and braveAll throws of dice,--but on a sea excursionThe juggling demon, in his usual vein,Seized the last cast--and Nicked him in the main!