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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118348" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Mate’s Story</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘I’ve often wondered how it is, at times<br>Good people do what are as bad as crimes.<br>A common person would have been ashamed<br>To do what once a family far-famed<br>For their religious ways was known to do.<br>Small harm befell, small thanks to them were due.<br>They from abroad, perhaps it cost them less,<br>Had brought a young French girl as governess,<br>A pretty, youthful thing as e’er you saw;<br>She taught the children how to play and draw,<br>Of course, the language of her native land;<br>English she scarcely learnt to understand.<br>After a time they wanted her no more;<br>She must go home, but how to send her o’er,<br>Far in the south of France she lived, and they<br>In Ireland there was more than they could say.<br>A monthly steamer, as they chanced to know,<br>From Liverpool went over to Bordeaux,<br>And would, they thought, exactly meet the case.<br>They wrote and got a friend to take a place;<br>And from her salary paid her money down.<br>A trading steamer from the sea-port town<br>Near which they lived, across the Channel plied,<br>And this, they said, a passage would provide.<br>With pigs, and with the Irish reaping horde,<br>This pretty tender girl was put on board;<br>And a rough time of it, no doubt, had she,<br>Tossing about upon the Irish Sea.<br>Arrived at last and set ashore, she found<br>The steamer gone for which she had been bound.<br>The pious people, in their careless way,<br>Had made some loose mistake about the day.<br>She stood; the passengers with whom she crossed<br>Went off, and she remained as one that ’s lost.<br>Think of the hapless creature standing here<br>Alone, beside her boxes on the pier.<br>Whither to turn, and where to try and go,<br>She knew not; nay, the language did not know.<br>So young a girl, so pretty too, set down<br>Here, in the midst of a great sea-port town,<br>What might have happened one may sadly guess,<br>Had not the captain, seeing her distress,<br>Made out the cause, and told her she could stay<br>On board the vessel till the following day.<br>Next day, he said the steamer to Bordeaux<br>Was gone no doubt, next month the next would go;<br>For this her passage-money she had paid,<br>But some arrangement could, he thought, be made,<br>If only she could manage to afford<br>To wait a month and pay for bed and board.<br>She sadly shook her head well, after all,<br>’Twas a bad town, and mischief might befall,<br>Would she go back? Indeed ’twas but a shame,<br>To take her back to those from whom she came.<br>‘There’s one thing, Miss,’ said he, ‘that you can do,<br>It’s speaking somewhat sudden-like, it’s true,<br>But if you’ll marry me, I’ll marry you.<br>May be you won’t, but if you will you can.’<br>This captain was a young and decent man,<br>And I suppose she saw no better way;<br>Marry they did, and married live this day.<br>Another friend, these previous nights away,<br>An officer of engineers, and round<br>By Halifax to far Bermuda bound,<br>Joined us this night; a rover he had been.<br>Many strange sights and many climes had seen,<br>And much of various life; his comment was, ’twas well<br>There was no further incident to tell.<br>He’d been afraid that ere the tale was o’er,<br>’Twould prove the captain had a wife before.<br>The poor French girl was luckier than she knew;<br>Soldiers and sailors had so often two.<br>And it was something, too, for men who went<br>From port to port to be with two content.<br>In every place the marriage rite supplied<br>A decent spouse to whom you were not tied.<br>Of course the women would at times suspect,<br>But felt their reputations were not wrecked.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One after night we took ourselves to task<br>For our neglect who had forborne to ask<br>The clergyman, who told his tale so well,.<br>Another tale for our behalf to tell.<br>He to a second had himself confessed,<br>Now, when to hear it eagerly we pressed,<br>He put us off; but, ere the night was done,<br>Told us his second, and his sadder one.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Arthur+Hugh+Clough">Arthur Hugh Clough</a> from <i>Mari Magno or Tales on Board</i><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118348" data-title="The Mate’s Story de Arthur Hugh Clough" data-description="‘I’ve often wondered how it is, at times/Good people do what are as bad as crimes./A common person would have been ashamed/To do what once a family far-famed/For their religious ways was known to do./Small harm befell, small thanks to them wer..."></div>
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