The BUMBOAT WOMAN'S
STORY

I'M

'M old, my dears, and shrivell'd, with age, and work, and grief,

My eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, the thief:

For terrible sights I've seen, and dangers great

I've run

I'm nearly seventy now, and

most done!

my work is al

Ah! I've been young in my time, and I've play'd the deuce with men

I'm speaking of ten years past - I was barely sixty then :

My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet,

POLL PINEAPPLE's eyes were the standing toast of the Royal Fleet.

A bumboat woman
was I, and I
faithfully served
the ships
With apples and

cakes, and fowls

and beer, and
halfpenny dips,

And beef for the generous mess, where the officers dine at nights,

And fine fresh peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites.

Of all the kind commanders who anchor'd in Portsmouth Bay,

By far the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

LIEUTENANT BELAYE commanded the gunboat Hot Cross Bun,

She was seven-and-thirty feet in length, and she carried a gun.

With the laudable view of enhancing his country's naval pride,

When people inquired her size, LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied,

Oh, my ship? my ship is the first of the Hundred and seventy-ones!"

Which meant her tonnage, but people imagined it meant her guns.

Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below:

"Come down, LITTLE BUTTERCUP, come!" (for he loved to call me so).

And he'd tell of the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part,

And so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE's heart!

But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he,

"I'm ordered to sail with the Hot Cross Bun to the German Sea."

And the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day,

For every Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

And I went to a back, back street, with plenty of cheap, cheap shops,

And I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops,

And I went to LIEUTENANT BELAYE (and he never suspected me),

And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go

Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the Hot Cross Bun.

I'm sorry to say that I've heard that sailors sometimes swear,

But I never yet heard a Bun say anything wrong, I declare.

When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a " Messmate, ho! what cheer?

But here on the Hot Cross Bun, it was "How do you do, my dear?"

Ba

When Jack Tars growl, I believe they growl with a big, big D

But the strongest oath of the Hot Cross Buns was a mild "Dear me !"

Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could hardly call them slick:

Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick;

And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair,

They spent more time than a sailor should on his back, back hair.

They certainly shiver'd and shook when order'd aloft to run,

And they scream'd when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun.

And as he was proud of his gun

such pride is

The lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all

day long.

They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said

That BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red

That Joɛ look'd quite his age- or somebody might declare

That BARNACLE's long pig-tail was never his own, own hair.

BELAYE Would admit that his men were of no great use to him,

"But then," he would say, "there is little to do on a gunboat trim.

I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too

And it is such a treat to sail with a gentle, wellbred crew."

I saw him every day! How happy the mo

In that case I don't know whatever we should have done!)

After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one

day,

And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE,