 she would start, and turn, and be almost tempted to reply; -
all the fancies and contradictions common in watching and excitement and
restless change of place, beset the child.
    She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of the man
on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had now succeeded to the
boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a short pipe, quilted over with
string for its longer preservation, requested that she would oblige him with a
song.
    »You've got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong memory,«
said this gentleman; »the voice and eye I've got evidence for, and the memory's
an opinion of my own. And I'm never wrong. Let me hear a song this minute.«
    »I don't think I know one, sir,« returned Nell.
    »You know forty-seven songs,« said the man, with a gravity which admitted of
no altercation on the subject. »Forty-seven's your number. Let me hear one of
'em - the best. Give me a song this minute.«
    Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend, and
trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little ditty which
she had learned in happier times, and which was so agreeable to his ear, that on
its conclusion he in the same peremptory manner requested to be favoured with
another, to which he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune,
and with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its
deficiency in other respects. The noise of this vocal performance awakened the
other man, who, staggering upon deck and shaking his late opponent by the hand,
swore that singing was his pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired
no better entertainment. With a third call, more imperative than either of the
two former, Nell felt obliged to comply, and this time a chorus was maintained
not only by the two men together, but also by the third man on horseback, who
being by his position debarred from a nearer participation in the revels of the
night, roared when his companions roared, and rent the very air. In this way,
with little cessation, and singing the same songs again and again, the tired and
exhausted child kept them in good humour all that night; and many a cottager,
who was roused from his soundest sleep by the discordant chorus as it
