r, and have just received my pay, and
now I've come to pay my debts.' He would make me take 5 pounds more
than his bill, to buy a new silk gown for his sake. Poor fellow! he's
dead now. Here's another, that was run up by one of your tall, lanky
sailors, who wear their knives in a sheath, and not with a lanyard round
their waists; those fellows never pay, but they swear dreadfully. Let
me see, what can this one be? Read it, Peter; how much is it?"

"4 pounds, 2 shillings, 4 pence," replied our hero.

"Yes, yes, I recollect now--it was the Dutch skipper. There's murder in
that bill, Peter: it was things I supplied to him just before he sailed;
and an old man was passenger in the cabin: he was a very rich man,
although he pretended to be poor. He was a diamond merchant, they say;
and as soon as they were at sea, the Dutch captain murdered him in the
night, and threw him overboard out of the cabin-window; but one of the
sailors saw the deed done, and the captain was taken up at Amsterdam,
and had his head cut off. The crew told us when the galliot came back
with a new captain. So the Dutch skipper paid the forfeit of his crime;
he paid my bill, too, that's certain. Oh, deary me!" continued the old
lady, turning to another page. "I shan't forget this in a hurry. I
never see poor Nancy now without recollecting it. Look, Peter; I know
the sum--8 pounds, 4 shillings 6 pence--exactly: it was the things taken
up when Tom Freelove married Nancy,--it was the wedding dinner and
supper."

"What, Nancy who was here just now?"

"Yes, that Nancy; and a sweet, modest young creature she was then, and
had been well brought up too; she could read and write beautifully, and
subscribed to a circulating library, they say. She was the daughter of
a baker in this town. I recollect it well: such a fine day it was when
they went to church, she looking so handsome in her new ribbons and
smart dress, and he such a fine-looking young man. I never seed such a
handsome young couple; but he was a bad one, and so it all ended in
misery."

"Tell me how," said Joey.

"I'll tell all you ought to know, boy; you are too young to be told all
the wickedness of this world. Her husband treated her very ill; before
he had been married a month he left her, and went about with other
people, and was always drunk, and she became jealous and distracted, and
he beat her cruelly, and deserted her; and then, to comfort her, people
would persuade he