Dressed in his new "long togs" that give him a more gentlemanly appearance, Jacob Faithful surprises his old master Tom Beazeley, a disabled Trafalgar veteran, and Beazeley’s wife when he returns from his impressment in the Royal Navy.
“I only wish Jacob was here, that's all.”
“Then you have your wish, my good old friend,” cried I, running up to Tom, and seizing his hand; but old Tom was so taken by surprise that he started back, and lost his equilibrium, dragging me after him, and we rolled on the turf together. Nor was this the only accident, for old Mrs. Beazeley was so alarmed that she also sprang from the bench fixed in the half of the old boat stuck on end, and threw herself back against it. The boat, rotten when first put up, and with the disadvantage of exposure to the elements for many years, could no longer stand such pressure. It gave way to the sudden force applied by the old woman, and she and the boat went down together, she screaming and scuffling among the rotten planks, which now, after so many years' close intimacy, were induced to part company. I was first on my legs, and ran to the assistance of Mrs. Beazeley, who was half smothered with dust and flakes of dry pitch, and old Tom coming to my assistance, we put the old woman on her legs again.
“O deary me!” cried the old woman, “O deary me! I do believe my hip is out. Lord, Mr. Jacob, how you frightened me!”
“Yes,” said old Tom, shaking me warmly by the hand, “we were all taken aback, old boat and all. What a shindy you have made, bowling us all down like nine pins! Well! my boy, I'm glad to see you, and notwithstanding your gear, you're Jacob Faithful still.”
— Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful
This etching by Robert William Buss was made in 1834, according to the British Museum. Buss, who also provided illustrations for Marryat's novel Peter Simple, is one of the few Marryat illustrators who was contemporary with Marryat himself and not from a later Victorian era. I think it adds a touch of greater authenticity, as late Victorians rarely bothered with accurate depictions of clothes from the early 19th century.
Marryat’s opinions on Buss are not recorded in Life and Letters or his biographies, but he presumably would have complained if he thought that Buss couldn’t execute his vision. The details of this illustration are carefully drawn from the story, depicting the ancient Beazeley cottage on the verge of Battersea Fields, still an isolated and underdeveloped area of marshes near the river in this time period.
