An attempt was made by a rival camp to
emulate these paying virtues of reverence, and an aged mariner was
procured from the Sailor's Snug Harbor in San Francisco, on trial.
But the unfortunate seaman was more or less diseased, was not
always presentable, through a weakness for ardent spirits, and
finally, to use the powerful idiom of one of his disappointed
foster-children, "up and died in a week, without slinging ary
blessin'."
But vicissitude reaches young and old alike. Youthful Rough-and-
Ready and the Saints had climbed to their meridian together, and it
seemed fit that they should together decline. The first shadow
fell with the immigration to Rough-and-Ready of a second aged pair.
The landlady of the Independence Hotel had not abated her
malevolence towards the Saints, and had imported at considerable
expense her grand-aunt and grand-uncle, who had been enjoying for
some years a sequestered retirement in the poorhouse at East
Machias. They were indeed very old. By what miracle, even as
anatomical specimens, they had been preserved during their long
journey was a mystery to the camp.
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