Joe's eyes were bent upon me, as I sat directly opposite him, with a fixedness that I could easily see was occasioned by my showy costume; his glances ranged from my buckled shoes to my white cravat, adorned with a splendid brooch of mock amethyst; nay, I almost fancied once that he was counting the silver clocks on my silk stockings! It was a look of most undisguised astonishment,—such a look as one bestows upon some new and singular animal, of whose habits and instincts we are lost in conjecture.
Now, I was “York too,”—that is to say, I was Irish as well as himself; and I well knew that there was no rank nor condition of man for which the peasant in Ireland conceives the same low estimate as the “Livery Servant.” The class is associated in his mind with chicanery, impudence, falsehood, theft, and a score of similar good properties; not to add that, being occasionally, in great families, a native of England, the Saxon element is united to the other “bitters” of the potion.
Scarcely a “tenant” could be found that would not rather face a mastiff than a footman,—such is the proverbial dislike to these human lilies who neither toil nor spin. Now, I have said I knew this well: I had been reared in the knowledge and practice of this and many similar antipathies, so that I at once took counsel with myself what I should do to escape from the reproach of a mark so indelibly stamped upon me by externals. “La famille Cullinane” suited me admirably; they were precisely the kind of people I wanted; my care, therefore, was that they should reciprocate the want, and be utterly helpless without me. Thus reflecting, I could not help saying to myself, how gladly would I have parted with all these gauds for a homely, ay, or even a ragged, suit of native frieze. I remembered the cock on the dunghill who would have given his diamond for one single grain of corn; and I felt that “Æsop” was a grand political economist.
From these and similar mental meanderings I was brought back by Joe, who, after emptying the ashes from his pipe, said, and with a peculiarly dry voice, “Ye 'r in a service, young man?”
Now, although the words are few, and the speaker did not intend that his manner should have given them any particular significance, yet the tone, the cautious slowness of the enunciation, coupled with the stern, steady stare at my “bravery,” made them tingle on my ears, and send the blood rushing to my cheeks with shame. It was like a sharp prick of the spur; and so it turned out.
“In a service!” said I, with a look of offended dignity. “No, I flatter myself not that low yet. What could have made you suppose so? Oh, I see! “—here I burst out into a very well-assumed laugh. “That is excellent, to be sure! ha, ha, ha! so it was these”—and I stretched forth my embroidered shins—“it was these deceived you! And a very natural mistake, too. No, my worthy friend,—not but, indeed, I might envy many in that same ignoble position.” I said this with a sudden change of voice, as though overcast by some sad recollection.
“'Twas indeed your dress,” said Joe, with a modest deference in his manner, meant to be a full apology for his late blunder. “Maybe 'tis the fashion here.”
“No, Cullinane,” said I, using a freedom which should open the way to our relative future standing; “no, not even that.” Here I heaved a heavy sigh, and became silent. My companion, abashed by his mistake, said nothing; and so we sat, without interchanging a word, for full five minutes.
“I have had a struggle with myself, Cullinane,” said I, at last, “and I have conquered. Ay, I have gained the day in a hard-fought battle against my sense of shame. I will be frank with you, therefore. In this dress I appeared to-night on the boards of the Quebec theatre.”
“A play actor!” exclaimed Joe, with a face very far from expressing any high sense of the histrionic art.
“Not exactly,” said I, “only a would-be one. I am a gentleman by birth, family, and fortune; but taking it into my head, in a foolish hour, that I should like the excitement of an actor's life, I fled from home, quitted friends, relatives, affluence, and ease, to follow a strolling company. At another time I may relate to you all the disguises I assumed to escape detection. Immense sums were offered for my apprehension—why do I say were?—ay, Cullinane, are offered. I will not deceive you. It is in your power this instant, by surrendering me to my family, to earn five thousand dollars!”
“Do ye think I'd be—”
“No, I do not. In proof of my confidence in you, hear my story. We travelled through the States at first by unfrequented routes till we reached the North, when, gaining courage, I ventured to take a high range of characters, and, I will own it, with success. At last we came to Canada, in which country, although the reward had not been announced, my father had acquainted all the principal people with my flight, entreating them to do their utmost to dissuade me from a career so far below my rank and future prospects. Among others, he wrote to an old friend and schoolfellow, the Governor-General, requesting his aid in this affair. I was always able, from other sources, to learn every step that was taken with this object; so that I not only knew this, but actually possessed a copy of my father's letter to Lord Poynder, wherein this passage occurred: 'Above all things, my dear Poynder, no publicity, no exposure! Remember the position Cornelius will one day hold, and let him not be ashamed when he may meet you in after-life. If the silly boy can be induced, by his own sense of dignity, to abandon this unworthy pursuit, so much the better; but coercion would, I fear, give faint hope of eradicating the evil.' Now, as I perceived that no actual force was to be employed against me, I did not hesitate to appear in the part for which the bills announced me. Have you ever read Shakespeare?”
“No, sir,” said Joe, respectfully.
“Well, no matter. I was to appear as Hamlet,—this is the dress of that character,—little suspecting, indeed, how the applause I was accustomed to receive was to be changed. To be brief. In the very centre of the dress-circle was the Governor himself, he came with his whole staff, but with out any previous intimation. No sooner had I made my entrance on the scene,—scarcely had I begun that magnificent soliloquy, 'Show me the thief that stole my fame,'—when his Excellency commenced hissing! Now, when the Governor-General hisses, all the staff hiss; then the President of the Council and all his colleagues hiss; then come the bishop and the inferior clergy, with the judges and the Attorney-General, and so on; then all the loyal population of the house joined in, with the exception of a few in the galleries that hated the British connection, and who cried out, 'Three cheers for Con Cregan and the independence of Canada!' In this way went on the first act; groans and yells and cat-calls overtopping all I tried to say, and screams for the manager to come out issuing from every part of the house. At last out he did come. This for a while made matters worse; so many directions were given, questions asked, and demands made that it was clearly impossible to hear any one voice; and there stood the manager, swinging his arms about like an insane telegraph, now running to the stage-box at one side, then crossing over to the other, to maintain a little private conversation by signs, till the sense of the house spoke out by accidentally catching a glimpse of me in the side-scenes.
“'Is it your pleasure, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen, that this actor should not appear again before you?'
“'Yes—yes. No—no—no,' were shouted from hundreds of voices.
“' What am I to understand?' said he, bowing, with his arms crossed submissively before him. 'I submit myself to your orders. If Mr. Cregan does not meet your approbation—'
“'Throw him into the dock!—break his neck!—set him adrift on a log down the Gulf-stream!—chip him up for bark!—burn him for charcoal!'—and twenty other like humane proposals burst forth together; and so, not waiting to see how far the manager's politeness would carry him, I fled from the theatre. Yes, Cullinane, I fled with shame and disgust from that fickle public, who applaud with ecstasy today that they may condemn with infamy to-morrow. Nor was I deceived by the vain egotism of supposing that I was the object of their ungenerous anger. Alas! my friend, the evil lay deeper,—it was my Irish name and family they sought to insult! The old grudge that they bear us at home, they carry over the seas with them. How plain it is: they never can forgive our superiority. It is this they seek revenge upon wherever they find us.”
I own that in giving this peculiar turn to my narrative I was led by perceiving that my listener had begun to show a most lamentable want of sympathy for myself and my sufferings; so I was driven to try what a little patriotism might do in arousing his feelings; and I was right. Some of Cullnane's connections had been Terrys,—or Blackfeet, or White-feet, or some one or other of these pleasant fraternities who study ball-practice, with a landlord for the bull's-eye. He at once caught up the spirit of my remarks, and even quoted some eloquent passages of Mr. O'Connell about the width of our shoulders and the calves of our legs, and other like personal advantages, incontestably showing as they do that we never were made to be subject to the Saxon. It was the law of the land, however, which had his heartiest abhorrence. This, like nine-tenths of his own class in Ireland, he regarded as a systematic means of oppression, invented by the rich to give them the tyrannical dominion over the poor. Nor is the belief to be wondered at, considering how cognizant the peasant often is of all the schemes and wiles by which a conviction is compassed; nay, the very adroitness of a legal defence in criminal cases,—the feints, the quips, the stratagems,—instead of suggesting admiration for those barriers by which the life and liberty of a subject are protected, only engendered a stronger conviction of the roguish character of that ordeal where craft and subtlety could do so much.
It was at the close of a very long diatribe over Irish law and lawyers that Cullinane, whose confidence increased each moment, said, with a sigh, “Ay! they wor n't so 'cute in ould times, when my poor grandfather was tried, as they are now, or may be he'd have had betther luck.”
“What happened to him?” said I.
“He was hanged, acushla!” said he, knocking the ashes out of his pipe as leisurely as might be, and then mumbling a scrap of a prayer below his breath.
“For what?” asked I, in some agitation; but he didn't hear me, being sunk in his own reflections, so that I was forced to repeat my question.
“Ye never heerd of one Mr. Shinane, of the Grove?” said he, after a pause. “Of coorse ye did n't,—'tis many years ago now; but he was well known oncet, and owned a great part of Ennistymore, and a hard man he was. But no matter for that,—he was a strong, full man, with rosy cheeks and stout built, and sorra a lease in the country had not his life in it!—a thing he liked well, for he used to say, 't 'll be the ruin of ye all, if any one shoots me!' Well, my grandfather—rest his sowl in glory!—was his driver, and used to manage everything on the property for him; and considerin' what a hard thing it is, he was well liked by the country round,—all but by one man, Maurice Cafferty by name. I never seed him, for it was all 'fore I was born; but the name is in my mind as if I knew him well,—I used to hear it every night of my life when I was a child!
“There was a dispute about Cafferty's houldin', and my grandfather was for turnin' him out, for he was a bad tenant; but Mr. Shinane was afeerd of him, and said, 'Leave him quiet, Mat,' says he; 'he's a troublesome chap, and we 'll get rid of him in our own good time; but don't drive him to extremities: I told him to come up to the cottage, this morning: come with me there, and we 'll talk to him.' Now, the cottage was a little place about two miles off, in the woods, where the master used to dine sometimes in summer, when they were chipping bark; but nobody lived there.
“It was remarked by many that morning, as they went along, that my grandfather and Mr. Shinane were in high words all the time,—at least, so the people working in the fields thought, and even the childer that was picking bark said that they were talking as if they were very angry with each other.
“This was about eleven o'clock, and at the same time Cafferty, who was selling a pig in Ennistymore, said to the butcher, 'Be quick, and tell me what you 'll give, for I must go home and clean myself, as I 'm to speak to the master today about my lease.' Well, at a little before twelve Cafferty came through the wood, and asked the people had they seen Mr. Shinane pass by, for that he towld him to meet him at the cottage; and the workmen said yes, and more by token that he was quarrellin' with Mat Cullinane. 'I'm sorry for that,' says Cafferty, 'for I wanted him to be in a good humor, and long life to him! 'The words was n't well out, but what would they see but my grandfather running towards them, at the top of his speed, screeching out like mad, 'The master's murdered! the master's kilt dead!' Away they all went to the cottage, and there upon the floor was the dead body, with an axe buried deep in the skull,—so deep that only the thick part of the iron was outside. That was the dreadful sight! and, sure enough, after looking at the corpse, every eye was turned on my grandfather, who was leaning on the dresser, pale and trembling, and his hands and knees all covered with blood. 'How did it happen, Mat?' said three or four together; but Cafferty muttered, 'It's better ask nothing about it; it's not likely he 'll tell us the truth!'
“The same night my grandfather was arrested on suspicion and brought to Ennis, where he was lodged in jail; and although there was no witness agin' him, nor anything more than I towld ye,—the high words between them, the axe being my grandfather's, the blood on his clothes and hands, and his dreadful confusion when the people came up,—all these went so hard against him, and particularly as the judge said it was good to make an example, that he was condemned; and so it was he was hanged on the next Saturday in front of the jail!”
“But what defence did he make; what account did he give of the circumstance?”
“All he could tell was, that he was standing beside the master at the table, talking quietly, when he heard a shout and a yell in the wood, and he said, 'They 're stealing the bark out there; they 'll not leave us a hundredweight of it yet!' and out he rushed into the copse. The shouting grew louder, and he thought it was some of the men cryin' for help, and so he never stopped running till he came where they were at work felling trees. 'What's the matter?' says he, to the men, as he came up panting and breathless; 'where was the screeching?'
“'We heerd nothing,' says the men.
“'Ye heerd nothing! didn't ye hear yells and shouting this minute?'
“'Sorra bit,' says the men, looking strangely at each other, for my grandfather was agitated, and trembling, between anger and a kind of fear; just as he said afterwards, 'as if there was something dreadful going to happen him!' 'Them was terrible cries, anyway!' says my grandfather; and with that he turned back to the cottage, and it was then that he found the master lying dead on his face, and the axe in his skull. He tried to lift him up, or turn him over on his back, and that was the way he bloodied his hands and all the front of his clothes. That was all he had to say, and to swear before the sight of Heaven that he didn't do it!
“No matter! they hanged him for it! Ay, and I have an ould newspaper in my trunk this minit, where there 's a great discourse about the wickedness of a crayture going out of the world wid a lie on his last breath!”
“And you think he was innocent?” said I.
“Sure, we know it! sure, the priest said to my father,—'Take courage,' says he, 'your father is n't in a bad place if he 's in purgatory,' says he,' he 's not over the broken bridge, where the murderers does be, but in the meadows, where the stream is shallow, and stepping-stones in it! and every stone costs ten masses—sorra more! 'God help us! but blood is a dreadful thing!” And with this reflection, uttered in a voice of fervent feeling, the hardy peasant laid down his pipe; and I could see, by his muttering lips and clasped hands, that he was offering up a prayer for the soul's rest of his unhappy kinsman.
“And what became of Cafferty?” said I, as he finished his devotions.
“'T was never rightly known; for, after he gave evidence on the trial, the people did n't like him, and he left the place; some say he went to his mother's relations down in Kerry!”
The deep-drawn breathings of the sleepers around us; the unbroken stillness of the night; the fast-expiring embers, which only flickered at intervals,—contributed their aid to make the story more deeply affecting; and I sat pondering over it, and canvassing within my mind all the probabilities of the condemned man's guilt or innocence; nor, I must own it, were all my convictions on the side of the narrator's belief; but even that very doubt heightened the interest considerably. As for Cullinane, his thoughts were evidently less with the incidents of the characters as they lived, than with that long pilgrimage of expiation, in which his imagination pictured his poor relative still a wanderer beyond the grave.
The fire now barely flickered, throwing from time to time little jets of light upon the sleeping figures around us, and then leaving all in dark indistinctness. My companion also, crouching down, hid his face within his hands, and either slept or was lost in deep thought, and I alone of all the party was left awake, my mind dwelling on the tale I had just heard, with a degree of interest to which the place and the hour strongly contributed.
I had been for some time thus, when the sound of feet moving heavily overhead attracted my attention; they were like the sluggish footsteps of age, but passing to and fro with what seemed haste and eagerness. I could hear a voice, too, which even in its indistinctness I recognized as that of the old woman; and once or twice fancied I could detect another, whose accents sounded like pain and suffering. The shuffling footsteps still continued, and I heard the old crazy sash of the window open, and after an interval shut again, while I distinctly could catch the old hag's voice saying, “It 's all dark without; there 's no use 'trying'!” a low whining sound followed; and then I heard the old woman slowly descending the stairs, and, by the motion of her hand along the wall, I conjectured that she had no light.
She stopped as she came to the door, and seemed to listen to the long-drawn breathing of the sleepers; and then she pushed open the door and entered. With a strange dread of what this might mean, I still resolved to let the event take its course; and, feigning deepest sleep, I lay back against the wall and watched her well.
Guiding herself along by the wall, she advanced slowly, halting every second or third step to listen,—a strange precaution, since her own asthmatic breathing was enough to mask all other sounds. At last she neared the grate; and then her thin and cord-like fingers passed from the wall, to rest upon my head. It was with a kind of thrill I felt them; for I perceived by the touch that she did not know on what her hand was placed. She knelt down now, close beside me, and, stooping over, stirred the embers with her fingers till she discovered some faint resemblance to fire, amid the dark ashes. To brighten this into flame, she blew upon it for several minutes, and, even taking the live embers in her hands, tried in every way to kindle them.
With a patience that seemed untirable, she continued at this for a long time; now selecting from the hearth some new material to work upon, and now abandoning it for another; till, when I had almost grown drowsy in watching this monotonous process, a thin bright light sprung up, and I saw that she had lighted a little piece of candle that she held in her hand. I think even now I have her before me, as, crouched down upon her knees, and sheltering the candle from the current air of the room, she took a stealthy, but searching, glance at the figures, who, in every attitude of weariness, were sleeping heavily around.
It was not without a great effort that she regained her feet, for she was very old and infirm; and now she retraced her steps cautiously as she came,—stooping at intervals to listen, and then resuming her way as before. I watched her till she passed out; and then, as I heard her first heavy footstep on the stair, I slipped off my shoes and followed her.
My mind throughout the whole of that night had been kept in a state of tension that invariably has the effect of magnifying the significance of every, even the very commonest, occurrences. It resembles that peculiar condition in certain maladies when the senses become preternaturally acute; in such moments the reason is never satisfied with drawing only from inferences for any fact before it; it seeks for more, and in the effort becomes lost in the mazes of mere fancy. I will own that as, with stealthy step and noiseless gesture, I followed that old hag, there was a kind of ecstasy in my terror which no mere sense of pleasure could convey. The light seemed to show ghastly shapes, as she passed, on the green and mouldy walls, and her head, with its masses of long and straggling gray hair, nodded in shadow like some unearthly spectre.
As she came nigh the top, I heard a weak and whining cry, something too deep for the voice of infancy, but seeming too faint for manhood. “Ay, ay,” croaked the hag, harshly, “I'm coming, I'm coming!” and as she said this, she pushed open a door and entered a room, which, by the passing gleam of light as she went, I perceived lay next to the roof, for the rafters and the tiles were both visible, as there was no ceiling.
I held my breath as I slowly stole along, and then, reaching the door as it lay half ajar, I crouched down and peeped in.
When the light of the candle which the old woman carried had somewhat dissipated the darkness, I could see the whole interior of the room; and certainly, well habituated as I had been from my earliest years to such sights, poverty like this I never had seen before! Not a chair nor table was there; a few broken utensils for cooking, such as are usually thrown away as useless among rubbish, stood upon the cold hearth. A few potatoes on one broken dish, and a little meat on another, were the only things like food. It was not for some minutes that I perceived in the corner a miserable bed of straw confined within a plank, supported by two rough stones; nor was it till I had looked long and closely that I saw that the figure of a man lay extended on the bed, his stiffened and outstretched limbs resembling those of a corpse. Towards this the old woman now tottered with slow steps, and, setting the small piece of candle upright in a saucer, she approached the bed. “There it is, now; look at it, and make yer mind aisy,” said she, placing it on the floor beside the bed, in such a position that he could see it.
The sick man turned his face round, and as his eyes met the light, there came over his whole features a wondrous change. Livid and clammy with the death-sweat, the rigid muscles relaxed, and in the staring eyeballs and the parted lips there seemed a perfect paroxysm of emotion. “Is that it?—are ye sure that's it?” cried he, in a voice to which the momentary excitement imparted strength.
“To be sure I am; I seen Father Ned bless it himself, and sprinkle it too!” said she.
“Oh, the heavenly—” He stopped, and in a lower voice added, “Say it for me, Molly!—say it for me, Molly! I can't say it myself.”
“Keep your eyes on the blessed candle!” said the hag, peevishly; “'t is a quarter dollar it cost me.”
“Wouldn't he come, Molly?—did he say he wouldn't come?”
“Father Ned! arrah, 'tis likely he'd come here at night, with the Tapageers on their rounds, and nothing to give him when he kem!”
“Not to hear my last words!—not to take my confession!” cried he, in a kind of shriek. “Oh, 'tis the black list of sins I have to own to!”
“Whisht, whisht!” cried the hag. “'T is many a year ago now; maybe it's all forgot.”
“No, it's not,” cried the dying man, with a wild energy he did not seem to have strength for. “When you wor away, Molly, he was here, standing beside the bed.”
The old hag laughed with a horrid sardonic laugh.
“Don't—don't, for the love of—ah—I can't say—I can't say it,” cried he; and the voice died away in the effort.
“What did he say to ye when he kem?” said she, in a scoffing tone.
“He never spoke a word, but he pressed back the cloth that was on his head, and I saw the deep cut in it, down to the very face!”
“Well, I am sure it had time to heal before this time,” said the woman, with a tone of mockery that at last became palpable to the dying man.
“Where's Dan, Molly,—did he never come back since?”
“Sorra bit; he said he'd go out of the house, and never come back to it. You frightened the boy with the terrible things you say in your ravings.”
“Oh, murther—murther! My own flesh and blood desart me!”
“Then why won't you be raisonable,—why won't you hould your peace about what happened long agone?”
“Because I can't,” said he, with a peevish eagerness. “Because I'm going where it's all known a'ready.”
“Faix, and I would n't be remindin' them, anyway!” said the hag, whose sarcastic impiety added fresh tortures to the dying sinner.
“I wanted to tell Father Ned all; I wanted to have masses for him that's gone,—the man that suffered instead of me! Oh, dear!—Oh, dear!—and nobody will come to me.”
“If ye cry that loud, I 'll leave you too,” said the hag. “They know already 'tis the spotted fever ye have, and the Tapageers would burn the house under ye, if I was to go.”
“Don't go, Molly,—don't leave me,” he cried, with heart-rending anguish. “Bring the blessed candle nearer; I don't see it well.”
“You'll see less of it soon; 'tis nigh out,” said she, snuffing the wick with her fingers.
The dying man now stretched out his fleshless fingers towards the light, and I could see by his lips that he was praying. “They 're calling me now,” cried he, “Molly,”—and his voice of a sudden grew strong and full,—“don't ye hear them? There it is again,—'Maurice Cafferty, Maurice Cafferty, yer wantin'.”
“Lie down and be at peace,” said she, rudely pushing him back on the bed.
“The blessed candle, where's the blessed candle?” shrieked he.
“'T is out,” said the hag; and as she spoke, the wick fell into the saucer, and all was dark.
A wild and fearful cry broke from the sick man and re-echoed through the silent house; and ere it died away I had crept stealthily back to my place beside my companions.
“'Did ye hear anything, or was I dreamin'?” said Joe to me; “I thought I heard the most dreadful scream,—like a man drownin'.”
“It was a dream, perhaps,” said I, shuddering at the thought of what I had just witnessed, while I listened with terrible anxiety for auy sound overhead; but none came; and so passed the long hours till day-dawn.
Without revealing to my companion the terrible scene I had been witness to, I told him that we were in the same house with a fearful malady,—an announcement I well knew had greater terror for none than an Irish peasant. He at once decided on departing; and, although day was barely breaking, he awoke the others, and a low whispering conversation ensued, in which I felt, or imagined, at least, that I was an interested party. At last Joe, turning towards me, said, “And you, sir, what do you mean to do!”
“The very question,” said I, “that I cannot answer. If I were to follow my inclination, I 'd turn homeward; if I must yield to necessity, I 'll call upon the Governor-General, and remain with him till I hear from my friends.”
There was a pause; a moment of deliberation seemed to fall upon the bystanders, which at length was broken by the old man saying, “Well, good luck be with you; any way, 't is the best thing you could do!”
I saw that I had overshot my bolt, and with difficulty concealed my annoyance at my own failure. My irritation was, I conclude, sufficiently apparent, for Joe quickly said, “We 're very sorry to part with you; but if we could be of any use before we go—”
“Which way do you travel?” said I, carelessly.
“That's the puzzle, for we don't know the country. 'T is New Orleans we'd like to go to first.”
“Nothing easier,” said I. “Take the steamer to Montreal, cross over into the States, down Lake Champlain to Whitehall, over to Albany, and then twenty hours down the Hudson brings you to New York.”
“You know the way well!” said Joe, with an undisguised admiration for my geography, which, I need not tell the reader, was all acquired from books and maps.
“I should think so,” said I, “seeing that I might travel it blindfold!”
“Is it dangerous? Are there Injians?” said the old man, whose mind seemed very alive to the perils of red men.
“There are some tribes on the way,” said I; “but the white fellows you meet with are worse than the red ones,—such rogues, and assassins too!”
“The saints presarve us! How will we ever do it?”
“Look out for some smart fellow who knows the way and thoroughly understands the people, and who can speak French fluently, for the first part of the journey, and who is up to all the Yankee roguery, for the second. Give him full power to guide and direct your expedition, and you 'll have both a safe journey and a pleasant one.”
“Ay, and where will we get him?” cried one.
“And what would he be askin' for his trouble?” said another; while Joe, with an assenting nod, reiterated both questions, and seemed to expect that answer from me.
“It ought to be easy enough in such a city as this,” said I, negligently. “Are you acquainted with Forbes and Gudgeon? They are my bankers. They could, I am sure, find out your man at once.”
“Ah, sir, we know nobody at all!” exclaimed Joe, in an accent of such humility that I actually felt shocked at my own duplicity.
“By Jove!” said I, as though a sudden thought had struck me, “very little would make me go with you myself.” A regular burst of joy from the whole party here interrupted me. “Yes, I'm quite in earnest,” said I, with a dignified air. “This place will be excessively distasteful to me henceforth. I have placed myself in what is called a false position here, and 'twere far better to escape from it at once.”
“That would be the making of us, all out, if ye could come, Mr. Cregan!” said Joe.
“Let me interrupt you one moment,” said I. “If I should accompany you on this journey, there is one condition only upon which I would consent to it.”
“Whatever you like; only say it,” said he, over whom I had established a species of magnetic influence.
“It is this, then,” said I, “that you treat me on terms of perfect equality,—forget my birth and rank in life; regard me exactly as one of yourselves. Let me be no longer anything but 'Con Cregan.'”
“That's mighty handsome, entirely!” said the old man,—a sentiment concurred in by the whole family in chorus.
“Remember, then,” said I, “no more 'Mr. Cregan.' I am 'Con'—nothing more!”
Joe looked unutterable delight at the condescension.
“Secondly, I should not wish to go back to my lodgings here, after what has occurred; so I 'll write a few lines to have my trunks forwarded to Montreal, until which time I 'll ask of you to procure me a change of costume, for I cannot bear to be seen in this absurd dress by daylight.”
“To be sure; whatever you please!” said Joe, overjoyed at the projected arrangement.
After some further discussion on the subject, I inquired where their luggage was stored, and learned that it lay at the Montreal Steamer Wharf, where it had been deposited the preceding day; and by a bill of the packets, which Joe produced, I saw that she was to sail that very morning, at eight o'clock. There was then no time to lose; so I advised my companions to move silently and noiselessly from the house, and to follow me. With an implicit reliance on every direction I uttered, they stole carefully down the stairs and issued into the street, which was now perfectly deserted.
Although in total ignorance of the locality, I stepped out confidently; and first making for the Harbor, as a “point of departure,” I at last reached the “New Wharf,” as the station of the river steamers was called. With an air of the most consummate effrontery, I entered the office to bargain for our passage; and although the clerks were not sparing of their ridicule both on my pretensions and my costume, as the conversation was carried on in French, my companions stared in wonder at my fluency, and in silent ecstasy at the good fortune that had thrown them into such guidance.
It was a busy morning for me; since besides getting their luggage on board and procuring them a hearty breakfast, I had also to arrange about my own costume, of which I now felt really ashamed at every step.
At length we got under way, and steamed stoutly against the fast-flowing St. Lawrence; our decks crowded with a multifarious and motley crew of emigrants, all bound for various places in the Upper Province, but with as pleasant an ignorance of where they were going, what it was like, and how far off, as the most devoted fatalist could have wished for. A few, and they were the shrewd exceptions, remembered the name of the city in whose neighborhood they were about to settle; many more could only say, negatively, that it was n't Lachine, nor it was n't Trois Rivières; some were only capable of affirming that it was “beyant Montreal,” or “higher up than Kingston;” and, lastly, a “few bright spirits” were going, “wid the help o' God, where Dan was,” or “Peter.” They were not downhearted, nor anxious, nor fretful for all this; far from it. It seemed as if the world before them, in all the attractions of its novelty, suggested hope. They had left a land so full of wretchedness that no change could well be worse; so they sat in pleasant little knots and groups upon the deck “discoorsin!” Ay, just so,—“discoorsin'”! Sassenach that you are, I hear you muttering, “What is that?” Well, I'll tell you. “Discoorsin'” is not talking, nor chaffing, nor mere conversing. It is not the causerie of the French, nor the conversazione of Italy, nor is it the Gespräch's Unterhaltung of plodding old Germany; but it is an admirable mélange of all together. It is a grand olla podrida, where all things, political, religious, agricultural, and educational, are discussed with such admirable keeping, such uniformity in the tone of sentiment and expression, that it would be difficult to detect a change in the subject-matter, from the quiet monotony of its handling. The Pope; the praties; Molly Somebody's pig and the Priest's pony; Dan O'Connell's last installment of hope; the price of oats; the late assizes; laments over the past,—the blessed days when there was little law and no police; when masses were cheap, and mutton to be had for stealing it,—such were the themes in vogue. And though generally one speaker “held the floor,” there was a running chorus of “Sure enough!” “Devil fear ye!” “An' why not?” kept up, that made every hearer a sleeping partner in the eloquence. Dissent or contradiction was a thing unheard of; they were all subjects upon which each felt precisely alike.
No man's experience pointed to anything save rainy seasons and wet potatoes, cheap bacon and high county cess. Life had its one phase of monotonous want, only broken in upon by the momentary orgie of an election, or the excitement of a county town on the Saturday of an execution.
And so it was. Like the nor'-easter that followed them over the seas, came all the memories of what they had left behind. They had little care for even a passing look at the new and strange objects around them. The giant cedar-trees along the banks,—the immense rafts, like floating islands, hurrying past on the foaming current, with myriads of figures moving on them,—the endless forests of dark pines, the quaint log-houses, unlike those farther north, and with more pretension to architectural design,—and now and then a Canadian “bateau” shooting past like a sword-fish, its red-capped crew saluting the steamer with a wild cheer that would wake the echoes many a mile away: if they looked at these, it was easy to see that they noted them but indifferently; their hearts were far away. Ay, in spite of misery, and hardship, and famine, and flood, they were away in the wilds of Erris, in the bleak plains of Donegal, or the lonely glens of Connemara.
It has often struck me that our rulers should have perpetuated the names of Irish localities in the New World. One must have experienced the feeling himself to know the charm of this simple association. The hourly recurring name that speaks so familiarly of home, is a powerful antidote to the sense of banishment. Well, here I am, prosing about emigrants, and their regrets, and wants, and hopes, and wishes, and forgetting the while the worthy little group who, with a hot “net” of potatoes (for in this fashion each mess is allowed to boil its quota), and a very savory cut of ham, awaited my presence in the steerage; they were good and kindly souls every one of them. The old grandfather was a fine prosy old grumbler about the year '98 and the terrible doings of the “Orangemen.” Joe was a stout-hearted, frank fellow that only wanted fair play in the world to make his path steadily onward. The sons were, in Irish parlance, “good boys,” and the girls fine-tempered and good-natured,—as ninety-nine out of the hundred are in the land they come from.
Now, shall I forfeit some of my kind reader's consideration if I say that, with all these excellences, and many others besides, they became soon inexpressibly tiresome to me. There was not a theme they spoke on that I had not already by heart. Irish grievances, in all their moods and tenses, had been always “stock pieces” in my father's cabin, and I am bound to acknowledge that the elder Cregan had a sagacity of perception, a shrewdness of discrimination, and an aptitude of expression not to be found every day. Listening to the Culliuanes after him was like hearing the butler commenting in the servants' hall over the debate one had listened to in “the House.” It was a strange, queer sensation that I felt coming over me as we travelled along day by day together, and I can even now remember the shriek of ecstasy that escaped me one morning when I had hit upon the true analysis of my feelings, and, jumping up, I exclaimed, “Con, you are progressing, my boy; you 'll be a gentleman yet; you have learned to be 'bored' already!” From that hour I cultivated “my Cullinanes” as people take a course of a Spa, where, nauseous and distasteful at the time, one fancies he is to store up Heaven knows how many years of future health and vigor.
In a former chapter of these Confessions I have told the reader the singular sensations I experienced when first under the influence of port wine: how a kind of trausfusion, as it were, of Conservative principles, a respect for order, a love of decorum, a sleepy indisposition to see anything like confusion going on about me,—all feelings which, I take it, are eminently gentleman-like. Well, this fastidious weariness of the Cullinanes was evidently the “second round of the ladder.” “It is a grand thing to be able to look down upon any one!” I do not mean this in any invidious or unworthy sense; not for the sake of depreciating others, but purely for the sake of one's own self-esteem. I would but convey that the secret conviction of superiority is amazingly exhilarating. To “hold your stride” beside an intellect that you can pass when you like, and yet merely accompany to what is called “make a race,” is rare fun; to see the other using every effort of whip and spur, bustling, shaking, and lifting, while you, well down in your saddle, never put the rowel to the flank of your fancy,—this is indeed glorious sport! In return for this, however, there is an intolerable degree of lassitude in the daily association of people who are satisfied to talk forever of the same things in the same terms.
The incidents of our journey were few and uninteresting. At Montreal I received a very civil note from Mrs. Davis, accompanying my trunk and my purse. In the few lines I had written to her from the packet-office, I said that my performance of a servant's character in her establishment had been undertaken for a wager, which I had just won; that I begged of her, in consequence, to devote the wages owing to me to any charitable office she should think fit, and kindly to forward my effects to Montreal, together with a certificate, under her hand, that my real rank and station had never been detected during my stay in her house: this document being necessary to convince my friend Captain Pike that I had fulfilled the conditions of our bet.
Mrs. Davis's reply was a gem. “She had heard or read of Conacre, but didn't suspect we were the Cregans of that place. She did not know how she could ever forgive herself for having subjected me to menial duties. She had indeed been struck—as who had not?—with certain traits of my manner and address.” In fact, poor Mrs. D., what with the material for gossip suggested by the story, the surprise, and the saving of the wages—for I suspect that, like the Duke in Junius, her charity ended where it is proverbially said to begin, at home,—was in a perfect paroxysm of delight with me, herself, and the whole human race.
To me, this was a precious document; it was a patent of gentility at once. It was a passport which, if not issued by authority, had at least the “visa” of one witness to my rank, and I was not the stuff to require many credentials.
Before we had decided on what day we should leave Montreal, a kind of small mutiny began to show itself among our party. The old man, grown sick of travelling, and seeing the America of his hopes as far off as ever, became restive, and refused to move farther. The sons had made acquaintances on board the steamer, who assured them that “about the lakes “—a very vague geography—land was to be had for asking. Peggy and Susan had picked up sweethearts, and wanted to journey westward; and poor Joe, pulled in these various directions, gave himself up to a little interregnum of drink, hoping that rum might decide what reason failed in.
As for me, I saw that my own influence would depend upon my making myself a partisan; and, too proud for this, I determined to leave them. I possessed some thirty dollars, a good kit, but, better than either, the most unbounded confidence in myself, and a firm conviction that the world was an instrument I should learn to play upon, one day or other. There was no use in undeceiving them as to my real rank and station. One of the pleasantest incidents of their lives would be, in all probability, their having travelled in companionship with a gentleman; and so, remembering the story of the poor alderman who never got over having learned that “Robinson Crusoe” was a fiction, I left them this solace unalloyed, and after a most cordial leave-taking, and having written down my father's address at New Orleans, I shook hands with the men twice over, kissed the girls ditto, and stepped on board the “Kingston” steamer,—for no other reason that I know, except that she was the first to leave the wharf that morning.
I have said that I possessed something like thirty dollars: an advantageous sale of a part of my wardrobe to a young gentleman about to reside at Queenstown as a waiter, “realized” me as much more; and with this sum I resolved upon making a short tour of Canada and the States, in order to pick up a few notions and increase my store of experiences, ere I adopted any fixed career.
We laugh at the old gentleman in the play who, on hearing that his son has no want of money, immediately offers him ten pistoles, but who obstinately leaves him to starve when he discovers that he is without funds. We laugh at this, and we deem it absurd and extravagant; but it is precisely what we see the world do in like circumstances. All its generosity is reserved for all those who do not require assistance; all its denials for those in need. “My Lord” refuses half-a-dozen dinners, while the poor devil author only knows the tune of “Roast Beef.” These reflections forced themselves upon me by observing that as I travelled along, apparently in no want of means, a hundred offers were made me by my fellow-travellers of situations and places: one would have enlisted me as his partner in a very lucrative piece of peripateticism,—viz., knife-grinding; a vocation for which, after a few efforts on board the steamer, Nature would seem to have destined me, for I was assured I even picked up the sharp-knowing cock of the eye required to examine the edge, and the style of my pedal-action drew down rounds of applause: still, I did not like it. The endless tramp upon a step which slipped from beneath you seemed to emblematize a career that led to nothing; while an unpleasant association with what I had heard of a treadmill completed my distaste for it.
Another opened to me the more ambitious prospect of a shopman at his “store,” near Rochester, and even showed me, by way of temptation, some of the brilliant wares over whose fortunes I should preside. There were ginghams, and taffetas, and cottons of every hue and pattern. But no, I felt this was not my walk either; and so I muttered to myself: “No, Con! if you meddle with muslin, wait till it's fashioned into a petticoat.”
My next proposition came from a barber; and really if I did not take to the pole and basin, I own I was flattered at his praises of my skill. He pronounced my brush-hand as something bold and masterly as Rubens',—while my steel manipulation was more brilliant than bloodless.
Then there was a Jew spectacle-maker, a hawker of pamphlets, an Indian moccasin merchant, and twenty other of various walks,—all of whom seemed to opine that their craft, whatever it might be, was exactly the very line adapted to my faculties. Once only was I really tempted: it was by the editor of the Kingston newspaper, “The Ontario Herald,” who offered to take me into his office, and in time induct me into the gentle pastime of paragraph-writing. I did, I own, feel a strong inclination for that free and independent kind of criticism, which, although issuing from a garret, and by the light of a “dip,” does not scruple to remind royalty how to comport itself, and gives kings and kaisers smart lessons in good-breeding. For a time, my mind dwelt on all these delights with ardor; but I soon felt that he who acts life has an incomparable advantage over him who merely writes it, and that even a poor performer is better, when the world is his stage, than the best critic.
“I'll wait,” thought I,—nothing within, no suggestive push from conscience, urged me to follow any of these roads; and so I journeyed away from Kingston to Fort George, thence to Niagara, where I amused myself agreeably for a week, sitting all day long upon the Table Rock, and watching the Falls in a dreamy kind of self-consciousness, brought on by the din, the crash, the spray, the floating surf, and that vibration of the air on every side, which all conspire to make up a sensation that ever after associates with the memory of that scene, and leaves any effort to describe it so difficult.
From this I wandered into the States by Schenectady, Utica, and Albany, down the Hudson to New York, thence—but why recite mere names? It was after about three months' travelling, during which my wardrobe shared a fate not dissimilar to Æsop's bread-basket, that I found myself at New Orleans. Coming even from the varied and strange panorama that so many weeks of continual travelling present, I was struck by the appearance of New Orleans. Do not be afraid, worthy reader; you're not “in” for any description of localities. I 'll neither inflict you with a land view nor a sea view. In my company you 'll never hear a word about the measurement of a cathedral, or the number of feet in height of a steeple. My care and my business are with men and women. They are to me the real objects of travel. The checkered board of human life is the map whose geography I love to study, and my thoughts are far more with the stream that flows from the heart, than with the grandest river that ever sought the sea. When I said I was struck with New Orleans, it was then with the air of its population. Never did I behold such a mass of bold, daring, reckless fellows as swaggered on every side. The fiery Frenchman, the determined-looking Yankee, the dark-browed Spaniard, the Camanche and the half-caste, the Mulatto, the Texan, the Negro, the Cuban, and the Creole, were all here, and all seemed picked specimens of their race.
The least acute of observers could not fail to see that it was a land where a quick eye, a steady foot, and a strong hand were requisites of every-day life. The personal encounters that in other cities are left altogether to the very lowest class of inhabitants, were here in frequent use among every grade and rank. Every one went armed; the scenes which so often occurred, showed the precaution a needful one.
The wide-awake look of the Yankee was sleepy indifference when contrasted with the intense keenness of aspect that met you here at every step, and you felt at once that you were in company where all your faculties would be few enough for self-protection. This, my first impression of the people, each day's experience served to confirm. Whatever little veils of shame and delicacy men throw over their sharp practices elsewhere, here, I am free to confess, they despised such hypocrisy. It was a free trade in wickedness. In their game of life “cheating was fair.” Now, this in nowise suited me nor my plans. I soon saw that all the finer traits of my own astuteness would be submerged in the great ocean of coarse roguery around me, and I soon resolved upon taking my departure.
The how and the whereto—two very important items in the resolve—were yet to be solved, and I was trotting along Cliff Street one day, when my eyes rested suddenly upon the great board, with large letters on it, “Office of the 'Picayune.'” I repeated the word over and over a couple of times, and then remembered it was the journal in which the reward for the Black Boatswain had been offered.
There was little enough, Heaven knows, in this to give me any interest in the paper; but the total isolation in which I found myself, without one to speak to or converse with, made me feel that even the “Picayune” was an acquaintance; and so I drew near the window where a considerable number of persons were reading the last number of the paper, which, in a laudable spirit of generosity, was exposed within the glass to public gaze.
Mingling with these, but not near enough to read for myself, I could hear the topics that were discussed, among which a row at the Congress, a duel with revolvers, a steam explosion on the Mississippi, and a few smart instances of Lynch-law figured.
“What 's that in the 'Yune print?” said a great raw-boned fellow, with a cigar like a small walking-cane in the corner of his mouth.
“It's a Texan go,” said another; “sha'n't catch me at that trick.”
“Well, I don't know,” drawled out a sleek-haired man, with a very Yankee drawl; “I see Roarin' Peter, our judge up at New Small-pox, take a tarnation deal of booty out of that location.”
“Where had he been?” asked the tall fellow.
“At Guayugualla,—over the frontier.”
“There is a bit to be done about there,” said the other, and, wrapping his mantle about him, lounged off.
“Guayugualla!” repeated I; and, retiring a little from the crowd, I took from my pocket the little newspaper paragraph of the negro, and read the name which had sounded so familiarly to my ears.
I endeavored once more to approach the window, but the crowd had already increased considerably; and I had nothing for it but to go in and buy the paper, which now had taken a strong hold upon me.
Cheap as was the paper, it cost me that day's dinner; and it was with a very great anxiety to test the value of my sacrifice that I hastened to the little miserable den which I had hired as my sleeping-place.
Once within, I fastened the door, and, spreading out the journal on my bed, proceeded to search for the Texan paragraph. It was headed in capitals, and easily found. It ran thus:—
“WANTED—A few downright, go-ahead ones, to join an excursion into the One-Star Republic,—the object being to push a way down South, and open a new trade-line for home doings. Applicants to address the Office of the paper, and rally at Galveston, with rifle, pistols, ammunition, horse, pack, and a bowie, on Tuesday, the 8th instant.”
I 'm sure I knew that paragraph off by heart before bedtime, but just as I have seen a stupid man commit a proposition in Euclid to memory,—without ever being able to work it. I was totally at a loss what to make of the meaning of the expedition. It was, to say the least, somewhat mysterious; and the whole being addressed to “go-ahead ones,” who were to come with rifles and bowie-knives, showed that they were not likely to be missionaries. There was one wonderful clause about it,—it smacked of adventure. There was a roving wildness in the very thought which pleased me, and I straightway opened a consultation with myself how I could compass the object. My stock of money had dwindled down to four dollars; and although I still possessed some of the best articles of my wardrobe, the greater portion had been long since disposed of.
Alas! the more I thought over it, the more hopeless did my hope of journey appear,—I made every imaginable good bargain in my fancy; I disposed of old waistcoats and gaiters as if they had been the honored vestments of heroes and sages; I knocked down my shoes at prices that old Frederick's boots would n't have fetched; and yet, with all this, I fell far short of a sum sufficient to purchase my equipment,—in fact, I saw that if I compassed the “bowie-knife,” it would be the full extent of my powers. I dwelt upon this theme so long that I grew fevered and excited: I got to believe that here was a great career opening before me, to which one petty, miserable obstacle opposed itself. I was like a man deterred from undertaking an immense journey, by the trouble of crossing a rivulet.
In this frame of mind I went to bed, but only to rove over my rude fancies, and, in a state between sleep and waking, to imagine that some tiny hand held me back, and prevented me ascending a path on which Fortune kept waving her hand for me to follow. When day broke, I found myself sitting at my window, with the newspaper in my hands,—though how I came there, or how long I had spent in that attitude, I cannot say; I only know that my limbs were excessively cold, and my temples hot, and that while my hands were benumbed and swollen, my heart beat faster and fuller than I had ever felt it before.
“Now for the 'Picayune,'” said I, starting from my chair; “though I never may make the journey, at least I 'll ask the road.”