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CHAPTER XVII. A “SCENE” AND “MY LUCUBRATIONS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.”

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.