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diff --git a/old/32060-8.txt~ b/old/32060-8.txt~ new file mode 100644 index 0000000..527366d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/32060-8.txt~ @@ -0,0 +1,22698 @@ + +Project Gutenberg's Confessions Of Con Cregan, by Charles James Lever + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Confessions Of Con Cregan + An Irish Gil Blas + +Author: Charles James Lever + +Illustrator: Phiz. + +Release Date: April 19, 2010 [EBook #32060] +Last Updated: May 7, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF CON CREGAN *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + +_CONFESSIONS OF_ + +CON CREGAN + + _An Irish Gil Blas_ + + +By Charles Lever + + +With Illustrations by Phiz. + + +Boston: Little, Brown, And Company. 1913 + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE. + +CHAPTER I. A PEEP AT MY FATHER + +CHAPTER II. ANOTHER PEEP AT MY FATHER + +CHAPTER III. A FIRST STEP ON LIFE'S LADDER + +CHAPTER IV. HOW I ENTERED COLLEGE, AND HOW I LEFT IT + +CHAPTER V. A PEEP AT "HIGH AND LOW COMPANY" + +CHAPTER VI. VIEWS OF LIFE + +CHAPTER VII. A BOLD STROKE FOR AN OPENING IN THE WORLD + +CHAPTER VIII. A QUIET CHOP AT 'KILLEEN'S' + +CHAPTER IX. SIR DUDLEY BROUGHTON + +CHAPTER X. THE VOYAGE OUT + +CHAPTER XI. MEANS AND MEDITATIONS + +CHAPTER XII. A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER OPENING IN LIFE + +CHAPTER XIII. QUEBEC + +CHAPTER XIV. FELL IN AND OUT WITH THE WIDOW DAVIS + +CHAPTER XV. AN EMIGRANTS FIRST STEP ON SHORE + +CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT IN THE LOWER TOWN + +CHAPTER XVII. MY LUCUBRATIONS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE + +CHAPTER XVIII. THE ORDINARY OF ALL NATIONS + +CHAPTER XIX. ON BOARD THE 'CHRISTOBAL' + +CHAPTER XX. THE LOG-HUT AT BRAZOS + +CHAPTER XXI. A NIGHT IN THE FOREST OF TEXAS + +CHAPTER XXII. THE LAZARETTO OF BEXAR + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE PLACER + +CHAPTER XXIV. THE FATE OF A GAMBUSINO + +CHAPTER XXV. LA SEÑHORA + +CHAPTER XXVI. THE DISCOVERY + +CHAPTER XXVII. GUAJUAQUALLA + +CHAPTER XXVIII. THE VOYAGE OF THE 'ACADIE' + +CHAPTER XXIX. THE CARCEL MORENA AT MALAGA + +CHAPTER XXX. CONSOLATIONS OF DIPLOMACY + +CHAPTER XXXI. A NEW WALK IN PROGRESSIVE LIFE + +CHAPTER XXXII. MOI ET MON PRINCE + +CHAPTER XXXIII. A SOIRÉE IN THE GREAT WORLD + +CHAPTER XXXIV. CONCLUSION + + + +PREFACE. + +An eminent apothecary of my acquaintance once told me that at each +increase to his family, he added ten per cent to the price of his drugs, +and as his quiver was full of daughters, Blackdraught, when I knew him, +was a more costly cordial than Curaçoa. + +To apply this to my own case, I may mention that I had a daughter born +to me about the time this story dates from, and not having at my command +the same resource as my friend the chemist, I adopted the alternative of +writing another story, to be published contemporaneously with that now +appearing,--"The Daltons;" and not to incur the reproach so natural in +criticism--of over-writing myself--I took care that the work should come +out without a name. + +I am not sure that I made any attempt to disguise my style; I +was conscious of scores of blemishes--I decline to call them +mannerisms--that would betray me: but I believe I trusted most of all to +the fact that I was making my monthly appearance to the world in another +story, and with another publisher, and I had my hope that my small +duplicity would thus escape undetected. + +I was aware that there was a certain amount of peril in running an +opposition coach on the line I had made in some degree my own; not to +say that it might be questionable policy to glut the public with a kind +of writing more remarkable for peculiarity than perfection. + +I remember that excellent Irishman Bianconi, not the less Irish that he +was born at Lucca,--which was simply a "bull,"--once telling me that to +popularize a road on which few people were then travelling, and on which +his daily two-horse car was accustomed to go its journey, with two or at +most three passengers, the idea occurred to him that he would start +an opposition conveyance, of course in perfect secrecy, and with every +outward show of its being a genuine rival. He effected his object with +such success that his own agents were completely taken in, and never +wearied of reporting, for his gratification, all the shortcomings and +disasters of the rival company. + +At length, and when the struggle between the competitors was at its +height, one of his drivers rushed frantically into his office one day, +crying out, "Give a crown-piece to drink your honor's health for what I +done to-day." + +"What was it, Larry?" + +"I killed the yallow mare of the opposition car; I passed her on the +long hill, when she was blown, and I bruk her heart before she reached +the top." + +"After this I gave up the opposition," said my friend; "'mocking was +catching,' as the old proverb says; and I thought that one might carry a +joke a little too far." + +I had this experience before me, and I will not say it did not impress +me. My puzzle was, however, in this wise: I imagined I did not care on +which horse I stood to win; in other words, I persuaded myself that it +was a matter of perfect indifference to me which book took best with the +public, and whether the reader thought better of "The Daltons" or "Con +Cregan," that it could in no way concern me. + +That I totally misunderstood myself, or misconceived the case before +me, I am now quite ready to own. For one notice of "The Daltons" by the +Press, there were at least three or four of "Con Cregan," and while the +former was dismissed with a few polite and measured phrases, the latter +was largely praised and freely quoted. Nor was this all. The critics +discovered in "Con Cregan" a freshness and a vigor which were so sadly +deficient in "The Daltons." It was, they averred, the work of a less +practised writer, but of one whose humor was more subtle, and whose +portraits, roughly sketched as they were, indicated a far higher power +than the well-known author of "Harry Lorrequer." + +The unknown--for there was no attempt to guess him--was pronounced not +to be an imitator of Mr. Lever, though there were certain small points +of resemblance; for he was clearly original in his conception of +character, in his conduct of his story, and in his dialogues, and there +were traits of knowledge of life in scenes and under conditions to +which Mr. Lever could lay no claim. One critic, who had found out more +features of resemblance between the two writers than his colleagues, +uttered a friendly caution to Mr. Lever to look to his laurels, for +there was a rival in the field possessing many of the characteristics by +which he first won public favor, but a racy drollery in description and +a quaintness in his humor all his own. It was the amusement of one of my +children at the time to collect these sage comments and torment me with +their judgments, and I remember a droll little note-book, in which they +were pasted, and read aloud from time to time with no small amusement +and laughter. + +One or two of these I have even now before me:-- + +"Our new novelist has great stuff in him."--_Bath Gazette_. + +"'Con Cregan'--author unknown--begins promisingly; his first number is a +decided hit."--_Cambridge Chronicle_. + +"The writer of 'Con Cregan' is a new hand, but we predict he will be a +success"."--_Cambridge Advertiser_. + +"A new tale, in a style with which Lever and his followers have made us +acquainted."--_Hampshire Advertiser_. + +"This tale is from the pen of an able Irish writer. The dialogue is very +smartly written, so much so--and we cannot pay the writer a more +genuine compliment--that it bespeaks the author to be an Irishman, +&c."--_Somerset Gazette_. + +"'Con Cregan '--by an unnamed author--is a new candidate for +popularity," &c.--_Northern Whig_, Belfast. + +"The writer must be an Irishman."--_Nottingham Gazette_. + +"A new bark, launched by an unknown builder."--_Cheltenham Chronicle_. + +"That the author's name is not disclosed will not affect the popularity +of this work,--one of the most attractive," &c.--_Oxford Journal_. + +"This is a new tale by the pen of some able Irish writer, the first part +of which is only published."--_Ten Town Messenger_. + +"Another new candidate for popular fame, and 'Harry Lorrequer' had +better look to his laurels. There is a poacher in the manor in the +person of the writer of 'Con Cregan.'"--_Yorkshireman_. + +"'Con Cregan' promises to become as great a fact as 'Harry Lorrequer.' +"--_People's Journal_. + +"The author of 'Con Cregan,' whoever he be, is no ordinary man." + +"Another daring author has entered the lists, and with every promise of +success."--_Exeter Post_. + +It may sound very absurd to confess it, but I was excessively provoked +at the superior success of the unacknowledged book, and felt the rivalry +to the full as painfully as though I had never written a line of it. Was +it that I thought well of one story and very meanly of the other, and +in consequence was angry at the want of concurrence of my critics? I +suspect not. I rather imagine I felt hurt at discovering how little hold +I had, in my acknowledged name, on a public with whom I fancied myself +on such good terms; and it pained me to see with what little difficulty +a new and a nameless man could push for the place I had believed to be +my own. + +"The Daltons" I always wrote, after my habit, in the morning; I never +turned to "Con Cregan" until nigh midnight; and I can still remember the +widely different feelings with which I addressed myself to the task I +liked, and to a story which, in the absurd fashion I have mentioned, was +associated with wounded self-love. + +It is scarcely necessary for me to say that there was no plan whatever +in this book. My notion was, that "Con Cregan," once created, would not +fail to find adventures. The vicissitudes of daily poverty would beget +shifts and contrivances; with these successes would come ambition +and daring. Meanwhile a growing knowledge of life would develop his +character, and I should soon see whether he would win the silver spoon +or spoil the horn. I ask pardon in the most humble manner for presuming +for a moment to associate my hero with the great original of Le Sage. + +But I used the word "Irish" adjectively, and with the same amount of +qualification that one employs to a diamond, and indeed, as I have read +it in a London paper, to a "Lord." + +An American officer, of whom I saw much at the time, was my guide to the +interior of Mexico; he had been originally in the Santa Fé expedition, +was a man of most adventurous disposition, and a love of stirring +incident and peril, that even broken-down health and a failing +constitution could not subdue. + +It was often very difficult for me to tear myself away from his Texan +and Mexican experiences, his wild scenes of prairie life, or his sojourn +amongst Indian tribes, and keep to the more commonplace events of my own +story; nor could all my entreaties confine him to those descriptions of +places and scenes which I needed for my own characters. + +The saunter after tea-time, with this companion, generally along that +little river that tumbles through the valley of the Bagno di Lucca, was +the usual preparation for my night's work; and I came to it as intensely +possessed by Mexico--dress, manner, and landscape--as though I had been +drawing on the recollection of a former journey. + +So completely separated in my mind were the two tales by the different +parts of the day in which I wrote them, that no character of "The +Daltons" ever crossed my mind after nightfall, nor was there a trace of +"Con Cregan" in my head at my breakfast next morning. + +None of the characters of this story have been taken from life. The one +bit of reality in the whole is in the sketch of "Anticosti," where I +myself suffered once a very small shipwreck, but of which I retain a +very vivid recollection to this hour. + +I have already owned that I bore a grudge to the story as I wrote it; +nor have I outlived the memory of the chagrin it cost me, though it is +many a year since I acknowledged that "Con Cregan" was by the author of +"Harry Lorrequer." + + + +CHAPTER I. A PEEP AT MY FATHER + +When we shall have become better acquainted, my worthy reader, there +will be little necessity for my insisting upon a fact which at this +early stage of our intimacy, I deem it requisite to mention; namely, +that my native modesty and bashfulness are only second to my veracity, +and that while the latter quality in a manner compels me to lay an +occasional stress upon my own goodness of heart, generosity, candor, and +so forth, I have, notwithstanding, never introduced the subject without +a pang,--such a pang as only a sensitive and diffident nature can suffer +or comprehend. There now, not another word of preface or apology! + +I was born in a little cabin on the borders of Meath and King's County. +It stood on a small triangular bit of ground, beside a cross-road; and +although the place was surveyed every ten years or so, they were never +able to say to which county we belonged; there being just the same +number of arguments for one side as for the other,--a circumstance, +many believed, that decided my father in his original choice of the +residence; for while, under the "disputed boundary question," he paid +no rates or county cess, he always made a point of voting at both county +elections! This may seem to indicate that my parent was of a naturally +acute habit; and indeed the way he became possessed of the bit of ground +will confirm that impression. + +There was nobody of the rank of gentry in the parish, nor even +"squireen;" the richest being a farmer, a snug old fellow, one Henry +M'Cabe, that had two sons, who were always fighting between themselves +which was to have the old man's money,--Peter, the elder, doing +everything to injure Mat, and Mat never backward in paying off the +obligation. At last Mat, tired out in the struggle, resolved he would +bear no more. He took leave of his father one night, and next day set +off for Dublin, and 'listed in the "Buffs." Three weeks after, he sailed +for India; and the old man, overwhelmed by grief, took to his bed, and +never arose from it after. + +Not that his death was any way sudden, for he lingered on for months +long,--Peter always teasing him to make his will, and be revenged on +"the dirty spalpeen" that disgraced the family, but old Harry as stoutly +resisting, and declaring that whatever he owned should be fairly divided +between them. + +These disputes between them were well known in the neighborhood. Few of +the country people passing the house at night but had overheard the old +man's weak, reedy voice, and Peter's deep, hoarse one, in altercation. +When at last--it was on a Sunday night--all was still and quiet in the +house,--not a word, not a footstep, could be heard, no more than if it +were uninhabited,--the neighbors looked knowingly at each other, and +wondered if the old man was worse--if he was dead! + +It was a little after midnight that a knock came to the door of our +cabin. I heard it first, for I used to sleep in a little snug basket +near the fire; but I did n't speak, for I was frightened. It was +repeated still louder, and then came a cry, "Con Cregan! Con, I +say, open the door! I want you." I knew the voice well; it was Peter +M'Cabe's; but I pretended to be fast asleep, and snored loudly. At last +my father unbolted the door, and I heard him say, "Oh, Mr. Peter, what's +the matter? Is the ould man worse?" + +"Faix that's what he is, for he 's dead!" + +"Glory be his bed! when did it happen?" + +"About an hour ago," said Peter, in a voice that even I from my corner +could perceive was greatly agitated. "He died like an ould haythen, Con, +and never made a will!" + +"That's bad," says my father; for he was always a polite man, and said +whatever was pleasing to the company. + +"It is bad," said Peter; "but it would be worse if we could n't help +it. Listen to me now, Corny, I want ye to help me in this business; and +here's five guineas in goold, if ye do what I bid ye. You know that ye +were always reckoned the image of my father, and before he took ill ye +were mistaken for each other every day of the week." + +"Anan!" said my father; for he was getting frightened at the notion, +without well knowing why. + +"Well, what I want is, for ye to come over to the house, and get into +the bed." + +"Not beside the corpse?" said my father, trembling. + +"By no means, but by yourself; and you 're to pretend to be my father, +and that ye want to make yer will before ye die; and then I 'll send for +the neighbors, and Billy Scanlan the schoolmaster, and ye 'll tell him +what to write, laving all the farm and everything to me,--ye understand. +And as the neighbors will see ye, and hear yer voice, it will never be +believed but that it was himself that did it." + +"The room must be very dark," says my father. + +"To be sure it will, but have no fear! Nobody will dare to come nigh the +bed; and ye 'll only have to make a cross with yer pen under the name." + +"And the priest?" said my father. + +"My father quarrelled with him last week about the Easter dues, and +Father Tom said he 'd not give him the 'rites,' and that's lucky now! +Come along now, quick, for we 've no time to lose; it must be all +finished before the day breaks." + +My father did not lose much time at his toilet, for he just wrapped his +big coat 'round him, and slipping on his brogues, left the house. I +sat up in the basket and listened till they were gone some minutes; and +then, in a costume as light as my parent's, set out after them, to +watch the course of the adventure. I thought to take a short cut, and +be before them; but by bad luck I fell into a bog-hole, and only escaped +being drowned by a chance. As it was, when I reached the house, the +performance had already begun. + +I think I see the whole scene this instant before my eyes, as I sat on +a little window with one pane, and that a broken one, and surveyed the +proceeding. It was a large room, at one end of which was a bed, and +beside it a table, with physic-bottles, and spoons, and teacups; a +little farther off was another table, at which sat Billy Scanlan, with +all manner of writing materials before him. The country people sat two, +sometimes three, deep round the walls, all intently eager and anxious +for the coming event. Peter himself went from place to place, trying +to smother his grief, and occasionally helping the company to whiskey, +which was supplied with more than accustomed liberality. + +All my consciousness of the deceit and trickery could not deprive the +scene of a certain solemnity. The misty distance of the half-lighted +room; the highly wrought expression of the country people's faces, +never more intensely excited than at some moment of this kind; the low, +deep-drawn breathings, unbroken save by a sigh or a sob,--the tribute of +affectionate sorrow to some lost friend, whose memory was thus forcibly +brought back; these, I repeat it, were all so real that, as I looked, a +thrilling sense of awe stole over me, and I actually shook with fear. + +A low, faint cough, from the dark corner where the bed stood, seemed to +cause even a deeper stillness; and then, in a silence where the buzzing +of a fly would have been heard, my father said, "Where's Billy Scanlan? +I want to make my will!" + +"He's here, father!" said Peter, taking Billy by the hand and leading +him to the bedside. + +"Write what I bid ye, Billy, and be quick; for I hav'n't a long time +afore me here. I die a good Catholic, though Father O'Rafferty won't +give me the 'rites '!" + +A general chorus of muttered "Oh! musha, musha!" was now heard through +the room; but whether in grief over the sad fate of the dying man, or +the unflinching severity of the priest, is hard to say. + +"I die in peace with all my neighbors and all mankind!" + +Another chorus of the company seemed to approve these charitable +expressions. + +"I bequeath unto my son Peter,--and never was there a better son, or +a decenter boy!--have you that down? I bequeath unto my son Peter the +whole of my two farms of Killimundoonery and Knocksheboora, with the +fallow meadows behind Lynch's house; the forge, and the right of turf on +the Dooran bog. I give him, and much good may it do him, Lanty Cassara's +acre, and the Luary field, with the limekiln; and that reminds me that +my mouth is just as dry; let me taste what ye have in the jug." Here the +dying man took a very hearty pull, and seemed considerably refreshed +by it. "Where was I, Billy Scanlan?" says he; "oh, I remember, at the +limekiln; I leave him--that's Peter, I mean--the two potato-gardens at +Noonan's Well; and it is the elegant fine crops grows there." + +"An't you gettin' wake, father, darlin'?" says Peter, who began to be +afraid of my father's loquaciousness; for, to say the truth, the punch +got into his head, and he was greatly disposed to talk. + +"I am, Peter, my son," says he; "I am getting wake; just touch my lips +again with the jug. Ah, Peter, Peter, you watered the drink!" + +"No, indeed, father; but it's the taste is leavin' you," says Peter; and +again a low chorus of compassionate pity murmured through the cabin. + +"Well, I'm nearly done now," says my father; "there's only one little +plot of ground remaining; and I put it on you, Peter,--as ye wish to +live a good man, and die with the same easy heart I do now,--that ye +mind my last words to ye here. Are ye listening? Are the neighbors +listening? Is Billy Scanlan listening?" + +"Yes, sir. Yes, father. We're all minding," chorused the audience. + +"Well, then, it's my last will and testament, and may--Give me over the +jug." Here he took a long drink. "And may that blessed liquor be poison +to me if I 'm not as eager about this as every other part of my will. +I say, then, I bequeath the little plot at the cross-roads to poor Con +Cre-gan; for he has a heavy charge, and is as honest and as hard-working +a man as ever I knew. Be a friend to him, Peter, dear; never let him +want while ye have it yourself; think of me on my death-bed whenever he +asks ye for any trifle. Is it down, Billy Scanlan? the two acres at the +cross to Con Cregan and his heirs in _secla seclorum_. Ah, blessed be +the saints! but I feel my heart lighter after that," says he; "a good +work makes an easy conscience. And now I 'll drink all the company's +good health, and many happy returns--" + +What he was going to add, there 's no saying; but Peter, who was now +terribly frightened at the lively tone the sick man was assuming, +hurried all the people away into another room, to let his father die in +peace. + +When they were all gone Peter slipped back to my father, who was putting +on his brogues in a corner. "Con," says he, "ye did it all well; but +sure that was a joke about the two acres at the cross." + +"Of course it was, Peter," says he; "sure it was all a joke, for the +matter of that. Won't I make the neighbors laugh hearty to-morrow when I +tell them all about it!" + +"You wouldn't be mean enough to betray me?" says Peter, trembling with +fright. + +"Sure ye would n't be mean enough to go against yer father's dying +words," says my father,--"the last sentence ever he spoke? And here he +gave a low, wicked laugh, that made myself shake with fear. + +"Very well, Con!" says Peter, holding out his hand; "a bargain's a +bargain; yer a deep fellow, that's all!" And so it ended; and my father +slipped quietly home over the bog, mighty well satisfied with the legacy +he left himself. + +And thus we became the owners of the little spot known to this day as +Con's Acre; of which, more hereafter. + + + +CHAPTER II. ANOTHER PEEP AT MY FATHER + +My father's prosperity had the usual effect it has on similar cases. + +It lifted him into a different sphere of companionship and suggested new +habits of life. No longer necessitated to labor daily for his bread, +by a very slight exercise of industry he could cultivate his +"potato-garden;" and every one who knows anything of Ireland well knows +that the potato and its corollary, the pig, supply every want of an +Irish cottier household. + +Being thus at liberty to dispose of himself and his time, my parent was +enabled to practise a long-desired and much-coveted mode of life; which +was to frequent "sheebeens" and alehouses, and all similar places of +resort,--not, indeed, for the gratification of any passion for drink, +for my father only indulged when he was "treated," and never could bring +himself to spend a farthing in liquor himself, but his great fondness +for these places took its origin in his passion for talk. Never, indeed, +lived there a man--from Lord Brougham himself downwards--who had a +greater taste for gossip and loquaciousness than my father. It mattered +little what the subject, he was always ready; and whether it were a +crim. con. in the newspapers, a seizure for rent, a marriage in +high life, or a pig in the pound,--there he was, explaining away all +difficult terms of law and jurisprudence; and many a difficulty that Tom +Cafferty, the postmaster, had attempted in vain to solve was, by a kind +of "writ of error," removed to my father's court for explanation and +decision. + +That he soon became a kind of authority in the neighboring town of +Kilbeggan need not excite any surprise. It is men of precisely his kind, +and with talents of an order very similar to his, that wield influence +in the great cities of the earth. It is your talking, pushing, forward +men, seeming always confident in what they say, never acknowledging an +error nor confessing a defeat, who take the lead in life. With average +ability, and ten times the average assurance, they reach the goal that +bashful merit never even so much as gets within sight of. + +His chief resort, however, was the Court of Quarter Sessions, where he +sat from the first opening case to the last judgment, watching with an +intense interest all the vacillating changes of the law's uncertainty, +which unquestionably were not in any way diminished by the singular +individual who presided in that seat of justice. Simon Ball, or, as he +was better known at the bar, Snow Ball,--an epithet he owed to his white +head and eyebrows,--had qualified himself for the Bench by improving +upon the proverbial attribute of justice. He was not only blind but +deaf. For something like forty-five years he had walked the hall of the +Four Courts with an empty bag, and a head scarcely more encumbered, when +one morning--no one could guess why--the "Gazette" announced that +the Lord Lieutenant had appointed him to the vacant chairmanship +of Westmeath,--a promotion which had the effect of confounding all +political animosity by its perfect unaccountableness. + +It is a law of Nature that nothing ever goes to loss. Bad wine will make +very tolerable vinegar; spoiled hay is converted into good manure; and +so, a very middling lawyer often drops down into a very respectable +judge. Had the gods but acknowledged Mr. Ball's abilities some years +earlier, doubtless he had been an exception to the theory. + +They waited, however, so long that both sight and hearing were in +abeyance when the promotion came. It seemed to rally him, however, this +act of recognition, although late. It was a kind of corroboration of the +self-estimate of a long life, and he prepared to show the world that he +was very different from what they took him for. No men have the bump +of self-esteem like lawyers; they live, and grow old, and die, always +fancying that Holts, and Hales, and Mansfields are hid within the +unostentatious exterior of their dusty garments; and that the wit that +dazzles, and the pathos that thrills, are all rusting inside, just +for want of a little of that cheering encouragement by which their +contemporaries are clad in silk and walk in high places. Snow Ball was +determined to show the world its error, and with a smart frock and green +spectacles he took the field like a "fine old Irish barrister," with +many a dry joke or sly sarcasm curled up in the wrinkles beside his +mouth. However cheap a man may be held by his fellows in the "Hall," +he is always sure of a compensation in the provinces. There the country +gentlemen looked upon their chairman as a Blackstone,--not alone +a storehouse of law, but a great appeal upon questions of general +knowledge and information. I should scarcely have ventured upon what +some of my readers may regard as a mere digression, if it were not that +the gentleman and the peculiar nature of his infirmities had led to an +intimate relation with my father. My parent's fondness for law, and all +appertaining to it, had attached him to the little inn where Mr. Ball +usually put up at each season of his visit; and gradually, by tendering +little services, as fetching an umbrella when it rained, hastening for a +book of reference if called for, searching out an important witness, and +probably by a most frequent and respectful use of the title "my lord," +instead of the humble "your worship," he succeeded in so ingratiating +himself with the judge that, without exactly occupying any precise +station, or having any regular employment, he became in some sort +a recognized appendage, a kind of "unpaid attaché to the court" of +Kilbeggan. + +My father was one of those persons who usually ask only a "lift" from +Fortune, and do not require to be continually aided by her. From being +the humble attendant on the judge, he soon succeeded to being his +privy councillor; supplying a hundred little secret details of the +neighborhood and its local failings, which usually gave Mr. Ball's +decisions on the bench an air approaching inspiration, so full were they +of a knowledge of individual life. As confidence ripened, my father +was employed in reading out to the judge of an evening the various +depositions of witnesses, the informations laid, and the affidavits +sworn,--opportunities from which he did not neglect to derive the full +advantage; for while he usually accompanied the written document with a +running commentary of his own to Mr. Ball, he also contrived to let the +suitor feel how great was his knowledge of the case, and what a powerful +influence behind the scenes he wielded over the fortunes of the cause; +insomuch that it became soon well known that he who had Con Cregan on +his side was better off than with the whole Bench of country magistrates +disposed to favor him. + +My father's prudence did not desert him in these trying circumstances. +Without any historical knowledge of the matter, he knew by a species of +instinct that pride was the wreck of most men, and that, to wield real, +substantial power, it is often necessary to assume a garb of apparent +inefficiency and incapacity. To this end, the greater the influence he +possessed, the humbler did he affect to be; disclaiming everything like +power, he got credit for possessing a far greater share than he ever +really enjoyed. + +That the stream of justice did not run perfectly pure and clear, +however, may not be a matter of surprise; for how many rocks, and +shoals, and quicksands, are there in the channel! and certainly my +father was a dangerous hand at the wheel. Litigation, it must be owned, +lost much of its vacillation. The usual question about any case was, +"What does Con say? Did Con Cregan tell ye ye 'll win?" That was +decisive; none sceptical enough to ask for more! + +At the feet of this Gamaliel I was brought up; nothing the more tenderly +that a stepmother presided over the "home department." As I was a stout +boy, of some thirteen or fourteen at this period of my father's life, +and could read and write tolerably well, I was constantly employed +in making copies of various papers used at the Sessions. Were I +psychologically inclined, I might pause here to inquire how far these +peculiar studies had their influence in biassing the whole tenor of my +very eventful life; what latent stores of artifice did I lay up from +all these curious subtleties; how did I habituate my mind to weigh and +balance probabilities, as evidence inclined to this side or that; above +all, how gratified was I with the discovery that there existed a legal +right and wrong, perfectly distinct from the moral ones,--a fact which +served at once to open the path of life far wider and more amply before +me. + +I must, however, leave this investigation to the reader's acuteness, if +he think it worth following out; nor would I now allude to it save as +it affords me the opportunity, once for all, of explaining modes +of thinking and acting which might seem, without some such clue, as +unfitting and unseemly in one reared and brought up as I was. + +Whether the new dignity of his station had disposed him to it or not, +I cannot say; but my father became far more stern in his manner and +exacting in his requirements as he rose in life. The practice of the +law seemed to impart some feature of its own peremptory character to +himself, as he issued his orders in our humble household with all the +impressive solemnity of a writ,--indeed, aiding the effect by phrases +taken from the awful vocabulary of justice. + +If my stepmother objected to anything the answer was, usually, she might +"traverse in prox" at the next Sessions; while to myself every order was +in the style of a "mandamus." Not satisfied with the mere terrors of the +Bench, he became so enamoured of the pursuit as to borrow some features +of prison discipline for the conduct of our household; thus, for +the slightest infractions of his severe code I was "put" upon No. 3 +Penitentiary diet,--only reading potatoes _vice_ bread. + +There would seem to be something uncongenial to obedience in any form +in the life of an Irish peasant; something doubtless in the smell of the +turf. He seems to imbibe a taste for freedom by the very architecture of +his dwelling, and the easy, unbuttoned liberty of his corduroys. Young +as I was, I suppose the Celt was strong within me; and the "Times" says, +that will account for all delinquencies. I felt this powerfully; not +the less, indeed, that my father almost invariably visited me with the +penalty of the case then before the Court; so that while copying out at +night the details of the prosecution, I had time to meditate over the +coming sentence. It was, perhaps, fortunate for me that capital cases +do not come under the jurisdiction of a "sitting barrister;" otherwise I +verily believe I might have suffered the last penalty of the law from my +parent's infatuation. + +My sense of "equity" at last revolted. I perceived, that no matter who +"sued," I was always "cast;" and I at length resolved on resistance. I +remember well the night this resolution was formed; it was a cold and +cheerless one of January. My father had given me a great mass of papers +to copy, and a long article for the newspapers to write out, which the +"Judge" was to embody in his address to the Bench. I never put pen to +either, but sat with my head between my hands for twelve mortal hours, +revolving every possible wickedness, and wondering whether in my +ingenuity I could not invent some offences that no indictment could +comprise. Day broke, and found me still unoccupied. I was just +meditating whether I should avow my rebellion openly, and "plead" in +mitigation, when my father came in. + +My reader must excuse me if I do not dwell on what followed. It is +enough to say that the nature of my injuries are unknown to the criminal +statute, and that although my wounds and bruises are familiar to the +prize-ring, they are ignored by all jurisprudence out of the slave +states. Even my stepmother confessed that I was not fit to "pick out of +the gutter;" and she proved her words by leaving me where I lay. + +Revenge must be a very "human" passion; my taste for it came quite +naturally. I had never read "Othello" nor "Zanga;" but I conceived a +very clear and precise notion that I had a debt to pay, and pay it +I would. Had the obligation been of a pecuniary character, and some +"bankrupt commission" been in jurisdiction over it, I had doubtless been +called upon to discharge it in a series of instalments proportional to +my means of life; being a moral debt, however, I enjoyed the privilege +of paying it at once, and in full; which I did thus: I had often +remarked that my father arose at night and left the cabin, crossing a +little garden behind the house to a little shed, where our pig and an +ass lived in harmony together; and here, by dint of patient observation, +I discovered that his occupation lay in the thatch of the aforesaid +shed, in which he seemed to conceal some object of value. + +Thither I now repaired, some secret prompting suggesting that it might +afford me the wished-for means of vengeance. My disappointment was +indeed great that no compact roll of bank-notes, no thick woollen +stocking close packed with guineas, or even crown-pieces, met my hand. +A heavy bundle of papers and parchment was all I could find; and +these bore such an unhappy family resemblance to the cause of all my +misfortunes that I was ready to tear them to pieces in very spite. A +mere second's reflection suggested a better course. There was a certain +attorney in Kilbeggan, one Morissy, my father's bitterest enemy; indeed, +my parent's influence in the Session court had almost ruined and left +him without a client. The man of law and precedents in vain struggled +against decisions which a secret and irresponsible adviser contrived +beforehand, and Morissy's knowledge and experience were soon discovered +to be valueless. It was a game in which skill went for nothing. + +This gentleman's character at once pointed him out as the fitting agent +of vengeance on my father, and by an hour after daybreak did I present +myself before him in all the consciousness of my injured state. + +Mr. Morissy's reception of me was not over gracious. + +"Well, ye spawn of the devil," said he, as he turned about from a small +fragment of looking-glass, before which he was shaving, "what brings ye +here? Bad luck to ye; the sight of ye's made me cut myself." + +"I'm come, sir, for a bit of advice, sir," said I, putting my hand to my +hat in salutation. + +"Assault and battery!" said he, with a grin on the side of his mouth +where the soap had been shaved away. + +"Yes, sir; an aggravated case," said I, using the phrase of the +Sessions. + +"Why don't ye apply to yer father? He's Crown lawyer and +Attorney-General; faith, he 's more besides,--he 's judge and jury too." + +"And more than that in the present suit, sir," says I, following up his +illustration; "he's the defendant here." + +"What! is that his doing?" + +"Yes, sir; his own hand and mark," said I, laughing. + +"That's an ugly cut, and mighty near the eye! But sure, after all, you +'re his child." + +"Very true, sir; it's only paternal correction; but I have something +else!" + +"What's that, Con my boy?" said he; for we were now grown very familiar. + +"It is this, sir," said I; "this roll of papers that I found hid in the +thatch,--a safe place my father used to make his strong-box." + +"Let us see!" said Morissy, sitting down and opening the package. Many +were old summonses discharged, notices to quit withdrawn, and so on; +but at last he came to two papers pinned together, at sight of which he +almost jumped from his chair. "Con," says he, "describe the place you +found them in." + +I went over all the discovery again. + +"Did ye yourself see your father put in papers there?" + +"I did, sir." + +"On more than one occasion?" + +"At least a dozen times, sir." + +"Did ye ever remark any one else putting papers there?" + +"Never, sir! none of the neighbors ever come through the garden." + +"And it was always at night, and in secret, he used to repair there?" + +"Always at night" + +"That'll do, Con; that 'll do, my son. You'll soon turn the tables on +the old boy. You may go down to the kitchen and get your breakfast; +be sure, however, that you don't leave the house to-day. Your father +mustn't know where ye are till we're ready for him." + +"Is it a strong case, sir?" said I. + +"A very strong case--never a flaw in it." + +"Is it more than a larceny, sir?" said I. + +"It is better than that." + +"I'd rather it didn't go too far," said I, for I was beginning to feel +afraid of what I had done. + +"Leave that to me, Con," said Mr. Morissy, "and go down to yer +breakfast." + +I did as I was bid, and never stirred out of the house the whole day, +nor for eight days after; when one morning Morissy bid me clean myself, +and brush my hair, to come with him to the Court-house. + +I guessed at once what was going to happen; and now, as my head was +healed, and all my bruises cured, I'd very gladly have forgiven all the +affair, and gone home again with my father; but it was too late. As Mr. +Morissy said, with a grin, "The law is an elegant contrivance; a child's +finger can set it in motion, but a steam engine could not hold it back +afterwards!" + +The Court was very full that morning; there were five magistrates on +the bench, and Mr. Ball in the middle of them. There were a great many +farmers, too, for it was market-day; and numbers of the townspeople, who +all knew my father, and were not sorry to see him "up." Cregan versus +Cregan stood third on the list of cases; and very little interest +attached to the two that preceded it. At last it was called; and there I +stood before the Bench, with five hundred pair of eyes all bent upon me; +and two of them actually looking through my very brain,--for they were +my father's, as he stood at the opposite side of the table below the +Bench. + +The case was called an assault, and very soon terminated; for, by my own +admission, it was clear that I deserved punishment; though probably +not so severely as it had been inflicted. The judge delivered a very +impressive lesson to my father and myself, about our respective duties, +and dismissed the case with a reproof, the greater share of which fell +to me. "You may go now, sir," said he, winding up a line peroration; +"fear God and honor the king; respect your parents, and make your +capitals smaller." + +"Before your worship dismisses the witness," said Morissy, "I wish to +put a few questions to him." + +"The case is disposed of: call the next," said the judge, angrily. + +"I have a most important fact to disclose to your worship,--one which +is of the highest importance to the due administration of justice,--one +which, if suffered to lie in obscurity, will be a disgrace to the law, +and a reproach to the learned Bench." + +"Call the next case, crier," said the judge. "Sit down, Mr. Morissy." + +"Your worshipw may commit me; but I will be heard--" + +"Tipstaff! take that man into--" "When you hear of a mandamus from the +King's Bench--when you know that a case of compounding a felony--" + +"Come away, Mr. Morissy; come quiet, sir!" said the police-sergeant. + +"What were ye saying of a mandamus?" said the judge, getting frightened +at the dreaded word. + +"I was saying this, sir," said Morissy, turning fiercely round; "that +I am possessed of information which you refused to hear, and which +will make the voice of the Chief Justice heard in this court, which now +denies its ear to truth." + +"Conduct yourself more becomingly, sir," said one of the county +magistrates, "and open your case." + +Morissy, who was far more submissive to the gentry than to the chairman, +at once replied in his blandest tone:-- + +"Your worship, it is now more than a month since I appeared before you +in the case of Noonan versus M'Quade and others,--an aggravated case of +homicide; I might go further, and apply to it the most awful term the +vocabulary of justice contains! Your worship will remember that on that +very interesting and important case a document was missing, of such a +character that the main feature of the case seemed actually to hang upon +it. This was no less than the deathbed confession of Noonan, formally +taken before a justice of the peace, Mr. Styles, and written with all +the accurate regard to circumstances the law exacts. Mr. Styles, the +magistrate who took the deposition, was killed by a fall from his horse +the following week; his clerk being ill, the individual who wrote the +case was Con Cregan. Your worship may bear in mind that this man, +when called to the witness box, denied all knowledge of this dying +confession; asserted that what he took down in writing were simply some +brief and unsatisfactory notes of the affray, all to the advantage +of the M'Quades, and swore that Mr. Styles, who often alluded to the +document as a confession, was entirely in error, the whole substance +of it being unimportant and vague; some very illegible and-ill-written +notes corroborating which were produced in court as the papers in +question. + +"Noonan being dead, and Mr. Styles also, the whole case rested on the +evidence of Cregan; and although, your worship, the man's character +for veracity was not of that nature among the persons of his own +neighborhood to--" + +"Confine yourself to the case, sir," said the judge, "without +introducing matter of mere common report." + +"I am in a position to prove my assertion," said Morissy, triumphantly. +"I hold here in my hand the abstracted documents, signed and sealed by +Mr. Styles, and engrossed with every item of regularity. I have more: a +memorandum purporting to be a copy of a receipt for eighteen pounds +ten shillings, received by Cregan from Jos. M'Quade, the wages of this +crime; and, if more were necessary, a promissory note from M'Quade for +an additional sum of seven pounds, at six months' date. These are the +papers which I am prepared to prove in court; this the evidence which +a few minutes back I tendered in vain before you; and there," said he, +turning with a vindictive solemnity to where my father was standing, +pale, but collected, "there's the man who, distinguished by your +worship's confidence, I now arraign for the suppression of this +evidence, and the composition of a felony!" + +If Mr. Morissy was not perfectly correct in his law, there was still +quite enough to establish a charge of misdemeanor against my father; and +he was accordingly committed for trial at the approaching assizes, +while I was delivered over to the charge of a police-sergeant, to be in +readiness when my testimony should be required. + +The downfall of a dynasty is sure to evoke severe recrimination against +the late ruler; and now my parent, who but a few days past could have +tilted the beam of justice at his mere pleasure, was overwhelmed with +not merely abuse and attack, but several weighty accusations of crime +were alleged against him. Not only was it discovered that he interfered +with the due course of justice, but that he was a prime actor in, and +contriver of, many of the scenes of insurrectionary disturbance which +for years back had filled the country with alarm and the jails with +criminals. + +For one of these cases, a night attack for arms, the evidence was so +complete and unquestionable that the Crown prosecutor, disliking the +exhibition of a son giving evidence against his parent, dispensed with +my attendance altogether, and prosecuting the graver charge obtained a +verdict of guilty. + +The sentence was transportation for life, with a confiscation of all +property to the Crown. Thus my first step in life was to exile my +father, and leave myself a beggar,--a promising beginning, it must be +owned! + + + +CHAPTER III. A FIRST STEP ON LIFE'S LADDER + +It is among the strange and singular anomalies of our nature that +however pleased men may be at the conviction of a noted offender, few +of those instrumental to his punishment are held in honor and esteem. +If all Kilbeggan rejoiced, as they did, at my father's downfall, a very +considerable share of obloquy rested on me,--a species of judgment, I +honestly confess, that I was not the least prepared for. + +"There goes the little informer," said they, as I passed; "what did ye +get for hanging--" a very admirable piece of Irish exaggeration--"for +hanging yer father, Con?" said one. + +"Could n't ye help yer stepmother to a say voyage?" shouted another. + +"And then we 'd be rid of yez all," chimed in a third. + +"He's rich now," whined out an old beggar-man that often had eaten his +potatoes at our fireside. "He's rich now, the chap is; he 'll marry a +lady!" + +This was the hardest to bear of all the slights, for not alone had I +lost all pretension to my father's property, but the raggedness of my +clothes and the general misery of my appearance might have saved me from +the reproach of what is so forcibly termed "blood-money." + +"Come over to me this evening," said Father Rush; and they were the +only words of comfort I heard from any side. "Come over to me about six +o'clock, Con, for I want to speak to you." + +They were long hours that intervened between that and six. I could not +stay in the town, where every one I met had some sneer or scoff against +me; I could not go home, I had none! and so I wandered out into the open +country, taking my course towards a bleak common, about two miles off, +where few, if any one, was like to be but myself. + +This wild and dreary tract lay alongside of the main road to Athlone, +and was traversed by several footpaths, by which the country people were +accustomed to make "short cuts" to market, from one part of the road to +another; for the way, passing through a bog, took many a winding turn as +the ground necessitated. + +There is a feeling of lonely desolation in wide far-stretching wastes +that accords well with the purposeless vacuity of hopelessness; but, +somehow or other, the very similitude between the scene without and the +sense of desolation within, establishes a kind of companionship. Lear +was speaking like a true philosopher when he uttered the words, "I like +this rocking of the battlements." + +I had wandered some hours "here and there" upon the common; and it +was now the decline of day when I saw at a little distance from me the +figure of a young man whose dress and appearance bespoke condition, +running along at a brisk pace, but evidently laboring under great +fatigue. + +The instant he saw me he halted, and cried out, "I say, my boy, is that +Kilbeggan yonder, where I see the spire?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And where is the high-road to Athlone?" + +"Yonder, sir, where the two trees are standing." + +"Have you seen the coach pass,--the mail for Athlone?" + +"Yes, sir, she went through the town about half an hour ago." + +"Are ye certain, boy? are ye quite sure of this?" cried he, in a voice +of great agitation. + +"I am quite sure, sir; they always change horses at Moone's +public-house; and I saw them 'draw up' there more than half an hour +since." + +"Is there no other coach passes this road for Dublin?" + +"The night mail, sir, but she does not go to-night; this is Saturday." + +"What is to be done?" said the youth, in deep sorrow; and he seated +himself on a stone as he spoke, and hid his face between his hands. + +As he sat thus, I had time to mark him well, and scan every detail of +his appearance. + +Although tall and stoutly knit, he could not have been above sixteen, or +at most seventeen, years of age; his dress, a kind of shooting-jacket, +was made in a cut that affected fashion; and I observed on one finger +of his very white hand a ring which, even to my uneducated eyes, bespoke +considerable value. + +He looked up at last, and his eyes were very red, and a certain +trembling of the lips showed that he was much affected. "I suppose, my +lad, I can find a chaise or a carriage of some kind in Kilbeggan?" said +he; "for I have lost the mail. I had got out for a walk, and by the +advice of a countryman taken this path over the bog, expecting, as he +told me, it would cut off several miles of way. I suppose I must have +mistaken him, for I have been running for above an hour, and am too late +after all; but still, if I can find a chaise, I shall be in time yet." + +"They 're all gone, sir," said I; "and sorry am I to have such tidings +to tell. The Sessions broke up to-day, and they're away with the lawyers +to Kinnegad." + +"And how far is that from us?" + +"Sixteen miles or more, by the road." + +"And how am I to get there?" + +"Unless ye walk it--" + +"Walk! impossible. I am dead beat already; besides, the time it would +take would lose me all chance of reaching Dublin as I want." + +"Andy Smith has a horse, if he'd lend it; and there's a short road by +Hogan's boreen." + +"Where does this Smith live?" said he, stopping me impatiently. + +"Not a half mile from here; you can see the house from this." + +"Come along, then, and show me the way, my boy," said he; and the gleam +of hope seemed to lend alacrity to his movements. + +Away we set together, and as we went, it was arranged between us that if +Andy would hire out his mare, I should accompany the rider as guide, and +bring back the animal to its owner, while the traveller proceeded on his +journey to town. + +The negotiation was tedious enough; for, at first, Andy would n't appear +at all; he thought it was a process-server was after him,--a suspicion +probably suggested by my presence, as it was generally believed that a +rag of my father's mantle had descended to me. It was only after a very +cautious and careful scrutiny of the young traveller through a small +glass eye--it wasn't a window--in the mud wall that he would consent to +come out. When he did so, he treated the proposal most indignantly. +"Is it he hire out his baste? as if she was a dirty garraun of Betty +Nowlan's of the head inn; he wondered who 'd ask the like!" and so on. + +The youth, deterred by this reception, would have abandoned the scheme +at once; but I, better acquainted with such characters as Andy, and +knowing that his difficulties were only items in the intended charge, +higgled, and bargained, and bullied, and blarneyed by turns; and, after +some five and forty minutes of alternate joking and abusing each other, +it was at last agreed on that the "baste" was to be ceded for the sum of +fifteen shillings,--"two and sixpence more if his honor was pleased with +the way she carried him;" the turnpike and a feed of oats being also +at the charge of the rider, as well as all repairs of shoes incurred +by loss or otherwise. Then there came a supplemental clause as to the +peculiar care of the animal. How "she was n't to be let drink too much +at once, for she 'd get the colic;" and if she needed shoeing, she +was to have a "twitch" on her nose, or she'd kick the forge to +"smithereens." The same precaution to be taken if the saddle required +fresh girthing; a hint was given, besides, not to touch her with the +left heel, or she 'd certainly kick the rider with the hind leg of +the same side; and, as a last caution given, to be on our guard at the +cross-roads at Toomes-bridge, or she'd run away towards Croghan, where +she once was turned out in foal. "Barring" these peculiarities, and +certain smaller difficulties about mounting, "she was a lamb, and the +sweetest-tempered crayture ever was haltered." + +In the very midst of this panegyric upon the animal's good and noble +qualities he flung open the door of a little shed, and exhibited her to +our view. I verily believe, whatever the urgency of the youth's reason +for proceeding, that his heart failed him at the sight of the steed; a +second's reconsideration seemed to rally his courage, and he said, "No +matter, it can't be helped; saddle her at once, and let us be off." + +"That's easier said nor done," muttered Andy to himself, as he stood at +the door, without venturing a step farther. "Con," said he, at last, in +a species of coaxing tone I well knew boded peril, "Con, a cushla! get +a hould of her by the head, that's a fine chap; make a spring at the +forelock." + +"Maybe she 'd kick--" + +"Sorra kick! get up there, now, and I'll be talking to you all the +while." + +This proposition, though doubtless meant as most encouraging, by no +means reassured me. + +"Come, come! I'll bridle the infernal beast," said the youth, losing +all patience with both of us, and he sprung forward into the stable; but +barely had he time to jump back, as the animal let fly with both hind +legs together. Andy, well aware of what was coming, pulled us both back +and shut to the door, against which the hoofs kept up one rattling din +of kicks that shook the crazy edifice from roof to ground. + +"Ye see what comes of startlin' her; the crayture's timid as a +kid," said Andy, whose blanched cheek badly corroborated his assumed +composure. "Ye may do what ye plaze, barrin' putting a bridle on her; +she never took kindly to that!" + +"But do ye intend me to ride her without one?" said the youth. + +"By no manner of means, sir," said Andy, with a plausible slowness on +each word that gave him time to think of an expedient. "I would n't be +guilty of the like; none that knows me would ever say it to me: I 'm a +poor man--" + +"You're a devilish tiresome one," broke in the youth, suddenly; "here we +have been above half an hour standing at the door, and none the nearer +our departure than when we arrived." + +"Christy Moore could bridle her, if he was here," said Andy; "but he's +gone to Moate, and won't be back till evening; may be that would do?" + +A very impatient, and not very pious exclamation consigned Christy to an +untimely fate. "Well, don't be angry, anyhow, sir," said Andy; "there's +many a thing a body might think of, if they were n't startled. See, now, +I have a way this minute; an elegant fine way, too." + +"Well, what is it? Confound your long-winded speeches!" + +"There, now, you're angry again! sure it's enough to give one quite a +through-otherness, and not leave them time to reflect." + +"Your plan, your plan!" said the young man, his lips trembling with +anger and impatience. + +"Here it is, then; let the 'gossoon,'" meaning me, "get up on the roof +and take off two or three of the scraws, the sods of grass, till he can +get through, and then steal down on the mare's back; when he 's once on +her, she 'll never stir head nor foot, and he can slip the bridle over +her quite asy." + +"The boy might be killed; no, no, I 'll not suffer that--" + +"Wait, sir," cried I, interrupting, "it's not so hard, after all; once +on her back, I defy her to throw me." + +"Sure I know that well; sorra better rider in the Meath hunt than little +Con," broke in Andy; backing me with a ready flattery he thought would +deceive me. + +It was not without reluctance that the youth consented to this forlorn +hope, but he yielded at last; and so, with a bridle fastened round me +like a scarf, I was hoisted on the roof by Andy, and, under a volley of +encouraging expressions, exhorted to "go in and win." + +"There! there, a cushla!" cried Andy, as he saw me performing the first +act of the piece with a vigor he had never calculated on; "'tis n't a +coach and six ye want to drive through. Tear and ages! ye'll take the +whole roof off." The truth was, I worked away with a malicious pleasure +in the destruction of the old miser's roof; nor is it quite certain +how far my zeal might have carried me, when suddenly one of the +rafters--mere light poles of ash--gave way, and down I went, at first +slowly, and then quicker, into a kind of funnel formed by the smashed +timbers and the earthen sods. The crash, the din, and the dust appeared +to have terrified the wicked beast below, for she stood trembling in one +corner of the stable, and never moved a limb as I walked boldly up and +passed the bridle over her head. This done, I had barely time to spring +on her back, when the door was forced open by the young gentleman, whose +fears for my fate had absorbed every other thought. + +"Are you safe, my boy, quite safe?" he cried, making his way over the +fallen rubbish. + +"Oh! the devil fear him," cried Andy, in a perfect rage of passion; +"I wish it was his bones was smashed, instead of the +roof-sticks--see!--Och, murther, only look at this." And Andy stood amid +the ruins, a most comical picture of affliction, in part real and in +part assumed. Meanwhile the youth had advanced to my side, and, with +many a kind and encouraging word, more than repaid me for all my danger. + +"'T is n't five pound will pay the damage," cried Andy, running up on +his fingers a sum of imaginary arithmetic. + +"Where's the saddle, you old--" What the young man was about to add, I +know not; but at a look from me he stopped short. + +"Is it abusin' me you're for now, afther wrecking my house and +destroying my premises?" cried Andy, whose temper was far from sweetened +by the late catastrophe. "Sure what marcy my poor beast would get from +the likes of ye! sorry step she 'll go in yer company; pay the damages +ye done, and be off." + +Here was a new turn of affairs, and, judging from the irascibility +of both parties, a most disastrous one; it demanded, indeed, all my +skill,--all the practised dexterity of a mind trained, as mine had been +been by many a subtlety, to effect a compromise, which I did thus: +my patron being cast in the costs of all the damages to the amount of +twenty shillings, and the original contract to be maintained in all its +integrity. + +The young man paid the money without speaking; but I had time to mark +that the purse from which he drew it was far from weighty. "Are we free +to go at last?" cried he, in a voice of suppressed wrath. + +"Yes, yer honor; all's right," answered Andy, whose heart was mollified +at the sight of money. "A pleasant journey, and safe to ye; take good +care of the beast, don't ride her over the stones, and--" + +The remainder of the exhortation was lost to us, as we set forth in a +short jog-trot, I running alongside. + +"When we are once below the hill, yonder," said I to my companion, "give +her the whip, and make up for lose time." + +"And how are you to keep up, my lad?" asked he, in some surprise. + +I could scarcely avoid a laugh at the simplicity of the question; as +if an Irish gossoon, with his foot on his native bog, would n't be an +overmatch in a day's journey for the best hack that ever ambled! Away we +went, sometimes joking over, sometimes abusing, the old miser Andy, of +whom, for my fellow-traveller's amusement, I told various little traits +and stories, at which he laughed with a zest quite new to me to witness. +My desire to be entertaining then led me on to speak of my father and +his many curious adventures,--the skill with which he could foment +litigation, and the wily stratagems by which he sustained it afterwards. +All the cunning devices of the process-server I narrated with a gusto +that smacked of my early training: how, sometimes, my crafty parent +would append a summons to the collar of a dog, and lie in wait till +he saw the owner take it off and read it, and then, emerging from his +concealment, cry out "sarved," and take to his heels; and again how he +once succeeded in "serving" old Andy himself, by appearing as a beggar +woman, and begging him to light a bit of paper to kindle her pipe. +The moment, however, he took the bit of twisted paper, the assumed +beggar-woman screamed out, "Andy, yer sarved: that's a process, my +man!" The shock almost took Andy's life; and there's not a beggar in the +barony dares to come near him since. + +"Your father must be well off, then, I suppose," said my companion. + +"He was a few weeks ago, sir; but misfortune has come on us since that." +I was ashamed to go on, and yet I felt that strange impulse so strong in +the Irish peasant to narrate anything of a character which can interest +by harrowing and exciting the feelings. + +Very little pressing was needed to make me recount the whole story, +down to the departure of my father with the other prisoners sentenced to +transportation. + +"And whither were you going when I met you this morning on the common?" +said my fellow-traveller, in a voice of some interest. + +"To seek my fortune, sir," was my brief answer; and either the words or +the way they were uttered seemed to strike my companion, for he drew +up short, and stared at me, repeating the phrase, "Seek your fortune!" +"Just so," said I, warmed by an enthusiasm which then was beginning to +kindle within me, and which for many a long year since, and in many a +trying emergency, has cheered and sustained me. "Just so; the world is +wide, and there 's a path for every one, if they 'd only look for it." + +"But you saw what came of _my_ taking a short cut, this morning," said +my companion, laughing. + +"And you'd have been time enough too, if you had been always thinking of +what you were about, sir; but as you told me, you began a thinking and +a dreaming of twenty things far away. Besides, who knows what good turn +luck may take, just at the very moment when we seem to have least of +it?" + +"You 're quite a philosopher, Con," said he, smiling. + +"So Father Mahon used to say, sir," said I, proudly, and in reality +highly flattered at the reiteration of the epithet. + +Thus chatting, we journeyed along, lightening the way with talk, and +making the hours seem to me the very pleasantest I had ever passed. At +last we came in sight of the steeple of Kinnegad, which lay in the plain +before us, about a mile distant. + +The little town of Kinnegad was all astir as we entered it The "up +mail" had just come down, in the main street, sending all its passengers +flying in various directions,--through shop-windows; into cow-houses and +piggeries; some being proudly perched on the roof of a cabin, and others +most ignobly seated on a dunghill; the most lamentable figure of all +being an elderly gentleman, who, having cut a summerset through an +apothecary's window, came forth cut by a hundred small vials, and +bearing on his person unmistakable evidence of every odor, from +tar-water to assafotida. The conveyance itself lay, like the Ark after +the Deluge, quietly reposing on one side; while animals male and female, +"after their kind," issued from within. Limping and disconsolate figures +were being assisted into the inn; and black eyes and smashed faces were +as rife as in a country fair. + +I was not slow in appropriating the calamity to a good purpose. "See, +sir," I whispered to my companion, "you said, a while ago, that nobody +had such bad luck as yourself; think what might have happened you, now, +if you had n't missed the coach." + +"True enough, Con," said he, "there is such a thing as being too late +for bad as well as for good fortune; and I experience it now. But the +next question is, how to get forward; for, of course, with a broken +axle, the mail cannot proceed further." + +The difficulty was soon got over. The halt and the maimed passengers, +after loudly inveighing against all coach-proprietors,--the man that +made, and the man that horsed, he that drove, and he that greased the +wheels of all public conveyances,--demanded loudly to be forwarded to +the end of their journey by various chaises and other vehicles of the +town; I at the same time making use of my legal knowledge to suggest +that while doing so, they acted under protest; that it was "without +prejudice" to any future proceedings they might deem fit to adopt for +compensatory damages. If some laughed heartily at the source from +which the hint came, others said I was a "devilish shrewd chap," and +insinuated something about a joint-stock subscription of sixpences for +my benefit; but the motion was apparently unseconded, and so, like +many benefactors of my species, I had to apply to my conscience for my +reward; or, safer still, had to wait till I could pay myself. + +My young companion, who now, in a few words, told me that he was a +student at Trinity College and a "reader for honors," pulled out his +purse to pay me. "Remember, my boy, the name of Henry Lyndsay; I 'm +easily found, if you chance to come to Dublin,--not that I can be of +much service to any one, but I shall not forget the service you rendered +me this day. Here, take this, pay for the mare's feeding, and when she +has rested--" + +I would not suffer him to proceed further, but broke in: + +"I'm not going back, sir! I'll never turn my footsteps that way again! +Leave the mare in the inn; Andy comes every Saturday here for the +market, and will find her safe. As for me, I must 'seek my fortune;' +and when one has to search for anything, there's nothing like beginning +early." + +"You 're a strange fellow, Con," said he, looking at me; and I was +shrewd enough to see that his features exhibited no small astonishment +at my words. "And where do you intend to look for this same fortune you +speak of?" + +"No one place in particular, sir! I read in an old book once, that good +luck is like sunshine, and is not found in all climates at the same +time; so I intend to ramble about; and when I breakfast on the sunny +side of the apple, never stay to dine off the green one." + +"And you are the kind of fellow to succeed!" said he, half to himself, +and rather as though reflecting on my words than addressing me. + +"So I intend, sir," replied I, confidently. + +"Have you ever read 'Gil Blas,' Con?" + +"I have it almost by heart, sir." + +"That's it!" said he, laughing; "I see whence you've got your taste for +adventure. But remember, Con, Gil Blas lived in different times from +ours, and in a very different land. He was, besides, a well-educated +fellow, with no small share of good looks and good manners." + +"As for age and country, sir," said I, boldly, "men and women are pretty +much alike at all times, and in all places; in the old book I told you +of a while ago, I read that human passions, like the features of the +face, are only infinite varieties of the same few ingredients. Then, as +to education and the rest,--what one man can pick up, so can another. +The will is the great thing, and I feel it very strong in me. And now, +to give a proof of it, I am determined to go up to Dublin, and with your +honor too, and you'll see if I won't have my way." + +"So you shall, Con!" replied he, laughing; "I'll take you on the top of +the chaise; and although I cannot afford to keep a servant, you shall +stay with me in College until chance, in which you have such implicit +faith, shall provide better for you. Come, now, lead the mare into the +stable, for I see my companions are packing up to be gone." + +I was not slow in obeying the orders, and soon returned to assist my +new master with his luggage. All was quickly settled; and a few minutes +after saw me seated on a portmanteau on the roof on my way to Dublin. + + + +CHAPTER IV. HOW I ENTERED COLLEGE, AND HOW I LEFT IT + +It was still dark, on a drizzling morning in January, as we reached the +Capital; the lamps shone faintly through the foggy, wet atmosphere; and +the gloom was deepened as we entered the narrow streets at the west of +the city. A few glimmering lights from five-stories high, showed where +some early riser was awaking to his daily toil; while here and there, +some rough-coated policeman stood at the corner of a street to be rained +on; except these, no sign of living thing appeared; and I own the whole +aspect was a sad damper to the ardor of that enthusiasm which had often +pictured the great metropolis as some gorgeous fairy-land. + +The carriage stopped twice, to set down two of the travellers, in +obscure dingy streets, and then I heard Mr. Lyndsay say, "To the +College;" and on we went through a long labyrinth of narrow lanes and +thoroughfares, which gradually widened out into more spacious streets, +and at length arrived at a great building, whose massive gates slowly +opened to receive, and then solemnly closed after us. We now stood in a +spacious quadrangle, silent and noiseless as a church at midnight. + +Mr. Lyndsay hastily descended, and ordering me to carry in some of the +baggage, I followed him into a large scantily furnished room, beyond +which was a bedchamber, of like accommodation. "This is my home, Con," +said he, with a melancholy attempt at a smile; "and here," said he, +leading me to a small one-windowed room on the opposite side, "here is +yours." A bed, of that humble kind called a stretcher, placed against +one wall, and a large chest for holding coals against the other, +a bottomless chair, and a shoe-brush with very scanty bristles, +constituted the entire furniture. + +It was some time after all the luggage was removed before Mr. Lyndsay +could get rid of the postilion; like all poor men in a like predicament, +he had to bargain and reason and remonstrate, submitting to many a +mortification, and enduring many a sore pang, at the pitiless ribaldry +which knows nothing so contemptible as poverty; at last, after various +reflections on the presumption of people who travel and cannot afford +it, on their vanity, self-conceit, and so forth, the fellow departed, +with what my ears assured me was no contemptible share of my poor +master's purse. + +I was sitting alone in my den during this scene, not wishing by my +presence to add anything to his mortification; and, now all was still +and noiseless, I waited for some time expecting to be called,--to be +told of some trifling service to execute, or, at least, to be spoken to; +but no, not a sound, not a murmur, was to be heard. + +My own thoughts were none of the brightest: the ceaseless rain that +streamed against the little window, and shut out all prospect of what +was without; the cold and cheerless chamber and the death-like silence +were like lead upon my heart. + +I had often, in my reveries at home, fancied that all who were lifted +above the cottier in life must have neither care nor sorrow; that real +want was unknown, save in their class; and that all afflictions of +those more highly placed were of a character too trifling to be deemed +serious; and now suddenly there came to me the thought, What if every +one had his share of grief? I vow, the very suspicion thrilled through +me, and I sat still, dwelling on the sad theme with deep intensity. + +As I sat thus, a sigh, low, but distinct, came from the adjoining +chamber. I suddenly remembered my young master, and crept noiselessly to +the door; it stood ajar, and I could see in, and mark everything well. +He was sitting at a table covered with books and writing materials; a +single candle threw its yellow glare over the whole, and lit up with a +sickly tint the travel-worn and tired features of the youth. + +As I looked, he leaned his forehead down upon his arm, and seemed either +overcome by sorrow or fatigue; when suddenly a deep-booming bell sent +forth a solemn peal, and made the very chamber vibrate with its din. +Lyndsay started at the sound; a kind of shudder, like a convulsive +throe, shook his limbs; and sitting up on his seat, he pushed back the +falling hair from his eyes, and again addressed himself to his book. +The heavy tolling sounds seemed now no longer to distract, but rather +to nerve him to greater efforts, for he read on with an intense +persistence; turning from volume to volume, and repeatedly noting down +on the paper as he read. + +Of a sudden the bell ceased, and Lyndsay arose from the table and passed +into the bedroom, from which he almost instantaneously reappeared, +dressed in his cap and gown,--a new and curious costume in my eyes, but +which at the time was invested with a deep, mysterious interest to me. + +I retired silently now to my room, and saw him pass out into the wide +court. I hastened to look out. Already some hundred others in similar +costume were assembled there, and the buzz of voices and the sound of +many feet were a pleasant relief to the desert-like silence of the +court as I had seen it before. The change was, however, of a very brief +duration; in less than a minute the whole assemblage moved off and +entered a great building, whose heavy door closed on them with a deep +bang, and all was still once more. + +I now set myself to think by what small services I could render myself +acceptable to my young master. I arranged the scanty furniture into a +resemblance, faint enough, certainly, to comfort, and made a cheerful +fire with the remnant of the roomy coal-box. This done, I proceeded to +put his clothes in order, and actually astonished myself with the skill +I seemed to possess in my new walk. An intense curiosity to know what +was going on without led me frequently to the door which led into the +court; but I profited little by this step. The only figures which met my +eye were now and then some elderly personage clad in his academic robes, +gravely wending towards the "Hall," and the far less imposing cries +of some "college women," as the hags are called who officiate as the +University housemaids. + +It was at one of these visits that suddenly I heard the great door +of the "Hall" burst open with a crash, and immediately down the +steps poured the black tide of figures, talking and laughing in +one multifarious din that seemed to fill the very air. Cautiously +withdrawing, I closed the door, and retired; but scarcely had I reached +my room, when young Lyndsay passed through to his own chamber: his cheek +was flushed, and his eyes sparkled with animation, and his whole air and +gesture indicated great excitement. + +Having removed his cravat, and bathed his temples with cold water, he +once more sat down before his books, and was soon so immersed in study +as not to hear my footsteps as I entered. + +I stood uncertain, and did not dare to interrupt him for some minutes; +the very intensity of his application awed me. Indeed, I believe I +should have retired without a word, had he not accidentally looked +up and beheld me. "Eh!--what!--how is this?" cried he, endeavoring to +recall his mind from the themes before him; "I had forgotten you, my +poor boy, and you have had no breakfast." + +"And you, sir?" said I, in reality more interested for him than myself. + +"Take this, Con," said he, not heeding my remark, and giving me a piece +of silver from his purse; "get yourself something to eat: to-morrow, or +next day, we shall arrange these things better; for at this moment my +head has its load of other cares." + +"But will _you_ not eat something?" said I; "_you_ have not tasted food +since we met." + +"We are expected to breakfast with our tutor on the examination +mornings, Con," said he; and then, not seeming to feel the inconsistency +of his acts with his words, he again bent his head over the table, +and lost all remembrance of either me or our conversation. I stole +noiselessly away, and sallied forth to seek my breakfast where I could. + +There were few loiterers in the court; a stray student hurrying past, +or an old slipshod hag of hideous aspect and squalid misery, were all I +beheld; but both classes' bestowed most unequivocal signs of surprise +at my country air and appearance, and to my question, where I could buy +some bread and milk, answers the most cynical or evasive were returned. +While I was yet endeavoring to obtain from one of the ancient maidens +alluded to some information on the point, two young men, with velvet +caps and velvet capes on their gowns, stopped to listen. + +"I say, friend," cried one, seemingly the younger of the two, "when did +_you_ enter?" + +"This morning," said I, taking the question literally. + +"Do you hear that, Ward?" continued he to his companion. "What place did +you take?" + +"I was on the roof," replied I, supposing the quaere bore allusion to +the mode of my coming. + +"Quite classical," said the elder, a tall, good-looking youth; "you +came as did Caesar into Gaul, '_summâ diligentiâ,_' on the top of the +Diligence." + +They both laughed heartily at a very threadbare college joke, and were +about to move away, when the younger, turning round, said, "Have you +matriculated?" + +"No, sir,--what's that?" + +"It's a little ceremony," interposed the elder, "necessary, and indeed +indispensable, to every one coming to reside within these walls. You've +heard of Napoleon, I dare say?" + +"Bony, is it?" asked I, giving the more familiar title by which he was +better known to my circle of acquaintance. + +"Exactly," said he, "Bony. Now Bony used to call a first battle the +baptism of Glory; so may we style, in a like way, Matriculation to be +the baptism of Knowledge. You understand me, eh?" + +"Not all out," said I, "but partly." + +"We 'll illustrate by a diagram, then." + +"I say, Bob," whispered the younger, "let us find out with whom he is;" +then, turning to me, said, "Where do you live here?" + +"Yonder," said I, "where that lamp is." + +"Mr. Lyndsay's chambers?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"All right," cried the younger; "we'll show you the secret of +matriculation." + +"Come along, my young friend," said the elder, in the same pompous tone +he had used at first, "let us teach you to drink of that Pierian spring +which 'Labitur et labetur in omne volubile oevum.'" + +I believe it was the fluent use of the unknown tongue which at once +allayed any mistrust I might have felt of my new acquaintances; however +that may be, there was something so imposing in the high-sounding +syllables that I yielded at once, and followed them into another and +more remote quadrangle. + +Here they stopped under a window, while one gave a loud whistle with his +fingers to his lips; the sash was immediately thrown up, and a handsome, +merry-looking face protruded. "Eh!--what!--Taylor and Ward," cried he, +"what's going on?" + +"Come down, Burton; here's a youth for matriculation," cried the +younger. + +"All right," cried the other. "There are eight of us here at breakfast;" +and disappearing from the window, he speedily descended to the court, +followed by a number of others, who gravely saluted me with a deep bow, +and solemnly welcomed me within the classic precincts of old Trinity. + +"Domine--what's his name?" said the young gentleman called Burton. + +"Cregan, sir," replied I, already flattered by the attentions I was +receiving,--"Con Cregan, sir." + +"Well, Domine Cregan, come along with us, and never put faith in a +junior sophister. You know what a junior sophister is, I trust?" + +"No, sir." + +"Tell him, Ward." + +"A junior sophister, Mr. Cregan, is one who, being in 'Locke' all day, +is very often locked out all night, and who observes the two rubrics +of the statute '_de vigilantibus et lucentibus_,' by extinguishing both +lamps and watchmen." + +"Confound your pedantry!" broke in Burton; "a junior soph, is a man in +his ninth examination." + +"The terror of the porters," cried one. + +"The Dean's milch cow," added another. + +"A credit to his parents, but a debtor to his tailor," broke in a third. + +"Seldom at Greek lecture, but no fellow commoner at the Currah," lisped +out Taylor; and by this time we had reached a narrow lane, flanked on +one side by a tall building of gloomy exterior, and on the other by an +angle of the square. + +"Here we are, Mr. Cregan; as the poet says, 'this is the place, the +centre of the wood.'" + +"Gentlemen sponsors, to your functions!" Scarce were the words out, when +I was seized by above half a dozen pair of strong hands; my legs were +suddenly jerked upwards, and, notwithstanding my attempts to resist, I +was borne along for some yards at a brisk pace. I was already about +to forbear my struggles, and suffer them to play their--as I deemed +it--harmless joke in quiet, when straight in front of me I saw an +enormous pump, at which, and by a double handle, Burton and another were +working away like sailors on a wreck; throwing forth above a yard off, a +jet of water almost enough to turn a mill. + +The whole plot now revealed itself to me at once, and I commenced a +series of kickings and plungings that almost left me free. My enemies, +however, were too many and too powerful; on they bore me, and in a +perfect storm of blows, lunges, writhings, and boundings, they held me +fast under the stream, which played away in a frothy current over my +head, face, chest, and legs,--for, with a most laudable impartiality, +they moved me from side to side till not a dry spot remained on my whole +body. + + + +I shouted, I yelled, I swore, and screamed for aid, but all in vain; and +my diabolical tormentors seemed to feel no touch of weariness in their +inhuman pastime; while I, exhausted by my struggles and the continual +rush of the falling water, almost ceased to resist; when suddenly a cry +of "The Dean! the Dean!" was heard; my bearers let go their hold,--down +I tumbled upon the flags, with barely consciousness enough to see +the scampering crew flying in all directions, while a host of porters +followed them in hot pursuit. + +"Who are you, sir? What brought you here?" said a tall old gentleman I +at once surmised to be the Dean. + +"The devil himself, I believe!" replied I, rising with difficulty under +the weight of my soaked garments. + +"Turn him outside the gates, Hawkins!" said the Dean to a porter behind +him. "Take care, too, he never reenters them." + +"I 'll take good care of it, sir," said the fellow, as with one strong +hand on my collar, and the closed fingers of the other administering +gentle admonitions to the back of my head, he proceeded to march me +before him through the square; revolving as I went thoughts which, +certes, evinced not one sentiment of gratitude to the learned +university. + +My college career was, therefore, more brief than brilliant, for I was +"expelled" on the very same day that I "entered." + +With the "world before me where to choose," I stepped out into the +classic precincts of College Green, fully assured of one fact, that +"Town" could scarcely treat me more harshly than "Gown." I felt, too, +that I had passed through a kind of ordeal; that my ducking, like +the ceremonies on crossing the line, was a kind of masonic ordinance, +indispensable to my opening career; and that thus I had got successfully +through one at least of my "trials." + +A species of filial instinct suggested to me the propriety of seeing +Newgate, where my father lay, awaiting the arrival of the convict ship +that was to convey him to Van Diemen's Land; and thither I accordingly +repaired, not to enter, but simply to gaze, with a very awestruck +imagination, upon that double-barred cage of human ferocity and crime. + +In itself the circumstance has nothing worthy of record, nor should I +mention it, save that to the deep impression of that morning do I owe a +certain shrinking horror of all great crime; that impression has been of +incalculable benefit to me through life. + +I strained my eyes to mark if, amid the faces closely pressed against +the strong bars, I could recognize that of my parent, but in vain; there +was a terrible sameness in their features, as if the individual had sunk +in the criminal, that left all discrimination difficult; and so I turned +away satisfied that I had done a son's part most completely. + + + +CHAPTER V. A PEEP AT "HIGH AND LOW COMPANY" + +I have often heard it observed that one has as little to do with the +choice of his mode of life as with the name he receives at baptism. I +rather incline to the opinion that this is true. My own very varied and +somewhat dissimilar occupations were certainly far less the result of +any preconceived plan or scheme than the mere "turn-up" of the rolling +die of Fortune. + +It was while revolving a species of fatalism in this wise, and calmly +assuring myself that I was not born to be starved, that I strolled along +Merrion Square on the same afternoon of my expulsion from Trinity and +visit to Newgate. + +There were brilliant equipages, cavaliers, and ladies on horseback; +handsome houses, with balconies often thronged by attractive-looking +occupants; and vast crowds of gayly dressed persons promenaded within +the square itself, where a military band performed; in fact, there was +more than enough to interest and amuse one of higher pretensions in the +scale of pleasure than myself. + +While I was thus gazing on this brilliant panorama of the outdoor life +of a great city, and wondering and guessing what precise object thus +brought people together,--for no feature of a market, or a fair, or any +festive occupation solved the difficulty,--I was struck by a class of +characters who seemed to play the subordinate parts of the drama,--a set +of ragged, ill-fed, half-starved boys, who followed in crowds each new +arrival on horseback, and eagerly sought permission to hold his horse +when he dismounted; the contrast of these mangy looking attendants to +the glossy coated and handsomely caparisoned steeds they led about +being too remarkable to escape notice. Although a very fierce rivalry +prevailed amongst them, they seemed a species of organized guild, +who constituted a distinct walk in life, and indignantly resented the +attempt of some two or three "voluntaries" who showed a wish to join the +fraternity. + +I sat against the rails of the square, studying with some curiosity +little details of their etiquette, and their strange conventionalities. +A regular corps of them stood in front of me, canvassing with all +the eager volubility of their craft for the possession of a handsome +thoroughbred pony, from which a young officer, in a cavalry undress, was +about to dismount. + +"I 'm your own boy, Captain! I'm Tim, sir!" cried one, with a leer of +most familiar intimacy. + +"'Tis me towld ye about Miss O'Grady, sir," shouted another, preferring +another and stronger claim. + +"I'm the boy caught your mare the day ye was thrown, Captain!" +insinuated a third, exhibiting a want of tact in the reminiscence that +drew down many a scoff upon him from his fellows; for these ragged and +starving curs had a most lively sense of the use of flattery. + +"Off with you!--stand off!" said the young dragoon, in a threatening +tone; "let that fellow take my mare;" and he pointed to me as I sat, +a patient but unconcerned spectator of the scene. Had a medical +consultation been suddenly set aside on the eve of a great surgical +operation, and the 'knife' committed to the unpractised hand of a new +bystander, the breach of etiquette and the surprise could scarce have +been greater. The gang stared at me with most undisguised contempt, and +a perfect volley of abuse and irony followed me as I hastened to obey +the summons. + +It has been very often my fortune in life to take a position for which I +neither had submitted to the usual probationary study, nor possessed +the necessary acquirement; but I believe this my first step in the +very humble walk of a "horse-boy" gave me more pain than ever did any +subsequent one. The criticisms on my dress, my walk, my country look, my +very shoes,--my critics wore none,--were all poignant and bitter; and I +verily believe, such is the force of ridicule, I should have preferred +the rags and squalor of the initiated, at that moment, to the warm gray +frieze and blue worsted stockings of my country costume. + +I listened attentively to the young officer's directions how I was to +walk his mare, and where; and then, assuming a degree of indifference +to sarcasm I was far from feeling, moved away from the spot in sombre +dignity. The captain--the title is generic--was absent about an hour; +and when he returned, seemed so well pleased with my strict obedience to +his orders that he gave me a shilling, and desired me to be punctually +at the same hour and the same place on the day following. + +It was now dark; the lamplighter had begun his rounds, and I was just +congratulating myself that I should escape my persecutors, when I saw +them approaching in a body. In an instant I was surrounded, and assailed +with a torrent of questions as to who I was, where I came from, +what brought me there, and, lastly, and with more eagerness than all +besides,--what did "the captain" give me? As I answered this query +first, the others were not pressed; and it being voted that I should +expend the money on the fraternity, by way of entrance-fee, or, as they +termed it, "paying my footing," away we set in a body to a distant part +of the town, remote from all its better and more spacious thoroughfares, +and among a chaos of lanes and alleys called the "Liberties." If the +title were conferred for the excessive and unlimited freedoms permitted +to the inhabitants, it was no misnomer. On my very entrance into it I +perceived the perfect free and easy which prevailed. + +A dense tide of population thronged the close, confined passages, mostly +of hodmen, bricklayers' laborers, and scavengers, with old-clothesmen, +beggars, and others whose rollicking air and daring look bespoke more +hazardous modes of life. + +My companions wended their way through the dense throng like practised +travellers, often cutting off an angle by a dive through the two +doors of a whiskey shop, and occasionally making a great short-cut by +penetrating through a house and the court behind it,--little exploits +in geography expiated by a volley of curses from the occupants, and +sometimes an admonitory brickbat in addition. + +The uniform good temper they exhibited; the easy freedom with which they +submitted to the rather rough jocularities of the passers-by,--the usual +salute being a smart slap on the crown of the head, administered by +the handicraft tool of the individual, and this sometimes being an iron +trowel or a slater's hammer,--could not but exalt them in my esteem +as the most patient set of varlets I had ever sojourned with. To my +question as to why we were going so far, and whither our journey tended, +I got for answer the one short reply,--"We must go to 'ould Betty's.'" + +Now, as I would willingly spare as much of this period's recital to my +reader as I can, I will content myself with stating that "ould Betty," +or Betty Cobbe, was an old lady who kept a species of ordinary for the +unclaimed youth of Dublin. They were fed and educated at her seminary; +the washing cost little, and they were certainly "done" for at the very +smallest cost, and in the most remarkably brief space of time. If ever +these faint memorials of a life should be read in a certain far-off +land, more than one settler in the distant bush, more than one angler in +the dull stream of Swan River, will confess how many of his first sharp +notions of life and manners were imbibed from the training nurture of +Mrs. Elizabeth Cobbe. + +Betty's proceedings, for some years before I had the honor and felicity +of her acquaintance, had attracted towards her the attention of the +authorities. + +The Colonial Secretary had possibly grown jealous; for she had been +pushing emigration to Norfolk Island on a far wider scale than ever +a cabinet dreamed of; and thus had she acquired what, in the polite +language of our neighbors, is phrased the "Surveillance of the +Police,"--a watchful superintendence and anxious protectorate, for +which, I grieve to say, she evinced the very reverse of gratitude. +Betty had, in consequence, and in requirement with the spirit of the +times--the most capricious spirit that ever vexed plain, old-fashioned +mortals--reformed her establishment; and from having opened her doors, +as before, to what, in the language of East Indian advertisements, are +called "a few spirited young men," she had fallen down to that small +fry who, in various disguises of vagrancy and vagabondage, infest the +highways of a capital. + +By these disciples she was revered and venerated; their devotion was the +compensation for the world's neglect, and so she felt it. To train them +up with a due regard to the faults and follies of their better-endowed +neighbors was her aim and object, and to such teaching her knowledge of +Dublin life and people largely contributed. + +Her original walk had been minstrelsy; she was the famous ballad-singer +of Drogheda Street, in the year of the rebellion of '98. She had been +half a dozen times imprisoned,--some said that she had even visited +"Beresford's riding-school," where the knout was in daily practice; but +this is not so clear: certain it is, both her songs and sympathy had +always been on the patriotic side. She was the terror of Protestant +ascendency for many a year long. + +Like Homer, she sung her own verses; or, if they were made for her, the +secret of the authorship was never divulged. For several years previous +to the time I now speak of, she had abandoned the Muses, save on some +special and striking occasions, when she would come before the world +with some lyric, which, however, did little more than bear the name of +its once famed composer. + +So much for the past. Now to the present history of Betty Cobbe. + +In a large unceilinged room, with a great fire blazing on the hearth, +over which a huge pot of potatoes was boiling, sat Betty, in a straw +chair. She was evidently very old, as her snow-white hair and lustreless +eye bespoke; but the fire of a truculent, unyielding spirit still warmed +her blood, and the sharp, ringing voice told that she was decided to +wrestle for existence to the last, and would never "give in" until +fairly conquered. + +Betty's chair was the only one in the chamber: the rest of the company +disposed themselves classically in the recumbent posture, or sat, +like primitive Christians, cross-legged. A long deal table, sparingly +provided with wooden plates and a few spoons, occupied the middle of the +room, and round the walls were several small bundles of straw, which I +soon learned were the property of private individuals. + +"Come along till I show ye to ould Betty," said one of the varlets to +me, as he pushed his way through the crowded room; for already several +other gangs had arrived, and were exchanging recognitions. + +"She's in a sweet temper, this evening," whispered another, as we +passed. "The Polis was here a while ago, and took up 'Danny White,' and +threatened to break up the whole establishment." + +"The devil a thing at all they'll lave us of our institushuns," said a +bow-legged little blackguard, with the 'Evening Freeman' written round +his hat; for he was an attaché of that journal. + +"Ould Betty was crying all the evening," said the former speaker; by +this time we had gained the side of the fireplace, where the old lady +sat. + +"Mother! mother, I say!" cried my guide, touching her elbow gently; +then, stooping to her ear, he added, "Mother Betty!" + +"Eh! Who's callin' me?" said the hag, with her hand aloft. "I'm here, my +Lord, neither ashamed nor afeard to say my name." + +"She's wanderin'," cried another; "she thinks she's in Coort." + +"Betty Cobbe! I say. It's me!" said my introducer, once more. + +The old woman turned fiercely round, and her dimmed and glassy eyes, +bloodshot from excess and passion, seemed to flare up into an angry +gleam as she said, "You dirty thief! Is it you that's turnin' informer +agin me,--you that I took up--out of yer mother's arms, in Green Street, +when she fainted at the cutting down of yer father? Your father," added +she, "that murdered old Meredith!" + +The boy, a hardened and bold-featured fellow, became lividly pale, but +never spoke. + +"Yes, my Lord," continued she, still following the theme of her own wild +fancies, "it's James Butterley's boy! Butterley that was hanged!" and +she shook and rocked with a fiendish exultation at the exposure. + +"Many of us does n't know what bekem of our fathers!" said a +sly-looking, old-fashioned creature, whose height scarcely exceeded two +feet, although evidently near manhood in point of age. + +"Who was yours, Mickey?" cried another. + +"Father Glynn, of Luke Street," growled out the imp, with a leer. + +"And yours?" said another, dragging me forward, directly in front of +Betty. + +"Con Cregan, of Kilbeggan," said I, boldly. + +"Success to ye, ma bouchal!" said the old hag; "and so you 're a son of +Con the informer." She looked sternly at me for a few seconds, and then, +in a slower and more deliberate tone, added, "I 'm forty years, last +Lady Day, living this way, and keepin' company with all sorts of +thieves, and rogues, and blaguards, and worse,--ay, far worse besides; +but may I never see Glory if an informer, or his brat, was under the +roof afore!" + +The steadfast decision of look and voice as she spoke seemed to +impress the bystanders, who fell back and gazed at me with that kind of +shrinking terror which honest people sometimes exhibit at the contact of +a criminal. + +During the pause of some seconds, while this endured, my sense of abject +debasement was at the very lowest. To be the Pariah of such a society +was indeed a most distinctive infamy. + +"Are ye ashamed of yer father? Tell me that!" cried the hag, shaking me +roughly by one shoulder. + +"It is not here, and before the like of these," said I, looking round at +the ragged, unwashed assemblage, "that I should feel shame! or if I did, +it is to find myself among them!" + +"That's my boy! that's my own spirited boy!" cried the old woman, +dragging me towards her. "Faix, I seen the time we 'd have made +somethin' out of you. Howld yer tongues, ye vagabonds! the child's +right,--yer a dirty mean crew! Them!" said she, pointing to me, "them +was the kind of chaps I used to have, long ago; that was n't afeard of +all the Beresfords, and Major Sirr, and the rest of them. Singing every +night on Carlisle Bridge, 'The Wearin' of the Green,' or 'Tra-lal-la, +the French is coming;' and when they wor big and grown men, ready and +willing to turn out for ould Ireland. Can you read, avick?" + +"Yes, and write," answered I, proudly. + +"To be sure ye can," muttered she, half to herself; "is it an informer's +child,--not know the first rules of his trade!" + +"Tear and ages, mother!" cried out the decrepit imp called Mickey, "we +'re starvin' for the meat!" + +"Sarve it up!" shouted the hag, with a voice of command; and she gave +three knocks with her crutch on the corner of the table. + +Never was command more promptly obeyed. A savory mess of that smoking +compound called "Irish stew" was ladled out on the trenchers, and +speedily disposed around the table, which at once was surrounded by +the guests,--a place being made for myself by an admonitory stroke of +Betty's crutch on the red head of a very hungry juvenile who had jostled +me in his anxiety to get near the table. + +Our meal had scarcely drawn to its close when the plates were removed, +and preparations made for a new party; nor had I time to ask the reason, +when a noisy buzz of voices without announced the coming of a numerous +throng. In an instant they entered; a number of girls, of every age, +from mere child to womanhood,--a ragged, tattered, reckless-looking set +of creatures, whose wild, high spirits not even direst poverty could +subdue. While some exchanged greetings with their friends of the other +sex, others advanced to talk to Betty, or stood to warm themselves +around the fire, until their supper, a similar one to our own, was got +ready. My curiosity as to whence they came in such a body was satisfied +by learning that they were employed at the "Mendicity Institution" +during the day, and set free at nightfall to follow the bent of +their own, not over well-regulated, tastes. These creatures were the +ballad-singers of the city; and, sometimes alone, sometimes in company +with one of the boys, they were wont to take their stand in some public +thoroughfare, not only the character of the singer, but the poetry +itself, taking the tone of the street; so that while some daring bit of +town scandal caught the ears of College Green, a "bloody murder" or a +"dying speech" formed the attraction of Thomas Street and the "Poddle." + +Many years afterwards, in the checkered page of my existence, when I +have sat at lordly tables and listened to the sharpened wit and polished +raillery of the high-born and the gifted, my mind has often reverted +to that beggar horde, and thought how readily the cutting jest was +answered, how soon repartee followed attack--what quaint fancies, what +droll conceits, passed through those brains, where one would have deemed +there was no room for aught save brooding guilt and sad repining. + +As night closed in, the assembly broke up; some issued forth to their +stations as ballad-singers; some, in pure vagabond spirit, to stroll +about the streets; while others, of whom I was one, lay down upon the +straw to sleep, without a dream, till daylight. + + + +CHAPTER VI. VIEWS OF LIFE + +When I woke the next morning, it was a few minutes before I could +thoroughly remember where I was and how I came there; my next thought +was the grateful one, that if the calling was not a very exaltued one, +I had at least secured a mode of living, and that my natural acuteness, +and, better still, my fixed resolve within me "to get forward in the +world," would not permit me to pass my days in the ignoble craft of +a "horse-boy." I found that the "walk," like every other career, had +certain guiding rules and principles by which it was regulated. Not only +were certain parts of the town interdicted to certain gangs, but it was +a recognized rule that when a particular boy was singled out habitually +by any gentleman that no other should endeavor to supplant him. This was +the less difficult as a perfect community of property was the rule of +the order; and all moneys were each night committed to the charge of +"old Betty," with a scrupulous fidelity that would have shamed many a +"joint-stock company." + +The regular etiquette required that each youth should begin his career +in the north side of the city, where the class of horsemen was of a less +distinguished order, and the fees proportionably lower. Thence he +was promoted to the Four Courts; from which, as the highest stage, he +arrived at Merrion Square and its neighborhood. Here the visitors were +either the young officers of the garrison, the Castle officials, or a +wealthy class of country gentlemen, all of whom gave sixpences; while +in the cold quarter of northern Dublin, penny-pieces were the only +currency. If the public differed in these three places, so did the +claims of the aspirant: a grave, quiet, almost sombre look being the +grand qualification in the one, while an air of daring effrontery was +the best recommendation in the other. For while the master in +chancery or the "six clerk" would only commit his bobtailed pony to a +discreet-faced varlet of grave exterior, the dashing aide-de-camp on his +thoroughbred singled out the wild imp with roguish eye and flowing hair, +that kept up with him from the barrack in a sharp canter, and actually +dived under a carriage-pole and upset an apple-stall to be "up" in +time to wait on him; and while yet breathless and blown, was ready with +voluble tongue to give him the current news of the neighborhood,--who +was in the Square, or out dining; who had arrived, or why they were +absent. To do this task with dexterity and tact was the crowning +feature of the craft, and in such hasty journalism some attained a high +proficiency; seasoning their scandal with sly bits of drollery or quaint +allusions to the current topics of the day. To succeed in this, it +was necessary to know the leading characters of the town and the +circumstances of their private history; and these I set myself to learn +with the assiduity of a study. Never did a Bath Master of the Ceremonies +devote himself more ardently to the investigation of the faults and +foibles of his company; never did young lady, before coming out, more +patiently pore over Debrett, than did I pursue my researches into Dublin +life and manners; until at last, what between oral evidence and shrewd +observation, I had a key to the secret mysteries of nearly every +well-known house in the city. + +None like me to explain why the father of the dashing family in +Stephen's Green only appeared of a Sunday; how the blinds of No. 18 were +always drawn down at three o'clock; and what meant the hackney-coach +at the canal bridge every Thursday afternoon. From the gentleman that +always wore a geranium leaf in his coat, to the lady who dropped her +glove in the Square, I knew them all. Nor was it merely that I possessed +the knowledge, but I made it to be felt. I did not hoard my wealth +like a miser, but I came forth like a great capitalist to stimulate +enterprise and encourage credit. Had I been a malicious spirit, there is +no saying what amount of mischief I might have worked, what discoveries +anticipated, what awkward meetings effected. I was, however, what the +French call a "bon diable," and most generously took the side of +the poor sinner against the strong spirit of right. How many a poor +subaltern had been put in arrest for wearing "mufti," had I not been +there to apprise him the town-major White was coming. How often have I +saved a poor college-man from a heavy fine, who, with his name on the +sick-list, was flirting in the "Square." How have I hastened, at the +risk of my neck, between crashing carriages and prancing horses, to +announce to a fair lady lounging in her britzska that the "Counsellor," +her husband, was unexpectedly returning from court an hour earlier than +his wont. I have rescued sons from fathers, daughters from mothers; the +pupil from his guardian, the debtor from his creditor,--in a word, was a +kind of ragged guardian angel, who watched over the peccadilloes of the +capital. My "amour propre"--if such an expression of such a quality may +be conceded to one like me--was interested in the cause of all who did +wrong. I was the Quixote of all deceivers. + +With "Con on the look-out," none feared surprise; and while +my shrewdness was known to be first-rate, my honesty was alike +unimpeachable. It may readily be believed how, with acquirements +and talents like these, I no longer pursued the humble walk of +"horse-holder;" indeed, I rarely touched a bridle, or, if I did so, it +was only to account for my presence in such localities as I might need +an excuse to loiter in. I was at the head of my profession; and the +ordinary salutation of the cavaliers, "Con, get me a fellow to hold this +mare," showed that none presumed to expect the ignoble service at my own +hands. + +To some two or three of my early patrons, men who had noticed me in my +obscurity, I would still condescend to yield this attention,--a degree +of grateful acknowledgment on my part which they always rewarded most +handsomely. Among these was the young officer whose pony I had held on +the first night of my arrival. He was an Honorable Captain De Courcy, +very well-looking, well-mannered, and very poor,--member of the +Commander-in-Chief's staff, who eked out his life by the aid of his +noble birth and his wits together. + +At the time I speak of, his visits to Merrion Square were devoted to the +cause of a certain Mrs. Mansergh, the young and beautiful wife of an +old red-faced, foul-mouthed Queen's Counsel, at least forty years her +senior. The scandal was, that her origin had been of the very humblest, +and that, seen by accident on circuit, she had caught the fancy of the +old lawyer, a well-known connoisseur in female beauty. However that +might be, she was now about two years married, and already recognized as +the reigning beauty of the viceregal court and the capital. + +The circumstances of her history,--her low origin, her beauty, and the +bold game she played,--all invested her with a great interest in my +eyes. I used to flatter myself that there was a kind of similarity in +at least our early fortunes; and I enlisted myself in her cause with an +ardor that I could not explain to myself. How often, as she passed in +her splendid barouche,--the best-appointed and handsomest equipage +of the capital,--have I watched her as, wrapped in her Cashmere, she +reclined in all the voluptuous indolence of her queenly state; glorying +to think that _she_,--she, whose proud glance scarce noticed the +obsequious throng that bowed with uncovered heads around her,--that she +was perhaps not better nurtured than myself. Far from envious jealousy +at her better fortune, I exulted in it; she was a kind of beacon set on +a hill to guide and cheer me. I remember well, it was an actual +triumph to me one day, as the Viceroy, a gay and dashing nobleman, not +overscrupulous where the claim of beauty was present, stopped, with all +his glittering staff, beside her carriage, and in playful raillery began +to chide her for being absent from the last drawing-room. "We missed you +sadly, Mrs. Mansergh," said he, smiling his most seductive smile. "Pray +tell my friend Mansergh that he shows himself a most lukewarm supporter +of the Government who denies us the fairest smiles of the capital." + +"In truth, my Lord, he would not give me a new train, and I refused to +wear the old one," said she, laughing. + +"Downright disloyalty, upon my honor," said the Viceroy, with well +got-up gravity. + +"Don't you think so, my Lord?" rejoined she; "so I even told him that +I 'd represent the case to your Excellency, who, I 'm sure, would not +refuse a velvet robe to the wife, while you gave a silk gown to the +husband." + +"It will be the very proudest of my poor prerogatives," said he, bowing, +while a flash of crimson lit up his pleased features. "Your favorite +color is--" + +"I should like to wear your Lordship's," said she, with a look the most +finished coquette might envy, so admirably blended were trust and timid +bashfulness. + +What he replied I could not catch. There was a flattering courtesy, +however, in his smile, and in the familiar motion of the hand with which +he bade "good-bye," that were enough to show me that he, the haughty +mirror of his sovereign, did not think it beneath him to bandy +compliments and exchange soft looks with the once humble beauty. From +that time out, my whole thoughts day and night were centred in her; and +I have passed hours long, fancying all the possible fortunes for which +destiny might intend her. It seemed to me as though she was piloting out +the course for me in life, and that her success was the earnest of my +own. Often, when a ball or a great reception was given by her, have +I sat, cold, shivering, and hungry, opposite the house, watching with +thrilling interest all the equipages as they came, and hearing the high +and titled names called aloud by the servants, and thinking to myself, +"Such are _her_ associates _now_. These great and haughty personages are +here to do honor to _her_, their lovely hostess; and _she_, but a +few years back, if report spoke truly, was scarcely better off than I +was--I--myself." + +Only they who have a sanguine, hopeful temperament will be able to +understand how the poor houseless, friendless boy--the very outcast +of the world, the convict's child--could ever dare to indulge in such +day-dreams of future greatness. But I had set the goal before my eyes; +the intermediate steps to it I left to fortune. The noble bearing and +polished graces of the high and wealthy, which to my humble associates +seemed the actual birthright of the great, I perceived could all be +acquired. There was no prescriptive claim in any class to the manners +of high breeding; and why should not I, if fortune favored, be as good +a gentleman as the best? In other particulars, all that I had observed +showed me no wondrous dissimilarity of true feeling in the two classes. +The gentleman, to be sure, did not swear like the common fellow; but on +the racecourse or the betting-ground I had seen, to the full, as much +deceit as ever I witnessed in my "own order." There was faithlessness +beneath Valenciennes lace and velvet as well as beneath brown stuff and +check; and a spirit of backbiting, that we ragged folk knew nothing of, +seemed a current pastime in better circles. + +What, then, should debar me from that class? Not the manners, which I +could feign, nor the vices, which I could feel. To be like them, was +only to be of them,--such, at least, was then my conviction and my +theory. + +Any one who will take the pains to reflect on and analyze the mode of +thinking I have here mentioned, will see how necessarily it tends rather +to depress those above than to elevate those beneath. I did not purpose +to myself any education in high and noble sentiments, but simply the +performance of a part which I deemed easy to assume. The result soon +began to tell. I felt a degree of contemptuous hatred for the very +persons I had once revered as almost demigods. I no longer looked up to +the "gentleman" as such by right divine, but by accident; and I fostered +the feeling by the writings of every radical newspaper I could come +at. All the levelling doctrines of socialism, all the plausibilities +of equality, became as great truths to me; and I found a most ready +aptitude in my mind to square the fruits of my personal observation to +these pleasant theories. The one question recurred every morning as I +arose, and remained unanswered each night as I lay down, "Why should +I hold a horse, and why should another man ride one?" I suppose the +difficulty has puzzled wiser heads; indeed, since I mooted it to myself, +it has caused some trouble in the world; nor, writing now as I do in the +year of grace '48, do I suppose the question is yet answered. + +I have dwelt perhaps too long on this exposition of my feelings; but +as my subsequent life was one of far more action than reflection, the +indulgent reader will pardon the prosiness, not simply as explaining the +history which follows, but also as affording a small breathing-space in +a career where there were few "halts." + +I have said that I began to conceive a great grudge against all who +were well off in life, and against none did I indulge this aversion +more strongly than "the captain," my first patron,--almost my only one. +Though he had always employed me,--and none ever approached him save +myself,--he had never condescended to the slightest act of recognition +beyond the tap on my head with his gold-mounted whip, and a significant +nod where to lead his pony. No sign of his, no look, no gesture, ever +confessed to the fact that I was a creature of his own species, that I +had had a share in the great firm which, under the name of Adam and Co., +has traded so long and industriously. + +If I were sick, or cold, or hungry, it mattered not; my cheek might be +sunk with want or care, my rags might drip with rain, or freeze with +sleet,--he never noticed them; yet if the wind played too roughly with +his Arab's mane, or the silky tasselled tail, he saw it at once. If her +coat stirred with the chill breeze, he would pat and pet her. It was +evident enough which had the better existence. + +If these thoughts chafed and angered me at first, at least they served +to animate and rouse my spirit. He who wants to rise in life must feel +the sharp spur of a wrong,--there is nothing like it to give vigor and +energy to his motions. When I came to this conclusion, I did not wait +long to put the feeling into action; and it was thus--But a new chapter +of my life deserves a new chapter of my history. + + + +CHAPTER VII. A BOLD STROKE FOR AN OPENING IN THE WORLD + +As regular as the day itself did I wait at the corner of Merrion Square, +at three o'clock, the arrival of Captain De Courcy, who came punctual +to the instant; indeed, the clatter of the pony's hoofs as he cantered +along always announced the striking of the Post-office clock. To +dismount, and fling me the bridle, with a short nod of the head in the +direction he wished me to walk the animal, was the extent of recognition +ever vouchsafed me; and as I never ventured upon even a word with +him, our intercourse was of the simplest possible kind. There was an +impassive quietude about his pale cold features that awed me. I never +saw him smile but once; it was when the mare seized me by the shoulder, +and tore with her teeth a great piece of my ragged coat away. Then, +indeed, he did vouchsafe to give a faint, listless smile, as he said to +his pampered nag, "Fie, fie! What a dirty feeder you are!" + +Very little notice on his part, the merest act of recognition, a look, a +monosyllable, would have been enough to satisfy me,--anything, in short, +which might acknowledge that we were part of the same great chain, no +matter how many links might lie between us. + +I do not wish it to be inferred that I had any distinct right to such +an acknowledgment, nor that any real advantage would have accrued to me +from obtaining it,--far from that; very little consideration might +have induced me to be contented with my station; and, if so, instead of +writing these notes in a boudoir with silk hangings, and--but this is +anticipating with a vengeance! And now to go back. + +After three hours of a cold wait, on a rainy and dreary afternoon, the +only solace to my hunger being the imaginative one of reflecting on the +pleasure of those happy mortals who were sitting down to dinner in the +various houses along the Square, and fancying to myself the blessed +state of tranquillity it must impart to a man's nature to see a meal of +appetizing excellence, from which no call of business, no demand of any +kind could withdraw him. And what speculations did I indulge in as to +the genial pleasantry that must abound,--the happy wit, the joyous ease +of such gatherings when three or four carriages at a door would bespeak +the company at such a dinner-party! + +At last, out came my captain, with a haste and flurry of manner quite +unusual. He did not, as was his constant custom, pass his hand along the +mare's neck to feel her coat, nor did he mutter a single word of coaxing +to her as he mounted. He flung himself with a jerk into the saddle, and, +rapping my knuckles sharply with the gold knob of his whip, pettishly +cried, "Let her go, sirrah!" and cantered away. I stood for some moments +motionless, my mind in that strange state when the first thought of +rebellion has entered, and the idea of reprisal has occurred. I was +about to go away, when the drawing-room window, straight above me, was +opened, and a lady stepped out upon the balcony. It was too dark to +discern either her features or her dress; but a certain instinct told me +it was Mrs. Mansergh. "Are you Captain De Courcy's boy?" said she, in a +sweet and subdued voice. I replied in the affirmative, and she went on: +"You know his quarters at the Royal Hospital? Well, go there at once, +as speedily as you can, and give him this note." She hesitated for a +second, as if uncertain what to say, and then added, "It is a note he +dropped from his pocket by accident." + +"I'll do it, ma'am," said I, catching the letter and the half-crown, +which she had half inserted in the envelope to give it weight. "You +may trust me perfectly." Before the words were well uttered, she had +retired, the window was closed, the curtain drawn, and, except the +letter and the coin in my fingers, nothing remained to show that the +whole had not been a trick of my foolish brain. + +My immediate impulse was to fulfil my mission; I even started off at +full speed to do so. But as I turned the corner of the Square, the glare +of a bright gas-lamp suggested the temptation of at least a look at +my despatches; and what was my astonishment to find that on this note, +which had been dropped by "accident" from the captain's pocket, the +superscription was scarcely dry,--in the very act of catching, I had +blotted the words! This, of course, was no affair of mine; but it +evinced deception,--and deception at certain moments becomes a dangerous +injury. There are times when the mind feels deceit to be an outrage. The +stormy passions of the fury-driven mob, reckless and headstrong, show +this; and the most terrible moment in all political convulsions is when +the people feel, or even suspect, that they have been tricked. My frame +of mind was exactly in that critical stage. A minute before, I was +ready to yield any obedience, tender any service; and now, of a +sudden,--without the slightest real cause, or from anything which could +in the remotest way affect me,--I had become a rebel. Let the reader +forgive the somewhat tedious analysis of a motive, since it comes from +one who has long studied the science of moral chemistry, and made most +of his experiments--as the rule directs--in "ignoble bodies." + +My whole resolve was changed: I would not deliver the note. Not that I +had any precise idea wherefore, or that I had the least conception what +other course I should adopt; I was a true disciple of revolt: I rebelled +for very rebellion's sake. + +Betty Cobbe's was more than usually brilliant on that evening. A +race, which was to come off at Kingstown the next day, had attracted a +numerous company, in the various walks of horse-boys, bill-carriers, and +pickpockets, all of whom hoped to find a ready harvest on the morrow. +The conversation was, therefore, entirely of a sporting character. +Anecdotes of the turf and the ring went round, and in the many curious +devices of roguery and fraud might be read the prevailing taste of +that select company. Combinations were also formed to raise the rate of +payment, and many ingenious suggestions thrown out about turning cattle +loose, slacking girths, stealing curb-chains, and so on, from that +antagonistic part of the public who preferred holding their horses +themselves than intrusting them to the profession. + +The race itself, too, engrossed a great share of interest; and a certain +Fergusson was talked of with all the devotedness and affection of a dear +friend. Nor, as I afterwards learned, was the admiration a merely blind +one, as he was a most cunning adept in all the wily stratagems by which +such men correct the wilful ways of Fortune. + +How my companions chuckled over stories of "rotten ditches" that were +left purposely to betray the unwary; swinging gates that would open at +the least touch, and inevitably catch the horse that attempted to clear, +if the hoof but grazed them; bog-holes, to swamp, and stone fences, to +smash,--had their share of approval; but a drain dug eight feet deep, +and that must certainly break the back of the horse, if not of the rider +also, who made a "mistake" over it, seemed the triumph which carried +away the suffrages of the whole assembly. + +Now, although I had seen far more of real sport and horsemanship than +the others, these narratives were for the most part new to me; and I +listened with a high interest to every scheme and trick by which cunning +can overreach and outmanoeuvre simplicity. The admiration of adroit +knavery is the first step on the road to fraud; and he who laughs +heartily at a clever trick, seldom suspects how he is "booking himself" +for the same road. For my own part, neither were my principles so fixed, +nor my education so careful, that I did not conceive a very high respect +for the rogue, and a very contemptuous disdain for his victim. + +Morning came, and a bright sunny one it was, with a keen frost and that +kind of sharp air that invigorates and braces both mind and body. The +crisp, clear outline of every tree and building seen against the deep +blue sky; the sparkling river, with its clean bed of bright gravel; and +the ruddy faces one meets,--are all of a nature to suggest pleasant and +cheerful thoughts. Even we--we, with our frail fragments and chapped +hands--felt it, and there was an alacrity of movement and a bounding +step, a gay laugh and a merry voice, everywhere. All set out for +Kingstown, in the neighborhood of which the race was to come off. I +alone remained behind, resisting every entreaty of my companions to join +them,--I cannot yet say why I did so. It was partly that long habit had +made my attendance upon "the Captain" a duty; partly, perhaps, that some +vague notion that the letter, of which I still kept possession, should +be delivered by me at last. + +The town was quite empty on that day,--not a carriage, nor a horseman +to be seen. There were very few on foot, and the Square was deserted of +all, save its nursery population. I never felt a more tedious morning. +I had full time, as I loitered along all alone, to contrast my solitude +with the enjoyment my companions were at that same moment pursuing. + +True to the instant, Captain De Courcy cantered up, his face a thought +graver and more stern than I had ever seen it before. As he dismounted, +my hand, in holding his stirrup, soiled the brilliant polish of his +lacquered boot; he perceived it, and rewarded my awkwardness with a +smart cut of his whip. A minute before I had made up my mind to give him +the note; now, torture itself would not have torn it from me. + +I followed him with my eyes till he entered the house,--not over +distinctly, it is true, for they were somewhat blinded by tears that +would, in spite of me, come forth. The sensation was a most painful one; +and I am heartily glad to confess I have seldom experienced a recurrence +of it. Scarcely was the hall-door closed on him, when I remembered that +he would soon hear of the note, which I had failed to deliver, and that, +in all likelihood, a heavy punishment awaited me. My offence was a grave +one: what was to be done? Turn the mare loose and fly, or patiently +await my fate? Either were bad enough; the latter certainly the less +advisable of the two. A third course soon suggested itself, doubtless +inspired by that most mischief-working adage which says that one may be +"as well hanged for the sheep as the lamb." + +I therefore voted for the "larger animal;" and to satisfy myself that +I was honest to my own convictions, I immediately proceeded to act upon +them. I led the mare quietly along to the angle of the Square, and then, +turning into the next street, I shortened the stirrups, mounted, and +rode off. + +"Set a beggar on horseback--" says the proverb; and although the +consequence is only meant figuratively, I have a suspicion that it might +bear a literal reading. I rode away, at first, at a trot, and then, +striking into a brisk canter, I took the road to Kingstown, whither, +even yet, some horsemen were hastening. + +Every stride of the bounding animal elevated my spirits and nerved my +courage. The foot-passengers, that plodded wearily along, I looked down +upon as inferior; with the horsemen on either side I felt a kind of +equality. How differently does one view life from the saddle and from +the ground! The road became more thronged as I advanced, thicker crowds +pressed eagerly forward, and numerous carriages obstructed the way. At +another moment, perhaps, I should have attracted attention; but stranger +sights were passing at every instant, and none troubled their heads +about the "ragged urchin on the thoroughbred." + +The crowd at last became so dense that horsemen were fain to desert +the high road, and take short cuts wherever an open gate or an easily +crossed fence opened the way. Following a group of well-mounted +gentlemen, I cleared a low wall into a spacious grass field, over which +we cantered, and beyond this, by leaping an easy ditch, into another of +the same kind, till at length we saw the vast crowds that blackened a +hill in front, and, beneath them, could distinguish the fluttering +flags that marked the course, and the large floating standard of the +winning-post. + +What a grand sight was that! For what is so imposing a spectacle as vast +myriads of people stirred by one interest, and animated by one absorbing +passion? Every one has nowadays seen something of the kind, therefore +I shall not linger to tell of the impression it made upon my youthful +senses. The first race had already come off; but the second, and the +great event of the day, was yet to take place. + +It was a steeplechase by "gentlemen riders" over a very severe line of +country; several fences of most break-neck character having been added +to the natural difficulties of the ground. + +Mounted on my splendid barb, I rode boldly forward till I reached the +field through which the first ditch ran,--a deep and wide trench, backed +by a low rail,--a very formidable leap, and requiring both stride and +strength to clear it. + +"Some of 'em will tail off, when they sees that!" said an English groom, +with a knowing wink; and the words were only out when, at a "slapping +canter," the riders were seen coming down the gently sloping hill. Three +rode nearly abreast; then came a single horseman; and, after him, an +indiscriminate mass, whose bright and party-colored jackets glowed like +a rainbow. + +I watched them with a breathless interest; as they came nearer they +widened the space between them, and each cast a rapid but stealthy +glance at his neighbor. One--he rode a powerful black horse--took the +lead, and, dashing at the leap, his horse rose too soon, and fell, +chested against the opposite bank, the rider under him; the next swerved +suddenly round and balked; the third did the same; so that the leading +horseman was now he who rode alone at first. Quickening his speed as he +came on, he seemed actually to fly; and when he did take the fence, it +was like the bound of a cannon-shot,--up, and over at once! Of the +rest, some two or three followed well; others pulled short up; while the +larger share, in various forms of accident and misfortune, might be seen +either struggling in the brook, or endeavoring to rescue their horses +from the danger of broken legs and backs. + +I did not wait to watch them; my interest was in those who gallantly +led onward, and who now, some four in number, rode almost abreast. Among +these, my favorite was the sky-blue jacket who had led the way over the +dyke; and him did I follow with straining eyes and palpitating heart. +They were at this moment advancing towards a wall,--a high and strong +one, and I thought, in the slackened pace and more gathered-up stride, I +could read the caution a difficult leap enforced. + +A brown jacket with white sleeves was the first to charge it; and after +a tremendous scramble, in which the wall, the horse, and the rider were +all tumbling together, he got over; but the animal went dead lame, and +the rider, dismounting, led him off the ground. + +Next came blue-jacket; and just at the very rise his mare balked, and, +at the top of her speed, ran away along the side of the wall. A perfect +roar of angry disappointment arose from the multitude, for she was +the favorite of the country people, who were loudly indignant at this +mischance. + +"The race is sold!" cried one. + +"Beatagh"--this was the rider--"pulled her round himself! the mare never +was known to refuse a fence!" + +"I say you're both wrong!" cried a third, whose excited manner showed +he was no indifferent spectator of the scene. "She never will take her +first wall fairly; after that she goes like a bird!" + +"What a confounded nuisance to think that no one will lead her over the +fence! Is there not one here will show her the way?" said he, looking +around. + +"There's the only fellow I see whose neck can afford it!" said another, +pointing to me. "He, evidently, was never born to be killed in a +steeplechase." + +"Devilish well mounted he is, too!" remarked some one else. + +"Hallo, my smart boy!" said he who before alluded to the mare as a +bolter, "try your nag over that wall yonder,--go boldly. Let her +have her head, and give her a sharp cut as she rises. Make way there, +gentlemen! Let the boy have fair play, and I 'll wager a five-pound note +he does it! You shall have half the stakes too, if you win!" added he. +These were the last words I heard; for the crowd, clearing in front, +opened for me to advance, and without a moment's hesitation of any kind, +I dashed my heels to the mare's flanks, and galloped forward. A loud +shout, and a perfect shower of whips on the mare's quarter from +the bystanders, put all question of pulling up beyond the reach of +possibility. In a minute more I was at the wall, and, ere I well knew, +over it. A few seconds after, the blue-jacket was beside me. "Well done, +my lad! You've earned twenty guineas if I win the race! Lead the way a +bit, and let your mare choose her ground when she leaps." This was all +he said; but such words of encouragement never fell on my ears before. + + + +Before us were the others, now reduced to three in number, and evidently +holding their stride and watching each other, never for a moment +suspecting that the most feared competitor was fast creeping up behind +them. One fence separated us, and over this I led again, sitting my mare +with all the composure of an old steeplechaser. "Out of the way, now!" +cried my companion, "and let _me_ at them!" and he tore past me at a +tremendous pace, shouting out, as he went by the rest, "Come along, my +lads! I 'll show the way!" + +And so he did! With all their efforts, and they were bold ones, they +never overtook him afterwards. His mare took each fence flying, and as +her speed was much greater than the others', she came in full half a +minute in advance. The others arrived all together, crest fallen and +disappointed, and, like all beaten men, receiving the most insulting +comments from the mob, who are somewhat keen critics on misfortune. I +came last, for I had dropped behind when I was ordered; but, unable +to extricate my mare from the crowd, was compelled to ride the whole +distance with the rest. If the losing horsemen were hooted and laughed +at, _my_ approach was a kind of triumphal entry. "There's the chap that +led over the wall! That little fellow rode the best of them all!" "See +that ragged boy on the small mare; he could beat the field this minute!" + +"'T is fifty guineas in goold ye ought to have, my chap!" said +another,--a sentiment the unwashed on all sides seemed most heartily to +subscribe to. + +"Be my soul, I 'd rather be lookin' at him than the gentlemen!" said a +very tattered individual, with a coat like a transparency. These, and +a hundred similar comments, fell like hail-drops around; and I believe +that in my momentary triumph I actually forgot all the dangers and +perils of my offence. + +It is a great occasion for rejoicing among the men of rags and +wretchedness when a member of their own order has achieved anything +like fame. The assertion of their ability to enter the lists with "their +betters" is the very pleasantest of all flatteries. It is, so to say, +a kind of skirmish, before that great battle which, one day or other, +remains to be fought between the two classes which divide mankind,-- +those who have, and those who have not. + +I little suspected that I was, to use the cant so popular at present, +"the representative of a great principle" in my late success. I took all +the praises bestowed, most literally, to myself, and shook hands with +all the dirty and tattered mob, fully convinced that I was a very fine +fellow. + +"Mister Beatagh wants to see the boy that led him over the ditch," +shouted out a huge, wide-shouldered, red-faced ruffian, as he shoved the +crowd right and left to make way for the approach of the gentleman who +had just won the race. + +"Stand up bowld, avic!" whispered one in my ear, "and don't be ashamed +to ax for your reward." + +"Say ten guineas!" muttered another. + +"No; but twenty!" growled out a third. + +"And lashings of drink besides, for the present company!" suggested a +big-headed cripple about two feet high. + +"Are you the lad that took the fence before me?" cried out a +smart-looking, red-whiskered young man, with a white surtout loosely +thrown over his riding costume. + +"Yes, sir," I replied, half modestly and half assured. + +"Who are you, my boy, and where do you come from?" + +"He's one of Betty Cobbe's chickens!" shouted out an old savage-faced +beggar-man, who was terribly indignant at the great misdirection of +public sympathy; "and a nice clutch they are!" + +"What is it to you, Dan, where the crayture gets his bread?" rejoined an +old newsvender, who, in all likelihood, had once been a parlor boarder +in the same seminary. + +"Never mind _them_, but answer me, my lad!" said the gentleman. "If you +are willing to take service, and can find any one to recommend you--" + +"Sure, we'll all go bail for him--to any amount!" shouted out the little +crippled fellow, from his "bowl;" and certainly a most joyous burst of +laughter ran through the crowd at the sentiment. + +"Maybe ye think I'm not a householder," rejoined the fellow, with a grin +of assumed anger; "but have n't I my own sugar hogshead to live in, and +devil receave the lodger in the same premises!" + +"I see there 's no chance of our being able to settle anything here," +said the gentleman. "These good people think the matter more their own +than ours; so meet to-morrow, my lad, at Dycer's, at twelve o'clock, and +bring me anything that can speak for your character." As he said these +few words he brushed the crowd to one side with his whip, and forcing +his way, with the air of a man who would not be denied, left the place. + +"And he 's laving the crayture without givin' him a farden!" cried one +of the mob, who suddenly saw all the glorious fabric of a carouse and a +drunken bout disappear like a mirage. + +"Oh, the 'tarnal vagabond" shouted another, more indignantly; "to desart +the child that a-way,--and he that won the race for him!" + +"Will yez see the little crayture wronged?" said another, who appeared +by his pretentious manner to be a practised street orator. "Will yez +lave the dissolute orphan--" he meant "desolate"--"to be chayted out +of his pater money? Are yez men at all? or are yez dirty slaves of the +bloody 'stokessy that's murderin' ould Ireland'?" + +"We'll take charge of the orphan, and of you too, my smart fellow, if +you don't brush off pretty lively!" said a policeman, as, followed by +two others, he pushed through the crowd with that cool determination +that seems to be actually an instinct with them. Then, laying a strong +hand on my collar, he went on: "How did you come by that mare, my lad?" + +"She belongs to Captain De Courcy, of the Royal Hospital," said I, doing +my utmost to seem calm and collected. + +"We know that already; what we want to hear is, what brought you here +with her? It was n't Captain De Courcy's orders?" + +"No, sir. I was told to hold her for him, and--and--" + +"And so you rode off with her,--out with it, it saves time, my lad. Now, +let me ask you another question: Have you any notion of the crime you +have just committed? Do you know that it amounts to horse-stealing? And +do you know what the penalty is for that offence?" + +"No, sir; I know neither one nor the other," said I, resolutely; "and, +if I did, it doesn't matter much. As well to live upon prison diet as to +starve in the streets!" + +"He's a bad 'un; I told ye that!" remarked another of the policemen. +"Take him off, Grimes!" and so, amid a very general but subdued murmur +of pity and condolence from the crowd, I was dragged away on one side, +while the mare was led off on another. + +It was a terrible tumble down, from being a hero to an embryo felon; +from being cheered by the populace, to being collared by a policeman! +As we went along towards Dublin on a jaunting-car, I was regaled by +interesting narratives of others who had begun life like myself, and +took an abrupt leave of it in a manner by no means too decorous. The +peculiarity of anecdote which pertains to each profession was strongly +marked in these officers of the law; and they appeared to have +studied the dark side of human nature with eyes the keenest and most +scrutinizing. + +I wish I could even now forget the long and dreary hours of the night +that ensued, as I lay, with some fifty others, in the jail of the +station-house. The company was assuredly not select, nor their manners +at all improved by the near approach of punishment. It seemed as if all +the disguises of vice were thrown off at once, and that iniquity stood +forth in its own true and glaring livery. I do not believe that the +heart can ever experience a ruder shock than when an unfledged criminal +first hears himself welcomed into the "Masonry" of guilt. To be claimed +by such associates as a fellow-laborer, to be received as one of the +brethren into the guild of vice, is really an awful blow to one's +self-esteem and respect; to feel yourself inoculated with a disease +whose fatal marks are to stamp you like this one or that, sends a +shuddering terror through the heart, whose cold thrill is never, in a +life-long afterwards, thoroughly eradicated. + +There should be a quarantine for suspected guilt, as for suspected +disease; and the mere doubt of rectitude should not expose any +unfortunate creature to the chances of a terrible contagion! I do not +affect by this to say that I was guiltless,--not in the least; but my +crime should scarcely have classified me with the associates by whom +I was surrounded. Nor was a night in such company the wisest mode of +restoring to the path of duty one who might possibly have only slightly +deviated from the straight line. + +When morning came I was marched off, with a strong phalanx of other +misdoers, to the College Street office, where a magistrate presided +whose bitterest calumniators could never accuse of any undue leanings +towards mercy. By him I had the satisfaction of hearing a great variety +of small offences decided with a railroad rapidity, only interrupted now +and then by a whining lamentation over the "lenity of the legislature," +that never awarded one tithe of the suitable penalty, and bewailing his +own inability to do more for the criminal than send him to prison for +two months with hard labor, and harder diet to sweeten it. + +At last came my name; and as I heard it shouted aloud, it almost choked +me with a nervous fulness in the throat. I felt as though I was the +greatest criminal in the universe, and that the whole vast assemblage +had no other object or aim there than to see me arraigned for my +offence. + +I was scarcely ordered to advance before I was desired to stand back +again, the prosecutor, Captain De Courcy, not being in court. While a +policeman was, therefore, despatched by the magistrate to request that +he would have the kindness to appear,--for the captain was an honorable +and an aide-de-camp, titles which the sitting justice knew well how to +respect,--other cases were called and disposed of. It was nigh three +o'clock when a great bustle in the outer court and a tremendous falling +back of the dense crowd, accompanied by an ostentatious display of +police zeal, heralded a group of officers, who, with jingling spurs and +banging sabretaches, made their way to the bench, and took their seats +beside the justice. Many were the courtesies interchanged between the +magistrate and the captain: one averring that the delay was not in +the slightest degree inconvenient; the other professing the greatest +deference for the rules of court; neither bestowing a thought upon him +most deeply concerned of all. + +A very brief narrative, delivered by the captain with a most military +abruptness, detailed my offence; and, although not exaggerated in the +slightest degree, the occasional interruptions of the magistrate served +very considerably to magnify its guilt,--such as "Dear me! a favorite +mare; a pure Arab; a present from your noble father, Lord Littlemore; +infamous treatment; abominable case; abandoned young scoundrel!" and so +on; closing with the accustomed peroration of regret that, as hanging +was now done away with, he feared that the recorder could only award me +a transportation for life! + +"Have you anything to say, sirrah?" said he at last, turning towards me; +"or would you rather reserve your observations for another time? as I +shall certainly commit you for trial at the commission." + +"I have only to suggest," said I, with an air of most insolent +composure, "that you are probably mistaken in your law. The offence with +which I stand charged amounts, at most, to the minor one of breach of +trust." + +"What! have we got a lawyer in the dock?" said the magistrate, reddening +with fear and anger together. + +"I have enjoyed some opportunities of legal study, your worship," said +I, "and am happy to state that my opinion in the present instance will +not discredit the assertion. The case stands thus: I am employed by the +Honorable Captain De Courcy to perform a particular duty, which is of +the distinct nature of a trust; that trust, whose importance I do not +seek to extenuate in the slightest, I fail in. I will not plead the +strong temptation of a race and a great spectacle. I will not allege, as +perhaps I might, the example of my companions, then revelling in all the +pleasures of the day. I will simply say that no one fact can be adduced +to favor the suspicion of a meditated robbery; and that my conduct, so +palpably open and public, rejects the least assumption of the kind, and +at the utmost can establish nothing beyond what I am willing to plead +guilty to,--a breach of trust." + +"Listen to the Attorney-General! By the hokey, it's himself they 've in +the dock!" said one. + +"That's the chap can give them chapter and varse!" cried another. + +"Silence there! Keep silence in the court!" said the justice, now really +warm with passion. "I'd have you to know, sirrah," said he, addressing +me, "that your pettifogging shrewdness is anything but favorable to you +in the unfortunate position in which you stand. I shall commit you +for trial, and would advise you--it is the only piece of advice I +'ll trouble you with--to charge some more skilful advocate with your +defence, and not intrust it to the knavish flippancy of conceit and +chicanery." + +"I mean to have counsel, your worship," said I, resolutely; for my blood +was up, and I would have argued with the twelve judges. "I mean to +have one of the first and most eminent at the bar for my defence. Mr. +Mansergh, of Merrion Square, will not refuse my brief when he sees the +fee I can offer him." + +A regular roar of laughter filled the court; the impudence of my speech, +and my thus introducing the name of one of the very first men at the +bar, as likely to concern himself for such a miserable case and object, +was too much for any gravity; and when the magistrate turned to comment +upon my unparalleled assurance and impertinence to Captain De Courcy, he +discovered that the honorable captain had left his place. + +Such was the fact! The dashing aide-de-camp was at that moment standing +in earnest converse with myself beside the dock. + +"May I speak with this boy in another room, your worship?" said he, +addressing the court. + +"Certainly, Captain De Courcy! Sergeant Biles, show Captain De Courcy +into my robing-room." + +The honorable captain did not regain his composure immediately on +finding himself alone with me; on the contrary, his agitation was such +that he made two or three efforts before he could utter the few words +with which he first addressed me. + +"What did you mean by saying that Mr. Mansergh would defend you? and +what was the fee you alluded to?" were the words. + +"Just what I said, sir," said I, with the steady assurance a confidence +of victory gives. "I thought it was better to have able counsel; and as +I know I have the means of recompensing him, the opportunity was lucky." + +"You don't pretend that you could afford to engage one like him, my +lad?" said he, affecting, but very poorly, an air of easy composure. +"What could you give him?" + +"A note, sir; and although it never issued from the Bank, one not +without value!" + +The captain became deadly pale; he made one step towards the door, and +in a low voice of ill-restrained anger said, "I'll have you searched, +sirrah! If anything belonging to me is found upon you--" + +"No fear, sir," said I, composedly; "I have taken precautions against +that; the note is safe!" + +He threw himself upon a chair, and stared at me steadily for some +minutes without a word. There we were, each scanning the other, and +inwardly calculating how to win the game we were playing. + +"Well," said he, at last; "what are your terms? You see I give in." + +"And so best," said I; "it saves time. I ask very little from your +honor,--nothing more, in fact, than to have this charge dismissed. I +don't mean to wear rags all my life, and consort with vagabonds, and +so I dislike to have it said hereafter that I was ever arraigned or +committed for an offence like this. You must tell the justice that +it was some blunder or mistake of your orders to me; some accidental +circumstance or other,--I don't much care what, or how; nor will he, +if the explanation comes from _you!_ This done, I 'll place the note in +your hand within half an hour, and we need never see much more of each +other." + +"But who is to secure me that you keep your promise?" + +"You must trust to me," said I, carelessly; "I have no bail to give." + +"Why not return now, with the policeman, for the note, before I speak to +the justice?" + +"Then who is to go bail for _you?_" said I, smiling. + +"You are a cool fellow, by Jove!" cried he, at the steady impudence +which I maintained in the discussion. + +"I had need be," replied I, in a voice very different from the feigned +hardihood of my assumed part. "The boy who has neither a home nor +a friend in the world has little else to rely on, save the cold +recklessness of what may befall him!" + +I saw a curl of contempt upon the captain's lip at the energy of this +speech; for now, when, for the first time between us, a single genuine +sentiment broke from me, he deemed it "cant." + +"Well!" cried he, "as you wish; I'll speak to the justice, and you shall +be free." + +He left the room as he spoke, but in a few moments reentered it, saying, +"All is right! You are discharged! Now for _your_ share of the bargain." + +"Where will your honor be in half an hour?" + +"At the Club, Foster Place." + +"Then I 'll be there with the note," said I. + + + +He nodded, and walked out. I watched him as he went; but he neither +spoke to a policeman, nor did he turn his head round to see what became +of me. There was something in this that actually awed me. It was a trait +so unlike anything I had ever seen in others that I at once perceived it +was "the gentleman's" spirit, enabling him to feel confidence even in a +poor ragged street wanderer as I was. The lesson was not lost on me. My +life has been mainly an imitative one, and I have more than once seen +the inestimable value of "trusting." + +No sooner was I at large than I speeded to Betty's, and was back +again long before the half-hour expired. I had to wait till near five, +however, before he appeared; so sure was he of my keeping my word that +he never troubled himself about me. "Ha!" said he, as he saw me, "long +here?" + +"Yes, sir, about an hour;" and I handed him the note as I spoke. + +He thrust it carelessly into his sabretache, and, pulling out a crown +piece, chucked it towards me, saying, "Good-bye, friend; if they don't +hang you, you 'll make some noise in the world yet." + +"I mean it, sir," said I, with a familiar nod; and so, genteelly +touching my cap in salute, I walked away. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. A QUIET CHOP AT 'KILLEEN'S' AND A GLANCE AT A NEW +CHARACTER + +I looked very wistfully at my broad crown piece as it lay with its +honest platter face in the palm of my hand, and felt, by the stirring +sensations it excited within me, some inklings of his feelings who +possesses hundreds of thousands of them. Then there arose in my mind the +grave question how it was to be spent; and such a strange connection is +there between what economists call supply and demand, that, in place +of being, as I esteemed myself a few minutes back, "passing rich," I at +once perceived that I was exceeding poor, since to effect any important +change in my condition, five shillings was a most inadequate sum. It +would not buy me more than a pair of shoes; and what use in repairing +the foundation of the edifice, when the roof was in ruin?--not to speak +of my other garments, to get into which, each morning, by the same +apertures as before, was a feat that might have puzzled a harlequin. + +I next bethought me of giving an entertainment to my brethren at +Betty's; but, after all, they had shown little sympathy with me in my +late misfortune, and seemed rather pleased to be rid of a dangerous +professional rival. This, and a lurking desire to leave the fraternity, +decided me against this plan. + +Then came the thought of entertaining myself, giving myself a species +of congratulatory dinner on my escape; and, in fact, commemorating the +event by anticipating the most fashionable mode now in use. + +I canvassed the notion with all the skill and fairness I could summon, +starting the various objections against it, and answering them with what +seemed to myself a most judicial impartiality. + +"Who does a man usually entertain," said I, "but his intimate friends?" +Those whose agreeability is pleasing to him, or whose acquaintance is +valuable from their station and influence. Now, with whom had I such +an unrestrained and cordial intercourse as myself? Whose society never +wearied, whose companionship always interested me? My own! And who, of +all the persons I had ever met with, conceived a sincere and heartfelt +desire for my welfare, preferring it to all others? "Con Cregan, it is +you," said I, enthusiastically. "In you my confidence is complete. I +believe you incapable of ever forgetting me. Come, then, and let us +pledge our friendship over a flowing bowl." + +Where, too, was the next doubt? With a crown to spend, I was not going +to descend to some subterranean den among coalheavers, newsvenders, +and umbrella-hawkers. But how was I to gain access to a better-class +ordinary,--that was the difficulty,--who would admit the street-runner, +in his rags, into even a brief intimacy with his silver forks and +spoons? And it was precisely to an entertainment on such a scale as a +good tavern could supply that I aspired. It was to test my own feelings +under a new stimulant,--just as I have often since seen grave people +experiment upon themselves with laughing-gas and magnetism and the fumes +of ether. + +"It may be too much for you, Con," said I, as I went along; "there's no +knowing what effect it may have on your nerves. + +"Remember that your system is not attuned to such variations. Your +vagaries may prove extravagant, and the too sudden elevation may disturb +your naturally correct judgment." Against these doubts I pleaded the +necessity of not being ungrateful to myself, not refusing a very proper +acknowledgment of my own skill and astuteness; and, lastly, I suggested +a glancing kind of hope that, like those famed heroes who dated their +great fortune to having gone to sleep beneath the shadow of some charmed +tree, or near the ripple of a magic fountain, that I, too, should arise +from this banquet with some brilliant view of life, and see the path to +success, bright and clear before me, through the hazy mists of fancy. + +As I reasoned thus, I passed various ordinaries, stopping with a kind +of instinct at each, to gaze at the luscious rounds of beef so daintily +tricked out with sprigs of parsley; the appetizing cold sirloins, so +beautifully stratified with fat and lean; with hams that might tempt +a rabbi; not to speak of certain provocative little paragraphs about +"Ox-tail and Gravy ready at all hours." "Queer world it is," said I; +"and there are passing at every instant, by tens and twenties, men +and women and children, famishing and hungry, who see all these things +separated from them by a pane of window-glass; and yet they only gather +their rags more closely together, clench their thin lips tighter, and +move on. Not that alone; but here am I, with means to buy what I want, +and yet I must not venture to cross that threshold, as though my rags +should be an insult to their broadcloth." "Move on, youngster," quoth a +policeman at this moment, and thus put an end to my soliloquy. + +Wearied with rambling, and almost despairing of myself, I was about +to cross Carlisle Bridge, when the blazing effulgence of a great +ruby-colored lamplight attracted my attention, over which, in bright +letters, ran the words, "Killeen's Tavern and Chop House," and beneath: +"Steak, potatoes, and a pint of stout, one shilling and fourpence." +Armed with a bold thought, I turned and approached the house. + +Two or three waiters, in white aprons, were standing at the door, and +showed little inclination to make way for me as I advanced. + +"Well," cried one, "who are you? Nobody sent for you." + +"Tramp, my smart fellow," said the other; "this an't your shop." + +"Is n't this Killeen's?" said I, stoutly. + +"Just so," said the first, a little surprised at my coolness. + +"Well, then, a young gentleman from the college sent me to order dinner +for him at once, and pay for it at the same time." + +"What will he have?" + +"Soup, and a steak, with a pint of port," said I; just the kind of +dinner I had often heard the old half-pay officers talking of at the +door of the Club in Foster Place. + +"What hour did he say?" + +"This instant. He's coming down; and as he starts by the mail at seven, +he told me to have it on the table when he came." + +"All right; four-and-six," said the waiter, holding out his hand for the +money. + +I gave him my crown piece; and as he fumbled for the sixpence I +insinuated myself quietly into the hall. + +"There's your change, boy," said the waiter; "you need n't stop." + +"Will you be so good, sir," said I, "to write 'paid' on a slip of paper +for me, just to show the gentleman?" + +"Of course," said he, taken possibly by the flattering civility of my +address; and he stepped into the bar, and soon reappeared with a small +scrap of paper, with these words: "Dinner and a pint of port, 4s. +6d.--paid." + +"I'm to wait for him here, sir," said I, most obsequiously. + +"Very well, so you can," replied he, passing on to the coffee-room. + +I peeped through the glass door, and saw that in one of the little +boxes into which the place was divided, a table was just spread, and a +soup-tureen and a decanter placed on it. "This," thought I, "is for +me;" for all the other boxes were already occupied, and a great buzz of +voices and clashing of plates and knives going on together. + +"Serve the steak, sir," said I, stepping into the room and addressing +the head-waiter, who, with a curse to me to "get out of that," passed +on to order the dish; while I, with an adroit flank movement, dived into +the box, and, imitating some of the company, spread my napkin like a +breastplate across me. By a great piece of fortune the stall was the +darkest in the room, so that when seated in a corner, with an open +newspaper before me, I could, for a time at least, hope to escape +detection. + +"Anything else, sir?" cried a waiter, as he uncovered the soup, and +deposited the dish of smoking beef-steak. + +"Nothing," responded I, with a voice of most imposing sternness, and +manfully holding up the newspaper between us. + +The first three or four mouthfuls I ate with a faint heart; the fear +of discovery, exposure, and expulsion almost choked me. A glass of +port rallied, a second one cheered, and a third emboldened me, and I +proceeded to my steak in a spirit of true ease and enjoyment. The +port was most insidious; place it wherever I would on the table, it +invariably stole over beside me, and, in spite of me, as it were, the +decanter would stand at my elbow. I suppose it must be in reality a very +gentlemanlike tipple; the tone of sturdy self-reliance, the vigorous air +of command, the sense of absolutism it inspires, smack of Toryism; +and as I sipped, I felt myself rising above the low prejudices I once +indulged in against rank and wealth, and insensibly comprehending the +beauty of that system which divides and classifies mankind. + +The very air of the place, the loud, overbearing talk, the haughty +summons to the waiter, the imperious demand for this or that requisite +of the table, all conspired to impress me with the pleasant sensation +imparted to him who possesses money. Among the various things called +for on every side, I remarked that mustard seemed in the very highest +request. Every one ate of it; none seemed to have enough of it. There +was a perpetual cry, "Mustard! I say, waiter, bring me the mustard;" +while one very choleric old gentleman, in a drab surtout and a red +nose, absolutely seemed bursting with indignation as he said, "You don't +expect me to eat a steak without mustard, sir?"--a rebuke at which the +waiter grew actually purple. + +Now, this was the very thing I had myself been doing,--actually eating +"a steak without mustard!" What a mistake, and for one who believed +himself to be in every respect conforming to the choicest usages of high +life! What was to be done? The steak had disappeared; no matter, it was +never too late to learn, and so I cried out, "Waiter, the mustard here!" +in a voice that almost electrified the whole room. + +I had scarcely concealed myself beneath my curtain,--"The Times,"--when +the mustard was set down before me, with a humble apology for +forgetfulness. I waited till he withdrew, and then helping myself to the +unknown delicacy, proceeded to eat it, as the phrase is, "neat." In my +eagerness, I swallowed two or three mouthfuls before I felt its effects; +and then a sensation of burning and choking seized upon me. My tongue +seemed to swell to thrice its size; my eyes felt as if they would +drop out of my head; while a tingling sensation, like "frying," in my +nostrils, almost drove me mad; so that after three or four seconds of +silent agony, during which I experienced about ten years of torture, +unable to endure more, I screamed out that "I was poisoned," and, with +wide-open mouth and staring eyes, ran down the coffee-room. + +Never was seen such an uproar! Had an animal from a wild-beast menagerie +appeared among the company, the consternation could scarce be greater; +and in the mingled laughter and execrations might be traced the +different moods of those who resented my intrusion. "Who is this fellow? +How did he get in? What brought him here? What's the matter with him?" +poured in on all sides,--difficulties the head-waiter thought it better +to deal with by a speedy expulsion than by any lengthened explanation. + +"Get a policeman, Bob!" said he to the next in command; and the order +was given loud enough to be heard by me. + +"What the devil threw him amongst us?" said a testy-looking man in green +spectacles. + +"I came to dine, sir," said I; "to have my steak and my pint of wine, as +I hoped, in comfort, and as one might have it in a respectable tavern." + +A jolly burst of laughter stopped me, and I was obliged to wait for its +subsidence to continue. + +"Well, sir! I paid for my dinner--" + +"Is that true, Sam?" said a shrewd-looking man to the waiter. + +"Quite true, sir! he paid four-and-sixpence, saying that the dinner was +for a College gentleman." + +"I have been in College," said I, coolly; "but no matter, the thing +is simple enough: I am here in a house of public entertainment, the +proprietors of which have accepted my money for a specific purpose; +and putting aside the question whether they can refuse admission to any +well-conducted individual (see Barnes _versus_ MacTivell, in the 8th +volume Term Reports; and Hobbes against Blinkerton, Soaker, and others, +in the Appendix), I contend that my presence here is founded upon +contract." + +Another and still louder roar of mirth again stopped me, and before I +could resume, the company had gathered round me, in evident delight at +my legal knowledge; and in particular, he of the spectacles, who was a +well-known attorney of the Court of Conscience. + +"That fellow's a gem!" said he. "Hang me if he's not equal to Bleatem! +Sam, take care what you do; he 's the chap to have his action against +you! I say, my man, come and sit down here, and let us have a little +chat together." + +"Most willingly, sir," responded I. "Waiter, bring my wine over to this +table." This was the signal for another shout, of which I did not deign +to take the slightest notice. + +"I'll wager a hundred oysters," exclaimed one of the party, among whom I +now seated myself, "that I have seen him before! Tell me, my lad, +didn't you ride over the course yesterday, and cut out the work for Mr. +Beatagh?" + +I bowed an assent. "Who the devil is he?" cried two or three together; +and my appearance and manner did not check the audible expression of +this sentiment. + +"A few words will suffice, gentlemen," said I, "on that head. My father +was an estated gentleman, of small, but unincumbered fortune, which he +lost by an unfortunate speculation; he accordingly went abroad--" + +"To Norfolk Island!" suggested one, with a wink. + +"Exactly," responded I, "a Colonial appointment; leaving me, like +Norval, not exactly on the Grampian Hills, but in a worse place, in the +middle of the bog of Allen; my sole dependence being in certain legal +studies I had once made, and a natural taste for getting forward +in life; which, with a most enthusiastic appreciation of good +company,"--here I bowed politely all round,--"are, I flatter myself, my +chief characteristics." + +After a little, but most good-humored, quizzing about my present +occupation and future prospects, they, with far more politeness than +might be expected, turned the conversation upon other matters, +and kindly permitted me to throw in from time to time my +observations,--remarks which I could see, from their novelty, at least, +seemed often to surprise them. + +At length the hour of separating arrived, and I arose to bid the company +good-night, which I performed with a very fair imitation of that quiet +ease I had often studied in the young guardsmen about town. + +"What do you bet that he has neither home to shelter him, nor bed to +sleep on, this night?" whispered one to his neighbor. + +"What are you writing there, Cox?" said another, to the keen-eyed man, +who was pencilling something on a card. + +"There, that's my address, my boy,--12, Stafford Street: Jeremiah Cox. +Come to me about ten to-morrow." + +Another, while he was speaking, made an effort to slip a half-crown into +my hand,--a measure I felt it becoming to decline with a prompt, but +courteous, refusal. Indeed, I had so identified myself with the part I +was performing that I flung down my only sixpence on the table for the +waiter, and, with a last salutation to the honorable company, walked +out. I have a perfect memory of every circumstance of the evening, and +I recollect that my swaggering exit was as free from any semblance of +concern or care as though a carriage waited for me outside to convey me +to a luxurious home! + +It has often been a fancy of mine through life to pass the entire of a +summer night out of door; to wander either through the moonlit roads +of some picturesque country, or in the still more solitary streets of +a great city. I have always felt on these occasions as though one were +"stealing a march" upon the sleeping world,--gaining so many more hours +of thought and reflection, which the busy conflict of life renders so +often difficult. + +The hours of the night seem to typify so many stages of existence,--only +reversing the natural order of age, and making the period of deep +reflection precede the era of sanguine hope; for if the solemn closing +in of the darkness suggests musing, so do the rosy tints and fresh air +of breaking day inspire the warm hopefulness of youth. If "the daylight +sinking" invites the secret communing of the heart, "the dawning of +morn" glows with energetic purpose and bold endeavor. + +To come back to myself. I left the tavern without a thought whither I +should turn my steps. It was a calm night, with a starry sky and a mild, +genial air, so that to pass the hours until morning without shelter was +no great privation. One only resolve I had formed,--never to go back to +Betty's. I felt that I had sojourned over long in such companionship; it +was now time some other, and more upward, path should open before me. + +Following the course of the Liffey, I soon reached the quay called the +North Wall, and at last arrived at the bluff extremity which looks out +upon the opening of the river into the Bay of Dublin. The great expanse +was in deep shadow, but so calm the sea that the two lighthouses were +reflected in long columns of light in the tranquil water. The only sound +audible was the low, monotonous plash of the sea against the wall, or +the grating noise of a chain cable, as the vessel it held surged slowly +with the tide. The sounds had something plaintive in them, that soon +imparted a tone of sadness to my mind; but it was a melancholy not +unpleasing; and I sat down upon a rude block of stone, weaving strange +fancies of myself and my future. + +As I sat thus, my ear, grown more acute by habit, detected the light +clank of a chain, and something like a low thumping sound in the water +beneath me; and on peering down, I discovered the form of a small boat, +fastened to a ring in the wall, and which from time to time grated +against the strong masonry. There it lay, with a pair of light oars +run under the thwarts, and its helm flapping to and fro, inert and +purposeless, like myself! So at least I fancied it; and soon began +conceiving a strange parallel between it and me. I was suddenly startled +from these musings by the sound of feet rapidly approaching. + +I listened, and could hear a man coming towards me at full speed. I sat +down beneath the shadow of the wall, and he passed me unnoticed, and +then, springing up on the parapet, he gave a loud, shrill whistle, +waiting a few seconds as if for the reply. He was silent, and then +repeated it; but still in vain,--no answer came. "Blast them!" muttered +he, "the scoundrels will not show a light!" A third time did he whistle; +but though the sounds might be heard a mile off, neither sight nor sound +ever responded to them. "And that rascal, too, to have left the boat at +such a moment!" Just as he uttered these words, he sprang down from +the wall, and caught sight of me, as I lay, affecting sleep, coiled up +beneath it. + +With a rude kick of his foot on my side he aroused me, saying, "D--n the +fellow! is this a time for sleeping? I told you to keep a sharp look-out +for me here! What! who are you?" cried he, as I stood upright before +him. + +"A poor boy, sir, that has no roof to shelter him," said I, plaintively. + +He bent his head and listened; and then, with a horrible curse, +exclaimed, "Here they are! here they come! Can you pull an oar, my lad?" + +"I can sir," answered I. + +"Well, jump down into the punt there, and row her round the point to +the stairs. Be quick! down with you! I have cut my hand, and cannot help +you. There, that 's it, my lad! catch the ring; swing yourself a little +more to the right; her gunwale is just beneath your foot; all right now! +well done! Be alive now! give way, give way!" And thus encouraging me, +he walked along the parapet above me, and in a few minutes stood fast, +calling out, but in a lower and more cautious voice, "There! close in, +now a strong pull--that 's it!" and then, hastily descending a narrow +flight of steps, he sprang into the boat, and seated himself in the +stern. "Hush! be still!" cried he; "do not stir! they'll never see us +under the shadow of the wall!" + +As he spoke, two dark figures mounted the wall, straight above our +heads, and stood for some seconds as it were peering into the distance. + +"I 'll swear I saw him take this way," cried one, in a deep low voice. + +"If he were the Devil himself, he could not escape us here," said the +other, with an accent of vindictive passion. + +"And he is the Devil," said the former speaker. + +"Pooh, nonsense, man! any fellow who can win at dice, or has a steady +finger with a pistol, is a marvel for you. Curses on him! he has given +us the slip somehow." + +"I'd not wonder, Harry, if he has taken the water; he swims like a +duck!" + +"He could not have sprung from a height like that without a plash, and +we were close enough upon his heels to hear it; flash off some powder in +a piece of paper: it is dark as pitch here." + +While the men above were preparing their light, I heard a slight stir +in the stern of the boat. I turned my head, and saw my companion coolly +fitting a cap on his pistol; he was doing it with difficulty, as he was +obliged to hold the pistol between his knees, while he adjusted the cap +with his left hand; the right hand he carried in the breast of his coat. +Nothing could be more calm and collected than his every movement, up to +the instant when, having cocked the weapon, he lay back in the boat, so +as to have a full stare at the two dark figures above us. + +At last, the fuse was ready, and, being lighted, it was held for a few +seconds in the hand, and then thrown into the air. The red and lurid +glare flashed full upon two savage-looking faces, straight above our +heads, and for an instant showed their figures with all the distinctness +of noonday. I saw them both, as if by a common impulse, lean over the +parapet and peer down into the dark water below, and I could have almost +sworn that we were discovered; my companion evidently thought so too, +for he raised his pistol steadily, and took a long and careful aim. What +a moment was that for me, expecting at every instant to hear the report, +and then the heavy fall of the dead man into the water! My throat was +full to bursting. The bit of burning paper of the fuse had fallen on my +companion's pistol-hand; but though it must have scorched him, he never +stirred, nor even brushed it off. I thought that by its faint flicker, +also, we might have been seen. But no, it was plain they had not +perceived us; and it was with a delight I cannot describe that I saw +one and then the other descend from the wall, while I heard the words, +"There's the second time above five hundred pounds has slipped from us. +D--n the fellow! but if I hang for him, I'll do it yet!" + +"Well, you've spoiled his hand for hazard for a while, anyhow, Harry!" +said the other. "I think you must have taken his fingers clean off!" + +"The knife was like a razor," replied the other, with a laugh; "but he +struck it out of my hand with a blow above the wrist; and, I can tell +you, I 'd as soon get the kick of a horse as a short stroke of the same +closed fist." + +They continued to converse as they moved away, but their words only +reached me in broken, unconnected sentences. From all I could glean, +however, I was in company with one of enormous personal strength and +a most reckless intrepidity. At last, all was still; not a sound to be +heard on any side; and my companion, leaning forward, said, "Come, my +lad, pull me out a short distance into the offing; we shall soon see a +light to guide us!" + +In calm, still water I could row well. I had been boat-boy to the priest +at all his autumn fishing excursions on the Westmeath lakes, so that I +acquitted myself creditably, urged on, I am free to confess, by a very +profound fear of the large figure who loomed so mysteriously in the +stern. For a time we proceeded in deep silence, when at last he said, +"What vessel do you belong to, boy?" + +"I was never at sea, sir," replied I. + +"Not a sailor! How comes it, then, you can row so well?" + +"I learned to row in fresh water, sir." + +"What are you? How came you to be here to-night?" + +"By merest chance, sir. I had no money to pay for a bed. I have neither +home nor friends. I have lived, by holding horses, and running errands, +in the streets." + +"Picking pockets occasionally, I suppose, too, when regular business was +dull!" + +"Never!" said I, indignantly. + +"Don't be shocked, my fine fellow," said he, jeeringly; "better men than +ever you 'll be have done a little that way. I have made some lighter +this evening myself, for the matter of that!" + +This confession, if very frank, was not very reassuring; and so I made +no answer, but rowed away with all my might. + +"Well!" said he, after a pause, "luck has befriended me twice to-night; +and sending you to sleep under that wall was not the worst turn of the +two. Ship your oars there, boy, and let us see if you are as handy a +surgeon as you are a sailor! Try and bind up these wounded fingers of +mine, for they begin to smart with the cold night air." + +"Wait an instant," cried he; "we are safe now, so you may light this +lantern;" and he took from his pocket a small and most elegantly +fashioned lantern, which he immediately lighted. + +I own it was with a most intense curiosity I waited for the light to +scan the features of my singular companion; nor was my satisfaction +inconsiderable when, instead of the terrific-looking fellow--half bravo, +half pirate--I expected, I perceived before me a man of apparently +thirty-one or two, with large but handsome features and gentlemanly +appearance. He had an immense beard and moustache, which united at +either side of the mouth; but this, ferocious enough to one unaccustomed +to it, could not take off the quiet regularity and good-humor of his +manly features. He wore a large-brimmed slouched felt hat that shaded +his brows, and he seemed to be dressed with some care, beneath the rough +exterior of a common pilot-coat,--at least, he wore silk stockings and +shoes, as if in evening-dress. These particulars I had time to +note, while he unwound from his crippled hand the strips of a silk +handkerchief which, stiffened and clotted with blood, bespoke a deep and +severe wound. + +If the operation were often painful even to torture, he never winced, or +permitted the slightest expression of suffering to escape him. At last +the undressing was completed, and a fearful gash appeared, separating +the four fingers almost entirely from the hand. The keenness of the cut +showed that the weapon must have been, as the fellow averred, sharp as +a razor. Perhaps the copious loss of blood had exhausted the vessels, +or the tension of the bandage had closed them; for there was little +bleeding, and I soon succeeded, with the aid of his cravat, in making a +tolerable dressing of the wound, and by filling up the palm of the hand +as I had once seen done by a country surgeon in a somewhat similar case. +The pain was relieved by the gentle support afforded. + +"Why, you are a most accomplished vagrant!" said he, laughing, as he +watched the artistic steps of my proceeding. "What's your name?--I mean, +what do you go by at present? for of course a fellow like you has a +score of aliases." + +"I have had only one name up to this," said I,--"Con Cregan." + +"Con Cregan! sharp and shrewd enough it sounds too!" said he. "And what +line of life do you mean to follow, Master Con? for I suspect you have +not been without some speculations on the subject." + +"I have thought of various things, sir; but how is a poor boy like me to +get a chance? I feel as if I could pick up a little of most trades; but +I have no money, nor any friends." + +"Money--friends!" exclaimed he, with a burst of bitterness quite unlike +his previous careless humor. "Well, my good fellow, I had both one and +the other,--more than most people are supposed to have of either; and +what have they brought me to?" He held up his maimed and blood-clotted +hand as he spoke this with a withering scorn in every accent. + +"No, my boy; trust one who knows something of life,--the lighter you +start, the easier your journey! He that sets his heart on it, can always +make money; and friends, as they are called by courtesy, are still more +easily acquired." + +This was the first time I had ever heard any one speak of the game of +life as such; and I cannot say what intense pleasure the theme afforded +me. I am certain I never stopped to consider whether his views were +right or not, whether the shrewd results of a keen observer, or the +prejudices of a disappointed man. It was the subject, the matter +discussed, delighted me. + +My companion appeared to feel that he had a willing listener, and went +freely on, canvassing the various roads to success, and with a certain +air of confidence in all he said that to me seemed quite oracular. +"What a fellow am I," said he at last, "to discourse in this strain to +a street urchin whose highest ambition is to outrun his ragged +competitors, and be first 'in,' for the sixpence of some cantering +cornet! Pull ahead, lad, there's the light at last; and hang me if +they're not two miles out." + +The contemptuous tone of the last few words effectually repressed +any desire I might have had for further colloquy; and I rowed away in +silence, putting forth all my strength and skill, so that the light +skiff darted rapidly and steadily through the water. + + + +CHAPTER IX. SIR DUDLEY BROUGHTON + +Steadily, and with all the vigor I could command, I pulled towards +the light. My companion sat quietly watching the stars, and apparently +following out some chain of thought to himself; at last he said, "There, +boy, breathe a bit; there's no need to blow yourself; we 're all safe +long since; the 'Firefly' is right ahead of us, and not far off either. +Have you never heard of the yacht?" + +"Never, sir." + +"Nor of its owner, Sir Dudley Broughton?" + +"No, sir, I never heard the name." + +"Well, come," cried he, laughing, "that is consolatory. I 'm not half so +great a reprobate as I thought myself! I did not believe till now that +there was an urchin of your stamp living who could not have furnished at +least some anecdotes for a memoir of me! Well, my lad, yonder, where you +see the blue light at the peak, is the 'Firefly,' and here, where I sit, +is Sir Dudley Broughton. Ten minutes more will put us alongside, so, if +you're not tired, pull away." + +"No, Sir Dudley," said I, for I was well versed in the popular tact of +catching up a name quickly, "I am able to row twice as far." + +"And now, Master Con," said he, "we are going to part. Are you too young +a disciple of your craft for a glass of grog; or are you a follower of +that new-fangled notion of pale-faced politicians, who like bad coffee +and reason better than whiskey and fun?" + +"I'll take nothing to drink, Sir Dudley," said I. "I have dined and +drunk well to-day, and I'll not venture further." + +"As you please; only I say you 're wrong not to victual the ship +whenever you stand in-shore. No matter; put your hand into this vest +pocket,--you 'll find some shillings there: take them, whatever they be. +You'll row the boat back with one of my people; and all I have to say +is, if you do speak of me, as no doubt you will and must, don't say +anything about these smashed fingers; I suppose they'll get right one of +these days, and I 'd rather there was no gossip about them." + +"I 'll never speak of it--I--" + +"There, now, that's enough; no swearing, or I know you'll break your +promise. Back water a little; pull the starboard oar,--so; here we are +alongside." + +Sir Dudley had scarce done speaking when a hoarse voice from the yacht +challenged us. This was replied to by a terrific volley of imprecations +on the stupidity of not sooner showing the light, amid which Sir Dudley +ascended the side and stood upon the deck. "Where's Halkett?" cried +he, imperiously. "Here, sir," replied a short, thickset man, with a +sailor-like shuffle in his walk. "Send one of the men back with the +gig, and land that boy. Tell the fellow, too, he's not to fetch Waters +aboard, if he meets him: the scoundrel went off and left me to my fate +this evening; and it might have been no pleasant one, if I had not found +that lad yonder." + +"We have all Sam Waters' kit on board, Sir Dudley," said Halkett; "shall +we send it ashore?" + +"No. Tell him I'll leave it at Demerara for him; and he may catch the +yellow fever in looking after it," said he, laughing. + +While listening to this short dialogue I had contrived to approach a +light which gleamed from the cabin window, and then took the opportunity +to count over my wealth, amounting, as I supposed, to some seven or +eight shillings. Guess my surprise to see that the pieces were all +bright yellow gold,--eight shining sovereigns! + +I had but that instant made the discovery, when the sailor who was to +put me on shore jumped into the boat and seated himself. + +"Wait one instant," cried I. "Sir Dudley--Sir Dudley Broughton!" + +"Well, what's the matter?" said he, leaning over the side. + +"This money you gave me--" + +"Not enough, of course! I ought to have known that," said he, +scornfully. "Give the whelp a couple of half-crowns, Halkett, and send +him adrift." + +"You 're wrong, sir," cried I, with passionate eagerness; "they are gold +pieces,--sovereigns." + +"The devil they are!" cried he, laughing; "the better luck yours. Why +did n't you hold your tongue about it?" + +"You bid me take some shillings, sir," answered I. + +"How d--d honest you must be! Do you hear that, Halkett? The fellow had +scruples about taking his prize-money! Never mind, boy, I must pay for +my blunder,--you may keep them now." + +"I have pride, too," cried I; "and hang me if I touch them." + +He stared at me, without speaking, for a few minutes, and then said, in +a low, flat voice, "Come on deck, lad." I obeyed; and he took a lighted +lantern from the binnacle, and held it up close to my face, and then +moved it so that he made a careful examination of my whole figure. + +"I 'd give a crown to know who was your father," said he, dryly. + +"Con Cregan, of Kilbeggan, sir." + +"Oh, of course, I know all that. Come, now, what say you to try a bit of +life afloat? Will you stay here?" + +"Will you take me, sir?" cried I, in ecstasy. + +"Halkett, rig him out," said he, shortly. "Nip the anchor with the ebb, +and keep your course down channel." With this he descended the cabin +stairs and disappeared, while I, at a signal from Halkett, stepped down +the ladder into the steerage. In the mean while it will not be deemed +digressionary if I devote a few words to the singular character into +whose society I was now thrown, inasmuch as to convey any candid +narrative of my own career I must speak of those who, without +influencing the main current of my life, yet certainly gave some impulse +and direction to its first meanderings. + +Sir Dudley Broughton was the only son of a wealthy baronet, who, +not from affection or overkindness, but out of downright indolent +indifference, permitted him, first as an Eton boy, and afterwards as +a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, to indulge in every dissipation +that suited his fancy. An unlimited indulgence, a free command of +whatever money he asked for, added to a temper constitutionally +headstrong and impetuous, soon developed what might have been expected +from the combination. He led a life of wild insubordination at school, +and was expelled from Oxford. With faculties above rather than beneath +mediocrity, and a certain aptitude for acquiring the knowledge most in +request in society, he had the reputation of being one who, if he had +not unhappily so addicted himself to dissipation, would have made a +favorable figure in the world. After trying in vain to interest himself +in the pursuits of a country life, of which the sporting was the +only thing he found attractive, he joined a well-known light cavalry +regiment, celebrated for numbering among its officers more fast men than +any other corps in the service. His father, dying about the same +time, left him in possession of a large fortune, which, with all his +extravagance, was but slightly encumbered. This fact, coupled with his +well-known reputation, made him popular with his brother officers, most +of whom, having run through nearly all they possessed, saw with pleasure +a new Croesus arrive in the regiment. Such a man as Broughton was just +wanted. One had a charger to get off; another wanted a purchaser for +his four-in-hand drag. The senior captain was skilful at billiards; and +every one played "lansquenet" and hazard. + +Besides various schemes against his purse, the colonel had a still +more serious one against his person. He had a daughter, a handsome, +fashionable-looking girl, with all the manners of society, and a great +deal of that tact only to be acquired in the very best foreign +society. That she was no longer in the fresh bloom of youth, nor with a +reputation quite spotless, were matters well known in the regiment; but +as she was still eminently handsome, and "the Count Radchoffsky" had +been recalled by the emperor from the embassy of which he was secretary, +Lydia Delmar was likely, in the opinions of keen-judging parties, +to make a good hit with "some young fellow who did n't know town." +Broughton was exactly the man Colonel Delmar wanted,--good family, a +fine fortune, and the very temper a clever woman usually contrives to +rule with absolute sway. + +There would be, unfortunately, no novelty in recording the steps by +which such a man is ruined. He did everything that men do who are bent +upon testing Fortune to the utmost. He lent large sums to his "friends;" +he lost larger ones to them. When he did win, none ever paid him, except +by a good-humored jest upon his credit at Coutts's. "What the devil do +you want with money, Sir Dudley?" was an appeal he could never reply to. +He ran horses at Ascot, and got "squeezed;" he played at "Crocky's," and +fared no better; but he was the favorite of the corps. "We could never +get on without Dudley," was a common remark; and it satisfied him that, +with all his extravagance, he had made an investment in the hearts at +least of his comrades. A few months longer of this "fast" career would, +in all likelihood, have ruined him. He broke his leg by a fall in a +steeplechase, and was thus driven, by sheer necessity, to lay up, and +keep quiet for a season. Now came Colonel Delmar's opportunity; the +moment the news reached Coventry, he set off with his daughter to +Leamington. With the steeplechasing, hazard-playing, betting, drinking, +yachting, driving Sir Dudley, there was no chance of even time for their +plans; but with a sick man on the sofa, bored by his inactivity, hipped +for want of his usual resources, the game was open. The Colonel's visit, +too, had such an air of true kindness! + +Broughton had left quarters without leave; but instead of reprimands, +arrests, and Heaven knows what besides, there was Colonel Delmar, the +fine old fellow, shaking his finger in mock rebuke, and saying, "Ah, +Dudley, my boy, I came down to give you a rare scolding; but this sad +business has saved you!" And Lydia also, against whom he had ever felt a +dislike,--that prejudice your boisterous and noisy kind of men ever feel +to clever women, whose sarcasms they know themselves exposed to,--why, +she was gentle good-nature and easy sisterlike kindness itself! She did +not, as the phrase goes, "nurse him," but she seldom left the room where +he lay. She read aloud, selecting with a marvellous instinct the very +kind of books he fancied,--novels, tales of every-day life, things of +whose truthfulness he could form some judgment; and sketches wherein the +author's views were about on a level with his own. She would sit at the +window, too, and amuse him with descriptions of the people passing in +the street; such smart shrewd pictures were they of watering-place folks +and habits, Dudley never tired of them! She was unsurpassed for the +style with which she could dress up an anecdote or a bit of gossip; and +if it verged upon the free, her French education taught her the +nice perception of the narrow line that separates "libertinage" from +indelicacy. + +So far from feeling impatient at his confinement to a sofa, therefore, +Broughton affected distrust in his renovated limb for a full fortnight +after the doctor had pronounced him cured. At last he was able to drive +out, and soon afterwards to take exercise on horseback, Lydia Delmar and +her father occasionally accompanying him. + +People will talk at Leamington, as they do at other places; and so +the gossips said that the rich--for he was still so reputed in the +world--the "rich" Sir Dudley Broughton was going to marry Miss Delmar. + +Gossip is half-brother to that all-powerful director called "Public +Opinion;" so that when Sir Dudley heard, some half-dozen times every +day, what it was reputed he would do, he began to feel that he ought to +do it. + +Accordingly, they were married; the world--at least the Leamington +section of that large body--criticising the match precisely as it struck +the interests and prejudices of the class they belonged to. + +Fathers and mothers agreed in thinking that Colonel Delmar was a shrewd +old soldier, and had made an "excellent hit." Young ladies pronounced +Liddy--for a girl who had been out eight years--decidedly lucky. +Lounging men at club doors looked knowingly at each other as they joked +together in half sentences, "No affair of mine; but I did not think +Broughton would have been caught so easily." "Yes, by Jove!" cried +another, with a jockey-like style of dress, "he 'd not have made so +great a mistake on the 'Oaks' as to run an aged nag for a two-year old!" + +"I wonder he never heard of that Russian fellow!" said a third. + +"Oh, yes!" sighed out a dandy, with an affected drawl; "poor dear Liddy +did indeed catch a 'Tartar '!" + +Remarks such as these were the pleasant sallies the event provoked; +but so it is in higher and greater things in life! At the launch of a +line-of-battle ship, the veriest vagrant in Tags fancies he can predict +for her defeat and shipwreck! + +The Broughtons were now the great people of the London season, at least +to a certain "fast" set, who loved dinners at the Clarendon, high play, +and other concomitant pleasures. _Her_ equipages were the most perfect; +_her_ diamonds the most splendid; while _his_ dinners were as much +reputed by one class, as _her_ toilet by another. + +Loans at ruinous interest; sales of property for a tithe of its value; +bills renewed at a rate that would have swamped Rothschild; purchases +made at prices proportionate to the risk of non-payment; reckless +waste everywhere; robbing solicitors, cheating tradesmen, and dishonest +servants! But why swell the list, or take trouble to show how the ruin +came? If one bad leak will cause a shipwreck, how is the craft to mount +the waves with every plank riven asunder? + +If among the patriarchs who lend at usury, Broughton's credit was +beginning to ebb, in the clubs at the West End, in the betting-ring, +at Crockford's, and at Tattersall's, he was in all the splendor of his +former fame. Anderson would trust him with half his stable. Howell and +James would send him the epergne they had designed for a czar. And so +he lived. With rocks and breakers ahead, he only "carried on" the faster +and the freer. + + + +Not that he knew, indeed, the extent, or anything approaching the +extent, to which his fortune was wrecked. All that he could surmise on +the subject was founded on the increased difficulty he found in raising +money,--a circumstance his pliant solicitor invariably explained by +that happy phrase, the "tightness of the money market." This completely +satisfied Sir Dudley, who, far from attributing it to his own almost +exhausted resources, laid all the blame upon some trickery of foreign +statesmen, some confounded disturbance in Ireland, something that the +Foreign Secretary had done, or would not do; and that thus the money +folk would not trust a guinea out of their fingers. In fact, it was +quite clear that to political intrigue and cabinet scheming all Sir +Dudley's difficulties might fairly be traced! + +It was just at this time that the Count Radchoffsky arrived once more in +London in charge of a special mission, no longer the mere secretary of +embassy, driving about in his quiet cab, but an envoy extraordinary, +with cordons and crosses innumerable. He was exactly the kind of man +for Broughton's "set," so that he soon made his acquaintance, and was +presented by him to Lady Broughton as a most agreeable fellow, and +something very distinguished in his own country. + +She received him admirably: remembered to have met him, she thought, +at Lord Edenbury's but he corrected her by saying it was at the Duke +of Clifton's,--a difference of testimony at which Broughton laughed +heartily, saying, in his usual rough way, "Well, it is pretty clear you +didn't make much impression on each other." + +The Russian noble was a stranger to the turf. In the details of +arranging the approaching race, in apportioning the weights and ages +and distances, Broughton passed his whole mornings for a month, sorely +puzzled at times by the apathy of his Northern friend, who actually +never obtruded an opinion, or expressed a wish for information on the +subject. + +Sir Dudley's book was a very heavy one too. What "he stood to win" was a +profound secret; but knowing men said that if he lost, it would be such +a "squeeze" as had not been known at Newmarket since the Duke of York's +day. + +Such an event, however, seemed not to enter into his own calculations; +and so confident was he of success that he could not help sharing his +good fortune with his friend Radchoffsky, and giving him something in +his own book. The count professed himself everlastingly grateful, but +confessed that he knew nothing of racing matters, and that, above all, +his Majesty the Emperor would be excessively annoyed if a representative +of his in any way interfered with the race; in fact, the honor of the +Czar would be tarnished by such a proceeding. Against such reasonings +there could be no opposition; and Broughton only took to himself all the +benefits he had destined for his friend. + +At last the eventful day came; and although Sir Dudley had arranged that +Lady Broughton should accompany him to the course, she was taken with +some kind of nervous attack that prevented her leaving her bed. Her +husband was provoked at this ill-timed illness, for he was still vain +of her appearance in public; but knowing that he could do nothing for +hysterics, he sent for Doctor Barham, and then with all speed he started +for the race. + +Among the friends who were to go along with him, the count had promised +to make one; but despatches--that admirable excuse of diplomatists, from +the great secretary to the humblest unpaid attaché--despatches had +just arrived; and if he could manage to get through his business early +enough, "he'd certainly follow." + +Scarcely had Sir Dudley reached the ground when a carriage drove up to +the stand, and a gentleman descended in all haste. It was Mr. Taperton, +his solicitor,--his trusty man of loans and discounts for many a day, +"Eh, Tappy!" cried Broughton, "come to sport a fifty on the filly?" + +"Walk a little this way, Sir Dudley," said he, gravely; and his voice +soon convinced the hearer that something serious was in the wind. + +"What's the matter, man? You look as if Cardinal was dead lame." + +"Sir Dudley, you must start from this at once. Holdsworth has taken +proceedings on the bills; Lord Corthern has foreclosed; the whole body +of the creditors are up; and you 'll be arrested before you leave the +field!" + +If the threat had conveyed the ignominious penalty of felony, Broughton +could not have looked more indignant. "Arrested! You don't mean that we +cannot raise enough to pay these rascals?" + +"Your outstanding bills are above twenty thousand, sir." + +"And if they be; do you tell me that with my estate--" + +"My dear Sir Dudley, how much of it is unencumbered? What single +portion, save the few hundreds a year of Lady Broughton's jointure, is +not sunk under mortgage? But this is no time for discussion; get into +the chaise with me; we 'll reach London in time for the mail; to-morrow +you can be in Boulogne, and then we shall have time at least for an +arrangement." + +"The race is just coming off! how can I leave? I'm a steward; besides, +I have a tremendous book. Do you know how many thousands I stand to win +here?" + +"To lose, you mean," said the solicitor. "You 're sold!" The words +were whispered so low as to be almost inaudible; but Broughton actually +staggered as he heard them. + +"Sold! how? what? Impossible, man! Who could sell me?" + +"Only one man, perhaps, but he has done it! Is it true you have backed +Calliope?" + +"Yes!" said he, staring wildly. + +"She was found hamstrung this morning in the stable, then," said +Taperton; "if you want to hear further particulars, you must ask your +friend the Count Radchoffsky!" + +"The scoundrel! the black-hearted villain! I see it all!" cried +Broughton. "Come, Taperton, let us start! I'll go with you; by Jove, you +have found a way to make me eager for the road!" + +The lawyer read in the bloodshot eye and flushed face the passion for +vengeance that was boiling within him, but he never spoke as they moved +on and entered the carriage. + +It was full three hours before the expected time of his return, when the +chaise in which they travelled drew up at the Clarendon, and Broughton, +half wild with rage, dashed upstairs to the suite of splendid rooms he +occupied. + +"Oh, dear, Sir Dudley," cried the maid, as she saw him hastening along +the corridor, "oh, I 'm sure, sir, how you 'll alarm my lady if she sees +you so flurried!" + +"Stand out of the way, woman!" said he, roughly, endeavoring to push +her to one side, for she had actually placed herself between him and the +door of the drawing-room. + +"Surely, sir, you'll not terrify my lady! Surely, Sir Dudley--" + +Despite her cries, for they had now become such, Broughton pushed her +rudely from the spot, and entered the room. + +Great was his astonishment to find Lady Broughton, whom he had left +so ill, not only up, but dressed as if for the promenade; her face +was flushed, and her eye restless and feverish; and her whole manner +exhibited the highest degree of excitement. + +Broughton threw down his hat upon the table, and then, returning to the +door, locked and bolted it. + +"Good Heavens, Dudley!" exclaimed she, in a voice of terror, "what has +happened?" + +"Everything!" said he; "utter ruin! The whole crew of creditors are in +full chase after me, and in a few hours we shall be stripped of all we +possess." + +She drew a long full breath as she listened; and had her husband been in +a mood to mark it, he might have seen how lightly his terrible tidings +affected her. + +"I must fly! Taperton--he's in the carriage below--says France, at least +for some weeks, till we can make some compromise or other; but I have +one debt that must be acquitted before I leave." + +There was a terrible significance in the words, and she was sick to the +heart as she asked, "What, and to whom?" + +"Radchoffsky!" cried he, savagely; "that scoundrel whom I trusted like a +brother!" + +Lady Broughton fell back, and for a moment her motionless limbs and +pallid features seemed like fainting; but with a tremendous effort +rallying herself, she said, "Go on!" + +"He betrayed me,--told every circumstance of my book! And the mare I had +backed for more than thirty thousand is dying this instant; so that I am +not only ruined, but dishonored!" + +She sat with wide staring eyes and half-open lips while he spoke, nor +did she seem, in the fearful confusion of her fear, to understand fully +all he said. + +"Have I not spoken plainly?" said he, angrily. "Don't you comprehend +me when I say that to-morrow I shall be branded as a defaulter at the +settling? But enough of this. Tell Millar to get a portmanteau ready +for me. I 'll start this evening; the interval is short enough for all +I have to do." As he spoke, he hastened to his bedroom, and, providing +himself with a case containing his duelling-pistols, he hurried +downstairs, ordering the postilion to drive to the Russian Embassy. + +The carriage was scarce driven from the door when Lady Broughton, +taking a key from her pocket, opened a small door which led from +the drawing-room into her dressing-room, from which the count walked +forth,--his calm features unruffled and easy as though no emotion had +ever stirred them. + +"You heard what Broughton said?" whispered she, in an accent of +faltering agitation. + +"Oui, _parbleu_, every word of it!" replied he, laughing gently. "The +people of the house might almost have heard him." + +"And is it true?" asked she, while a cold sickness crept over her, and +her mouth was shaken convulsively. + +"I believe so," said he, calmly. + +"Oh, Alexis, do not say so!" cried she, in an agony of grief; "or, least +of all, in such a voice as that." + +He shrugged his shoulders; and then, after a moment's pause, said, "I +confess myself quite unprepared for this show of affection, madame--" + +"Not so, Alexis. It is for _you_ I am concerned; for your honor as a +gentleman; for your fair fame among men--" + +"Pardon, madame, if I interrupt you; but the defence of my honor must be +left to myself--" + +"If I had but thought this of you--" + +"It is never too late for repentance, madame. I should be sorry to think +I could deceive you." + +"Oh, it is too late, far too late!" cried she, bursting into tears. +"Let us go! I must never see him again! I would not live over that last +half-hour again to save me from a death of torture!" + +"Allow me, then," said he, taking her shawl and draping it on her +shoulders. "The carriage is ready;" and with these words, spoken with +perfect calm, he presented his arm and led her from the room. + +To return to Sir Dudley. On arriving at the Russian Embassy, he could +learn nothing of the whereabouts of him he sought; a young secretary, +however, with whom he had some intimacy, drawing him to one side, +whispered, "Wait here a moment; I have a strange revelation to make +you,--but in confidence, remember, for it must not get abroad." The +story was this: Count Radchoffsky had been, on his recall from the +Embassy, detected in some Polish intrigue, and ordered to absent himself +from the capital and preserve a life of strict retirement, under police +"surveillance;" from this, he had managed to escape and reach England, +with forged credentials of Envoy Extraordinary; the mission being an +invention of his own, to gain currency in the world and obtain for him +loans of large sums from various houses in the "City." "As he knows," +continued Broughton's informant, "from his former experience, the day of +our courier's expected arrival, he has up to this lived fearlessly and +openly; but the despatch having reached us through the French cabinet +sooner than he expected, his plot is revealed. The great difficulty is +to avoid all publicity; for we must have no magisterial interference, no +newspaper or police notoriety; all must be done quietly, and he must be +shipped off to Russia without a rumor of the affair getting abroad." + +Broughton heard all this with the dogged satisfaction of a man who +did not well know whether to be pleased or otherwise that an object of +personal vengeance had been withdrawn from him. + +But not accustomed to dwell long on any subject where the main interest +of his own line of action was wanting, he drove home to his hotel +to hasten the preparations for his departure. On his arrival at the +Clarendon, a certain bustle and movement in the hall and on the stairs +attracted his attention, and before he could inquire the cause, a half +whisper, "There he is; that's Sir Dudley!" made him turn round; the same +instant a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and a man said, "I arrest +you, Sir Dudley Broughton, at the suit of Messrs. Worrit and Sneare, +Lombard Street." + +"Be calm; don't make any resistance," whispered Taperton in his ear; +"come upstairs." They passed on, and entered the drawing-room, where +everything appeared in disorder. As for Broughton, he was bewildered +and stupefied by all he had gone through, and sat in a chair staring +vacantly at the groups around him, evidently unable, through the haze +of his disordered faculties, to see clearly how, and in what, he was +interested in the affair. + +"Where's my lady?" whispered Taperton to the valet, who stood almost as +spell-bound as his master. + +"Gone, sir; she's gone," said the man, in a faint voice. + +"Gone where, scoundrel?" said Sir Dudley, jumping up and seizing him by +the throat with both hands, while he roared out the words with a savage +vehemence that startled all the room. + +"Gone away, Sir Dudley," said the half-choking man; "I saw her drive off +in a chaise and pair with Count Radchoffsky." + +Broughton let go his hold, and fell heavily upon his face to the ground. +A surgeon was called in, who at once perceived that the attack was one +of apoplexy. For that night and part of the next day his recovery +was almost hopeless; for, though repeatedly bled, he gave no signs of +returning animation, but lay heaving, at intervals, long, heavy sighs, +and respiring with an effort that seemed to shake the strong frame in +convulsions. + +Youth and bold remedies, however, favored him, and on the third morning +he awoke, weak and weary, like one who had just reached convalescence +after a long and terrible fever. His features, his gestures, his very +voice, were all altered; there was a debility about him--mental and +physical--that seemed like premature decay; and they who knew the bold, +high-spirited man of a few days before could never have recognized him +in the simple-looking, vacant, and purposeless invalid who sat there, to +all seeming, neither noticing nor caring what happened around him. It is +true, indeed, few essayed the comparison. Of those who visited him, +the greater number were creditors curious to speculate on his recovery; +there were a couple of reporters, too, for gossiping newspapers desirous +of coining a paragraph to amuse the town; but no friends,--not a man of +those who dined, and drank, and drove, and played with him. In fact his +fate was soon forgotten even in the very circles of which he had been +the centre; nor did his name ever meet mention, save in some stale +report of a bankruptcy examination, or a meeting of creditors to arrange +for the liquidation of his debts. + +The wasteful, heedless extravagance of his mode of living was urged even +to vindictiveness by his creditors, so that for three years he remained +a prisoner in the Fleet; and it was only when they saw he had no feeling +of either shame or regret at his imprisonment that an arrangement was +at last agreed to, and he was liberated,--set free to mix in a world in +which he had not one tie to bind, or one interest to attach him! + +From that hour forth none ever knew how far his memory retained the +circumstances of his past life; he never certainly mentioned them to +any of those with whom he formed companionship, nor did he renew +acquaintance with one among his former friends. By great exertions on +the part of his lawyers, almost a thousand a year was secured to him +from the wreck of his great fortune,--the proceeds of a small estate +that had belonged to his mother. + +On this income he lived some time in total seclusion, when, to the +astonishment of all, he was again seen about town, in company with men +of the most equivocal character,--noted gamblers at hells, "Legs of +Newmarket," and others to whom report attributed bolder and more +daring feats of iniquity. While it was a debated point among certain +fashionables of the clubs how far he was to be recognized by them, he +saved them all the difficulty, by passing his most intimate friends +without a bow or the slightest sign of recognition. A stern, repulsive +frown never left his features; and he whose frank, light-hearted +buoyancy had been a proverb, was grave and silent, rarely admitting +anything like an intimacy, and avoiding whatever could be called a +friendship. + +After a while he was missed from his accustomed haunts, and it was said +that he had purchased a yacht and amused himself by sea excursions. +Then there came a rumor of his being in the Carlist insurrection in +Spain,--some said with a high command; and afterwards he was seen in +a French voltigeur regiment serving in Africa. From all these varied +accidents of life he came back to London, frequenting, as before, the +same play resorts, and betting sums whose amount often trenched upon the +limits of the bank. If, in his early life, he was a constant loser, now +he invariably won; and he was actually the terror of hell-keepers, whose +superstitious fears of certain "lucky ones" are a well-known portion of +their creed. + +As for himself, he seemed to take a kind of fiendish sport in following +up this new turn of fortune. It was like a Nemesis on those who had +worked his ruin. One man in particular, a well-known Jew money-lender +of great wealth, he pursued with all the vindictive perseverance of +revenge. He tracked him from London to Brighton, to Cheltenham, to +Leamington, to Newmarket, to Goodwood; he followed him to Paris, to +Brussels; wherever in any city the man opened a table for play, there +was Broughton sure to be found. + + + +At last, by way of eluding all pursuit, the Jew went over to Ireland,--a +country where of all others fewest resources for his traffic presented +themselves; and here again, despite change of name and every precaution +of secrecy, Broughton traced him out; and, on the night when I first met +him, he was on his return from a hell on the Quays where he had broken +the bank and arisen a winner of above two thousand pounds. + +The peculiar circumstances of that night's adventure are easily told. +He was followed from the play table by two men, witnesses of his good +fortune, who saw that he carried the entire sum on his person; and from +his manner,--a feint I found he often assumed,--they believed him to be +drunk. A row was accordingly organized at the closing of the play, the +lights were extinguished, and a terrible scene of tumult and outrage +ensued, whose sole object was to rob Broughton of his winnings. + +After a desperate struggle, in which he received the wound I have +mentioned, he escaped by leaping from a window into the street,--a +feat too daring for his assailants to imitate. The remainder is already +known; and I have only again to ask my reader's indulgent pardon for +this long episode, without which, however, I felt I could not have asked +his companionship on board the "Firefly." + + + +CHAPTER X. THE VOYAGE OUT + +The crew of the "Firefly" consisted of twelve persons, natives of almost +as many countries. Indeed, to see them all muster on deck, it was like a +little congress of European rascality,--such a set of hang-dog, sullen, +reckless wretches were they; Halkett, the Englishman, being the only +one whose features were not a criminal indictment, and he, with his +nose split by the slash of a cutlass, was himself no beauty. The most +atrocious of all, however, was a Moorish boy, about thirteen years of +age, called El Jarasch (the fiend), and whose diabolical ugliness did +not belie the family name. His functions on board were to feed and take +care of two young lion whelps which Sir Dudley had brought with him from +an excursion in the interior of Africa. Whether from his blood or the +nature of his occupation, I know not, but I certainly could trace in his +features all the terrible traits of the creatures he tended. The +wide, distended nostrils, the bleared and bloodshot eyes, the large, +full-lipped mouth, drawn back by the strong muscles at its angles, and +the great swollen vessels of the forehead, were developed in him, as +in the wild beasts. He imitated the animals, too, in all his gestures, +which were sudden and abrupt; the very way he ate, tearing his food and +rending it in fragments, like a prey, shewed the type he followed. +His dress was handsome, almost gorgeous; a white tunic of thin muslin +reached to the knees, over which he wore a scarlet cloth jacket, +open, and without sleeves: this was curiously slashed and laced, by a +wonderful tissue of gold thread so delicately traceried as to bear the +most minute examination; a belt of burnished gold, like a succession of +clasps, supported a small scimitar, whose scabbard of ivory and gold was +of exquisite workmanship, the top of the handle being formed by a single +emerald of purest color; his legs were bare, save at the ankles, where +two rings of massive gold encircled them; on his feet he wore a kind of +embroidered slippers, curiously studded with precious stones. A white +turban of muslin, delicately sprigged with gold, covered his head, +looped in front by another large emerald, which glared and sparkled like +an eye in the centre of his forehead. + +This was his gala costume; but his every-day one resembled it in +everything, save the actual value of the material. Such was El Jarasch, +who was to be my companion and my messmate,--a fact which seemed to +afford small satisfaction to either of us. + +Nothing could less resemble his splendor than the simplicity of my +costume. Halkett, when ordered to "rig me out," not knowing what precise +place I was to occupy on board, proceeded to dress me from the kit of +the sailor we had left behind in Dublin; and although, by rolling up the +sleeves of my jacket, and performing the same office for the legs of my +trousers, my hands and feet could be rendered available to me, no such +ready method could prevent the clothes bagging around me in every absurd +superfluity, and making me appear more like a stunted monster than a +human being. Beside my splendidly costumed companion I made, indeed, but +a sorry figure, nor was it long dubious that he himself thought so; the +look of savage contempt he first bestowed on me, and then the gaze of +ineffable pleasure he accorded to himself afterwards, having a wide +interval between them. Neither did it improve my condition, in his +eyes, that I could lay claim to no distinct duty on board. While I was +ruminating on this fact, the morning after I joined the yacht, we +were standing under easy sail, with a bright sky and a calm sea, the +southeastern coast of Ireland on our lee; the heaving swell of the blue +water, the fluttering bunting from gaff and peak, the joyous +bounding motion, were all new and inspiriting sensations, and I was +congratulating myself on the change a few hours had wrought in my +fortune, when Halkett came to tell me that Sir Dudley wanted to speak +with me in his cabin. He was lounging on a little sofa when I entered, +in a loose kind of dressing-gown, and before him stood the materials +of his yet untasted breakfast. The first effect of my appearance was +a burst of laughter; and although there is nothing I have ever loved +better to hear than a hearty laugh, his was not of a kind to inspire +any very pleasant or mirthful sensations. It was a short, husky, barking +noise, with derision and mockery in every cadence of it. + +"What the devil have we here? Why, boy, you'd disgrace a stone lighter +at Sheerness. Who rigged you in that fashion?" + +"Mr. Halkett, sir." + +"Halkett, if you please; I know no 'misters' among my crew. Well, this +must be looked to; but Halkett might have known better than to send you +here in such a guise." + +I made no answer; and, apparently, for some minutes, he forgot all about +me, and busied himself in a large chart which covered the table. At last +he looked up; and then, after a second or two spent in recalling me to +his recollection, said, "Oh, you 're the lad I took up last night; very +true. I wanted to speak with you. What can you do, besides what I have +seen; for I trust surgery is an art we shall seldom find use for,--can +you cook?" + +I was ashamed to say that I could boil potatoes and fry rashers, which +were all my culinary gifts, and so I replied that "I could not." + +"Have you never been in any service, or any kind of employment?" + +"Never, sir." + +"Always a vagabond?" + +"Always, sir." + +"Well, certes, I have the luck of it!" said he, with one of his low +laughs. "It is, perhaps, all the better. Come, my boy, it does not seem +quite clear to me what we can make of you; we have no time, nor, indeed, +any patience, for making sailors of striplings,--we always prefer the +ready-made article; but you must pick up what you can, keep your watches +when on board, and when we go ashore anywhere, you shall be my scout; +therefore don't throw away your old rags, but be ready to resume them +when wanted,--you hear?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"So far! Now, the next thing is,--and it is right you should know +it,--though I keep a yacht for my pleasure and amusement, I sometimes +indulge myself in a little smuggling,--which is also a pleasure and +amusement; and, therefore, my people are liable, if detected, to be +sentenced to a smart term of imprisonment,--not that this has yet +happened to any of them, but it may, you know; so it is only fair to +warn you." + +"I 'll take my chance with the rest, sir." + +"Well said, boy! There are other little ventures, too, I sometimes make; +but you 'd not understand them, so we need not refer to them. Now, as +to the third point,--discipline. So long as you are on board, I expect +obedience in everything; that you agree with your messmates, and never +tell a lie. On shore, you may cut each other's throats to your heart's +content. Remember, then; the lesson is easy enough: if you quarrel with +your comrades, I 'll flog you; if you ever deceive me by an untruth, +I'll blow your brains out!" The voice in which he spoke these last few +words grew harsher and louder, and at the end it became almost a shout +of angry denunciation. + +"For your private governance, I may say, you'll find it wise to be +good friends with Halkett, and, if you can, with Jarasch. Go now; I 've +nothing more to say." + +I was about to retire, when he called me back. + +"Stay! you've said nothing to me, nor have I to you, about your wages." + +"I want none, sir. It is enough for me if I am provided in all money +could buy for me." + +"No deceit, sir! No trickery with _me!_" cried he, fiercely, and he +glared savagely at me. + +"It is not deceit, nor trick either," said I, boldly; "but I see, sir, +it is not likely you 'll ever trust one whom you saw in the humble +condition you found me. Land me, then, at the first port you put in to. +Leave me to follow out my fortune my own way." + +"What if I take you at your word," said he, "and leave you among the red +Moors, on the coast of Barbary?" + +I hung my head in shame and dismay. + +"Ay, or dropped you with the Tongo chiefs, who'd grill you for +breakfast?" + +"But we are nigh England now, sir." + +"We shall not long be so," cried he, joyfully. "If this breeze last, +you 'll see Cape Clear by sunrise, and not look on it again at sunset. +There, away with you! Tell Halkett I desire that you should be mustered +with the rest of the fellows, learn the use of a cutlass, and to load a +pistol without blowing your fingers off." + +He motioned me now to leave, and I withdrew, if I must own it, only +partially pleased with my new servitude. One word here to explain my +conduct, which perhaps in the eyes of some, may appear inconsistent or +improbable. It may be deemed strange and incomprehensible why I, poor, +friendless, and low-born, should have been indifferent, even to the +refusal of all wages. The fact is this: I had set out upon my "life +pilgrimage" with a most firm conviction that one day or other, sooner or +later, I should be a "gentleman;" that I should mix on terms of equality +with the best and the highest, not a trace or a clew to my former +condition being in any respect discoverable. Now, with this one +paramount object before me, all my endeavors were gradually to conform, +so far as might be, all my modes of thought and action to that sphere +wherein yet I should move; to learn, one by one, the usages of gentle +blood, so that, when my hour came I should step into my position ready +suited to all its requirements and equal to all its demands. If this +explanation does not make clear the reasons of my generosity, and my +other motives of honorable conduct, I am sorry for it, for I have none +other to offer. + +I have said that I retired from my interview with Sir Dudley not at all +satisfied with the result. Indeed, as I pondered over it, I could +not help feeling that gentlemen must dislike any traits of high and +honorable motives in persons of my own station, as though they were +assuming the air of their betters. What could rags have in common with +generous impulses; how could poverty and hunger ever consort with high +sentiments or noble aspirations? They forgive us, thought I, when we +mimic their dress and pantomime their demeanor, because we only make +_ourselves_ ridiculous by the imitation; but when we would assume the +features that regulate their own social intercourse, they hate us, as +though we sullied with our impure touch the virtues of a higher class of +beings. + +The more I thought over this subject, the more strongly was I satisfied +that I was correct in my judgment; and, sooth to say, the less did I +respect that condition in life which could deem any man too poor to be +high-minded. + +Sir Dudley's anticipations were all correct. The following evening at +sunset the great headlands of the south of Ireland were seen, at first +clear, and at last like hazy fogbanks; while our light vessel scudded +along, her prow pointing to where the sun had just set behind the +horizon; and then did I learn that we were bound for North America. + +Our voyage for some weeks was undistinguished by any feature of unusual +character. The weather was uniformly fine; steady breezes from the +northeast, with a clear sky and a calm sea, followed us as we went, so +that, in the pleasant monotony of our lives, one day exactly resembled +another. It will, therefore, suffice if, in a few words, I tell how +the hours were passed. Sir Dudley came on deck after breakfast, when I +spread out a large white bear's skin for him to lie upon; reclined +on which, and with a huge meerschaum of great beauty in his hand, +he smoked, and watched the lions at play. These gambols were always +amusing, and never failed to assemble all the crew to witness them. +Jarasch, dressed in a light woollen tunic, with legs, arms, and neck +bare, led them forth by a chain; and, after presenting them to Sir +Dudley, from whose hands they usually received a small piece of sugar, +they were then set at liberty,--a privilege they soon availed themselves +of, setting off at full speed around the deck, sometimes one in pursuit +of the other, sometimes by different ways, crossing and recrossing each +other; now with a bold spring, now with cat-like stealthiness, creeping +slowly past. The exercise, far from fatiguing, seemed only to excite +them more and more, since all this time they were in search of the +food which Jarasch, with a cunning all his own, knew how, each day, to +conceal in some new fashion. Baffled and irritated by delay, the eyes +grew red and lustrous, the tails stiffened, and were either carried +high over the back or extended straight backwards; they contracted their +necks too, till the muscles were gathered up in thick massive folds, and +then their great heads seemed actually fastened on the fore part of the +trunk. When their rage had been sufficiently whetted by delay, Jarasch +would bring forth the mess in a large "grog tub," covered with a massive +lid, on which seating himself, and armed with a short stout bludgeon, he +used to keep the beasts at bay. This, which was the most exciting part +of the spectacle, presented every possible variety of combat. Sometimes +he could hold them in check for nigh half-an-hour, sometimes the +struggle would scarce last five minutes. Now, he would, by a successful +stroke, so intimidate one of his assailants that he could devote all his +energies against the other. Now, by a simultaneous attack, the savage +creatures would spring upon and overthrow him, and then, with all the +semblance of ungovernable passion, they would drag him some distance +along the deck, mouthing him with frothy lips, and striking him about +the head with their huge paws, from which they would not desist till +some of the sailors, uncovering the mess, would tempt them off by the +savor of the food. Although, in general, these games passed off with +little other damage than a torn tunic or a bruise more or less severe, +at others Jarasch would be so sorely mauled as to be carried off +insensible; nor would he again be seen for the remainder of the day. +That the combat was not quite devoid of peril was clear, by the fact +that several of the sailors were always armed, some with staves, others +with cutlasses, since, in the event of a bite, and blood flowing, +nothing but immediate and prompt aid could save the boy from being +devoured. This he knew well, and the exercises were always discontinued +whenever the slightest cut, or even a scratch, existed in any part +of his person. Each day seemed to heighten the excitement of these +exhibitions; for, as Jarasch became more skilful in his defence, so did +the whelps in the mode of attack; besides that, their growth advanced +with incredible rapidity, and soon threatened to make the amusement no +longer practicable. This display over, Sir Dudley played at chess with +Halkett, while I, seated behind him, read aloud some book,--usually +one of voyages and travels. In the afternoon he went below, and studied +works in some foreign language of which he appeared most eager to +acquire a knowledge, and I was then ordered to copy out into a book +various extracts of different routes in all parts of the world: +sometimes, the mode of crossing a Syrian desert; now the shortest and +safest way through the wild regions on the shores of the Adriatic. At +one time the theme would be the steppes of Tartary or the snowy plains +of the Ukraine; at another, the dangerous passes of the Cordilleras or +the hunting-grounds of the Mandaus. What delightful hours were these to +me; how full of the very highest interest! The wildest adventures were +here united with narratives of real events and people, presenting human +life in aspects the strangest and most varied. How different from my old +clerkship with my father, with the interminable string of bastard and +broken law Latin! I believe that in all my after-life, fortunate as it +has been in so many respects, I have never passed hours more happy than +these were. + +In recompense for my secretarial functions, I was free of the middle +watch; so that, instead of turning into my berth at sundown to snatch +some sleep before midnight, I could lounge about at will,--sometimes +dropping into the steerage to listen to some seaman's "yarn" of storm +and shipwreck, but far oftener, book in hand, taking a lesson in French +from the old cook, for which I paid him in being "aide-de-cuisine;" or, +with more hardy industry, assisting our fat German mate to polish up +his Regensburg pistols, by which I made some progress in that tongue of +harsh and mysterious gutturals. + +Through all these occupations the thought never left me,--what could be +the object of Sir Dudley's continued voyaging? No feature of pleasure +was certainly associated with it; as little could it be attributed to +the practice of smuggling,--the very seas he had longest cruised in +forbade that notion. It must be, thought I, that other reason to which +he so darkly alluded on the day he called me to his cabin; and what +could that be? Never was ingenuity more tortured than mine by this +ever-recurring question; since it is needless to tell the reader I was +not then, nor indeed for a very long time afterwards, acquainted with +those particulars of his history I have already jotted down. This +intense curiosity of mine would doubtless have worn itself out at last, +but for a slight circumstance occurring to keep it still alive within +me. The little state-room in which I used to write lay at one side of +the cabin, from which it was entered,--no other means of getting to it +existing; a heavy silk curtain supplied the place of a door between the +two; and this, when four o'clock came, and my day's work was finished, +was let down till the following morning, when it was drawn aside, that +Sir Dudley, from time to time, might see, and, if needful, speak with +me. Now, one day, when we had been about three weeks at sea, the weather +being intensely hot and sultry, Sir Dudley had fallen asleep in his +cabin while I sat writing away vigorously within. Suddenly, I heard a +shout on deck: "The whales! a shoal of whales ahead!" and immediately +the sudden scuffling of feet, and the heavy hum of voices, proclaimed +the animation and interest the sight created. I strained myself to peep +through the little one-paned window beside me, but all I could see was +the great blue heaving ocean as, in majestic swell, it rolled along. +Still the noise continued; and, by the number and tone of the speakers, +I could detect that all the crew were on deck,--every one, in fact, save +myself. What a disappointment! full as my mind was of every monster of +land and water, burning to observe some of the wonderful things I had +read so much about, and now destined actually to be denied a sight +on which my comrades were then gazing! I could endure the thought +no longer; and although my task was each morning allotted to me, and +carefully examined the next day by Sir Dudley, I stepped lightly out on +tiptoe, and letting fall the curtain so that if he awoke I should not be +missed, I stole up the "companion," and reached the deck. + +What a sight was there! the whole sea around us was in motion with the +great monsters, who, in pursuit of a shoal of herrings, darted at speed +through the blue water,--spouting, blowing, and tossing in all the +wildest confusion; here, every eye was bent on a calm still spot in the +water, where a whale had "sounded," that is, gone down quite straight +into the depths of the sea; here, another was seen scarcely covered +by the water, his monstrous head and back alternately dipping below or +emerging above it; harpoons and tackle were sought out, firearms loaded, +and every preparation for attack and capture made, but none dared to +venture without orders, nor was any hardy enough to awake him and +ask for them. Perhaps the very expectancy on our part increased the +interest, for certainly the excitement of the scene was intense,--so +much so that I actually forgot all about my task, and, without a thought +of consequences, was hanging eagerly over the taffrail in full enjoyment +of the wild scene, when the tinkle of the captain's bell startled me, +and, to my horror, I remembered it was now his dinner hour, and that, +for the rest of the day, no opportunity would offer of my reaching the +state-room to finish my writing. + +I was so terrified that I lost all interest in the spectacle, whereof, +up to that time, my mind was full. It was my first delinquency, and had +all the poignancy of a first fault. The severity I had seen practised +on others for even slight infractions of duty was all before me, and +I actually debated with myself whether it would not be better to jump +overboard at once than meet the anger of Sir Dudley. With any one else, +perhaps, I should have bethought me of some cunning lie to account for +my absence; but he had warned me about trying to deceive him, and I well +knew he could be as good as his word. I had no courage to tell any of +the sailors my fault, and ask their advice; indeed, I anticipated what +would be the result: some brutal jest over my misfortune, some coarse +allusion to the fate they had often told me portended me, since "no +younker had ever gone from land to land with Sir Dudley without tasting +his hemp fritters." I sat down, therefore, beside the bowsprit, where +none should see me, to commune alone with my grief, and, if I could, to +summon up courage to meet my fate. + +Night had closed in some time, and all was tranquil on board, when I +saw Halkett, as was his custom, going aft to the cabin, where he always +remained for an hour or more each evening. It was just then, I know not +how the notion occurred, but it struck me that if I could lower myself +over the side, I might be able to creep through the little window into +the state-room, and carry away the paper to finish it before morning. I +lost little time in setting about my plot; and having made fast a rope +to one of the clews, I lowered myself fearlessly over the gunwale, and +pushing open the little sash, which was unfastened, I soon managed to +insert my head and shoulders, and, without any difficulty dragging my +body slowly after, entered the state-room. So long as the danger of the +enterprise and its difficulty lasted, so long my courage was high and +my heart fearless; but when I sat down in the little dark room, scarcely +venturing to breathe, lest I should be overheard, almost afraid to touch +the papers on the table, lest their rustling noise should betray me, how +was this terror increased when I actually heard the voices of Sir Dudley +and Halkett as plainly as though I were in the cabin beside them! + +"And so, Halkett," said Sir Dudley, "you think this expedition will be +as fruitless as the others?" + +"I do, sir," said the other, in a low, dogged tone. + +"And yet you were the very man who encouraged me to make it!" + +"And what of that? Of two things, I thought it more likely that he +should be the leader of a band to a regiment in Canada than be a Faquino +on the Mole of Genoa. A fellow like him could scarcely fall so low as +that." + +"He shall fall lower, by Heaven, if I live!" said Sir Dudley, in a voice +rendered guttural with deep passion. + +"Take care you fall not with him, sir," said Halkett, in a tone of +warning. + +"And if I should,--for what else have I lived these three last years? In +that pursuit have I perilled health and life, satisfied to lose both if +I but succeed at last." + +"And how do you mean to proceed? For, assuredly, if he be attached +to the regiment at Kingstown, he 'll hear of you, from some source or +other. You remember when we all but had him at Torlosk, and yet he +heard of our coming before we got two posts from Warsaw; and again, +at 'Forli,' we had scarce dropped anchor off Rimini when he was up and +away." + +"I 'll go more secretly to work this time, Halkett; hitherto I have been +slow to think the fellow a coward. It is so hard to believe anything so +base as a man bereft of every trait of virtue: now I see clearly that he +is so. I 'll track him, not to offer him the chances of a duel, but to +hunt him down as I would a wild beast. I 'll proceed up the river in the +disguise of an itinerant merchant,--one of those pedler fellows of which +this land is full,--taking the Irish dog along with me." + +"Of whom, remember, you know nothing, sir," interposed Halkett. + +"Nor need to know," said he, impatient at the interruption. "Let him +play me false, let me only suspect that he means it, and my reckoning +with him will be short. I have watched him closely of late, and I see +the fellow's curiosity is excited about us: he is evidently on the alert +to learn something of our object in this voyage; but the day he gains +the knowledge, Tom, will be his last to enjoy it. It is a cheap process +if we are at sea,--a dark night and an eighteen-pound shot! If on shore, +I 'll readily find some one to take the trouble off my hands." + +It may be imagined with what a sensation of terror I heard these words, +feeling that my actual position at the moment would have decided my +fate, if discovered; and yet, with all this, I could not stir, nor make +an effort to leave the spot; a fascination to hear the remainder of the +conversation had thoroughly bound me as by a spell; and in breathless +anxiety I listened, as Sir Dudley resumed: + +"You, with Heckenstein and the Greek, must follow, ready to assist me +when I need your aid; for my plan is this: I mean to entice the fellow, +on pretence of a pleasure excursion, a few miles from the town, into +the bush, there to bind him hand and foot, and convey him, by the forest +tracks, to the second 'portage,' where the batteaux are stationed, by +one of which--these Canadian fellows are easily bribed--we shall drop +down to Montreal. There the yacht shall be in waiting all ready for sea. +Even without a wind, three days will bring us off the Island of Orleans, +and as many more, if we be but fortunate, to the Gulf. The very worst +that can happen is discovery and detection; and if that ensue, I 'll +blow his brains out." + +"And if we succeed in carrying him off, Sir Dudley, what then?" + +"I have not made up my mind, Halkett, what I'll do. I 've thought of a +hundred schemes of vengeance; but, confound it, I must be content with +one only, though fifty deaths would not satisfy my hate." + +"I'd put a bullet through his skull, or swing him from the yardarm, and +make an end of it," said Halkett, roughly. + +"Not I, faith! He shall live; and, if I can have my will, a long life +too. His own government would take charge of him at 'Irkutsk,' for that +matter, at the quicksilver mines; and they say the diseased bones, from +the absorption of that poison, is a terrible punishment. But I have a +better notion still. Do you remember that low island off the east shore +of the Niger, where the negro fellows live in log huts, threshing the +water all day to keep the caymans from the rice-grounds?" + +"The devil!" exclaimed Halkett; "you'll not put him there?" + +"I have thought of it very often," said Sir Dudley, calmly. "He 'd +see his doom before him every day, and dream of it each night too. One +cannot easily forget that horrid swamp, alive and moving with those +reptiles! It was nigh two months ere I could fall asleep at night +without starting up in terror at the thought of them." Sir Dudley arose +as he said this, and walked the cabin with impatient steps; sometimes as +he passed his arm would graze the curtain and shake its folds, and then +my heart leaped to my mouth in very terror. At last, with an effort that +I felt as the last chance of life, I secured the papers in my bosom, +and, standing up on the seat, crept through the window, and, after a +second's delay to adjust the rope, clambered up the side, and gained +the deck unobserved. It could not have been real fatigue, for there +was little or no exertion in the feat; but yet such was my state of +exhaustion that I crept over to the boat that was fastened midships, +and, lying down in her, on a coil of cable, slept soundly till morning. +If my boyish experiences had familiarized my mind with schemes of +vengeance as terrible as ever fiction fabricated, I had yet to learn +that "gentlemen" cherished such feelings; and I own the discovery +gave me a tremendous shock. That some awful debt of injury was on Sir +Dudley's mind was clear enough, and that I was to be, in some capacity +or other, an aid to him in acquitting it, was a fact I was more +convinced of than pleased at. Neither did I fancy his notions of summary +justice,--perhaps it was my legal education had prejudiced me in favor +of more formal proceedings; but I saw with a most constitutional horror +the function of justice, jury, and executioner in the hands of one +single individual. + +So impressed was I with these thoughts that had I not been on the high +seas, I should inevitably have run for it. Alas, however, the banks of +Newfoundland--which, after all I had heard mentioned on our voyage, I +imagined to be grassy slopes glittering with daisies, and yellow with +daffodils--are but sand heaps some two hundred fathoms down in "the +ocean blue;" and all one ever knows of them is the small geological +specimens brought up on the tallowed end of the deep-sea lead. Escape, +therefore, was for the present out of the question; but the steady +determination to attempt it was spared me by a circumstance that +occurred about a week later. + +After some days of calm, common enough in these latitudes, a slight but +steady breeze set in from the northeast, which bore us up the Gulf with +easy sail till we came in sight of the long, low island of Anticosti, +which, like some gigantic monster, raises its dark, misshapen beach +above the water. Not the slightest trace of foliage or verdure to give +it a semblance to the aspect of land. Two dreary-looking log-houses, +about eighteen miles apart, remind one that a refuge for the shipwrecked +is deemed necessary in this dangerous channel; but, except these, not a +trace exists to show that the foot of man had trod that dreary spot. + +The cook's galley is sure to have its share of horrors when a ship +"lies to" near this gloomy shore; scarcely a crew exists where some +one belonging to it has not had a messmate wrecked there; and then, the +dreadful narratives of starvation, and strife, and murders, were too +fearful to dwell on. Among the horrors recorded on every hand all agreed +in speaking of a terrible character who had never quitted the island for +upwards of forty years. He was a sailor who had committed a murder under +circumstances of great atrocity, and dared not revisit the mainland, for +fear of the penalty of his guilt. Few had ever seen him; for years back, +indeed, he had not been met with at all, and rumor said that he was +dead. Still, no trace of his body could be found, and some inclined to +the opinion that he might at last have made his escape. + +He was a negro, and was described as possessing the strength of three or +four men; and although the proverbial exaggeration of sailors might, and +very probably did, color these narratives, the sad fate of more than one +party who had set out to capture him, gave the stories a terrible air +of truth. The fear of him was such that although very liberal terms +had been offered to induce men to take up their abode in the island to +succor the crews of wrecked vessels, none could be found to accept the +post; and even at the period when I visited these seas, and after a long +lapse of years since the Black Boatswain had been seen, no one would +venture. + +The story went that his ghost still wandered there, and that at night, +when the storm was high, and the waves of the Gulf sent the spray over +that low and dreary island, his cries could be heard, calling aloud to +"shorten sail," to "brace round the yards, close the hatchways," mingled +with blasphemies that made the very hair stand on end. + +If the reader, armed with the triple mail of incredulity, so snugly +ensconced in his easy-chair, before a sea-coal fire, can afford to +scoff at such perils, not so did I, as I sat in a corner of the galley, +gathering with greedy ears the horrors that fell on every side, and now +and then stealing out to cast a glance over the bulwarks at the long low +bank of sand, which seemed more like an exhalation from the water than a +solid mass of rock and shingle. + +I have said that a feeling of rivalry existed between the Moorish boy, +El Jarasch, and myself; and although I endured the scoffs and sneers +at first with a humility my own humble garb and anomalous position +enforced, I soon began to feel more confidence in myself, and that +species of assurance a becoming dress seems somehow to inspire; for +I was now attired like the rest of the crew, and wore the name of +the yacht in gold letters on my cap, as well as on the breast of my +waistcoat. + +The hatred of El Jarasch increased with every day, and mutual scoffs and +gibes were the only intercourse between us. More than once, Halkett, +who had always befriended me, warned me of the boy, and said that his +Moorish blood was sure to make his vengeance felt; but I only laughed at +his caution, and avowed myself ready to confront him when and however he +pleased. Generosity was little wasted on either side, so that when one +day, in a fierce encounter with the lions, El Jarasch received a fall +which broke one of his ribs, and was carried in a state of insensibility +to his berth, I neither pitied him nor regretted his misfortune. I +affected even to say that his own cowardice had rendered the creatures +more daring, and that had he preserved a bolder front the mischance +would have never occurred. These vauntings of mine, coupled with an +avowed willingness to take his place, came to Sir Dudley's ears on the +third evening after the accident, and he immediately sent for me to his +cabin. + +"Is it true, sirrah," said he, in a harsh, unpleasant voice, "that you +have been jesting about Jarasch, and saying that you were ready to take +charge of the whelps in his stead?" + +"It is," said I, answering both questions together. + +"You shall do so to-morrow, then," replied he, solemnly; "take care that +you can do something as well as boast!" and with this he motioned me to +leave the cabin. + +I at once repaired to the steerage to report my interview to the men, +who were all more friendly with me than with the "Moor." Many were the +counsels I received about how I should conduct myself the next morning; +some asserting that, as it was my first time, I could not be too gentle +with the animals, avoiding the slightest risk of hurting them, and even +suffering their rough play without any effort to check it. Others, on +the contrary, advised me at once to seek the mastery over the beasts, +and by two or three severe lessons to teach them caution, if not +respect. This counsel, I own, chimed in with my own notions, and also +better accorded with what, after my late vauntings, I felt to be my +duty. + +It was altogether a very anxious night with me, not exactly through +fear, because I knew, as the men were always ready with their arms +loaded, life could not be perilled, and I did not dread the infliction +of a mere sprain or fracture; but I felt it was an ordeal wherein my +fame was at stake. Were I to acquit myself well, there would be an +end forever of those insulting airs of superiority the Moorish boy had +assumed towards me. Whereas if I failed, I must consent to bear his +taunts and sarcasms without a murmur. + +In one point only the advice of all the crew agreed, which was, that the +female cub, much larger and more ferocious than the male, should more +particularly demand my watchfulness. "If she scratch you, boy, mind that +you desist," said an old Danish sailor, who had been long on the African +coast. This caution was re-echoed by all; and, resolving to follow its +dictates, I "turned in" to my hammock, to dream of combats and battles +till morning. + +I was early astir,--waking with a sudden start. I had been dreaming of a +lion-hunt, and fancied I heard the deep-mouthed roaring of the beasts in +a jungle; and, true enough, a low, monotonous howl came from the place +where the animals lay, for it was now the fourth morning of their being +confined without having been once at liberty. + +I had just completed my dressing,--the costume was simply a short pair +of loose trousers, hands, arms, and feet bare, and a small Fez cap on my +head,--when Halkett came down to me to say that he had been speaking +to Sir Dudley about the matter, and that as I had never yet accustomed +myself to the whelps, it was better that I should not begin the +acquaintance after they had been four days in durance. "At the same +time," added Halkett, "he gives you the choice; you can venture if you +please." + +"I've made up my mind," said I. "I'm sure I'm able for anything the +black fellow can do." + +"My advice to you, boy," said he, "is to leave them alone. Those Moorish +chaps are the creatures' countrymen, and have almost the same kind of +natures,--they are stealthy, treacherous, and cruel. They never trust +anything, man or beast!" + +"No matter," said I. "I'm as strong as he is, and my courage is not +less." + +"If you will have it so, I have nothing to say,--indeed, I promised Sir +Dudley I'd give you no advice one way or other; so now get the staff +from Jarasch, and come on deck." + +The staff was a short thick truncheon of oak, tipped with brass at each +end, and the only weapon ever used by the boy in his encounters. + +"So you're going to take my place!" said the black fellow, while his +dark eyes were lighted up like coals of fire, and his white teeth +glanced between his purple lips. "Don't hurt my poor pet cubs; be gentle +with them." + +"Where's the staff?" said I, not liking the tone in which he spoke, or +well knowing if he affected earnest or jest. + +"There it is," said he; "but your white hands will be enough without +that. You'll not need the weapon the coward used!" and as he spoke, a +kind of shuddering convulsion shook his frame from head to foot. + +"Come, come," said I, stretching out my hand, "I ought not to have +called you a coward, Jarasch,--that you are not! I ask you to forgive +me; will you?" + +He never spoke, but nestled lower down in the hammock, so that I could +not even see his face. + +"There, they 're calling me already. I must be off! Let us shake hands +and be friends this time at least. When you're well and up, we can fight +it out about something else!" + +"Kiss me, then," said he; and though I had no fancy for the embrace, or +the tone it was asked in, I leaned over the hammock, and while he placed +one arm round my neck, and drew me towards him, I kissed his forehead, +and he mine, in true Moorish fashion; and not sorry to have made my +peace with my only enemy, I stepped up the ladder with a light heart and +a firm courage. + +I little knew what need I had for both! When Jarasch had put his arm +around my neck, I did not know that he had inserted his hand beneath the +collar of my shirt, and drawn a long streak of blood from his own vein +across my back between my shoulders. When I arrived on deck, it was to +receive the congratulations of the crew, who were all struck with my +muscular arms and legs, and who unanimously pronounced that I was far +fitter to exercise the whelps than was the Moor. + +Sir Dudley said nothing. A short nod greeted me as I came towards +him, and then he waved me back with his hand,--a motion which, having +something contemptuous in it, pained me acutely at the moment. I had not +much time, however, to indulge such feelings. The whelps were already on +deck, and springing madly at the wooden bars of their cage for liberty. +Eager as themselves, I hastened to unbolt the door and set them free. + +No sooner were they at large than they set off down one side of the +deck and up the other, careering at full speed, clearing with a bound +whatever stood in their way; and when by any chance meeting each +other, stopping for an instant to stare with glaring eyes and swelling +nostrils; and then, either passing stealthily and warily past, or one +would crouch while the other cleared him at a spring, and so off again. +In all this I had no part to play. I could neither call them back, like +Jarasch, whose voice they knew, nor had I his dexterity in catching them +as they went, and throwing all manner of gambols over and upon them, as +he did. + +I felt this poignantly, the more as I saw, or thought I saw, Sir +Dudley's eyes upon me more than once, with an expression of disdainful +pity. At last, the great tub which contained the creatures' food +was wheeled forward; and no sooner had the men retired than the +quick-scented animals were on the spot,--so rapidly, indeed, that I +had barely time to seat myself, cross-legged, on the lid, when they +approached, and with stately step walked round the vessel, staring as it +were in surprise at the new figure who disputed their meal with them. + +At last, the male placed one paw on the lid, and with the other tapped +me twice or thrice on the shoulder with the kind of gentle, pattering +blow a cat will sometimes use with a mouse. It was a sort of mild +admonition to "leave that," nothing of hostility whatever being +announced. + +I replied by imitating the gesture, so far as a half-closed fist would +permit, and struck him on the side of the head. He looked grave at this +treatment, and, slowly descending from his place, he lay down about a +yard off. Meanwhile the female, who had been smelling and sniffing round +and round the tub, made an effort to lift the lid with her head, and, +failing, began to strike it in sharp, short blows with her paw; the +excitement of her face, and the sturdy position of her hind legs, +showing that her temper was chafed at the delay. To increase her rage, +I pushed the lid a few inches back; and as the savory steam arose, the +creature grew more eager, and at last attracted the other to the spot. + +It was quite clear that hunger was the passion uppermost with them, +and that they had not yet connected me with the cause of their +disappointment; for they labored by twenty devices to insert a paw or to +smash the lid, but never noticed me in the least. Wearied of my failures +to induce them to play, and angry at the indifference they manifested to +me, I sprang from the lid, and, lifting it from the tub, flung it back. +In an instant they had each their heads in the mess; the female had even +her great paw in the midst of the tub, and was eating away with that +low, gurgling growl peculiar to the wild beast. + +Dashing right between them, I seized one by the throat with both hands, +and hurled him back upon the deck. A shout of "Bravo!" burst from the +crew at the boldness of the feat, and with a bound the fellow made at +me. I dropped suddenly on one knee as he came, and struck him with the +staff on the fore legs. Had he been shot, he could not have fallen more +rapidly; down he went, like a dead mass, on the deck. To spring on his +back and hold him fast down was the work of a second, while I belabored +him about the head with my fists. + +The stunning effect of his first fall gave me the victory for a moment, +but he soon rallied, and attacked me boldly. It was now a fair fight; +for if I sometimes succeeded in making him shake his huge head or drop +his paw with pain, more than once he staggered me with a blow which, had +it been only quickly followed, would soon have decided the struggle. At +last, after a scuffle in which he had nearly vanquished me, he made a +leap at my throat. I put in a blow of such power with the staff on the +forehead that he gave a loud roar of pain, and, with drooping tail, +slunk to hide away himself beneath a boat. + +Up to this moment the female had never stirred from the mess of food, +but continued eating and snarling as though every mouthful was a battle. +Scarcely, however, had the roar of the other cub been heard than +she lifted her head, and, slowly turning round, stared at me with an +expression which, even now, my dreams will recall. + +I had not yet recovered from the exhaustion of my late encounter, +and was half sitting, half kneeling on the deck, as the whelp stood +glowering at me, with every vein in her vast forehead swollen, and her +large, red eyes seeming to dilate as she looked. The attitude of the +creature must have been striking, for the crew cheered with a heartiness +that showed how much they admired her. + +So long as I sat unmoved she never stirred; but when I prepared to +arise, she gave one bound, and, striking me with her head, hurled me +back upon the deck: her own impulse had carried her clean over me, and +when she returned, I was already up, on my knees, and better prepared to +receive her. Again she tried the same manoeuvre; but this time I leaped +to my feet, and, springing on one side, struck her a heavy blow on the +top of the head. Twice or thrice the same attack, with the same result, +followed; and at each blow a gallant cheer from the men gave me fresh +courage. + + + +The beast was now excited to a dreadful degree; but her very passion +favored me, for her assaults were wilder and less circumspect than at +first. At length, just as I was again making the side leap by which I +had escaped, my foot slipped, and I fell. I was scarcely down ere she +was upon me, not, as before, to strike with her paws, but with a rude +shock she threw herself across me, as if to crush me by her weight; +while her huge head and terrific mouth, frothy and steaming, lay within +a few inches of my face. + +Halkett and two others advanced to my rescue; but I bade them go back +and leave me to myself, for I was only wearied, not conquered. For some +minutes we lay thus; when at length, having recovered strength once +more, I grasped the whelp's throat with both hands, and then by a +tremendous effort threw her back, and rolled myself uppermost. She soon +shook herself free, however, and turned upon me: I was now on my knees, +and with the staff I dealt her a fierce blow on the leg. A terrific howl +followed, and she closed with me in full fury. Seizing my shirt, she +tore it away from my breast, and with her paw upon the fragment, ripped +it in a hundred pieces. I endeavored to catch her by the throat once +more, but failed, and rolled over on my face, and in doing so, disclosed +the bloody streak between my shoulders; she saw it, and at the same +instant sprang on me. I felt her teeth as they met in my neck, while her +terrible cry, the most appalling ears ever heard, rang through my brain. + +"Save him! Save him! She's killing him!" were now heard on every side; +but none dared to fire for fear of wounding me, and the terrible rage +of the animal deterred all from approaching her. The struggle was now +a life-and-death one; and alternately falling and rolling, we fought--I +cannot tell how, for the blood blinded me as it came from a wound in my +forehead; and I only felt one firm purpose in my heart: "If I fall, she +shall not survive me." Several of the sailors came near enough to strike +her with their cutlasses; but these wounds only increased her rage, and +I cried to them to desist. + +"Shoot her! put a bullet through her!" cried Halkett. "Let none dare +to shoot her!" cried Sir Dudley, loudly. I just heard these words, as, +after a fierce struggle, in which she had seized me by the shoulder, I +fell against the bulwark. With a last effort I staggered to my knees, +flung open the gangway, and then, with an exertion that to myself +seemed my very last on earth, I seized her by the throat and hurled her +backwards into the sea. On hands and knees I leaned forward to see her +as the rapid Gulf-stream, hurrying onward to the ocean, bore her away; +and then, as my sight grew fainter, I fell back upon the deck, and +believed I was dying. + + + +CHAPTER XI. MEANS AND MEDITATIONS + +It was the second evening after my lion adventure, and I was stretched +in my hammock in a low, half-torpid state, not a limb nor a joint in all +my body that had not its own peculiar pain; while a sharp wound in my +neck, and another still deeper one in the fleshy part of my shoulder, +had just begun that process called "union,"--one which, I am bound +to say, however satisfactory in result, is often very painful in its +progress. The slightest change of position gave me intolerable anguish, +as I lay, with closed eyes and crossed hands, not a bad resemblance of +those stone saints one sees upon old tombstones. + +My faculties were clear and acute, so that, having abundant leisure for +the occupation, I had nothing better to do than take a brief retrospect +of my late life. Such reviews are rarely satisfactory, or rather, one +rarely thinks of making them when the "score of the past" is in +our favor. Up to this moment it was clear I had gained little but +experience; I had started light, and I had acquired nothing, save a +somewhat worse opinion of the world and a greater degree of confidence +in myself. I had but one way of balancing my account with Fortune, which +was by asking myself, "Would I undo the past, if in my power? Would I +wish once more to be back in my 'father's mud edifice,' now digging a +drain, now drawing an indictment,--a kind of pastoral pettifogger, with +one foot in a potato furrow, and the other in petty sessions?" I stoutly +said, "No!" a thousand times "no!" to this question. + +I could not ask myself as to my preference for a university career, +for my college life had concluded abruptly, in spite of me; but still, +during my town experiences I saw enough to leave me no regrets at +having quitted the muses. The life of a "skip," as the Trinity men have +it,--_vice_ gyp., for the Greek word signifying a "vulture,"--is only +removed by a thin sheet of silver paper from that of a cabin boy in a +collier; copious pummelling and short prog being the first two articles +of your warrant; while in some respects the marine has a natural +advantage over him on shore. A skip is invariably expected to invent +lies "at discretion" for his master's benefit, and is always thrashed +when they are either discovered or turn out adverse. On this point his +education is perfectly "Spartan;" but, unhappily too, he is expected to +be a perfect mirror of truth on all other occasions. This is somewhat +hard, inasmuch as it is only in a man's graduate course that he learns +to defend a paradox, and support by good reasons what he knows to be +false. + +Again a "skip" never receives clothes, but is flogged at least once +a week for disorders in his dress, and for general untidiness of +appearance; this, too, is hard, since he has as little intercourse with +soap as he has with conic sections. + +Thirdly, a good skip invariably obtains credit for his master at +"Foles's" chop-house; while, in his own proper capacity, he would not +get trust for a cheese-paring. + +Fourthly, a skip is supposed to be born a valet, as some are born +poets,--to have an instinctive aptitude for all the details of things +he has never seen or heard of before; so that when he applies Warren's +patent to French leather boots, polishes silver with a Bath brick, +blows the fire with a quarto, and cuts candles with a razor, he finds +it passing strange that he should be "had up" for punishment. To be fat +without food, to be warm without fire, to be wakeful without sleep, to +be clad without clothes, to be known as a vagabond, and to pass current +for unblemished honesty, to be praised as a liar, and then thrashed for +lying,--is too much to expect at fifteen years of age. + +Lastly, as to Betty's I had no regrets. The occupation of horse-boy, +like the profession of physic, has no "avenir." The utmost the most +aspiring can promise to himself is to hold more horses than his +neighbors, as the Doctor's success is to order more "senna." There +is nothing beyond these; no higher path opens to him who feels the +necessity for an "upward course." It is a ladder with but one round to +it! No, no; I was right to "sell out" there. + +My steeplechase might have led to something,--that is, I might have +become a jockey; but then, again, one's light weight, like a "contralto" +voice, is sure to vanish after a year or two; and then, from the heyday +of popularity, you sink down into a bad groom or a fourth-rate tenor, +just as if, after reaching a silk gown at the bar, a man had to begin +life again as crier in the Exchequer! Besides, in all these various +walks I should have had the worst of all "trammels," a patron. Now, if +any resolve had thoroughly fixed itself in my mind, it was this: never +to have a patron, never to be bound to any man who, because he had once +set you on your legs, should regulate the pace you were to walk through +a long life. To do this, one should be born without a particle of +manhood's spirit,--absolutely without volition; otherwise you go through +life a living lie, talking sentiments that are not yours, and wearing a +livery in your heart as well as on your back! + +Why do we hear such tirades about the ingratitude of men, who, being +once assisted by others,--their inferiors in everything save gold,--soar +above the low routine of toadyism, and rise into personal independence? +Let us remember that the contract was never a fair one, and that a whole +life's degradation is a heavy sum to pay for a dinner with his Grace, +or a cup of tea with her Highness. "My Lord," I am aware, thinks +differently; and it is one of the very pleasant delusions of his +high station to fancy that little folk are dependent upon him,--what +consequence they obtain among their fellows by his recognition in +public, or by his most careless nod in the street. But "my Lord" does +not know that this is a paper currency that represents no capital, +that it is not convertible at will, and is never a legal tender; and +consequently, as a requital for actual _bona fide_ services, is about as +honest a payment as a flash note. + +It was no breach of my principle that I accepted Sir Dudley's offer. Our +acquaintance began by my rendering him a service; and I was as free +to leave him that hour, and, I own, as ready to do so, if occasion +permitted, as he could be to get rid of me; and it was not long before +the occasion presented itself for exercising these views. + +As I lay thus, ruminating on my past fortunes, Halkett descended the +steerage-ladder, followed by Felborg, the Dane; and, approaching my +hammock, held a light to my face for a few seconds. "Still asleep?" said +Halkett. "Poor boy! he has never awoke since I dressed his wound this +morning. I 'm sure it's better; so let us leave him so." + +"Ay, ay," said the Dane, "let him sleep; bad tidings come soon enough, +without one's being awoke to hear them. But do you think he 'll do it?" +added he, with lower and more anxious tone. + +"He has said so; and I never knew him fail in his promise when it was a +cruel one." + +"Have you no influence over him, Halkett? Could you not speak for the +boy?" + +"I have done all I could,--more than perhaps it was safe to do. I told +him I could n't answer for the men, if he were to shoot him on board; +and he replied to me short, 'I 'll take the fellow ashore with me alone; +neither you nor they have any right to question what you are not to +witness.'" + +"Well, when I get back to Elsinore, it's to a prison and heavy irons I +shall go for life, that's certain; but I 'd face it all rather than live +the life we've done now for twenty months past." + +"Hush! speak low!" said the other. "I suppose others are weary of it as +well as you. Many a man has to live a bad life just because he started +badly." + +"I 'm sorry for the boy!" sighed the Dane; "he was a bold and fearless +fellow." + +"I am sorry for him too. It was an evil day for him when he joined us. +Well, well, what would he have become if he had lived a year or two on +board!" + +"He has no father nor mother," said the Dane, "that's something. I lost +mine, too, when I was nine years old; and it made me the reckless devil +I became ever after. I was n't sixteen when the crew of the 'Tre-Kroner' +mutinied, and I led the party that cut down the first lieutenant. It +was a moonlight night, just as it might be now, in the middle watch, and +Lieutenant Oeldenstrom was sitting aft, near the wheel, humming a tune. +I walked aft, with my cutlass in one hand, and a pistol in the other; +but just as I stepped up the quarter-deck my foot slipped, and the +cutlass fell with a clank on the deck. + +"'What's that?' cried the lieutenant. + +"'Felborg, sir, mate of the watch,' said I, standing fast where I was. +'It's shoaling fast ahead, sir.' + +"'D--n!' said he, 'what a coast!' + +"'Could n't you say a bit of something better than that?' said I, +getting nearer to him slowly. + +"'What do you mean?' said he, jumping up angrily; but he was scarce on +his legs when he was down again at his full length on the plank, with a +bullet through his brain, never to move again!" + +"There, there, avast with that tale; you've told it to me every night +that my heart was heavy this twelvemonth past. But I 've hit on a way to +save the lad,--will you help me?" + +"Ay, if my help does n't bring bad luck on him; it always has on every +one I befriended since--since--" + +"Never mind that. There 's no risk here, nor much room for luck, good or +bad." He paused a second or two, then added,-- + +"I 'm thinking we can't do better than shove him ashore on the island +yonder." + +"On Anticosti!" said Felborg, with a shudder. + +"Ay, why not? There's always a store of biscuit and fresh water in the +log-houses, and the cruisers touch there every six or seven weeks to +take people off. He has but to hoist the flag to show he 's there." + +"There's no one there now," said the Dane. + +"No. I saw the flag-staff bare yesterday; but what does that matter? A +few days or a few weeks alone are better than what's in store for him +here." + +"I don't think so. No! Beym alia Deyvelm! I 'd stand the bullet at three +paces, but I 'd not meet that negro chap alone." + +"Oh, he's dead and gone this many a year," said Halkett. "When the +'Rodney' transport was wrecked there, two years last fall, they searched +the island from end to end, and could n't find a trace of him. They were +seven weeks there, and it's pretty clear if he were alive--" + +"Ay, just so,--if he were alive!" + +"Nonsense, man! You don't believe those yarns they get up to frighten +the boys in the cook's galley?" + +"It's scarce mercy, to my reckoning," said Felborg, "to take the lad +from a quick and short fate, and leave him yonder; but if you need my +help, you shall have it." + +"That's enough," said Halkett; "go on deck, and look after the boat. +None of our fellows will betray us; and in the morning we 'll tell Sir +Dudley that he threw himself overboard in the night, in a fit of frenzy. +He'll care little whether it's true or false." + +"I say, Con--Con, my lad," said Halkett, as soon as the other had +mounted the ladder. "Wake up, my boy; I've something to tell you." + +"I know it," said I, wishing to spare time, which I thought might be +precious; "I've been dreaming all about it." + +"Poor fellow, his mind is wandering," muttered Halkett to himself. +"Come, my lad, try and put on your clothes,--here's your jacket;" and +with that he lifted me from my hammock, and began to help me to dress. + +"I was dreaming, Halkett," said I, "that Sir Dudley sent me adrift in +the punt, and fired at me with the swivel, but that you rowed out and +saved me." + +"That's just it!" said Halkett, with an energy that showed how the +supposed dream imposed upon him. + +"You put me ashore on Anticosti, Halkett," said I; "but wasn't that +cruel!--the Black Boatswain is there." + +"Never fear the Black Boatswain, my lad, he 's dead years ago; and it +strikes me you 'll steer a course in life where old wives' tales never +laid down the soundings." + +"I can always be brave when I want it, Halkett," said I, letting out a +bit of my peculiar philosophy; but I saw he didn't understand my speech, +and I went on with my dressing in silence. + +Halkett meanwhile continued to give me advice about the island, and +the log-houses, and the signal-ensign; in fact, about all that could +possibly concern my safety and speedy escape, concluding with a warning +to me, never to divulge that anything but a mere accident had been the +occasion of my being cast away. "This for your own sake and for mine +too, Con," said he; "for one day or other he,"--he pointed to the +after-cabin,--"he'd know it, and then it would fare badly with some of +us." + +"Why not come too, Halkett?" said I; "this life is as hateful to you as +to myself." + +"Hush, boy; no more of that," said he, with a degree of emotion which I +had never witnessed in him before. "Make yourself warm and snug, for you +mustn't take any spare clothes, or you 'd be suspected by whoever takes +you off the island; here's my brandy-flask and a tinder-box; that's a +small bag of biscuit,--for you 'll take six or seven hours to reach the +log-house,--and here is a pistol, with some powder and ball. Come along, +now, or shall I carry you up the ladder?" + +"No, I'm able enough now," said I, making an effort to seem free from +pain while I stepped up on deck. + +I was not prepared for the affectionate leave-taking which met me here; +each of the crew shook my hand twice or thrice over, and there was not +one did not press upon me some little gift in token of remembrance. + +At last the boat was lowered, and Halkett and three others, descending +noiselessly, motioned to me to follow. I stepped boldly over the side, +and, waving a last good-bye to those above, sat down in the stern to +steer, as I was directed. + +It was a calm night, with nothing of a sea, save that rolling heave ever +present in the Gulf-stream; and now the men stretched to their oars, and +we darted swiftly on, not a word breaking the deep stillness. + +Although the island lay within six miles, we could see nothing of it +against the sky, for the highest point is little more than twelve feet +above the water-level. + +I have said that nothing was spoken as we rowed along over the dark and +swelling water; but this silence did not impress me till I saw ahead of +us the long low outline of the dreary island shutting out the horizon; +then a sensation of sickening despair came over me. Was I to linger +out a few short hours of life on that melancholy spot, and die at last +exhausted and broken-hearted? "Was this to be the end of the brilliant +dream I had so often revelled in?" "Ah, Con!" said I, "to play the game +of life, a man must have capital to stand its losses,--its runs of evil +fortune; but you are ruined with one bad deal!" + +"Run her in here, in this creek!" cried Halkett to the men; and the boat +glided into a little bay of still water under the lee of the land, and +then, after about twenty minutes' stout rowing, her keel grated on the +rugged, shingly shore of Anticosti. + +"We cannot land you dry-shod, Con," said Halkett; "it shoals for some +distance here." + +"No matter," said I, trying to affect an easy, jocular air, my choking +throat and swelling heart made far from easy; "for me to think of wet +feet would be like the felon at the drop blowing the froth off the +porter because it was unwholesome!" + +"I 've better hopes of you than that comes to, lad!" said he; "but +good-bye! good-bye!" He shook my hand with a grasp like a vice, and sat +down with his back towards me; the others took a kind farewell of me; +and then, shouldering my little bag of biscuit, I pressed my cap down +over my eyes, and stepped into the surf. It was scarcely more than over +mid-leg, but the clay-like, spongy bottom made it tiresome walking. +I had only gone a few hundred yards, when a loud cheer struck me; I +turned: it was the boat's crew, giving me a parting salute. I tried to +answer it, but my voice failed me; the next moment they had turned the +point, and I saw them no more! + +I now plodded wearily on, and in about half an hour reached the land; +and whether from weariness, or some strange instinct of security on +touching shore, I know not, but I threw myself heavily down upon the +shingly stones, and slept soundly,--ay, and dreamed too! dreamed of fair +lands far away, such as I have often read of in books of travels, where +bright flowers and delicious fruits were growing, and where birds and +insects of gaudiest colors floated past with a sweet murmuring song that +made the air tremble. + +Who has not read "Robinson Crusoe;" and who has not imagined himself +combating with some of the difficulties of his fortune, and pictured to +his mind what his conduct might have been under this or that emergency? + +No speculations are pleasanter, when indulged at our own fireside, in an +easy-chair, after having solaced our "material" nature by a good dinner, +and satisfied the "moral" man by the "City Article," which assures us +that the Three per Cents are rising, and that Consols for the Account +are in a very prosperous state. Then, indeed, if our thoughts by any +accident stray to the shipwrecked sailor, they are blended with +a wholesome philanthropy, born of good digestion and fair worldly +prospects; we assure ourselves that we should have made precisely the +same exertions that he did, and comported ourselves in all the varied +walks of carpenter, tailor, hosier, sail-maker, and boat-builder exactly +like him. The chances are, too, that if accidentally out of temper with +our neighbors, we cordially acknowledge that the retirement was not +the worst feature in his history; and if provoked by John Thomas, the +footman, we are ready to swear that there was more gratitude in Friday's +little black finger than in the whole body corporate of flunkeys, from +Richmond to Blackwall. + +While these very laudable sentiments are easy enough in the +circumstances I have mentioned, they are marvellously difficult to +practise at the touch of stern reality. At least I found them so, as +I set out to seek the "Refuge" on Anticosti. It was just daybreak as, +somewhat stiffened with a sleep on the cold beach, and sore from my +recent bruises, I began my march. "Nor'-west and by west" was Halkett's +vague direction to me; but as I had no compass, I was left to the +guidance of the rising sun for the cardinal points. Not a path nor track +of any kind was to be seen; indeed, the surface could scarcely have +borne traces of footsteps, for it was one uniform mass of slaty shingle, +with here and there the backbone of a fish, and scattered fragments +of seaweed, washed up by the storms, on this low bleak shore. I +cannot fancy desolation more perfect than this dreary spot; slightly +undulating, but never sufficient to lose sight of the sea; not a +particle of shelter to be found; not a rock, nor even a stone large +enough to sit upon when weary. Of vegetation, no trace could be met +with; even a patch of moss or a lichen would have been a blessing to +see; but there were neither. At last, as I journeyed on, I wandered +beyond the sound of the sea as it broke upon the low strand, and then +the silence became actually appalling. But a few moments back, and the +loud booming of the breakers stunned the ear; and now, as I stopped +to listen, I could hear my own heart as in full, thick beat it smote +against my ribs. I could not dismiss the impression that such a +stillness, thus terrible, would prevail on the day of judgment, when, +after the graves had given up their millions of dead, and the agonizing +cry for mercy had died away, then, as in a moment of dread suspense, the +air would be motionless, not a leaf to stir, not a wing to cleave it. +Such possession of me did this notion take that I fell upon my knees and +sobbed aloud, while, with trembling and uplifted hands, I prayed that I +too might be pardoned. + +So powerful is the influence of a devotional feeling, no matter how +associated with error, how alloyed by the dross of superstition, that I, +who but an instant back could scarcely drag my wearied limbs along for +very despair, became of a sudden trustful and courageous. Life seemed no +longer the worthless thing it did a few minutes before; on the contrary, +I was ready to dare anything to preserve it; and so, with renewed vigor +I again set forward. + +At each little swell of the ground, I gazed eagerly about me, hoping to +see the log-hut, but in vain; nothing but the same wearisome monotony +met my view. The sun was now high, and I could easily see that I was +following out the direction Halkett gave me, and which I continued to +repeat over and over to myself as I went along. This and watching my +shadow--the only one that touched the earth--were my occupations. It may +seem absurd, even to downright folly; but when from any change in the +direction of my course the shadow did not fall in front of me, where I +could mark it, my spirits fell, and my heavy heart grew heavier. + +When, however, it did precede me, I was never wearied watching how +it dived down the little slopes, and rose again on the opposite bank, +bending with each swell of the ground. Even this was companionship,--its +very motion smacked of life. + +At length I came upon a little pool of rain-water, and, although +far from clear, it reflected the bright blue sky and white clouds so +temptingly that I sat down beside it to make my breakfast. As I sat +thus, Hope was again with me, and I fancied how--in some long distant +time, when favored by fortune, and possessed of every worldly gift, with +rank, and riches, and honor--I should remember the hour when, a poor, +friendless outcast, I ate my lonely meal on Anticosti. I fancied even, +how friends would listen almost incredulously to the tale, and with what +traits of pity or of praise they would follow me in my story. + +I felt I was not doomed to die in that dreary land, that my own courage +would sustain me; and, thus armed, I again set out. + +Although I walked from daybreak to late evening, it was only a short +time before darkness closed in that I saw a bulky mass straight before +me, which I knew must be the log-house. I could scarcely drag my legs +along a few moments before; but now I broke into a run, and with many +a stumble, and more than one fall,--for I never turned my eyes from the +hut,--I at last reached a little cleared spot of ground, in the midst of +which stood the "Refuge-house." + +What a moment of joy was that as, unable to move farther, I sat down +upon a little bench in front of the hut! All sense of my loneliness, all +memory of my desolation, was lost in an instant. There was my home; how +strange a word for that sad-looking hut of pine-logs, in a lone island, +uninhabited! No matter, it would be my shelter and my refuge till better +days came round; and with that stout resolve I entered the great roomy +apartment, which in the settling gloom of night seemed immense. + +Striking a light, I proceeded to take a survey of my territory, which I +rejoiced to see contained a great metal stove and an abundant supply +of bed-clothing,--precautions required by the frequency of ships being +ice-bound in these latitudes. There were several casks of biscuits, +some flour, a large chest of maize, besides three large tanks of water, +supplied by the rain. A few bags of salt and some scattered objects +of clothing completed the catalogue, which, if not very luxurious, +contained nearly everything of absolute necessity. + +I lighted a good fire in the stove, less because I felt cold, for it +was still autumn, than for the companionship of the bright blaze and the +crackling wood. This done, I proceeded to make myself a bed on one of +the platforms, arranged like bed-places round the walls, and of which +I saw the upper ones seemed to have a preference in the opinion of my +predecessors, since, in these, the greater part of the bed-clothing +was to be found,--a choice I could easily detect the reason of, in +the troops of rats which walked to and fro, with a most contemptuous +indifference to my presence; some of them standing near me while I made +my bed, and looking, as doubtless they felt, considerably surprised +at the nature of my operations. Promising myself to open a spirited +campaign against them on the morrow, I trimmed and lighted a large lamp, +which from its position had defied their attempt on the oil it still +contained; and then, a biscuit in hand, betook myself to bed, watching +with an interest not, I own, altogether pleasant, the gambols of these +primitive natives of Anticosti. + +From my earliest years I had an antipathy to rats,--so great that it +mastered all the instincts of my courage. I feared them with a fear I +should not have felt in presence of a wild beast, and I was confident +that had I been attacked vigorously by even a single rat, the natural +disgust would have rendered me unable to cope with him. When very young, +I remembered hearing the story of an officer who, desirous of visiting +the vaults under St. Patrick's Church, in Dublin, descended into them +under the escort of the sexton. By some chance they separated from +each other, and the sexton, after in vain seeking and calling for his +companion for several hours, concluded that he had already returned to +the upper air; and so he returned also, locking and barring the heavy +door, as was his wont. The following day the officer's friends, alarmed +at his absence, proceeded to make search for him through the city, and +at last, learning that he had visited the cathedral, went thither, +and even examined the vaults, when what was their horror to discover +a portion of the brass ornament of his shako and a broken sword in the +midst of several hundreds of rats, dead and dying,--the terrible remains +of a combat that must have lasted for hours. This story, for the truth +of which some persons yet living will vouch, I heard when a mere child; +and perhaps to its influence may I date a species of terror that has +always been too much for either my reason or my courage. + +If I slept, then, it was more owing to my utter weariness and exhaustion +than to that languid frame of mind; and although too tired to dream, my +first waking thought was how to commence hostilities against the rats. +As to any personal hand-to-hand action, I need scarcely say I declined +engaging in such; and, my supply of gunpowder being scanty, the method +I hit upon was to make a species of grenade, by inserting a quantity +of powder with a sufficiency of broken glass into a bottle, leaving an +aperture through the cork for a fuse; then, having smeared the outside +of the bottle plentifully with oil, of which I discovered a supply in +bladders suspended from the ceiling, I retired to my berth, with the +other extremity of the fuse in my hand, ready to ignite when the moment +came. + +I had not long to wait; my enemies, bold from long impunity, came +fearlessly forward, and surrounded the bottle in myriads; it became a +scene like an election row, to witness their tumbling and rolling over +each other. Nor could I bring myself to cut short the festivity, till +I began to entertain fears for the safety of the bottle, which already +seemed to be loosened from its bed of clay. Then at last I applied +a match to my cord, and almost before I could cover my head with the +blanket, the flask exploded, with a crash and a cry that showed me its +success. The battle-field was truly a terrible sight, for the wounded +were far more numerous than the dead, and I, shame to say, had neither +courage nor humanity to finish their sufferings, but lay still, while +their companions dragged them away in various stages of suffering. + +I at first supposed that this was an exploit that could only succeed but +once, and that the well-known sagacity of the creatures would have +made them avoid so costly a temptation. Nothing of the kind; they were +perfect Scythians in their love of oil; and as often as I repeated my +experiment, they were ready to try their fortunes. Or perhaps they had +some of the gambler's element in their nature, and each felt that he +might win where others lost. + +I had made Halkett a promise that for a couple of days, at least, I +would not hoist the signal-flag, lest any accident should induce Sir +Dudley to suspect my place of refuge, so that I was completely reduced +to my campaign against the rats for occupation and amusement. So far +as I could discover, the little island, traverse it how I would, never +varied, the same rise and swell of surface, clad with loose stone, lay +on every side; and so depressing had this mournful uniformity become to +me that I rarely ventured out of the hut, or, when I did, it was to sit +upon the little bench outside the door, from which a sea view extended +over the wide waters of the Gulf. + +To sit here and try to decipher the names cut into the wood was my +constant occupation. What histories, too, did I weave of those who +carved these letters; and how did they fix themselves in my mind, +each name suggesting an identity, till I felt as if I had known them +intimately. Some seemed the precious work of weeks; and it was easy +to see that after the letters were cut, the sculptor had gone on +embellishing and ornamenting his work for very lack of labor. Others, +again, were mere initials, and one was a half-finished name, leaving me +to the perpetual doubt whether he had been rescued from his captivity, +or died ere it was completed. + +Between my hours spent here and the little duties of my household, with +usually three or four explosions against my rats, the day went over,--I +will not say rapidly, but pass it did; and each night brought me nearer +to the time when I should hoist my signal, and hope--ay, that was the +great supporter through all--hope for rescue. + +It was now the third night of my being on the island, and I sat at my +fire trying to invent some new mode for the destruction of my enemies, +for my last charge of powder had been expended. I had nothing remaining, +save the loading in my pistol. It was true that I had succeeded to a +great extent; the creatures no longer appeared with their former air of +assurance, nor in large bodies. Their army was evidently disorganized; +they no longer took the field in battalions, but in scattered guerilla +parties, without discipline or courage. Even had my ammunition lasted, +it is more than doubtful that my tactics would have continued to have +the same success; they had begun to dread the bottle, like a reformed +drunkard. Often have I seen them approach within a few feet of it, +and wait patiently till some younger and more adventurous spirit would +venture nearer, and then, at the slightest stir,--the least rustling of +my bed-clothes,--away they went in full career. It was evident that the +secret, like most great mysteries of the same kind, had had its day. +This was consolatory, too, as I had no longer the means of continuing my +siege operations; while the caution and reserve of the enemy suggested +a system of defence of the simplest, but most effectual kind, which was, +to place a certain number of bottles at different parts of the hut, the +very sight of which inspired terror; and if followed by any noise, was +certain to secure me, for some time at least, from all molestation. + +Shall I tell the reader how this stratagem first occurred to me? It was +simply thus: In one of the early but unrecorded years of my history, I +used to act as driver to the Moate and Kilbeggan caravan,--not, indeed, +as the recognized coachee of that very rickety and most precarious +conveyance, but as a kind of "deputy assistant" to the paid official, +who, having a wife at Kilbeggan, usually found some excuse for stopping +at Clara, and sending me forward with the passengers,--a proceeding, I +am bound to own, not over consistent with humanity to "man or beast." +Many were the misadventures of that luckless conveniency, and the +public were loud in their denunciations of it; but as nobody knew the +proprietors, nor did the most searching scrutiny detect the existence of +a "way-bill," the complaints were uttered to the wind, and I was at +full liberty "to do my stage" in three hours, or one half the time, as I +fancied. + +The passengers at length learned this valuable fact, and found that +greasing my palm was a sure method of oiling the wheels. All complaints +gradually subsided; in fact, the dumb animals were the only ones who had +any right to make them. I drove them at a very brisk pace,--a thriving +trade; the caravan became popular, and my fame rose as the horses' +condition declined. At last the secret was discovered; and instead of my +imposing whip of four yards and a half of whipcord, they reduced me to +a stunted bit of stick, with a little drooping lash that would n't reach +the tail of my one leader. My receipts fell off from that hour; in fact, +instead of praises and sixpences, I now got nothing but curses and hard +names; and at one hill, near "Horse-leap," which I used in my prosperous +days to "go at" in a slashing canter, amid a shower of encomiums, I was +now obliged to stagger slowly up, with four-and-twenty small farmers, +and maybe a priest, in full cry at my sulkiness, laziness, incivility, +and other good gifts; and all this, ay, and more, for lack of a bit of +whipcord. + +I have been told that very great people will stoop to low alliances +when hard pressed; even cabinet ministers, I believe, have now and +then acknowledged very dubious allies. Let not Con Cregan, then, be +reproached if he called in the help of a little bare-footed boy who +used to beg on the hill of Horse-leap, and who, at the sound of the +approaching caravan, sallied forth with a long branch of an ash-tree, +and belabored the team into some faint resemblance to a canter. Through +this auxiliary I recovered in part my long-lost popularity, and was +likely to be again reinstated in public favor, when my assistant caught +the measles, and I was once more reduced to my own efforts. + +In this emergency I had nothing for it but a stratagem; and so, as the +conveyance arrived at the foot of the hill, and the horses, dropping +their heads, were gradually subsiding into the little shuffling amble +that precedes a slow walk, I used to scream out at the top of my +voice all my accustomed exhortations to the boy. "Ah, hit him again, +Tommy,--into him, boy,--under the traces, my lad!--give him enough +of it!--welt him well. Ha! there!" exclamations that, from old +associations, always stimulated the wretched beasts into a canter; and +under the impression of this salutary terror, we used to reach the top +almost as speedily as in the old days of the penal code. + +The same device now aided me against the rats of Anticosti; and if +any one will say to what end this narrative of an encounter so +insignificant, my answer is, that whether in the St. Lawrence or in +St. Stephen's, rats are far more formidable than their size or +strength would seem to imply; and whether they nibble your rags or your +reputation, their success is invariably the same. + +Four days had now elapsed, and I concluded that the yacht must ere this +have been miles on her voyage up the river. The next morning, then, I +should venture to hoist the signal, and thus apprise the passing ships +that one deserted and forlorn creature, at least, still lingered on the +miserable island. + +I sat at my fire till a late hour. I was lower in spirits than usual. I +had watched the Gulf from sunrise to sunset, and without seeing one sail +upon its surface. A light breeze was blowing from the northward, and on +this I supposed many of the outward vessels would be borne along; but +not one appeared. From time to time a fleeting cloud, resting for a +moment on the horizon, would assume the semblance of a ship; but at +length I grew accustomed to these deceptions, and suffered little or no +disappointment when a second glance at the spot failed to detect them. + +Once or twice the thought crossed my mind that I might never leave the +island, that winter might close in, and the Gulf be frozen before I +could make my escape; and I actually shuddered at the very notion of a +fate so terrible. I cowered nearer to the fire as the flame subsided, +and was sitting with my hands outstretched over the blaze, when the +sudden crash of one of the bottles behind startled me. Were the rats +already regaining courage in anticipation of the time when I could no +longer resist them? With this idea, I turned my head round. The flame +threw a long ray of light upon the floor as I moved, and in the midst +of this I beheld, at a distance of about three yards off, a large black +head, with two immense and bloodshot eyes glaring fixedly at me. It +seemed to rise out of the earth, above which it rose scarcely more than +a foot in height. + +Paralyzed by terror, I could not stir, I could scarcely breathe, as with +a slow and nodding motion the large black face came nearer; and now I +could see that it was a man--a negro,--who on hands and knees was slowly +creeping towards me. Overwhelmed by fear as I was, I noted the features +as marked by age and worn by want; they resembled those of a wild +beast rather than of a human creature. More from the force of a mere +mechanical impulse than with any notion of defence, for which my terror +totally incapacitated me, I had drawn my pistol from my bosom, and held +it pointed towards him. "No fire!--no fire!" cried the creature, in a +low, faint voice; and at the same time, while resting on one hand, he +held up with the other a long bright knife in an attitude of menace. + +"No nearer, then!" screamed I, as I fell back beside the stove, and +still kept my eyes fixed upon him whom now I knew to be the Black +Boatswain; and thus we remained, each watching the other, while the fire +flickered and threw its fitful glare over the gloomy space around us. As +we were thus, I saw, or I thought I saw, the negro stealthily drawing up +his legs, as if for a spring, and in my terror I believe I should have +pulled the trigger, when suddenly the knife dropped from his hand, and +pointing with his finger to his dry, cracked lips, he said, "A boire, +"--water. + +The look of earnest, almost passionate entreaty of the poor creature's +face, the expression of want and misery, struggling with a faint hope, +as he uttered these words, routed all fears for myself; and filling a +cup from the tank with water, I emptied the last remaining drops of my +brandy-flask into it, and held it to his mouth. + + + +He swallowed it greedily; and then, clasping my wrist with his gaunt +and bony fingers, held me fast for a few seconds while he recovered his +breath; at last, with an effort that seemed almost convulsive, he said +some words in Spanish which I could not understand. I shook my head to +show him my ignorance of the language, and then, fixing his eye full +upon me, he said, "Alone, here? boy alone?" + +Understanding that this referred to myself, I answered at once that I +was alone, and had been deserted by my companions. + +"Bad men, white men!" cried he, gnashing his teeth savagely; while again +he pointed to his lips, and muttered, "Water!" I endeavored to free +myself from his grasp to fill the cup once more; but he held me firmly, +and showed by a sign that he wished me to assist him to reach the tank. +I accordingly stooped down to help him, and now perceived that he could +do little more than drag his legs forward and support himself on the +knees; being either wholly or in part paralyzed from his hips downwards. +"Ah, foco!" cried he, twice or thrice, and then changed to the word +"Feu!" "Le feu!" on which his gaze was fixed with a horrid earnestness. + +It was not without labor and much exertion that I succeeded in +dragging him near the embers of the fire; but having done so, I quickly +replenished the dying flame, and, fanning it with my hat, soon succeeded +in making a cheerful blaze once more. "Buono! goot! goot!" said he, +several times, as he held his shrivelled and wasted fingers almost into +the fire. + +"Are you hungry?" said I, bending down to make myself heard. + +He nodded twice. + +"Can you eat biscuit? I have nothing else," said I; for I half feared +that the hard, dry food would be impracticable for his almost toothless +jaws. + +He said something about "Guisado," once or twice; and at last made a +sign that I understood to mean that the biscuit might be softened in +water for him. And with that I placed a pot of water on the fire, and +soon saw by the expression of his eye that I had divined his meaning. + +As I continued to blow the fire, and occasionally examined the water to +see if it boiled, I could mark that the negro's eyes never once quitted +me, but, with a restless activity, followed me wherever I went, or +whatever I did; and although from his age, and the dreadful infirmity +he labored under, I felt I should prove his equal in any struggle, I own +that I cast many a sidelong look towards him, lest he should take me by +surprise. That he was the notorious Black Boatswain of whom I had heard +so much, I had no doubt whatever; and I felt not a little vain of my own +courage and presence of mind as I saw myself so possessed and collected +in such company. + +"Give! give!" cried he, impatiently, as I examined the mess of steeping +biscuit, and for which he seemed ravenously eager; and at length I +removed it from the fire, and placed it before him. Such voracity as his +I never witnessed, save in the case of Sir Dudley's lions; he crammed +the food with both hands into his mouth, and devoured it with all the +savage earnestness of a wild beast. Twice was I obliged to replenish the +mess; and each time did it vanish with the same despatch. + +He now lay back on one arm, and, half closing his eyes, appeared as if +he was going asleep; but at the least stir or movement on my part, I saw +that his wild, red-streaked eyes followed me at once. + +Halkett had given me a little bag of tobacco at parting, saying that +although I was no smoker, I should soon learn to become one in my +solitude. This I now produced, and offered him a handful. + +The dark features were immediately lighted up with an almost frantic +expression of pleasure, as he clutched the precious weed; and tearing +off a fragment of the paper, he rolled it into the shape of a cigarette. + +"No smoke?" asked he, as I sat watching his preparations. + +I shook my head. "Ah!" cried he, laying down the tobacco before him. +"Tehoka, here," said he, pointing to it. + +"I don't understand," said I; "what is Tehoka?" + +"Bad! bad!" said he, shaking both hands; "weed make negro so------, +so------," and he opened his mouth wide, and dropped his arms heavily +backwards, to represent sickness, or perhaps death. + +"No, no," said I; "this is good, a friend gave it to me." + +"Smoke," said he, pushing it over towards me; and I saw now that my +abstaining had excited his suspicions. + +"If you like, I will smoke," said I, setting to work to manufacture a +cigar like his own. + +He sat eying me all the while; and when I proceeded to fill it with +tobacco, he leaned over to see that I did not attempt any sleight of +hand to deceive him. + +"Will that do?" said I, showing him the little paper tube. + +"Smoke," said he, gravely. + +It was only after watching me for several minutes that he took courage +to venture himself; and even then he scrutinized the tobacco as keenly +as though it demanded all his acuteness to prevent stratagem. At length +he did begin; and certainly never did anything seem to effect a more +powerful and more immediate influence. The fiery, restless eyes grew +heavy and dull; the wide-distended nostrils ceased to dilate with their +former convulsive motion. His cheek, seamed with privation and passion, +lay flaccid and at rest, and a look of lethargic ease stole over all the +features one by one, till at last the head fell forward on his +chest, his arm slipped softly from beneath him, and he rolled heavily +back,--sunk in the deepest sleep. + +I soon abandoned my tobacco now, which had already begun to produce +a feeling of giddiness and confusion very unfavorable to cool +determination,--sensations which did not subside so readily as I could +have wished; for as I sat gazing on my swarthy companion, fancies the +wildest and most absurd associated themselves with the strange reality. +The terrible tales I once listened to about the "Black Boatswain" +came to mingle with the present. The only remnant of right reason left +prompted me to keep up my fire; a certain terror of being alone and in +the dark with the negro predominating over every other thought. + +By the bright blaze, which soon arose, I could now mark the enormous +figure, which, in all the abandonment of heavy slumber, lay outstretched +before me. Although it was evident he was very old, the gigantic limbs +showed what immense strength he must have possessed; while in the +several white cicatrices that marked his flesh, I could reckon a great +number of wounds, some of them of fearful extent. The only covering he +wore was a piece of sailcloth wrapped round his body; over this he had +a blanket, through a round hole in which his head issued, like as in +a Mexican poncho, leaving his sinewy limbs perfectly naked. A bit of +ragged, worn bunting--part, as it seemed, of an old union-jack--was +bound round his head, and, in its showy colors, served to enhance the +stern expression of his harsh features. + +As my senses became clearer, I began to imagine how it happened that +he came to the hut, since in all the narratives I had heard of him, the +greatest doubt existed that he was still living, so effectually did he +manage his concealment. At last, and by dint of much thought, I hit upon +what I suspected to be the real solution of the difficulty, which was, +that he was accustomed to venture hither whenever the signal-flag was +not hoisted; and as I had not done so, that he was under the belief that +he was the only living man on the island. + +That he must have contrived his hiding-place with great success was +clear enough; for whether the allegations against him were true or +false, they were so universally believed by sailors that if he had been +discovered they would unquestionably have carried him off to Quebec. +It was now in _my_ power "to do the state this service;" and I began to +canvass with myself all the reasons for and against it. If, on the one +hand, it reminded me of the old legends I used to read about striplings +that led captive huge giants or fierce dragons, on the other, I felt +it would be a species of treachery to one who had eaten bread from my +hands. Besides, to what end--even supposing him guilty to any extent--to +what end bring him now to justice, when a few days, or hours, perhaps, +would close a life whose suffering was manifest enough? And, lastly, +was I so certain of escape myself that I already plotted carrying away +a prisoner with me? The last reflection saved me the trouble of thinking +much more on the others; and so I fell a pondering over myself and my +destitution. + +Not long was I permitted to indulge in such reveries; for the negro +now began to dream, and talk aloud with a rapidity of utterance and +vehemence very different from the monosyllabic efforts he had favored me +with. As the language was Spanish, I could catch nothing of his meaning; +but I could see that some fearful reminiscence was agitating his mind, +by the working of his fingers and the violent contortions of his face. + +In the struggle of his paroxysm--for it was really little less--he +tore open the coarse rag of canvas that he wore, and I could perceive +something fastened round his neck by a piece of spun-yarn. At first I +thought it one of those charms that seamen are so fond of carrying +about them,--amulets against Heaven knows what kind of dangers: but, on +stooping down, I perceived it was an old leather pocket-book which once +had been red, but by time and dirt was almost black. + +More than once he clutched this in his hand, with a wild energy, as if +it was his heart's treasure; and then the great drops of sweat would +start out upon his forehead, and his parted lips would quiver with +agony. In one of these struggles he tore the book from the cord, +and, opening it, seemed to seek for something among its contents. +The rapidity of the movement, and the seeming collectedness of every +gesture, made me believe that he was awake; but I soon saw that his +great and staring eyeballs were not turned to the spot, but were fixed +on vacancy. + +His motions were now more and more hurried; at one time his fingers +would turn over the papers in the pocket-book, at another he would grope +with his hand along the ground, and pat the earth down with his palm, as +if, having buried something in the earth, he would conceal every trace +of it from discovery; and at these moments the Spanish word _oro_, gold, +would escape him in a half-sigh; and this and the word "Guajaqualla" +were the only ones I could catch; but my mind retained both for many a +day after. + +At last he crushed the papers hurriedly together and closed the +pocket-book; but in doing so, a single slip of paper fell to the ground. +I leaned over, and caught it; and by the light of the fire I read the +following lines, which were in print, and apparently cut from the column +of a newspaper:-- + + + ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. + + Any one will be entitled to the above reward who may detect + or give such information as may lead to the detection of + Menelaus Crick, a negro slave, aged forty-eight; he stands + six feet two high; broad chest and shoulders, the right + higher than the left; has marks of the lash on back, and two + cutlass scars on the face; the great toe of the left foot + is wanting, and he walks occasionally with difficulty, from + a gunshot wound in the spine. + + As he is a fellow of resolute character and great strength, + all persons are hereby warned not to attempt his capture, + save in sufficient numbers. He was last seen at San Luis, + and is supposed to have gone in the direction of + Guajaqualla, where it is said he worked once as a gold- + washer. + + Address: The Office of the "Picayune "--Letter--T. G-- + B--. New Orleans. + +There were a few words in Spanish scrawled on the back. + +"Here is the man!" said I, looking down on the sleeping figure; "who +would have thought a thousand dollars could be made of him?" Not, +indeed, that I speculated on such an unholy gain. No, the very offer +enlisted my sympathies in favor of the poor wretch; besides, how many +years ago must that advertisement have appeared? He was forty-eight at +that time, and now his age might be nigh eighty. My curiosity became +intense to see the contents of the pocket-book, from which I could fancy +abundant materials to eke out the negro's history. I am afraid that +nothing but the terror of discovery prevented my stealing it. I even +planned how it might be done without awaking him; but the long bright +knife which glistened in the strap of his blanket admonished me to +prudence, and I abstained. + +My fire waxed fainter as the dawn drew nigh, and as I was afraid of +sleep coming over me, I stepped noiselessly from the hut, and gained the +open air. My first occupation was to hoist the signal; and as it rose +into the air, I watched its massive folds unfurling, with a throb of +hope that gave me new courage. The standard was very lofty, and stood +upon a mound of earth; and as the flag itself was large, I had every +reason to think it could not escape notice. Scarcely, indeed, had I made +fast the halyard than I beheld on the very verge of the horizon what +seemed to be a vessel. The moment of sunrise, like that of sunset, is +peculiarly favorable to distinct vision; and as the pink line of dawn +sheeted over the sea, the dark object stood out clear and sharp; but the +next moment the glare of brighter day covered sky and water together, +and I could no longer see the ship. + +In my anxiety to try and catch sight of it from another spot, I hastened +down to the shore; but already a rosy tint was spread over the wide sea, +and nothing was discernible except the heaving waves and the streaked +sky above them. + +I sat upon a rock straining my eyes, but to no purpose; and at last the +cold raw air pierced through me, and I remembered that I had left my +jacket in the hut. But for this, indeed, I would not have returned to +it,--for, without absolute fear of the negro, his repulsive features and +scowling look made his companionship far from pleasurable. His suspicion +of me, too, might have led him to some act of violence; and therefore +I determined, if I were even to seek shelter in the Refuge-house at the +other end of the island, I would not go back to this one. + +It was some time before I could summon courage to venture back again; +and even when I had reached the door, it was not without a struggle with +myself that I dared to enter. The daylight was now streaming in, across +the long and dreary chamber, and, encouraged by this, I stepped across +the threshold. My first glance was towards the stove, where I had left +him lying asleep. The fire had burned out, and the negro was gone! With +cautious steps, and many a prying glance around, I ventured forward, my +heart thumping with a fear I cannot explain,--since his very presence +had not caused such terror; but nowhere was he to be found,--not a trace +of him remained. Indeed, were it not for the scrap of printed paper, +which I had carefully preserved, I should have believed the whole events +of the night to be the mere fancies of a dream. + +Twice was I obliged to take it from my pocket and read it over, to +assure myself that I was not pursuing some hallucination of sleep; +and if I felt convinced that the events were real, and had actually +happened, I will frankly own that the reality inspired me with a sense +of fear which no memory of a mere vision could have inspired. + +Daylight is a bold companion, however, and where night would make the +heart beat fast and the cheek pale, the sun will give a strong pulse and +a ruddy face. This I could not help feeling, as I acknowledged to myself +that had it been yet dark, I had rather have perished with cold than +sought for my jacket within the hut. + +At last, grown bolder, I had even courage to seek for the negro on every +side. I examined the berths along the walls; I searched the recesses +beside the biscuit-casks; I removed planks and turned over sails; but +without success. The difficulty with which he moved made this seem +doubly strange, and satisfied me that his place of concealment could +not be far off,--nay, possibly, at that very moment he might be actually +watching me, and waiting for a favorable instant to pounce upon me. +This dread increased as my search continued to be fruitless; so that +I abandoned the pursuit, assured that I had done everything that could +have been asked either of my courage or humanity; nor was I sorry to +assure myself that I had done enough. + +My interest in the subject was soon superseded by one nearer to my +heart; for as I left the hut I beheld, about four miles off, a large +three-masted vessel bearing up the Gulf, with all her canvas spread. +Forgetting the distance, and everything save my longing to be free, I +ascended a little eminence, and shouted with all my might, waving my +handkerchief back and forward above my head. I cannot describe the +transport of delight I felt, at perceiving that a flag was hoisted to +the main peak, and soon after lowered,--a recognition of the signal +which floated above me. I even cried aloud with joy; and then, in the +eagerness of my ecstasy, I set off along the shore, seeking out the best +place for a boat to run in. + +Never did a ship appear so glorious an object to my eyes; her spars +seemed more taper, her sails more snowy, her bearing prouder, than +ever a vessel owned before; and when at length I could distinguish the +figures of men in the rigging, my heart actually leaped to my mouth with +delight. + +At last she backed her topsail, and now I saw shooting out from beneath +her tall sides a light pinnace, that skimmed the water like a sea-bird. +As if they saw me, they headed exactly towards where I stood, and ran +the craft into a little bay just at my feet. A crew of four sailors and +coxswain now jumped ashore, and advanced towards me. + +"Are there many of you?" said the coxswain, gruffly, and as though +nothing were a commoner occurrence in life than to rescue a poor forlorn +fellow-creature from an uninhabited rock. + +"I am alone, sir," said I, almost bursting into tears, for mingled joy +and disappointment; for I was, I own it, disappointed at the want of +sympathy for my lone condition. + +"What ship did you belong to, boy?" asked he, as shortly as before. + +"A yacht, sir,--the 'Firefly.'" + +"Ah, that 's it; so they shoved you ashore here. That's what comes of +sailing with gentlemen, as they calls 'em." + +"No, sir; we landed--a few of us--during a calm--" + +"Ay, ay," he broke in, "I know all that,--the old story; you landed to +shoot rabbits, and somehow you got separated from the others; the wind +sprung up meantime; the yacht fired a gun to come off--eh, is n't that +it! Come, my lad, no gammon with me. You 're some infernal young scamp +that was 'had up' for punishment, and they either put you ashore here +for the rats, or you jumped overboard yourself, and floated hither on +a spare hencoop. But never mind,--we 'll give you a run to Quebec; jump +in." + +I followed the order with alacrity, and soon found myself on board the +"Hampden" transport, which was conveying the --th Regiment of Foot to +Canada. + +"No one but this here boy, sir," said the coxswain; shoving me before +him towards the skipper, who, amidst a crowd of officers in undress, sat +smoking on the after-deck. + +A very significant grunt seemed to imply that the vessel's way was lost +for very slight cause. + +"He says as how he belonged to a yacht, sir," resumed the coxswain. + +"Whose yacht, boy?" asked one of the officers. + +"Sir Dudley Broughton's, sir; the 'Firefly,'" said I. + +"Broughton! Broughton!" said an old, shrewd-looking man, in a +foraging-cap; "don't you know all about him? But, to be sure, he was +before _your_ day;" and then, changing his discourse to French,--with +which language, thanks to my kind old friend Father Rush, I was +sufficiently acquainted to understand what was said,--he added, "Sir +Dudley was in the Life Guards once; his wife eloped with a Russian or a +Polish Count,--I forget which,--and he became deranged in consequence. +Were you long with Sir Dudley, boy?" asked he, addressing me in English. + +"Not quite two months, sir." + +"Not a bad spell with such a master," resumed he, in French, "if the +stories they tell of him be true. How did you happen to be left on +Anticosti?" + +"No use in asking, Captain!" broke in the skipper. "You never get a word +of truth from chaps like that; go for'ard, boy." + +And with this brief direction I was dismissed. All my fancied +heroism--all my anticipated glory--vanishing at once; the only thought +my privations excited being that I was a young scamp, who, if he told +truth, would confess that all his sufferings and misfortunes had been +but too well merited. + +This was another lesson to me in life, and one which perhaps I could not +have acquired more thoroughly than by a few days on Anticosti. + + + +CHAPTER XII. A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER OPENING IN LIFE + +Although only a few hundred miles from Quebec, our voyage still +continued for several days; the "Hampden" like all transport-ships, was +only "great in a calm," and the Gulf-stream being powerful enough to +retard far better sailers. + +To those who, like myself, were not pressed for time, or had no very +pleasing vista opening to them on shore, the voyage was far from +disagreeable. As the channel narrowed, the tall mountains of Vermont +came into view, and gradually the villages on the shore could be +detected,--small, dark clusters, in the midst of what appeared +interminable pine forests. Here and there less pleasant sights presented +themselves, in the shape of dismasted hulks, being the remains of +vessels which had got fastened in the ice of the early "fall," and were +deserted by the crews. + +On the whole, it was novelty, and novelty alone, lent any charm to the +picture; for the shores of the Gulf, until you come within two days' +journey of Quebec, are sadly discouraging and dreary. The Log-house is +itself a mournful object; and when seen standing alone in some small +clearing, with blackened stumps studding the space, through which two +or three figures are seen to move, is inexpressibly sad-looking and +solitary. + +Now and then we would pass some little town, with a humble imitation of +a harbor for shipping, and a quay; and in the midst a standard, with +a flag, would denote that some Government official resided there,--the +reward, doubtless, of some gallant deed, some bold achievement afloat; +for I heard that they were chiefly lieutenants in the navy, who, having +more intimacy with French grape and canister than with "First Lords," +were fain to spend the remnant of their days in these gloomiest of +exiles. + +The absence of all signs of life and movement in the picture cannot fail +to depress the spectator. No team of oxen draws the loaded wagon along; +not a plough is seen. There are no gatherings of people in the open +places of the towns; no cattle can be descried on the hills. The +settlements appear like the chance resting-places of men travelling +through the dark forests, and not their homes for life. At times a +single figure would be seen on some high cliff above the sea, standing +motionless, and, to all seeming, watching the ship. I cannot say how +deeply such a sight always affected me; and I could not help fancying +him some lone emigrant, following with beating heart the track he was +never again to travel. + +Apparently, these things made a deeper impression on me than upon most +others on board. As for the soldiers, they were occupied with getting +their arms and equipments in order, to make a respectable appearance on +landing. It was one eternal scene of soap and pipeclay all day long; +and creatures barely able to crawl, from sea-sickness and debility, were +obliged to scour and polish away as if the glory of England depended +upon the show the gallant--th would make, the day we should set foot on +shore. The skipper, too, was bent on making an equally imposing show to +the landsmen; his weather topmasts were stowed away, and in their place +were hoisted some light and taper spars, not exactly in accordance +with the lubberly hull beneath. Pitch and white paint were in great +requisition too; and every day saw some half-dozen of the crew suspended +over the side, either scraping or painting for the very life. Many a +shirt dangled from the boom, and more than one low-crowned hat received +a fresh coat of glistening varnish; all were intent on the approaching +landing, even to the group of lounging officers on the poop, who +had begun to reduce their beards and whiskers to a more "regulation" +standard, and who usually passed the morning inspecting epaulettes and +sword-knots, shakos, gorgets, and such like, with the importance of men +who felt what havoc among the fair Canadians they were soon about to +inflict. + +My services were in request among this section of the passengers, since +I had become an expert hand at cleaning arms and equipments with Sir +Dudley; besides that, not wearing his Majesty's cloth, the officers were +at liberty to talk to me with a freedom they could not have used with +their men. They were all more or less curious to hear about Sir Dudley, +of whom, without transgressing Halkett's caution, I was able to relate +some amusing particulars. As my hearers invariably made their comments +on my narratives in French, I was often amused to hear them record their +opinions of myself, expressed with perfect candor in my own presence. +The senior officer was a Captain Pike, an old, keen-eyed, pock-marked +man, with a nose as thin as a sheet of parchment. He seemed to read me +like a book; at least, so far as I knew, his opinions perfectly divined +my true character. + +"Our friend Con," he would say, "is an uncommonly shrewd varlet, but he +is only telling us some of the truth; he sees that he is entertaining +enough, and won't produce 'Lafitte' so long as we enjoy his +'Ordinaire.'" + +"Now, what will become of such a fellow as that?" asked another. "Heaven +knows! such rascals turn out consummate scoundrels, or rise to positions +of eminence. Never was there a more complete lottery than the life of a +young rogue like that." + +"I can't fancy," drawled out a young subaltern, "how an ignorant cur, +without education, manners, and means, can ever rise to anything." + +"Who can say whether he has not all these?" said the captain, quietly. +"Trust me, Carrington, you'd cut a much poorer figure in _his_ place +than would he in _yours_." + +The ensign gave a haughty laugh, and the captain resumed: "I said it +were not impossible that he had each of the three requisites you spoke +of, and I repeat it. He may, without possessing learning, have picked +up that kind of rudimentary knowledge that keenness and zeal improve on +every day; and as for tact and address, such fellows possess both as a +birthright. I have a plan in my head for the youngster; but you must all +pledge yourselves to secrecy, or I'll not venture upon it." + +Here a very general chorus of promises and "on honors" broke forth; +after the subsidence of which, Captain Pike continued, still, however, +in French; and although being far from a proficient in that tongue, I +was able to follow the tenor of his discourse, and divine its meaning, +particularly as from time to time some of the listeners would propound +a question or two in English, by the aid of which I invariably contrived +to keep up with the "argument." + +"You know, lads," said the captain, "that our old friend Mrs. Davis, who +keeps the boarding-house in the Upper Town, has been always worrying us +to bring her out what she calls a first-rate man-servant from England; +by which she means a creature capable of subsisting on quarter rations, +and who, too far from home to turn restive, must put up with any wages. +The very fact that he came out special, she well knows, will be a puff +for the 'Establishment' among the Canadian Members of Parliament and the +small fry of officials who dine at the house; and as to qualifications, +who will dare question the 'London footman '?" + +"Pooh, pooh!" broke in Carrington; "that fellow don't look like a London +footman." + +"Who says he does?" retorted the captain. "Who ever said brass buttons +and blue beads were gold and turquoise? But they pass for the same in +villages not fifty miles from where we are sailing. Mother Davis was +wife of a skipper in the timber trade who died harbor-master here; she +is not a very likely person to be critical about a butler or footman's +accomplishments." + +"By Jove," cried another, "Pike is all right! Go on with your plan." + +"My plan is this: we'll dress up our friend Con, here, give him a few +lessons about waiting at table, delivering a message, and so forth, +furnish him with a jolly set of characters, and start him on the road of +life with Mother Davis." + +A merry roar of approving laughter broke forth from the party at this +brief summary of Captain Pike's intentions; and indeed it was not +without great difficulty I avoided joining in it. + +"He looks so devilish young!" said Carrington; "he can't be fifteen." + +"Possibly not fourteen," said Pike; "but we'll shave his head and +give him a wig. I'll answer for the 'make up;' and as I have had some +experience of private theatricals, rely on 't he'll pass muster." + +"How will you dress him, Pike?" + +"In livery,--a full suit of snuff-brown, lined with yellow; I 'll devote +a large cloak I have to the purpose, and we 'll set the tailor at work +to-day." + +"Is he to have shorts?" + +"Of course; some of you must 'stand' silk stockings for him, for we +shall have to turn him out with a good kit." + +A very generous burst of promises here broke in, about shirts, vests, +cravats, gloves, and other wearables, which, I own it, gave the whole +contrivance a far brighter coloring in my eyes than when it offered to +be a mere lark. + +"Will the rogue consent, think you?" asked Carrington. + +"Will he prefer a bed and a dinner to nothing to eat and a siesta under +the planks on the quays of Quebec?" asked Pike, contemptuously. "Look +at the fellow! watch his keen eyes and his humorous mouth when he's +speaking to you, and say if he would n't do the thing for the fun of it? +Not but a right clever chap like him will see something besides a joke +in the whole contrivance. + +"I foresee he 'll break down at the first go-off," said Carrington, +who through all the controversy seemed impressed with the very humblest +opinion of my merits. + +"I foresee exactly the reverse," said Pike. "I've seldom met a more +acute youngster, nor one readier to take up your meaning; and if the +varlet does n't get spoilt by education, but simply follows out the bent +of his own shrewd intelligence, he'll do well yet." + +"You rate him more highly than I do," said Carrington, again. + +"Not impossible either; we take our soundings with very dissimilar +lead-lines," said Pike, scoffingly. "My opinion is formed by hearing the +boy's own observations about character and life when he was speaking of +Broughton; but if you were ten times as right about him, and I twice as +many times in the wrong, he 'll do for what I intend him." + +The others expressed their full concurrence in the captain's view of +the matter, voted me a phoenix of all young vagabonds, and their +brother-officer Carrington a downright ass,--both being my own private +sentiments to the letter. + +And now for an honest avowal! It was the flattery of my natural +acuteness--the captain's panegyric on my aptitude and smartness--that +won me over to a concurrence in the scheme; for, at heart, I neither +liked the notion of "service," nor the prospect of the abstemious +living he had so pointedly alluded to. Still, to justify the favorable +impression he had conceived of me, and also with some half hope that I +should see "life"--the ruling passion of my mind--under a new aspect, I +resolved to accept the proposition so soon as it should be made to me; +nor had I long to wait that moment. + +"Con, my lad," said the captain, "you may leave that belt there; come +aft here,--I want to speak to you. What are your plans when you reach +Quebec? Do you mean to look after your old master, Sir Dudley, again?" + +"No, sir; I have had enough of salt water for a time,--I 'll keep my +feet on dry land now." + +"But what line of life do you propose to follow?" + +I hesitated for the answer, and was silent. + +"I mean," resumed he, "is it your intention to become a farm-servant +with some of the emigrant families, or will you seek for employment in +the town?" + +"Or would you like to enlist, my lad?" broke in another. + +"No, thank you, sir; promotion is slow from the ranks, and I 've a +notion one ought to move 'up,' as they move 'on,' in life." + +"Listen to the varlet now," said Pike, in French; "the fellow's as cool +with us as if we were exactly his equals, and no more. I 'll tell you +what it is, lads," added he, seriously, "when such rogues journey the +road of life singly, they raise _themselves_ to station and eminence; +but when they herd together in masses, these are the fellows who pull +_others_ down, and effect the most disastrous social revolutions.--So +you 'll not be a soldier Con?" added he, resuming the vernacular; "well, +what are your ideas as to the civil service?" + +"Anything to begin with, sir." + +"Quite right, lad,--well said; a fair start is all you ask?" + +"Why, sir, I carry no weight, either in the shape of goods or character; +and if a light equipment gives speed, I 've a chance to be placed well." + +The captain gave a side-glance at the others as though to say, "Was +I correct in my opinion of this fellow?" and then went on: "I have a +thought in my head for you, Con: there is a lady of my acquaintance at +Quebec wants a servant; now, if you could pick up some notion of the +duties, I 've no doubt you'd learn the remainder rapidly." + +"I used to wait on Sir Dudley, sir, and am therefore not entirely +ignorant." + +"Very true; and as these gentlemen and myself will put you into training +while the voyage lasts, I hope you 'll do us credit in the end." + +"Much will depend on my mistress, sir," said I, determining to profit +by what I had overheard, but yet not use the knowledge rashly or +unadvisedly. "Should she not be very exacting and very particular, +but have a little patience with me, accepting zeal for skill, I 've no +doubt, sir, I 'll not discredit your recommendation." + +"That's the very point I'm coming to, Con," said the captain, lowering +his voice to a most confidential tone. + +"The true state of the case is this: "--and here he entered upon an +explanation which I need not trouble the reader by recapitulating, since +it merely went the length I have already related, save that he added, in +conclusion, this important piece of information:-- + +"Your golden rule, in every difficulty, will then be, to assure Mrs. +Davis that you always did so, whatever it may be, when you were living +with Lord George, or Sir Charles, or the Bishop of Drone. You understand +me, eh?" + +"I think so, sir," said I, brightening up, and at the same time stealing +an illustration from my old legal practices. "In Mrs. Davis's court +there are no precedents." + +"Exactly, Con; hit the nail on the very head, my boy!" + +"It will not be a very difficult game, sir, if the guests are like the +mistress." + +"So they are, for the most part; now and then you'll have a military and +naval officer at table, and you'll be obliged to look out sharp, and +not let them detect you; but with the skippers of merchantmen, dockyard +people, storekeepers, male and female, I fancy you can hold your own." + +"Why, sir, I hope they'll be satisfied with the qualification that +contented my former titled masters," said I, with a knowing twinkle of +the eye he seemed to relish prodigiously, and an assumed tone of voice +that suited well the part I was to play. + +"Come down below, now, and we 'll write your characters for you;" and so +he beckoned the others to accompany him to the cabin, whither I followed +them. + +An animated debate ensued as to the number and nature of the +certificates I ought to possess, some being of opinion that I should +have those of every kind and degree; others alleging that my age forbade +the likelihood of my having served in more than two or three situations. + +"What say you to this, lads?" said Pike, reading from a rough and +much-corrected draft before him:-- + + + The bearer, Cornelius Cregan, has lived in my service ten + months as a page; he is scrupulously honest, active, and + intelligent, well acquainted with the duties of his station, + and competent to discharge them in the first families. I now + dismiss him at his own request. + Cecilia Mendleshaw. + +"Gad! I'd rather make him start as what they call in his own country a +'Tay-boy,'" said Carrington,--"one of those bits of tarnished gold-lace +and gaiters seen about the outskirts of Dublin." + +"Your honor is right, sir," said I, glad to show myself above any absurd +vanity on the score of my early beginning; "a 'Tay-boy' on the Rathmines +road, able to drive a jaunting-car and wait at table." + +"That's the mark, I believe," said Pike. "Suppose, then, we say: 'Con +Cregan has served me twelve months, waited at table, and taken care of a +horse and car.'" + +"Ah, sir!" said I, "sure an Irish gentleman with a 'Tay-boy' would be +finer spoken than that. It would be: 'I certify that Cornelius Cregan, +who served in my establishment as under-butler, and occasionally +assisting the coachman, is a most respectable servant, well-mannered and +respectful, having always lived in high situations, and with the most +distinguished individuals.'" + +"Ah, that's it," broke in Carrington; "'understands lamps, and is +perfectly competent to make jellies, soups, and preserves.'" + +"Confound it, man! you 're making him a cook." + +"By Jove, so I was! It's so hard to remember what the fellow is." + +"I think we may leave it to himself," said Pike; "he seems to have a +very good notion of what is necessary. So, Master Con, write your +own biography, my lad, and we 'll give it all the needful currency of +handwriting and seal." + +"It's a pity you're a Papist," said another, "or you could have such a +recommendation from a 'serious family' I know of in Surrey." + +"Never mind," rejoined the captain; "one signed 'P. O. Dowdlum, Bishop +of Toronia,' will do even better in the Lower Province." + +"Exactly, sir; and, as I used to serve mass once, I can 'come out +strong' about my early training with 'his Grace'!" + +"Very well," said Pike; "tell the tailor to take your measure for the +livery, and you'll wait on us to-day at table." With this order I +was dismissed, to con over my fictitious and speculate on my true +"character." + + + +CHAPTER XIII. QUEBEC + +As viewed from Diamond Harbour, a more striking city than Quebec is +seldom seen. + +The great rock rising above the lower town, and crowned with its +batteries, all bristling with guns, seemed to my eyes the very +realization of impregnability. I looked from the ship that lay +tranquilly on the water below, and whose decks were thronged with blue +jackets, to the Highlander who paced his short path as sentry, some +hundred feet high upon the wall of the fortress; and I thought to +myself, with such defenders as these, that standard yonder need never +carry any other banner. + +The whole view is panoramic. The bending of the river shuts out the +channel by which you have made your approach, giving the semblance of a +lake, on whose surface vessels of every nation lie at anchor, some with +the sails hung out to dry, gracefully drooping from the taper spars; +others refitting again for sea, and loading the huge pine-trunks, +moored as vast rafts to the stern. There were people everywhere; all +was motion, life, and activity. Jolly-boats with twenty oars, man-of-war +gigs bounding rapidly past them with eight; canoes skimming by without +a ripple, and seemingly without impulse, till you caught sight of the +lounging figure who lay at full length in the stern, and whose red +features were scarce distinguishable from the copper-colored bark of his +boat. Some moved upon the rafts, and even on single trunks of trees, +as, separated from the mass, they floated down on the swift current, +boat-hook in hand, to catch at the first object chance might offer them. +The quays, and the streets leading down to them were all thronged; and +as you cast your eye upwards, here and there above the tall roofs might +be seen the winding flight of stairs that lead to the upper town, alike +dark with the moving tide of men. On every embrasure and gallery, on +every terrace and platform, it was the same. Never did I behold such a +human tide! + +Now, there was something amazingly inspiriting in all this, particularly +when coming from the solitude and monotony of a long voyage. The very +voices that ye-hoed, the hoarse challenge of the sentinels on the rock, +the busy hum of the town, made delicious music to my ear; and I could +have stood and leaned over the bulwark for hours to gaze at the scene. +I own no higher interest invested the picture, for I was ignorant of +Wolfe; I had never heard of Montcalm; the plains of "Abra'm" were to +me but grassy slopes, and "nothing more." It was the life and stir; +the tide of that human ocean on which I longed myself to be a +swimmer,--these were what charmed me. Nor was the deck of the old +"Hampden" inactive all the while, although seldom attracting much of my +notice. Soldiers were mustering, knapsacks packing, rolls calling, +belts buffing, and coats brushing on all sides; men grumbling; sergeants +cursing; officers swearing; half-dressed invalids popping up their heads +out of hatchways, answering to wrong names, and doctors ordering them +down again with many an anathema; soldiers in the way of sailors, +and sailors always hauling at something that interfered with the +inspection-drill: every one in the wrong place, and each cursing his +neighbor for stupidity. + +At last the shore-boats boarded us, as if our confusion wanted anything +to increase it. Red-faced harbor-masters shook hands with the skipper +and pilot, and disappeared into the "round-house" to discuss grog and +the late gales. Officers from the garrison came out to welcome their +friends, for it was the second battalion we had on board of a regiment +whose first had been some years in Canada; and then what a rush of +inquiries were exchanged. "How's the Duke?" "All quiet in England?" "No +signs of war in Europe?" "Are the 8th come home?" "Where's Forbes?" "Has +Davern sold out?"--with a mass of such small interests as engage men who +live in coteries. + +Then there were emissaries for newspapers, eagerly hunting for spicy +rumors not found in the last journals; waiters of hotels, porters, +boatmen, guides, Indians with moccasins to sell, and a hundred other +functionaries bespeaking custom and patronage; and, although often +driven over the side most ignominiously at one moment, certain to +reappear the next at the opposite gangway. + +How order could ever be established in this floating Babel, I knew not; +and yet at last all got into train somehow. + +First one large boat crammed with men, who sat even on the gunwales, +moved slowly away; then another and another followed; a lubberly thing, +half lighter, half jolly-boat, was soon loaded with baggage, amid which +some soldiers' wives and a scattering population of babies were seen; +till by degrees the deck was cleared, and none remained of all that vast +multitude, save the "mate" and the "watch," who proceeded to get things +"ship-shape,"--pretty much in the same good-tempered spirit servants are +accustomed to put the drawing-rooms to rights, after an entertainment +which has kept them up till daylight, and allows of no time for sleep. +Till then I had not the slightest conception of what a voyage ended +meant, and that when the anchor dropped from the bow, a scene of bustle +ensued, to which nothing at sea bore any proportion. Now, I had no +friends; no one came to welcome me,--none asked for _my_ name. The +officers, even the captain, in the excitement of arriving, had forgotten +all about me; so that when the mate put the question to me, "why I +didn't go ashore?" I had no other answer to give him than the honest +one, "that I had nothing to do when I got there." "I suppose you know +how to gain a livin' one way or t' other, my lad?" said he, with a very +disparaging glance out of the corner of his eye. + +"I am ashamed to say, sir, that I do not." + +"Well, I never see'd Picaroons starve,--that's a comfort you have; but +as we don't mean to mess you here, you 'd better get your kit on deck, +and prepare to go ashore." + +Now, the kit alluded to was the chest of clothes given to me by the +captain, which, being bestowed for a particular purpose, and with an +object now seemingly abandoned or forgotten, I began to feel scruples as +to my having any claim to. Like an actor whose engagement had been for +one part, I did not think myself warranted in carrying away the wardrobe +of my character; besides, who should tell how the captain might resent +such conduct on my side? I might be treated as a thief,--I, Con Cregan, +who had registered a solemn vow in my own heart to be a "gentleman"! +Such an indignity should not be entertained, even in thought. Yet was it +very hard for one in possession of such an admirable wardrobe to want +a dinner; for one so luxuriously apparelled on the outside, to be so +lamentably unprovided within. From the solution of this knotty question +I was most fortunately preserved by the arrival of a corporal of +the--th, who came with an order from Captain Pike that I should at once +repair to his quarters in the Upper Town. + +Not being perhaps in his captain's confidence, nor having any very clear +notion of my precise station in life,--for I was dressed in an old cloak +and a foraging-cap,--the corporal delivered his message to me with a +military salute, and a certain air of deference very grateful to my +feelings. + +"Have you a boat alongside, Corporal?" said I, as I lounged listlessly +on the binnacle. + +"Yes, sir; a pair of oars,--will that do?" + +"Yes, that will do," replied I, negligently. "See my traps safe on +board, and tell me when all's ready." + +The corporal saluted once more, and went to give the necessary +directions; meanwhile the mate, who had been a most amazed spectator of +the scene, came over and stood right opposite me, with an expression +of the most ludicrous doubt and hesitation. It was just at that moment +that, in drawing the cloak round me, I discovered in a pocket of it an +old cigar-case. I took it out with the most easy _nonchalance_, and, +leisurely striking a light, began smoking away, and not bestowing even a +glance at my neighbor. + +Astonishment had so completely gotten the better of the man that he +could not utter a word; and I perceived that he had to look over the +side, where the boat lay, to assure himself that the whole was reality. + +"All right, sir," said the corporal, carrying his hand to his cap. + +I arose languidly from my recumbent position, and followed the soldier +to the gangway; then, turning slowly around, I surveyed the mate from +head to foot, with a glance of mild but contemptuous pity, while I said, +"In your station, my good man, the lesson is perhaps not called for, +since you may rarely be called on to exercise it; but I would wish to +observe that you will save yourself much humiliation and considerable +contempt by not taking people for what they seem by externals." With +this grave admonition, delivered in a half-theatrical tone of voice, I +draped my "toga" so as to hide any imperfection of my interior costume, +and descended majestically into the boat. + +When we reached the barrack, which was in the Upper Town, the captain +was at mess, but had left orders that I should have my dinner, and be +ready at his quarters, in my full livery, in the evening. + +I dined, very much to my satisfaction, on some of the "débris" of the +mess, and, under the auspices of the captain's servant, arrayed myself +in my new finery, which, I am free to confess, presented what artists +would call "a flashy bit of color;" being far more in the style of +Horace Vernet than Van Dyke. Had the choice been given me, I own I +should have preferred wooing Fortune in more sombre habiliments; but +this was a mere minor consideration, and so I felt as I found myself +standing alone in the captain's sitting-room, and endeavoring to +accustom myself to my own very showy identity, as reflected in a large +cheval glass, which exhibited me down to the very buckles of my shoes. + +I will not affirm it positively, but only throw it out as a hint, that +the major part of a decanter of sherry, which I discussed at dinner, +aided in lifting me above the paltry consideration of mere appearance, +and made me feel what I have often heard ragged vagabonds in the streets +denominate "the dignity of a man." By degrees, too, I not only grew +reconciled to the gaudy costume, but began--strange accommodation of +feeling--actually to enjoy its distinctive character. + +"There are young gentlemen, Con," said I, in soliloquy, "many are there +who would look absurd merry-andrews if dressed in this fashion. There +are fellows to whom this kind of thing would be a sore test! These +bright tints would play the very devil with their complexion,--not to +mention that every one's legs could n't afford such publicity! But Con, +my friend, you have a natural aptitude for every shade of color, and for +every station and condition. Courage, my boy! although in the rear rank +at present, you 'll march in the van yet. Nature has been gracious with +you, Mr. Cregan!" said I, warming with the subject, while, with my hands +deep down in my coat-pockets, I walked backward and forward before +the glass, stealing sidelong glances at myself as I passed; "there are +fellows who, born in your station, would have died in it, without a bit +more influence over their fate in this life than a Poldoody oyster; +they 'd vegetate to the end of existence, and slip out of the world as +a fellow shirks out of a shebeen-house when he has n't tu' pence for +another 'dandy' of punch. Not so with you, Con Cregan! You have hydrogen +in you,--you have the buoyant element that soars above the vulgar herd. +These are not the partial sentiments of a dear friend, Con, they are the +current opinions of the world about you. How soon the 'Captain' saw what +stuff you were made of! How long was old Pike in detecting the latent +powers of your intellect?" What a shout of laughter followed these +words! It came from half-a-dozen officers, who, having entered the room +during my apostrophe, had concealed themselves behind a screen to listen +to the peroration. + + + +They now rushed out in a body, and, throwing themselves into chairs and +upon sofas, laughed till the very room rang with the clamor, the captain +himself joining in the emotion with all his heart. As for me, however +self-satisfied but one moment back, I was humbled to the very earth +now; the vauntings by which I had been soothing my vanity were suddenly +turned into scorns and sneers at my self-conceit, and I actually looked +to see if I could not leap out of the window, and never be seen by +one of the party again. The window, however, was barred, the door was +unapproachable, there was a fire in the grate; and so, as escape was +denied me, I at once abandoned a plan which I saw unfeasible, and, with +a quickness to which I owe much in life, immediately adopted an opposite +tactic. Assuming a deferential position, I drew back towards the wall, +to be laughed at as long as the honorable company should fancy it. + +"So, Mr. Cregan," cried one, drying his eyes with his handkerchief, +"modesty is one of those invaluable gifts with which nature has favored +you?" + +"I sincerely trust it may be no bar to your advancement," said another. + +"Rather cruel," added a third, "to be balked for such a mere trifle." + +"I say, Pike," added another, "I rather envy you the insinuated flattery +of your discrimination. It would seem that you detected the precious +metal here at once." + +"What country do you come from, boy?" said a hard-featured old officer +who had laughed less than the others. + +"How can you ask, Chudleigh?" said another. "There's only one land rears +that plant." + +"There's a weed very like it in Scotland, M'Aldine," said the captain, +with a grin which the last speaker did not half relish. + +"You're Hirish, ain't you?" said a very boyish-looking ensign, with sore +eyes. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Very much so, I fancy," said he, laughing as though he had been very +droll. + +"I always heard your countrymen had wings; what has become of them?" + +"I believe we used to have, sir; but the English plucked us," said I, +with a look of assumed simplicity. + +"And what is all that about the Blarney stone?" said another; "is n't +there some story or other about it?" + +"It's a stone they kiss in _my_ country, sir, to give us a smooth +tongue." + +"I don't see the great use of that," rejoined he, with a stupid look. + +"It's mighty useful at times, sir," said I, with a half glance towards +Captain Pike. + +"You're too much, gentlemen, far too much for my poor friend Con," said +the captain; "you forget that he's only a poor Irish lad. Come, now, let +us rather think of starting him in the world, with something to keep the +devil out of his pocket." And, with this kind suggestion, he chucked +a dollar into his cap, and then commenced a begging tour of the room, +which, I am ready to confess, showed the company to be far more generous +than they were witty. + +"Here, Master Con," said he, as he poured the contents into my two +hands, "here is wherewithal to pay your footing at Mrs. Davis's. As a +traveller from the old country, you 'll be expected to entertain the +servants' hall,--do it liberally; there's nothing like a bold push at +the first go off." + +"I know it, sir; my father used to say that the gentleman always won his +election who made most freeholders drunk the first day of the poll." + +"Your father was a man of keen observation, Con." + +"And is, sir, still, with your leave, if kangaroo meat has n't disagreed +with him, and left me to sustain the honors of the house." + +"Oh, that's it, Con, is it?" said Captain Pike, with a sly glance. + +"Yes, sir, that's it," said I, replying more to his look than his words. + +"Here's the letter for Mrs. Davis: you'll present it early to-morrow; be +discreet, keep your own counsel, and I 've no doubt you 'll do well." + +"I'd be an ungrateful vagabond if I made your honor out a false +prophet," said I; and, bowing respectfully to the company, I withdrew. + +"What a wonderful principle of equilibrium exists between one's heart +and one's pocket!" thought I as I went downstairs. "I never felt the +former so light as now that the latter is heavy." + +I wandered out into the town, somewhat puzzled how to dispose of +myself for the evening. Had I been performing the part of a "walking +gentleman," I fancied I could have easily hit upon some appropriate and +becoming pastime. A theatre,--there was one in the "Lower Town,"--and a +tavern afterwards, would have filled the interval before it was time to +go to bed. "Time to go to bed! "--strange phrase, born of a thousand and +one conventionalities. For some, that time comes when the sun has +set, and with its last beams of rosy light reminds labor of the coming +morrow. To some, it is the hour when wearied faculties can do no more, +when tired intellect falters "by the way," and cannot keep the "line of +march." To others, it comes with dawning light, and when roses and rouge +look ghastly; and to others, again, whose "deeds are evil," it is the +glare of noonday. + +Now, as for me, I was neither wearied by toil nor pleasure; no sense of +past fatigue, no anticipation of coming exertion, invited slumber,--nay, +I was actually more wakeful than I had been during the entire evening, +and I felt a most impulsive desire for a little social enjoyment,--that +kind of intercourse with strangers which I always remarked had the +effect of eliciting my own conversational qualities to a degree that +astonished even myself. + +In search of some house of entertainment, some public resort, I paced +all the streets of the Upper Town, but to no purpose. Occasionally, +lights in a drawing-room, and the sound of a piano, would tell where +some small evening party was assembled; or now and then, from a +lower story, a joyous roar of laughter, or the merry chorus of a +drinking-song, would bespeak some after-dinner convivialities; but +to mingle in scenes like these, I felt that I had yet a long road to +travel,--ay, to pass muster in the very humblest of those circles, what +a deal had I to learn! How much humility, how much confidence; what +deference, and what self-reliance; what mingled gravity and levity; what +shades and gradations of color, so nicely balanced and proportioned, +too, that, unresolved by the prism, they show no preponderating +tint,--make up that pellucid property men call "tact!" Ay, Con, that is +your rarest gift of all,--only acquire that, and you may dispense with +ancestry, and kindred, and even wealth itself; since he who has "tact" +participates in all these advantages, "_among his friends_." + +As I mused thus, I had reached the "Lower Town," and found myself +opposite the door of a tavern, over which a brilliant lamp illuminated +the sign of "The British Grenadier,"--a species of canteen in high favor +with sergeants and quartermasters of the garrison. I entered boldly, and +with the intention of behaving generously to myself; but scarcely had I +passed the threshold than I heard a sharp voice utter in a half-whisper, +"Dang me if he an't in livery!" + +I did not wait for more. My "tact" assured me that even there I was not +admissible; so I strolled out again, muttering to myself, "When a +man has neither friend nor supper, and the hour is past midnight, the +chances are it is 'time to go to bed;'" and with this sage reflection, I +wended my way towards a humble lodging-house on the quay, over which, on +landing, I read the words, "The Emigrant's Home." + + + +CHAPTER XIV. HOW I 'FELL IN' AND 'OUT' WITH THE WIDOW DAVIS + +For the sake of conciseness in this veracious history, I prefer making +the reader acquainted at once with facts and individuals, not by the +slow process in which the knowledge of them was acquired by myself, +but in all the plenitude which intimate acquaintance now supplies; and +although this may not seem to accord with the bit-by-bit and day-by-day +narrative of a life, it saves a world of time, some patience, and mayhap +some skipping too. Under this plea, I have already introduced Sir Dudley +Broughton to the reader; and now, with permission, mean to present Mrs. +Davis. + +Mrs. Davis, relict of Thomas John Davis, was a character so associated +with Quebec that to speak of that city without her would be like writing +an account of Newfoundland and never alluding to the article "cod-fish." +For a great number of years her house had been the rendezvous of +everything houseless, from the newly come "married" officer to the flash +commercial traveller from the States; from the agent of an unknown +land company to the "skipper" of a rank pretentious enough to dine at +a boarding-house. The establishment--as she loved to style it--combined +all the free-and-easy air of domesticity with the enjoyment of society. +It was an "acted newspaper," where paragraphs, military and naval, +social, scandalous, and commercial, were fabricated with a speed no +"compositor" could have kept up with. Here the newly arrived subaltern +heard all the pipeclay gossip, not of the garrison, but of the Province; +here the bagman made contracts and took orders; here the "French Deputy" +picked up what he called afterwards in the Chamber "l'opinion publique;" +and here the men of pine-logs and white deal imbibed what they fervently +believed to be the habits and manners of the "English aristocracy." "To +invest the establishment with this character," to make it go forth +to the world as the mirror of high and fashionable life, had been +the passion of Mrs. D.'s existence. Never did monarch labor for the +safeguard that might fence and hedge round his dynasty more zealously; +never did minister strive for the guarantees that should insure the +continuance of his system. It was the moving purpose of her life; in +it she had invested all her activity, both of mind and body; and as +she looked back to the barbarism from which her generous devotion +had rescued hundreds, she might well be pardoned if a ray of +self-glorification lighted up her face. "When I think of Quebec when +T. J."--her familiar mode of alluding to the defunct Thomas John--"and +myself first beheld it," would she say, "and see it now, I believe I may +be proud." The social habits were indeed at a low ebb. The skippers--and +there were few other strangers--had a manifest contempt for the use of +the fork at dinner, and performed a kind of sword-exercise while +eating, of the most fearful kind. Napkins were always misconstrued,--the +prevailing impression being that they were pocket-handkerchiefs. No man +had any vested interest in his own wine-glass; while thirsty souls even +dispensed with such luxuries, and drank from the bottle itself. + +Then sea-usages had carried themselves into shore life. The company were +continually getting up to look out of windows, watching the vessels that +passed, remarking on the state of the tide, and then, resuming their +places with a muttering over the "half ebb," and that the wind was +"northing-by-west," looked for change. All the conversation smacked of +salt-water; every allusion had an odor of tar and seaweed about it. + +Poor Mrs. Davis! How was she to civilize these savages; how invest +their lives with any interest above timber? They would not listen to the +polite news of "Government House;" they would not vouchsafe the least +attention to the interesting paragraphs she recited as table-talk,--how +the Prince of Hohenhumbughousen had arrived at Windsor on a visit to +Majesty, nor how Royalty walked in "The Slopes," or sat for its picture. + +Of the "Duke of Northumberland," they only knew a troopship of the +name, and even that had been waterlogged! The "Wellington" traded to +Mirimachi, and the "Robert Peel" was a barque belonging to Newfoundland, +and employed in general traffic, and not believed very seaworthy. + +Some may make the ungracious remark that she might have spared herself +this task of humanizing; that she could have left these "ligneous +Christians," these creatures of tar and turpentine, where she found +them. The same observation will apply equally to Cooke, to Franklin, to +Brooke of Borneo, and a hundred other civilizers: so Mrs. D. felt +it, and so she labored to make T. J. feel it; but he would n't. The +ungrateful old bear saw the ordinary grow daily thinner; he perceived +that Banquo might have seated himself at any part of the table, and he +actually upbraided his wife with the fact. Every day he announced some +new defection from the list of their old supporters. Now it was old Ben +Crosseley, of the "Lively Biddy," that would n't stand being ordered to +shake out his canvas--that is, to spread his napkin--when he was +taking in sea store; then it was Tom Galket grew indignant at not being +permitted to beat "to quarters" with his knuckles at every pause in the +dinner. Some were put out by being obliged to sit with their legs under +the table, being long habituated to dine at a cask with a plank on it, +and of course keeping their limbs "stowed away" under the seat; and one, +an old and much-respected river pilot, was carried away insensible +from table, on hearing that grog was not a recognized table beverage +throughout the British dominions. + +The banishment of lobscouse and sea-pie, pork, with its concomitant +cataplasm of peas, and other similar delicacies from the bill of fare, +completed the defection; and at last none remained of the "once goodlie +company," save an old attenuated Guernsey skipper too much in debt to +leave, but who attributed his fealty to the preference he entertained +for "les usages de la bonne société et la charmante Mde. Davis." T. J. +could never hold up his head again; he moped about the docks and quays, +like the restless spirit of some Ancient Mariner. Every one pitied +him; and he grew so accustomed to condolence--so dependent, in fact, +on commiseration--that he spent his days in rowing from one ship to the +other in the harbor, drinking grog with the skippers, till, by dint of +pure sympathy, he slipped quietly into his grave, after something like a +two years' attack of delirium tremens. + +The same week that saw T. J. descend to the tomb saw his widow ascend +to the "Upper Town,"--the more congenial locality for aspirations like +hers. If no eulogistic inscription marked _his_ resting-place, a very +showy brass plate adorned _hers_. From that hour she was emancipated; +it seemed, indeed, as if she had turned a corner in life, and at once +emerged from gloom and darkness into sunshine. It chanced that the +barracks were at that very moment undergoing repair, and several +officers were glad to find, at a convenient distance, the comforts and +accommodations which a plausible advertisement in the "Quebec Messenger" +assured them were to be obtained for one pound one shilling weekly. + +There are people who tell you that we live in a heartless, selfish, +grabbing, grasping age, where each preys upon his neighbor, and where +gain is the spirit of every contract; and yet, in what period of the +world was maternal tenderness, the comforts of a home, the watchful +anxieties of parental love, to be had so cheaply? Who ever heard of +bachelors being admitted into families, where music and the arts formed +the evening's recreation, in the Middle Ages? Does Herodotus inform +us that "young and attractive ladies would take charge of a widower's +household, and superintend the care of his family"? Not a bit of it! On +this point, at least, the wisdom of our ancestors has no chance with +us. There is not a wish of the heart, there is not a yearning of the +affections, that a three-and-sixpenny advertisement in the "Times" will +not evoke a remedy for. You can make love, or a book, or a speech, +by deputy; for every relative you lose, there are fifty kind-hearted +creatures to supply the place; and not only may you travel over half the +globe without more personal exertion than it costs you to go to bed, but +you can be measured either for a wife or a suit of clothes without ever +seeing the lady or the tailor. + +The "Hotel Davis," so said the newspaper, "was situated in the most airy +and healthful locality of the Upper Town." No one ever rung the bell of +the hall-door from the first of October to May, but would acknowledge +the truth of the first epithet. The society, for admission to which +the most particular references are required, embraces all that is +intellectual, high-bred, and refined. The table, where preside the +'feast of reason and the flow of soul,' combines the elegance and +delicacy of the French, with the less sophisticated succulence of +English cookery. Intellectual resources,--the humanizing influences +of song and poetry,--the varied pleasures of cultivated and kindred +spirits, which have won for this establishment the epithet of the +Davisian Acropolis, continue to make it the chosen retreat of gentlemen +connected with civil and military pursuits, who are lodged and boarded +for one guinea weekly. + +"Receptions every Thursday. Balls, during the winter, on the first +Monday of each month." + +Such was one among many--I select it as the shortest--announcements of +this cheap Elysium; and now, two words about Mrs. D. herself. She was a +poor, thin, shrivelled-up little woman, with a rugged, broken-up face, +whose profile looked like a jagged saw. Next to elegance of manner, her +passion was personal appearance,--by which she meant the adventitious +aid of false hair, rouge, and cosmetics; and these she employed with +such ever-varying ingenuity that her complexion changed daily from +classic pallor to Spanish richness, while the angle of incidence of her +eyebrows took in everything, from forty-five degrees to the horizontal. +Her style was "sylph," and so she was gauzy and floating in all her +drapery. A black veil to the back of her head, a filmy, gossamer kind +of scarf across her shoulders, assisted this deception, and when she +crossed the room, gave her the air of a clothes'-line in a high wind. + +Black mittens, over fingers glowing in all the splendor of imitation +rings, and a locket, about the size of a cheese-plate, containing the +hair--some said the scalp--of the late T. J., completed a costume +which Mrs. D. herself believed Parisian, but to which no revolution, +democratic or social, could reduce a Frenchwoman. + +She borrowed her language as well as her costume from the "Grande +Nation," and with this comfortable reflection, that she was not likely +to be asked to restore the loan. Her French was about as incongruous +as her dress; but Quebec, fortunately, was not Paris, and she drove her +coach-and-six through "Adelow," with a hardihood that outstripped, if it +did not defy, criticism. + +By the military and naval people she was deemed the best "fun" going; +her pretension, her affectation, her shrewdness, and her simplicity, +her religious homage to fashion, her unmerciful tyranny towards what +she thought vulgarity, made her the subject of many a joke and much +amusement. The other classes, the more regular _habitués_ of the +"house," thought she was a princess in disguise; they revered her +opinions as oracles, and only wondered how the court-end could spare one +so evidently formed to be the glass of fashion. + +If I have been too prolix in my sketch, kind reader, attribute it to +the true cause,--my anxiety to serve those who are good enough to place +themselves under my guidance. Mrs. D. still lives; the establishment +still survives; at five o'clock each day--ay, this very day, I have +no doubt--her table is crowded by "the rank and fashion" of the Quebec +world; and the chances are, if you yourself, worthy reader, should visit +that city, that you may be glad to give your blank days to the fare of +Madam Davis. + +It was ten o'clock in the forenoon as I arrived at her door, and sent +in Captain Pike's letter, announcing my arrival. I found Mrs. D. in +what she called her own room,--a little den of about eleven feet square, +shelved all round, and showing an array of jars and preserve-pots +that was most imposing,--the offerings of skippers from the West India +Islands and Madeira, who paid a kind of black-mail in preserved ginger, +guavas, yams, pepper-pots, chili, and potted crabs that would have given +liver complaints to half the Province. + +Mrs. D. was standing on a step-ladder, arranging her treasures by the +aid of a negro boy of about twelve years old, as I entered; and not +feeling that I was of consequence sufficient to require a more formal +audience, she took a steady and patient observation of me, and then +resumed her labors. The little window, about six feet from the ground, +threw a fine Rembrandt light upon me as I stood in my showy habiliments, +endeavoring, by an imposing attitude, to exhibit myself to the best +advantage. + +"Forty-seven; Guava jelly, Sambo!--where is forty-seven?" + +"Me no see him," said Sambo; "missus eat him up, perhaps." + +"Monsonze! you filthy creature; look for it, sirrah!" So saying, Mrs. +Davis applied her double eye-glass to her eyes, and again surveyed me +for some seconds. + +"You are the"--she hesitated--"the young person my friend Pike brought +out, I believe?" + +"Yes, my lady," said I, bowing profoundly. + +"What's your name? The captain has not written it clearly." + +"Cregan, my lady,--Con Cregan." + +"Con--Con," repeated she twice or thrice; "what does Con mean?" + +"It's the short for Cornelius, my lady." + +"Ah, the abbreviation for Cornelius! And where have you lived, +Cornelius?" + +"My last place, my lady, was Sir Miles O'Ryan's, of Roaring Water." + +"What are you doing, you wretch? Take your filthy fingers out of that +pot this instant!" screamed she, suddenly. + +"Me taste him, an' he be dam hot!" cried the nigger, dancing from one +foot to the other, as his mouth was on fire from tasting capsicum pods. + +I thought of my own mustard experience, and then, turning a glance of +ineffable contempt upon my black friend, said, "Those creatures, my +lady, are _so_ ignorant, they really do not know the nature of the +commonest condiments." + +"Very true, Cornelius. I would wish, however, to observe to you +that although my family are all persons of rank, I have no title +myself,--that is to say," added she, with a pleasing smile, "I do not +assume it here; therefore, until we return to England, you need n't +address me as ladyship." + +"No, my lady,--I beg your ladyship's pardon for forgetting; but as I +have always lived in high families, I 've got the habit, my lady, of +saying, 'my lady.'" + +"I am Madam, plain Madam Davis. There, I knew you 'd do it, you nasty +little beast, you odious black creature!" This sudden apostrophe was +evoked by the nigger endeavoring to balance a jam-pot on his thumb, +while he spun it round with the other hand,--an exploit that ended in a +smash of the jar, and a squash of the jam all over my silk stockings. + +"It's of no consequence, my lady; I shall change them when I dress for +dinner," said I, with consummate ease. + +"The jam is lost, however. Will you kindly beat him about the head with +that candlestick beside you?" + +I seized the implement, as if in most choleric mood. But my black was +not to be caught so easily; and with a dive between my legs he bolted +for the door, whilst I was pitched forward against the step-ladder, +head foremost. In my terror, I threw out my hands to save myself, +and caught--not the ladder, but Madam Davis's legs; and down we went +together, with a small avalanche of brown jars and preserve-pots +clattering over us. + +As I had gone headforemost, my head through the ladder, and as Mrs. +Davis had fallen on the top of me,--her head being reversed,--there we +lay, like herrings in a barrel, till her swoon had passed away. At last +she did rally; and, gathering herself up, sat against the wall, a most +rueful picture of bruises and disorder, while I, emerging from between +the steps of the ladder, began to examine whether it were marmalade or +my brains that I felt coming down my cheek. + + + +"You'll never mention this shocking event, Cornelius," said she, trying +to adjust her wig, which now faced over the left shoulder. + +"Never, my lady. Am I to consider myself engaged?" + +"Yes, on the terms of Captain Pike's note,--ten pounds--, no wine nor +tea-money, no passage-fare out, no livery, no--" I was afraid she was +going to add, "No prog;" but she grew faint, and merely said, "Bring me +a glass of water." + +"I'll put you in charge of the lamps and plate tomorrow," said she, +recovering. + +"Very well, madam," said I, aloud; while to myself I muttered, "They +might easily be in better hands." + +"You'll wait at table to-day." + +"Yes, my lady--madam, I mean." + +"Soup always goes first to Mrs. Trussford,--black velvet, and very fat; +then to the lady in blue spectacles; afterwards Miss Moriarty. Ah, I +'m too weak for giving directions; I 'm in what they call 'un état de +fuillete;'" and with these words Mrs. Davis retired, leaving me to the +contemplation of the battle-field and my own bruises. + +My next care was to present myself below stairs; and although some may +smile at the avowal, I had far more misgivings about how I should pass +muster with the underlings than with the head of the department. Is the +reader aware that it was a farrier of the Emperor Alexander's guard who +first predicted the destruction of the "grand army" in Russia? A +French horseshoe was shown to him, as a curiosity; and he immediately +exclaimed, "What! not yet frost-roughed? These fellows don't know the +climate; the snows begin to-morrow!" So is it: ignorance and pretension +are infallibly discovered by "routine" people; they look to details, and +they at once detect him who mistakes or overlooks them. + +Resolving, at all events, to make my "Old World" habits stand my part in +every difficulty, and to sneer down everything I did not understand, I +put on a bold face, and descended to the lower regions. + +Great people, "Ministers" and Secretaries for the "Home" and "Foreign," +little know how great their privilege is that in taking office they +are spared all unpleasant meetings with their predecessors. At least, +I conclude such to be the case, and that my Lord Palmerston, "stepping +in," does not come abruptly upon Lord Aberdeen "going out," nor does an +angry altercation arise between him who arrives to stay and he who is +packing his portmanteau to be off. I say that I opine as much, and that +both the entrance and the departure are conducted with due etiquette +and propriety; in fact, that Lord A. has called his cab and slipped away +before Lord P. has begun to "take up" the "spoons,"--not a bad metaphor, +by the way, for an entrance into the Foreign Office. + +No such decorous reserve presides over the change of a domestic +ministry. The whole warfare of opposition is condensed into one angry +moment, and the rival parties are brought face to face in the most +ungracious fashion. + +Now, my system in life was that so well and popularly known by the +name of M. Guizot, "la paix à tout prix;" and I take pride to myself +in thinking that I have carried it out with more success. With a firm +resolve, therefore, that no temptation should induce me to deviate from +a pacific policy, I entered the kitchen, where the "lower house" was +then "in committee,"--the "cook in the chair"! + +"Here he com, now!" said Blackie; and the assembly grew hushed as I +entered. + +"Ay, here he comes!" said I, re-echoing the speech; "and let us see if +we shall not be merry comrades." + +The address was a happy one; and that evening closed upon me in the very +pinnacle of popularity. + +I have hesitated for some time whether I should not ask of my reader to +enroll himself for a short space as a member of "the establishment," +or even to sojourn one day beneath a roof where so many originals +were congregated; to witness the very table itself, set out with its +artificial fruits and flowers, its pine-apples in wax, and its peaches +of paper,--all the appliances by which Mrs. D., in her ardent zeal, +hoped to propagate refinement and abstemiousness; high-breeding and low +diet being, in her esteem, inseparably united. To see the company, +the poor old faded and crushed flowers of mock gentility,--widows +and unmarried daughters of tax-collectors long "gathered;" polite +storekeepers, and apothecaries to the "Forces," cultivating the Graces +at the cost of their appetites, and descending, in costumes of twenty +years back, in the pleasing delusion of being "dressed" for dinner; +while here and there some unhappy skipper, undergoing a course +of refinement, looked like a bear in a "ballet," ashamed of his +awkwardness, and even still more ashamed of the company wherein he found +himself; and, lastly, some old Seigneur of the Lower Province,--a poor, +wasted, wrinkled creature, covered with hair-powder and snuff, but yet, +strangely enough, preserving some "taste of his once quality," and not +altogether destitute of the graces of the land he sprung from;--curious +and incongruous elements to make up society, and worthy of the +presidency of that greater incongruity who ruled them. + +Condemned to eat food they did not relish, and discuss themes they did +not comprehend,--what a noble zeal was theirs! What sacrifices did they +not make to the genius of "gentility"! If they would sneer at a hash, +Mrs. D.'s magic wand charmed it into a "ragout;" when they almost +sneezed at the sour wine, Mrs. D. called for another glass of "La +Rose." "Rabbits," they were assured, were the daily diet of the Duke of +Devonshire, and Lady Laddington ate kid every day at dinner. In the +same way, potatoes were vulgar things, but "pommes de terre à la maître +d'hôtel" were a delicacy for royalty. + +To support these delusions of diet, I was everlastingly referred to. +"Cregan," would she say,--placing her glass to her eye, and fixing +on some dish, every portion of which her own dainty fingers had +compounded,--"Cregan, what is that?" + +"Poulet à la George Quatre, madame! "--she always permitted me to +improvise the nomenclature,--"the receipt came from the Bishop of +Beldoff's cook." + +"Ah, prepared with olives, I believe?" + +"Exactly, madame," would I say, presenting the dish, whose success was +at once assured. + +If a wry face or an unhappy contortion of the mouth from any guest +announced disappointment, Mrs. D. at once appealed to me for the +explanation. "What is it, Cregan?--Mrs. Blotter, I fear you don't like +that 'plat'?" + +"The truffles were rather old, madame;" or, "the anchovies were too +fresh;" or, "there was too little caviar;" or something of the kind, +I would unhesitatingly aver: for my head was stocked with a strong +catalogue from an old French cookery-book which I used to study each +morning. The more abstruse my explanation, the more certain of its +being indorsed by the company,--only too happy to be supposed capable of +detecting the subtle deficiency; all but the old French Deputy, who on +such occasions would give a little shake of his narrow head, and mutter +to himself, "Ah, il est mutin, ce gaillard-là!" + +Under the influence of great names, they would have eaten a stewed +mummy from the Pyramids. What the Marquis of Aeheldown or the Earl of +Brockmore invariably ordered, could not without risk be despised by +these "small boys" of refinement. It is true, they often mourned in +secret over the altered taste of the old country, which preferred +kickshaws and trumpery to its hallowed ribs and sirloins; but, like the +folk who sit at the Opera while they long for the Haymarket, and who +listen to Jenny Lind while their hearts are with Mrs. Keeley, they "took +out" in fashion what they lost in amusement,--a very English habit, by +the way. To be sure, and to their honor be it spoken, they wished the +Queen would be pleased to fancy legs of mutton and loins of veal, just +as some others are eager for royalty to enjoy the national drama; but +they innocently forgot, the while, that "they" might have the sirloin, +and "the others" Shakspeare, even without majesty partaking of either, +and that a roast goose and Falstaflf can be relished even without such +august precedent. Dear, good souls they were, never deviating from that +fine old sturdy spirit of independence which makes us feel ourselves a +match for the whole world in arms, as we read the "Times" and hum "Rule +Britannia." + +All this devout homage of a class with whom they had nothing in common, +and with which they could never come into contact, produced in me a very +strange result; and in place of being ready to smile at the imitators, +I began to conceive a stupendous idea of the natural greatness of those +who could so impress the ranks beneath them. "Con," said I to myself, +"that is the class in life would suit you perfectly. There is no trade +like that of a gentleman. He who does nothing is always ready for +everything; the little shifts and straits of a handicraft or a +profession narrow and confine the natural expansiveness of the +intellect, which, like a tide over a flat shore, should swell and spread +itself out, free and without effort. See to this, Master Con; take care +that you don't sit down contented with a low round on the ladder of +life, but strive ever upwards; depend on it, the view is best from the +top, even if it only enable you to look down on your competitors." + +These imaginings, as might be easily imagined, led me to form a very +depreciating estimate of my lords and masters of the "establishment." +Not only their little foibles and weaknesses, their small pretensions +and their petty attempts at fine life, were all palpable to my eyes, but +their humble fortunes and narrow means to support such assumption were +equally so; and there is nothing which a vulgar mind--I _was_ vulgar at +that period--so unhesitatingly seizes on for sarcasm as the endeavor of +a poor man to "do the fine gentleman." + +If no man is a hero to his valet, he who has no valet is never a hero at +all,--is nobody. I conceived, then, the most insulting contempt for the +company, on whom I practised a hundred petty devices of annoyance. I +would drop gravy on a fine satin dress, in which the wearer only made +her appearance at festivals, or stain with sauce the "russia ducks" +destined to figure through half a week. Sometimes, by an adroit +change of decanters during dinner, I would produce a scene of almost +irremediable confusion, when the owner of sherry would find himself +taking toast-and-water, he of the last beverage having improved the time +and finished the racier liquid. Such reciprocities, although strictly in +accordance with "free-trade," invariably led to very warm discussions, +that lasted through the remainder of the evening. + +Then I removed plates ere the eater was satisfied, and that with an air +of such imposing resolve as to silence remonstrance. When a stingy +guest passed up his decanter to a friend, in a moment of enthusiastic +munificence, I never suffered it to return till it was emptied; while to +the elderly ladies I measured out the wine like laudanum. Every now and +then, too, I would forget to hand the dish to some one or other of the +company, and affect only to discover my error as the last spoonful was +disappearing. + +Nor did my liberties end here. I was constantly introducing innovations +in the order of dinner, that produced most ludicrous scenes of +discomfiture,--now insisting on the use of a fork, now of a spoon, under +circumstances where no adroitness could compensate for the implement; +and one day I actually went so far as to introduce soap with the +finger-glasses, averring that "it was always done at Devonshire House on +grand occasions." I thought I should have betrayed myself as I saw the +efforts of the party to perform their parts with suitable dignity; all I +could do was to restrain a burst of open laughter. + +So long as I prosecuted my reforms on the actual staff of the +establishment, all went well. Now and then, it is true, I used to +overhear in French, of which they believed me to be ignorant, rather +sharp comments on the "free-and-easy tone of my manners; how careless I +had become," and so on,--complaints, however, sure to be be met by some +assurance that "my manners were quite London;" that what I did was the +type of fashionable servitude,--apologies made less to screen me than to +exalt those who invented them, as thoroughly conversant with high life +in England. + +At last, partly from being careless of consequences, for I was getting +very weary of this kind of life,--the great amusement of which used to +be repeating my performances for the ear of Captain Pike, and he was +now removed with his regiment to Kingstown,--and partly wishing for some +incidents, of what kind I cared not, that might break the monotony of my +existence, I contrived one day to stretch my prerogative too far, or, +in the phrase of the Gulf, I "harpooned a bottle-nose,"--the periphrasis +for making a gross mistake. + +I had been some years at Mrs. Davis's,--in fact, I felt and thought +myself a man,--when the last ball of the season was announced,--an +entertainment at which usually a more crowded assemblage used to +congregate than at any of the previous ones. + +It was the choice occasion for the _habitués_ of the house to invite +their grand friends; for Mrs. D. was accustomed to put forth all her +strength, and the arrangements were made on a scale of magnificence that +invariably occasioned a petty famine for the fortnight beforehand. Soup +never appeared, that there might be "bouillon" for the dancers; every +one was on a short allowance of milk, eggs, and sugar; meat became +almost a tradition; even candles waned and went out, in waiting for +the auspicious night when they should blaze like noonday. Nor did +the company fail to participate in these preparatory schoolings. What +frightful heads in curl-papers would appear at breakfast and dinner! +What buttoned-up coats and black cravats refuse all investigation on the +score of linen! What mysterious cookings of cosmetics at midnight, with +petty thefts of lard and thick cream! What washings of kid gloves, that +when washed would never go on again! What inventions of French-polish +that refused all persuasions to dry, but continued to stick to and paint +everything it came in contact with! Then there were high dresses cut +down, like frigates razeed; frock-coats reduced to dress ones; mock +lace and false jewelry were at a premium; and all the little patchwork +devices of ribbons, bows, and carnations, gimp, gauze, and geraniums, +were put into requisition,--petty acts of deception that each saw +through in her neighbor, but firmly believed were undetectable in +herself. + +Then what caballings about the invited; what scrutiny into rank and +station,--"what set they were in," and whom did they visit; with little +Star-chamber inquisitions as to character, all breaches of which, it is +but fair to state, were most charitably deemed remediable if the party +had any pretension to social position; for not only the saint in crape +was twice a saint in lawn, but the satin sinner was pardonable where the +"washing silk" would have been found guilty without a "recommendation." + +Then there was eternal tuning of the pianoforte, which most perversely +insisted on not suiting voices that might have sung duets with a +peacock. Quadrilles were practised in empty rooms; and Miss Timmock was +actually seen trying to teach Blotter to waltz,--a proceeding, I rejoice +to say, that the moral feeling of the household at once suppressed. And +then, what a scene of decoration went forward in all the apartments! As +in certain benevolent families, whatever is uneatable is always given to +the poor, so here, all the artificial flowers unavailable for the toilet +were generously bestowed to festoon along the walls, to conceal tin +sconces, and to wreathe round rickety chandeliers. Contrivance--that +most belauded phenomenon in Nature's craft--was everywhere. If necessity +be the mother of invention, poor gentility is the "stepmother." Never +were made greater efforts, or greater sacrifices incurred, to make +Mrs. D. appear like a "West-end" leader of fashion, and to make the +establishment itself seem a Holderness House. + +As for me, I was the type of a stage servant,--one of those creatures +who hand round coffee in the "School for Scandal." My silk stockings +were embroidered with silver, and my showy coat displayed a bouquet that +might have filled a vase. + +In addition to these personal graces, I had long been head of my +department; all the other officials, from the negro knife-cleaner +upwards, besides all those begged, borrowed, and, I believe I might add, +stolen domestics of other families, being placed under my orders. + +Among the many functions committed to me, the drilling of these gentry +stood first in difficulty, not only because they were rebellious under +control, but because I had actually to invent "the discipline during +parade." One golden rule, however, I had adopted, and never suffered +myself to deviate from, viz., to do nothing as it had been done +before,--a maxim which relieved me from all the consequences of +inexperience. Traditions are fatal things for a radical reformer; and +I remembered having heard it remarked how Napoleon himself first +sacrificed his dignity by attempting an imitation of the monarchy. By +this one precept I ruled and squared all my conduct. + +The most refractory of my subordinates was a jackanapes about my own +age, who, having once waited on the "young gentlemen" in the cock-pit of +a man-of-war, fancied he had acquired very extended views of life. Among +other traits of his fashionable experience, he remembered that at +a _déjeuner_ given by the officers at Cadiz once, the company, who +breakfasted in the gun-room, had all left their hats and cloaks in the +midshipman's berth, receiving each a small piece of card with a number +on it, and a similar one being attached to the property,--a process +so universal now in our theatres and assemblies that I ask pardon for +particularly describing it; but it was a novelty at the time I speak of, +and had all the merits of a new discovery. + +Smush--this was my deputy's name--had been so struck with the admirable +success of the arrangement that he had actually preserved the pieces of +card, and now produced them, black and ragged, from the recesses of his +trunk. + +"Mr. Cregan"--such was the respectful title by which I was now always +addressed--"Mr. Cregan can tell us," said he, "if this is not the custom +at great balls in London." + +"It used to be so, formerly," said I, with an air of most consummate +coolness, as I sat in an arm-chair, regaling myself with a cigar; "the +practice you allude to, Smush, did prevail, I admit. But our +fashionable laws change; one day it is all ultra-refinement and Sybarite +luxury,--the next, they affect a degree of mock simplicity in their +manners: anything for novelty! Now, for instance, eating fish with the +fingers--" + +"Do they, indeed, go so far?" + +"Do they! ay, and fifty things worse. At a race-dinner the same silver +cup goes round the table, drunk out of by every one. I have seen strange +things in my time." + +"That you must, Mr. Cregan." + +"Latterly," said I, warming with my subject, and seeing my auditory +ready to believe anything, "they began the same system with the soup, +and always passed the tureen round, each tasting it as it went. This was +an innovation of the Duke of Struttenham's; but I don't fancy it will +last." + +"And how do they manage about the hats, Mr. Cregan?" + +"The last thing, in that way, was what I saw at Lord Mudbrooke's, at +Richmond, where, not to hamper the guests with these foolish bits of +card, which they were always losing, the servant in waiting chalked a +number on the hat or coat, or whatever it might be, and then marked the +same on the gentleman's back!" + +Had it not been for the imposing gravity of my manner, the absurdity of +this suggestion had been at once apparent; but I spoke like an oracle, +and I impressed my words with the simple gravity of a commonplace truth. + +"If you wish to do the very newest thing, Smush, that's the +latest,--quite a fresh touch; and, I 'll venture to say, perfectly +unknown here. It saves a world of trouble to all parties; and as you +brush it off before they leave, it is always another claim for the +parting douceur!" + +"I'll do it," said Smush, eagerly; "they cannot be angry--" + +"Angry! angry at what is done with the very first people in London!" +said I, affecting horror at the bare thought. The train was now laid; I +had only to wait for its explosion. + +At first, I did this with eager impatience for the result; then, as the +time drew near, with somewhat of anxiety; and, at last, with downright +fear of the consequences. Yet to revoke the order, to confess that I was +only hoaxing on so solemn a subject, would have been the downfall of my +ascendency forever. What was to be done? + +I could imagine but one escape from the difficulty, which was to provide +myself with a clothes-brush, and, as my station was at the drawing-room +door, to erase the numerals before their wearers entered. In this way I +should escape the forfeiture of my credit, and the risk of maintaining +it. + +I would willingly recall some of the strange incidents of that great +occasion, but my mind can only dwell upon one, as, brush in hand, +I asked permission to remove some accidental dust,--a leave most +graciously accorded, and ascribed to my town-bred habits of attention. +At last--it was nigh midnight, and for above an hour the company had +received no accession to its ranks; quadrilles had succeeded quadrilles, +and the business of the scene went swimmingly on,--all the time-honored +events of similar assemblages happening with that rigid regularity +which, if evening-parties were managed by steam, and regulated by a +fly-wheel, could not proceed with more ordinary routine. "Heads of +houses" with bald scalps led out simpering young boarding-school misses, +and danced with a noble show of agility, to refute any latent suspicion +of coming age. There were the usual number of very old people, who vowed +the dancing was only a shuffling walk, not the merry movement they +had practised half a century ago; and there were lack-a-daisical young +gentlemen, with waistcoats variegated as a hearth-rug, and magnificent +breast-pins like miniature pokers, who lounged and lolled about, +as though youth were the most embarrassing and wearying infliction +mortality was heir to. + +There were, besides, all the varieties of the class young lady, as seen +in every land where muslin is sold, and white shoes are manufactured. +There was the slight young lady, who floated about with her gauzy dress +daintily pinched in two; then there was the short and dumpling young +lady, who danced with a duck in her gait; and there were a large +proportion of the flouncing, flaunting kind, who took the figures of +the quadrille by storm, and went at the "right and left" as if they were +escaping from a fire; and there was Mrs. Davis herself, in a spangled +toque and red shoes, pottering about from place to place, with a +terrible eagerness to be agreeable and fashionable at the same time. + +It was, I have said, nigh midnight as I stood at the half-open door, +watching the animated and amusing scene within, when Mrs. Davis, +catching sight of me, and doubtless for the purpose of displaying my +specious livery, ordered me to open a window, or close a shutter, or +something of like importance. I had scarcely performed the service, when +a kind of half titter through the room made me look round, and, to my +unspeakable horror, I beheld, in the centre of the room, Town-Major +McCan, the most passionate little man in Quebec, making his obeisances +to Mrs. Davis, while a circle around were, with handkerchiefs to their +mouths, stifling, as they best could, a burst of laughter; since exactly +between his shoulders, in marks of about four inches long, stood the +numerals "158," a great flourish underneath proclaiming that the roll +had probably concluded, and that this was the "last man." + + + +Of the major, tradition had already consecrated one exploit; he had once +kicked an impertinent tradesman down the great flight of iron stairs +which leads from the Upper Town to Diamond Harbor,--a feat, to +appreciate which, it is necessary to bear in mind that the stair +in question is almost perpendicular, and contains six hundred and +forty-eight steps! My very back ached by anticipation as I thought of +it; and as I retreated towards the door, it was in a kind of shuffle, +feeling like one who had been well thrashed. + +"A large party, Mrs. D.; a very brilliant and crowded assembly," said +the major, pulling out his bushy whiskers, and looking importantly +around. "Now what number have you here?" + +"I cannot even guess, Major; but we have had very few apologies. +Could you approximate to our numbers this evening, Mr. Cox?" said she, +addressing a spiteful-looking old man who sat eying the company through +an opera-glass. + +"I have counted one hundred and thirty-four, madam; but the major makes +them more numerous still!" + +"How do you mean, Cox?" said he, getting fiery red. + +"If you'll look in that glass yonder, which is opposite the mirror, you +'ll soon see!" wheezed out the old man, maliciously. I did not wait for +more; with one spring I descended the first flight; another brought me +to the hall; but not before a terrible shout of laughter apprised me +that all was discovered. I had just time to open the clock-case and step +into it, as Major McCan came thundering downstairs, with his coat on his +arm. + +A shrill yell from Sambo now told me that one culprit at least was "up" +for punishment. "Tell the truth, you d--d piece of carved ebony! who did +this?" + +"Not me, Massa! not me, Massa! Smush did him!" + +Smush was at this instant emerging from the back parlor with a tray of +colored fluids for the dancers. With one vigorous kick the major sent +the whole flying; and ere the terrified servitor knew what the assault +portended, a strong grasp caught him by the throat, and ran him up bang! +against the clock-case. Oh, what a terrible moment was that for me! I +heard the very gurgling rattle in his throat, like choking, and felt as +if when he ceased to breathe that I should expire with him. + +"You confess it! you own it, then, you infernal rascal!" said the major, +almost hoarse with rage. + +"Oh, forgive me, sir! oh, forgive me! It was Mr Cregan, sir, the butler, +who told me! Oh dear, I'm--" What, he couldn't finish; for the major, +in relinquishing his grasp, flung him backwards, and he fell against the +stairs. + +"So it was Mr.--Cregan,--the--butler,--was it?" said the major, with an +emphasis on each word as though he had bitten the syllables. "Well! as +sure as my name is Tony McCan, Mr. Cregan shall pay for this! Turn about +is fair play; you have marked _me_, and may I be drummer to the Cape +Fencibles if I don't mark _you!_" and with this denunciation, uttered +in a tone, every accent of which vouched for truth, he took a hat--the +first next to him--and issued from the house. + +Shivering with terror,--and not without cause,--I waited till Smush had, +with Sambo's aid, carried downstairs the broken fragments; and then, +the coast being clear, I stepped from my hiding-place, and opening the +hall-door, fled,--ay, ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I crossed +the grass terrace in front of the barrack, not heeding the hoarse "Who +goes there?" of the sentry; and then, dashing along the battery-wall, +hastened down the stairs that lead in successive flights to the filthy +"Lower Town," in whose dingy recesses I well knew that crime or shame +could soon find a sanctuary. + + + +CHAPTER XV. AN EMIGRANTS FIRST STEP ON SHORE + +If I say that the Lower Town of Quebec is the St. Giles's of the +metropolis, I convey but a very faint notion indeed of that terrible +locality. I have seen life in some of its least attractive situations. I +am not ignorant of the Liberties of Dublin and the Claddagh of Galway; +I have passed more time than I care to mention in the Isle St. Louis +of Paris; while the Leopoldstadt of Vienna and the Ghetto of Rome are +tolerably familiar to me; but still, for wickedness in its most unwashed +state, I give palm to the Lower Town of Quebec. + +The population, originally French, became gradually intermixed with +emigrants, most of whom came from Ireland, and who, having expended the +little means they could scrape together for the voyage, firmly believing +that, once landed in America, gold was a "chimera" not worth troubling +one's head about, they were unable to go farther, and either became +laborers in the city, or, as the market grew speedily overstocked, sunk +down into a state of pauperism, the very counterpart of that they +had left on the other side of the ocean. Their turbulence, their +drunkenness, the reckless violence of all their habits, at first shocked +and then terrified the poor timid Canadians,--of all people the most +submissive and yielding,--so that very soon, feeling how impossible +it was to maintain co-partnery with such associates, they left the +neighborhood, and abandoned the field to the new race. Intermarriages +had, however, taken place to a great extent; from which, and the daily +intercourse with the natives, a species of language came to be spoken +which was currently called French, but which might, certainly with equal +propriety, be called Cherokee. Of course this new tongue modified itself +with the exigencies of those who spoke it; and as the French ingredient +declined, the Milesian preponderated, till at length it became far more +Irish than French. + +Nothing assists barbarism like a dialect adapted to its own wants. +Slang is infinitely more conducive to the propagation of vice than is +generally believed; it is the "paper currency" of iniquity, and each +man issues as much as he likes. If I wanted an evidence of this fact, +I should "call up" the place I am speaking of, where the very jargon +at once defied civilization and ignored the "schoolmaster." The +authorities, either regarding the task as too hopeless, or too +dangerous, or too troublesome, seemed to slur over the existence of +this infamous locality. It is not impossible that they saw with +some satisfaction that wickedness had selected its only peculiar and +appropriate territory, and that they had left this den of vice, as +Yankee farmers are accustomed to leave a spot of tall grass to attract +the snakes, by way of preventing them scattering and spreading over a +larger surface. + +As each emigrant ship arrived, hosts of these idlers of the Lower Town +beset the newly landed strangers, and by their voice and accent imposed +upon the poor wanderers. The very tones of the old country were a magic +the new-comers could not withstand, after weeks of voyaging that seemed +like years of travel. Whatever reminded them of the country they had +quitted, ay,--strange inconsistency of the human heart!--of the land +they had left for very hopelessness, touched their hearts, and moved +them to the very tenderest emotions. To trade on this susceptibility +became a recognized livelihood; so that the quays were crowded with +idle vagabonds who sought out the prey with as much skill as a West-end +waiter displays in detecting the rank of a new arrival. + +This filthy locality, too, contained all the lodging-houses resorted to +by the emigrants, who were easily persuaded to follow their "countryman" +wherever he might lead. Here were spent the days--sometimes, unhappily, +the weeks--before they could fix upon the part of the country to which +they should bend their steps; and here, but too often, were wasted +in excess and debauchery the little hoards that had cost years to +accumulate, till farther progress became impossible; and the stranger +who landed but a few weeks back full of strong hope, sunk down into the +degraded condition of those who had been his ruin,--the old story, the +dupe become blackleg. + +It were well if deceit and falsehood, if heartless treachery and +calculating baseness, were all that went forward here. But not so; +crimes of every character were rife also, and not an inhabitant of the +city, with money or character, would have, for any consideration, put +foot within this district after nightfall. The very cries that broke +upon the stillness of the night were often heard in the Upper Town; +and whenever a shriek of agony arose, or the heartrending cry for help, +prudent citizens would close the window, and say, "It is some of the +Irish in the Lower Town,"--a comprehensive statement that needed no +commentary. + +Towards this pleasant locality I now hastened, with a kind of +instinctive sense that I had some claims on the sanctuary. It +chanced that an emigrant ship which had arrived that evening was just +disembarking its passengers; mingling with the throng of which, I +entered the filthy and narrow lanes of this Alsatia. The new arrivals +were all Irish, and, as usual, were heralded by parties of the resident +population, eagerly canvassing them for this or that lodging-house. Had +not my own troubles been enough for me, I should have felt interested +in the strange contrast between the simple peasant first stepping on a +foreign shore, and the shrewd roguery of him who proposed guidance, and +who doubtless had himself once been as unsuspecting and artless as those +he now cajoled and endeavored to dupe. + +I soon saw that single individuals were accounted of little consequence; +the claim of the various lodging-houses was as family hotels, perhaps; +so that I mixed myself up with a group of some eight or ten, whose +voices sounded pleasant, for, in the dark, I had no other indication to +suggest a preference. + +I was not long in establishing a footing, so far as talking went, with +one of this party,--an old, very old man, whose greatest anxiety was +to know, first, if "there was any Ingins where we were going," and, +secondly, if I had ever heard of his grandson, Dan Cullinane. The first +doubt I solved for him frankly and freely, that an Indian would n't +dare to show his nose where we were walking; and as to the second, I +hesitated, promising to refer to "my tablets" when I came to the light, +for I thought the name was familiar to me. + +"He was a shoemaker by trade," said the old man, "and a better never +left Ireland; he was 'prentice to ould Finucane in Ennis, and might have +done well, if he had n't the turn for Americay." + +"But he'll do better here, rely upon it," said I, inviting some further +disclosures; "I'm certain he's not disappointed with having come out." + +"No, indeed; glory be to God! he's doing finely; and 't was that +persuaded my son Joe to sell the little place and come here; and a +wonderful long way it is!" + +After expending a few generalities on sea voyages in general, with a +cursory glance at naval architecture, from Noah's "square" stern, down +to the modern "round" innovation, we again returned to Dan, for whom I +already conceived a strong interest. + +"And is it far to New Orleans from this?" said the old man, who, I +perceived, was struck by the air of sagacity in my discourse. + +"New Orleans! why that's in the States, a thousand miles away!" + +"Oh, murther, murther!" cried the old fellow, wringing his hands; "and +ain't we in the States?" + +"No," said I; "this is Canada." + +"Joe, Joe!" cried he, pulling his son by the collar, "listen to this, +acushla. Oh, murther, murther! we're kilt and destroyed intirely!" + +"What is it, father?" said a tall, powerfully built man, who spoke in a +low but resolute voice; "what ails you?" + +"Tell him, darlint, tell him!" said the old man, not able to utter his +griefs. + +"It seems," said I, "that you believed yourselves in the States; now, +this is not so. This is British America,--Lower Canada." + +"Isn't it 'Quaybec'?" said he, standing full in front of me. + +"It is Quebec--, but still, that is Canada." + +"And it's ten thousand miles from Dan!" said the old fellow, whose cries +were almost suffocating him. + +"Whisht, father, and let me talk," said the son; "do you know New +Orleans?" + +"Perfectly.--every street of it," said I, with an effrontery the +darkness aided considerably. + +"And how far is't from here?" + +"Something like thirteen or fourteen hundred miles, at a rough guess." + +"Oh, th' eternal villain! if I had him by the neck!" cried Joe, as he +struck the ground a blow with his blackthorn which certainly would not +have improved the human face divine; "he towld me they were a few miles +asunder,--an easy day's walk!" + +"Who said so?" asked I. + +"The chap on Eden Quay, in Dublin, where we took our passage." + +"Don't be down-hearted, anyway," said I; "distance is nothing here: we +think no more of a hundred miles than you do in Ireland of a walk before +breakfast. If it's any comfort to you, I'm going the same way myself." +This very consolatory assurance, which I learned then for the first time +also, did not appear to give the full confidence I expected, for Joe +made no answer, but, with head dropped and clasped hands, continued +to mutter some words in Irish that, so far as sound went, had not the +"clink" of blessings. + +"He knows Dan," said the old man to his son, in a whisper which, low as +it was, my quick ears detected. + +"What does he know about him?" exclaimed the son, savagely; for the +memory of one deception was too strong upon him to make him lightly +credulous. + +"I knew a very smart young man,--a very promising young fellow +indeed,--at New Orleans," said I, "of the name you speak of,--Dan +Cullinane." + +"What part of Ireland did he come from?" asked Joe. + +"The man I mean was from Clare, somewhere in the neighborhood of Ennis." + +"That's it!" said the old man. + +"Whisht!" said the son, whose caution was not so easily satisfied; and, +turning to me, added, "What was he by trade?" + +"He was a shoemaker, and an excellent one,--indeed, I've no hesitation +in saying, one of the best in New Orleans." + +"What was the street he lived in?" + +Here was a puzzler; for, as my reader knows, I was at the end of my +information, and had not the slightest knowledge of New Orleans or its +localities. The little scrap of newspaper I had picked up on Anticosti +was the only thing having any reference to that city I ever possessed in +my life. But, true to my theory to let nothing go to loss, I remembered +this now, and, with an easy confidence, said, "I cannot recall +the street, but it is just as you turn out of the street where the +'Picayune' newspaper-office stands." + +"Right!--all right, by the father of Moses!" cried Joe, stretching out +a brawny hand, and shaking mine with the cordiality of friendship. Then, +stepping forward to where the rest of the party were walking, with two +most loquacious guides, he said, "Molly! here's a boy knows Dan! Biddy! +come here, and hear about Dan!" + +Two young girls, in long cloth cloaks, turned hastily round, and drew +near, as they exclaimed in a breath, "Oh, tell us about Dan, sir!" + +"T is betther wait till we 're in a house," said the old man, who was, +however greedy for news, not a little desirous of a fire and something +to eat. "Sure, you 'll come with us, and take yer share of what 's +going," said he to me,--an invitation which, ere I could reply to, was +reiterated by the whole party. + +"Do you know where we're going here?" asked Joe of me, as we continued +our way through mazes of gloomy lanes that grew gradually less and less +frequented. + +"No," said I, in a whisper, "but 'tis best be on our guard here: we are +in a bad neighborhood." + +"Well, there's three boys there," said he, pointing to his sons, who +walked in front, "that will pay for all they get. Will you ax the +fellows how far we 're to go yet, for they don't mind me." + +"Are we near this same lodging-house?" said I, bluntly, to the guides, +and using French, to show that I was no unfledged arrival from beyond +the seas. + +"Ah!" cried one, "a gaillard from the battery." + +"Where from, à la gueule de loup, young mounsieur?" said the other, +familiarly catching me by the lapel of my coat. + +"Because I am not afraid of his teeth," said I, with an easy effrontery +my heart gave a flat lie to. + +"Vrai?" said he, with a laugh of horrible meaning. + +"Vrai!" repeated I, with a sinking courage, but a very bold voice. + +"I wish we were in better company," whispered I to Joe; "what directions +did you give these fellows?" + +"To show us the best lodging-house for the night, and that we 'd pay +well for it." + +"Ah!" thought I, "that explains something." + +"Here we are, mounseers," said one, as, stopping at the door of a +two-storied house, he knocked with his knuckles on the panel. + +"Nous filions, slick, en suite, here," said the other, holding out his +hand. + +"They are going!" whispered I; "they want to be paid, and we are well +rid of them." + +"It would be manners to wait and see if they 'll let us in," said Joe, +who did not fancy this summary departure, while he fumbled in his pocket +for a suitable coin. + +"Vite!--quick!--sharp time!" cried one of the fellows, who, as the sound +of voices was heard from within, seemed impatient to be off; and so, +snatching rather than taking the shilling which still lingered in Joe's +reluctant fingers, he wheeled about and fled, followed rapidly by the +other. + +"Qui va!" cried a sharp voice from within, as I knocked for the second +time on the door-panel with a stone. + +"Friends," said I; "we want a lodging and something to eat." + +The door was at once opened, and, by the light of a lantern, we saw the +figure of an old woman, whose eyes, bleared and bloodshot, glared at us +fixedly. + +"'Tis a lodgen' yez want?" said she, in an accent that showed her to be +Irish. "And who brought yez here?" + +"Two young fellows we met on the quay," said Joe; "one called the other +'Tony.'" + +"Ay, indeed!" muttered the hag; "I was sure of it: his own son! his own +son!" + +These words she repeated in a tone of profound sorrow, and for a time +seemed quite unmindful of our presence. + +"Are we to get in at all?" said the old man, in an accent of impatience. + +"What a hurry yer in; and maybe 'tis wishing yerself out again ye 'd be, +after ye wor in!" + +"I think we'd better try somewhere else," whispered Joe to me; "I don't +like the look of this place." Before I could reply to this, a loud yell +burst forth from the end of the street, accompanied by the tramp of many +people, who seemed to move in a kind of regulated step. + +"Here they are! Here they come!" cried the old woman; "step in quick, +or ye 'll be too late!" and she dragged the young girls forward by the +cloak into the hall; we followed without further question. Then, placing +the lantern on the floor, she drew a heavy chain across the door, and +dropped her cloak over the light, saying in a low, tremulous voice, +"Them's the 'Tapageers!'" + +The crowd now came closer, and we perceived that they were singing in +chorus a song, of which the air, at least, was Irish. + +The barbarous rhyme of one rude verse, as they sung it in passing, still +lingers in my memory: + + + "No bloody agint here we see, + Ready to rack, distrain, and saze us; + Whatever we ax, we have it free, + And take at hand, whatever plaze us. + Row, row, row, Will yez show me, now, + The polis that 'll dare to face us!" + +"There they go! 'tis well ye wor safe!" said the old hag, as the sounds +died away, and all became silent in the street without. + +"Who or what are they?" said I, my curiosity being stimulated by fear. + +"Them 's the 'Tapageers '! The chaps that never spared man or woman +in their rounds. 'T is bad enough, the place is; but they make it far +worse!" + +"Can we stop here for the night?" said Joe, growing impatient at the +colloquy. + +"And what for wud ye stop here?" asked the crone, as she held up the +lantern the better to see him who made the demand. + +"We want our supper, and a place to sleep," said the old man; "and we +'re able and willin' to pay for both." + +"'T is a nice place ye kem for either!" said she; and she leaned back +against the wall and laughed with a fiend-like malice that made my blood +chill. + +"Then I suppose we must go somewhere else," said Joe. "Come, boys; 't is +no use losing our time here!" + +"God speed you!" said she, preparing to undo the chain that fastened the +door. "Ye have bould hearts, any way! There they go! d' ye hear them?" +This was said in a half-whisper, as the wild yells of the "Tapageers" +arose without; and soon after, the noise and tumult of a scuffle,--at +least we could hear the crashing of sticks, and the shouting of a fray; +from which, too, piercing cries for help burst forth. + +"What are ye doin'? Are ye mad? Are ye out of your sinses?" cried the +hag, as Joe endeavored to wrest open the chain, the secret of which he +did not understand. + +"They're murdering some one without there!" said he. "Let me free, or +I'll kick down your old door this minute!" + +"Kick away, honey!" said the hag; "as strong men as yourself tried that +a'ready; and--d'ye hear?--it's done now; it 's _over!_" These terrible +words were in allusion to a low kind of sobbing sound, which grew +fainter and fainter, and then ceased altogether. + +"They 're taking the body away," whispered she, after a pause of +death-like stillness. + +"Where to?" said I, half breathless with terror. + +"To the river! the stream runs fast, and the corpse will be down below +Goose Island,--ay, in the Gulf, 'fore morning!" + +The two young girls, unable longer to control their feelings, here burst +out a crying; and the old man, pulling out a rosary, turned to the wall +and began his prayers. + +"'Tis a bloody place; glory be to God!" said Joe, at last, with a sigh, +and clasped his hands before him, like one unable to decide on what +course to follow. + +I saw, now, that all were so paralyzed by fear that it devolved upon me +to act for the rest; so, summoning my best courage, I said, "Will you +allow us to stay here for the night, since we are strangers, and do not +know where to seek shelter?" She shook her head, not so much with the +air of refusing my request as to convey that I had asked for something +scarce worth the granting. + +"We only want a shelter for the night--" + +"And a bit to eat," broke in the old man, turning round from his +prayers. "Sanctificatur in sec'la,--if it was only a bit of belly bacon, +and--Tower of Ivory, purtect us--with a pot of praties, and--Matthew, +Mark, Luke, and John--" + +"Is he a friar?" said the hag to me, eagerly; "does he belong to an +'ordher'?" + +"No," said I;" he's only a good Catholic." + +She wrung her hands, as if in disappointment; and then, taking up the +lantern once more, said, "Come along! I 'll show yez where ye can stay." + +We followed, I leading the others, up a narrow and rickety stair, +between two walls streaming with damp and patched with mould. When she +reached the landing she searched for a moment for a key, which having +found, she opened the door of a long low room, whose only furniture +was a deal table and a few chairs; a candle stuck in a bottle, and some +drinking-vessels of tin, were on the table, and a piece of newspaper +containing some tobacco. + +"There," said she, lighting the candle, "you may stay here; 't is all I +'m able to do for yez, is to give ye shelter." + +"And nothing to eat?" ejaculated the old man, sorrowfully. + +"Hav' n't you a few potatoes?" said Joe. + +"I did n't taste food since yesterday morning," said the hag; "and +that's what's to keep life in me to-morrow!" and as she spoke, she held +out a fragment of blackened sea-biscuit such as Russian sailors call +"rusk." + +"Well, by coorse, there's no use in talking," said Joe, who always +seemed the first to see his way clearly. "Tis worse for the girls, for +_we_ can take a draw of the pipe. Lucky for us we have it!" + +Meanwhile, the two girls had taken off their cloaks, and were busy +gathering some loose sticks together, to make a fire,--a piece of +practical wisdom I at once lent all aid to. + +The hag, apparently moved by the ready compliance to make the best +of matters, went out, and returned with some more wood,--fragments of +ship-timber,--which she offered us, saying, "'T is all I can give yez. +Good night to yez all!" + +"Well, father," said Joe, as soon as he had lighted his pipe, and taken +a seat by the fire, "ye wor tired enough of the ship, but I think ye +wish yerself back again there, now." + +"I wish more nor that," said the old man, querulously; "I wish I never +seen the same ship; nor ever left ould Ireland!" + +This sentiment threw a gloom over the whole party, by awakening, not +only memories of home and that far-away land, but also by the confession +of a sense of disappointment which each was only able to struggle +against while unavowed. The sorrow made them silent, and at last sleepy. +At first, the three "boys," great fellows of six feet high, stretched +themselves full-length on the floor, and snored away in concert; then +the two girls, one with her head on the other's lap, fell off; while +the old man, sitting directly in front of the fire, nodded backwards +and forwards, waking up, every half hour or so, to light his pipe; which +done, he immediately fell off into a doze once more, leaving Joe and +myself alone, waking and watchful. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT IN THE LOWER TOWN + +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. + + + +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. + +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." + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. THE ORDINARY OF ALL NATIONS + +Making my way with difficulty through the crowd which filled the hall +of the house, and which consisted of purchasers, newsvenders, reporters, +printers' devils, and others interested in the "Picayune," all eagerly +discussing the news of the day, I reached a small back office, where, +having knocked timidly twice, I was desired to enter. + +A man seated at a coarse deal table was cutting out paragraphs from +various newspapers, which, as he threw them at either side of him, were +eagerly caught up by two or three ragged urchins who were in waiting +behind him. He looked up at me as I entered, and roughly asked what I +wanted. + +"I have seen an advertisement in your paper, headed, 'Expedition to +Texas '------" + +"Upstairs,--No. 3,--two-pair back," said he, and went on with his labor. + +I hesitated, hoping he might add something; but seeing that he had said +all he intended or was likely to say, I slowly withdrew. + +"Upstairs, then,--No. 3,--two-pair back," said I to myself, and mounted, +with the very vaguest notions of what business I had when I got there. +There was no difficulty in finding the place; many others were hastening +towards it at the same time; and, in company with some half-dozen very +ill-favored and meanly clad fellows, I entered a large room, where about +forty men were assembled, who stood in knots or groups, talking in low +and confidential tones together. + +"Is there a committee to-day?" asked one of those who came in with me. + +"Business is over," said another. + +"And is the lottery drawn?" + +"Ay, every ticket, except one or two." + +"Who's won Butcher's mare?" + +"Tell us that if you can," said a huge fellow, with a red worsted +comforter round his throat; "that's exactly what we want to know." + +"Well, I'm whipped if it ain't among those numbers," said a pale man +with one eye, "and I 'll give fifty dollars for one of 'em." + +"You would, would you?" said another, jeering. "Lord, how soft you 've +grown! Why, she's worth five hundred dollars, that 'ere beast!" + +"Butcher gave a mustang and two hundred and seventy for her," cried +another. + +"Well, she broke his neck, for all that," growled out he of the red +neckcloth; "you'll see that some chap will win her that don't want a +beast, and she 'll be sold for a trifle." + +"And there's a free passage to Galveston, grub and liquor, in the same +ticket," said another,--"an almighty sight of luck for one man!" + +"It ain't me, anyhow," said red cravat; and then, with a tremendous +oath, added: "I've been a putter in at these Texas lotteries for four +years, and never won anything but a blessed rosary." + +"What became of it, Dick?" said another, laughing. + +"The beads fitted my rifle-bore, and I fired 'em away when lead was +scarce." + +Various discussions followed about luck and lotteries, with anecdotes +of all kinds respecting fortunate winners; then came stories of Texan +expeditions in former times, which I began to perceive were little else +than speculations of a gambling kind, rarely intended to go farther than +the quay of New Orleans. + +On the present occasion, however, it would seem a real expedition had +been planned. Some had already sailed, others were to follow the very +day after the lottery, and only waited to learn who was the fortunate +winner of Butcher's mare, at that time waiting at Galveston for an +owner. + +I waited a long time, in hope of acquiring something like an insight +into the scope of the enterprise, but in vain; indeed, it was easy to +see that, of the company, not a single one, in all likelihood, intended +to join the expedition. When I left the "Picayune," therefore, I was but +little wiser than when I entered it; and yet somehow the whole scheme +had taken a fast hold on my imagination, which readily filled in the +details of what I was ignorant. The course of reading in which I had +indulged on board Sir Dudley's yacht was doubtless the reason of this. +My mind had laid up so many texts for adventurous fancies that on +the slightest pretext I could call up any quantity of enterprise and +vicissitude. + +A hundred times I asked myself if it were likely that any of these Texan +adventurers would accept, of my services to wait upon them. I was not +ignorant of horses, a tolerably fair groom, could cook a little,--that +much I had learned on board the yacht; besides, wherever my +qualifications failed, I had a ready witted ingenuity that supplied the +place almost as well as the "real article." + +"Ah!" thought I, "who knows how many are passing at this moment +whose very hearts would leap with joy to find such a fellow as I am,' +accustomed to in-door and out, wages no object, and no objection to +travel! '" Possessed with this notion, I could not help fancying that +in every look that met mine as I went, I could read something like an +inquiry, a searching glance that seemed to say, "Bless me! ain't that +Con? As I live, there's Con Cregan! What a rare piece of fortune to +chance upon him at this juncture!" + +I own it did require a vivid and warm imagination so to interpret the +expressions which met my eyes at every moment, seeing that the part of +the town into which I had wandered was that adjoining to the docks,--a +filthy, gloomy quarter, chiefly resorted to by Jew slop-sellers, +ship-chandlers, and such like, with here and there a sailors' ordinary +usually kept by a negro or half-breed. + +I had eaten nothing that day, and it was now late in the afternoon, so +that it was with a very strong interest I peeped occasionally into the +little dens, where, under a paper lantern with the inscription, "All +for Twelve Cents," sat a company, usually of sailors and watermen, whose +fare harmonized most unpleasantly with their features. + +The combat between a man's taste and his exchequer is never less +agreeable than when it concerns a dinner. To feel that you have a soul +for turtle and truffles, and yet must descend to mashed potatoes and +herrings; to know that a palate capable of appreciating a salmi des +perdreaux must be condemned to the indignity of stock fish,--what an +indignity is that! The whole man revolts at it! You feel, besides, that +such a meal is unrelieved by those suggestive excursions of fancy which +a well-served table abounds in. In the one case you eat like the beast +of the field,--it is a question of supporting nature, and no more; in +the other, there is a poetry interwoven that elevates and exalts. With +what discursive freedom does the imagination range from the little +plate of oysters that preludes your soup, to pearl fishery and the coral +reefs, "with moonlight sleeping on the breaking surf!" And then your +soup, be it turtle or mulligatawny, how associated is it with the +West Indies or the East, bearing on its aromatic vapor thousands of +speculative reflections about sugar and slavery, pepper-pots, straw +hats, pickaninnies, and the Bishop of Barbadoes; or the still grander +themes of elephants, emeralds, and the Indus, with rajahs, tigers, +punkahs, and the Punjaub! + +And so you proceed, dreamily following out in fancy the hints each +course supplies, and roving with your cutlets to the "cattle upon a +thousand hills," or dallying with the dessert to the orange-groves of +Zaute or Sicily. + +I do love all this. The bouquet of my Bordeaux brings back the Rhone, as +the dry muscat of my Johannisberg pictures the vine-clad cliffs of the +Vaterland, with a long diminuendo train of thought about Metternich +and the Holy Alliance--the unlucky treaty of '15--Vienna--Madame +Schrader--and Castelli. + +And how pleasantly and nationally does one come back with the port to +our "ancient ally, Portugal," with a mind-painted panorama of Torres +Vedras and the Douro,--with Black Horse Square and the Tagus,--"the +Duke" ever and anon flitting across the scene, and making each glass you +carry to your lips a heartfelt "long life to him!" + +Alas and alas! such prandial delights were not for me; I must dine for +twelve cents, or, by accepting the brilliant entertainment announced +yonder, price half-a-dollar, keep Lent the rest of the week. + +The temptation to which I allude ran thus:-- + + + Ladies and Gentlemen's Grand Ordinary of all Nations + + At 5 o'clock precisely. + + Thumbo-rig--Mint julep--and a Ball. The "Half-dollar." + + Monsieur Palamede de Rosanne directs the Ceremonies. + +If there was a small phrase in the aforesaid not perfectly intelligible, +it seemed, upon the principle of the well-known adage, only to heighten +the inducement. The "Thumbo-rig" above might mean either a new potation +or a new dance. Still, conceding this unknown territory, there was +quite sufficient in the remainder of the advertisement to prove a strong +temptation. The house, too, had a pretentious air about it that promised +well. There was a large bow-window, displaying a perfect landscape of +rounds and sirloins, with a tasteful drapery of sausages overhead; +while a fragrant odor of rum, onions, fresh crabs, cheese, salt cod, and +preserved ginger made the very air ambrosial. + +As I stood and sniffed, my resolution staggered under the assaults made +on eye, nose, and palate, a very smartly-dressed female figure crossed +the way, holding up her dress full an inch or so higher than even +the mud required, and with a jaunty air displayed a pair of very pink +stockings on very well-turned legs. I believe--I 'm not sure, but +I fear--the pink stockings completed what the pickled beef began. +I entered. Having paid my money at the bar, and given up my hat and +greatcoat, I was ushered by a black waiter, dressed in a striped jacket +and trousers, as if he had been ruled with red ink, into a large room, +where a very numerous company of both sexes were assembled, some seated, +some standing, but all talking away with buzz and confusion that showed +perfect intimacy to be the order of the day. The men, it was easy +to see, were chiefly in the "shipping interest." There was a strong +majority of mates and small skippers, whose varied tongues ranged from +Spanish and Portuguese to Dutch and Danish; French, English and Russian +were also heard in the _mêlée_, showing that the Grand Ordinary had a +world-made repute. The ladies were mostly young, very condescending in +their manners, somewhat overdressed, and for the most part French. + +As I knew no one, I waited patiently to be directed where I should +sit, and was at last shown to a place between a very fat lady of créole +tint--another dip would have made her black--and a little brisk man, +whom I soon heard was Monsieur Palamede himself. + +The dinner was good, the conversation easiest of the easy, taking in +all, from matters commercial to social,--the whole seasoned with the +greatest good-humor and no small share of smartness. Personal adventures +by land and sea,--many of the latter recounted by men who made no +scruple of confessing that they "dealt in ebony,"--the slave-trade. +Little incidents of life, that told much for the candor of the +recounter, were heard on all sides, until at length I really felt +ashamed of my own deficiency in not having even contributed an anecdote +for the benefit of the company. This preyed upon me the more as I saw +myself surrounded by persons who really, if their own unimpeachable +evidence was to be credited, began the world in ways and shapes the +most singular and uncommon. Not a man or woman of the party that had not +slipped into existence in some droll, quaint fashion of their own, so +that positively, and for the first time, I really grew ashamed to think +that I belonged to "decent people" who had not compromised me in the +slightest degree. "Voilà un jeune homme qui ne dit pas un mot!" said +a pretty-looking woman, with fair brown hair and a very liquid pair of +blue eyes. The speech was addressed to me, and the whole table at once +turned their glances towards me. + +"Ay, very true," said a short, stout little skipper, with an +unmistakable slash from a cutlass across his nose; "a sharp-looking +fellow like that has a story if he will only tell it." + +"And you may see," cried another, "that we are above petty prejudices +here; roguery only lies heavy on the conscience that conceals it." The +speaker was a tall, sallow man, with singularly intelligent features; +he had been a Jesuit tutor in the family of an Italian noble, and after +consigning his patron to the Inquisition, had been himself banished from +Rome. + +Pressing entreaties and rough commands, half imperious instances and +very seductive glances, all were directed towards me, with the object of +extorting some traits of my life, and more particularly of that part of +it which concerned my birth and parentage. If the example of the company +invited the most unqualified candor, I cannot say that it overcame +certain scruples I felt about revealing my humble origin. I was +precisely in that anomalous position in life when such avowals are most +painful. Without ambition, the confession had not cost me any sacrifice; +while, on the other hand, I had not attained that eminence which has a +proud boastfulness in saying, "Yes, I, such as you see me now,--great, +titled, wealthy, and powerful,--I was the son of a newsvender or a +lamplighter." Such avowals, highly lauded as they are by the world, +especially when made by archbishops or chancellors, or other great folk, +at public dinners, are, to my thinking, about as vainglorious bits of +poor human nature as the most cynical could wish to witness. They are +the mere victories of vanity over self-esteem. Now, I had no objection +that the world should think me a young gentleman of the very +easiest notions of right and wrong, with a conscience as elastic as +gutta-percha, picking my way across life's stream on the stepping-stones +made by other men's skulls,--being, as the phrase has it, a very loose +fish indeed; but I insisted on their believing that I was well-born. +Every one has his weakness,--this was Con Cregan's; and as these +isolated fissures in strong character are nearly allied with strength, +so was it with me: had I not had this frailty, I had never cherished so +intensely the passion to become a gentleman. This is all digressionary; +but I 'll not ask pardon of my dear reader for all that. If he be +reading in his snug, well-cushioned chair, with every appliance of ease +about him, he'll not throw down these "Confessions" for a bit of prosing +that invites the sleep that is already hovering round him. If he has +taken me up in the few minutes before dinner, he 'll not regret the bit +of meditation which does not involve him in a story. If he be spelling +me out in a mail-train, he'll be grateful for the "skipping" place, +which leaves him time to look out and see the ingenious preparations +that are making by the "down" or the "up" train to run into and smash +the unhappy convoy of which he forms a part. + +"Come, my young lad, out with it. Let us hear a bit about the worthy +people who took the sin of launching you into the wide ocean. You must +have had owners one time or other." This was said by a hearty looking +old man, with hair white as snow, and an enormous pair of eyebrows to +match. + +"Willingly, sir," said I, with an air of the easiest confidence; "I +should be but too proud if anything in a history humble as mine is could +amuse this honorable company. But the truth is, a life so devoid of +interest would be only a tax upon its patience to listen to; and as to +my birth, I can give little, indeed no, information. The earliest record +of my existence that I possess is from the age of two days and three +hours." + +"That will do,--do admirably!" chorused the party, who laughed heartily +at the gravity with which I spoke, and which to them seemed an earnest +of my extreme simplicity. "We shall be quite satisfied with that," cried +they again. + +"Well, then, gentlemen, thanking you for the indulgence with which you +consent to overlook my want of accuracy, I proceed. At the tender age I +have mentioned, I was won in a raffle!" + +"Won in a raffle! won in a raffle!" screamed one after the other; and +amid shouts of laughter the phrase continued to be echoed from end to +end of the table. "That beats you hollow, Giles!" "By Jove, how scarce +babies must be in the part you come from, if people take tickets for +em!" Such were some of the commentaries that broke out amidst the mirth. + + + +"I move," said a dapper little Frenchman who had been a barber and a +National Guard once, "I move that the honorable deputy make a statement +to the Chamber respecting the interesting fact to which he has alluded." + +The motion was carried by acclamation, and I was accordingly induced to +ascend the tribune,--a kind of rude pulpit that was brought specially +into the room, and stationed at the side of the president's chair; the +comments on my personal appearance, age, air, and probable rank, which +were made all the while, evidencing the most candid spirit one can well +imagine. + +"A right-down slick and shrewd 'un, darn me if he ain't!" + +"A very wide awake young gemman," quoth number two. + +"Il a de 'beaux yeux,' celui-là,"--this was a lady's remark. + +"Set that young 'un among the girls 'down east,' and he'll mow 'em down +like grass." + +"A Londoner,--swell-mobbish a bit, I take it." + +"Not at all, he a'nt; he's a bank clerk or a post-office fellow bolted +with a lot of tin." + +"Der ist ein echter Schelm," growled out an old Dantzic skipper; "I kenn +him vehr wohl,--steal your wash wid a leetle scheer,--scissars you call +him, ha! ha!" + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said I, assuming a pose of the most dignified +importance, "before entering upon the circumstance to which you have so +graciously attached a little interest, let me assure you--not that +the fact can or ought to have any weight with this distinguished +company--that I have no claim upon your sympathy with regard to any of +the pleas whispered around me. I am neither thief, pickpocket, runaway +postman, burglar, nor highwayman. If I be, as you are pleased to say, +'wide awake,' I believe it is only a common precaution, considering +the company I find myself in; and if I really could lay claim to the +flattering praise of a fair lady on the left, it would be merely from +accidentally reflecting her own bright glances. I present myself, then, +with much diffidence before you, for the simple reason that I come in a +character somewhat strange in these parts,--I am a gentleman!" + +The ineffable impertinence of this address succeeded to a miracle. Some +laughed, some applauded, a few muttered an unintelligible discontent; +but the majority of the men and all the women were with me, and I saw +that audacity had gained the day. Ay, and so will it ninety-nine times +out of the hundred in everything through life! The strategic axiom, that +no fortress is impregnable, is a valuable worldly lesson, and one ought +never to forget that a storming-party rarely fails. + +"The circumstance to which I alluded a few miuutes back--I dare not +presume to call it a story--occurred thus : + +"There was a large and brilliant party assembled to pass the Christmas +at the Duke of Y--------'s; you will understand my reserve. The company +included many of the first persons in fashionable life, and a Royal +*Duke to boot, a great friend of her Grace, and, some said, an old +admirer of one of her sisters, who--so went the rumor--showed the +strength of her attachment to his Royal Highness by never having +accepted any of the brilliant offers of marriage made her. She was +remarkably beautiful, and although a little past the first bloom of +youth, in full possession of her charms at the time I speak of. Old Lord +K-------- was one of the guests; and I am sure many of the distinguished +company to whom I now address myself will not need any more particular +description of the man they must have met a hundred times every London +season, well known, indeed, as he is, with his light-blue coat and his +buckskin tights, his wide beaver hat, and his queue; his eccentricities, +his wealth, and his great avarice are themes all London is acquainted +with." I paused. + +A buzz of acknowledgment and recognition followed, and I resumed:-- + +"Lord E--------, you are aware, was a great musical amateur ; he was +the leader of everything of that kind about town, and whenever he could +prevail upon himself to open his house in Carlton Terrace, it was always +to Lablache, and Kubini, and Marini, and the reat of them. Well, it was +just at the period of this Christmas visit--over which I may remark, en +passant, Lady Blanche's indisposition cast a shade of gloom--that, in +making some alteration in the mansion, they discovered in a concealed +press in the wall a mahogany case, on opening which were found the moth +and worm eaten remains of a violin. A parchment document enclosed in +a little scroll of brass, and which had escaped the ravages of time, +explained that this was the instrument of the celebrated Giacomo +Battesta Pizzicbetoni, the greatest violinist that ever lived,--the +composer of 'II Diavolo e la sua Moglia' and the 'Balia di Paradise,' +and many other great works, with which you are all familiar." + +The company chorused assent, and I continued: "The party had somehow +not gone off well; the accustomed spirit aud animation of the scene were +wanting. Perhaps Lady Blanche's illness had some share in this; in any +case, every one seemed low aud out of sorts, and the pleasant people +talked of taking leave, when his Royal Highness proposed, by way of +doing something, that they should have a raffle for this wonderful +fiddle, of which, though only seen by the host and another, every one +was talking. + +"Even this much of stir was hailed with enthusiasm, the secrecy and +mystery increasing the interest to a high degree. + +The tickets were two guineas each ; and Lord E--------, dying to possess +'a real Pizzichetoni,' took twenty of them. The number was limited to a +hundred; but such was the judicious management of those who directed +the proceedings that the shares were at a 'high premium' on the day of +drawing, his Royal Highness actually buying up several at five guineas +apiece. The excitement, too, was immense ; encyclopedias were ransacked +for histories of the violin, and its great professors and proficients. +The 'Conversations Lexicon' opened of itself at the letter P., and +Pizzichetoni's name turned up in every corner and on every theme, fifty +times a day. What a time I have heard that was! nothing talked of but +bow-action, shifting, bridging, double fingering, and the like, from +morning to night. Lord E-------- became, in consequence of this run +about a favorite subject, a personage of more than ordinary importance; +instead of being deemed, what he was commonly called at the clubs, the +Great 'Borassus,' he was listened to with interest and attention; +and, in fact, from the extent of his knowledge of the subject, and his +acquaintance with every detail of its history, each felt that to his +Lordship ought by right to fall the fortunate ticket. + +"So did it, in fact, turn out. After much vacillation, with the last two +numbers remained the final decision. One belonged to the Royal Duke, the +other to Lord E------. + +"'You shall have a hundred guineas for your chance, E------,' said the +Duke; 'what say you?' + +"'Your Ruyal Highness's wish is a command,' said he, bowing and +blushing; 'but were it otherwise, and to any other than your Royal +Highness, I should as certainly say nay.' + +"'Then "nay" must be the answer to me also; I cannot accept of such a +sacrifice: and, after all, you are much more worthy of such a treasure +than I am,--I really only meant it for a present to Mori.' + +"'A present, your Royal Highness!' cried he, horrified; 'I would n't +give such a jewel to anything short of St. Cecilia,--the violin, you are +aware, was her instrument.' + +"'Now, then, for our fortunes!' cried the Duke, as he drew forth his +ticket. 'I believe I 'm the lucky one: this is number 2000.' + +"'Two thousand and one!' exclaimed Lord E------, holding up his, and, in +an ecstasy of triumph, sat down to recover himself. + +"'Here is the key, my Lord,' said one of the party, advancing towards +him. + +"He sprang up, and thrust it into the lock; in his agitation he shook +the box, and a slight, soft cadence, like a faint cry, was heard. + +"'The soul of music hovers o'er it still,' he exclaimed theatrically, +and, flinging back the lid, discovered--Me! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, +in a very smart white robe, with very tasty embroidery, and a lace cap +which I am assured was pure Valenciennes, there I lay! I am not aware +whether my infantine movements were peculiarly seductive or not; but +I have been told that I went through my gamut at a key that even +overtopped the laughter around me. + +"'A very bad jest--a _mauvaise plaisanterie_ of the worst taste, I must +say,' said Lord E------turning away, and leaving the room. + + + +"I never rightly knew how the matter was afterwards made up, but +certainly it was by his lordship's directions, and at his charge, that +I was nursed, reared, and educated. My expenses at Eton and Oxford, as +well as the cost of my commission, came from him; and it was only a few +days ago, on learning his death, that I also learned the termination +of my good fortune in life. He bequeathed me what he styled my 'family +mansio,'--the fiddle-case; thus repaying by this cruel jest the +practical joke passed upon himself so many years before." + +"What name did they give you, sir?" + +"'I was called after the celebrated violinist of Cremona who lived +in the seventh century, who was named Cornelius Crejanus, or, as some +spell, Creganus; and, in compliance with modern usages, they anglicized +me into Con Cregan." + +"I have the honor to propose Con Cregan's health," said the president; +"and may he see many happy years ere he next goes to sleep in a wooden +box!" + +This very gratifying toast was drunk with the most flattering +acclamations, and I descended from the tribune the "man of the evening." + +If some of the company who put credence in my story did not hesitate to +ascribe a strong interest in me to the Royal Duke himself, others, who +put less faith in my narrative, thought less of my parentage, and more +of myself; so that what I lost on one hand, I gained on the other. + +There was a discretion, a certain shadowy prudery about certain portions +of my story, of which I have not attempted to convey any notion here, +but which I saw had "told" with the fair part of my audience, who, +possibly not over rigid in many of their opinions, were well pleased +with the delicate reserve in which I shrouded my direct allusion to my +parentage. A rough, red-whiskered skipper, indeed, seemed disposed to +pour a broadside into this mystery, by asking "If his Royal Highness +never took any notice of me?" but the refined taste of the company +concurred in the diplomatic refusal to answer a question of which the +"hon. gentleman on the straw chair" had given "no notice." + +The pleasures of the table,--a very luscious bowl of the liquid which +bore the mysterious epithet of "Thumbo-rig," and which was a concoction +of the genus punch, spiced, sugared, and iced to a degree that concealed +its awful tendency to anti-Mathewism; bright eyes that were no churls +of their glances; merry converse; and that wondrous "magnetism of the +board" which we call good fellowship,--made the time pass rapidly. +Toasts and sentiments of every fashion went round, and we were +political, literary, arbitrary, amatory, sentimental, and satiric by +turns. They were pleasant varlets! and in their very diversity of humors +there was that clash and collision of mind and metal that tell more +effectively than the best packed party of choice wits who ever sat and +watched each other. + +Then, there was a jolly jumbling up of bad English, bad Dutch, bad +French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, that would drive a sober +listener clean mad. Stories begun in one tongue merged into another; +and so into a third; while explanations, mistakes, and corrections ran +alongside of the narrative, often far more amusing than the story to +which they were attached. Personalities, too, abounded, but with a most +unqualified good temper; and, on the whole, I never beheld a merrier +set. + +M. Palamede alone did not relish the scene. He himself was nobody at +such a moment, and he longed for the ballroom and the dance; and it +was only after repeated summonses of his bell that we at last arose and +entered the saloon, where we found him standing, fiddle in hand, while, +rapping smartly a couple of times with his bow, he called out,-- + +"Places! places! Monsieur le Duc de Gubbins, to your place. Ladies, I +beg attention. Madame la Marquise, dans la bonne société on ne donne +jamais un soufflet." + +"Ah, here's old Rosin again!" cried several of the party, who, with all +this familiarity, appeared to view him with no small respect. + +"Shall I find you a partner, Monsieur de Congreganne?" said he to me. + +"Thanks," said I; "but, with your permission, I'll not dance just yet." + +"As you please, it is but a contre-danse," said he shrugging his +shoulders, while he moved away to arrange the figures. + +I had not perceived before that a kind of orchestra, consisting of two +fiddles, a flute, and a tambourine, was stationed in a long gallery +over the door by which we entered; Monsieur Palamede being, however, +director, not alone of the music, but of the entire entertainment. The +band now struck up a well-known English country-dance, and away went the +couples, flying down the room to the merry measure; Monsieur de +Rosanne arranging the figures, beating the time, preserving order, and +restraining irregularities, with the energy of one possessed. + +"Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine de Cocks, c'en est trop. Mademoiselle de +Spicer, pas si haut! de arms graceful! Ladies, no keep your hands under +* your--what ye call him--jupe--apron--ha! ha! Black man--negro--no talk +so loud when you make punch!" + +"Chassez--balancez! La grace! Madame la Marquise, la grace!" Then, as +he passed me, he muttered with a voice guttural from anger, "Quel +supplice!" + +As I continued to gaze on the scene, I could not help being struck with +the extreme diversity of look and expression; for while there were some +faces on which iniquity had laid its indelible stamp, there were others +singularly pleasing, and some actually beautiful. Among the men, the +same character prevailed throughout,--a rude, coarse good-humor,--the +sailor-type everywhere; but a few seemed persons of a higher class, +and on these a life of vice and debauchery had produced the most marked +change, and you could still see, amid the traces of nights of riot and +abandonment, the remnant of finer features, the expression they had worn +before their "fall." If I was surprised at the good looks of many of +the women, still more was I by a gracefuluess of carriage and an air +of deportment that seemed as much out of place as they were unsuited to +such companionship. One young fellow appeared to be a general favorite +with the company. He was tall, well-made, and had that indescribably +rakish character about his very gesture that is rarely a bad indication +of the possessor's mode of life. I had no difficulty in learning +his name, for every one called him by it at each instant, and "Fred +Falkoner" was heard on all sides. It was he who selected the music for +the dance; his partner, for the time being, was the belle of the room, +and he lounged about supreme. Nor was his title a bad one,--he was the +great entertainer of the whole assembly. The refreshments were almost +entirely of his ordering, and the clink of his dollars might be heard +keeping merry time with the strains of the violins. I watched him +with some interest; I thought I could see that, in descending to such +companionship, there was a secret combat between his self-respect and a +strange passion for seeing life in low places, which, when added to +the flattery such a man invariably obtains from his inferiors, is a +dangerous and subtle temptation. The more I studied him, the stronger +grew this conviction,--nay, at times, the expression of scorn upon his +handsome features was legible even to the least remarking. It was +while I still continued to watch him that he passed me, with a dark, +Spanish-looking girl upon his arm, When he turned round suddenly, and, +staring at me fixedly a few seconds, said, "We met once before, to-day." + +"I am not aware of it," said I, doubtingly. + +"Yes, yes. I never forget a face, least of all when it resembles yours. +I saw you this morning at the 'Picayune.'" + +"True, I was there." + +"What a precious set of rascals those fellows were! You supposed that +they were going to join the expedition. Not a bit of it. Some were +gamblers; the greater number thieves and pickpockets. I know them all; +and, indeed, I was going to warn you about them, for I saw you were a +stranger, but I lost sight of you in the crowd. But there's the music. +Will you have a partner?" + +"With all my heart," said I, glad to encourage our further acquaintance. + +"You speak Spanish?" + +"Not a word." + +"Well, no matter. If you did, you should have mine here. But what say +you to Mademoiselle Héloïse, yonder?--a bit faded or so; but I remember +her second 'Ballarina' at the Havana, only two years back." + +I made the suitable acknowledgment; and the next moment saw me whirling +away in a waltz, at least in such an approximation to that measure as +my Quebec experience suggested, with a very highly rouged and +black-eyebrowed "danseuse." My French was better than my dancing; and +so Mademoiselle Héloïse was satisfied to accept my arm, while we paraded +the room, discussing the company after the most approved fashion. + +The French have a proverb, "Bête comme une danseuse;" and I must say +that my fair friend did not prove an exception. Her whole idea of life +was limited to what takes place in rehearsal of a morning, or on the +night of representation. She recounted to me her history from the time +she had been a "Rat,"--such is the technical term at the Grand Opera of +Paris,--flying through the air on a wire, or sitting perilously perched +upon a pasteboard cloud. Thence she had advanced to the state of Fairy +Queen, or some winged messenger of those celestials who wear muslin +trousers with gold stars, and always stand in the "fifth position." +Passing through the grade of Swiss peasant, Turkish slave, and +Neapolitan market-girl, she had at last arrived at the legitimate drama +of "legs," yclept "ballet d'action;" and although neither her beauty +nor abilities had been sufficient to achieve celebrity in Paris, she +was accounted a Taglioni in the "provinces," and deemed worthy of +exportation to the colonies. + +"Non contingit cuique ad ire Corinthum!" we cannot all have our "loges" +at the "Grand Opéra;" and happy for us it is so, or what would become of +the pleasure we derive from third, fourth, and fifth rate performances +elsewhere? True, indeed, if truffles were a necessary of life, there +would be a vast amount of inconvenience and suffering. Now, Mademoiselle +Héloïse, whose pirouettes were no more minded in Paris, nor singled out +for peculiar favor, than one of the lamps in the row of footlights, was +a kind of small idol in the Havana. She had the good fortune to live in +an age when the heels take precedence of the head, and she shared in +the enthusiasm by which certain people in our day would bring back the +heathen mythology for the benefit of the corps de ballet. + +Alas for fame! in the very climax of her glory she grew fat! Now, flesh +to a danseuse is like cowardice to a soldier, or shame to a lawyer,--it +is the irreconcilable quality. The gauzy natures who float to soft +music must not sup. Every cutlet costs an "entrechat"! Hard and terrible +condition of existence, and proving how difficult and self-denying a +thing it is to be an angel, even in this world! + +So much for Mademoiselle Héloise; and if the reader be weary of her, so +was I. + +"You'll have to treat her to a supper," whispered Falkoner, as he passed +me. + +"I've not a cent in my purse," said I, thinking it better to tell the +truth than incur the reproach of stinginess. + +"Never mind, take mine," said he, as he dropped a very weighty purse +into my coat-pocket, and moved away before I could make any answer. + +Perhaps the greatest flattery an individual can receive is to win some +acknowledgment of confidence from an utter stranger. To know that by the +chance intercourse of a few minutes you have so impressed another, who +never saw you before, that he is impelled at once to befriend you, +your self-esteem, so pleasantly gratified, immediately re-acts upon +the cause, and you are at a loss whether most to applaud your own +good gifts, or the ready wittedness of him who appreciated them so +instantaneously. + +I was still hesitating, revolving, doubtless, the pleasant sense of +flattery aforesaid, when Falkoner came flying past with his partner. +"Order supper for four," cried he, as he whizzed by. + +"What does he say, mon cher Comte?" said my partner. + +I translated his command, and found that the notion pleased her vastly. + +The dining-room by this time had been metamorphosed into a kind of +coffee-room, with small supper-tables, at which parties were already +assembling; and here we now took our places, to con over the bill of +fare, and discuss scalloped oysters, cold lobster, devilled haddock, and +other like delicacies. + +Falkoner soon joined us, and we sat down, the merriest knot in the room. +I must have been brilliant! I feel it so, this hour; a kind of warm glow +rushes to my cheeks as I think over that evening, and how the guests +from the different parts of the room drew gradually nearer and nearer to +listen to the converse at our table, and hear the smart things that came +pattering down like hail! What pressing invitations came pouring in +upon me! The great Mastodon himself could not have eaten a tithe of +the breakfasts to which I was asked, nor would the grog-tub of a +seventy-four contain all the rum-and-water I was proffered by skippers +lying "in dock." + +Falkoner, however, pleased me more than the rest. There was something in +his cordiality that did not seem like a passing fancy; and I could not +help feeling that however corrupted and run to waste by dissipation, +there was good stuff about him. He interested me, too, on another score: +he had formerly made one of a Texan excursion that had penetrated even +to the Rio del Norte, and his escapes and adventures amused me highly. +The ladies, I believe, at last found us very ungallant cavaliers; for +they arose, and left us talking over prairie life and the wild habits of +the chase, till day began to shine through the windows. + +"The 'Christobal' sails to-morrow," said he, "for Galveston; but even +she, smart sailer that she is, will scarce arrive in time to catch these +fellows. Here we are at the fifth of the month: the eighth was to be the +start; then that, supposing you to reach Galveston by the seventh, gives +you no time to get your kit ready, look after arms, and buy a nag. What +say you, then, if we make a party of our own,--charter one of these +small craft?--a hundred dollars or so will do it. We can then take our +time to pick up good cattle, look out for a couple of mules for our +baggage, and a spare mustang or so, if a horse should knock up." + +I concurred at once; the plan was fascination itself. Adventure, +liberty, novelty, enterprise, and a dash of danger to heighten all! +Falkoner talked of dollars as if they macadamized the road to St. Louis; +and I, glowing with punch and pride together, spoke of the expense as a +mere trifle. To this hour, I cannot say whether I had really mystified +myself into the notion that I possessed ample means, or was merely +indulging the passing pleasure of a delightful vision. So was it, +however; I smiled at the cheapness of everything, could scarcely fancy +such a thing as a Mexican pony for eighty dollars, and laughed--actually +laughed--at the price of the rifle, when all my worldly substance, at +the moment, would not have purchased copper caps for it. + +"Don't go too expensively to work, Cregan," cried he, "and, above +all, bring no European servant. A Mexican fellow--or, better still, a +half-breed--is the thing for the prairies. You have to forget your Old +World habits, and rough it." + +"So I can," said I, laughing good-humoredly; "I 'm in a capital mind for +a bit of sharp work too. Just before I left the 90th, we made a forced +march from St. John's through the forest country, and I feel up to +anything." + +"You'll not like the cattle at first, I'm afraid," said he. "They have +that racking action the Yankees are fond of. There is a capital mare +at Galveston, if we could get her. These fellows will snap her up, most +likely." + +"Butcher's mare," said I, hazarding a guess. + +"Ah, you 've been looking after her already," said he, surprised. +"Well, to tell you the truth, that was one of my objects in coming here +to-night. I heard that some of these skipper fellows had got the winning +ticket: I paid twenty dollars to the office-clerk to see the number, +and determine to buy it up. Here it is. Can you read these figures? for, +hang me if the punch, or the heat, or the dancing, has not made me quite +dizzy." + +"Let me see: Number 438," said I, repeating it a couple of times over. + +"Yes, that is it. If I could have chanced on it, I 'd have run down +to-morrow by the 'Christobal.' She lies about a mile out, and will weigh +with the ebb, at eight o'clock. That mare--she killed Butcher by a +down leap over a rock, but never scratched herself--is worth at least a +thousand dollars." + +"I offered eight hundred for her on mere character," said I, sitting +back, and sipping my liquid with a most profound quietude. + +Falkoner was evidently surprised with this announcement; but more so +from the rakish indifference it betrayed about money, than as bespeaking +me rich and affluent. And thus we chatted away till the black waiter +made his appearance to open the windows and prepare for the work of the +day. + +"Where are you stopping?" said Falkoner, as we arose from the table. + +"At Condor House," said I, boldly giving the name of a very flash hotel. +"But it's too noisy; I don't like it." + +"Nor do I. It's confoundedly expensive, too. I wish you would come to +Herrick's; it is not quite so stylish, perhaps, but I think the cookery +is better, and you 'd not pay five dollars a bottle for Madeira, and +eight for Champagne." + +"That _is_ smart," said I. "They 've not let me have my bill yet; but I +fancied they were costly folk." + +"Well, come and dine with me at Herrick's to-morrow, and decide for +yourself." + +"Why not try the Condor with me?" said I. + +"Another day, with all my heart; but I have a friend to-morrow, so come +and meet him at six o'clock." + +I agreed; and then we chatted on about London and town folks in a way +that, even with all I had drunk, amazed me for the cool impudence in +which I indulged. + +"You knew De Courcy, of course," said he, after a long run of mutual +friends had been disposed of. + +"Jack?" cried I,--"Jack De Courcy, of the Cold-streams,--yes, I think +I did. Jack and I were like brothers. The last steeplechase I rode in +Ireland was for poor Jack De Courcy: a little chestnut mare with a good +deal of the Arab about her." + +"I remember her well,--an active devil, but she could n't go for more +than half a mile." + +"Well, I managed to screw a race out of her." + +"You must tell me all about that to-morrow; for I find my unfortunate +head is like a bell with the vibration of the last stroke of the hammer +on it. Don't forget,--to-morrow, sharp six. You 'll meet nobody but +Broughton." + +"Dudley,--Sir Dudley Broughton?" + +"The same. You know him, then, already? Poor fellow! he's terribly +cut up; but he 'll be glad to see an old friend. Have you been much +together?" + +"A great deal. I made a cruise with him in his yacht, the 'Firefly.'" + +"What a rare piece of fortune to have met you!" cried Falkoner, as he +shook my hand once more. And so, with the most fervent assurances of +meeting on the morrow, we parted,--he, to saunter slowly towards his +hotel; and I, to stand in the middle of the street, and, as I wiped the +perspiration from my brow, to ask myself, had I gone clean mad. + +I was so overwhelmed by the shock of my own impudence that I stood where +Falkoner left me, for full five minutes, motionless and spell-bound. +To have boasted of my intimacy with Captain De Courcy, although the +Atlantic rolled between us, was bad enough, in all conscience; but to +have talked of Sir Dudley--the haughty, insolent, overbearing Sir Dudley +Broughton--as "my old friend," was something that actually appalled me. +How could my vain boastfulness have so far got the better of my natural +keenness; how could my silly self-sufficiency have carried me so +far? "Ah," thought I, "it was not the real Con Cregan who spoke +such ineffable folly; these were the outpourings of that diabolical +'Thumbo-rig.'" + +While, therefore, I entered into a bond with myself to eschew that +insidious compound in future, I also adopted the far more imminent and +important resolve, to run away from New Orleans. Another sun must not +set upon me in that city, come what might. With a shudder, I called to +mind Sir Dudley's own avowal of his passion as a hater, and I could not +venture to confront such danger. + +I accordingly hastened to my miserable lodging, and, packing up my few +clothes, now reduced to the compass of a bundle in a handkerchief, I +paid my bill, and, on a minute calculation of various pieces of strange +coinage, found myself the possessor of four dollars and a quarter,--a +small sum, and something less than a cent for every ten miles I was +removed from my native land. What meant the term "country," after all, +to such as me? He has a country who possesses property in it, whose +interests tie him to the soil, where his name is known and his presence +recognized; but what country belongs to him where no resting-place is +found for his weary feet, whose home is an inn, whose friends are the +fellow-travellers with whom he has journeyed? The ties of country, like +those of kindred, are superstitions,--high and holy ones sometimes, but +still superstitions. Believe in them if you can, and so much the better +for you; but in some hour the conviction will come that man is of every +land. + +Thus pondering, I trudged along at a smart pace, my bundle on a stick +over my shoulder, never noticing the road, and only following the way +because it seemed to lead out of the city. It was a gorgeous morning; +the sun glittered on the bright roofs, and lit up the gay terraces of +the houses, where creepers of every tint and foliage were tastefully +entwined and festooned, as these people knew so well to dispose. +Servants were opening windows, displaying handsomely-furnished rooms, +replete with every luxury, as I passed; busy housemaids were brushing, +and sweeping, and polishing; and shining niggers were beating carpets +and shaking hearthrugs, while others were raking the gravel before the +doors, or watering the rich magnolias and cactuses that stood sentinel +beneath the windows. Carriages, too, were washing, and high-bred horses +standing out to be groomed,--all signs of wealth and of the luxuries of +the rich men, whose close-drawn curtains portended sleep. "Ay," thought +I, "there are hundreds here, whose weightiest evil would be that they +awoke an hour earlier than their wont; that their favorite Arab had +stood on a sharp stone; that some rude branch had scratched the rich +varnish on their chariot: while I wander along, alone and friendless, my +worldly substance a few dollars." This disparity of condition of course +occurs to the mind of every poor man; but it only is a canker to him who +has had a glimpse, be it ever so fleeting, of a life of luxury and ease. +For this reason, the servant-class will always be a great source of +danger to our present social condition; seeing the weakness, the folly, +and sometimes the worse than folly of those they serve, viewing, from +a near point, the interior lives of those who, seen from afar, are +reckoned great and illustrious,--they lose the prestige of respect +for the distinguishing qualities of station, and only yield it to +the outward symbols,--the wealth and riches. What Socialists are our +butlers; what Democrats our footmen; what Red Republicans are our cooks; +what a Leveller is the gardener! For all your "yellow plush," you are +Sans-culottes, every man of you. + +Now, I deem it a high testimony to my powers of judgment that I never +entertained these views. On the contrary, I always upheld the doctrine +that society, like a broken thigh-bone, did best on an "inclined plane," +and I repudiated equality with the scorn a man six feet high would feel +were he told that the human standard was to be four and a half. The only +grudge I did feel towards the fortunate man of wealth was that I should +lose so many brilliant years of life in acquiring--for acquire it I +would--what I would far rather employ in dispensing. A guinea at +twenty is worth a hundred at thirty, a thousand at forty, a million at +sixty,--that's the geometrical mean of life. Glorious youth, that only +needs "debentures" to be divine! + +My head became clearer and my brain more unclouded as I walked along in +the free air of the morning, and I felt that with a cigar I should both +compose my vagrant fancies, and cheat myself out of the necessity of +a breakfast. Excellent weed! that can make dulness imaginative, and +imagination plodding; that renders stupid men companionable to clever +ones, and gives a meek air of thought to the very flattest insipidity! + +I searched my pocket for the little case that contained my Manillas, but +in vain; I tried another,--like result. How was it? I always carried it +in my great-coat: had I been robbed? I could not help laughing at the +thought, it sounded so ineffably comic. I essayed again, alas! with no +better success. Could I have placed it in the breast-pocket? What! there +is no breast-pocket! How is this, Con? Has Thumbo-rig its influence over +you yet? I passed my hand across my brow, and tried to remember if the +breast-pocket had only been a tradition of another coat, or what had +become of it. Pockets do not close from being empty, like county banks, +nor do they dry up, like wells, from disuse. + +"No, no; there certainly was once one here." As I said this, what was +my amazement to find that the pocket for which I had been searching +had changed sides, and gone from left to right! "Oh, this is too bad!" +thought I; "with a little more punch, I could have fancied that I had +put my coat on wrong-sided. Here is a mystery!" said I, "and now, to +solve it patiently;" and so I sat me down by the wayside, and, laying my +bundle on the ground, began to reflect. + +Reflection, I soon found, was of no use. Habit--the instinct of +custom--showed me that my pocket had always been to the left; my right +hand sought the spot with an almost mechanical impulse, whereas my left +wandered about like a man in search of his newly-taken lodging. As I +came to this puzzling fact, my fingers, deeply immersed in the pocket, +came in contact with a small leather case. I drew it forth; it was not +mine,--I had never seen it before! I opened it; there was nothing within +but a small piece of card, with the words, "Full Share Ticket," on top, +and, underneath, the figures, '438." + +From the card, my eyes reverted to the coat itself; and now I saw, with +a surprise I cannot convey, that it was not my own coat, but another +man's, I was wearing. The negro at the ordinary had assisted me to put +it on. It was the only one, indeed, remaining, as I came away, and some +other had carried off mine. So far, it was a fair exchange, of which I +was not in any way accountable, seeing that I performed a mere passive +part; taking--and even that unwillingly--what was left me. Certain +threadbare symptoms about the cuffs, and a missing button or two, also +showed me that I was no gainer by the barter. Was it worth while to go +back? Were the chances of recovering my own equal to the risk of being +myself discovered? I thought not. It was decidedly a shabby investment, +and, now that I examined it more closely, a very miserable substitute +for my own. I was vexed at the occurrence, and could not help +reflecting, in very severe terms, upon the breach of honor such an act +displayed. "Lie down with dogs, Master Con," says the adage, "and see +if you don't get up with fleas!" "Such company as you passed the evening +with were assuredly not above a piece of roguery like this." Falkoner it +could not be; and I own that I was glad to know that, since he was much +taller than me; nor could I remember one who was near enough my own size +to make me suppose him the culprit; and so I ended by attributing the +knavery to the negro, who probably had kept this ancient vestment for a +moment of substitution. + +It may be inferred, from the difficulty of solution in the case of this +very simple occurrence, that my faculties were not pre-eminently clear +and lucid, and that the vapor of the Thumbo-rig still hung heavily over +me; such, I am bound to own, was the fact. Every event of the previous +night was as shadowy and imperfect as might be. It was only during the +last half-hour of my conversation with Falkoner that I was completely +conscious of all said and done around me. Previous to this, my mind had +established a kind of Provisional Government over my rebellious ideas, +and, like most such bodies, its edicts had little force, for they were +based on but a weak prestige. + +Now then came a question of this strange-looking piece of card, with +the numbers on which, by some wonderful process, I seemed to myself +perfectly familiar,--nay, I felt that they were, from some hidden cause, +recorded facts in my memory. All I could remember of the night before +threw little light upon the matter, and I wondered on, striving to +pierce the dull mist of uncertainty that enveloped all my thoughts; +by this time, I had reached the bank of the river, and could perceive, +about half a mile off, down the stream, a tall-masted smack getting +ready for sea,--her blue-peter fluttered at the mast-head, and the +pleasant "yo-ho!" of the sailors kept time with the capstan-bars as +they heaved at the anchor. The wind was a nor'-wester, and beat with +impatient gusts the loose canvas that hung ready to be shaken out, while +the stream rushed rapidly along her sides. + +"Would I were to sail in you, wherever your voyage tended!" was my +exclamation; and I sat down to watch the preparations, which the loud +commands of the skipper seemed to hasten and press forward. So occupied +was I with the stir and bustle on board the craft, where everything was +done with a lightning speed, that I did not remark a boat's crew who +sat leaning on their oars beside the wall of the stream; and it was only +when an accidental sound of their voices struck me that I saw them. + +"That's a signal to come away, Ben!" said one of the men. "He 'll not +wait no longer!" + +"And why should he lose a tide for any land-lugger of them all? It's not +every day, besides, we get a nor'-wester like this!" + +"Well, what d'ye mean to do?" asked the former speaker. + +"Give him ten minutes more, Ben," cried another. "Let's have a chance of +a dollar apiece, anyhow!" + +"There goes a shot!" said the man called Ben, as he pointed to the +smack, from whose bow-port the smoke was lazily issuing. "I'll not stay +here any longer; shove her away, lads!" + + + +CHAPTER XIX. ON BOARD THE 'CHRISTOBAL' + +Without further delay, the men prepared to obey the summons. The boat's +chain was cast off, and, as she swung out from the wall, I could see a +small standard at her stern, carrying a little white flag, which, as the +breeze wafted towards mer showed the enigmatical number 438. + +I sprang to my legs and uttered a cry of surprise. + +"Well, what is it, master?" said Ben, looking up, and probably expecting +to see me take a header into the muddy stream. + +"That's the number!" cried I, not knowing what I said. "That's the very +number!" + +"Very true, master, so it is, but you ha'n't got the counterpart, I +guess!" + +"Yes, but I have, though!" said I, producing the ticket from the +pocket-book. + +"Why, darn me if that a'n't himself!" cried the men; and they sung out +three hearty cheers at the discovery. + +"Were you there long, old fellow?" said Ben. + +"About half an hour," said I. + +"Tarnation! and why did ye keep us a-waitin'? didn't you see the tide +was on the ebb, and that Christy was making signals every five minutes +or so?" + +"I was waiting--waiting--" + +"Waiting for what? I 'd like to know." + +"Waiting for my baggage," said I, taking a long breath. + +"An' it ain't come yet?" + +"No; I 'm afraid they missed the road." + +"Be that as it may, master, I'll not stay longer. Come along without +your kit, or stay behind with it, whichever you please." + +"Hang the traps!" said I, affecting a bold carelessness; "I've a few +things there I left out loose, that will do. When shall we be there?" +This was a leading question, for I did not yet know whither we were +bound. + +"At Galveston? Well, to-morrow evening or by nightfall, I guess, if +the wind hold. Sit down there and make yourself snug; there's always +a little splash of a sea in this river. And now, lads, pull away,--all +together!" + +A second shot from the smack announced that her anchor was tripped, and +we saw her now lurch over as her foresail filled. + +The men pulled vigorously, and in about twenty minutes I stood upon the +deck of the "Christobal," making sundry excuses to her skipper for being +late, and assuring him, on the faith of a gentleman, that I had utterly +forgotten all about my voyage till the last moment. + +"They only sent me the number from the office late last night," said he, +"and told me to look out for the gemman about the docks. But I war n't +goin' to do that, I said. He's got a passage and grub to Galveston,--as +good as ere a gemman can desire; he's won a nag they says is worth +seven or eight hundred dollars, with furniture and arms for the new +expedition; and I take it them things is worth a-looking arter,--so darn +me blue if I gives myself no trouble about 'em." + +These scattered hints were all I wanted. The sea-breeze had restored me +to my wonted clearness, and I now saw that "438" meant that I had won a +free passage to Texas, a horse and a rifle when I got there; so far, the +"exchange of coats" was "with a difference." It was with an unspeakable +satisfaction that I learned I was the only passenger on board the +"Christobal." The other "gentlemen" of the expedition had either already +set out or abandoned the project, so that I had not to undergo any +unpleasant scrutiny into my past life, or any impertinent inquiry +regarding my future. + +Old Kit Turrel, the skipper, did not play the grand inquisitor on me. +His life had been for the most part passed in making the voyage to and +from New Orleans and Galveston, where he had doubtless seen sufficient +of character to have satisfied a glutton in eccentricity. There was not +a runaway rogue or abandoned vagabond that had left the coast for years +back, with whose history he was not familiar. You had but to give him a +name, and out came the catalogue of his misdeeds on the instant. + +These revelations had a prodigious interest for me. They opened the book +of human adventure at the very chapter I wanted. It was putting a keen +edge upon the razor to give _me_ the "last fashions in knavery,"--not +to speak of the greater advantage of learning the success attendant on +each, since "Kit" could tell precisely how it fared with every one who +had passed through his hands. + +He enlightened me also as to these Texan expeditions, which, to use his +own phrase, had never been anything better than "almighty swindles," +planted to catch young flats from the north country, the Southerns being +all too "crank" to be done. + +"And is there no expedition in reality?" said I, with all the horror +of a man who had been seduced from home, and family, and friends, under +false pretences. + +"There do be a dash now and then into the Camanche trail when buffaloes +are plenty, or to bring down a stray buck or so. Mayhap, too, they cut +off an Injian fellow or two, if he linger too late in the fall; and +then they come back with wonderful stories of storming villages, and +destroying war-parties, and the rest of it; but we knows better. Most of +'em 'ere chaps are more used to picklocks than rifles, and can handle a +'jemmy' better than a 'bowie-knife.'" + +"And in the present case, what kind of fellows are they?" + +He rolled a tobacco quid from side to side of his mouth, and seemed to +hesitate whether he would speak out. + +"There is no danger with me, Captain; I am an Englishman, a perfect +stranger here, and have never seen or heard of a man amongst them." + +"I see _that_," said he; "and your friends must be rank green 'uns to +let you go and join this trail,--that's a fact." + +"But what are they?" + +"Well, they call 'emselves horse-dealers; but above Austin there, and +along by Bexar, they call 'em horsestealers!" and he laughed heartily at +the excessive drollery of the remark. + +"And where do they trade with their cattle?" + +"They sells 'em here, or up in the States away north sometimes; but they +picks up the critters along the Chehuhua Line, or down by Aguaverde, +or San Pueblo. I 've known 'em to go to Mexico too. When they don't get +scalped, they 've rather good fun of it; but they squable a bit now and +then among 'emselves; and so there's a Texan proverb that 'buffalo-meat +in spring is as rare as a mustang merchant with two eyes!'" + +"What does that mean?" + +"They gouge a bit down there, they do,--that's a fact. I 've known two +or three join the Redmen, and say Injians was better living with, than +them 'ere." + +"I own your picture is not flattering." + +"Yes, but it be, though! You don't know them chaps; but I know 'em,--ay, +for nigh forty year. I 'm a-livin' on this 'ere passage, and I've seen +'em all. I knew Bowlin Sam, I did!" From the manner this was said, I saw +that Bowlin Sam was a celebrity, to be ignorant of whom was to confess +one's self an utter savage. + +"To be sure, I was only a child at the time; but I saw him come aboard +with the negro fellow that he followed up the Red River trail. They +were two of the biggest fellows you could see. Sam stood six feet +six-an'-a-quarter; the Black was six feet four,--but he had a stoop in +his shoulders. Sam tracked him for two years; and many's the dodge they +had between 'em. But Sam took him at last, and he brought him all the +way from Guajaqualle here, bound with his hands behind him, and a log of +iron-wood in his mouth; for he could tear like a juguar. + +"They were both on 'em ugly men,--Sam very ugly! Sam could untwist the +strongest links of an iron boat-chain, and t' other fellow could bite a +man-rope clean in two with his teeth. 'The Black' eat nothing from the +time they took him; and when they put him into the shore-boat, in the +river, he was so weak they had to lift him like a child. Well, out they +rowed into the middle of the stream, where the water is roughest among +the 'snags,' and many a whirlpool dashing around 'atween the bows of +the 'sawyers.' That's the spot you 're sure to see one of these young +sharks,--for the big chaps knows better than to look for their +wittals in dangerous places,--while the water is black, at times, with +alligators. Well, as I was sayin', out they rowed; and just as they +comes to this part of the stream, the black fellow gives a spring, and +drives both his heavy ironed feet bang through the flooring-plank of the +boat. It was past bailin'; they were half swamped before they could +ship their oars; the minute after, they were all struggling in the river +together. There were three besides the nigger; but he was the only one +ever touched land again. He was an Antigua chap, that same nigger; and +they knows sharks and caymans as we does dog-fish: but, for all that, he +was all bloody, and had lost part of one foot, when he got ashore." + +"Why had he been captured? What had he done?" "What had n't he done! +That same black murdered more men as any six in these parts; he it +was burned down Che-coat's mill up at Brandy Cove, with all the people +fastened up within. Then he run away to the 'washings' at Guajaqualle, +where he killed Colonel Rixon, as was over the 'Placer.' He cut him in +two with a bowie-knife, and never a one guessed how it happened, as the +juguars had carried off two or three people from the 'washins '; but +the nigger got drunk one night, and began a-cuttin' down the young +hemlock-trees, and sayin', 'That's the way I mowed down Buckra' +Georgy,'--his name was George Rixon. Then he bolted, and was never seen +more. Ah, he was a down-hard 'un, that fellow Crick!" + +"Crick,--Menelaus Crick!" said I, almost springing up with amazement as +I spoke. + +"Just so. You 've heard enough of him 'fore now, I guess." + +The skipper went on to talk about the negro's early exploits, and the +fearful life of crime which he had always pursued; but I heard little of +what he said. The remembrance of the man himself, bowed down with years +and suffering, was before me; and I thought how terribly murder is +expiated, even in those cases where the guilty man is believed to have +escaped. So is it; the dock, the dungeon, and the gallows can be mercies +in comparison with the self-torment of eternal fear, the terror of +companionship, or the awful hell of solitude! The scene at Anticosti and +the terrific night in the Lower Town of Quebec rose both together to +my mind, and so absorbed my thoughts that the old skipper, seeing my +inattention, and believing that I was weary and inclined for sleep, left +me for the deck; and I lay still, pondering over these sad themes. + +At last I roused myself and went on deck. The city had long since +disappeared from view, and even the low land at the mouth of the river +had faded in the distance; while, instead or the yellow, polluted +flood of the Mississippi, the blue waves, shining and sparkling, danced +merrily past, or broke in foam-sheets at the bow. The white sails were +bent like boards, firm and immovable before the breeze, and the swift +vessel darted her way onward as proudly as though her freight were +something prouder and better than a poor adventurer, without one in the +wide world who cared whether he won or lost the game with Fortune. + +My spirits rose every mile we left New Orleans behind us; I felt, +besides, that to bring my skill to such a market was but to carry "coals +to Newcastle;" nor, from the skipper's account, did Texas offer a much +more favorable field. However, it smacked of adventure; the very name +had a charm for me; and I thought I should far rather confront actual +danger than live a life of petty schemes and small expedients. But what +a strange crucible is the human heart! here was I, placed in a situation +to which an incident had elevated me,--of a kind which a more scrupulous +sense of honor would have made some shudder at,--fancying, ay, and +persuading myself too, that, in the main, I possessed very admirable +sentiments and most laudable ambitions; that the occasional little +straits to which I was reduced were only so many practical jokes played +on me by "Fate," which took, doubtless, a high delight in the ingenuity +by which I always fell on my feet,--while I felt certain that, were I +only fairly treated, a more upright, honorable, straightforward young +gentleman never lived than I should prove! + +"Let Dame Fortune only deal me trumps," said I, "and I'll promise never +'to look into my neighbor's hand.'" Gentle reader, you smile at my +humility; well, then, it's clear you are neither a secretary of state +nor a railway director,--that's all. + +We dropped anchor off Galveston just as the sun was setting; and the +evening being calm, and the reflection of the houses and steeples in the +water sharp and defined, the scene was sufficiently striking. The city +itself was more important as to size and wealth than I had anticipated, +and the office of the "Texan Expedition," held at the "Moon," a +great coffee-house on the Quay, impressed me most favorably with the +respectability and pretensions of my "Co-expeditionaries." Old Kit +presented me to the secretary--a very knavish-looking fellow in +spectacles of black gauze--as the winner of the great prize, which, to +my excessive mortification, I learned was at Houston, about eighty miles +farther up the Bay. + +I apologized for my careless dress by stating that my baggage had been +unfortunately left behind at New Orleans, and that in my haste I had +been obliged to come on board with actually nothing but the few dollars +I had in my pocket. + +"That's a misfortune easily repaired, sir," said the gauze-eyed +secretary; "you can have your 'credit' cashed here just as liberally as +at any town in the country." + +"I have no doubt of that," responded I, somewhat tartly, for I did not +fancy this allusion to banks and bankers; "but all my papers are in my +portmanteau." + +"Provoking, certainly," said he, taking a long pinch of snuff,--"ain't +it, Kit?" + +But Kit only scratched his nose, and looked puzzled. + +"Are your bankers Vicars and Bull, sir?" + +"No," said I, "my credits are all on a Northern house; but I fancy my +name is tolerably well known. You 've heard of the Cregans, I suppose." + +"Cregan--Cregan," repeated he a couple of times; then, opening a +huge ledger at the letter C, ran his eye down a long column. +"Crabtree--Crossley--Croxam--Crebell--Creffet--Cregmore. It is not +Cregmore, sir?" + +"No, Cregan is the name." + +"Ah, well, there's no Cregan. There was a Cregmore was 'lynched' here, +I see by the mark in the book, and we have a small trunk waiting to be +claimed, belonging to him." + +"That ain't the fellow as purtended to be winner of the wagon team that +was lotteried here a twelvemonth since, is it?" said Kit. + +"Yes, but it is, though. He made out he had the ticket all right and +straight, when up comes one Colonel Jabus Harper, and showed the real +thing; and the chaps took it up hotly, and they lynched Cregmore that +evening." + +"Yes, sir, that's a fact," quoth Kit. + +"What was the penalty?" asked I, with a most imposing indifference. + +"They hanged him up at Hall's Court yonder. I ain't sure if he be n't +hanging there still." + +"And this packet," said I, for the theme was excessively distasteful, +"when does she sail?" + +"She starts to-night at twelve,--first cabin, two dollars; steerage, +one-twenty." + +"Thank you," said I, touching my hat with the condescending air one +occasionally employs to humiliate an inferior, by its mingled pride and +courtesy; and I turned into the street. + +"You ain't a-going to Hall's Court, are you?" said Kit, overtaking me. + +"Of course not," responded I, indignantly. "Such sights are anything but +pleasurable." + +"He ain't all right, that 'un," said Gauze-eyes, as old Kit re-entered +the office, and I stepped back to listen. + +"Well, I don't know," muttered the other; "I 'm a-think-ing it be +doubtful, sir. He ha' n't got much clink with him, that's a fact." + +"I have half a mind to send Chico up in the boat to-night, just to dodge +him a bit." + +"Well, ye might do it," yawned the other; "but Chico is such an almighty +villain that he'll make him out a rogue or a swindler, at all events." + +"Chico is smart, _that_ I do confess," said the other, with a grin. + +"And he do look so uncommon like a vagabond, too; Chico, I don't like +him." + +"He can look like anything he pleases, Chico can. I've seen him pass for +a Pawnee, and no one ever disciver it." + +"He 's a rank coward, for all that," rejoined the skipper; "and he can +put no disguise upon _that_." + +The sound of feet, indicative of leaving, made me hasten from the +spot, but in a mood far from comfortable. With the fate of my ingenious +predecessor in "Hall's Court" before me, and the small possibility of +escaping the shrewd investigations of "Chico," I really knew not what +course to follow. The more I reflected, however, the less choice was +there at my disposal; the bold line, as generally happens, being not +a whit more dangerous than the timid path, since, were I to abandon my +prize, and not proceed to Houston, the inevitable Chico would only be +the more certain to discover me. + +My mind was made up; and, stepping into a shop, I expended two of my +four dollars in the purchase of a "revolver,"--second-hand, but an +excellent weapon, and true as gold. A few cents supplied me with some +balls and powder; and, thus provided, I took my way towards the +wharf where the steamer lay, already making some indicative signs of +readiness. + +I took a steerage passage; and, not knowing where or how to dispose of +myself in the interval before starting, I clambered into a boat on deck, +and, with my bundle for a pillow, fell into a pleasant doze. It was +not so much sleep as a semi-waking state that merely dulled and dimmed +impressions,--a frame of mind I have often found very favorable to +thought. One is often enabled to examine a question in this wise, as +they look at the sun through a smoked glass, and observe the glittering +object without being blinded by its brilliancy. I suppose the time I +passed in this manner was as near an approach to low spirits as I am +capable of feeling; for of regular downright depression, I know as +little as did Nelson of fear. + +I bethought me seriously of the "scrape" in which I found myself, and +reflected with considerable misgivings upon the summary principles +of justice in vogue around me; and yet the knavery was not of my own +seeking. Like Falstaff's honor, it was "thrust upon me." I was innocent +of all plot or device. "Le diable qui se mêle en tout "--never was there +a truer saying--would have it that I should exchange coats with another, +and that this confounded ticket should be the compensation for worn +seams and absent buttons. + +I have no doubt, thought I, but that "Honesty is the best policy," +pretty much upon the same principle that even a dead calm is better than +a hurricane. But to him who desires "progress," on whose heart the word +"onward" is written, the calm is lethargy, while the storm may prove +propitious. I then tried to persuade myself that even this adventure +could not turn out ill,--not that I could by any ingenuity devise how it +should prove otherwise; but I knew that Fortune is as skilful as she is +kind, and so I left the whole charge to her. + +Is it my fault, I exclaimed, that I am not rich, and wellborn, and +great? Show me any one who would have enjoyed such privileges more. Is +it my fault that, being poor, ignoble, and lowly in condition, I have +tastes and aspirations at war with my situation? These ought rather to +be stimulants to exertion than caprices of Fortune. I like the theory +better, too; and is it not hard to be condemned for the devices I am +reduced to employ to combat such natural evils? If the prisoner severs +his fetters with an old nail, it is because he does not possess the +luxury of a file or a "cold chisel." As for me, the employment of small +and insignificant means is highly distasteful; instead of following the +lone mountain-path on foot, I'd drive "life's high road" four-in-hand, +if I could. + +The furious rush of the escape-steam, the quick coming and going of +feet, the heavy banging of luggage on the deck, and all the other +unmistakable signs of approaching departure, aroused me, as I lay +patiently contemplating the bustle of leave-taking, hand-shaking, and +embracing, in which I had no share. A lantern at the gangway lit up each +face that passed, and I strained my eyes to mark one, the only one in +whom I was interested. As I knew not whether the ingenious Chico were +young, old, short, slim, fat, or six-foot,--whether brown or fair, +smooth-faced or bearded,--my observations were necessarily universal, +and I was compelled to let none escape me. + +At first, each passenger appeared to be "him;" and then, after a few +minutes, I gave up the hope of detection. There were fellows whose +exterior might mean anything,--large, loose-coated figures, with leather +overalls and riding-whips, many of them with pistols at their girdles, +and one or two wearing swords, parading the deck on every side. It +needed not the accompaniment of horse-gear, saddles, holsters, halters, +and cavessons to show that they belonged to a fraternity which, in every +land of the Old World or the New, has a prescriptive claim to knavery. +Although all of them were natives of the United States, neither in +their dark-brown complexions, deep mustaches and whiskers, and strange +gestures, was there any trace of that land which we persist in deeming +so purely Anglo-Saxon. The prairie and the hunting-ground, the life of +bivouac and the habit of danger, had imparted its character to their +looks; and there was, besides, that air of swagger and braggadocio so +essentially the type of your trafficker in horse-flesh. + +If my attention had not been turned to another subject, I would +willingly have studied a little the sayings and doings of this +peculiar class, seeing that it might yet be my lot to form one of "the +brotherhood;" but my thoughts were too deeply interested in discovering +"Chico," whose presence in the same ship with me actually weighed on my +mind like the terror of a phantom. + +"Can this be him?" was the question which arose to my heart as figure +after figure passed me near where I lay; but the careless, indolent look +of the passenger as regularly negatived the suspicion. We were now under +way, steaming along in still water with all the tremendous power of our +high-pressure engines, which shook the vessel as though they would rend +its strong framework asunder. The night was beautifully calm and mild, +and, although without a moon, the sky sparkled with a thousand stars, +many of which were of size and brilliancy to throw long columns of light +across the bay. + +The throb of the great sea monster as she cleared her way through the +water, was the only sound heard in the stillness; for although few had +"gone below," the groups seated about the deck either smoked in silence, +or talked in low, indistinct tones. + +I lay gazing at the heavens, and wondering within myself which of those +glittering orbs above me was gracious enough to preside over the life +and adventures of Con Cregan. "Some dim, indistinct little spangle it +must be," thought I,--"some forgotten planet of small reputation, I 've +no doubt it is. I should n't wonder if it were that little sly-looking +fellow that winks at me from the edge of yonder cloud, and seems to +say, 'Lie still, Con,--keep close, my lad; there's danger near.'" As I +half-muttered this to myself, a dark object intervened between me and +the sky, a large black disk, shutting out completely the brilliant +fretwork on which I had been gazing. As I looked again, I saw it was +the huge broad-brimmed hat of a Padre,--one of those felted coalscuttles +which make the most venerable faces grotesque and ridiculous. + +Lying down in the bottom of the boat, I was able to take a deliberate +survey of the priest's features, while he could barely detect the dark +outline of _my_ figure. He was thick and swarthy, with jet-black eyes +and a long-pointed chin. There was something Spanish in the face, and +yet more of the Indian; at least, the projecting cheek-bones and the +gaunt, hollow cheeks favored that suspicion. + +From the length of time he stood peering at me, I could perceive that it +was not a passing impulse, but that his curiosity was considerable. This +impression was scarcely conceived ere proved, as, taking a small lantern +from the binnacle, he approached the boat, and held it over me. + +Affecting a heavy slumber, I snored loudly, and lay perfectly still, +while he examined my face, bending over me as I lay, and marking each +detail of my dress and appearance. + +As if turning in my sleep, I contrived to alter my position in such a +manner that, covering my face with my arm, I could watch the Padre. + +"Came on board alone, said you?" asked he of a little dirty urchin of a +cabin-boy, at his side. + +"Yes, Father; about two hours before we left the harbor." + +"No luggage of any kind?" + +"A bundle, Father; that under his head, and nothing more." + +"Did he speak to you, or ask any questions?" + +"Only at what time we should reach Houston, and if the 'White Hart' was +near the Quay?" + +"And then he lay down in the boat here?" + +"Just so; I saw no more of him after." + +"That will do," said the Padre, handing the lantern to the boy. + +That will do! thought I also. Master Chico, if you know me, I know _you_ +as well! + +The game was now begun between us,--at least, so I felt it. I lay +watching my adversary, who slowly paced backwards and forwards, stopping +now and then to peep into the boat, and doubtless conning over in his +own mind his plan of attack. + +We were to land some passengers and take in some wood at a little place +called Fork Island; and here I was half determined within myself that my +voyage should end. That "Chico" had discovered me, was clear, the Padre +could be no other than him; and that he would inevitably hunt me down at +Austin was no less evident. Now, discovery and "lynching" were but links +of the same chain; and I had no fancy to figure as "No. 2" in Hall's +Court! + +The silence on the deck soon showed that most of the passengers had gone +below, and, so far as I could see in the uncertain light, "Chico" with +them. I arose, therefore, from my hard couch to take a little exercise, +which my cramped limbs stood in need of. A light drizzling rain had +begun to fall, which made the deck slippery and uncomfortable, and so I +took my stand at the door of the cook's galley, into which two or three +of the crew had sought refuge. + +As the rain fell the fog thickened, so that, standing close in to shore, +the skipper slackened our speed, till at last we barely moved through +the water. Not aware of the reason, I asked one of the sailors for an +explanation. + +"It's the dirty weather, I reckon," said he, sulky at being questioned. + +"Impatient, I suppose, to get the journey over, my young friend?" said a +low, silky voice, which at once reminded me of that I had already heard +when I lay in the boat. I turned, and it was the Padre, who, with an +umbrella over him, was standing beside me. + +"I 'm not much of a sailor, Father," replied I, saluting him +respectfully as I spoke. + +"More accustomed to the saddle than the poop-deck?" said he, smiling +blandly. + +I nodded assent, and he went on with some passing generalities about sea +and land life,--mere skirmishing, as I saw, to invite conversation. + +Partly weariness, partly a sense of discomfort at the persecution +of this man's presence, made me sigh heavily. I had not perceived it +myself, but he remarked it immediately, and said,-- + +"You are depressed in spirit, my son; something is weighing on your +heart!" + +I looked up at him, and, guided possibly by my suspicion of his real +character, I saw, or thought I saw, a twinkling glitter of his dark eye, +as though he was approaching the theme on which he was bent. + +"Yes, Father," replied I, with a voice of well-feigned emotion, "my +heart is indeed heavy; but"--here I assumed a more daring tone--"I must +not despond, for all that!" + +I walked away as I spoke, and, retiring, sat down near the wheel, as +if to meditate. I judged that the Padre would soon follow me; nor was I +wrong: I was not many minutes seated ere he stood at my side. + +"I see," said he, in a mild voice,--"I see, from the respect of your +manner, that you are one of our own people,--a good son of the Church. +What is your native country?" + +"Ireland, Father," said I, with a sigh. + +"A blessed land indeed!" said he, benignly; "happy in its peaceful +inhabitants,--simple-minded and industrious!" + +I assented, like a good patriot, but not without misgivings that he +might have been just as happy in another selection of our good gifts. + +"I have known many of your countrymen," resumed he, "and they all +impressed me with the same esteem. All alike frugal, temperate, and +tranquilly disposed." + +"Just so, sir; and the cruelty is, nobody gives them credit for it!" + +"Ah, my son, there you are in error. The Old World may be, and indeed I +have heard that it is, ungenerous; but its prejudices cannot cross the +ocean. Here we estimate men, not by _our_ prejudices, but by _their_ +merits. Here we recognize the Irishman as Nature has made him,--docile, +confiding, and single-hearted; slow to anger, and ever ready to control +his passions!" + +"That's exactly his portrait, Father!" said I, enthusiastically. +"Without a double of any kind,--a creature that does not know a wile or +a stratagem!" + +The priest seemed so captivated by my patriotism and my generous warmth +that he sat down beside me, and we continued to make Ireland still our +theme, each vying with the other who could say most in praise of that +country. + +It was at the close of a somewhat long disquisition upon the comparative +merits of Ireland and the Garden of Eden,--in which, I am bound to say, +the balance inclined to the former,--that the Padre, as if struck by a +sudden thought, remarked,-- + +"You are the very first of your nation I ever met in a frame of mind +disposed to melancholy! I have just been running over, to myself, all +the Irishmen I ever knew, and I cannot recall one that had a particle of +gloom or sorrow about him." + +"Nor had I, Father," said I, with emotion; "nor did I know what sorrow +was, till three days back! I was light-hearted and happy; the world went +well with me, and I was content with the world. I will not trouble you +with my story; enough when I say that I came abroad to indulge a +taste for adventure and enterprise, and that the New World has not +disappointed my expectations. If I spent money a little too freely, an +odd grumble or so from 'the governor' was the darkest cloud that shaded +my horizon. An only son, perhaps I pushed that prerogative somewhat +too far; but our estate is unencumbered, and my father's habits are +the reverse of extravagant,--for a man of his class, I might call them +downright rustic in simplicity. Alas! why do I think of these things? I +have done with them forever." + +"Nay, nay, you must not give way thus. It is very unlikely that one +young as you are can have any real guilt upon his conscience." + +"Not yet, Father," said I, with a shudder,--"not yet; but who can tell +how it may be with me to-morrow or next day? What a different answer +should I have to give your question then!" + +"This is some fancy,--some trick of a warm and ill-regulated +imagination, my son." + +"It is the language my heart pours from my lips," said I, grasping +his hand as if with irrepressible emotion. "I have a heavy crime +here--here!" and I struck my breast violently; "and if it be as yet +unaccomplished, the shadow of the guilt is on me already." + +"Sit still, my son, sit still, and listen to me," said he, restraining +me, as I was about to rise. "To whom can you reveal these mysterious +terrors more fittingly than to me? Be candid; tell me what weighs upon +your heart. It may be that a mere word of mine can give you courage and +calm." + +"That cannot be," said I, firmly; "you speak in kindness, but you know +not what you promise. I am under a vow, Father,--I am under a vow." + +"Well, my son, there are many vows meritorious. There are vows of +penitence, and of chastity, and of abstinence--" + +"Mine is none of these," said I, with a low, guttural utterance, as if I +was biting each word I spoke. + +"Vows of chastisement--" + +"Not that, not that either!" cried I; then, dropping my voice to a low +whisper, I said, "I have sworn a solemn oath to commit a murder! I know +the full guilt of what is before me, I see all the consequences, both +here and hereafter: but my word is pledged,--I have taken the oath with +every ceremony that can give it solemnity; and--I 'll go through with +it!" + +"There is a mystery in all this," said the Padre; "you must recount the +circumstances of this singular pledge, ere I can give you either comfort +or counsel." + +"I look for neither,--I hope for neither!" said I, wringing my hands; +"but you shall hear my story,--you are the last to whom I can ever +reveal it! I arrived at New Orleans about a fortnight ago, on a yacht +cruise with a friend of mine, of whose name, at least, you may have +heard,--Sir Dudley Broughton." + +"The owner of a handsome schooner, the 'Firefly,'" said the Padre, with +an animation on the subject not quite in keeping with his costume. + +"The same; you are, then, acquainted with him?" + +"Oh, no; I was accidentally standing on the wharf when his yacht came up +the river at New Orleans." + +"You did n't remark a young man on the poop in a foraging-cap, with a +gold band round it?" + +"I cannot say I did." + +"He carried a key-bugle in his hand." + +"I did not perceive him." + +"That was me; how different was I then! Well, well, I 'll hasten on. We +arrived at New Orleans, not quite determined whither next we should bend +our steps; and hearing by mere accident of this Texan expedition, we +took it into our heads we would join it. On inquiring about the matter, +we found that a lottery was in progress, the prizes of which were +various portions of equipment, horses, mules, baggage, negroes, and so +on. For this--just out of caprice--we took several tickets; but as, from +one cause or other, the drawing was delayed, we lingered on, going +each day to the office, and there making acquaintance with a number of +fellows interested in the expedition, but whose manner and style, I +need scarcely say, were not good recommendations to intimacy. Broughton, +however, always liked that kind of thing; low company, with him, had +always the charm of an amusement that he could resign whenever he +fancied. Now, as he grew more intimate with these fellows, he obtained +admission into a kind of club they held in an obscure part of the town, +and thither we generally repaired every evening, when too late for any +more correct society. They were all, or at least they affected to be, +interested in Texan expeditions; and the conversation never took any +other turn than what concerned these objects; and if at first our Old +World notions were shocked at their indifference to life,--the reckless +disregard of honor and good faith they evinced,--we came by degrees to +feel that the moral code of the Prairies permitted many things which +were never sanctioned in more cultivated latitudes. + +"Broughton entered into all this with a most extraordinary interest. +Nothing seemed too wild, too abandoned, and too outrageous for his +notions; and, I shame to say it, he soon made me a convert to his +opinions. His constant speech was, 'Be as virtuous as you please, +my dear fellow, among ladies and gentlemen; but pray fight Choctaws, +Pawnees, and half-breeds with their own weapons, which are either a +trick or a tomahawk.' I never liked the theory; but partly from daily +iteration, partly from a yielding pliancy of disposition, and in great +measure from being shamed into it, I gave way, and joined him in all the +pledges he gave, to go through with anything the expedition exacted. +I must be brief; that light yonder is on Fork Island, where we stop to +take in wood; and ere we reach it, I must make up my mind to one course +or other. + +"As the time for the starting of the expedition drew nigh, the various +plans and schemes became the theme of nightly discussion; and we heard +of nothing but guides and trails, where grass was to be found for the +cattle, and where water could be had, with significant hints about +certain places and people who were known or believed to be inimical to +these excursions. Thus, on the map, were marked certain villages which +might be put under contribution, and certain log-houses which should be +made to pay a heavy impost: here, it was a convent to be mulcted; and +there, a store or a mill to be burned! In fact, the expedition seemed to +have as many vengeances to fulfil as hopes of gain to gratify; for each +had a friend who was maltreated, or robbed, or murdered, and whose fate +or fortunes required an expiation.--But I weary you, Padre, with all +this?" + +"Not at all, my son; I recognize perfectly the accuracy of your account. +I have heard a good deal about these people." + +"There was one individual, however, so universally detested that you +would suppose he must have been a kind of devil incarnate to have +incurred such general hate. Every one had a grudge against him, and, in +fact, there was a kind of struggle who should be allotted to wreak on +him the common vengeance of the company. It was at last decided that +his fate should be lotteried, and that whoever won the first prize--this +mare of which you may have heard--should also win the right to finish +this wretched man. I gained this infamous distinction; and here am I, on +my way to claim my prize and commit a murder! Ay, I may as well employ +the true word,--it is nothing less than a murder! I have not even the +poor excuse of revenge. I cannot pretend that he ever injured me,--nay, +I have not even seen him; I never heard of his name till two days +ago; nor, even now, could I succeed in finding him out, if I were not +provided with certain clews at Houston, and certain guides by whose aid +I am to track him. My oath is pledged: I swore it solemnly that, if the +lot fell upon me, I 'd do the deed, and do it I will; yet, I am equally +resolved never to survive it."--Here I produced my revolver.--"If this +barrel be for the unlucky Chico, this other is for myself!" + +"What name did you say?" cried he, with a faltering voice, while his +hand, as he laid it on my arm, shook like ague. + +"Chico, the wretch is called," I said, fixing a cap on my pistol. + +"And why call him a wretch, my son? Has he ever injured you? How do you +know that he is not some poor, kindly hearted creature, the father +of five children, one of them a baby, perhaps? How can you tell the +difficulties by which he gains his living, and the hazard to which he +exposes his life in doing so? And is it to injure such a man you will go +down to your own grave an assassin?" + +"I'll do it," said I, doggedly; "I'll keep my oath." + +"Such an oath never bound any man; it is a snare of Satan." + +"So it may,--I 'll keep it," said I, beating the deck with my foot, with +the dogged determination of one not to be turned from his purpose. + +"Kill in cold blood a man you never saw before?" + +"Just so; I am not going to think of him, when I set so little store by +myself; I only wish the fellow were here now, and I'd show you whether +I'd falter or not." + +"Poor Chico,--I could weep for him!" said he, blubbering. + +"Keep your pity for _me_," said I,--"I, that am bound by this terrible +oath, and must either stamp myself a coward or a murderer. As for Chico, +I believe a more worthless wretch never existed,--a poor, mean-spirited +creature, whose trade is to be a spy, and by whose cursed machinations +many a fine fellow has been ruined." + +"You are all wrong, sir," said the Padre, warmly. "I know the man +myself; he is an amiable, kind-hearted being, that never harmed any +one." + +"He's the fellow to die, then!" said I, roughly. + +"He has a small family, unprovided for." + +"They have the inheritance of his virtues," said I, scoffingly. + +"Can you have the heart for such cruelty?" cried he, almost sobbing. + +"Come with me when I land at Houston, and see,--that's all!" said I. +"A few minutes back, I was hesitating whether I would not land at this +island and abandon my purpose. The weakness is now over; I feel a kind +of fiendish spirit growing up within me already; I cannot think of the +fellow without a sense of loathing and hatred!" + +"Lie down, my son, and compose yourself for an hour or two; sleep and +rest will calm your agitated brain, and you will then listen to my +counsels with profit: your present excitement overmasters your reason, +and my words would be of no effect." + +"I know it--I feel it here, across my temples--that it is a kind of +paroxysm; but I never close my eyes that I do not fancy I see the +fellow, now in one shape, now in another, for he can assume a thousand +disguises; while in my ears his accursed name is always ringing." + +"I pity you from my heart!" said the other; and certainly a sadder +expression I never saw in any human face before. "But go down below; go +down, I beseech you." + +"I have only taken a deck-passage," said I, doggedly; "I determined that +I would see no one, speak to no one." + +"Nor need you, my son," said he, coaxingly. "They are all sound asleep +in the after-cabin; take _my_ berth,--I do not want it; I am always +better upon deck." + +"If you will have it so," said I, yielding; "but, for your life, not a +word of what I have said to you! Do not deceive yourself by any false +idea of humanity. Were you to shoot me where I stand, you could not save +him,--_his_ doom is spoken. If _I_ fail, there is Broughton, and, after +him, a score of others, sworn to do the work." + +"Lie down and calm yourself," said he, leading me to the +companion-ladder; "we must speak of this to-morrow." + +I squeezed his hand, and slowly descended to the cabin. At first the +thought occurred to me that he might give the alarm and have me seized; +but then this would expose him so palpably to my recognition, should I +chance to escape, it was unlikely he would do so. The stillness on deck +showed me I was correct in this latter estimate, and so I turned into +his comfortable berth, and, while I drew the counterpane over me, +thought I had made a capital exchange for the hard ribs of the +"long-boat." + +If my stratagem had succeeded in impressing my friend Chico with a most +lively fear, it did not leave my own mind at perfect tranquillity. I +knew that he must be a fellow of infinite resources, and that the game +between us, in all likelihood, had but commenced. In circumstances of +difficulty, I have constantly made a practice of changing places with my +antagonist, fancying myself in _his_ position, and asking myself how I +should act? This taking the "adversary's hand" is admirable practice +in the game of life; it suggests an immense range of combinations, and +improves one's play prodigiously. + +I now began to myself a little exercise after this fashion: but what +between previous fatigue, the warmth of the cabin, and the luxury of +a real bed, Chico and I changed places so often, in my brain, that +confusion ensued, then came weariness, and, at last sound sleep,--so +sound that I was only awoke by the steward as he popped his greasy head +into the berth and said, "I say, master, here we are, standing close in: +had n't you better get up?" + +I did as he advised; and, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, said, +"Where's the Padre, steward?--what's become of him?" + +"He was took ill last night, and stopped at Fork Island; he 'll go back +with us to-morrow to Galveston." + +"You know him, I suppose?" said I, looking at the fellow with a shrewd +intelligence that he knew how to construe. + +"Well," cried he, scratching his head, "well, mayhap I do guess a bit +who he is." + +"So do I, steward; and when we meet again, he 'll know _me_." said +I, with a look of such imposing sternness that I saw the fellow was +recording it. "You may tell him so, steward. I 'll wait for him +here till I catch him; and if he escape both myself and my friend +Broughton,--Broughton; don't forget the name,--he is deeper than I give +him credit for." + +As I was about to leave the cabin, I caught sight of the corner of a +red handkerchief peeping out beneath the pillow of the berth. I drew +it forth, and found it was Chico's travelling kit, which he preferred +abandoning to the risk of again meeting me. It contained a small black +skull-cap such as priests wear, a Romish missal, a string of beads, with +a few common articles of dress, and eight dollars in silver. + +"The spoils of victory," quoth I, embodying the whole in my own bundle: +"the enemy's baggage and the military chest captured." + +"Which is the White Hart?" said I, as I came on deck, now crowded with +shore folk, porters, and waiters. + +"This way, sir,--follow me," said a smart fellow in a waiter's dress; +and I handed him my bundle and stepped on shore. + + + +CHAPTER XX. THE LOG-HUT AT BRAZOS + +I was all impatience to see my prize: and scarcely had I entered the inn +than I passed out into the stable-yard, now crowded with many of those +equestrian-looking figures I had seen on board the steamer. + +"Butcher's mare here still, Georgie?" said a huge fellow, with high +boots of red-brown leather, and a sheepskin capote belted round him with +a red sash. + +"Yes, Master Seth, there she stands. You'll be getting a bargain of her, +one of these days." + +"If I had her up at Austin next week for the fair, she 'd bring a few +hundred dollars." + +"You 'd never think of selling a beast like that at Austin, Seth?" said +a bystander. + +"Why not? Do you fancy I 'll bring her into the States, and see her +claimed in every town of the Union? Why, man, she's been stolen once +a month, that mare has, since she was a two-year-old. I knew an old +general up in the Maine frontier had her last year; and he rid her +away from a 'stump meeting' in Vermont, in change of his own +mule,--blind,--and never know'd the differ till he was nigh home. I +sold her twice, myself, in one week. Scott of Muckleburg stained her +off fore-leg white, and sold her back, as a new one, to the fellow who +returned her for lameness; and she can pretend lameness, she can." + +A roar of very unbelieving laughter followed this sally, but Seth +resumed,-- + +"Well, I'll lay fifty dollars with any gentleman here that she comes out +of the stable dead lame, or all sound, just as I bid her." + +Nobody seemed to fancy this wager; and Seth, satisfied with having +established his veracity, went on,-- + +"You 've but to touch the coronet of the off-foot with the point of your +bowie,--a mere touch, not draw blood,--and see if she won't come out +limping on the toe, all as one as a dead breakdown in the coffin joint; +rub her a bit then with your hand,--she 's all right again! It was +Wrecksley of Ohio taught her the trick; he used to lame her that way, +and buy her in, wherever he found her." + +"Who's won her this time?" cried another. + +"I have, gentlemen," said I, slapping my boot with my cane, and +affecting a very knowing air as I spoke. The company turned round and +surveyed me some seconds in deep silence. + +"You an't a-goin' to ride her, young 'un?" said one, half +contemptuously. + +"No, he an't; the gent's willin' to sell her," chimed in another. + +"He's goin' to ax me three hundred dollars," said a third, "an' I an't +a-goin' to gi' him no more than two hundred." + +"You are all wrong, every man of you," said Seth. "He's bringing her to +England, a present for the Queen, for her own ridin'." + +"And I beg to say, gentlemen, that none of you have hit upon the right +track yet; nor do I think it necessary to correct you more fully. But +as you appear to take an interest in my concerns, I may mention that +I shall want a hack for my servant's riding,--a short-legged, +square-jointed thing, clever to go, and a good feeder, not much above +fourteen hands in height, or four hundred dollars in price. If you +chance upon this--" + +"I know your mark." + +"My roan, with the wall-eye. You don't mind a walleye?" + +"No, no! my black pony mare's the thing the gent's a lookin' for." + +"I say it's nothing like it," broke in Seth. "He's a-wantin' a half-bred +mustang, with a down-east cross,--a critter to go through fire and +water; liftin' the fore-legs like a high-pressure piston, and with a +jerk of the 'stifle' like the recoil of a brass eight-pounder. An't I +near the mark?" + +"Not very wide of it," said I, nodding encouragingly. + +"She 's at Austin now. You an't a-goin' there?" + +"Yes," said I; "I shall be in Austin next week." + +"Well, never you make a deal till you see my black pony," cried one. + +"Nor the roan cob," shouted another. + +"He 'd better see 'em 'fore he sees Split-the-wind, then, or he 'd not +look at 'em arter," said Seth. "You 've only to ask for Seth Chiseller, +and they 'll look me up." + +"You an't a-goin' to let us see Butcher's mare afore we go?" said one to +the ostler. + +"I an't, because I have n't got the key. She's a double-locked, and the +cap 'n never gives it to no one, but comes a-feedin' time himself, to +give her corn." + +After a few muttered remarks on this caution, the horse-dealers +sauntered out of the yard, leaving me musing over what I had heard, and +wondering if this excessive care of the landlord boded any suspicion +regarding the winner of the prize. + +"Jist draw that bolt across the gate, there, will ye," said the ostler, +while he produced a huge key from his pocket. "I know 'em well, them +gents. A man must have fourteen eyes in his head, and have 'em back and +front too, that shows 'em a horse beast! Darn me coarse! if they can't +gi' 'un a blood spavin in a squirt of tobacco! Let's see your ticket, +young master, and I 'll show you Charcoal,--. that's her name." + +"Here it is," said I, "signed by the agent at Galveston, all right and +regular." + +"The cap'n must see to that. I only want to know that ye have the +number. Yes, that 's it; now stand a bit on one side. Ye 'll see her +when she comes out." + +He entered the stable as he spoke, and soon re-appeared, leading a tall +mare, fully sixteen hands high, and black as jet; a single white star on +her forehead, and a dash of white across the tail, being the only marks +on her. She was bursting with condition, and both in symmetry and action +a splendid creature. + + + +"An't she a streak of lightnin', and no mistake?" said he, gazing on +her with rapture. "An't she glibber to move nor a wag of a comet's +tail, when he 's taking a lark round the moon? There's hocks! there's +pasterns! Show me a gal with ankles like 'em, and look at her, here! +An't she a-made for sittin' on?" + +I entered into all his raptures. She was faultless in every +point,--save, perhaps, that in looking at you she would throw her eye +backwards, and show a little bit too much of the white. I remarked this +to the ostler. + +"The only fault she has," said he, shaking his head; "she mistrusts a +body always, and so she's eternally a lookin' back, and a gatherin' up +her quarters, and a holdin' of her tail tight in; but for that, she's +a downright regular beauty, and for stride and bottom there ain't her +equal nowhere." + +"Her late master was unlucky, I've heard," said I, insinuatingly. + +"He was so far unlucky that he could n't sit his beast over a torrent +and a down leap. He would hold her in, and she won't bear it at a +spring, and so she flung him before she took the leap; and when _she_ +lit, 't other side, with her head high and her hind legs under her, _he_ +was a sittin' with his 'n under his arm, and his neck bruck,--that was +the way o' it. See now, master, if ever ye do want a great streak out +of her, leave the head free a bit, press her wi' your calves, and give a +right down reg'lar halloo,--ha! like a Mexican chap; then she'll do it!" + +The ostler found me a willing listener, either when dwelling on the +animal's perfections, or suggesting hints for her future management; and +when at last both these themes were tolerably exhausted, he proceeded to +show me the horse-gear of saddle, and bridle, and halter, and holsters, +all handsomely finished in Mexican taste, and studded with brass nails +in various gay devices. At last he produced the rifle,--a regular +Kentucky one, of Colt's making,--and what he considered a still greater +prize, a bell-mouthed thing half horse-pistol, half blunderbuss, which +he called "a almighty fine 'Harper's Ferry tool,' that would throw +thirty bullets through an oak panel two inches thick." + +It was evident that he looked upon the whole equipment as worthy of the +most exalted possession, and he gazed on me as one whose lot was indeed +to be envied. + +"Seth and the others leave this to-morrow a'ternoon," said he; "but if +ye be a-goin' to Austin, where the 'Spedeshin' puts up, take my advice, +and get away before 'em. You 've a fine road,--no trouble to find the +way; your beast will carry you forty, fifty, if you want it, sixty, +miles between sunrise and 'down;' and you 'll be snug over the journey +before they reach Killian's Mill, the half-way. An' if ye want to know +why I say so, it's just because that's too good a beast to tempt a +tramper wi', and them's all trampers!" + +I gave the ostler a dollar for all his information and civility, and +re-entered the inn to have my supper. The cap'n had already returned +home, and after verifying my ticket, took my receipt for the mare, which +I gave in all form, writing my name, "Con Cregan," as though it were to +a check for a thousand pounds. + +I supped comfortably, and then walked out to the stable to see Charcoal. +"Get her corn; you'll see if she don't, eat it in less than winkin'," +said the ostler; "and if she wor my beast, she'd never taste another +feed till she had her nose in the manger at Croft's Gulley." + +"And where is Croft's Gulley?" + +"It's the bottoms after you pass the larch wood; the road dips a bit, +and is heavy there, and it's a good baitin' place, just eighteen miles +from here." + +"On the road to Austin?" + +He nodded. "Ye see," he said, "the moon's a risin'; there's no one out +this time. Ye know what I said afore." + +"I'll take the advice, then. Get the traps ready; I'll pack the +saddle-bags and set out." + +If any one had asked me why I was in such haste to reach Austin, my +answer would have been, "To join the expedition;" and if interrogated, +"With what object then?" I should have been utterly dumbfoundered. +Little as I knew of its intentions, they must all have been above the +range of my ability and means to participate in. True, I had a horse +and a rifle; but there was the end of my worldly possessions, not to say +that my title, even to these, admitted of litigation. A kind of vague +notion possessed me that, once up with the expedition, I should find +my place "somewhere,"--a very Irish idea of a responsible situation. I +trusted to the "making myself generally useful" category for employment, +and to a ready-wittedness never cramped nor restrained by the petty +prejudices of a conscience. + +The love of enterprise and adventure is conspicuous among the springs of +action in Irish life, occasionally developing a Wellesley or a Captain +Rock. Peninsular glories and predial outrage have just the same one +origin,--a love of distinction, and a craving desire for the enjoyment +of that most fascinating of all excitements,--whatever perils life. + +Without this element, pleasure soon palls; without the cracked skulls +and fractured "femurs," fox-hunting would be mere galloping; a review +might vie with a battle, if they fire blank cartridge in both! Who 'd +climb the Peter Bot, or cross the "petit mulets" of Mont Blanc, if it +were not that a false step or a totter would send him down a thousand +fathoms into the deep gorge below. This playing hide-and-seek with Death +seems to have a great charm, and is very possibly the attraction some +folks feel in playing invalid, and passing their lives amid black +draughts and blue lotions! + +I shrewdly suspect this luxury of tempting peril distinguishes man from +the whole of the other animal creation; and if we were to examine it +a little, we should see that it opens the way to many of his highest +aspirings and most noble enterprises. Now, let not the gentle reader +ask, "Does Mr. Cregan include horse-stealing in the list of these +heroic darings?" Believe me, he does not; he rather regarded the act of +appropriation in the present case in the light some noble lords did when +voting away church property,--"a hard necessity, but preferable to being +mulct oneself!" With many a thought like this, I rode out into the now +silent town, and took my way towards Austin. + +It is a strange thing to find oneself in a foreign land, thousands of +miles from home, alone, and at night; the sense of isolation is almost +overwhelming. So long as daylight lasts, the stir of the busy world and +the business of life ward off these thoughts,--the novelty of the scene +even combats them; but when night has closed in, and we see above us +the stars that we have known in other lands, the self-same moon by whose +light we wandered years ago, and then look around and mark the features +of a new world, with objects which tell of another hemisphere; and then +think that we are there alone, without tie or link to all around us, the +sensation is thrilling in its intensity. + +Every one of us--the least imaginative, even--will associate the +strangeness of a foreign scene with something of that adventure of which +he has read in his childhood; and we people vacancy, as we go, with +images to suit the spot in our own country. The little pathway along +the river side suggests the lovers' walk at sunset as surely as the dark +grove speaks of a woodman's hut or a gypsy camp. But abroad, the scene +evokes different dwellers: the Sierra suggests the brigand; the thick +jungle, the jaguar or the rattlesnake; the heavy plash in the muddy +river is the sound of the cayman; and the dull roar, like wind within a +cavern, is the cry of the hungry lion. The presence around us of objects +of which we have read long ago, but never expected to see, is highly +exciting; it is like taking our place among the characters of a story, +and investing us with an interest to ourselves, as the hero of some +unwrought history. + +This is the most fascinating of all castle-building, since we have a +spot for an edifice,--a territory actually given to us. + +I thought long upon this theme, and wondered to what I was yet +destined,--whether to some condition of real eminence, or to move on +among that vulgar herd who are the spectators of life, but never its +conspicuous actors. I really believe this ignoble course was more +distasteful to me from its flatness and insipidity than from its +mere humility. It seemed so devoid of all interest, so tame and so +monotonous, I would have chosen peril and vicissitude any day in +preference. About midnight I reached Croft's Gulley, where, after +knocking for some time, a very sulky old negro admitted me into a stable +while I baited my mare. The house was shut up for the night; and even +had I sought refreshment, I could not have obtained it. + +After a brief halt, I again resumed the road, which led through a close +pine forest, and, however much praised, was anything but a good surface +to travel on. Charcoal, however, made light of such difficulties, and +picked her steps over holes and stumps with the caution of a trapper, +detecting with a rare instinct the safe ground, and never venturing on +spots where any difficulty or danger existed. I left her to herself, and +it was curious to see that whenever a short interval of better footway +intervened, she would, as if to "make play," as the jockeys call it, +strike out in a long swinging canter, "pulling up" to the walk the +moment the uneven surface admonished her to caution. + +As day broke, the road improved so that I was able to push along at a +better pace, and by breakfast-time I found myself at a low, poor-looking +log-house called "Brazos." A picture representing Texas as a young child +receiving some admirable counsel from a very matronly lady with thirteen +stars on her petticoat, flaunted over the door, with the motto, "Filial +Affection, and Candy Flip at all hours." + +A large, dull-eyed man, in a flannel pea-jacket and loose trousers to +match, was seated in a rocking-chair at the door, smoking an enormous +cigar, a little charmed circle of expectoration seeming to defend him +from the assaults of the vulgar. A huge can of cider stood beside him, +and a piece of Indian corn bread. He eyed me with the coolest unconcern +as I dismounted, nor did he show the slightest sign of welcome. + +"This is an inn, I believe, friend?" said I, saluting him. + +"I take it to be a hotel," said he, in a voice very like a yawn. + +"And the landlord, where is he?" + +"Where he ought to be,--at his own door, a smokin' his own rearin'." + +"Is there an ostler to be found? I want to refresh my horse, and get +some breakfast for myself too." + +"There an't none." + +"No help?" + +"Never was." + +"That's singular, I fancy." + +"No, it an't." + +"Why, what do travellers do with their cattle, then?" + +"There bean't none." + +"No cattle?" + +"No travellers." + + + +"No travellers! and this the high road between two considerable towns!" + +"It an't." + +"Why, surely this is the road to Austin?" + +"It an't." + +"Then this is not Brazos?" + +"It be Upper Brazos." + +"There are two of them, then; and the other, I suppose, is on the Austin +road?" + +He nodded. + +"What a piece of business!" sighed I; "and how far have I come astray?" + +"A good bit." + +"A mile or two?" + +"Twenty." + +"Will you be kind enough to be a little more communicative, and just say +where this road leads to; if I can join the Austin road without turning +back again; and where?" + +Had I propounded any one of these queries, it is just possible I might +have had an answer; but, in my zeal, I outwitted myself. I drew my +check for too large an amount, and consequently was refused payment +altogether. + +"Well," said I, after a long and vain wait for an answer, "what am I to +do with my horse? There is a stable, I hope?" + +"There an't," said he, with a grunt. + +"So that I can't bait my beast?" + +"No!" + +"Bad enough! Can I have something to eat myself,--a cup of coffee--?" + +A rude burst of laughter stopped me, and the flannel man actually +shook with the drollery of his own thoughts. "It bean't Astor House, I +reckon!" said he, wiping his eyes. + +"Not very like it, certainly," said I, smiling. + +"What o' that? Who says it ought to be like it?" said he, and his fishy +eyes flared up, and his yellow cheeks grew orange with anger. "I an't +very like old Hickory, I s'pose! and maybe I don't want to be! I'm a +free Texan! I an't a nigger nor a blue-nose! I an't one of your old +country slaves, that black King George's boots, and ask leave to pay his +taxes! I an't." + +"And I," said I, assuming an imitation of his tone, for experiment's +sake, "I am no lazy, rocking-chair, whittling, tobacco-chewing Texan! +but a traveller, able and willing to pay for his accommodation, and who +will have it, too!" + +"Will ye? Will ye, then?" cried he, springing up with an agility I could +not have believed possible; while, rushing into the hut, he reappeared +with a long Kentucky rifle, and a bayonet a-top of it. "Ye han't long to +seek yer man, if ye want a flash of powder! Come out into the bush and +'see it out,' I say!" + +The tone of this challenge was too insulting not to call for at least +the semblance of acceptance; and so, fastening my mare to a huge staple +beside the door, I unslung my rifle, and cried, "Come along, my friend; +I'm quite ready for you!" + +Nothing daunted at my apparent willingness, he threw back the hammer of +his lock, and said, "Hark ye, young un! You can't give me a cap or two? +Mine are considerable rusty!" + +The request was rather singular, but its oddity was its success; and so, +opening a small case in the stock of my rifle, I gave him some. + +"Ah, them 's real chaps,--the true 'tin jackets,' as we used to say at +St. Louis!" cried he, his tongue seeming wonderfully loosened by the +theme. "Now, lad, let's see if one of your bullets fit this bore; she's +a heavy one, and carries twenty to the pound; and I 've nothing in her +now but some loose chips of iron for the bears." + +Loose chips of iron for the bears! thought I; did ever mortal hear such +a barbarian! "You don't fancy, friend, I came here to supply you with +lead and powder, to be used upon myself, too! I supposed, when you asked +me to come out into the bush, that you had everything a gentleman ought +to have for such a purpose." + +"Well, I never seed the like of that!" exclaimed he, striking the +ground with the butt end of his piece. "If we don't stand at four guns' +length--" + +"We 'll do no such thing, friend," said I, shouldering my piece, and +advancing towards him. "I never meant to offend _you_; nor have you any +object in wounding, mayhap killing, _me_. Let me have something to eat; +I 'll pay for it freely, and go my ways." + +"What on airth is it, eh?" said he, looking puzzled. "Why, that's one of +Colt's rifles! you'd have picked me down at two hundred yards, sure as +my name is Gabriel." + +"I know it," said I, coolly; "and how much the better or the happier +should I have been, had I done so?" I watched the fellow's pasty +countenance as though I could read what passed in the muddy bottom of +his mind. + +"If it were not for something of this kind," added I, sorrowfully, "I +should not be here to-day. You know New Orleans?" He nodded. "Well, +perhaps you know Ebenezer York?" + +"The senator?" + +"The same!" I made the pantomime of presenting a pistol, and then of a +man falling. "Just so. His brothers have taken up the pursuit, and so I +came down into this quarter till the smoke cleared off!" + +"He was a plumper at a hundred and twenty yards. I seen him double up +Gideon Millis, of Ohio." + +"Ah, I could recount many a thing of the kind to you," said I, leading +the way towards the hut, "but my throat is so dry, and I feel so +confoundedly weary just now--" + +"That's cider," said he, pointing to the crock. + +I did n't wait for a more formal invitation, but carried it to my lips, +and so held it for full a couple of minutes. + +"Ye _wor_ drouthy,--that's a fact!" said he, peering into the low +watermark of the vessel. + +"You hav'n't got any more bread?" said I, appropriating his own. + +"If I had n't, ye 'd not have got that so easy, lad!" said he, with a +grin. + +"And now for my mare; you see she's a good one--" + +"Good as if she belonged to a richer master!" said he, with a peculiar +leer of the eye. "I know her well! knowed her a foal! Ah, Charry, Miss! +do you forget the way to take off your saddle with your teeth?" and he +patted the creature with a nearer approach to kindness than I believed +he was capable of. + +I will not dwell upon the little arts I employed to conciliate my friend +Gabriel, nor stop to say how I managed to procure some Indian corn-meal +for my horse, and the addition of a very tough piece of dried beef to my +own meagre breakfast. I conclude the reader will be as eager to escape +from his society as I was myself; nor had I ever thrown him into such +unprofitable acquaintanceship, were there other means of explaining +how first I wandered from the right path, and by what persuasions I was +influenced in not returning to it. + +If Gabriel's history was not very entertaining, it was at least short, +so far as its catastrophe went. He was a Kentucky "bounty man," who had +taken into his head to fight a duel with a companion with whom he was +returning from New York. He killed his antagonist, buried him, and +was wending his way homeward with the watch and other property of the +deceased, to restore to his friends, when he was arrested at Little +Rock, and conveyed to jail. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced +to death, but made his escape the night before the execution was to have +taken place. His adventures from the Arkansas River till the time he +found himself in Texas were exciting in a high degree, and, even with +his own telling, not devoid of deep interest. Since his location in the +One-star Republic, he had tried various things, but all had failed +with him. His family, who followed him, died off by the dreadful +intermittents of the bush, leaving him alone to doze through the +remainder of existence between the half-consciousness of his fall and +the stupid insensibility of debauch. There was but one theme could +stir the dark embers of his nature; and when he had quitted _that_, the +interest of life seemed to have passed away, and he relapsed into his +dreamy indifference to both present and future. + +How he contrived to eke out subsistence was difficult to conceive. +To the tavern he had been almost the only customer, and in succession +consumed the little stores his poor wife had managed to accumulate. He +appeared to feel a kind of semi-consciousness that if "bears did not +fall in his way" during the winter, it might go hard with him; and he +pointed to four mounds of earth behind the log-hut, and said that "the +biggest would soon be alongside of 'em." + +As the heat of midday was too great to proceed in, I learned from him +thus much of his own story, and some particulars of the road to Bexar, +whither I had now resolved on proceeding, since, according to his +opinion, that afforded me a far better chance of coming up with the +expedition than by following their steps to Austin. + +"Had you come a few hours earlier to-day," said he, "you could have +joined company with a Friar who is travelling to Bexar; but you 'll +easily overtake him, as he travels with a little wagon and a sick woman. +They are making a pilgrimage to the saints there for her health. They +have two lazy mules and a half-breed driver that won't work miracles on +the roads, whatever the Virgin may after! You'll soon come up with them, +if Charry's like what she used to be." + +This intelligence was far from displeasing to me. I longed for some +companionship; and that of a Friar, if not very promising as to +amusement, had at least the merit of safety,--no small charm in such a +land as I then sojourned in. I learned besides that he was an Irishman +who had come out as a missionary among the Choctaws, and that he was +well versed in prairie life; that he spoke many of the Indian dialects, +and knew the various trails of these pathless wilds like any trapper of +them all. + +Such a fellow-traveller would be indeed a prize; and as I saddled my +mare to follow him, I felt lighter at heart than I had done for a long +time previous. "And his name?" said I. + +"It is half-Mexican by this. They call him Fra Miguel up at Bexar." + +"Now then for Fra Miguel!" cried I, springing into my saddle; and with a +frank "Good-bye," took the road to Bexar. + +I rode along with a light heart, my way leading through a forest of +tall beech and alder trees, whose stems were encircled by the twining +tendrils of the "Liana," which oftentimes spanned the space overhead, +and tempered the noonday sun by its delicious shade. Birds of gay +plumage and strange note hopped from branch to branch, while hares and +rabbits sat boldly on the grassy road, and scarcely cared to move at +my approach. The crimson-winged bustard, the swallow-tailed woodpecker, +with his snowy breast, and that most beautiful of all, the lazuli finch, +whose color would shame the blue waters of the Adriatic, chirped and +fluttered on every side. The wild squirrel, too, swung by his tail, and +jerked himself from bough to bough, in all the confidence of unmolested +liberty; while even the deer, timid without danger, stood and gazed at +me as I went, doubtless congratulating themselves that they were not +born to be beasts of burden. + +There was so much novelty to me in all around that the monotonous +character of the scene never wearied; for, although as far as human +companionship was concerned, nothing could be more utterly solitary and +desolate, yet the abundance of animal life, the bright tints of plumage, +and the strange concert of sound, afforded an unceasing interest. + +Occasionally I came upon the charred fragments of firewood, with other +signs indicative of a bivouac, showing where some hunting-party had +halted; but these, with a chance wheel-track, were all the evidence that +travellers had ever passed that way. The instincts of the human heart +are, after all, linked to companionship, and although it was but a few +hours since I had parted with "mine host" of Brazos, I began to conceive +a most anxious desire for the society of a fellow-traveller. I had +pushed Charcoal for some time, in the hope of overtaking the Friar; but +not only without success, but even without coming upon any recent tracks +that should show where the party passed. I could not have mistaken the +road, since there was but one through the forest; and at last I became +uneasy lest I should not reach some place of shelter for the night, and +obtain refreshment for myself and my horse. From the time that these +thoughts crossed my mind, all relish for the scene and its strange +associations departed. A scarlet jay might have perched upon my +saddle-bow unmolested; a "whip-poor-will" might have chanted her note +from my hat or my holsters unminded; the antlered stags did indeed graze +me as they went, without my once remembering that I was the owner of +one of "Colt's sharp bores," so intent I had grown upon the topic of +personal safety. What if I had gone astray? What if I fell in with the +Choctaws, who often came within a few miles of Austin? What if Charcoal +fell lame, or even tired? What if--But why enumerate all the suspicions +that, when chased away on one side, invariably came back on the other? +There was not an incident, from a sprained ankle to actual starvation, +that I did not rehearse; and, like that respected authority who spent +his days speculating what he should do "if he met a white bear," I threw +myself into so many critical situations and embarrassing conjectures +that my head ached with overtaxed ingenuity to escape from them. + +Æsop's fables have much to answer for. The attributing the gift of +speech to animals, by way of characterizing their generic qualities, +takes a wondrous hold upon the mind; and as for me, I held "imaginary +conversations" with everything that flew or bounded past. From the green +lizard that scaled the shining cork-trees, to the lazy toad that flopped +heavily into the water, I had a word for all,--ay, and thought they +answered me, too. + +Some, I fancied, chirped pleasantly and merrily, as though to say, "Go +it, Con, my hearty; Charry has stride and wind for many a mile yet!" +Some, with a wild scream, would seem to utter a cry of surprise at the +pace, as if saying, "Ruffle my feathers if Con 's not in a hurry!" An +old owl, with a horseshoe wig, looked shocked at my impetuosity, and +shook his wise head in grave rebuke; while a fat asthmatic frog nearly +choked with emotion as I hurled the small pebbles into his bath of +duck-weed. How strange would life be, reduced to such companionship! +thought I. Would one gradually sink down to the level of this animal +existence, such as it appears now, or would one elevate the inferior +animal to some equality of intelligence? + +The solitude which a short time previous had suggested--I know not +now many!--bright imaginings, presented now the one sad, unvarying +reflection,--desolation; and it had almost become a doubtful point +whether I should not at once turn my horse's head and make for Upper +Brazos and its gruff host of the log-house, rather than brave a night +"al fresco" in the forest. It was just at the moment that this question +became mooted in my mind that I perceived the faint track of a wheel on +the short grass of the pathway. I dismounted and examined it closely, +and soon discovered its counterpart on the other side of the road; and +with a little further search I could detect the footmarks of two horses, +evidently unshod. + +Inspired with fresh courage by these signs, I spurred Charry to a +sharper stride, and for above two hours rode on, each turning of the +road suggesting the hope of coming up with the Friar, who evidently +journeyed at a brisker pace than I had anticipated. The sailor's adage +says that "A stern chase is a long chase;" and so it is, whether it be +on land or sea,--whether the pursuit be to overtake a flying Frenchman +or Fortune! + +The sun had sunk beneath the tops of the tall trees, and only streamed +through, in chance lines of light, upon the road, when suddenly I found +myself upon the verge of an abrupt descent, at the bottom of which ran +a narrow but rapid river. These great fissures, by which the mountain +streams descend to join the larger rivers, are very common in Texas and +throughout the region which borders on the Rocky Mountains, and form one +of the greatest impediments to travelling in these tracts. + +As I gazed upon the steep descent, to have scrambled down which, even on +foot, would have been dangerous and difficult enough, I remembered that +I had passed, about half an hour before, a spot where the road "forked" +off into two separate directions, and at once resumed my march to this +place, where I had the satisfaction of perceiving that the grass was +yet rising under the recent passage of a wagon. A short and sharp canter +down a gentle slope brought me once more in sight of the stream and +of what was far nearer to my hopes, the long looked-for party with the +Friar. + +The scene I now beheld was sufficiently striking for a picture. About +fifty feet beneath where I stood, and on the bank of a boiling, foaming +torrent, was a wagon, drawn by two large horses; a covering of canvas +formed an awning overhead, and curtains of the same material closed the +sides. A large, powerful-looking Mexican stood beating the stream with a +great pole, while the Friar, with his robes tucked up so as to display +a pair of enormous naked legs, assisted in this singular act of +flagellation, from time to time addressing a hasty prayer to a small +image which I perceived he had hung up against the canvas covering. +The noise of the rushing water and the crashing sound of the sticks +prevented my hearing the voices, which were most volubly exerted all the +while, and which, by accustoming myself to the din, I at last perceived +were used in exhorting the horses to courage. The animals, however, gave +no token of returning confidence, nor showed the slightest inclination +to advance. On the contrary, whenever led forward a pace or two, they +invariably sprang back with a bound that threatened to smash their +tackle or upset the wagon; nor was it without much caressing and +encouragement that they would stand quiet again. Meanwhile, the Friar's +exertions were redoubled at every moment, and both his prayers and his +thrashings became more animated. Indeed, it was curious to watch with +what agility his bulky figure alternated from the work of beating the +water to gesticulating before "the Virgin." Now, as I looked, a small +corner of the canvas curtain was moved aside, and a hand appeared, +which, even without the large straw fan it carried, might have been +pronounced a female one. This, however, was speedily withdrawn on +some observation from the Friar, and the curtain was closed rigidly as +before. + +All my conjectures as to this singular proceeding being in vain, I +resolved to join the party, towards whom I perceived the road led by a +slightly circuitous descent. + +Cautiously wending my way down this slope, which grew steeper as I +advanced, I had scarcely reached the river side when I was perceived by +the party. Both the Friar and his follower ceased their performance on +the instant, and cast their eyes upwards to the road with a glance that +showed they were on "the look-out" for others. They even changed their +position, to have a better view of the path, and seemed as if unable +to persuade themselves that I could be alone. To my salutation, which +I made by courteously removing my hat and bowing low, they offered +no return, and looked--as I really believe they were--far too much +surprised at my sudden appearance to afford me any signs of welcome. As +I came nearer, I could see that the Friar made the circuit of the wagon, +and, as if casually, examined the curtains; and then, satisfied "that +all was right," took his station by the head of his beasts, and waited +for my approach. + +"Good day, Señhor Caballero," said the Friar, in Spanish, while the +Mexican looked at the lock of his long-barrelled rifle, and retired a +couple of paces, with a gesture of guarded caution. + +"Good evening, rather, Father," said I, in English. "I have ridden hard +to come up with you, for the last twenty miles." + +"From the States?" said the Friar, approaching me, but with no peculiar +evidences of pleasure at hearing his native language. + +"From your own country, Fra Miguel," said I, boldly--"an Irishman." + +"And how are you travelling here?" said he, still preserving his +previous air of caution and reserve. + +"A mistake of the road!" said I, confidently; for already I had invented +my last biographical sketch. "I was on the way to Austin, whither I had +despatched my servants and baggage, when accidentally taking the turn to +Upper Brazos instead of the lower one, I found myself some twenty miles +off my track before I knew of it. I should have turned back when I +discovered my error, but that I heard that a Friar, a countryman, too, +had just set out towards Bexar. This intelligence at once determined me +to continue my way, which I rejoice to find has been so far successful." + +To judge from the "Padre's" face, the pleasure did not appear +reciprocal. He looked at me and the wagon alternately, and then he cast +his eyes towards the Mexican, who, understanding nothing of English, was +evidently holding himself ready for any measures of a hostile character. + +"Going to Austin," at last said the Friar. "You are a merchant, then?" + +"No," said I, smiling superciliously; "I am a mere traveller for +pleasure, my object being to make a tour of the prairies, and by some of +the Mexican cities, before my return to Europe." + +"Heaven guide and protect you," said he, fervently, with a wave of +his hand like leave-taking. "This is not a land to wander in after +nightfall. You are well mounted, and a good rider; push on, then, my +son, and you 'll reach Bexar before the moon sets." + +"If that be your road, Father," said I, "as speed is no object with me, +I 'd rather join company with you than proceed alone." + +"Ahem!" said he, looking confused, "I am going to Bexar, it is true, +Señhor; but my journey is of the slowest: the wagon is heavy, and a sick +companion whom it contains cannot travel fast. Go, then, 'con Dios!' and +we may meet again at our journey's end." + +"My mare has got quite enough of it," said I, my desire to remain with +him being trebled by his exertions to get rid of me. "When I overtook +you, I was determining to dismount and spare my beast; so that _your_ +pace will not in the least inconvenience me." + +The Padre, instead of replying to me, addressed some words to the +Mexican in Spanish, which, whatever they were, the other only answered +by a sharp slap of his palm on the stock of his rifle, and a very +significant glance at his girdle, where a large bowie-knife glittered +in all the freedom of its unsheathed splendor. As if not noticing this +pantomime, I drew forth my "Harper's Ferry pistol" from the holster, and +examined the priming,--a little bit of display I had the satisfaction +to perceive was not thrown away on either the Friar or the layman. At +a word from the former, however, the latter began once again his +operations with the pole, the Friar resuming his place beside the cattle +as if totally forgetful of my presence there. + +"May I ask the object of this proceeding, Father?" said I, "which, +unless it be a 'devotional exercise,' is perfectly unaccountable to me." + +The Padre looked at me without speaking; but the sly drollery of his eye +showed that he would have had no objection to bandy a jest with me, were +the time and place more fitting. "I perceive," said he, at length, "that +you have not journeyed in this land, or you would have known that at +this season the streams abound with caymans and alligators, and that +when the cattle have been once attacked by them, they have no courage to +cross a river after. Their instinct, however, teaches them that +beating the waters insures safety, and many a Mexican horse will not go +knee-deep without this ceremony being performed." + +"I see that your cattle are unusually tired in the present case," said +I, "for you have been nigh half an hour here, to my own knowledge." + +"Look at that black marc's fore-leg, and you ll see why," said he, +pointing to a deep gash, which laid bare the white tendons for some +inches in length, while a deep pool of blood flowed around the animal's +hoof. + +A cry from the Mexican here broke in upon our colloquy, as, throwing +down his pole, he seized his rifle, and dropped upon one knee in the +attitude of defence. + +"What is it, Sancho?" cried the Friar. + +A few words of guttural followed, and the Padre said it was a large +alligator that had just carried off a chiguire--a wild pig--under the +water with him. This stream is a tributary of the Colloredo, along the +banks of which these creatures' eggs are found in thousands! + +My blood ran cold at the horrid thought of being attacked by such +animals, and I readily volunteered my assistance at the single-stick +exercise of my companion. + +The Friar accepted my offer without much graciousness, but rather as +that of an unwelcome guest who could not be easily got rid of. + +END OF VOL. I. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. A NIGHT IN THE FOREST OF TEXAS + +The friar ceased his efforts, and, calling the Mexican to one side, +whispered something in a low, cautious manner. The other seemed to +demur and hesitate, but, after a brief space, appeared to yield; when, +replacing the poles beside the wagon, he turned the horses' heads +towards the road by which they had just come. + +"We are about to try a ford some miles farther up the stream," said the +Padre, "and so we commend you to the Virgin, and wish you a prosperous +journey." + +"All roads are alike to me, holy Father," said I, with a coolness that +cost me something to assume. + +"Then take the shortest, and you'll be soonest at your journey's end," +said he, gruffly. + +"Who can say that?" rejoined I; "it's no difficult matter to lose one's +way in a dense forest, where the tracks are unknown." + +"There is but one path, and it cannot be mistaken," said he, in the same +tone. + +"It has one great disadvantage, Father," said I. + +"What is that?" + +"There is no companionship on it; and, to say truth, I have too much of +the Irishman in me to leave good company for the pleasure of travelling +all alone." + +"Methinks you have very little of the Irishman about you, in another +respect," said he, with a sneer of no doubtful meaning. + +"How so?" said I, eagerly. + +"In volunteering your society when it is not sought for, young +gentleman," said he, with a look of steadfast effrontery,--"at least, +I can say, such were not the habits of the land as I remember it some +forty years ago." + +"Ah, holy Father, it has grown out of many a barbarous custom since your +time: the people have given up drinking and faction-fighting, and you +may travel fifty miles a day for a week together and never meet with a +friar." + +"Peace be with you!" said he, waving his hand, but with a gesture it was +easy to see boded more passion than patience. + +I hesitated for a second what to do; and at last, feeling that another +word might perhaps endanger the victory I had won, I dashed spurs into +the mare's flanks, and, with the shout the ostler had recommended, +rushed her at the stream. Over she went, "like a bird," lighting on the +opposite bank with her hind-legs "well up," and the next moment plunged +into the forest. + +Scarcely, however, had I proceeded fifty paces than I drew up. The dense +wood effectually shut out the river from my view, and even masked the +sounds of the rushing water. A suspicion dwelt on my mind that the Friar +was _not_ going back, and that he had merely concerted this plan with +the Mexican the easier to disembarrass himself of my company. The +seeming pertinacity of _his_ purpose suggested an equal obstinacy of +resistance on _my_ part. Some will doubtless say that it argued very +little pride and a very weak self-esteem in Con Cregan to continue to +impose his society where it had been so peremptorily declined; and +so had it been, doubtless, had the scene been a great city ruled and +regulated by its thousand-and-one conventionalities. But the prairies +are separated by something longer than mere miles from the land of +kid-gloves and visiting tickets. Ceremonial in such latitudes would be +as unsuitable as a court suit. + +Besides, I argued thus: "A very underdone slice of tough venison, with +a draught of spring water, constitute in these regions a very appetizing +meal; and, for the same reason, a very morose friar and a still sulkier +servant may be accepted as very tolerable travelling companions. Enjoy +better when it can be had, Con, but prefer even the humblest fare to a +famine,"--a rule more applicable to mental food than to material. + +In a little self-colloquy after this kind, I crept stealthily back, +leading Charry by the bridle, and halting at intervals to listen. What +a triumph to my skill in divination as I heard the Friar's loud voice +overtopping the gushing flood, while he exhorted his beasts in the most +energetic fashion! + +I advanced cautiously till I gained a little clump of brushwood, from +which I could see the river and the group perfectly. The Friar had +now mounted the wagon, and held the reins; the Mexican was, however, +standing in the stream and leading the cattle, who appeared to have +regained somewhat more of their courage, and were slowly proceeding, +sniffing timidly as they went, and pawing the water fretfully. + +The Mexican advanced boldly, till the water reached nigh the top of +his great _botas vaqueras_, immense boots of buffalo hide, which, it is +said, resist the bite of either cayman or serpent; and so far the +horses went, doubtless from the encouragement. As soon, however, as the +deepening flood warned the man to mount the wagon, they halted abruptly, +and stood pawing and splashing the stream, while their ears flattened +back, and their drawn-in tails evinced the terror that was on them. + +Objurgations, entreaties, prayers, curses, menaces, were all in vain,--a +step farther they would not budge. All that the Spanish contained of +guttural was hurled at them without success; the cow-hide whip might +welt their flanks and leave great ridges at every stroke, the huge +pole of the Mexican might belabor them, with a running accompaniment of +kicks, but to no purpose. They cared as little for the cow-hide as the +"calendar;" neither saints nor thrashings could persuade them to move +on. Saint Anthony and Saint Ursula, Saint Forimund of Cordova, with +various others, were invoked, to no end. Saint Clement of Capua, to whom +all poisonous reptiles, from boas to whip-snakes, owe allegiance, was +called upon to aid the travellers; but the quadrupeds took no heed of +these entreaties, but showed a most Protestant contempt for the whole +litany. + +There was a pause; wearied with flogging, and tired out with vain +exhortations, both Friar and Mexican, ceased, and as if in compensation +to their long pent-up feelings, vented their anger in a very guttural +round of maledictions upon the whole animal creation, and in particular +on that part of it who would not be eaten by alligators without signs +of resistance and opposition. Whether this new turn of events had any +influence, or that the matter was more owing to "natural causes," I +cannot say; but, just then, the horse which had been already bitten, +reared straight up, and with a loud snort plunged forward, carrying with +him the other. By his plunge he had reached a deep part of the stream, +where the water came half way up his body. Another spring smashed one of +the traces, and left him free to kick violently behind him,--a privilege +he certainly hastened to avail himself of. His fellow, whether from +sympathy or not, imitated the performance; and there they were, lashing +and plunging with all their might, while the wagon, against which the +strong current beat in all its force, threatened at every instant +to capsize. The Friar struggled manfully, as did his follower; but, +unfortunately, one of the reins gave way, and by the violent tugging +at the remaining one, the animals were turned out of their course, and +dragged round to the very middle of the stream. About twenty yards lower +down, the river fell by a kind of cascade some ten or twelve feet, and +towards this spot now the infuriated horses seemed rushing. Had it been +practicable, a strong man might, by throwing himself into the water, +have caught the horses' heads and held them back; but the stream swarmed +with poisonous reptiles, which made such an effort almost inevitable +death. + +It was now a scene of terrible and most exciting interest. + +The maddened horses, alternately rising and sinking, writhed and twisted +in agonies of pain. The men's voices mingled with the gushing torrent +and the splashing water, which rose higher and higher at each plunge, +while a shrill shriek from within the wagon topped all, and in its +cadence seemed to speak a heart torn with terror. As I looked, the sun +had set; and as speedily as though a curtain had fallen, the soft light +of evening gave way to a gray darkness. I rode down to the bank, and as +I reached it, one of the horses, after a terrific struggle to get free, +plunged head foremost down and disappeared. The other, unable by himself +alone to resist the weight of the wagon, which already was floating in +the stream, swung round with the torrent, and was now dragging along +toward the cataract. The dusky indistinctness even added to the terror +of the picture, as the white water splashed up on every side, and at +times seemed actually to cover the whole party in its scattering foam. +The Friar, now leaning back, tore open one of the curtains, and at +the same instant I saw a female arm stretch out and clasp him, while a +shrill cry burst forth that thrilled to my very heart. + +They were already within a few yards of the cataract; a moment or two +more, they must be over it and lost! I spurred Charry forward, and down +we plunged into the water, without the slightest thought of what was to +follow. Half swimming, half bounding, I reached the wagon, which now, +broadside on the falls, tottered with every stroke of the fast rolling +river. The Mexican was standing on the pole, and endeavoring to hold +back the horse; while the Friar, ripping the canvas with his knife, +was endeavoring to extricate the female figure, who, sunk on her knees, +seemed utterly incapable of any effort for her own safety. + +Whether maddened by the bite of some monster beneath the water, or +having lost his footing, I know not, but the horse went over the falls, +while the Mexican, vainly endeavoring to hold him, was carried down with +him; the wagon, reeling with the shock, heeled over to the side, and was +fast sinking, when I caught hold of the outstretched hand of the woman +and drew her towards me. "Leap, spring towards him!" cried the Friar; +and she obeyed the words, and, with a bound, seated herself behind me. + +Breasting the water bravely, Charry bounded on, and in less than a +minute reached the bank, which the Friar, by the aid of a leaping-pole, +had gained before us. + +Having placed the half-lifeless girl on the sward, I hastened to see +after the poor Mexican. Alas! of him and the horse we never saw trace +afterwards. We called aloud, we shouted, and even continued along the +stream for a considerable space; but to no purpose, the poor fellow had +evidently perished,--perhaps by a death too horrible to think of. The +Friar wrung his hands in agony, and mingled his thanksgiving for his own +safety with lamentations for his lost companion; and so intent was he on +these themes that he never recognized me, nor, indeed, seemed conscious +of my presence. At last, as we turned our steps towards where the girl +lay, he said, "Is it possible that you are the caballero we parted with +before sunset?" + +"Yes," said I, "the same. You were loth to accept of my company, but +you see there is a fate in it, after all; you cannot get rid of me so +readily." + +"Nor shall we try, Señhor," said the girl, passionately, but with a +foreign accent in her words, as she took my hands and pressed them to +her lips. + +The Friar said something hastily in Spanish, which seemed a rebuke, for +she drew back at once, and buried her face in her mantle. + +"Donna Maria is my niece, Señhor, and has only just left the convent of +the 'Sacred Heart.' She knows nothing of the world, nor what beseems her +as a young maiden." + +This the Friar spoke harshly, and with a manner that to me sounded far +more in need of an apology than did the young girl's grateful emotion. + +What was to be done became now the question. We were at least thirty +miles from Bexar, and not a village, nor even a log-hut, between us and +that city. To go back was impossible; so that, like practical people, we +at once addressed ourselves to the available alternative. + +"Picket your beast, and let us light a fire," said Fra Miguel, with +the air of a man who would not waste life in vain regrets. "Thank +Providence, we have both grass and water; and although the one always +brings snakes, and the other alligators, it is better than to bivouac +on the Red River, with iron ore in the stream, and hard flints to sleep +on." + +Fastening my beast to a tree, I unstrapped my saddlebags and removed my +saddle; disposing which most artistically in the fashion of an arm-chair +for Donna Maria at the foot of a stupendous beech, I set about the +preparation of a fire. The Friar, however, had almost anticipated me, +and, with both arms loaded with dead wood, sat himself down to construct +a species of hearth, placing a little circle of stones around in such a +way as to give a draught to the blaze. + +"We must fast to-night, Senhor," said he; "but it will count to us +hereafter. Fan the fire with your hat, it will soon blaze briskly." + +"If it were not for that young lady," said I, "whose sufferings are far +greater than ours--" + +"Speak not of her, Señhor; Donna Maria de los Dolores was called after +our Mother of Sorrows, and she may as well begin her apprenticeship +to grief. She is the only child of my brother, who had sent her to be +educated at New Orleans, and is now returning home to see her father, +before she takes the veil of her novitiate." + +A very low sigh--so low as only to be audible to myself--came from +beneath the beech-tree; and I threw a handful of dry chips upon +the fire, hoping to catch a glimpse of the features of my fair +fellow-traveller. Fra Miguel, however, balked my stratagem by topping +the fire with a stout log, as he said, "You are too spendthrift, Señhor; +we shall need to husband our resources, or we 'll not have enough for +the night long." + +"Would you not like to come nearer to the blaze, Senhora?" said I, +respectfully. + +"Thanks, sir, but perhaps--" + +"Speak out, child," broke in the Father, "speak out, and say that you +are counting your rosary, and would not wish to be disturbed. And you, +Senhor, if I err not, in your eagerness to aid us have forgotten to +water your gallant beast: don't lead him to the stream, that would be +unsafe; take my sombrero: it has often served a like purpose before now. +Twice full is enough for any horse in these countries." I would have +declined this offer, but I felt that submission in everything would be +my safest passport to his good opinion; and so, armed with the "Friar's +beaver," I made my way to the stream. + +Whatever his eulogies upon the pitcher-like qualities of his head-piece, +to me they seemed most undeserved; for scarcely had I filled it, than +the water ran through like a sieve. The oftener, too, was the process +repeated the less chance did there appear of success; for, instead of +retaining the fluid at all, the material became so saturated that it +threatened to tear in pieces every time it was filled, and ere I could +lift it was totally empty. Half angry with the Friar, and still more +annoyed at my own ineptitude, I gave up the effort, and returned to +where I had left him, confessing my failure as I came forward. + +"Steep your 'kerchief in the stream, then, and wash the beast's mouth," +said he, upon his knees, where, with a great string of beads, he was +engaged with his devotions. + +I retired, abashed at my intrusion, and proceeded to do as I was +directed. + +"What if all these cares for my horse, and all these devotional +exercises, were but stratagems to get rid of my company for a season?" +thought I, as I perceived that scarcely had I left the spot, than the +Friar arose from his knees, and seemed to busy himself about something +in the trees. Full of this impression, I made a little circuit of the +place; and what was my surprise to observe that he had converted his +upper robe of coarse blanket-cloth into a kind of hammock for Donna +Maria, in which, fastened at either end to the bough of a tree, she was +now swinging to and fro, with apparently all the pleasure of a happy +child. + +"Don't you like it, Uncle, after all?" said she laughing. "It's exactly +what one has read of in Juan Cordova's stories, to be bivouacking in a +great forest, with a great fire, to keep away the jaguars." + +"Hush! and go to sleep, child. I neither like it for thee nor myself. +There are more dangerous things than jaguars in these woods." + +"Ah, you mean the bears, Uncle?" + +"I do not," growled he, sulkily. + +"As for snakes, one gets used to them; besides, they go into the tall +grass." + +"Ay, ay, snakes in the grass, just so!" muttered the Friar; "but this +youth will be back presently, and let him not hear you talk such silly +nonsense. Good night, good night." + +"Good night," sighed she, "but I cannot sleep; I love so to see the +fireflies dancing through the leaves, and to hear that rushing river." + +"Hush! he's coming," said the Friar; and all was still. + +When I came up, "the Friar" was again sunk in holy meditation, so that, +disposing myself beside the fire, with my rifle at one side, and my +pistols at the other, I lay down to sleep. Although I closed my eyes +and lay still, I did not sleep. My thoughts were full of Donna Maria, of +whom I weaved a hundred conjectures. It was evident she was young; her +voice was soft and musical too, and had that pleasant bell-like cadence +so indicative of a light heart and a happy nature. Why was she called +the "Los Dolores"? I asked myself again and again what had she in her +joyousness to do with grief and care; and why should she enter a +convent and become a nun? These were questions there was no solving, and +apparently, if I might judge from the cadence of her now deep sigh, no +less puzzling to herself than to me. The more my interest became excited +for her, the stronger grew my dislike to the Friar. That he was a surly +old tyrant, I perfectly satisfied myself. What a pity that I could not +rescue her from such cruelty as easily as I saved her from the cataract! + +Would that I could even see her! There was something so tormenting in +the mystery of her concealment, and so, I deemed, must she herself feel +it. We should be so happy together, journeying along day by day through +the forest! What tales would I not tell her of my wanderings, and how I +should enjoy the innocence of her surprise at my travelled wonders! And +all the strange objects of these wild woods,--how they would interest +and amuse, were there "two" to wonder at and admire them! How I wished +she might be pretty; what a disappointment if she were not; what a total +rout to all my imaginings if she were to have red hair,--how terrible +if she should squint! These thoughts at last became too tantalizing for +endurance, and so I tried to fall asleep and forget them; but in vain, +they had got too firm a hold of me, and I could not shake them off. + +It was now about midnight, the fire waxed low, and "the Friar" was sound +asleep. What connection was there between these considerations and her +of whom I was thinking? Who knows? I arose and sat up, listening with +eager ear to the low long breathings of the Friar, who, with his round +bullet-head pillowed on a pine-log, slept soundly; the gentle hum of the +leaves, scarcely moved by the night wind, and the distant sound of the +falling water, were lullabies to his slumber. It was a gorgeous night of +stars; the sky was studded with bright orbs in all the brilliant lustre +of a southern latitude. The fireflies, too, danced and glittered on +every side, leaving traces of the phosphoric light on the leaves as they +passed. The air was warm and balmy with "the rich odor of the cedar and +the acacia,"--just such a night as one would like to pass in "converse +sweet" with some dear friend, mingling past memories with shadowy +dreams, and straying along from bygones to futurity. + +I crept over stealthily to where the Friar lay: a lively fear prevailed +with me that he might be feigning sleep, and so I watched him long and +narrowly. No, it was an honest slumber; the deep guttural of his mellow +throat was beyond counterfeiting. I threw a log upon the fire carelessly +and with noise, to see if it would awake him; but he only muttered a +word or two that sounded like Latin, and slept on. I now strained +my eyes towards the hammock, of which, under the shadow of a great +sycamore-tree, I could barely detect the outline through the leaves. + +Should I be able to discern her features, were I to creep over? What a +difficult question, and how impossible to decide by mere reasoning upon +it! What if I were to try? It was a pure piece of curiosity,--curiosity +of the most harmless kind. I had been, doubtless, just as eager to scan +the Friar's lineaments, if he had taken the same pains to conceal them +from me. It was absurd, besides, to travel with a person and not see +their face. Intercourse was a poor thing without that reciprocity which +looks convey. I 'll have a peep, at all events, said I, summing up to +myself all my arguments; and with this resolve I moved cautiously along, +and, making a wide circuit, came round to the foot of the sycamore, at +the side most remote from the Friar. + +There was the hammock, almost within reach of my hand! It seemed to +swing to and fro. I cannot say if this were mere deception; and so I +crept nearer, just to satisfy my doubts. At last I reached the side, +and peeped in. All I could see was the outline of a figure wrapped in +a mantle, and a mass of soft silky hair, which fell over and shaded the +face. It was some time before my eyes grew accustomed to the deep shadow +of the spot; but by degrees I could perceive the profile of a young and +beautiful face resting upon one arm, the other hung negligently at one +side, and the hand drooped over the edge of the hammock. The attitude +was the very perfection of graceful ease, and such as a sculptor might +have modelled. What a study, too, that hand, whose dimpled loveliness +the starlight speckled! How could I help touching it with my lips?--the +first time, with all the hallowed reverence a worshipper would vouchsafe +to some holy relic; the second, with a more fervent devotion; the third, +I ventured to take the hand in mine and slightly press it. Did I dream? +Could the ecstasy be no more than fancy?--I thought the pressure was +returned. + +She turned gently around, and in a voice of surpassing softness +whispered, "Tell me your name, Senhor Caballero?" I whispered low, "Con +Cregan." + +"Yes, but what do your sisters call you?" + +"I have none, Señhora." + +"Your brothers, then?" + +"I never had a brother." + +"How strange! nor I either. Then how shall I call you?" + +"Call me your brother," said I, trying to repossess myself of the hand +she had gently withdrawn from my grasp. + +"And will you call me Maria?" said she, gayly. + +"If you permit it, Maria. But how will Fra Miguel think of it?" + +"Ah! I forgot that. But what can he say? You saved my life. I should +have been carried away, like poor Sancho, but for you. Tell me how you +chanced to be here, and where you are going, and whence you come, and +all about you. Sit down there, on that stone. Nay, you need n't hold my +hand while talking." + +"Yes, but I 'm afraid to be alone here in the dark, Maria," said I. + +"What a silly creature it is! Now begin." + +"I 'd rather talk of the future, Maria, dearest. I 'd rather we should +speak of all the happy days we may spend together." + +"But how so? Once at Bexar, I 'm to wait at the monastery till my father +sends his mules and people to fetch me home; meanwhile, you will have +wandered away Heaven knows where." + +"And where do you call home, Maria?" + +"Far away, beyond the Rio Grande, in the gold country, near Aguaverde." + +"And why should I not go thither? I am free to turn my steps whither I +will. Perhaps your father would not despise the services of one who has +some smattering of knowledge upon many a theme." + +"But a Caballero--a real Señhor--turn miner! They are all miners there." + +"No matter; Fortune might favor me, and make me rich, and then,--and +then,--who is to tell what changes might follow? The Caballero might bid +adieu to the 'Placer,' and the fair 'Donna Maria' wave a good-bye to the +nunnery--and, by the way, that is a very cruel destiny they intend for +you." + +"Who knows? I was very happy in the 'Sacred Heart.'" + +"Possibly, Maria; but you were a child, and would have been happy +anywhere. But think of the future; think of the time when you will be +loved, and will love in turn; think of that bright world of which the +convent-window does not admit one passing glance. Think of the glorious +freedom to enjoy whatever is beautiful in Nature, and to feel sympathies +with all that is great and good; and reflect upon the sad monotony of +the cloister,--its cold and cheerless existence, uncared for, almost +unfelt." + +"And when the Superior is cross!" cried she, holding up her hands. + +"And she is always cross, Maria. That austere habit repels every +generous emotion, as it defies every expansion of the heart. No, no; you +must not be a nun." + +"Well, I will not," said she. + +"You promise me this, Maria?" + +"Yes, upon one condition,--that you will come to the 'Placer,' and tell +my father all that you have told to me. He is so good and so kind, he +'ll never force me." + +"But will he receive me? Will your father permit me so to speak?" + +"You saved my life, Señhor," said she, half-proudly; "and little as you +reckon such a service, it is one upon which Don Estavan Olares will set +some store." + +"Ah!" said I, sighing, "how little merit had I in the feat! It did not +even cause me the slightest injury." + +"I am just as gratified as though you had been eaten by an alligator, +Señhor," said she, laughing with a sly malice that made me half suspect +that some, at least, of her innocence was assumed. + +From this we wandered on to speak of the journey for the morrow, which +I proposed she should make upon "Charry," while Fra Miguel and myself +accompanied her on foot. It was also agreed between us that we should +preserve the most rigid reserve and distance of manner in the Friar's +presence, rarely noticing or speaking with each other. One only +difficulty existed, which was by what pretence I should direct my steps +to Aguaverde. But here again Donna Maria's ready wit suggested the +expedient, as she said, laughing, "Are you not making a pilgrimage to +the shrine of Our Lady 'des los Dolores '?" + +"So I am," said I. "Shame on me that I should have forgotten it till +now!" + +"Did you never tell me," said she, archly, "that you intended to enter +'an order'?" + +"Certainly," said I, joining the merry humor; "and so will I, on the +very same day you take the veil." + +"And now, holy man," said she, with difficulty repressing a fresh +burst of laughter, "let us say, 'Good night.' Fra Miguel will awake at +daybreak, and I see that is already near." + +"Good night, sweet sister," said I, once again pressing her fingers to +my lips, and scarcely knowing when to relinquish them. A heavy sigh +from the Friar, however, admonished me to hasten away; and I crept to +my place, and lay down beside the now almost extinguished embers of our +fire. + +"What a good thought was that of the pilgrimage," said I, as I drew my +cloak around me; and I remembered that "Chico's" beads and his "book +of offices" were still among my effects in the saddle-bags, and would +greatly favor my assumption of the pious character. I then tried to +recall some of my forgotten Latin. From this I reverted to thoughts +of Donna Maria herself, and half wondered at the rapid strides we had +accomplished in each other's confidence. At last I fell asleep, to dream +of every incongruity and încoherency that ever haunted a diseased brain. +Nunneries, with a crocodile for the Abbess, gave way to scenes in the +Placers, where Nuns were gold-washing, and Friars riding down cataracts +on caymans. From such pleasant realities a rough shake of Fra Miguel +aroused me, as he cried, "When a man laughs so heartily in his sleep, +he may chance to keep all the grave thoughts for his waking. Rise up, +Señhor; the day is breaking. Let us profit by the cool hours to make our +journey." + +As day was breaking we set out for Bexar, in the manner I had suggested; +Donna Maria riding, the Friar and myself, one either side of her, +on foot. Resolved upon winning, so far as might be, Fra Miguel's +confidence, I addressed my conversation almost exclusively to him, +rarely speaking a word to my fair companion, and then only upon the +commonest questions of the way. + +As none of us had eaten since the day previous, nor was there any +baiting-place till we reached Bexar, it was necessary to make the best +of our way thither with all speed. The Fra knew the road perfectly, and +by his skill in detecting the marks on trees, the position of certain +rocks, and the course of the streams, gave me some insight into the +acute qualities necessary for a prairie traveller. These themes, too, +furnished the greater portion of our conversation, which, I am free to +own, offered many a long interval of dreary silence. The Fra's thoughts +dwelt gloomily on his late disaster, while Donna Maria and myself were +condemned to the occasional exchange of a chance remark or some question +about the road. + +Once or twice Fra Miguel questioned me on the subject of my own history; +but ere I had proceeded any length in detailing my veracious narrative, +an accidental word or remark would show that he was inattentive to what +I was speaking, and only occupied by his own immediate reflections. + +Why, then, trouble myself with biographical inventions which failed to +excite any interest? And so I relapsed into a silence plodding and moody +as his own. + +At length the path became too narrow for us all to go abreast, and as +my duties were to guide Charry by the bridle, I became the companion of +Maria by force of circumstances; still, Fra Miguel kept up close behind, +and however abstracted at other times, he now showed himself "wide +awake" on the subject of our intercourse. Denied the pleasure of talking +to each other, we could at least exchange glances; and this was a +privilege no surveillance, however rigid, could deny us. These are small +and insignificant details, which were of little moment at the time, +and led to even less for the future; but I record them as the first +stirrings of love in a heart which might have been deemed too intent +upon its own cares to admit of others. And here let me observe that the +taste for stratagem--the little wiles and snares inspired by a first +passion--are among the strongest incentives to its origin. It was +the secrecy of our meeting at night, the little difficulties of our +intercourse by day, the peril of discovery as we spoke together, the +danger of detection as we exchanged glances, that, by giving us a common +object, suggested a common feeling. Both engaged in the same warfare, +how could we avoid sympathizing with each other? Then, there was that +little "dash of romance" about our first meeting, so auxiliary to the +tender passion; and, again, we were wandering, side by side, in a silent +forest, with only one other near us. Would we could have disposed of him +too! I shame to say it, but, in honest truth. I often wished that he had +followed the Mexican! + +We halted during the great heat of the day, and the Fra once more +"rigging" out his capote for a hammock, Donna Maria lay down for the +siesta, while I cut grass for Charry, and rubbed her down. Long fasting +had made us all more disposed to silence, so that a few monosyllables +were all that passed. When the time came to resume the road, I am proud +to say that the Fra bore his privations with less equanimity than did +we. His sighs grew heavy and frequent; any accidental interruption on +the road evoked unmistakable signs of irritation; he even expostulated +with certain saints, whose leaden images decorated his sombrero, as to +the precise reasons for which his present sufferings were incurred; and +altogether, as hunger pinched, showed a more rebellious spirit than his +holy discourses of the preceding evening could have led me to suspect. + +One time, he charged his calamities to the score of having eaten turtle, +which was only half fish, on a Friday; at another, it was upon that +unlucky day the journey had been begun; then he remembered that the +Mexican was only a half-breed, who possibly, if baptized at all, was +only an irregular kind of a Christian, admitted into the fold by some +stray missionary, more trapper than priest. Then he bethought him that +his patron, Saint Michel of Pavia, was of an uncertain humor, and often +tormented his votaries, by way of trying their fidelity. These various +doubts assumed the form of open grumblings, which certainly inspired +very different sentiments in Donna Maria and myself than edification. As +evening closed in, and darkness favored us, these ghostly lamentations +afforded us many a low, quiet laugh. A soft pressure of the hand, +which now, by mere accident, of course, she had let fall near me, would +sometimes show how we concurred in our sentiments, till at length as the +thicker gloom of night fell around, such was our unanimity that her hand +remained clasped in my own, without any further attempt to remove it. + +If the Fra's gratitude burst forth eloquently as we came in sight of +some spangled lights glittering through the gloom, our sensations were +far more akin to disappointment. + +"Bexar at last, praised be Saint Michel!" exclaimed he. "It has been +a long and dreary journey." Here I pressed Donna Maria's hand, and she +returned the pressure. + +"Two days of disaster and sore suffering!" Another squeeze of the +Señhora's fingers. + +"A time I shall never forget," muttered he. + +"Nor I," whispered I to my fair companion. + +"A season of trouble and distress!" quoth the Fra. + +"Of love and happiness!" muttered I. + +"And now, my worthy young friend," said he, addressing me, "as we are +so soon to part,--for yonder is Bexar,--how shall we best show our +gratitude? Would you like a 'novena' to 'Our Lady of Tears,' whose altar +is here? or shall we vow a candle to Saint Nicomedè of Terapia?" + +"Thanks, holy Father, there is no need for either; mine was a slight +service, more than requited by the pleasure of travelling in your +company and that of this pious maiden. I have learned many a goodly +lesson by the way, and will think over them as I wander on my future +pilgrimage." + +"And whither may that tend, Señhor?" + +"To the shrine of 'Our Lady of Sorrows' at Aguaverde, by the help of +Saint Francis." + +"Aguaverde!" exclaimed Fra Miguel, with a voice that bespoke anything +rather than pleasure; "it is a long and a dangerous journey, young man!" + +"The greater the merit, Father!" + +"Trackless wastes and deep rivers, hostile Indians and even more cruel +half-breeds. These are some of the perils," said he, in a voice of +warning; but a gentle pressure from the Señhora's fingers was more than +an answer to such terrors. + +"You can make your penance here, young man, at the Convent of the +Missions. There are holy men who will give you all good counsel; and I +will myself speak to them for you." + +I was about to decline this polite intervention, when a quiet gesture +from Donna Maria arrested my words, and made me accept the offer, with +thanks. + +Thus chatting, we reached the suburbs of Bexar, and soon entered the +main street of that town. And here let me record a strange feature of +the life of this land, which, although one that I soon became accustomed +to, had a most singular aspect to my eyes on first acquaintance. It +was a hot and sultry night of June, the air as dry and parched as of +a summer day in our English climate; and we found that the whole +population had their beds disposed along the streets, and were sleeping +for the benefit of the cool night air,--al fresco. There was no moon, +nor any lamplight, but by the glimmering stars we could see this +strange encampment, which barely left a passage in the middle for the +mule-carts. + + + +Some of the groups were irresistibly droll: here was an old lady, with a +yellow-and-red handkerchief round her head, snoring away, while a negro +wench waved a plaintan-bough to and fro to keep off the mosquitoes, +which thronged the spot from the inducement of a little glimmering lamp +to the Virgin over the bed. There was a thin, lantern-jawed old fellow +sipping his chocolate before he resigned himself to sleep. Now and +then there would be a faint scream and a muttered apology as some one, +feeling his way to his nest, had fallen over the couch of a sleeper. +Mothers were nursing babies, nurses were singing others to rest; social +spirits were recalling the last strains of recent convivialities; while +others, less genially given, were uttering their "Carambas" in all the +vindictive anger of broken slumber. Now and then a devotional attitude +might be detected, and even some little glimpses caught of some fair +form making her toilet for the night, and throwing back her dishevelled +hair to peer at the passing strangers. + +Such were the scenes that even a brief transit presented; a longer +sojourn and a little more light had doubtless discovered still more +singular ones. + +We halted at the gate of a large, gloomy-looking building which the +Friar informed me was the "Venta Nazionale," the chief inn of the town; +and by dint of much knocking, and various interlocutions between Fra +Miguel and a black, four stories high, the gates were at length opened. +Faint, hungry, and tired, I had hoped that we should have supped in +company, and thus recompensed me for my share of the successful issue of +the journey; but the Fra, giving his orders hastily, wished me an abrupt +"good night," and led his niece up the narrow stairs, leaving me and my +mare in the gloomy entrance, like things whose services were no longer +needed. + +"This may be Texan gratitude, Fra Miguel," said I to myself, "but +certainly you never brought it from your own country." Meanwhile the +negro, after lighting the others upstairs, returned to where I was, and +perhaps not impressed by any high notions of my quality, or too sleepy +to think much about the matter, sat down on a stone bench, and looked +very much as if about to compose himself to another doze. I was in +no mood of gentleness, and so, bestowing a hearty kick upon my black +"brother," I told him to show me the way to the stable at once. The +answer to this somewhat rude summons was a strange one,--he gave a kind +of grin that showed all his teeth, and made a species of hissing noise, +like "Cheet, cheet," said rapidly,--a performance I had never witnessed +before, nor, for certain reasons, have I any fancy to witness again. + +"Do you hear me, black fellow?" cried I, tapping his bullet-head with +the end of my heavy whip pretty much as one does a tavern-table to +summon the waiter. + +"Cheet, cheet, cheet," cried he again, but with redoubled energy. + +"Confound your jargon," said I, angrily; "get up out of that, and lead +the way to the stable." This speech I accompanied by another admonition +from my foot, given, I am free to own, with all the irritable impatience +of a thirty hours' fast. + +The words had scarcely passed my lips, ere the fellow sprang to his +legs, and, with a cry like the scream of an infuriated beast, dashed at +me. I threw out my arm as a guard, but, stooping beneath it, he plunged +a knife into my side, and fled. I heard the heavy bang of the great door +resound as he rushed out, and then fell to the ground, weltering in my +blood! + +I made a great effort to cry out, but my voice failed me; the blood ran +fast from my wound, and a chill, sickening sensation crept over me, that +I thought must be "death." "'T is hard to die thus," was the thought +that crossed me, and it was the last effort of consciousness, ere I +swooned into insensibility. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. THE LAZARETTO OF BEXAR + +Kind-hearted reader,--you who have sympathized with so many of the +rubs that Fortune has dealt us; who have watched us with a benevolent +interest in our warfare with an adverse destiny; who have marked our +struggles, and witnessed our defeats,--will surely compassionate our sad +fate when we tell you that when the curtain next rises on our drama, it +presents us no longer what we had been! + +Con Cregan, the light-hearted vagrant, paddling his lone canoe down +life's stream in joyous merriment, himself sufficing to himself, his +eyes ever upward as his hopes were onward, his crest an eagle's, and +his motto "higher," was no more. He had gone,--vanished, been dissipated +into thin air; and in his place there sat, too weak to walk, a poor +emaciated creature, with shaven head and shrunken limbs, a very wreck of +humanity, pale, sallow, and miserable as fever and flannel could paint +him. + +Yes, gentle reader, under the shade of a dwarf fig-tree, in the Leper +Hospital of Bexar, I sat, attired in a whole suit of flannel, of a pale, +brown tint, looking like a faded flea, all my gay spirits fled, and +my very identity merged into the simple fact that I was known as +"Convalescent, No. 303,"--an announcement which, for memory's sake, +perhaps, was stamped upon the front of my nightcap. + +Few people are fortunate enough not to remember the strange jumble of +true and false, the incoherent tissue of fact and fancy, which assails +the first moments of recovery from illness. It is a pitiable period, +with its thronging thoughts, all too weighty for the light brain that +should bear them. You follow your ideas like an ill-mounted horseman in +a hunt; no sooner have you caught a glimpse of the game than it is lost +again; on you go, wearied by the pace, but never cheered by success; +often tumbling into a slough, missing your way, and mistaking the object +of pursuit: such are the casualties in either case, and they are not +enviable ones. + +Now, lest I should seem to be a character of all others I detest, a +grumbler without cause, let me ask the reader to sit beside me for a +few seconds on this bench, and look with me at the prospect around him. +Yonder, that large white building, with grated windows, jail-like and +sad, is the Leper Hospital of Bexar, an institution originally intended +for the sick of that one malady, but, under the impression of its +being contagious, generously extended to those laboring under any other +disease. The lepers are that host who sit in groups upon the grass, at +cards or dice, or walk in little knots of two and three. Their +shambling gait and crippled figures,--the terrible evidence of their +malady,--twisted limbs, contorted into every horrible variety of +lameness, hands with deficient fingers, faces without noses, are the +ordinary symbols. The voices, too, are either husky and unnatural, or +reduced to a thin, reedy treble, like the wail of an infant. Worse +than all, far more awful to contemplate, to him exposed to such +companionship, their minds would appear more diseased than even their +bodies: some evincing this aberration by traits of ungovernable passion, +some by the querulous irritability of peevish childhood, and some by +the fatuous vacuity of idiocy; and here am I gazing upon all this, and +speculating, by the aid of a little bit of broken looking-glass, how +long it is probable that I shall retain the "regulation" number of the +human features. + +Ah, you gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, may smile at +such miseries; but let me tell you that however impertinent you might +deem him who told you "to follow your nose," the impossibility of +compliance is a yet heavier infliction; and it was with a trembling +eagerness that, each morning as I awoke, I consulted the map of my face, +to be sure that I was master of each geographical feature. + +While all who may break a leg or cut a blood-vessel are reckoned fit +subjects to expose to the risk of this contagion, the most guarded +measures are adopted to protect the world without the walls from every +risk. Not only is every leper denied access to his friends and family, +but even written communication is refused him, while sentinels are +stationed at short intervals around the grounds, with orders to fire +upon any who should attempt an escape. + +Here then was I in a jail, with the danger of a horrible disease +superadded. Algebraically, my case stood thus: letting the letter P +represent a prison, L the leprosy, and N my nose, P + L--N being equal +to any given number of deaths by torture. Such was my case, such my +situation; while of the past, by what chain of events I came to be thus +a prisoner, I knew nothing. A little memoir at the head of my bed set +forth that I was "a case of punctured wound in the thorax," with several +accessory advantages, not over intelligible by my ignorance, but which I +guessed to imply, that if the doctor didn't finish me off at once, there +was every chance of my slipping away by a lingering malady,--some one +of those "chest affections" that make the fortunes of doctors, but +are seldom so profitable to the patients. One fact was, however, very +suggestive. It was above four months since the date of my admission +to the hospital,--a circumstance that vouched for the gravity of my +illness, as well as showing what a number of events might have occurred +in the interval. + +Four months! and where was Donna Maria now? Had she forgotten +me,--forgotten the terrible scene on the Collorado; forgotten the +starlit night in the forest? Had they left me, without any interest in +my future,--deserted me, wounded, perhaps dying?--a sad return for the +services I had rendered them! That Fra Miguel should have done this, +would have caused me no surprise; but the Señhora,--she who sprang by a +bound into intimacy with me, and called me "brother"! Alas! if this were +so, what faith could be placed in woman? + +In vain I sought information on these points from those around me. My +Spanish was not the very purest Castilian, it is true; but here, another +and greater obstacle to knowledge existed: no one cared anything for the +past, and very little for the future; the last event that held a place +in their memory was the day of their admission, the fell malady was the +centre round which all thoughts revolved, and I was regarded as a kind +of visionary, when asking about circumstances that occurred before I +entered the hospital. There were vague and shadowy rumors about me +and my adventure,--so much I could find out; but whatever these were, +scarcely two agreed on,--not one cared. Some said I had killed a priest; +others averred it was a negro; a few opined that I had done both; and +an old mulatto woman, with a face like a target, the bull's-eye being +represented by where the nose ought to be, related a more connected +narrative about my having stolen a horse, and being overtaken by a negro +slave of the owner, who rescued the animal and stabbed _me_. + +All the stories tallied in one particular, which was in representing me +as a fellow of the most desperate character and determination, and who +cared as little for shedding blood as spilling water,--traits, I am +bound to acknowledge, which never appeared to lower me in general +esteem. Of course, all inquiries as to my horse, poor Charry, my +precious saddle-bags, my rifle, my bowie-knife, and my "Harper's-ferry," +would have proved less than useless,--actually absurd. The patients +would have reckoned such questions as little vagaries of mental +wandering, and the servants of the house never replied to anything. + +My next anxiety was, when I should be at liberty? The doctor, when I +asked him, gave a peculiar grin, and said, "We cannot spare you, amigo; +we shall want to look at your pericardium one of these days. _I_ say it +is perforated; Don Emanuel says not. Time will tell who 's right." + +"You mean when I'm dead, Señhor, of course?" cried I, not fancying the +chance of resolving the difficulties by being carved alive. + +"Of course I do," said he. "Yours is a very instructive case; and +I shall take care that your heart and a portion of the left lung be +carefully injected, and preserved in the museum." + +"May you live a thousand years!" said I, bowing my gratitude, while a +chill crept over me that I thought I should have fainted. + +I have already mentioned that sentries were placed at intervals round +the walls to prevent escape,--a precaution which, were one to judge +from the desolate and crippled condition of the inmates, savored of over +care. A few were able to crawl along upon crutches, the majority were +utterly helpless, while the most active were only capable of creeping up +the bank which formed the boundary of the grounds, to look down into the +moat beneath,--a descent of some twenty feet, but which, to imaginations +such as theirs, was a gulf like the crater of a volcano. + +Whenever a little group, then, would station themselves on the +"heights," as they were called, and gaze timidly into the depths below, +the guards, far from dispersing them, saw that no better lesson could +be administered than what their own fears suggested, and prudently left +them to the admonitions of their terrors. I remembered this fact, and +resolved to profit by it. If death were to be my lot, it could not come +anywhere with more horrors than here; so that, happen what might, +I resolved to make an effort at escape. The sentry's bullet had few +terrors for one who saw himself surrounded by such objects of suffering +and misery, and who daily expected to be one of their number. Were the +leap to kill me,--a circumstance that in my weak and wounded condition I +judged far from unlikely,--it was only anticipating a few days; and what +days were they! + +Such were my calculations, made calmly and with reflection. Not that I +was weary of life; were the world but open to me, I felt I should resume +all my former zest in its sayings and doings,--nay, I even fancied that +the season of privation would give a higher color to my enjoyment of +it; and I know that the teachings of adversity are not the least useful +accessories of him whose wits must point the road to fortune. True +is it, the emergencies of life evoke the faculties and develop the +resources, as the storm and the shipwreck display the hardy mariner. Who +knows, Con, but good luck may creep in even through a punctured wound in +the thorax! + +As the day closed, the patients were always recalled by a bell, and +patrol parties of soldiers went round to see if by accident any yet +lingered without the walls. The performance of duty was, however, most +slovenly, since, as I have already said, escape never occurred to those +whose apathy of mind and infirmity of body had made them indifferent to +everything. I lingered, then, in a distant alley as the evening began +to fall, and when the bell rung out its dismal summons, I trembled to +think--was it the last time I should ever hear it! It was a strange +thrill of mingled hope and terror; Where should I be the next evening at +that hour? Free, and at liberty,--a wanderer wherever fancy might lead +me, or the occupant of some narrow bed beneath the earth, sleeping the +sleep that knows no waking? And, if so, who could less easily be missed +than he who had neither friend, nor family, nor fortune. I felt that my +departure, like that of some insignificant guest, would meet notice from +none: not one to ask what became of him? when did he leave us? to whom +did he say farewell? + +If there was something unspeakably sad in the solitude of such a +fate, there was that also which nerved the heart by a sense of +Self-sufficiency,--the very brother of Independence; and this thought +gave me courage as I looked over the grassy embankment, and peered into +the gloomy fosse, which now, in the indistinct light, seemed far deeper +than ever. A low, marshy tract, undrained and uninhabitable, surrounded +the "Lazaretto" for miles; and if this insalubrious neighborhood +assisted in keeping up the malaria of fever, it compensated, on the +other hand, by interposing an unpopulated district between the sick and +the healthy. + +These dreary wastes, pathless and untrodden, were a kind of fabulous +region among the patients for all kind of horrors, peopled, as the fancy +of each dictated, by the spirits of departed "Léperos," by venomous +serpents and cobras, or by escaped galley-slaves, who led a life of +rapine and murder. The flitting jack-o'-lantern that often skimmed along +the surface, the wild cry of the plover, the dreary night wind sighing +over miles of plain, aided these superstitions, and convinced many whose +stubborn incredulity demanded corroboration from the senses. As for +myself, if very far from crediting the tales I had so often listened to, +the theme left its character of gloom upon my mind, and it was with a +cold shudder that I strained my eyes over the wide distance, from which +a heavy exhalation was already rising. Determined to derive comfort +from every source, I bethought me that the misty fog would assist my +concealment, as if it were worth while to pursue me through a region +impregnated with all the vapors of disease! The bell had ceased, the +bang of the great iron wicket had resounded, and all was still. I +hesitated, I know not why: a moment before, my mind was made up; and +now, it seemed like self-destruction to go on! Here was life! a sad +and terrible existence, truly; but was the dark grave better? or, if it +were, had I the right to make the choice? This was a subtlety that had +not occurred till now. The dull tramp of the patrol routed my musings, +as in quick time a party advanced up the alley towards me. They were +not visible from the darkness, but the distance could not be great, and +already I could hear the corporal urging them forward, as the mists were +rising, and a deadly fog gathering over the earth. Any longer delay +now, and my project must be abandoned forever, seeing that my lingering +outside the walls would expose me to close surveillance for the future. + +I arose suddenly, and advanced to the very edge of the cliff: would that +I could only have scanned the depth below, and seen where I was about +to go! Alas! darkness was on all; a foot beneath where I stood, all was +black and undistinguishable. + +The patrol were now about thirty paces from me; another instant, and +I should be taken! I clasped my hands together convulsively, and, with +drawn-in breath and clenched lips, I bent my knees to spring. Alas, they +would not! my strength failed me at this last moment, and instead of +a leap, my limbs relaxed, and, tottering under me, gave way. I lost my +balance, and fell over the cliff! Grasping the grassy surface with +the energy of despair, I tore tufts of long grass and fern as I fell +down--down--down--till consciousness left me, to be rallied again into +life by a terrible "squash" into a reedy swamp at the bottom. Up to my +waist in duck-weed and muddy water, I soon felt, however, that I had +sustained no other injury than a shock,--nay, even fancied that the +concussion had braced my nerves; and as I looked up at the dark mass of +wall above me, I knew that my fall must have been terrific. + +Neither my bodily energy nor my habiliments favored me in escaping from +this ditch; but I did rescue myself at last, and then, remembering that +I must reach some place of refuge before day broke, I set out over the +moor, my only pilotage being the occasionally looking back at the lights +of the hospital, and, in sailor-fashion, using them as my point of +departure. When creeping along the walks of the Lazaretto, I was barely +able to move; and now, such a good ally is a strong "will," I stepped +out boldly and manfully. + +As I walked on, the night cleared, a light fresh breeze dissipated the +vapor, and refreshed me as I went, while overhead, myriads of bright +stars shone out, and served to guide me on the trackless waste. If I +often felt fatigue stealing over me, a thought of the Lazaretto and its +fearful inmates nerved me to new efforts. Sometimes so possessed did I +become with these fears that I actually increased my speed to a run, and +thus, exerting myself to the very utmost, I made immense progress, and +ere day began to break, found myself at the margin of the moor, and the +entrance to a dense forest, which I remembered often to have seen of a +clear evening from the garden of the Lazaretto. With what gratitude +did I accept that leafy shade, which seemed to promise me its refuge! I +threw my arms around a tree, in the ecstasy of my delight, and felt that +now indeed I had gained a haven of rest and safety. By good fortune, +too, I came upon a pathway: a small piece of board nailed to a tree +bore the name of a village; but this I could not read in the half light; +still, it was enough that I was sure of a beaten track, and could not be +lost in the dense intricacies of a pine-forest. + +The change of scene encouraged me to renewed exertion. And I began +to feel that, so far from experiencing fatigue, each mile I travelled +supplied me with greater energy, and that my strength rose each hour as +I left the Lazaretto farther behind me. + +"Ah, Con, my boy, fortune has not taken leave of you yet!" said I, as I +discovered that my severe exercise, far from being injurious, as I had +feared, was already bringing back the glow of health to my frame, and +spirit to my heart. + +There is something unspeakably calming in the solitude of a forest, +unlike the lone sensations inspired by the sea or the prairie; the +feeling is one of peaceful quietude. The tempered sunlight stealing +through the leaves and boughs entangled; the giant trunks that tell +of centuries ago; the short, smooth, mossy turf through which the tiny +rivulet runs without a channel; the little vistas opening like alleys, +or ending in some shady nook, bower-like and retired,--fill the mind +with a myriad of pleasant fancies. Instead of wandering forth over the +immensity of space, as when contemplating the great ocean or the desert, +the heart here falls back upon itself, and is satisfied with the little +world around it. + +Such were my reveries as I lay down beneath a tree, at first to muse, +and then to sleep; and such a sleep as only a weary foot-traveller +knows, who, stretched under the shade of a spreading tree, lies +dreamless and lost. It must have been late ere I awoke; the sunlight +came slanting obliquely through the leaves, and bespoke the decline of +day. I rose. At first my limbs were stiff and rigid, and my sensations +those of debility; but after a little time my strength came back, and +I strode along freely. Continuing the path, I came, after about three +hours' fast walking, to a little open spot in the wood, where the +remains of a hut and the charred fragments of firewood indicated a +bivouac. Some morsels of black bread strewn about, and a stray piece of +dried venison, argued that the party who had left them had but recently +quitted the spot. Very grateful for the negligent abundance of their +waste, I sat down, and, by the aid of a little spring,--the reason, +probably, of the selection of the spot for a halt,--made a capital +supper, some chestnuts that had fallen from the trees furnishing a +delicious dessert. Night was fast closing in, and I resolved on passing +it where I was, the shelter of the little hut being too tempting a +refuge to relinquish easily. The next morning I started early, my mind +fully satisfied that I was preceded by some foot party, the path not +admitting of any other, with whom, by exertion, I should be perhaps able +to come up. I walked from day to dawn with scarcely an interval of rest, +but, although the tracks of many feet showed me my conjecture was right, +I did not succeed in overtaking them. Towards evening I again came upon +their bivouac-ground, which was even more abundantly provided than the +preceding one. They appeared to have killed a buck; and though having +roasted an entire side, had contented themselves with some steaks off +the quarter. Upon this I feasted luxuriously, securing a sufficient +provision to last me for the next two or three days. + +In this way I continued to travel for eight entire days, each successive +one hoping to overtake the party in advance, and, if disappointed in +this expectation, well pleased with the good luck that had supplied +me so far with food, and made my journey safe and pleasant; for it was +both. A single beast of prey I never met with, nor even a serpent larger +than the common green snake, which is neither venomous nor bold; and as +for pleasure, I was free. Was not that alone happiness for him who had +been a prisoner among the "Léperos" of Bexar? + +On the ninth day of my wandering, certain unmistakable signs indicated +that I was approaching the verge of the forest: the grass became deeper, +the wood less dense; the undergrowth, too, showed the influence of winds +and currents of air. These, only appreciable by him who has watched with +anxious eyes every little change in the aspect of Nature, became at last +evident to the least observant in the thickened bark and the twisted +branches of the trees, on which the storms of winter were directed. +Shall I own it? My heart grew heavy at these signs, boding, as they +did, another change of scene. And to what? Perhaps the bleak prairie, +stretching away in dreary desolation! Perhaps some such tract of swampy +moor, where forests once had stood, but now, lying in mere waste of +rottenness and corruption; "clearings," as they are called, the little +intervals which hard industry plants amid universal wildness, I could +not hope for, since I had often heard that no settlers ever selected +these places, to which access by water was difficult, and the roads few +and bad. What, then, was to come next? Not the sea-coast,--_that_ +must be miles away to the eastward; not the chain of the Rocky +Mountains,--they lay equally far to the west. + +While yet revolving these thoughts, I reached the verge of the wood; and +suddenly, and without anything which might apprise me of this singular +change, I found myself standing on the verge of a great bluff of land +overlooking an apparently boundless plain. The sight thus unexpectedly +presented of a vast prairie--for such it was--was overwhelming in its +intense interest. My position, from a height of some seven or eight +hundred feet, gave me an uninterrupted view over miles and miles of +surface. Towards the far west, a ridge of rugged mountains could +be seen; but to the south and east, a low flat horizon bounded the +distance. The surface of this great tract was covered for a short space +by dry cedars, apparently killed by a recent fire; beyond that, a tall, +rank grass grew, through which I could trace something like a road. This +was, as I afterwards learned, a buffalo-trail, these animals frequently +marching in close column when in search of water. The sun was setting as +I looked, and gilded the whole vast picture with its yellow glory; but +as it sunk beneath the horizon, and permitted a clearer view of +the scene, I could perceive that everything--trees, grass, earth +itself--presented one uniform dry, burnt-up appearance. + +Not a creature of any kind was seen to move over this great plain; not a +wing cleaved the air above; not a sound broke the stillness beneath. It +was a solitude the most complete I ever conceived,--grand and imposing! +How my heart sank within me as I sat and looked, thinking I was there +alone, without one creature near me, to linger out, perhaps, some few +days or hours of life, and die unseen, un-watched, uncared for! And to +this sad destiny had ambition brought me! Were it not for the craving +desire to become something above my station, to move in a sphere to +which neither my birth nor my abilities gave me any title, and I should +be now the humble peasant, living by my daily labor in my native +land, my thoughts travelling in the worn track those of my neighbors +journeyed, and I neither better nor worse off than they. + +And for this wish--insensate, foolish as it was--the expiation is indeed +heavy. I hid my head within my hands, and tried to pray, but I could +not. The mind harassed by various conflicting thoughts is not in the +best mood for supplication. I felt like the criminal of whom I had once +read, that, when the confessor came to visit him the night before +his execution, seemed eager and attentive for a while, but at +last acknowledged that his thoughts were centred upon one only +theme,--escape! "To look steadfastly at the next world, you must +extinguish the light of this one;" and how difficult is that!--how +hard to close every chink and fissure through which hope may dart a +ray,--hope of life, hope of renewing the struggle in which we are so +often defeated, and where even the victory is without value! + +"Be it so," sighed I, at last; "the game is up!" and I lay down at the +foot of a rock to die. My strength, long sustained by expectation, had +given way at last, and I felt that the hour of release could not be +distant. I drew my hand across my eyes,--I am ashamed to own there were +tears there--and just then, as if my vision had been cleared by the act, +I saw, or I thought I saw, in the plain beneath, the glittering sparkle +of flame. Was it the reflection of a star, of which thousands were now +studding the sky, in some pool of rain-water? No! it was real fire, +which now, from one red spark, burst forth into a great blaze, rolling +out volumes of black smoke which rose like a column into the air. + +Were they Indians who made it, or trappers? or could it be the party in +whose track I had so long been following; and, if so, by what path had +they descended? Speculation is half-brother to Hope. No sooner had I +begun to canvass this proposition than it aroused my drooping energies, +and rallied my failing courage. + +I set about to seek for some clew to the descent, and by the moonlight, +which was now full and strong, I detected foot-tracks in the clayey soil +near the verge of the cliff. A little after I found a narrow pathway, +which seemed to lead down the face of the bluff. The trees were +scratched, too, in many places with marks familiar to prairie +travellers, but which to me only betokened the fact that human hands had +been at work upon them. I gained courage by these, which at least I +knew were not "Indian signs," no more than the foot-tracks were those of +Indian feet. + +The descent was tedious, and often perilous; the path, stopping abruptly +short at rocks, from which the interval to the next footing should be +accomplished by a spring, or a drop of several feet, was increased in +danger by the indistinct light. In the transit I received many a sore +bruise, and ere I reached the bottom my flannel drapery was reduced to a +string of rags which would have done no credit to a scarecrow. + +When looking from the top of the cliff, the fire appeared to be +immediately at its foot; but now I perceived it stood about half a mile +off in the plain. Thither I bent my steps, half fearing, half hoping, +what might ensue. So wearied was I by the fatigue of the descent, added +to the long day's journey, that even in this short space I was often +obliged to halt and take rest. Exhaustion, hunger, and lassitude weighed +me down, till I went along with that half-despairing effort a worn-out +swimmer makes as his last before sinking. + +A more pitiable object it would not be easy to picture. The blood oozing +from my wound, re-opened by the exertion, had stained my flannel dress, +which, ragged and torn, gave glimpses of a figure reduced almost to a +skeleton. My beard was long, adding to the seeming length of my gaunt +and lantern jaws, blue with fatigue and fasting. My shoes were in +tatters, and gave no protection to my bleeding feet; while my hands +were torn and cut by grasping the rocks and boughs in my descent. +Half-stumbling, half-tottering, I came onward till I found myself close +to the great fire, at the base of a mound--a "Prairie roll," as it is +called--which formed a shelter against the east wind. + +Around the immense blaze sat a party, some of whom in shadow, others +in strong light, presented a group the strangest ever my eyes beheld. +Bronzed and bearded countenances, whose fierce expression glowed fiercer +in the ruddy glare of the fire, were set off by costumes the oddest +imaginable. + +Many wore coats of undressed sheepskin, with tall caps of the same +material; others had ragged uniforms of different services. One or two +were dressed in "ponchos" of red-brown cloth, like Mexicans, and some, +again, had a kind of buff coat studded with copper ornaments,--a +costume often seen among the half-breeds. All agreed in one feature +of equipment, which was a broad leather belt or girdle, in which were +fastened various shining implements, of which a small pickaxe and a +hammer were alone distinguishable where I stood. Several muskets were +piled near them, and on the scorched boughs of the cedars hung a little +armory of cutlasses, pistols, and "bowies," from which I was able to +estimate the company at some twenty-eight or thirty in number. Packs and +knapsacks, with some rude cooking utensils, were strewn around; but +the great carcase of a deer which I saw in the flames, supported by a +chevaux-de-frise of ramrods, was the best evidence that the cares of +"cuisine" did not demand any unnecessary aid from "casseroles." + +A couple of great earthen pitchers passed rapidly from hand to hand +round the circle, and, by the assistance of some blackhead, served to +beguile the time while the "roast" was being prepared. + +Creeping noiselessly nearer, I gained a little clump of brushwood +scarcely more than half-a-dozen paces off, and then lay myself down to +listen what language they were speaking. At first the whole buzz seemed +one unmeaning jargon, more like the tongue of an Indian tribe than +anything else; but as I listened I could detect words of French, +Spanish, and German. Eager to make out some clew to what class they +might belong, I leaned forward on a bough and listened attentively. A +stray word, a chance phrase, could I but catch so much, would be enough; +and I bent my ear with the most watchful intensity. The spot I occupied +was the crest of the little ridge, or "Prairie roll," and gave me a +perfect view over the group, while the black smoke rolling upwards +effectually concealed me from _them_. + +As I listened, I heard a deep husky voice say something in English. +It was only an oath, but it smacked of my country, and set my heart +a-throbbing powerfully. I lay out upon the branch to catch what might +follow, when smash went the frail timber, and, with a cry of terror, +down I rolled behind them. In a second every one was on his legs, while +a cry of "The jaguars! the jaguars!" resounded on all sides. The sudden +shock over, their discipline seemed perfect; for the whole party had +at once betaken themselves to their arms, and stood in a hollow square, +prepared to receive any attack. Meanwhile, the smoke and the falling +rubbish effectually shut me out from view. As these cleared away, they +caught sight of me, and truly never was a formidable file of musketry +directed upon a more pitiable object. Such seemed their own conviction; +for after a second or two passed in steady contemplation of me, the +whole group burst out into a roar of savage laughter. "What is't?" +"It's not human!" being the exclamations which, in more than one strange +tongue, were uttered. + +Unable to speak, in part from terror, in part from shock, I sat up on +my knees, and, gesticulating with my hands, implored their mercy, and +bespoke my own defencelessness. I conclude that I made a very sorry +exhibition, for again the laughter burst forth in louder tones than +before, when one, taking a brand of the burning firewood, came nearer +to examine me. He threw down his torch, and, springing backward with +horror, screamed out, a "lépero!" a "lépero!" In a moment every musket +was again raised to the shoulder, and directed towards me. + +"I'm not a lépero--never was!" cried I, in Spanish. "I'm a poor +Englishman who has made his escape from the Lazaretto." I could not +utter more, but fell powerless to the earth. + +"I know him; we were messmates," cried a gruff voice. "Halt! avast +there! don't fire! I say, my lad, crawl over to leeward of the fire. +There, that will do. Dash a bucket of water over him, Perez." + +Perez obeyed with a vengeance, for I was soaked to the skin, and at +the same time exposed to the scorching glare of the great fire, where I +steamed away like a swamp at sundown. + +"A'n't you Cregan, I say?" cried the same English voice which spoke +before; "a'n't you little Con, as we used to call you?" + +"Yes," said I, overjoyed by the recognition, without knowing by whom it +was made, "I am the little Con you speak of." + +"Ah, I remembered your voice the moment I heard it," said he. "Don't you +remember me?" + +"Caramba!" broke in a savage-looking Spaniard; "we 're not going to +catch a leprosy for the sake of your reminiscences. Tell the fellow to +move off, or I'll send a bullet through him." + +"And I 'll follow you." + +"And I; and I," cried two or three more, who, suiting the action to the +speech, threw back the pan of the flint-muskets to examine the priming. + +"And shall I tell you what I 'll do?" said the Englishman. "I'll lay the +first fellow's skull open with this hanger that fires a shot at him." + +"Will you so?" said a thin, athletic fellow, springing to his legs, and +drawing a long, narrow-bladed knife from his girdle. + +"A truce there, Rivas," said another; "would you quarrel with the +Capitan for a miserable lépero?" + +"He's not a Capitan of my making," said Rivas, sulkily. + +"I don't care of whose making," said the Englishman, in his broken +Spanish; "I'm the leader of this expedition: if any one deny it, let him +stand out and say so. If half a dozen of you deny it, come out one by +one: I ask nothing better than to show you who's the best man here." + +A low muttering followed this speech, but whether it were of admiration +or anger, I could not determine. Meanwhile my own resolve was formed, +as, gathering my limbs together, I rolled upon one knee and said,-- + +"Hear me for one instant, Señhors. It would be unworthy of you to +quarrel about an object so poor and worthless as I am. Although not a +lépero, I have made my escape from the Lazaretto, and travelled hither +on foot, with little clothing and less food: an hour or two more will +finish what fatigue and starving have all but accomplished. If you will +be kind enough to throw me a morsel of bread, and give me time to move +away, I'll try and do it; or, if you prefer doing the humane thing, you +'ll come a few paces nearer and send a volley into me." + +"I vote for the last," shouted one; but, strange to say, none +seconded his motion. A change had come over them, possibly by the very +recklessness of my own proposal. At last one called out, "Creep away +some fifty yards or so, and burn those rags of yours: we 'll give you +something to wear instead of them." + +"Ay, just so," said another; "the poor devil doesn't deserve death for +what he's done." + +"That's spoken like honest fellows and good comrades," said the +Englishman. "And now, my hearty, move down to leeward there, and put on +your new toggery, and we 'll see if a hot supper won't put some life in +you." + +I could scarcely credit my own alacrity as this prospect of better +days inspired me with fresh vigor; I recovered my feet at once, and, +in something which I intended should resemble a trot, set out in the +direction indicated, and where already a small bundle of clothes had +been placed for my acceptance. + +A piece of lighted charcoal and some firewood also apprised me of the +office required at my hands, and which I performed with a most hearty +good-will; and as I threw the odious rags into the flames, I felt that I +was saying adieu to the last tie that bound me to the horrible Lazaretto +of Bexar. + +"Let him join us now," said the Englishman; "though I think if the poor +fellow has walked from Bexar, you might have been satisfied he could n't +carry the leprosy with him." + +"I've known it go with a piece of gun-wadding from Bexar to the Rio del +Norte," said one. + +"I saw a fellow who caught it from the rind of a watermelon a lépero had +thrown away." + +"There was a comrade of ours at Puerta Naval took it from sitting on the +bench beside a well on the road where a lépero had been resting the day +before," cried a third. + +"Let him sit yonder, then," said the Englishman "You 're more afeard +of that disease than the bite of a cayman; though you need n't be +squeamish, most of you, if it 'a your beauty you were thinking of." + +And thus amid many a tale of the insidious character of this fell +disorder, and many a rude jest on the score of precaution against it, I +was ordered to seat myself at about a dozen or twenty paces distant, and +receive my food as it was thrown towards me by the others,--too happy at +this humble privilege to think of anything but the good fortune of such +a meeting. + +"Don't you remember me yet?" cried the Englishman, standing where the +full glare of the fire lit up his marked features. + +"Yes," said I, "you 're Halkett." + +"To be sure I am, lad. I 'm glad you don't forget me." + +"How should I? This is not the first time you saved my life." + +"I scarcely thought I had succeeded so well," said he, "when we parted +last; but you must tell me all about that to-morrow, when you are rested +and refreshed. The crew here is not very unlike what you may remember +aboard the yacht: don't cross them, and you 'll do well with them." + +"What are they?" said I, eagerly. + +"Gambusinos," said he, in a low voice. + +"Bandits?" whispered I, misconceiving the word. + +"Not quite," rejoined he, laughing; "though, I've no doubt, ready to +raise a dollar that way if any one could be found in these wild parts +a little richer than themselves;" with this, he commended me to a sound +sleep, and the words were scarcely spoken ere I obeyed the summons. + +Before day broke, I was aroused by the noise of approaching departure; +the band were strapping on knapsacks, slinging muskets, and making other +preparations for the march; Halkett, as their captain, carrying +nothing beyond his weapons, and in his air and manner assuming all the +importance of command. + +The "Lépero," as I was called, was ordered to follow the column at +about a hundred paces to the rear; but as I was spared all burden, in +compassion to my weak state, I readily compounded for this invidious +position, by the benefits it conferred. A rude meal of rye-bread and +cold venison, with some coffee, made our breakfast, and away we started; +our path lying through the vast prairie I have already spoken of. + +As during my state of "quarantine," which lasted seven entire days, +we continued to march along over a dreary tract of monotonous +desolation,--nothing varying the dull uniformity of each day's journey, +save the chance sight of a distant herd of buffaloes, the faint traces +of an Indian war-party, or the blackened embers of a bivouac,--I will +not weary my readers by dwelling on my own reflections as I plodded on: +enough, when I say they were oftener sad than otherwise. The uncertainty +regarding the object of my fellow-travellers harassed my mind by a +thousand odd conjectures. It was clear they were not merchants, neither +could they be hunters, still less a "war-party,"--one of those marauding +bands which on the Texan frontier of Mexico levy "black-mail" upon the +villagers, on the plea of a pretended protection against the Indians. +Although well armed, neither their weapons, their discipline, nor, still +less, their numbers, argued in favor of this suspicion. What they could +possibly be, then, was an insurmountable puzzle to me. I knew they were +called Gambusinos,--nothing more. Supposing that some of my readers +may not be wiser than I then was, let me take this opportunity, while +traversing the prairie, to say in a few words what they were. + +The Gambusinos are the gold-seekers of the New World,--a class who, +in number and importance, divide society with the "Vaqueros," the +cattle-dealers, into two almost equal sections. Too poor to become +possessors of mines, without capital for enterprise on a larger scale, +they form bands of wandering discoverers, traversing the least-known +districts of the Sonora, and spending years of life in the wildest +recesses of the Rocky Mountains. Associating together generally from +circumstances purely accidental, they form little communities, subject +to distinct laws; and however turbulent and rebellious under ordinary +control, beneath the sway of the self-chosen leaders they are reputed to +be submissive and obedient. + +Their skill is, as may be judged, rude as their habits, they rarely +carry their researches to any depth beneath the surface; some general +rules are all their guidance, and these are easily acquired. They are +all familiar with the fact that the streams which descend from the +Rocky Mountains, either towards the Atlantic or Pacific, carry in their +autumnal floods vast masses of earth, which form deposits in the plains; +that these deposits are often charged with precious ores, and sometimes +contain great pieces of pure gold. They know, besides, that the quartz +rock is the usual bed where the precious metals are found, and that +these rocks form spurs from the large mountains, easily known, because +they are never clothed by vegetation, and called in their phraseology +"Crestones." + +A sharp short stroke of the "barreta," the iron-shod staff of the +Gambusino, soon shivers the rock where treasure is suspected; and, the +fragments being submitted to the action of a strong fire, the existence +of gold is at once tested. Often the mere stroke of the barreta will +display the shining lustre of the metal without more to do. Such is, for +the most part, the extent of their skill. + +There are, of course, gradations even here; and some will distinguish +themselves above their fellows in the detection of profitable sources +and rich "crestones," while others rarely rise above the rank of mere +"washers,"--men employed to sift the sands and deposits of the rivers in +which the chief product is gold-dust. + +Such, then, is the life of a "Gambusino." In this pursuit he traverses +the vast continent of South America from east to west, crossing +torrents, scaling cliffs, descending precipices, braving hunger, thirst, +heat, and snow, encountering hostile Indians and the not less terrible +bands of rival adventurers, contesting for existence with the wild +animals of the desert, and generally at last paying with his life the +price of his daring intrepidity. Few, indeed, are ever seen as old +men among their native villages; nearly all have found their last rest +beneath the scorching sand of the prairie. + +Upon every other subject than that of treasure-seeking, their minds were +a perfect blank. For _them_, the varied resources of a land abounding +in the products of every clime, had no attraction. On the contrary, the +soil which grew the maize, indigo, cotton, the sugar-cane, coffee, the +olive, and the vine, seemed sterile and barren, since in such regions no +_gold_ was ever found. The wondrous fertility of that series of terraces +which, on the Andes, unite the fruits of the torrid zone with the +lichens of the icy North, had no value in the estimation of men who +acknowledged but one wealth, and recognized but one idol. _Their_ hearts +turned from the glorious vegetation of this rich garden to the dry +courses of the torrents that fissure the Cordilleras, or the stony +gorges that intersect the Rocky Mountains. + +The life of wild and varied adventure, too, that they led was associated +with these deserted and trackless wastes. To them, civilization +presented an aspect of slavish subjection and dull uniformity; while +in the very vicissitudes of their successes there was the excitement +of gambling: rich to-day, they vowed a lamp of solid gold to the +"Virgin,"--to-morrow, in beggary, they braved the terrors of sacrilege +to steal from the very altar they had themselves decorated. What strange +and wondrous narratives did they recount as we wandered over that +swelling prairie! + +Many avowed that their own misdeeds had first driven them to the life +of the deserts; and one who had lived for years a prisoner among the +Choctaws confessed that his heart still lingered with the time when he +had sat as a chief beside the war-fire, and planned stratagems +against the tribe of the rival Pawnees. To men of hardy and energetic +temperament, recklessness has an immense fascination. Life is so often +in peril, they cease to care much for whatever endangers it; and +thus, through all their stories, the one feeling ever predominated,--a +careless indifference to every risk coupled with a most resolute conduct +in time of danger. + +I soon managed to make myself a favorite with this motley assemblage; +my natural aptitude to pick up language, aided by what I already knew of +French and German, assisted me to a knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese; +while from a "half-breed" I acquired a sufficiency of the Indian dialect +in use throughout the Lower Prairies. I was fleet of foot, besides +being a good shot with the rifle,--qualities of more request among my +companions than many gifts of a more brilliant order; and, lastly, +my skill in cookery, which I derived from my education on board the +"Firefly," won me high esteem and much honor. My life was therefore far +from unpleasant. The monotony of the tract over which we marched was +more than compensated for by the marvellous tales that beguiled the way. +One only drawback existed on my happiness; and yet that was sufficient +to embitter many a lonely hour of the night, and cast a shade over +many a joyous hour of the day. I am almost ashamed to confess what that +source of sorrow was, the more as, perhaps, my kind reader will already +fancy he has anticipated my grief, and say, "It was the remembrance of +Donna Maria; the memory of _her_ I was never to see more." Alas, no! It +was a feeling far more selfish than this afflicted me. The plain fact +is, I was called "The Lépero." By no other name would my companions +know or acknowledge me. It was thus they first addressed me, and so they +would not take the trouble to change my appellation. Not that, indeed, I +dared to insinuate a wish upon the subject; such a hint would have +been too bold a stroke to hazard in a company where one was called +"Brise-ses-fers," another, "Colpo-di-Sangue," a third, "Teufel's Blut," +and so on. + +It was to no purpose that I appeared in all the vigor of health and +strength. I might outrun the wildest bull of the buffalo herd; I might +spring upon the half-trained "mustang," and outstrip the antelope in +her flight; I might climb the wall-like surface of a cliff, and rob the +eagle of her young: but when I came back, the cry of welcome that met me +was, "Bravo, Lépero!" And thus did I bear about with me the horrid badge +of that dreary time when I dwelt within the Lazaretto of Bexar. + +The very fact that the name was not used in terms of scoff or reproach +increased the measure of its injury. It called for no reply on my +part; it summoned no energy of resistance; it was, as it were, a simple +recognition of certain qualities that distinguished me and made up my +identity; and at last, to such an extent did it work upon my imagination +that I yielded myself up to the delusion that I was all that they styled +me,--an outcast and a leper! When this conviction settled down on +my mind, I ceased to fret as before, but a gloomy depression gained +possession of me, uncheered save by the one hope that my life should not +be entirely spent among my present associates, and that I should yet be +known as something else than "The Lépero." + +The prairie over which we travelled never varied in aspect save with +the changing hours of the day. The same dreary swell, the same yellowish +grass, the same scathed and scorched cedars, the same hazy outlines of +distant mountains that we saw yesterday, rose before us again to-day, +as we knew they would on the morrow,--till at last our minds took the +reflection of the scene, and we journeyed along, weary, silent, and +footsore. It was curious enough to mark how this depression exhibited +itself upon different nationalities. The Saxon became silent and +thoughtful, with only a slight dash of more than ordinary care upon +his features, the Italian grew peevish and irritable, the Spaniard was +careless and neglectful, while the Frenchman became downright vicious in +the wayward excesses of his spiteful humor. Upon the half-breeds, two +of whom were our guides, no change was ever perceptible. Too long +accustomed to the life of the prairie to feel its influence as peculiar, +they plodded on, the whole faculties bent upon one fact,--the discovery +of the Chihuahua trail, from which our new track was to diverge in a +direction nearly due west. + +Our march, no longer enlivened by merry stories or exciting narratives, +had become wearisome in the extreme. The heavy fogs of the night and the +great mist which arose at sunset prevented all possibility of tracing +the path, which often required the greatest skill to detect, so that we +were obliged to travel during the sultriest hours of the day, without +a particle of shade, our feet scorched by the hot sands, and our heads +constantly exposed to the risk of sunstroke. Water, too, became each day +more difficult to obtain; the signs by which our guides discovered its +vicinity seemed, to to me, at least, little short of miraculous; and +yet if by any chance they made a mistake, the anger of the party rose +so near to mutiny that nothing short of Halkett's own authority could +restore order. Save in these altercations, without which rarely a +day passed over, little was spoken; each trudged along either lost in +vacuity or buried in his own thoughts. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE PLACER + +As for myself, my dreamy temperament aided me greatly. I could build +castles forever; and certainly there was no lack of ground here for the +foundation. Sometimes I fancied myself suddenly become the possessor +of immense riches, with which I should found a new colony in the very +remotest regions of the West. I pictured to myself the village of my +workmen, surrounded with its patches of cultivation in the midst of +universal barrenness; the smiling aspect of civilized life in the +very centre of barbarism; the smelting furnaces, the mills, the great +refining factories, of which I had heard so much, all rose to my +imagination, and my own princely abode looking down upon these evidences +of my wealth. + +Then, I fancied the influences of education diffusing themselves among +the young, who grew up with tastes and habits so different from those of +their fathers. How pursuits of refinement by degrees mingled themselves +with daily requirements, till at last the silent forests would echo with +the exciting strains of music, or the murmuring rivulet at nightfall +would be accompanied by the recited verses of poetry. + +The primitive simplicity of such a life as I then pictured was a perfect +fascination; and when wearied with thinking of it by day, as I dropped +asleep at night the thoughts would haunt my dreams unceasingly. + +This castle-building temperament--which is, after all, nothing but +hope engaged practically--may, when pushed too far, make a man dreamy, +speculative, and visionary, but if restrained within any reasonable +limits, cannot fail to support the courage in many an hour of trial, and +nerve the heart against many a sore infliction. I know how it kept me up +when others of very different thews and sinews were falling around me. +Independently of this advantage, another and a greater one accompanied +it. These self-created visions, however they may represent a man in +a situation of greatness or power, always do so to exhibit him +dispensing--what he imagines at least to be--the virtues of such a +station! No one, I trust, ever fancied himself a monarch for the sake +of all the cruelties he might inflict, and all the tyrannies he might +practise; so that, in reality, this "sparring against Fortune with the +gloves on" is admirable practice, if it be nothing else. + +It was on the seventeenth day of our wanderings that the guide announced +that we had struck into the Chihuahua "trail"; and although to our eyes +nothing unusual or strange presented itself, Hermose exhibited signs +of unmistakable pride and self-esteem. As I looked around me on the +unvarying aspect of earth and sky, I could not help remembering my +disappointment on a former occasion, when I heard of the "Banks of +Newfoundland," and fancied that the Chihuahua trail might have some such +unseen existence as the redoubtable "Banks" aforesaid, which, however +familiar to codfish, are seldom visited by Christians. + +"The evening star will rise straight above our heads to-night," said +Hermose,--and he was correct; our path lay exactly in the very line with +that bright orb. The confidence inspired by this prediction increased +as we found that an occasional prickly pear-tree now presented itself, +with, here and there, a dwarf-box or an acacia. As night closed in, we +found ourselves on the skirt of what seemed a dense wood, bordered by +the course of a dried-up torrent. A great wide "streak" of rocks and +stones attested the force and extent of that river when filled by the +mountain streams, but which now trickled along among the pebbles with +scarcely strength enough to force its way. Hermose proceeded for some +distance down into the bed of the torrent, and returned with a handful +of sand and clay, which he presented to Halkett, saying, "The rains have +not been heavy enough; this is last year's earth." + +Few as were the words, they conveyed to me an immense impression of his +skill, who, in a few grains of sand taken at random, could distinguish +the deposits of one year from those of another. + +"How does it look, Halkett?" cried one. + +"Is it heavy?" asked another. + +"It is worthless," said Halkett, throwing the earth from him. "But we +are on the right track, lads, for all that; there 's always gold where +the green snake frequents." + +It was a mystery at the time to me how Halkett knew of the serpent's +vicinity; for although I looked eagerly around me, I saw no trace of +one. + +"I vow he's a-sarchin' for the Coppernose," said a Yankee, as he laughed +heartily at my ignorance. + +"Do you see that bird there upon the bough of the cedar-tree?" said +Halkett. "That's the 'Choyero;' and wherever he's found, the Coppernose +is never far off." The mystery was soon explained in this wise: the +"Choyero" is in the habit of enveloping himself in the leaves of a +certain prickly cactus called "Choya," with which armor he attacks the +largest of these green serpents, and always successfully,--the strong, +thorny spines of the plant invariably inflicting death-wounds upon the +snake. Some asserted that the bird only attacked the snake during his +season of torpor, but others stoutly averred that the Choyero was a +match for any Coppernose in his perfect vigor. + +The approach of the long-sought-for "Placer" was celebrated by an extra +allowance of rum, and the party conversed till a late hour of the +night, with a degree of animation they had not exhibited for a long time +previous. Stories of the "washings" resumed their sway,--strange, wild +narratives, the chief interest in which, however striking at the time, +lay in the manner of those who related them, and were themselves the +actors. They nearly all turned upon some incident of gambling, and were +strong illustrations of how completely the love of gain can co-exist +with a temperament utterly wasteful and reckless, while both can render +a man totally indifferent to every feeling of friendship. There was +mention, by chance, of a certain Narvasque, who had been the comrade of +many of the party. + +"He is dead," cried one. + +"Caramba!" cried another, "that is scarcely true; they told me he was at +the Austin fair this fall." + +"You may rely on it he's dead," said the first, "for I know it; he died +on the Sacramento, and in this wise. We had had a two months' run of +luck at the Crestones of Bacuachez,--such fortune as I only hope we +may soon see again; none of your filthy wash and sieve work, nor any +splintering of a steel barreta on a flint-rock, but light digging along +the stream, and turning up such masses of the real shining metal +as would make your heart leap to look at,--lumps of +thirty,--thirty-five,--ay, forty pounds." + +"There, there, Harispe!" said an old fellow, with a long pipe of +sugar-cane, "if we are to swallow what's a-comin', don't choke us just +now." + +"What does an old trapper know of the diggin's?" said Harispe, +contemptuously. "'T is a bee-huntin' and a birds'-nestin' you ought +to be. Smash my ribs! if he ever saw goold, except on the breast of a +gooldfinch." Having silenced his adversary, he resumed:-- + +"We were all rich by the time we reached Aranchez. But what use is +metal? One can't eat it, nor drink it, nor even sleep on't; and the +fellows up there had got as much as we had ourselves. Everything cost +twenty--no, but two hundred and twenty times its value! I used to cut a +goold button off my coat every morning for a day's grub, so that we +had to make ourselves a kind of log-hut outside the village, and try +to vittal ourselves as best we could. There war n't much savin' in that +plan neither, for we drank brandy all day long, and it cost half an +ounce of goold every bottle of it! Then we stayed up all night and +played brag, and it was that finished Narvasque. He was a-betting with +Shem Avery, and Shem, who felt he was in for a run of luck, layed it +on a bit heavy like; and the end o' it was, he won all Narvasque's two +months' diggin's, all to a twenty-eight 'ouncer' that he would n't bet +for anybody,--no, nor let any one see where he hid it. Shem had his +heart on that lump, and said, 'I 'll go fifty ounces against your lump, +Narvasque;' and the other did n't take it at first, but up he gets and +leaves the hut. 'Honor bright,' said he, 'no man follows me.' They all +gave their words, and he went out a short distance into the wood, where +he had a sheep's heart hanging near a rock, in the centre of which he +had concealed his treasure. He was n't three yards from the spot, when +a great spotted snake darts through the long grass, and, making a spring +at the piece of meat, bolts it and away! Narvasque followed into the +deep jungle, unarmed as he was; there a deadly combat must have ensued, +for when his cries aroused us, as we sat within the hut, we found him +bitten on every part of the body, and so near death that he had only +time to tell how it happened, when he expired." + +"And the snake?" cried several, in a breath. + +"He got clear away; we gave chase for four days after him in vain. But a +fellow with as much spare cash about him must have come to bad ere now." + +"The Injians has ripped him open afore this, depend on't," said another. +"There 's scarce a snake of any size hasn't an emerald or splice of gold +in him." + +"There's more gold lies hidden by fellows that have never lived, or come +back to claim it, than ye know of," said the old trapper; "and that's +the kind of 'Placer' _I'd_ like to chance upon, already washed and +smelted." + +"They talk of martyrs!" said a tall, sallow Spaniard, who had been +educated for a priest: "let me tell you that those Injians, ay, even the +negroes, have endured as much torture for their gold as ever did +zealot for his faith. There was a fellow in my father's time up at +Guajuaqualla, who, it was said, had concealed immense treasures, not +only of gold, but gems, emeralds, diamonds, and rubies: well, he not +only refused all offers from the Gobernador of the mines to share the +booty, but he suffered his toes to be taken off by the smelting nippers, +rather than make a confession. Then they tried him with what the miners +call a 'nest-egg,' that is, a piece of gold heated almost red, and +inserted into the spine of the back; but it was all to no use, he never +spoke a word." + +"I heard of him; that was a nigger called Crick," cried another. + +As for me, I heard no more. The sound of that name, which brought up the +memory of my night at Anticosti and all its terrors, filled my heart, +besides, with a strange swelling of hope, vague and ill-defined, it is +true, but which somehow opened a vision of future wealth and greatness +before me. The name, coupled with the place, Guajuaqualla, left no doubt +upon my mind that they were talking of no other than the Black Boatswain +himself. If I burned to ask a hundred questions about him, a prudent +forbearance held me back. I knew that of all men living, none are so +much given to suspicion and mistrust as the Gambusinos. The frauds and +deceits eternally in practice among them, the constant concealments of +treasure, the affected desertion of rich "Placers," in order to return +to them later and alone,--these and many like artifices suggest a +universal want of confidence which is ever at work to trace motives or +attribute intentions for every chance word or accidental expression. I +retained my curiosity therefore; but from that hour forward, the negro +and his hidden gold were ever before me. It mattered not where I was, in +what companionship, or how engaged. One figure occupied the foreground +of every picture. If my waking thoughts represented him exactly as I saw +him at Anticosti, my sleeping fancies filled up a whole history of his +life. I pictured him a slave in the "Barracoons" of his native land, +heavily ironed and chained. I saw him on board the slaver, with +bent-down head and crippled limbs, crouching between the decks. I +followed him to the slave-market and the sugar plantation. I witnessed +his sufferings, his sorrows, and his vengeance. I tracked him as he fled +to the woods, with the deep-mouthed bloodhounds behind him; and I +stood breathless while they struggled in deadly conflict, till, pale, +bleeding, and mangled, the slave laid them dead at his feet, and +tottered onward to stanch his wounds with the red gum of the liana. +Then came an indistinct interval; and when I saw him next, it was as a +gold-washer in the dark stream of the "Rio Nero," his distorted limbs +and mangled flesh showing through what sufferings he had passed. + +Broken, incoherent incidents of crime and misery, of tortured agonies +and hellish vengeance, would cross my sleeping imagination, amidst +which one picture ever recurred,--it was of the negro as I saw him at +Anticosti, crouching beast-like on the earth, and while he patted the +ground with his hand, throwing a stealthy, terrified glance on every +side to see that he was not observed. That he fancied himself in the +act of concealing the gold for which he had bartered his very blood, +the gesture indicated plainly enough; and in the same attitude my fancy +would depict him so powerfully, so truthfully, too, that when I awoke, +I had but to close my eyes again, and the vision would come back with +every color and adjunct of reality. + +My preoccupation of mind could not have escaped the shrewd observation +of companions, had not the unexpected discovery of gold in the sands +of the river effectually turned every thought into another and more +interesting channel. At first it was mere dust was detected; but, later +on, small misshapen pieces of dusky yellow were picked up, which showed +the gold in its most valuable form, in combination with quartz rock. + +Up to the moment of that discovery, all was lassitude and indifference. +A few only gave themselves the trouble to wet their feet, the greater +number sitting lazily down upon the river's bank, and gazing on the +"washers" with a contemptuous negligence. The failures they experienced, +even their humble successes, were met with sneers and laughter; till at +last Hermose held up aloft a little spicula of gold about the thickness +of a pencil. No sooner had the brilliant lustre caught their eyes, than, +like hounds at the sight of the stag, they sprung to their feet and +dashed into the stream. + +What a sudden change came over the scene! Instead of the silence of +that dark river, through whose dull current three or four figures waded +noiselessly, while in lazy indolence their companions lay smoking or +sleeping near, now, in an instant, the whole picture became animated. +With plashing water and wild shouts of various import, the deep glen +resounded, as upwards of thirty men descended into the river; and while +some examined the bed of the stream with the "barretas," others dived +beneath the water to explore it with their hands, and bring up mingled +masses of earth and dust, over which they bent with earnest gaze for +many minutes together. + +Then what cries of joy or disappointment broke forth at every instant! +There seemed at once to come over that hardened, time-worn group of men +all the changing fickleness of childhood,--the wayward vacillations of +hope and despair, bright visions of sudden wealth, with gloomy thoughts +of disappointment,--when, suddenly, one brought up from the bed of the +stream something which he showed to his neighbor, then to another and +another, till a knot had gathered close around him, among which I found +myself. "What is it?" said I, disappointed at not seeing some great mass +of yellow gold. + +"Don't you see? It is the fossil bone of the antelope," said Hermose; +"and when the floods have penetrated deep enough to unbury that, there +'s little doubt but we shall find gold enough." + +"Who says enough?" cried a Mexican, as, emerging half-suffocated from +the water, he held aloft a pure piece of metal, nearly the size of a +small apple. "Of such fruit as this, one never can eat to indigestion!" + +Halkett's whistle was soon heard, summoning the whole party to a council +on the bank; nor was the call long unanswered. In an instant the tanned +and swarthy figures were seen emerging, all dripping as they were, +from the stream, ascending the banks, and then throwing themselves in +attitudes of careless ease around the leader. + +A short discussion ensued as to the locality upon which we had chanced, +some averring that it was an unexplored branch of the "Brazo," others +that it was one of those wayward courses into which mountain streams +are directed in seasons of unusual rain. The controversy was a warm, and +might soon have become an angry, one, had not Halkett put an end to all +altercation by saying, "It matters little how the place be called, or +what its latitude; you know the Mexican adage, 'It's always a native +land where there's gold.' That there is _some_ here, I have no doubt; +that there is _as much_ as will repay us for the halt, is another +question. My advice is, that we turn the river into another course, +leave the present channel dry and open, and then explore it thoroughly." + +"Well spoken and true," said an old white-headed Gambusino. "That is the +plan in the Far West; and they are the only fellows who go right about +their work." + +The proposal was canvassed ably on all sides, and adopted with scarcely +anything like opposition; and then parties were "told off," to carry +into execution different portions of the labor. The section into which I +fell was that of the scouts, or explorers, who were to track the course +of the stream upwards, and search for a suitable spot at which to +commence operations. Hermose took the command of this party, and named +the "Lépero" as his lieutenant. + +The "sierra" through which our path lay was singularly wild and +picturesque. The rocks, thrown about in every fantastic shape, were +actually covered with the tendrils of the liana, whose great blue +flowers hung in luxuriant clusters from every cliff and crag. Wild fig +and almond trees--loaded with fruit, red guavas and limes, met us as +we advanced, till at length we found ourselves in the very centre of +a tract rich in every production of our gardens, and all growing in +spontaneous freedom and wildness. The yellow-flowering cactus and +the golden lobelia, that would have been the choicest treasures of a +conservatory in other lands, we here broke branches off to fan away the +mosquitoes and the gallinippers. + +The farther we went, the more fruitful and luxuriant did the tract seem. +Oranges, peaches, and grapes, in all the profusion of their wildest +abundance, surrounded us, and even littered the very way beneath our +feet. To feel the full enchantment of such a scene, one should have been +a prairie traveller for weeks, long-wearied and heart-sore with the dull +monotony of a tiresome journey, with fevered tongue and scorching feet, +with eyeballs red from the glaring sun, and temples throbbing from the +unshaded lustre. Then, indeed, the change was like one of those wondrous +transformations of a fairy tale, rather than mere actual life. In the +transports of our delight we threw ourselves down among the flowering +shrubs, and covered ourselves with blossoms and buds; we bound the grape +clusters on our foreheads like bacchanals, and tied great branches of +the orange-tree round us as scarfs. In all the wantonness of children, +we tore the fruit in handfuls, and threw it around us. The wasteful +prodigality of nature seemed to suggest excess on our part, prompting us +to a hundred follies and extravagances. As if to fill up the measure of +our present joy by imparting the brightness of future hope, Hermose told +us that such little spots of luxuriant verdure were very often found in +the regions richest with gold, and that we might be almost certain +of discovering a valuable Placer in our immediate vicinity. There was +another, and that no inconsiderable, advantage attending these "Oases" +of fertility. The Indians never dared to intrude upon these precincts; +their superstition being that the "Treasure God," or the "Genius of +the Mine," always had his home in these places, and executed summary +vengeance upon all who dared to invade them. This piece of red-man +faith, however jocularly recorded, did not meet that full contempt from +my comrades I could have expected. On the contrary, many cited instances +of disasters and calamities which seemed like curious corroborations +of the creed. Indeed, I soon saw how naturally superstitious credences +become matter of faith to him who lives the wild life of the prairies. + +"Then you think we shall have to pay the price of all this enjoyment, +Hermose?" said I, as I lay luxuriously beneath a spreading banana. + +"Quien sabe? who knows?" exclaimed he, in his Mexican dialect, and with +a shrug of the shoulders that implied doubt. + +Although each event is well marked in my memory, and the incidents of +each day indelibly fixed upon my mind, it is needless that I should +dwell upon passages, which, however at the time full of adventure and +excitement, gave no particular direction to the course of my humble +destiny. We succeeded in finding a spot by which the bed of the river +might be changed; and after some days of hard labor we accomplished the +task. + +The course of the stream thus left dry for a considerable distance +became the scene of our more active exertions. The first week or two +little was discovered, save gold dust, or an occasional "spicula" of +the metal, heavily alloyed with copper; but as we followed up the course +towards the mountain, a vein of richest ore was found, lying near the +surface too, and presenting masses of pure gold, many of them exceeding +twenty ounces in weight. + +There could be no doubt that we had chanced upon a most valuable Placer; +and now orders were given to erect huts, and such rude furnaces for +testing as our skill stood in need of. A strict scale of profits was +also established, and a solemn oath exacted from each, to be true and +faithful to his comrades in all things. Our little colony demanded +various kinds of service; for, while the gold-seeking was our grand +object, it was necessary, in order to subsist the party, that a corps +of trappers and hunters should be formed, who should follow the buffalo, +the red-deer, and the wild hog over the prairies. + +Many declined serving on this expedition, doubtless suspecting that +the share of treasure which might be allotted to the absent man would +undergo a heavy poundage. Hermose, however, whose adventurous spirit +inclined more willingly to the excitement of the chase than the +monotonous labor of a washer, volunteered to go, and I offered myself to +be his companion. Some half-dozen of the youngest agreed to follow us, +and we were at once named--The Hunters to the Expedition. + +The rivalry between the two careers, good-natured as it was, served to +amuse and interest us; and while _our_ blank days were certain to obtain +for us a share of scoffs and jibes, _their_ unsuccessful ones did not +escape their share of sarcasm. If one party affected to bewail the +necessity of storing up treasure for a set of walking gentlemen who +passed the day in pleasure-rambles about the country, the other took +care to express their discontent at returning loaded with spoils for a +parcel of lazy impostors that lounged away their time on the bank of a +river. Meanwhile, both pursuits flourished admirably. Practice had made +us most expert with the rifle; and as we were fortunate enough to secure +some of the "mustangs," and train them to the saddle, our "chasse" +became both more profitable and pleasant. By degrees, too, little +evidences of superfluity began to display themselves in our equipment: +our saddles, at first made of a mere wooden trestle, with a strip +of buffalo hide thrown across it, were now ornamented with black +bear-skins, or the more valuable black fox-skin; our own costume, if +not exactly conformable to Parisian models, was comfortable and easy,--a +brown deerskin tunic, fastened by a belt around the waist; short +breeches, reaching to the knee-cap, which was left bare, for climbing; +"botas vaqueras," very loose at top, and serving as holsters for our +pistols; and a cap of fox or squirrel, usually designed by the wearer, +and exhibiting proofs of ingenuity, if not taste: such was our dress. + +Our weapons of rifle, and bowie-knife, and pistols, giving it a +character, which, on the boards of a minor theatre, would have been a +crowning "success." We were also all mounted,--some, Hermose and myself +in particular, admirably so. And although I often in my own heart +regretted the powers of strength and endurance of poor "Charry," +my little mustang steed, with his long forelock and his bushy +moustaches,--a strange peculiarity of this breed,--was a picture of +compactness and agility. + +We had also constructed a rude wagon--so rude that I can even yet laugh +as I think on it--to carry our spoils, which were far too cumbrous for a +mere horse-load, and when left on the prairies attracted such numbers +of prairie-wolves and vultures as to be downright perilous. If this same +wagon was not exactly a type for "Long Acre," it was at least strong and +serviceable; and although the wheels were far nearer oval than circular, +they _did_ go round; the noise they created in so doing might have been +disagreeable to a nervous invalid, being something between the scream +of a railway train and the yell of a thousand peacocks. But I believe +we rather liked it,--at least, I know that when some luckless Sybarite +suggested the use of a little bear's fat around the axle, he was looked +on as a kind of barbarian to whom nature denied the least ear for music. + +As for the "chasse" itself, it was glorious sport,--glorious in the +unbounded freedom to wander whither one listed; glorious in the sense of +mastery we felt that we alone of all the millions of mankind had reached +this far-away, unvisited tract; glorious in its successes, its dangers, +and its toils! + +There was, besides, that endless variety of adventure prairie-hunting +affords. Now, it was the heavy buffalo, lumbering lazily along, and +tossing his huge head in anger as the rifle-ball pierced his dense hide. +Now, it was the proudly antlered stag, careering free over miles and +miles of waste. At another time the grizzly bear was our prey, and our +sport lay in the dense jungle or among the dwarf scrub, through which +the hissing rattlesnake was darting, affrighted at the noise. In more +peaceful mood, the antelope would be the victim; while the wild turkey +or the great cock of the wood would grace with his bright wavy feathers +the cap of him whose aim was true at longest rifle range. + +And these were happy days,--the very happiest of my whole life; for if +sometimes regrets would arise about that road of ambition from which I +had turned off, to wander in the path of mere pleasure, I bethought me +that no career the luckiest fortune could have opened to me would have +developed the same manly powers of endurance of heat and cold and of +peril in a hundred shapes. In no other pursuit could I have educated +myself to the like life of toils and dangers, bringing me daily, as +it were, face to face with Death, till I could look on him without a +shudder or a fear. + +I will not say that Donna Maria may not have passed across the picture +of my mind-drawn regrets; but if her form did indeed flit past, it was +to breathe a hope of some future meeting, some bright time to come, the +recompense of all our separation. And I thought with pride how much more +worthy of her would I be as the prairie-hunter,--the fearless follower +of the bear and buffalo, accustomed to the life of the wild woods,--than +as the mere adventurer, whose sole stock in trade was the subterfuge and +deceit he could practise on the unwary. + +It was strange enough all this while that I seemed to have lost sight of +my old guide-star,--the great passion of my earlier years, the desire to +be a "gentleman." It was stranger still, but after-reflection has shown +me that it was true, I made far greater progress toward that wished-for +goal when I ceased to make it the object of my ambition. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. THE FATE OF A GAMBUSINO + +"The life of the prairie," with all its seeming monotony, was very far +from wearisome. The chase, which to some might have presented the same +unvarying aspect, to those who passionately loved sport abounded in new +and exciting incidents. If upon one day the object of pursuit was the +powerful bison bull, with his shaggy mane and short straight horns, on +another, it was the swift antelope or the prairie fox, whose sable skin +is the rarest piece of dandyism a hunter's pelisse can exhibit; now and +then the wide-spread paw of a brown bear would mark the earth, and +give us days of exciting pursuit; or, again, some Indian "trail"--some +red-man "sign"--would warn us that we were approaching the +hunting-grounds of a tribe, and that all our circumspection was needed. +Besides these, there were changes, inappreciable to the uninitiated, +but thoroughly understood by us, in the landscape itself, highly +interesting. It is a well-known fact that the shepherd becomes +conversant with the face of every sheep in his flock, tracing +differences of expression where others would recognize nothing but +a blank uniformity; so did the prairie, which at first presented one +unvarying expanse, become at last marked by a hundred peculiarities, +with which close observation made us intimate. Indeed, I often wondered +how a great stretching plain, without a house, a tree, a shrub, or a +trickling brook, could supply the materials of scenic interest; and the +explanation is almost as difficult as the fact. One must have lived the +life of solitude and isolation which these wild wastes compel, to feel +how every moss-clad stone can have its meaning,--how the presence of +some little insignificant lichen indicates the vicinity of water,--how +the blue foxbell shows where honey is to be found,--how the faint spiral +motion of the pirn grass gives warning that rain is nigh at hand. Then +with what interest at each sunset is the horizon invested, when the eye +can pierce space to a vast extent, and mark the fog-banks which tower +afar off, and distinguish the gathering clouds from the dark-backed herd +of buffaloes or a group of Indians on a march. Every prairie "roll," +every dip and undulation of that vast surface, had its own interest, +till at length I learned to think that all other prospects must be tame, +spiritless, and unexciting, in comparison with that glorious expanse, +where sky and earth were one, and where the clouds alone threw shadows +upon the vast plain. + +The habit of a hunter's life in such scenes, the constant watchfulness +against sudden peril, inspire a frame of mind in which deep +reflectiveness is blended with a readiness and promptitude of +action,--gifts which circumstances far more favorable to moral training +do not always supply. The long day passed in total solitude, since very +often the party separates to rendezvous at nightfall, necessarily calls +for thought,--not, indeed, the dreamy revery of the visionary, forgetful +of himself and all the world, but of that active, stirring mental +operation which demands effort and will. If fanciful pictures of +the future as we would wish to make it, intervene, they come without +displacing the stern realities of the present, any more than the far +distances of a picture interfere with the figures of the foreground. + +Forgive, most kind reader, the prolix fondness with which I linger on +this theme. Fortune gave me but scant opportunity of cultivation, but +my best schooling was obtained upon the prairies. It was there I learned +the virtue of self-reliance,--the only real independence. It was there +I taught myself to endure reverses without disappointment, and bear +hardships without repining. It was there I came to know that he who +would win an upward way in life must not build upon some self-imagined +superiority, but boldly enter the lists with others, and make +competitorship the test of his capacity. They were inferior +acquirements, it is true; but I learned also to bear hunger and cold, +and want of rest and sleep, which in my after-life were not without +their value. It would savor too much of a "bull" for him who writes his +own memoirs to apologize for egotism; still, I do feel compunctions of +conscience about the length of these personal details,--and now to my +story. + +While we pursued our hunting pastime over the prairies, the "expedition" +was successful beyond all expectation. No sooner was the bed of the +river laid bare, than gold was discovered in quantities, and the +"washers," despising the slower process of "sifting," betook themselves +to the pick and the "barreta," like their comrades. It was a season of +rejoicing, and, so far as our humble means permitted, of festivity; for +though abounding in gold, our daily food was buffalo and "tough doe," +unseasoned by bread or anything that could prove its substitute. If the +days were passed in successful labor, the evenings were prolonged with +narratives of the late discoveries, and gorgeous imaginings of the +future as each fancied the bright vista should be. Some were for a life +of unbounded excess and dissipation,--the "amende," as they deemed +it, for all their toil and endurance; others anticipated a career of +splendor and display in the Old World. The Frenchman raved of Paris and +its cafés and restaurants, its theatres and its thousand pleasures. A +few speculated upon setting forth on fresh expeditions with better means +of success. Halkett alone bethought him of home and of an aged mother, +in the far-away valley of Llanberris, whose remainder of life he longed +to render easy and independent. + +Nor was it the least courageous act of his daring life to avow such a +feeling among such associates. How they laughed at his humility! how +they scoffed at the filial reverence of the Gambusino! Few of them had +known a parent's care. Most were outcasts from their birth, and started +in life with that selfish indifference to all others which is so often +the passport to success. I saw this, and perceived how affection and +sympathy are so much additional weight upon the back of him "who enters +for the plate of Fortune;" but yet my esteem for Halkett increased from +that moment. I fancied that his capacity for labor and exertion was +greater from the force of a higher and a nobler impulse than that which +animated the others; and I thought I could trace to this source the +untiring energy for which he was conspicuous above all the rest. It +was evident, too, that this "weakness," as they deemed it, had sapped +nothing of his courage, nor detracted in aught from his resolute +daring,--ever foremost, as he was, wherever peril was to be confronted. + +I ruminated long and frequently over this, to me, singular trait of +character,--whole days as I rambled the prairies alone in search of +game; the tedious hours of the night I would lie awake speculating upon +it, and wondering if it were impulses of this nature that elevated men +to high deeds and generous actions, and--to realize my conception in one +word--made them "gentlemen." + +To be sure, in all the accessory advantages of such, Halkett was most +lamentably deficient, and it would have been labor in vain to endeavor +to conform him to any one of the usages of the polite world; and yet, I +thought, might it not be possible that this rude, unlettered man might +have within him, in the recesses of his own heart, all those finer +instincts, all those refinements of high feeling and honor that make +up a gentleman,--like a lump of pure virgin gold encased in a mass of +pudding-stone. The study of this problem took an intense hold upon me; +for while I could recognize in myself a considerable power for imitating +all the observations of the well-bred world, I grieved to see that these +graces were mere garments, which no more influenced a man's real actions +than the color of his coat or the shape of his hat will affect the +stages of an ague or the paroxysms of a fever. + +To become a "gentleman," according to my very crude notions of that +character, was the ruling principle of my life. I knew that rank, +wealth, and station were all indispensably requisite; but these I +also fancied might be easily counterfeited, while other gifts must be +absolutely possessed,--such as a good address; a skill in all manly +exercises; a personal courage ever ready to the proof; a steady +adherence to a pledged word. Now I tried to educate myself to all these, +and to a certain extent I succeeded. In fact, I experienced what all men +have who have set up a standard before them, that constant measurement +will make one grow taller. I fancied that Halkett and myself were on +the way to the same object, by different roads. Forgive the absurd +presumption, most benevolent reader; for there is really something +insufferably ludicrous in the very thought; and I make the "confession" +now only in the fulness of a heart which is determined to have no +concealments. + +That I rode my "mustang" with a greater air; that I wore my black fox +pelisse more jauntily; that I slung my rifle at my back with a certain +affectation of grace; that I was altogether "got up" with an eye to the +picturesque,--did not escape my companions, who made themselves vastly +merry at pretensions which, in their eyes, were so supremely ridiculous, +but which amply repaid me for all the sarcasm, by suggesting a change of +their name for me,--my old appellation, "Il Lépero," being abandoned for +"Il Condé," the Count. It matters little in what spirit you give a man a +peculiar designation: the world take it up in their own fashion, and he +himself conforms to it, whether for good or evil. + +As the "Condé," I doubtless displayed many a laughable affectation, and +did many things in open caricature of the title; but, on the other hand, +the name spurred me on to actions of most perilous daring, and made me +confront danger for the very sake of the hazard; till, by degrees, I saw +that the designation conferred upon me--at first in mockery--became a +mark of honorable esteem among my comrades. + +The prairie was fruitful in incidents to test my courage. As the season +wore on, and game became more scarce, we were compelled to pursue the +"bison" into distant tracks, verging upon the hunting-grounds of an +Indian tribe called the Camanches. At first our "rencontres" were +confined to meeting with a scout or some small outlying party of the +tribe; but later on we ventured farther within their frontier, and upon +one occasion we penetrated a long and winding ravine which expanded into +a small plain, in the midst of which, to our amazement, we beheld their +village. + +The scene was in every way a striking one. It was a few minutes after +sunset, and while yet the "yellow glory" of the hour bathed the earth, +that we saw the cane wigwams of the "Camanches" as they stood at either +side of a little river that, with many a curve, meandered through the +plain. Some squaws were seated on the banks, and a number of children +were sporting in the stream, which appeared too shallow for swimming. +Here and there, at the door of the wigwams, an old man was sitting +smoking. Some mustangs, seemingly fresh caught, were picketed in a +circle, and a few boys were amusing themselves, tormenting the animals +into bounds and curvets, the laughter the sport excited being audible +where we stood. The soft influence of the hour, the placid beauty of the +picture, the semblance of tranquil security impressed on everything, +the very childish gambols,--were all images so full of home and homelike +memories that we halted and gazed on the scene in speechless emotion. +Perhaps each of us at that moment had traversed in imagination half a +world of space, and was once again a child! As for myself, infancy +had been "no fairy dream," and yet my eyes filled up, and yet my lip +quivered, as I looked. + +It was evident that the warriors of the tribe were absent on some +expedition. The few figures that moved about were either the very +old, the very young, or the squaws, who, in all the enjoyment of that +gossiping, as fashionable in the wild regions of the West as in the +gilded boudoirs of Paris, sat enjoying the cool luxury of the twilight. + +Our party consisted of only four and myself; and standing, as we did, +in a grove of nut-trees, were perfectly concealed from view: no sense +of danger then interfered with our enjoyment of the prospect; we gazed +calmly on the scene on which we looked. + +"Senhor Condé," whispered one of my party, a swarthy Spaniard from the +Basque, "what a foray we might make yonder! Their young men are absent; +they could make no defence. Caramba! it would be rare sport." + +"Condé mio!" cried a Mexican, who had once been a horse-dealer, "I see +mustangs yonder worth five hundred dollars, if they are worth a cent; +let us have a dash forward and carry them off." + +"There is gold in that village," muttered an old Ranchero, with a white +moustache; "I see sifting-sieves drying beside the stream." + +And so, thought I to myself, these are the associates who, a moment +back, I dreamed were sharing my thoughts, and whose hearts, I fancied, +were overflowing with softest emotions. One, indeed, had not pronounced, +and to him I turned in hope. He was a dark-eyed, sharp-featured Breton. +"And you, Claude," said I, "what are your thoughts on this matter?" + +"I leave all in the hands of my captain," said he, saluting in military +fashion; "but if there be a pillage, I claim the woman that is sitting +on the rock yonder, with a yellow girdle round her, as mine." + +I turned away in utter disappointment. The robber-spirit was the only +one I had evoked, and I grew sick at heart to think of it. How is it +that, in certain moods of mind, the vices we are conversant with assume +a double coarseness, and that we feel repugnance to what daily habit had +seemed to have inured us? + +"Is it to be, or not?" growled the Spaniard, who, having tightened his +girths and examined the lock of his rifle, now stood in somewhat patient +anxiety. + +"Since when have we become banditti," said I, insultingly, "that we are +to attack and pillage helpless women and children? Are these the lessons +Halkett has taught us? Back to the camp. Let us have no more of such +counsels." + +"We meet nothing but scoffs and jibes when we return empty-handed," +muttered the Spaniard. "It is seldom such an opportunity offers of a +heavy booty." + +"Right-about," said I, imperiously, not caring to risk my ascendency by +debating the question further. They obeyed without a word; but it was +easy to see that the spirit of mutiny was but sleeping. For some miles +of the way a dreary silence pervaded the party. I tried all in my power +to bring back our old good understanding, and erase the memory of the +late altercation; but even my friend Narvasque held aloof, and seemed to +side with the others. I was vexed and irritated to a degree the amount +of the incident was far from warranting; nor was the fact that we were +returning without any success without its influence. Moody and sad, I +rode along at their head, not making any further effort to renew their +confidence, when suddenly a spotted buck started from the shelter of a +prairie roll, and took his way across the plain. To unsling my rifle and +fire at him was the work of half a minute. My shot missed; and I heard, +or thought I heard, a burst of contemptuous laughter behind me. Without +turning my head, I spurred my horse to a sharp gallop, and proceeded to +reload my rifle as I went. The buck had, however, got a "long start" +of me; and although my mustang had both speed and endurance, I soon saw +that the chase would prove unrewarding; and, after a hot pursuit of half +a mile, I pulled up and wheeled about. Where was my party? Not a trace +of them was to be seen. I rode up a little slope of the prairie, and +then, at a great way off, I could descry their figures as with furious +speed they were hastening back in the direction of the Camanche village. +I cannot express the bitterness of the feeling that came over me. + +It was no longer the sense of outraged humanity which filled my heart. +Selfishness usurped the ground altogether, and it was the injured honor +of a leader whose orders had been despised. It was the affront to +my authority wounded me so deeply. Then I fancied to myself their +triumphant return to the camp, laden with the spoils of victory, and +full of heroic stories of their own deeds; while I, the captain of +the band, should have nothing to contribute but a lame narrative of +misplaced compassion, which some might call by even a harsher name. Alas +for weak principle! I wished myself back at their head a hundred times +over. There was no atrocity that, for a minute or two, I did not feel +myself capable of; I really believe that if any other course were open +to me, I had never turned my steps back toward the camp. Crest-fallen +and sad indeed was I as I rode forward,--now cursing the insubordinate +rabble that deserted me; now inveighing against my own silly efforts +to change the ferocious instincts of such natures. In my bitterness of +spirit I attributed all to my foolish ambition of being "the gentleman." +What business had such a character there? or what possible link could +bind him to such companionship? In my discontent, too, I fancied that +these "gentlemen" traits were like studding-sails, only available in +fine weather and with a fair wind, but that for the storms and squalls +of life such fine-spun canvas was altogether unsuited. Is it needful I +should say that I lived to discover this to be an error? + +To reach the camp ere nightfall, I was obliged to ride fast, and the +quick stride of my "half-breed" did more to rally my spirits than all my +philosophizings. + +The slight breeze of sunset was blowing over the prairie, when I came +in sight of the skirting of nut-wood which sheltered the camp to the +"south'ard." It was like home, somehow, that spot. The return to it each +evening had given it that character, and one's instincts are invariably +at work to make substitutes for all the "prestiges" that tell of family +and friends. I experienced the feeling strongly now, as I entered the +wood and spurred my nag onward, impatient to catch a glimpse at the +watch-fires. As I issued from the copse, and looked up towards the +little table-land where the camp used to stand, I saw nothing that spoke +of my friends. There were no fires; not a figure moved on the spot. I +pressed eagerly forward to ascertain the reason, my mind full of its +own explanation of the fact, in which, I own it, fears were already +blending. Perhaps they had removed somewhat higher up the stream; +perhaps the Camanches had been there, and a battle had been fought; +perhaps--But why continue? Already I stood upon the spreading surface of +tableland, and was nearing the spot where all our huts were built, and +now a deep, booming noise filled my ears,--a hollow, cavernous sound, +like the sea surging within some rocky cave. I listened; it grew fuller +and louder, or seemed to do so, and I could mark sounds that resembled +the crashing of timber and the splintering of rocks. + +My suspense had now risen to torture, and my poor mustang, equally +frightened as myself, refused to move a step, but stood with his ears +flattened back, fore-legs extended, and protruded nostril, sniffing, in +a very paroxysm of fright. + +I dismounted, and, fastening his head to his fore-leg, in Mexican +fashion, advanced on foot. Each step I made brought me nearer to the +sounds, which now I perceived were those of a fast-rolling river. A +horrid dread shot through my heart, my senses reeled as it struck me; +but with an effort I sprang forward, and there, deep below me, in a +boiling ocean of foam, rolled the river along the channel which we had +succeeded in damming up, on the mountain side, and in whose dry bed all +our labors had been followed. In an instant the whole truth revealed +itself before me: the stream, swollen by the rain falling in the distant +mountains, had overborne the barrier, and, descending with all its +force, had carried away village, mines, and every trace of the ill-fated +"Expedition." The very trees that grew along the banks were at first +undermined, and then swept away, and might be seen waving their great +branches above the flood, and then disappearing forever, like gigantic +figures struggling in the agony of drowning. The rude smelting-house, +built of heavy stones and masses of rock, had been carried down with +the rest. Trees whose huge size attested ages of growth reeled with the +shock that shook the earth beside them, and seemed to tremble at their +own coming destiny. + +The inundation continued to increase at each instant, and more than once +the "yellowest" waves compelled me to retire. This it was which first +led me to despair of my poor comrades, since I inferred that the torrent +had burst its barrier only a short space before my arrival; and as the +sunset was the hour when all the gold discovered during the day was +washed, before being deposited in the smelting-house, I conjectured that +my companions were overtaken at that moment by the descending flood, and +that none had escaped destruction. + +However the sad event took place, I never saw any of them after; and +although I tracked the stream for miles, and spent the entire of two +days in search of them, I did not discover one trace of the luckless +expedition. So changed had everything become--such a terrible alteration +had the scene undergone--that whenever I awoke from a sleep, short and +broken as my feverish thoughts would make it, it was with difficulty I +could believe that this was once the "Camp;" that where that swollen +and angry torrent rolled, had been the dry, gravelly bed where joyous +parties labored; that beneath those cedars, where now the young +alligator stirred the muddy slime, we used to sit and chat in pleasant +companionship; that human joys and passions and hopes once lived and +flourished in that little space where ruin and desolation had now set +their marks, and where the weariest traveller would not linger, so +sorrow-struck and sad was every feature of the scene. + +Poor Halkett was uppermost in my thoughts,--his remembrance of his +old mother, his plans for her future happiness and comfort, formed, +doubtless, many a long year before, and only realized to be dashed +forever! How many a wanderer and outcast, doubtless, like him, have sunk +into unhonored graves in far-away lands, and of whom no trace exists, +and who are classed among the worthless and the heartless of their +families; and yet, if we had record of them, we might learn, perhaps, +how thoughts of home--of some dear mother, of some kind sister, of some +brother who had been more than father--had spirited them on to deeds of +daring and privation, and how, in all the terrible conflict of danger in +which their days were spent, one bright hope, of returning home at last, +glittered like a light-ship on a lonely sea, and shed a radiance when +all around was dark and dreary. + +The third day broke, and still found me lingering beside the fatal +torrent, not only without meeting with any of my former comrades, but +even of that party who had returned to the Indian village not one came +back. In humble imitation of prairie habit, I erected a little cross on +the spot, and with my penknife inscribed poor Halkett's name. This done, +I led my horse slowly away through the tangled underwood till I reached +the open plain, then I struck out in a gallop, and rode in the direction +where the sun was setting. + +The mere detail of personal adventures, in which the traits of character +or the ever-varying aspects of human nature find no place, must always +prove wearisome. The most "hair-breadth 'scapes" require for their +interest the play of passions and emotions; and in this wise the perils +of the lonely traveller amid the deserts of the Far West could not vie +in interest with the slightest incident of domestic life, wherein human +cares and hopes and joys are mingled up. + +I will not longer trespass on the indulgence of any one who has +accompanied me so far, by lingering over the accidents of my prairie +life, nor tell by what chances I escaped death in some of its most +appalling forms. The "Choctaw," the jaguar, the spotted leopard of the +jungle, the cayman of the sand lakes, had each in turn marked me for its +prey, and yet, preserved from every peril, I succeeded in reaching the +little village of "La Noria," or the "Well," which occupies one of the +opening gorges of the Rocky Mountains, at the outskirts of which some +of the inhabitants found me asleep, with clothing reduced to very rags, +nothing remaining of all my equipment save my rifle and a little canvas +pouch of ammunition. + +My entertainers were miners, whose extreme poverty and privation would +have been inexplicable, had I not learned that the settlement was formed +exclusively of convicts, who had either been pardoned during the term of +their sentence, or, having completed their time, preferred passing +the remainder of their lives in exile. As a "billet of conduct" was +necessary to all who settled at the village, the inhabitants, with a +very few exceptions, were peaceable, quiet, and inoffensive; and of +the less well disposed, a rigidly severe police took the most effective +charge. + +Had there been any way of disposing of me, I should not have been +suffered to remain; but as there was no "parish" to which they could +"send me on," nor any distinct fund upon which to charge me, I was +retained in a spirit of rude compassion, for which, had it even been +ruder, I had been grateful. The "Gobernador" of the settlement was an +old Mexican officer of Santa Anna's staff called Salezar, and whose +"promotion" was a kind of penalty imposed upon him for his robberies +and extortions in the commissariat of the army. He was not altogether +unworthy of the trust, since it was asserted that there never was a +convict vice nor iniquity in which he was not thoroughly versed, nor +could any scheme be hatched, the clew to which his dark ingenuity could +not discover. + + + +I was summoned before him on the day of my arrival, and certainly a +greater contrast could not have been desired than was the bravery of his +costume to the rags of mine. A Spanish hat and feathers, such as is only +seen upon the stage, surmounted his great red and carbuncled face; a +pair of fiery red moustaches, twisted into two complete circles, with a +tail out of them like an eccentric "Q;" a sky-blue jacket covered +with silver buttons; tight pantaloons of the same color; and Hessian +boots,--made up the chief details of a figure whose unwieldy size the +tightness of the dress did not by any means set off to advantage. He +wore besides a quantity of daggers, pistols, and stilettos suspended +around his person, and a huge Barcelona blade hung by two silver chains +from his side, the rattle and jingle of which, as he spoke, appeared to +give him the most lively pleasure. I was ordered to stand before a +table at which he sat, with a kind of secretary at his side, while +he interrogated me as to who I was, whence I came, the object of my +journey, and so forth. My account of myself was given in the very +briefest way I could devise,--totally devoid of all coloring or +exaggeration, and, _for me_, with a most singular avoidance of the +romantic; and yet, to my utter discomfiture, from the very announcement +of my name, down to the last incident of my journey, he characterized +every statement by the very short and emphatic word "a lie," desiring +the secretary to record the same in his "Ledger," as his own firm +conviction; "and add," said he, solemnly, "that the fellow is a spy +from the States of North America,--that he probably belonged to some +exploring party into our frontier,--and that he will most certainly +be hanged whenever the smallest offence is proved against him." These +benign words were most royally spoken, and I made my acknowledgments for +them by taking off my tattered and greasy cap and, with a most urbane +bow, wishing him health and happiness for half a century to come, to +pronounce similar blessings upon many others. + +The bystanders did look, I confess, somewhat terrified at my impromptu +courtesy; but Salezar, upon whom my rags, and my grotesque appearance +generally, produced a rather amusing effect, laughed heartily, and bade +them give me something to eat. The order, simple and intelligible as it +was, at least to me, seemed to evoke the strangest signs of surprise and +astonishment, and not unreasonably; for, as I afterwards came to know, +no Lazarus eat of the crumbs which fell from this "rich man's table," +while from the poor herd of the settlers not a crust nor a parched pea +could be expected, as they were fed by rations so scantily doled out as +barely to support life. The order to feed me was therefore issued +pretty much in the same spirit which made Marie Antoinette recommend the +starving people to eat "brioche." As no one was to be found, however, +bold enough to express a doubt as to the facility of the measure, I was +led away in silence. + +A very animated little discussion arose in the street as to what I was +to get, where to have it, and who to give it,--difficulties which none +seemed able to solve by any explanation save the usual Mexican one of +"Quien sabe?" or "Who knows?"--having uttered which in accents of very +convincing embarrassment, each went his way, leaving me standing with +an old mule-driver, the only one who had not delivered himself of this +speech. + +Now, it chanced that the well from which the village derived its name of +"La Noria" had originally been worked by two mules, who having died +off, their places were supplied by two miserable asses of the prairie +breed,--creatures not much bigger than sheep, and scarcely stronger. +These wretched beasts had been for years past stimulated to their daily +labor by the assiduous persecutions of a fierce English bull-dog, who +with bark and bite made their lives a very pretty martyrdom. Either +worn-out by his unremitting exertions, or that asses' flesh (of which, +from their hocks and hind quarters generally, he freely partook) +disagreed with him, the animal sickened and died, leaving the poor +Mulero to his own unaided devices to drive the donkeys round the charmed +circle. I believe that he did all that mere man was capable of,--in +fact, in everything save using his teeth he imitated closely the +practices of the illustrious defunct. But asses though they were, they +soon discovered that the "great motive principle" was wanting, and +betook themselves to a far easier and more congenial mode of doing the +day's work. + +Now, the Mulero was a man of thought and reflection, and it occurred +to him that if asses, however inadequately, could yet, in some sort, +perform the functions of mules, there was no reason why a man, even a +very poor-looking and ragged one, should not replace a bull-dog. There +was that hungry, half-starved look about me, too, that vouched my +temper would not be of the sweetest; and he eyed me with the glance of a +connoisseur. At last Mijo--for such was he called--made the proposal +to me in all form, explaining that my predecessor had had his rations +allowed him like a colonist, and was entitled to sleep under cover at +the house of his former mistress, La Senhora Dias, "who," he added, with +a sly wink, "was my countrywoman." Well knowing a Mexican never boggles +at a lie, no matter how broad and palpable, I took no notice of what I +at once concluded to be impossible, but proceeded to inquire as to the +precise functions I might be expected to perform in my canine capacity. + +"A mere nothing," said he, with a shrug of his shoulders; "we harness +the beasts at daybreak,--say three o'clock; by eight the water is all +up; then you can sleep or amuse yourself till four of the afternoon, +when the Commandante Salezar likes to have cool water for his +bath,--that only takes an hour; then you are free again till night +closes in." + +"And what then?" asked I, impatiently. + +"You have your rounds at night." + +"My rounds! where, and what for?" + +"Against the prairie wolves, that now and then are daring enough to come +down into the very settlement, and carry off kids and lambs,--ay, and +sometimes don't stop there." + +He winked with a terrible significance at the last words. + +"So, then, I am not only to bark at the asses all day, but I am to bay +the wolves by night?" said I, half indignantly. + +"Lupo did it," responded he, with a nod. + +"_He_ was a dog, Señhor Mijo," said I. + +"Ah, that he was!" added he, in a tone very different from my remark, +accompanying it with a most disparaging glance at my ragged habiliments. +I read the whole meaning of the look at once, and hung my head, abashed +at the disparaging comparison. + +He waited patiently for my reply, and, perceiving that I was still +silent, he said, "Well, is it a bargain?" + +"Agreed," said I, with a sigh; and wondering if Fortune had yet any +lower depths in store for me, I followed him to his hut. Mijo proceeded +to acquaint me with all the details of my office, and also certain +peculiarities of the two beasts for whose especial misery I was engaged. +If compassion could have entered into my nature, it might have moved me +at sight of them. Their haunches and hocks were notched and scored with +the marks of teeth, while their tails were a series of round balls, like +certain old-fashioned bell-ropes, the result of days of suffering. + +"I am so accustomed to the name, I must call you 'Lupo,'" said Mijo; +"you have no objection?" + +"Not in the least," said I; "if a 'dog in office,' why not a dog in +name?" + +That same day I was conducted to the "Tienda del Gato," the shop of +"The Cat," at the sign of which animal La Señhora Dias resided. It was a +small cottage at the very extremity of the village, in a somewhat pretty +garden; and here a kind of canteen was held, at which the settlers +procured cigars, brandy, and other like luxuries, in exchange for their +"tickets of labor." + +Of the Señhora, some mystery existed: the popular rumor was, that she +had been the favorite mistress of Santa Anna, whose influence, however, +could not rescue her from the fate of a convict, to which she was +sentenced for forgery. Her great patron contrived, however, to release +her from the indignity of a penal settlement, and placed her at "La +Noria," where she had resided two years. Some said that it was to +conceal herself from the prying curiosity of the vulgar; another, that +it was to hide the brand of the letter "F," burned with a hot iron in +her forehead; others, again, that it was by Santa Anna's express order +(but what the reason?) she always wore a black velvet mask, which, since +her arrival at the village, none had seen her remove. + +A hundred stories, one more absurd than another, were circulated +about her high birth and condition, and the vast wealth she had once +possessed; the only real clew I could discover to these narratives +being the simple fact that her dog, a fierce English bull-dog,--my +own predecessor, and who by peculiar favor was permitted to accompany +her,--used to wear a massive silver collar, richly chased and +ornamented: fiction, indeed, had invested it with precious stones +and gems; but these were purely imaginative ornaments. Even devoid of +jewels, such was deemed an unequivocal proof of riches among those whose +poverty was of the very lowest order, and La Señhora Dias bought her +"millionnaire" character at a cheap price. To me, the most interesting +part in her story was that which called her my countrywoman; and yet +this seemed so unlikely, and was coupled with so much that I knew to be +impossible, that I did not venture to believe it. + +It was the hour of the siesta when we reached "The Cat," so that I had +no opportunity of seeing the Señhora. Mijo conducted me to a little +building in the garden, originally built as a hut for a man who watched +the fruit, but latterly inhabited by Lupo. There I was installed at +once. Some chestnut-leaves were my bed; a small spring afforded me +water; I was to receive eight ounces of maize bread each day, with half +an ounce of coffee,--Lupo had "taken" the latter "out" in sausages. +Of the fruit of the garden, consisting of limes, oranges, peaches, +and mangoes, I was free of whatever fell to the ground,--a species +of black-mail that never failed me at the dessert. These were my +perquisites,--my duties I already knew; and so Mijo left me to recruit +myself by one day's rest, and on "the morrow" to begin my labors. + +I shall never forget the strange _mélange_ of feelings, pleasurable and +the reverse, which came over me as I first found myself alone, and had +time to think over my condition. Many would perhaps have said that the +degradation would have mastered all other thoughts, and that the life to +which I was reduced would have tended to break down all self-respect +and esteem. Whether to my credit or otherwise, I know not, but I did +not feel thus,--nay, I even went so far as to congratulate myself that +a source of livelihood was open to me which did not involve me in forced +companionship, and that I might devote so many hours of each day to my +own undisturbed thoughts, as I wandered about that vast garden, in which +no other than myself appeared ever to set foot. + +Culture it had none, nor seemed to need, it; one of my duties was to +pluck the ripe fruit every day, ere I issued forth to the "Well," and +place the baskets at the Señhora's door; and, save this, I believe all +was left to nature. What a wilderness of rank luxuriance it was! The +earth had become so fertilized by the fallen fruit left to rot as it +fell, that the very atmosphere was loaded with the odor of peaches and +oranges and pomegranates. A thousand gaudy and brilliant flowers, too, +glittered among the tall grass that tried to overtop them; and insects +and creatures of colors still more beauteous fluttered and chirped among +the leaves, making a little chorus of sounds that mingled deliciously +with the rippling stream that murmured near. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. LA SEÑHORA + +To this very hour I am unable to say how long I remained at the village +of La Noria. Time slipped away unchronicled; the seasons varied little, +save for about two winter mouths, when heavy snows fell, and severe cold +prevailed; but spring followed these with a suddenness that seemed +like magic, and then came summer and autumn, as it were, blended into +one,--all the varied beauties of the one season vying with the other. +This was all that was wanting to complete the illusion which +the monotony of my daily life suggested; for me there was no +companionship,--no link that bound me to my fellow-men; the "Sunday," +too, "shone no Sabbath-day for me." The humble range of my duties never +varied; nor, save with Mijo, did I ever exchange even a passing word. +Indeed, the hours of _my_ labor were precisely those when all others +slept; and whether I tracked the wayworn asses at their dreary round, +or pursued my solitary path at night, my own was the only voice I ever +heard. It was the "life of a dog;" but, after all, how many states of +existence there are far less desirable! I had always wherewithal to +subsist upon; I had no severe labor, nor any duty incompatible with +health; and I had--greatest blessing of all--time for self-communing +and reflection; that delicious leisure, in which the meanest hovel ever +raised by hands become one's "Home." I was happy, then, after my own +fashion; various little contrivances to lighten my tasks amused and +occupied my thoughts. To bring the garden into order was also a passion +with me; and although necessitated to invent and fashion the tools to +work with, I was not deterred by this difficulty, but manfully overcame +it. I greatly doubted if Watt ever gazed at a new improvement in steam +machinery with half the delight I looked upon my first attempt at +a rake. Then, what pleasure did I experience as I saw the trim beds +covered with blooming flowers, the clearly raked walks, the grass-plots +close-shaven and weedless! How the thoughts of changes and alterations +filled my mind as I wandered in the dreary night! What trellises did I +not invent; what festoons of the winding vine-branches; what bowers of +the leafy banana! Like the old gardener, Adam, I began at last to think +that all these things were too beautiful for one man's gaze, that such +ecstasies as mine deserved companionship, and that the selfishness of +my enjoyment was the greatest blot upon its perfection. When this notion +caught hold of me, I wandered away in fancy to the "Donna Maria de los +Dolores;" and how fervently did I believe that, with her to share it, my +present existence had been a life of Paradise! + +These thoughts at last exhausted themselves, and I fell a thinking why +the Señhora Dias never had the curiosity to visit her garden, nor +see the changes I had wrought in it. To be sure, it was true she knew +nothing of them: how, then, was I to make the fact reach her ears? The +only hours that _I_ was at liberty were those when every close-drawn +curtain and closed shutter proclaimed the "siesta." + +It was clear enough that a whole life might slip over in this fashion +without my ever seeing her. There was something in the difficulty that +prompted a desire to overcome it; and so I set myself to plan the means +by which I might make her acquaintance. Of the windows which looked +towards the garden, the blinds were always closed; the single door that +led into it as invariably locked; I bethought me of writing a humble and +most petitionary epistle, setting forth my utter solitude and isolation; +but where were pen and ink and paper to come from? These were luxuries +the Gobernador himself alone possessed. My next thought was more +practicable: it was to deposit each morning upon her basket of fruit a +little bouquet of fresh flowers. But, then, would they ever reach her +hands?--would not the servant purloin and intercept my offering?--ay, +that was to be thought of. + +By most assiduous watching, I at last discovered that her bedroom looked +into the garden by a small grated window, almost hidden by the gnarled +branches of a wild fig-tree. This at once afforded me the opportunity I +desired, and up the branches of this I climbed each morning of my life, +to fasten to the bars my little bouquet of flowers. + +With what intense expectancy did I return home the first morning of my +experiment! what vacillations of hope and fear agitated me as I came +near the garden, and, looking up, saw, to my inexpressible delight, that +the bouquet was gone! I could have cried for very joy! At last I was no +longer an outcast, forgotten by my fellows. One, at least, knew of my +existence, and possibly pitied and compassionated my desolation. + +I needed no more than this to bind me again to the love of life; frail +as was the link, it was enough whereupon to hang a thousand hopes and +fancies, and it suggested matter for cheering thought, where, before, +the wide waste of existence stretched pathless and purposeless before +me. How I longed for that skill by which I might make the flowers the +interpreters of my thoughts! I knew nothing of this, however; I could +but form them into such combinations of color and order as should please +the senses, but not appeal to the heart; and yet I did try to invent a +language, forgetting the while that the key of the cipher must always +remain with myself. + +It chanced that one night, when on my rounds outside the village, +I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten the caps for my rifle. I +hastened homeward to fetch them, and entered the garden by a small door +which I had myself made, and of which few were cognizant. It was a night +of bright moonlight; but the wind was high, and drifted large masses +of cloud across the sky, alternately hiding and displaying the moon. +Tracking, with an instinct too well trained to become deceptive, the +walks of the garden, while a dark mass shut out the "lamp of night," I +reached my hut, when suddenly, on a little stone bench beside the door, +I beheld a female figure seated. She was scarcely four yards from +where I stood, and in the full glare of the moonlight as palpable as at +noonday. She was tall and elegantly formed; her air and carriage, even +beneath the coarse folds of a common dress of black serge, such as +bespoke condition; her hands, too, were white as marble, and finely and +delicately formed; in one of them she held a velvet mask, and I watched +with anxiety to see the face from which it had been removed, which was +still averted from me. At last she turned slowly round, and I could +perceive that her features, although worn by evident suffering and +sorrow, had once been beautiful; the traits were in perfect symmetry; +the mouth alone had a character of severity somewhat at variance with +the rest, but its outline was faultless,--the expression only being +unpleasing. The dark circles around the eyes attested the work of years +of grief, bitter and corroding. + +What should I do,--advance boldly, or retire noiselessly from the spot? +If the first alternative presented perhaps the only chance of ever +speaking to her, it might also prevent her ever again visiting the +garden. This was a difficulty; and ere I had time to solve it, she arose +to leave the spot. I coughed slightly: she halted and looked around, +without any semblance of terror or even surprise, and so we stood face +to face. + +"You should have been on your rounds on this hour!" said she, with a +manner of almost stern expression, and using the Spanish language. + +"So I should, Señhora; but having forgot a part of my equipment, I +returned to seek it." + +"They would punish you severely if it were known," said she, in the same +tone. + +"I am aware of that," replied I; "and yet I would incur the penalty +twice over to have seen one of whom my thoughts for every hour these +months past have been full." + +"Of me? You speak of me?" + +"Yes, Señhora, of you. I know the presumption of my words; but bethink +you that it is not in such a spirit they are uttered, but as the cry of +one humbled and humiliated to the very dust, and who, on looking at you, +remembers the link that binds him to his fellows, and for the instant +rises above the degradation of his sad condition." + +"And it is through _me_,--by looking at me,--such thoughts are +inspired!" said she, in an accent of piercing anguish. "Are you an +English youth?" + +"Yes, Señhora, as much as an Irishman can call himself." + +"And is this the morality of your native land," said she, in English, +"that you can feel an elevation of heart and sentiment from the +contemplation of such as I am? Shame, sir,--shame upon your falsehood, +or worse shame upon your principle." + +"I only know you as my day and night dreams have made you, lady,--as the +worshipper creates his own idol." + +"But you have heard of me?" said she, speaking with a violence and +rapidity that betokened a disordered mind. "All the world has heard of +me, from the Havannah to Guajuaqualla, as the poisoner and the forger!" + +I shook my head dissentingly. + +"It is, then, because you are less than human," said she, scoffingly, +"or you _had_ heard it. But mind, sir, it is untrue; I am neither." She +paused, and then, in a voice of terrible emotion, said, "There is enough +of crime upon this poor head, but not that! And where have you lived, +not to have heard of La Señhora Dias?" said she, with an hysteric laugh. + +In a few words I told her how I had made part of a great gold-searching +expedition, and been utterly ruined by the calamity which destroyed my +companions. + +"You would have sold yourself for gold wherewith to buy pleasure!" +muttered she to herself. + +"I was poor, lady; I must needs do something for my support." + +"Then why not follow humble labor? What need of wealth? Where had you +learned its want, or acquired the taste to expend it? You could only +have imitated rich men's vices, not their virtues, that sometimes +ennoble them." + +The wild vehemence of her manner, as with an excessive rapidity she +uttered these words, convinced me that her faculties were not under +the right control of reason, and I followed her with an interest even +heightened by that sad impression. + +"You see no one, you speak to none," said she, turning round suddenly, +"else I should bid you forget that you have ever seen me." + +"Are we to meet again, Señhora?" said I, submissively, as I stood beside +the door, of which she held the key in her hand. + +"Yes--perhaps--I don't know;" and, so saying, she left me. + +Two months crept over--and how slowly they went!--without my again +seeing the Señhora. Were it not that the bouquets which each morning +I fastened to the window-bars were removed before noon, I could have +fancied that she had no other existence than what my dreamy imagination +gave her. The heavy wooden "jalousies" were never opened; the door +remained close locked; not a foot-tread marked the gravel near it. It +was clear to me she had never crossed the threshold since the night I +first saw her. + +I fell into a plodding, melancholy mood. The tiresome routine of my +daily life, its dull, unvarying monotony, began to wear into my soul, +and I ceased either to think over the past or speculate on the future, +but would sit for hours long in a moody revery, actually unconscious of +everything. + +Sometimes I would make an effort to throw off this despondency, and try, +by recollection of the active energy of my own nature, to stir up myself +to an effort of one kind or other; but the unbroken stillness, the vast +motionless solitude around me, the companionless isolation in which +I lived, would resume their influence, and with a weary sigh I would +resign myself to a hopelessness that left no wish in the heart save for +a speedy death. + +Even castle-building--the last resource of imprisonment--ceased to +interest. Life had also resolved itself into a successsion of dreary +images, of which the voiceless prairie, the monotonous water-wheel, the +darkened path of my midnight patrol, were the chief; and I felt myself +sinking day by day, hour by hour, into that resistless apathy through +which no ray of hope ever pierces. + +At last I ceased even to pluck the flowers for the Señhora's window. +I deemed any exertion which might be avoided, needless, and taxed my +ingenuity to find out contrivances to escape my daily toil. The garden I +neglected utterly; and in the wild luxuriance of the soil the rank weeds +soon effaced every sign of former culture. What a strange frame of mind +was mine! Even the progress of this ruin gave me a pleasure to the full +as great as that once felt in witnessing the blooming beauty of its +healthful vegetation. I used to walk among the rank and noisome weeds +with the savage delight of some democratic leader who saw his triumph +amid the downfall of the beautiful, the richly-prized, and the valued, +experiencing a species of insane pleasure in the thought of some fancied +vengeance. + +How the wild growth of the valueless weed overtopped the tender +excellence of the fragrant plant; how the noisome odor overpowered +its rich perfume; how, in fact, barbarism lorded it over civilization, +became a study to my distorted apprehension; and I felt a diabolical joy +at the victory. + +A little more, and this misanthropy had become madness; but a change was +at hand. I was sitting one night in the garden: it was already the hour +when my "patrol" should have begun; but latterly I had grown indifferent +to the call of duty: as Hope died out within me, so did Fear also, and +I cared little for the risk of punishment,--nay, more, a kind of +rebellious spirit was gaining upon me, and I wished for some accident +which might bring me into collision with some one. As I sat thus, I +heard a footstep behind me: I turned, and saw the Señhora close to me. +I did not rise to salute her, but gazed calmly and sternly, without +speaking. + +"Has the life of the dog imparted the dog's nature?" said she, +scoffingly. "Why don't you speak?" + +"I have almost forgotten how to do so," said I, sulkily. + +"You can hear, at least?" + +I nodded assent. + +"And understand what you hear?" + +I nodded again. + +"Listen to me, then, attentively, for I have but a short time to stay, +and have much to tell you. And, first of all, do you wish to escape from +hence?" + +"Do I wish it!" cried I; and in the sudden burst, long dried-up sources +of emotion opened out afresh, and the heavy tears rolled down my cheeks. + +"Are you willing to incur the danger of attempting it?" + +"Ay, this instant!" + +"If so, the means await you. I want a letter conveyed to a certain +person in the town of Guajuaqualla, which is about two hundred miles +distant." + +"In which direction?" asked I. + +"You shall see the map for yourself; here it is," said she, giving me +a small package which contained a map and a mariner's compass. "I only +know that the path lies over the prairie and by the banks of a branch of +the Red River. There are villages and farmhouses when you have reached +that region." + +"And how am I to do so, unmolested, Señhora? A foot-traveller on the +prairie must be overtaken at once." + +"You shall be well mounted on a mustang worth a thousand dollars; but +ride him without spurring. If he bring you safe to Guajuaqualla he has +paid his price." She then proceeded to a detail which showed how well +and maturely every minute circumstance had been weighed and considered. +The greatest difficulty lay in the fact that no water was to be met +with nearer than eighty miles, which distance I should be compelled to +compass on the first day. If this were a serious obstacle on one side, +on the other it relieved me of all apprehension of being captured after +the first forty or fifty miles were accomplished, since my pursuers +would scarcely venture farther. + +The Señhora had provided for everything. My dress, which would have +proclaimed me as a runaway "settler," was to be exchanged for the gay +attire of a Mexican horse-dealer,--a green velvet jacket and hose, all +slashed and decorated with jingling silver buttons, pistols, sabre, and +rifle to suit. + +The mustang, whose saddle was to be fitted with the usual accompaniment +of portmanteau and cloak, was also to have the leathern purse of the +"craft," with its massive silver lock, and a goodly ballast of doubloons +within. Two days' provisions and a gourd of brandy, completed an +equipment which to my eyes was more than the wealth of an empire. + +"Are you content?" asked she, as she finished the catalogue. + +I seized her hand, and kissed it with a warm devotion. + +"Now for the reverse of the medal. You may be overtaken; pursuit is +almost certain,--it may be successful; if so, you must tear the letter I +shall give you to fragments so small that all detection of its contents +may be impossible. Sell your life dearly; this I counsel you, since a +horrible death would be reserved for you if taken prisoner. Above all, +don't betray me." + +"I swear it," said I, solemnly, as I held up my hand in evidence of the +oath. + +"Should you, however, escaping all peril, reach Guajuaqualla in safety, +you will deliver this letter to the Señhor Estavan Olares, a well-known +banker of that town. He will present you with any reward you think +sufficient for your services, the peril of which cannot be estimated +beforehand. This done,--and here, mark me! I expect your perfect +fidelity,--all tie is severed between us. You are never to speak of me +so long as I live; nor, if by any sun of Fortune we should chance to +meet again in life, are you to recognize me. You need be at no loss for +the reasons of this request: the position in which I am here placed--the +ignominy of an unjust sentence, as great as the shame of the heaviest +guilt--will tell you why I stipulate for this. Are we agreed?" + +"We are. When do I set out?" + +"To-morrow by daybreak; leave this a little before your usual time, pass +out of the village, and, taking the path that skirts the beech wood, +make for the Indian ground,--you know the spot. At the cedar-tree close +to that you will find your horse all ready,--the letter is here." Now +for the first time her voice trembled slightly, and for an instant +or two she seemed irresolute. "My mind is sometimes so shaken by +suffering," said she, "that I scarcely dare to trust its guidance; and +even now I feel as if the confidence I am about to place in an utter +stranger, in an--" + +"Outcast, you would say," said I, finishing what she faltered at. +"Do not fear, then, one humbled as I have been can take offence at an +epithet." + +"Nor is it one such as I am who have the right to confer it," said she, +wiping the heavy drops from her eyes. "Good-bye forever!--since, if you +keep your pledge, we are never to meet again." She gave me her hand, +which I kissed twice, and then, turning away, she passed into the house; +and before I even knew that she was gone, I was standing alone in the +garden, wondering if what had just occurred could be real. + +If my journey was not without incident and adventure, neither were they +of a character which it is necessary I should inflict upon my reader, +who doubtless ere this has felt all the wearisome monotony of prairie +life, by reflection. Enough that I say, after an interesting mistake +of the "trail" which led me above a hundred miles astray! I crossed +the Conchos River within a week, and reached Chihuahua, a city of +considerable size, and far more pretensions than any I had yet seen in +the "Far West." + +Built on the narrow gorge of two abrupt mountains, the little town +consists of one great straggling street, which occupies each side of a +torrent that descends in a great tumbling mass of foam and spray along +its rocky course. It was the time of the monthly market, or fair, when +I arrived, and the streets were crowded with peasants and muleteers in +every imaginable costume. The houses were mostly built with projecting +balconies, from which gay-colored carpets and bright draperies hung +down, while female figures sat lounging and smoking their cigarettes +above. The aspect of the place was at once picturesque and novel. Great +wooden wagons of melons and cucumbers, nuts, casks of olive-oil and +wine; bales of bright scarlet cloth, in the dye of which they excel; +pottery ware; droves of mustangs, fresh caught and capering in all their +native wildness; flocks of white goats from the Cerzo Gorde, whose wool +is almost as fine as the Llama's; piles of firearms from Birmingham and +Liège, around which groups of admiring Indians were always gathered; +parroquets and scarlet jays, in cages; richly ornamented housings for +mule teams; brass-mounted saddles and a mass of other articles littered +and blocked up the way so that all passage was extremely difficult. + +Before I approached the city, I had been canvassing with myself how best +I might escape from the prying inquisitiveness to which every stranger +is exposed on entering a new community. I might have spared myself the +trouble, for I found that I was perfectly unnoticed in the motley throng +with which I mingled. + +My strong-boned, high-bred mustang, indeed, called forth many a +compliment as I rode past; but none had any eye, nor even a word, for +the rider. At last, as I was approaching the inn, I beheld a small knot +of men whose dress and looks were not unfamiliar to me; and in a moment +after, I remembered that they were the Yankee horse-dealers I had met +with at Austin, some years before. As time had changed me far more than +them, I trusted to escape recognition, not being by any means desirous +of renewing the acquaintance. I ought to say that, besides my Mexican +costume, I wore a very imposing pair of black moustaches and beard, the +growth of two years at "La Noria," so that detection was not very easy. + +While I was endeavoring to push my way between two huge hampers of +tomatoes and lemons, one of this group, whom I at once recognized +as Seth Chiseller, laid his hand on my beast's shoulder and said, in +Spanish, "The mustang is for sale?" + +"No, Señhor," said I, with a true Mexican flourish, "he and all mine +stand at your disposal, but I would not sell him." + +Not heeding much the hackneyed courtesy of my speech, he passed his +hands along the animal's legs, feeling his tendons and grasping his neat +pasterns. Then, proceeding to the hocks, he examined them carefully; +after which he stepped a pace or two backwards, the better to survey +him, when he said, "Move him along in a gentle trot." + +"Excuse me, Señhor, I came here to buy, not to sell. This animal I do +not mean to part with." + +"Not if I were to offer you five hundred dollars?" said he, still +staring at the beast. + +"Not if you were to say a thousand, Señhor," said I, haughtily; "and +now pray let me pass into the court, for we are both in need of +refreshment." + +"He an't no Mexican, that 'ere chap," whispered one of the group to +Chiseller. + +"He sits more like a Texan," muttered another. + +"He'll be the devil, or a Choctaw outright, but Seth will have his beast +out of him," said another, with a laugh; and with this the group opened +to leave me a free passage into the inn-yard. + +All the easy assurance I could put on did not convince myself that my +fears were not written in my face as I rode forward. To be sure, I did +swagger to the top of my bent; and as I flung myself from the saddle, I +made my rifle, my brass scabbard, my sabretache, and my spurs perform +a crash that drew many a dark eye to the windows, and set many a fan +fluttering in attractive coquetry. + +"What a handsome Caballero! how graceful and well-looking!" I thought +I could read in their flashing glances; and how pleasant was such an +imaginary _amende_ for the neglect I had suffered hitherto. + +Having commended my beast to the hands of the ostler, I entered the inn +with all the swaggering assurance of my supposed calling, but, in good +earnest, with anything but an easy heart at the vicinity of Seth and +his followers. The public room into which I passed was crowded with +the dealers of the fair in busy and noisy discussion of their several +bargains; and had I been perfectly free of all personal anxieties, the +study of their various countenances, costumes, and manners had been +most amusing, combining as they did every strange nationality,--from +the pale-faced, hatchet-featured New Englander to the full-eyed, swarthy +descendant of old Spain. The mongrel Frenchman of New Orleans, with +the half-breed of the prairies, more savage in feature than the +Pawnee himself, the shining negro, the sallow Yankee, the Jew from the +Havannah, and the buccaneer-like sailor who commanded his sloop and +accompanied him as a species of body-guard,--were all studies in their +way and full of subject for after-thought. + +In this motley assemblage it may easily be conceived that I mingled +unnoticed, and sat down to my mess of "frijoles with garlic" without +even a passing observation. As I ate on, however, I was far from pleased +by remarking that Seth and another had taken their seats at a table +right opposite, and kept their eyes full on me with what in better +society had been a most impudent stare. I affected not to perceive this, +and even treated myself to a flask of French wine, with the air of a man +revelling in undisturbed enjoyment. But all the rich bouquet, all the +delicious flavor, were lost upon me; the sense of some impending danger +overpowered all else; and let me look which way I would, Seth and +his buff-leather jacket, his high boots, immense spurs, and enormous +horse-pistols rose up before me like a vision. + +I read in the changeful expression of his features the struggle between +doubt and conviction as to whether he had seen me before. I saw what was +passing in his mind, and I tried a thousand little arts and devices to +mystify him. If I drank my wine, I always threw out the last drops of +each glass upon the floor; when I smoked, I rolled my cigar between my +palms, and patted and squeezed it in genuine Mexican fashion. I turned +up the points of my moustache like a true hidalgo, and played Spaniard +to the very top of my bent. + +Not only did these airs seem not to throw him off the scent, but I +remarked that he eyed me more suspiciously, and often conversed in +whispers with his companion. My anxiety had now increased to a sense +of fever, and I saw that if nothing else should do so, agitation alone +would betray me. I accordingly arose, and called the waiter to show me +to a room. + +It was not without difficulty that one could be had, and that was a +miserable little cell, whitewashed, and with no other furniture than a +mattress and two chairs. At least, however, I was alone; I was relieved +from the basilisk glances of that confounded horse-dealer, and I threw +myself down on my mattress in comparative ease of mind, when suddenly +I heard a smart tap at the door, and a voice called out, with a very +Yankee accent, "I say, friend, I want a word with you." + +I replied, in Spanish, that if any one wanted me, they must wait till I +had taken my "siesta." + +"Take your siesta another time, and open your door at once; or mayhap I +'ll do it myself!" + +"Well, sir," said I, as I threw it open, and feigning a look of angry +indignation, the better to conceal my fear, "what is so very urgently +the matter that a traveller cannot take his rest, without being +disturbed in this fashion?" + +"Hoity-toity! what a pucker you're in, boy!" said he, shutting the door +behind him; "and we old friends too!" + +"When or where have we ever met before?" asked I, boldly. + +"For the 'where,'--it was up at Austin, in Texas; for the +'when,'--something like three years bygone." + +I shook my head, with a saucy smile of incredulity. + +"Nay, nay, don't push me farther than I want to go, lad. Let bygones be +bygones, and tell me what's the price of your beast, yonder." + +"I 'll not sell the mustang," said I, stoutly. + +"Ay, but you will, boy! and to me, too! And it's Seth Chiseller says +it!" + +"No man can presume to compel another to part with his horse against his +will, I suppose?" said I, affecting a coolness I did not feel. + +"There's many a stranger thing than _that_ happens in these wild parts. +I've known a chap ride away with a beast,--just without any question at +all!" + +"That was a robbery!" exclaimed I, in an effort at virtuous indignation. + +"It war n't far off from it," responded Seth; "but there 's a reward for +the fellow's apprehension, and there it be!" and as he spoke he threw +a printed handbill on the table, of which all that I could read with +my swimming eyes were the words, "One Hundred Dollars Reward,"--"a mare +called Charcoal,"--"taking the down trail towards the San José." + +"There was no use in carrying that piece of paper so far," said I, +pitching it contemptuously away. + +"And why so, lad?" asked he, peering inquisitively at me. + +"Because this took place in Texas, and here we are in Mexico." + +"Mayhap, in strict law that might be something," said he, calmly; "but +were I to chance upon him, why should n't I pass a running-knot over his +wrists, and throw him behind me on one of my horses? Who's to say 'You +sha' n't?' or who's to stop a fellow that can ride at the head of thirty +well-mounted lads, with Colt's revolvers at the saddle-bow?--tell me +that, boy!" + +"In the first place," said I, "the fellow who would let himself be taken +and slung on your crupper, like a calf for market, deserves nothing +better; and particularly so long as he owned a four-barrelled pistol +like this!"--and here I drew the formidable weapon from my breast, and +held it presented towards him, in a manner that it is rarely agreeable +to confront. + +"Put down your irons, lad," said he, with the very slightest appearance +of agitation in his manner; "we'll come to terms without burning +powder." + +"I ask for nothing better," said I, putting up my weapon; "but I 'll not +stand being threatened." + +He gave a short, dry laugh, as though the conceit of my speech amused +him, and said, "Now, to business: I want that mustang." + +"You shall have him, Seth," said I, "the day he reaches Guajuaqualla, +whither I am bound in all haste." + +"I am a-going north," said Seth, gruffly, "and not in that direction." + +"You can send one of your people along with me, to fetch him back." + +"Better to leave him with me now, and take a hack for the journey," said +he. + +This was rather too much for my temper; and I ventured to say that he +who was to receive a present should scarcely dictate the conditions +accompanying it. + +"It's a ransom, boy,--a forfeit,--not a present," said he, gravely. + +"Let us see if you can enforce it, then," said I, instinctively + +"There, now, you're angry again!" said he, with his imperturbable smile; +"if we're to have a deal together, let us do it like gentlemen." + +Now, probably a more ludicrous caricature of that character could not +have been drawn than either in the persons, the manners, or the subject +of the transaction in hand; but the word was talismanic, and no +sooner had he uttered it than I became amenable to his very slightest +suggestion. + +"Let me have the beast,--I want him; and I see your holsters and +saddle-bags have a jingle in them that tells me dollars are plenty with +you; and as to this,"--he threw the piece of paper offering the reward +at his feet,--"the man who says anything about it will have to account +with Seth Chiselier, that's all." + +"How far is it from this to Guajuaqualla?" + +"About a hundred and twenty miles by the regular road; but there 's a +trail the miners follow makes it forty less. Not that I would advise +you to try that line; the runaway niggers and the half-breeds are always +loitering about there, and they 're over ready with the bowie-knife, if +tempted by a dollar or two." + +Our conversation now took an easy, almost a friendly tone. Seth knew the +country and its inhabitants perfectly, and became freely communicative +in discussing them and all his dealings with them. + +"Let us have a flask of 'Aguadente,'" said he, at last, "and then we 'll +join the fandango in the court beneath." + +Both propositions were sufficiently to my taste; and by way of showing +that no trace of any ill-feeling lingered in my mind, I ordered an +excellent supper and two flasks of the best Amontillado. + +Seth expanded, under the influence of the grape, into a most agreeable +companion. His personal adventures had been most numerous, and many of +them highly exciting; and although a certain Yankee suspiciousness of +every man and his motives tinged all he said, there was a hearty tone of +good-nature about him vastly different from what I had given him credit +for. + +The Amontillado being discussed, Seth ordered some Mexican "Paquaretta," +of delicious flavor, of which every glass seemed to inspire one with +brighter views of life; nor is it any wonder if my fancy converted the +rural belles of the courtyard into beauties of the first order. + +The scene was a very picturesque one. A trellised passage, roofed +with spreading vines in full bearing, ran around the four sides of the +building, in the open space of which the dancers were assembled. Gay +lamps of painted paper and rude pine-torches lit up the whole, and gave +to the party-colored and showy costumes an elegance and brilliancy which +the severer test of daylight might have been ungenerous enough to +deny. The olive-brown complexion--the flashing dark eyes--the graceful +gestures--the inspiriting music--the merry voices--the laughter--were +all too many ingredients of pleasure to put into that little +crucible, the human heart, and not amalgamate into something very like +enchantment,--a result to which the Paquaretta perhaps contributed. + +Into this gay throng Seth and I descended, like men determined, in +Mexican phrase, to "take pleasure by both horns." It was at the very +climax of the evening's amusement we entered. The dance was the Mexican +fandango, which is performed in this wise: a lady, stepping into the +circle, after displaying her attractions in a variety of graceful +evolutions, makes the "tour" of the party in search of the Caballero she +desires to take as her partner. It is at his option either to decline +the honor by a gesture of deferential humility, or, accepting it, +he gives her some part of his equipment,--his hat, his scarf, or his +embroidered riding-glove, to be afterwards redeemed as a forfeit; +the great amusement of the scene consisting in the strange penalties +exacted, which are invariably awarded with a scrupulous attention to the +peculiar temperament of the sufferer. Thus, a miserly fellow is certain +to be mulcted of his money; an unwieldy mass of fears and terrors is +condemned to some feat of horsemanship; a gourmand is sentenced to a +dish of the least appetizing nature; and so on: each is obliged to an +expiation which is certain to amuse the bystanders. While these are +the "blanks" in the lottery, the prizes consist in the soft, seductive +glances of eyes that have lost nothing of Castilian fire in their +transplanting beyond seas; in the graceful gestures of a partner to whom +the native dance is like an expressive language, and whose motions are +more eloquent than words,--in being, perhaps, the favored of her whose +choice has made you the hidalgo of the evening; and all these, even +without the aid of Paquaretta, are no slight distinctions. + +Were the seductions less attractive, it is not a man whose Irish blood +has been set a-glowing with Spanish wine who is best fitted to +resist them, nor assuredly ought Con Cregan to be selected for such +self-denial. I stood in the circle with wondering admiration, delighted +with everything. Oh, happy age! glorious hour of the balmy night! +excellent grape-juice! how much of delicious enjoyment do I owe you all +three! I suppose it is the case with every one, but I know it to be with +me, that wherever I am, or however situated, I immediately single +out some particular object for my especial predilection. If it be a +landscape, I at once pitch upon the spot for a cottage, a temple, or a +villa; if it be a house, I instantly settle in my mind the room I would +take as my own, the window I would sit beside, the very chair I'd +take to lounge in; if it be a garden, I fix upon the walk among whose +embowering blossoms I would always be found: and so, if the occasion be +one of festive enjoyment, I have a quick eye to catch her whose air and +appearance possess highest attractions for me. Not always for me the +most beautiful,--whose faultless outlines a sculptor would like to +chisel,--but one whose fair form and loveliness are suggestive of +the visions one has had in boyhood, filling up, in rich colors, the +mind-drawn picture we have so often gazed on, and made the heroine of +a hundred little love-stories, only known to one's own heart. And, oh, +dear! are not these about the very best of our adventures? At least, +if they be not, they are certainly those we look back on with fewest +self-reproaches. + +In a mood of this kind it was that my eye rested upon a slightly formed +but graceful girl, whose dark eyes twice or thrice had met my own, +and been withdrawn again with a kind of indolent reluctance--as I +fancied--very flattering to me. She wore the square piece of scarlet +cloth on her head, so fashionable among the Mexican peasantry, the +corners of which hung down with heavy gold tassels among the clusters +of her raven locks; a yellow scarf, of the brightest hue, was gracefully +thrown over one shoulder, and served to heighten the brilliancy of her +olive tint; her jupe, short and looped up with a golden cord, displayed +a matchless instep and ankle. There was an air of pride--"fierté," +even--in the position of the foot, as she stood, that harmonized +admirably with the erect carriage of her head, and the graceful +composure of her crossed arms made her a perfect picture. Nor was I +quite certain that she did not know this herself; certain is it, +her air, her attitude, her every gesture, were in the most complete +"keeping" with her costume. + +She was not one of the dancers, but stood among the spectators, and, if +I were to pronounce from the glances she bestowed upon the circle, +not one of the most admiring there; her features either wearing an +expression of passive indifference, or changing to a half smile of +scornful contempt. As, with an interest which increased at each moment, +I watched her movements, I saw that her scarf was gently pulled by a +hand from behind; she turned abruptly, and, with a gesture of almost +ineffable scorn, said some few words, and then moved proudly away to +another part of the "court." + +Through the vacant spot she had quitted I was able to see him who had +addressed her. He was a young, powerfully built fellow, in the dress of +a mountaineer, and, though evidently of the peasant class, his dress and +arms evinced that he was well to do in the world; the gold drop of his +sombrero, the rich bullion tassels of his sash, the massive spurs of +solid silver, being all evidences of wealth. Not even the tan-colored +hue of his dark face could mask the flush of anger upon it as the girl +moved off, and his black eyes, as they followed, glowed like fire. To my +amazement, his glance was next bent upon me, and that with an expression +of hatred there was no mistaking. At first, I thought it might have been +mere fancy on my part; then I explained it as the unvanished cloud still +lingering on his features; but at last I saw plainly that the insulting +looks were meant for myself. Let me look which side I would, let me +occupy my attention how I might, the fellow's swarthy, sullen face never +turned from me for an instant. + +I suppose something must have betrayed to my companion what was passing +within me, for Seth whispered in my ear, "Take no notice of him,--he's a +Ranchero; and they are always bad uns to deal with." + +"But what cause of quarrel can he have with me?" said I; "we never saw +each other before." + +"Don't you see what it is?" said Seth. "It's the muchacha: she's his +sweetheart, and she's been a-looking too long this way to please him." + +"Well, if the girl has got such good taste," said I, with a saucy laugh, +"he ought to prize her the more for it." + +"She _is_ a neat un, that's a fact," muttered Seth; and at the same +instant the girl walked proudly up to where I stood, and, making a low +courtesy before me, held out her hand. I suppose there must have been a +little more than the ordinary enthusiasm in the manner I pressed my lips +upon it, for _she_ blushed, and a little murmur ran round the circle. +The next moment we were whirling along in the waltz,--I, at least, lost +to everything save the proud pleasure of what I deemed my triumph. The +music suddenly changed to the fandango, of which dance I was a perfect +master; and now the graceful elegance of my partner and the warm +plaudits of the company called forth my utmost exertions. As for her, +she was the most bewitching representative of her native measure it is +possible to conceive, her changeful expression following every movement +of the dance: now retiring in shrinking bashfulness, now advancing +with proud and haughty mien, now enticing to pursuit by looks of +languishment, now, as if daring all advances, her flashing eyes would +almost sparkle with defiance. + +What a terrible battery was this to open upon the defenceless breastwork +of a poor Irishman! How withstand the showering grape-shot of dark +glances?--how resist the assault of graces that lurked in every smile +and every gesture? Alas! I never attempted a defence; I surrendered, not +"at," but "without," discretion; and, tearing off the great embroidered +scarf which I wore, all heavy with its gold fringe, I passed it round +her taper waist in a very transport of enthusiasm. + +While a buzz of approbation ran round the circle, I heard the words +uttered on all sides, "Destago!" "A forfeit!" + +"I'll try his gallantry," said the girl, as, darting back from my arms, +she retired to the very verge of the circle, and, holding up the rich +prize, gazed at it with wondering eyes; and now exclamations of praise +and surprise at the beauty of the tissue broke from all in turn. + +"The muchacha should keep the 'capotillo,'" said an old lynx-eyed +duenna, with a fan as large as a fire-board. + +"A Caballero rich as that should give her a necklace of real pearls," +said another. + +"I 'd choose a mustang, with a saddle and trappings all studded with +silver," muttered a third in her ear. + +"I 'll have none of these," said the girl, musing; "I must bethink me +well if I cannot find something I shall like to look at with pleasure, +when mere dress and finery would have lost their charm. I must have +that which will remind me of this evening a long time hence, and make me +think of him who made it a happiness; and now what shall it be?" + +"His heart's blood, if that will content you!" cried the mountaineer, +as, springing from his seat, he tore the scarf from her hands and dashed +it on the ground, trampling it beneath his feet, and tearing it to very +rags. + +"A fight--a fight!" shouted out a number of voices; and now the crowd +closed in upon the dancing space, and a hundred tongues mingled in +wild altercation. Although a few professed themselves indignant that a +stranger should be thus insulted, I saw plainly that the majority were +with their countryman, whom they agreed in regarding as a most outraged +and injured individual. To my great astonishment, I discovered that +my friend Seth took the same view of the matter, and was even more +energetic than the others in reprobation of my conduct. + +"Don't you see," cried he to me, "that you have taken his sweetheart +from him? The muchacha has done all this to provoke his jealousy." + +"Oui, oui," said a thin, miserable-looking Frenchman, "vous avez tiré la +bouteille; il faut payer le vin." + +In all probability, had not the crowd separated us most effectually, +these comments and counsels had been all uttered "after the fact;" for +I dashed forward to strike my antagonist, and was only held back by main +force, as Seth whispered in my ear, "Take it coolly, lad; it must be a +fight now, and don't unsteady your hand by flying into a passion." + +Meanwhile the noise and confusion waxed louder and louder; and from the +glances directed towards me there was very little doubt how strongly +public opinion pronounced against me. + +"No, no!" broke in Seth,--in reply to some speech whose purport I could +only guess at, for I did not hear the words,--"that would be a downright +shame. Let the lad have fair play. There's a pretty bit of ground +outside the garden, for either sword or pistol-work, whichever you +choose it to be. I 'll not stand anything else." + +Another very fiery discussion ensued upon this, the end of which was +that I was led away by Seth and one of his comrades to my room, with the +satisfactory assurance that at the very first dawn of day I was to meet +the Mexican peasant in single combat. + +"You have two good hours of sleep before you," said Seth, as we entered +my room; "and my advice is, don't lose a minute of them." + +It has been a mystery to me, up to the very hour I am writing in, how +far my friend Seth Chiseller's conduct on this occasion accorded with +good faith. Certainly, it would have been impossible for any one to have +evinced a more chivalrous regard for my honor, and a more contemptuous +disdain for my life, than the aforesaid Seth. He advanced full one +hundred reasons for a deadly combat, the results of which, he confessed, +were speculative matters of a most dreamy indifference. Now, although it +has almost become an axiom in these affairs that there is nothing like a +bold, decided friend, yet even these qualities may be carried to excess; +and so I began to experience. + +There was a vindictiveness in the way he expatiated upon the gross +character of the insult I had received, the palpable openness of the +outrage, that showed the liveliest susceptibility on the score of my +reputation; and thus it came to pass, I suppose, from that spirit of +divergence and contradiction so native to the human heart that the +stronger Seth's argument ran in favor of a most bloody retribution, the +more ingenious grew my casuistry on the side of mercy; till, grown weary +of my sophistry, he finished the discussion by saying: "Take your own +road, then; and if you prefer a stiletto under the ribs to the chance of +a sabre-cut, it is your own affair, not mine." + +"How so? Why should I have to fear such?" + +"You don't think that the villano will suffer a fellow to take his +muchacha from him, and dance with her the entire evening before a whole +company, without his revenge? No! no! they have different notions on +that score, as you 'll soon learn." + +"Then what is to be done?" + +"I have told you already, and I tell you once more: meet him +to-morrow,--the time is not very distant now. You tell me that you are +a fair swordsman: now, these chaps have but one attack and one guard. +I 'll put you up to both; and if you are content to take a slight +sabre-cut about the left shoulder, I'll show you how to run him through +the body." + +"And then?" + +"Why, then," said he, turning his tobacco about in his mouth, "I guess +you'd better run for it; there'll be no time to lose. Mount your beast, +and ride for the Guajuaqualla road, but don't follow it long, or you'll +soon be overtaken. Turn the beast loose, and take to the mountains, +where, when you 've struck the miner's track, you 'll soon reach the +town in safety." + +Overborne by arguments and reasons, many of which Seth strengthened +by the pithy apothegm of "Bethink ye where ye are, boy! This is not +England, nor Ireland neither!" all my scruples vanished, and I set about +the various arrangements in a spirit of true activity. The time was +brief, since, besides taking a lesson in the broadsword, I had to make +my will. The reader will probably smile at the notion of Con Cregan +leaving a testament behind him; but the over-scrupulous Seth would have +it so, and assured me, with much feeling, that it would "save a world of +trouble hereafter, if anything were to go a bit ugly." + +I therefore bequeathed to the worthy Seth my mustang and his equipments +of saddle, holsters, and cloak-bag; my rifle and pistols and bowie-knife +were also to become his, as well as all my movables of every kind. I +only stipulated that, in the event of the "ugly" termination alluded to, +he would convey the letter with his own hands to Guajuaqualla,--a pledge +he gave with the greater readiness that a reward was to be rendered for +the service. There was some seventy dollars in my bag, which, Seth +said, need not be mentioned in the will, as they would be needed for the +funeral. "It 's costly hereabouts," said he, growing quite lively on the +theme. "They put ye in a great basket, all decked with flowers, and they +sticks two big oranges or lemons in your hands; and the chaps as carry +you are dressed like devils or angels, I don't much know which,--and +they do make such a cry! My eye for it, but if you was n't dead, you 'd +not lie there long and listen to 'em!" + +Now, although the subject was not one half so amusing to me as it +seemed to Seth, I felt that strange fascination which ever attaches to a +painful theme, and asked a variety of questions about the grave and +the ceremonies and the masses, reminding my executor that, as a good +Catholic, I hoped I should have the offices of the Church in all +liberality. + +"Don't distress yourself about that," said he; "I 'll learn a lot of +prayers in Latin myself,--' just to help you on,' as a body might say. +But, as I live, there goes the chaps to the 'Molino';" and he pointed to +a group of about a dozen or more, who, wrapped up in their large cloaks, +took the way slowly and silently through the tall wet grass at the +bottom of the garden. + +I have ever been too candid with my kind reader to conceal anything from +him. Let him not, therefore, I beg, think the worse of me if I own +that, at the sight of that procession, a strange and most uncomfortable +feeling pervaded me. There seemed something so purpose-like in their +steady, regular tramp. There was a look of cold determination in their +movement that chilled me to the heart. "Only to think!" muttered I, +"how they have left their beds on this raw, damp morning, at the risk of +colds, catarrhs, and rheumatism, all to murder a poor young fellow who +never injured one of them!" + +Not a thought had I for the muchacha,--the cause of all my trouble; my +faculties were limited to a little routine of which I myself was the +centre, and I puzzled my brain in thinking over the human anatomy, and +trying to remember all I had ever heard of the most fatal localities, +and where one could be carved and sliced with the fullest impunity. + +"Come along!" said Seth; "we 've no time to lose. We must look out for +a cheap mustang to wait for you on the Guajuaqualla road, and I have to +fetch my sword; for this thing of yours is full eight inches too short." +Seth now took my arm, and I felt myself involuntarily throwing a glance +at the little objects I owned about the room,--as it were a farewell +look. + +"What are you searching for?" said he, as I inserted my hand into my +breast-pocket. + +"It's all right," said I; "I wanted to see that I had the Señhora's +letter safe. If--if--anything--you understand me--eh?" + +"Yes, yes; I'll look to it. They sha' n't bury you with it," said he, +with a diabolical grin which made me positively detest him, for the +moment. + +If Mr. Chiseller was deficient in the finer sympathies of our nature, he +was endowed with a rare spirit of practical readiness. The "mustang" +was found in the very first stable we entered, and hired for a day's +pleasure,--so he called it,--for the sum of two crowns. A mountain lad +was despatched to hold him for my coming, at a certain spot on the road. +The sabre was fetched from his chamber, and in less than five minutes we +were on our way to the Molino, fully equipped and "ready for the fray." + +"Don't forget what I told you about the face-guard: always keep the hilt +of your weapon straight between your eyes, and hold the elbow low." +This he kept repeating continually as we went along, till I found myself +muttering the words after him mechanically,--without attaching the +slightest meaning to them. "The villain is a strong muscular chap, +and perhaps he 'll be for breaking down your guard by mere force, and +cleaving you down with a stroke. If he tries it, you 've only to spring +actively to one side and give him your point, anywhere about the chest." +From this he proceeded to discuss a hundred little subtleties and +stratagems the Mexicans are familiar with, so that at last I regretted, +from the very bottom of my soul, that the gage of battle had not fallen +upon Seth himself, so much more worthy in every way of the distinction. + +If I seemed full of attention to all he was saying, my thoughts, in +truth be it spoken, were travelling a vastly different road. I was +engaged in the performance of a little mental catechism, which ran +somewhat in this wise: "If you escape this peril, Master Con, will it +not be wise to eschew fandangoes in future,--or, at least, not indulge +in them with other men's sweethearts? Beware, besides, of horse-dealers, +of Xeres and Paquaretta; and, above all, of such indiscretions as may +make the 'Seth Chisellers' of this world your masters!" Ay, there was +the sum and substance of my sorrows: that unlucky step about "Charry" +and the lottery-ticket placed me in a situation from which there was no +issue. I now saw, what many have seen before, and many will doubtless +see again, that crime has other penalties besides legal ones, and that +the difficulty of conforming to an assumed good character, with even +_one_ lapse from the path of honesty, is very considerable. + +"Are you attending to me, lad?" cried Seth, impatiently. "I was telling +you about the cross-guard for the head." + +"I have not heard one word of it," said I, frankly; "nor is it of the +least consequence. All the talk in the world could n't make a swordsman, +still less would a few passing hints like those you give me. If the +villano be the better man, there's an end of the matter." + +Seth, less convinced by my reasonings than offended at them, spoke no +more, and we approached the Molino in silence. As we neared the spot, we +perceived the party seated in a little arbor, and by their gestures, +as well as by a most savory odor of garlic, evidently eating their +breakfast. + +"The fellows are jolly," said Seth: "had we not better follow their +example? Here is a nice spot, and a table just at hand." At the same +time he called out, "Muchacho, pan el vino en la mesa, and we 'll think +of somewhat to eat." + +I tried to play indifferent, and seem at my ease; but it was no use. +The vicinity of the other group, and, in particular, of a certain +broad-shouldered member of it whom I could detect through the leaves, +and who certainly did not eat with the air of a man who felt it to be +his last breakfast, spoiled all my efforts, and nipped them even as they +budded. + +"You don't eat," said Seth; "look at the villano yonder." + +"I see him," said I, curtly. + +"See how he lays in his prog!" + +"Let him show that he can be as dexterous with the broadsword as with a +carving-knife," said I, with a tremendous effort. + +"Egad! I'll tell him that," cried Seth, jumping up, and hastening +across the garden. I had not long to wait for the effect of the speech. +Scarcely had Chiseller uttered a few words than the whole party arose, +and such a volley of "Maledicion!" and "Caramba!" and other like terms I +never heard before or since. + +"I knew that would make 'em blaze up," said he; "they're all ready +now,--follow me." I obeyed, and walked after him into a little paddock, +which, from the marks of feet and other signs, seemed to be a spot not +chosen for the first time for such an amusement. The others entered by +an opposite gate, and, taking off their cloaks, folded them carefully +and laid them on the benches. They were armed to the very teeth, and +really did look amazingly like the troop of brigands Drury Lane would +produce in a new melodrama. + +One of the party advanced towards Seth to arrange preliminaries, while +the rest lighted their cigars and began smoking,--an example I deemed it +wise to imitate; at least, it looked cool. + +As I sat, affecting to admire the landscape, and totally careless of +what was going on behind me, I overheard Seth in a warm altercation +on the subject of my sabre, which the villano's friend insisted was +at least eight or nine inches too long. Seth, however, was equally +obstinate in asserting that I had always used it, had fought repeated +duels with it; and if we could not call the principals as witnesses, +it was for certain cogent reasons that need not be mentioned. How I +chuckled at this bit of boastfulness! how I prayed that it might terrify +the enemy! Nothing of the kind; the semi-savage stepped out into the +circle, with his shirt-sleeve rolled up to the shoulder, displaying an +arm whose muscular development was like knotted cordage. As if to give a +foretaste of what he intended for me, he clove down the stout branch of +an elm-tree with a single stroke and with the ease of a man slicing a +cheese. Never did I think so meanly of a fandango as at that moment; +never was I in a mood less lenient to female coquetry! + +"All's ready, Con, my hearty," whispered Seth, leaning over my shoulder; +"here's the tool." + +If I had followed the instinct then strongest, I should have treated my +"friend" Seth to the first of my maiden sword. But for him--But it was +too late for regrets; and already the group had retired, leaving the +villano standing in a position of formidable defence alone in the +circle. + + + +I can remember that I walked calmly and slowly forward to the spot +assigned me. I can remember the word being given to draw swords, and I +even yet can see the flashing steel as it glistened, and hear the clang +of the scabbards as we flung them from us; but of the encounter itself +I have only the vaguest impression. Cuts, thrusts, parries, advances and +retirings, feints and guards, are all blended up with the exclamations +of the bystanders as, in praise or censure, they followed the encounter. +At last, without knowing why, after a warm rally, my antagonist uttered +a faint cry, and tottering a few paces back, let fall his sword, and +sank heavily to the earth. I sprang forward in dread anxiety; but two of +the others held me back while they cried out, "Basta--Basta, Señhor!" I +tried to force my way past them, but they held me fast; and all that I +could see was one of the group take up the villano's arm and let it go +again, when it fell heavily to the ground with a dull bang I shall never +forget! They then threw his cloak over him, and I saw him no more. + +"What are ye waitin' for, lad?" whispered Seth. "You don't want to +attend his funeral, I reckon?" + +"Is he--is he------?" I could n't get the word out for worlds. + +"By course he is; and so will you be, if ye don't make a bolt of it." + +I have some recollection of an angry altercation between Seth and +myself,--I refusing, and he insisting on my instant flight; but it ended +somehow in my finding myself galloping along the Guajuaqualla road at a +furious pace, and, to my extreme surprise, feeling now as eager about my +safety as before I had been indifferent to it. + +I became conscious of this from the sense of uneasiness I experienced +as each horseman neared me, and the danger of pursuit aroused in me the +instinct of self-preservation. + +A rude sign-post at the foot of a rugged mountain path apprised me where +the "miners' trail" led off to Guajuaqualla; so, dismounting from my +"mustang," now wearied and blown by a pretty sharp pace for above seven +miles, I turned the animal loose and set off on foot. I know of no +descent so great in life as from the "saddle" to the "sole!" from the +inspiriting pleasure of being carried along at will, to the plodding +slowness of mere pedestrianism. In the one case you "shoot your sorrows +flying;" in the other, they jog alongside of you all the way, halting +with you when you lie down at noon, and taking share of the spring from +which your parched lips are refreshed. Like an underbred acquaintance, +they will not be denied; they are always "going _your_ way;" and in +their cruel civility they insist on bearing you company. + +At a little cabaret of the very humblest order, I obtained some +breakfast and made purchase of a stock of bread and a gourd of wine, as +I learned that nothing was to be had before I reached "Sanchez," the hut +of an old miner, which was reckoned halfway to Guajuaqualla. This done, +again I set forth on my journey. + +The scenery was wild, without being grand. There was bareness and +desolation, but no sublimity. It was evidently a tract of such inferior +fertility that few in a land so rich as this would select it for a +resting-place; and, accordingly, I came upon no signs of habitation +other than the shealings the shepherds raise at certain seasons when +migrating with their flocks among the mountains. + +It was exactly the character of landscape likely to increase and thicken +the gloom of sad thoughts; and, indeed, mine wanted little assistance. +This last exploit left a weight like lead upon my heart. All my +sophistry about self-defence and wounded honor, necessity, and the like +could not cover the fact that I had taken away a man's life in a foolish +brawl, from the very outset of which the whole fault lay on _my_ side. + +"So much," said I, "for trying to be a 'gentleman'. Every step in this +disastrous pursuit would seem to have a penalty attached to it; and, +after all, I am just as far from the goal as when I set out." + +That day seemed a year in length; and were I to attempt to chronicle it, +the reader would confess himself convinced before I had half finished; +so that, for both our sakes, I 'll not "file my bill of particulars," as +my respected father would have said, but at once come to the hour +when the sun approached the horizon, and yet not anything like a human +dwelling came in sight; and I still plodded along, sad and weary, and +anxious for rest. If the events which I am about to record have little +in them of extraordinary interest, they at least were the turning-points +in my humble destiny, and therefore, kind reader, with your permission, +we 'll give them a chapter to themselves. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. THE DISCOVERY + +I had walked now for nearly twelve hours without discovering any +appearance of Sanchez's cabin, in which I had hoped to pass the night. +My prairie experience assured me that I had not lost the "trail," and +yet if any light were burning for miles around, the elevated spot on +which I stood should make it visible. Although much fatigued, there was +nothing for it but to proceed, and at length I found myself in a narrow +valley which Seth had heard described as the situation in which the +miner's hut stood. It was dark and gloomy; but the hope that I was +nearing the spot cheered me, and I walked on, footsore and tired as I +was. Once or twice I thought I heard the bark of a dog. I stopped to +listen; I shouted aloud, I whistled, but to no end. After an interval, +however, the sounds were repeated, and now I could detect,--not the +bark,--but the low, plaintive wail of an animal seemingly in pain. As it +not unfrequently happens that the sheep-dogs are attacked by wolves, it +immediately occurred to me such might be the present case; so I looked +to the caps of my revolver, and hastened on in the direction of the +cries. + +The wailing sounds grew fuller and louder as I advanced, and now I could +distinguish that they were the cries of an animal in grief, and not of +one in bodily pain. I increased my speed to the utmost, and suddenly I +felt the warm tongue of a dog touch my hand, and his tail brush my legs, +in sign of friendly welcome. I stopped to pat and caress him, but the +poor creature uttered another cry so full of sorrow that all other +thoughts were routed on the instant. + +He now preceded me, turning at each moment as if to see that I followed, +and whining in a low, faint tone, as before. We had not long proceeded +thus, when he stopped suddenly, and set up a cry the most shrill and +heart-thrilling. I saw that we were in front of a miserable shealing, +the door of which lay open; but all was dark within. I struck a light +with my flint, and lighted a little taper. To my surprise, the hut +contained several articles of furniture; but I had not more than time to +notice them, when the dog, darting forward, placed his fore-paws upon a +low settle-bed, and gave a dismal howl. I turned and beheld the figure +of a very old man, his white beard hanging down to his chest, as he lay +in what seemed a heavy sleep. I touched him; he was cold. I placed my +hand on his heart; it was still. I tried to detect breathing; there was +none--he was quite dead! + +The poor dog appeared to watch me with intense interest, as, one by one, +I tried these different signs of life; but when he saw the hand fall +heavily from my own, he again set up his cries, which now lasted for +several minutes. The scene was a sad and touching one. The poor old +miner,--for such his dress and the scattered implements of the craft +bespoke him,--forgotten by all the world save by his dog, lay in all +the seeming calm of sleep. A cup of water stood near him, and a little +wooden crucifix lay on the bed, where probably it had fallen from his +fingers. Everything around betokened great poverty. The few articles of +furniture seemed as if they had been fashioned by himself, being of the +rudest workmanship: his lamp was a dried gourd, and his one chair had +been a stump, hollowed out with a hatchet. The most striking feature +of all was a number of printed paragraphs cut from old newspapers and +magazines and nailed against the planking of the hut; and these seemed +to convey a little history of the old miner, so far, at least, as +the bent and object of his life were implied. They were all, without +exception, exaggerated and high-flown accounts of newly discovered +"Placers,"--rich mines of gold,--some in the dark plains of the Ukraine, +some in the deep forests of Mexico, some in the interior of Africa +and on the far-away shores of the Pacific. Promises of golden harvest, +visions of wealth rolling in vast abundance, great oceans of gain before +the parched and thirsting lips of toil and famine! Little thought they +who, half in the wantonness of fancy, colored these descriptions, what +seeds they were sowing in many a rugged nature! what feverish passions +they were engendering! what lures to wile men on and on, through youth +and manhood and age, with one terrible fascination to enslave them! + +If many of these contained interesting scraps of adventure and +enterprise in remote and strange countries, others were merely dry +and succinct notices of the discovery of gold in particular places, +announcements which nothing short of an innate devotion to the one theme +could possibly have dwelt upon; and these, if I were to judge from the +situations they occupied, were the most favored paragraphs, and those +most frequently read over; they were the daily food with which he fed +his hope, through, doubtless, long years of suffering and toil. It was +the oil which replenished the lamp when the wick had burned to the very +socket! + +How one could fancy the old Gambusino as he sat before his winter fire, +half dozing in the solitude of his uncompanionable existence, revelling +in all the illusions with which his mind was filled! With what sympathy +must he have followed his fellow-laborers in every far-away quarter of +the globe! how mourned over their disappointments, how exulted in their +successes! These little scraps and sentences were the only links that +tied him to the world--they were all that spoke to him of his own +species! + +As I went about the hut, the appearance of the greatest poverty and +privation struck me on every side: his clothing, worn to very tatters, +had been mended by skins of beasts and patches of canvas; the tools +with which he worked showed marks of rude repair that proved how "he to +himself sufficed," without aid from others. + +I passed the night without sleep, my mind full of the melancholy picture +before me. When day broke, I walked forth into the cool air to refresh +myself, and found, to my astonishment, that the spot had been a Placer +of once great repute,--at least so the remains around attested. The +ruined framework of miners' huts; the great massive furnaces for +smelting; huge cradles, as they are called, for gold-sifting; long +troughs, formed of hollowed trunks, for washing,--lay scattered on all +sides. The number of these showed what importance the spot had once +possessed, and the rotten condition in which they now were proved how +long it had been deserted by all save him who was now to take his rest +where, for many a weary year, he had toiled and labored. + +A little cross, decorated with those insignia of torture so frequently +seen in Catholic countries,--the pincers, the scourge, and the crown of +thorns,--showed where Piety had raised an altar beside that of Mammon; +and underneath this I resolved to lay the poor old Gambusino's bones, as +in a Christian grave. I could not divest my mind of the impression that +some power, higher than mere chance, had led me to the spot to perform +those last offices to the poor outcast. Having eaten my breakfast, which +I shared with the dog, I set to work to fashion something that should +serve as a coffin. There was timber in abundance, and the old miner's +tools sufficed for all I needed. My labor, however, was only completed +as night closed in, so that I was obliged to wait for morning to finish +my task. + +Wearied by my exertions, I slept soundly, and never awoke till the +bright sunbeams pierced through the chinks of the log-hut, and streamed +in amidst its dusky atmosphere; then I arose, and placed the old man +in his coffin. I sat down beside it, and as I looked at the calm, cold +features I could not help reflecting that even he had not been more an +outcast from his fellows than I was myself. If fate had cast _his_ lot +in the solitude of this dreary region, he was not more alone in the +world than _I_, who had neither home nor family. How strange was it, +too, that it should have devolved upon _me_ to pay him these last rites. +No, no; this could not be accident. The longer I dwelt upon this theme, +the more strongly was I impressed by this one conviction; and now, +looking back, after the lapse of years, that feeling is but more +confirmed by time. + +Taking the shovel and the pick, I set forth to dig the grave, the +poor dog following at my heels, as though knowing in what cause I was +laboring. The earth was hard and stony, so that at first I made but +little progress; but soon I reached a clayey soft soil, which again was +succeeded by a dense, firm stratum of stones, impacted closely together, +like a pavement made by hands; indeed, it was difficult to conceive it +otherwise, the stones being so nearly of the same size, and laid down +with a regularity so striking and purposelike. I proceeded to loosen +them with the barreta, but, to my surprise, no sooner had I displaced +this layer than another exactly similar displayed itself underneath. If +this be "Nature's handiwork," thought I, "it is the strangest thing I +ever saw." I labored hard to remove this second tier, and now came down +upon a light gravelly soil, into which the barreta passed easily. Shall +I own that it was with a sense of disappointment that I perceived this? +It was not that my expectations had taken any distinct or palpable form, +but their vagueness somehow had not excluded hope! + +As I struck down the iron barreta into the light earth, I sat down and +fell into a musing fit, from which the dog aroused me by licking +my hands and looking up into my face, as though reproaching me for +deserting my task. I arose at once, and set to work in right earnest. +The grave was now full five feet in depth, and needed only to be made a +little longer. It was after about an hour's hard labor, and my task +was all but completed, when the barreta struck a stone which it was +requisite to move; it was a large and heavy one, and much more firmly +impacted in the earth than I at first supposed, and it was only by +splintering it with the iron "crow" that I was able to succeed. As I +lifted the fragments and threw them away, my hands came in contact with +a soft substance underneath, that, to the feel, at least, resembled the +skin of a beast with the wool or hair on. I cleared away the earth, +and saw to my astonishment what I at once knew to be a piece of buffalo +hide, smeared over with a peculiar oil the Indians use to prevent +rotting or decomposition. I drew forth my knife and ripped it open; +a strong skin of undressed buck was now laid bare; again I applied my +knife vigorously to this, and as the sharp steel ran freely along, +a glittering heap of gold disclosed itself before me, and rolled in +fragments to my feet! + +I cannot attempt to describe the emotions of that moment, as, with +a heart bursting with delight, I ran my fingers through the heaps of +shining metal, many of them larger than my closed fist. I pulled off my +cap and filled it; I opened my handkerchief, and in a few moments +that also was crammed; I stuffed my pockets; but the treasure seemed +inexhaustible. I arose, and hastened to the hut for the great canvas bag +in which the poor miner used to keep his chestnuts, and, oh, the terror +that came over me now, lest I should be seen, lest any other should +discover me! With the speed that fear alone can supply I soon filled the +sack, not alone with gold, but also with several little leather +bags, which I discovered contained gems and precious stones, emeralds +principally, with opals, sapphires, and rubies, some of a size and color +I had never seen equalled before. There were eight of these bags, marked +with some enigmatical letters, of which I did not know the meaning, nor, +in good truth, did I puzzle myself to discover. The wealth, unbounded as +it seemed, needed no explanation; there it lay glittering upon the grass +beneath the morning sun, and there I sat amidst it, as Aladdin might +have sat amidst the treasures of his mine. + +As I opened the bags one after another, in eager impatience, I came upon +one filled with papers, and these I quickly discovered were receipts +for deposits of large sums placed at various times in the hands of Don +Xafire Hijaros, banker, at Guajuaqualla, by Menelaus Crick! Yes, these +were the hidden treasures for which the Black Boatswain of Anticosti +had endured the tortures of the burning iron and the steel, the +terrible agonies of the flesh pincers, and the slow, lingering pains of +paralysis. These, then, were the visions that haunted his dotage in the +very night I had seen him, as he struggled in some imaginary conflict, +and patted the ground in some fancied act of concealment! A sudden chill +ran through me as I thought by what horrible deeds of crime and blood +all this treasure might--nay, must--have been amassed! What terrible +acts of murder and assassination! Many of the gems were richly set, and +showed that they had been worn. Some of the emeralds had been extracted +from ornaments, or taken from the hilts of daggers or swords. Violence +and blood had stained them all, there could not be a doubt of it; and +now there arose within me a strange conflict, in which the thirst for +wealth warred with a feeling of superstition that whispered, "No luck +could go with gain so bought!" The perspiration rolled in great drops +down my face; my heart swelled and throbbed with its emotions; the +arteries of my temples beat with a force that seemed to smite the +very brain as I canvassed this vital question, "Dare I touch wealth so +associated with deeds of infamy?" + +If my wishes arranged themselves on one side, all my fears were +marshalled on the other; and what foes can wage a more terrible +conflict! The world, with its most attractive pleasures, its thousand +fascinations, all the delusions that gold can buy and convert into +realities, beckoned here. Horrible fancies of an unknown vengeance, a +Nemesis in crime unexpiated, menaced there! May I never have to preside +in a court where the evidence is so strongly opposed, where the facts +are so equally balanced! If, at one instant, I beheld myself the +gorgeous millionnaire, launching forth into the wide ocean of unexplored +enjoyment, at the next I saw myself crawling upon the earth, maimed and +crippled like the old negro slave; a curse upon me; the cries of widowed +mothers ringing in my ears; the curses of ruined fathers tracking +me wherever I went! I cannot tell what verdict my poor empanelled +conscience might have brought in at last, but suddenly a new witness +appeared in the court and gave a most decided turn to the case. This was +no less than "the Church," whose testimony gently insinuated that if the +matter were one of difficulty, it was not yet without a solution. "It is +true, Master Con," whispered she, "that these treasures have an odor of +rapine; but let us see if the Church cannot purify them. A silver lamp +to the Virgin can throw a lustre upon deeds that have not 'loved the +light.' An embroidered petticoat can cover a great many small sins, and +the incense that rises from a gold censer, offered by pious hands, will +do much to correct the pungency of even the saltest tears." + +Build a chapel, Con; endow a nunnery,--or, if you don't like shutting +up young ladies, let it be a "monkery;" make an investment in hair-cloth +shirts and cord girdles; buy shares in the grand Purgatory scheme, +and take out "next world scrip," in the shape of masses, jubilees, and +novenas. You can keep a bishop, without feeling the cost, and have +a whole candle manufactory perpetually at the service of "Our Lady," +without being obliged to curtail one of your own wax-lights. What a +revulsion did this bright thought give to all my previous doubtings! +not only satisfying my scruples here, but suggesting very comfortable +associations for hereafter. By this proceeding, Con, thought I, you are +"hedging against hereafter;" you may be a Sardanapalus while you live, +and a saint after death: it's betting upon the "double event," with all +the odds in your favor. + +I must say, for the sake of my credit, that I resolved to "do the thing +handsomely." I determined that a finer virgin should not be seen than +mine, and that if a "Saint Cregan" could be discovered in the catalogue, +I'd adopt him as my patron, at any cost. Neither would I forget the poor +old miner in my pious offerings: he should have masses said for him for +a full twelvemonth to come, and I 'd offer a silver pickaxe to any of +the calendar who would deign to accept it. In a word, there was nothing +that money could do (and what can it not?) that I would not engage to +perform, so that the Church should consent to take me into partnership. + +Never was a poor head exposed to such a conflict of discordant thoughts. +Plans of pleasures and pilgrimages; gorgeous visions of enjoyment +warring with fancies of sackcloth and scourges; sumptuous dinners, +equipages, theatres, balls, and festivities mingling with fastings, +processions, and mortifications, made up a chaos only a shade above +downright insanity. + +The day wore on, and it was late in the afternoon ere I bethought me +of the poor Gambusino, beside whose open grave I still sat, lost in +speculation. "Poor fellow!" said I, as I hoisted his coffin on my +shoulder, "you have got a rich pall-bearer for one who died in such +poverty; you little thought you would be borne to the grave by a +millionnaire!" As I said this--I shame to own it--there was a tinge of +self-commendation in the notion, as though inferring, "See what a noble +fellow I am! with gold and gems such as an emperor might envy, and yet +look at me, carrying a poor old miner's body to the grave just as if we +were equals!" + +"It's very handsome of you, Con,--that I must say!" whispered I to +myself; but, somehow, the poor dog did not appear to take the same +exalted notion of my magnanimity, but was entirely engrossed by his +sorrow; for he lay crouching upon the earth, uttering cries the most +piteous and heartrending at each shovelful I threw in the grave. + +"Cheer up, poor fellow!" said I, patting him, "you shall have a gold +collar and a clasp of real emerald." How naturally does a rich man recur +to wealth as the cure for every affliction! How difficult for him to +believe that gold is not a sovereign remedy for all disorders! + +As for the dog, poor brute! he took no more heed of my consolation +than he noticed my altered condition,--of which, by his familiarity, +he showed himself totally unconscious. How differently had he behaved, +thought I, had he been a man! What sudden respect had he felt for me; +what natural reluctance to obtrude himself on me; how honored by my +notice, how distinguished by my favor! It is plain the dog is a very +inferior animal; his perceptions are not fine enough to distinguish +between the man of wealth and the pauper! + +These and very similar reflections engaged me while I completed my task, +after which I carried my precious burdens off, and deposited them within +the hut. By this time I was very hungry, but had nothing to eat save the +fragments that remained from my breakfast,--a singular meal for one who, +in a fitting place, could have dined sumptuously and off vessels of gold +and silver! I had the appetite of a poor man, however, and eat heartily; +and then, taking my gourd of wine, sat down beside a little spring that +issued from the rock, to think over my future. + +Perhaps my whole life--not wanting in hours of pleasure and +enjoyment--never presented anything so truly delightful as that evening. + +The season of gratification which I had dreamed of, sighed, panted, and +prayed for, was now to be mine. I was at last to be a "gentleman,"--so +far, at least, as immense wealth and a very decided taste for spending +it could make me. But were these, I flatteringly asked myself, all my +qualifications? Was I not master of three or four languages? Had I not +become an expert shot, an excellent rider, a graceful dancer, with some +skill upon the guitar and the mandolin? Could I not contend in most +exercises where strength and activity were required, with any? Had I not +travelled and seen something of the world and its ways? Ay, marry, and a +little more of both than was usual for young gentlemen of fortune! + +Of personal advantages it might not become me to speak; but the truth +requires me to say that Nature had dealt very handsomely by me. And +now I ask of the fair reader,--the unfair one I put out of court on +the occasion,--"Are not these very pretty chances with which to woo +fortune?" Less sanguine spirits would perhaps have sighed for more, and +asked for a hundred gifts, of whose use and value I knew nothing,--such +as birth, family influence, and the like. As for me, I was content with +the "hand of trumps" Fate had dealt me; I owned frankly that if I lost +the game, it must be for lack of skill, and not of luck. + +My plans were very simple. Once at Guajuaqualla, I should find out where +Donna Maria de los Dolores lived, and then, providing myself with a +suitable equipage and servants, I should proceed to pay my addresses +in all form, affecting to have resumed my real rank and station, from +which, on our first acquaintance, a passing caprice had withdrawn me. +I anticipated, of course, very shrewd inquiries as to my family and +fortune; but I trusted to "native wit" to satisfy these, secretly +resolving at the time that I would avoid lying for the future. And _à +propos_ of this propensity, I had never indulged in it, save from that +vagrant impulse that tempts a child to scamper over the flower-plat of +a garden, instead of keeping to the gravel,--the great charm being found +in the secret that it "was wrong." And, oh, ye dear, good, excellent +souls whose instincts are always correct, who can pass knockers on doors +and not wish to wring them off; who see gas-lamps in lonely spots, +and never think of breaking them; who neither "humbug" the stupid, nor +mistify the vain; who "take life" seriously,--forgive the semi-barbarism +of our Celtic tastes, which leads us to regard "fun" as the very honey +of existence, and leads us to extract it from every flower in life's +path! + +When I "lied,"--as only the great "Pinto" ever lied more atrociously,--I +was more amused by my own extravagances than were my listeners. I threw +out my inventions among stupid folk as a rich man flings his guinea +among a group of beggars, to enjoy the squabbling and contending for +such an unlooked-for prize. + +And now I was going to abandon the habit, as one unsuited to the +responsibilities of a rich man's station! Oh, dear, what a sigh honest +Jack Falstaff must have heaved when he swore "he would eschew sack and +low company, and live cleanly." + +I now addressed myself more practically to my work, and, seeing that it +would be quite impossible for me to carry the great bulk of my treasure +to Guajuaqualla, I replaced the canvas sack, with the gold and some of +the larger bags of the gems, in the ground, and merely took those that +contained the paper securities, and some of the more valuable emeralds, +along with me. + +In parting with my wealth, even for a short absence, I confess my +feelings were very poignant. A thousand fears beset me, and I turned +to survey the spot beneath which it lay, wondering if there was any +indication to mark the concealed riches below. All, however, looked safe +and plausible; and I proceeded on my way, with a heart as easy as, I +suppose, rich men's hearts are permitted to be! + +I believe the road along which I journeyed lay in the midst of a fertile +and pleasing tract,--I believe, I say; for I own I saw nothing of it. +The river along which Ï walked seemed silver, molten silver, to me; +the fruit-trees bore apples of pure gold; the stars which studded the +morning sky seemed sapphires and diamonds; the dewdrops on the grass +were opals all. If I sat down to rest myself, I instantly took one of +my precious bags from my pocket, to gaze at the bright treasures it +contained, and feast my eyes with brilliancy. + +At last I found myself on the great high road, and, as the sign-post +told me, only "très léguas"--three leagues--from Guajuaqualla. For a few +copper coins I obtained a seat upon a peasant's "carro," and journeyed +along more agreeably, secretly laughing to myself at the strange +conveyance that carried "Cæsar and his fortunes." + +The peasant was an old man who lived by selling watermelons, gourds, and +cucumbers in the city, and knew most of its well-known inhabitants. It +was, therefore, a good opportunity for me to learn something of those in +whom I was interested. He told me that the banker Don Xafire Hijaros had +died several years ago, but that his son Manuel carried on the business, +and was reputed to be the richest man in Guajuaqualla. It was said that +the great wealth of the house had been accumulated in ways and by means +that would not bear too close scrutiny. Large sums had been, it was +alleged, lodged in his hands by negroes and Indians working at the +mines, the owners of which were often made away with,--at least, few of +those who made large deposits ever lived to claim them. The peasant told +me several stories in illustration of this suspicion; but although +they certainly did make an impression upon me, I attributed much to the +exaggeration so common to every piece of local gossip, and I had seen +enough in the world to know how frequently successful industry meets +disparagement. + +As for Don Estaban Olarez, the old man told me that he had once been +extremely rich, but that certain speculations he had entered into having +proved unfortunate, he had lost the greater part of his fortune, and +lived now in a state of comparative retirement about a league from +Guajuaqualla. This piece of news had not the depressing effect upon me +it might be supposed, since I augured that a rich son-in-law would +be less scrupulously interrogated by the broken merchant than by the +millionnaire. I even speculated on the manner I should adopt to dazzle +him by my splendor, and with what cold and cutting irony I would address +the Fra Miguel, and thank him for the considerate kindness with which +he had repaid my services. Haughty and proud, with a dash of +condescension,--"that must be my tone," said I; and so I went on, +like my prototype in the Eastern tale, ruminating upon my power and my +merciful disposition, till I had warmed my blood to a very good tyrant +pitch, from which state I was aroused by the guard at the gate of the +town asking if I had anything with me which should pay custom. + +"A poor traveller with his knapsack," said I, "may surely pass freely." + +"Vaya con Dios," said he, carelessly, and I entered the city. + +Although the little plain in which Guajuaqualla stands is more favorable +as a site than the narrow gorge where Chihuahua is situated, the city +itself is inferior to the latter. Built irregularly, not only as chance +or caprice directed, but sharing in all the vicissitudes of speculation +which the mines afforded, great palaces stand by the side of mean +hovels, and gorgeous churches are flanked by abodes of squalid poverty. +Streets, properly speaking, there were none. Each choosing the spot for +his house at will, and as the city was founded in troubled times, when +lawless violence was unrestrained,--the fortress-like character of +the buildings was often conspicuous. Massive iron bars and stanchions +protected the windows of the ground-floors; heavy fastenings secured +the doors, whose surface was a fretwork of iron. Loop-holes for musketry +usually guarded each side of the entrance, and a "grille," like that +of a convent, showed that no stranger could be admitted uninterrogated. +Many of the houses were surrounded by regular outworks of moat and +bastion, while here and there an old rusty cannon, half hid among the +weeds, would show more pretentious, though possibly not very efficient, +means of defence. + +Of shrines, holy wells, and altars there was no end. The superstitious +character of the Gambusino life had been adroitly laid hold of by the +priests, who rarely fail to turn each phase of existence to their own +profit, and, in this spot, the priestly hierarchy appeared to have +nothing so near at heart as the success of the "Placers." Here were +pictured virgins, looking blandly down at a group of very ill-favored +half-breeds, at a washing; there was an old negro presenting a massive +lump of gold to St. Joseph, who, with a sly look, seemed to promise +not to forget the donor. St. Francis himself, pick in hand, was seen +laboring at the head of a sturdy gang of workmen, and angels of all +sizes appeared to busy themselves in gold-seeking, as though it were +their natural pastime. + +Upon several of the altars, pieces of solid gold and silver lay, in a +security that said much for the religious zeal of the inhabitants, while +lamps of pure silver hung in a profusion on every side,--surrounded by +votive offerings of the same metal,--such as shovels, barretas, picks, +and sieves. Nor did piety limit itself merely to incentives to "stand +well with the saints;" some most terrible examples of the opposite line +of conduct were conspicuously displayed. Pictures representing dreadful +catastrophes, by falling masses of rock, irruptions of torrents, and +down-pouring cataracts, showed what fates were ever in store for those +who "forgot the Church." And, as if to heighten the effect, whenever +a cayman or a jaguar was "sloping off" with a miner in his mouth, a +respectable saint was sure to be detected in the offing, wiping his eyes +in compassion, but not stirring a finger to his assistance. + +I will not say that these specimens of pictorial piety induced any +strong religious feeling to my mind, but they certainly amused me +highly; and although hungry from a long fast, I stopped full twenty +times on my way to the Posada to gaze and wonder at them. + +At the "Mono" (the "Ape"), a beast which at first _I_ mistook for a +certain historical character to whom popular prejudice always vouchsafes +a tail, I put up, and having discussed a very sumptuous breakfast, sent +for the landlord, a little dark-visaged Jew from Pernambuco. + +"I hear," said I, arranging myself in an attitude of imposing elegance, +"I hear, Señhor Maestro, that my people and equipages have not arrived +yet, and I begin to feel a great anxiety for their safety. Can you learn +from any of the Muleros if they have seen two carriages, with four mules +each, on the Chihuahua road?" + +"I have just inquired," said the Jew, with a sly, almost impertinent +leer, "and his Excellency's suite have not been seen." + +"How provoking!" said I, impatiently. "This comes of indulging that +capricious taste for adventure which always inclines me to a solitary +ramble among mountains. And now, here I am, without clothes, baggage, +horses, servants,--in fact, with nothing that a person of my condition +is accustomed to have about him." + +The Jew's face changed its expression during this speech, and, from a +look of droll malice which it wore at first, assumed an air of almost +open insolence as he said,-- + +"Señhor Viajador, I am too old to be imposed upon by these fooleries. +The traveller who enters an inn on his feet, with ragged clothes and +tattered shoes, takes too high a flight when he raves of equipage and +followers." + +I bethought me of the lesson I once gave the mate of the transport ship +at Quebec, and I lay back indolently in my chair and stared coolly at +the Jew. "Son of Abraham," said I, with a slow intonation, "take care +what you say. I indulge in a vast variety of caprices, some of which +the severe world calls follies; but there is one which I never permit +myself,--namely, to suffer the slightest liberty on the part of an +inferior. I give you this piece of information for your guidance, since +it is possible that business with the banker Don Manuel Hijaros may +detain me a few days in this place, and I desire that the lesson be not +lost upon you." + +The Jew stood, while I delivered these words, a perfect ideal of doubt +and embarrassment. The pretentious tone, contrasted with the ragged +apparel, the air of insufferable pride, with all the semblance of +poverty, and the calm composure of confidence, seemed to him singular +features in one whose apparent destitution might have suggested +humility. + +"I see your embarrassment," said I, "and I forgive your error; and +now to business. I have several visits to pay in this neighborhood; my +people may not arrive for a day or two; and I cannot afford the delay of +waiting for them. Can you tell if there be anything suitable in the +way of equipage for a man of rank to be had here? Something simple, of +course, as befitting the place,--a plain carriage, with four mules,--if +Andalusian, all the better; two lazadores, or outriders, will be +sufficient, as I wish to avoid display; the liveries and equipment may +be plain also." + +"There is at this moment, Señhor, the open carriage of the late +Gobernador of Guajuaqualla to be sold,--he had not used it when he was +called away by death: that and his six mules,--not Andalusian, it +is true, but of the black breed of the Habannah,--are now at your +Excellency's disposal." + +"And the price," said I, not seeming to notice the half-impertinent +smile that curled his lip as he spoke. + +"Three thousand crowns, Señhor,--less than half their cost." + +"A mere trifle," said I, carelessly, "if the carriage please me. + +"Your Excellency can see it in the court beneath." + +I followed the Jew as he led the way into the open "cour," and, after +passing across it, we entered a spacious building, where, amidst a whole +hospital of ruined and dilapidated calèches, carres, and wagons, stood a +most beautiful britscka, evidently imitated from some London or Parisian +model. It was of a dark chocolate color, with rich linings of pale-blue +silk. The arms of the late Gobernador were to have been painted on +the doors, but fortunately were not begun when he died, so that the +"carroza" seemed in every respect a private one. The Jew next showed +me the team of mules, magnificent animals of fifteen and half hands in +height, and in top condition. The harness and housings were all equally +splendid and suitable. + +"If your Excellency does not deem them unworthy of you," said he, with a +smile of most treacherous meaning, "they are certainly a great bargain. +I have myself advanced fifteen hundred piastres upon them." + +"I'll take them," said I, curtly; "and now for the servants." + +"The coachman and a few lacqueys are here still, your Excellency; but +their liveries had not been ordered when the sad event occurred." + +"Send the first tailor in the place to my apartment," said I; "and if +there be a diamond merchant or a gem valuer here, let him come also." + +"I am myself a dealer in precious stones, your Excellency," replied the +Jew, with a more submissive air than he had yet exhibited. + +"Come with me then," said I; "for I always carry some of my less +valuable trinkets about with me, as the least cumbrous mode of taking +money." Leaving the landlord in the sitting-room, I passed into my +chamber, and speedily re-entered with a handsome emerald ring upon my +finger, and a ruby brooch of great size in my breast. + +The Jew's eyes were lit up with a lustre only inferior to that of the +gems as he saw them, and in a voice tremulous with eagerness he said, +"Will your Excellency dispose of these?" + +"Yes," said I, carelessly; "there are others also, which I am determined +to turn into cash. What value would you put upon this ring?" + +"Five hundred crowns, Señhor, if it be really as pure as it seems." + +"If that be your valuation, friend," rejoined I, "I would be a +purchaser, not a seller, in this city. That gem cost me six thousand +piastres! To be sure, something of the price must be laid to the charge +of historical associations. It was the present of the Sultan Al Hadgid +ak Meerun-ak-Roon to the Empress Matilda." + +"Six thousand piastres!" echoed the Jew, whose astonishment stopped +short at the sum, without any regard for the great names I had hurled at +him. + +"I believe I may have paid a trifle too much," said I, smiling; "the +Prince of Syracuse thought it dear! But then here is a much more +valuable stone, which only cost as much;" and, so saying, I took from +my pocket an immense emerald, which had once formed the ornament of a +dagger. + +"Ah, Dios! that is fine," said the Jew, as he held it between him and +the light; "and, were it not for the flaw, would be a rare prize!" + +"Were it not for the flaw, friend," said I, "it would still be where +it stood for upwards of eight hundred years,--in the royal crown of +Hungary, in the 'Schatzkammer' of Presburg. The Emperor Joseph had it +mounted in his own poignard; from his hands it reached the Caltons of +Auersberg; and then, at the value of six thousand piastres, by a wager, +came into my own." + +"And at what price would you now dispose of it?" asked he, timidly. + +"A friend might have it for ten thousand," said I, calmly; "to the world +at large the price would be twelve." + +"Ah, your Excellency, such sums rest not in our humble city! You must go +to Madrid or Grenada for wealth like that." + +"So I suspect," said I, coolly. "I will content myself with depositing +them with my banker for the present; to sell them here would be a +needless sacrifice of them." + +"And yet, Señhor, I would willingly be the purchaser of that gem," said +he, as he stood, fascinated by the lustre of the stone, from which he +could not take his eyes. "If six thousand five hundred piastres--" + +"I have said ten to a friend, my honest Israelite," interrupted I. + +"I am but a poor man, your Excellency,--a poor struggling, hard-working +man,--content if he but gain the humblest profit by his labor; say, +then, seven thousand piastres, and I will sell my mules to make up the +amount." + +"I will say twelve, and not a doubloon less," Señhor Judio; "but a +friend may have it for ten." + +"Ah, if your 'Alteza' would but say eight! Eight thousand piastres +counted down upon the table in honest silver," said he; and the tears +stood in his eyes as he supplicated. + +"Be it so," said I, "but upon one condition. Should you ever reveal +this, or should you speak of the transaction in any way, there is no +manner of evil and mischief I will not work you. If it cost me half my +fortune, I will be your ruin; for I refused to part with that same +to the Primate of Seville, and he would never forgive me if the story +should reach his ears." + +The Jew wished the Patriarchs to witness his oath of secrecy; and though +each of us was well aware that the other was lying, somehow we seemed +satisfied by the exchange of our false coinage. I suppose we acted on +the same principle as the thieves who could not keep their hands out of +each other's pockets, although they knew well there was nothing there. + +Whatever the Jew's suspicion of the means by which I had become +possessed of such wealth, he prudently thought that he might reap more +profit by falling in with my plans than by needlessly scrutinizing my +character; and, so far, he judged wisely. + +The contract for the carriage I completed on the spot, and having +engaged the servants and ordered their liveries,--plain suits of brown, +with gold tags, aiguilettes,--I gave directions for my own wearing +apparel, in a style of costly magnificence that confirmed me in the +title of "Alteza," given by all who came in contact with me. These +occupations occupied the entire morning, and it was only late in the +afternoon that I had spare time to recreate myself by a walk in the +garden of the inn before dinner,--a promenade which, I am free to own, +was heightened in its enjoyment by the rich rustling sounds of my heavy +silk robe-dè-chambre, and the soft, downy tread of my velvet slippers +on the smooth turf. It was a delicious moment! the very birds seemed to +sing a little paean of rejoicing at my good luck; the flowers put forth +their sweetest odors as I passed; and I felt myself in ecstasy with the +whole creation, and in particular with that segment of it called Con +Cregan. And there be folk in this world would call this egotism and +vanity; ay, and by worse names too! As if it was not the very purest +philanthropy--as if my self-content did not spring from the calm +assurance that the goods of fortune were bestowed in the right +direction, and that the goddess whom men call "fickle" was in reality a +most discriminating deity! + +There are no two things in creation less alike than a rich man and a +poor one! Not only do all their thoughts, feelings, and affections run +in opposite channels, but their judgments are different; and from the +habit of presenting particular aspects to the world, they come at last +to conform to the impressions conceived of them by the public. The +eccentricities of wealth are exalted into fashions,--the peculiarities +of poverty are degraded to downright vices. + +"Oh, glorious metal!" exclaimed I, as I walked along, "that smooths +the roughest road of life, that makes the toughest venison savory, and +renders the rudest associates civil and compliant, what insolence and +contumely had I not met with here, in this poor 'Posada,' had I only +been what my humble dress and mean exterior denoted; and now, what is +there that I cannot exact, what demands can I make, and hear that they +are impossible!" + +"His Excellency's dinner is served," said the host, as he advanced, with +many a low and obsequious salutation, to announce my dinner. + +I suppose that the cookery of the "Mono" was not of the very highest +order, and that if presented before me now, it would meet but sorry +acceptance from my more educated palate; but at the time I speak of, +it seemed actually delicious. There appeared to arise faint odors, of +savory import, from dishes whose garlic would now almost suffocate me, +and I luxuriated in the flavor of wine, every glass of which would, at +this day, have put my teeth on edge. If my enjoyment was great, however, +I took care not to let it appear too palpable; on the contrary, I +criticised and condemned with all the fastidiousness of a spoiled +nature, and only condescended to taste anything on the perpetual +assurance of the host that "though very different from what his +Excellency was used to, it was exactly to the taste of the late +'Gobernador.'" + +I felt all the swelling importance of wealth within me as I beheld the +cringing lacqueys and the obsequious host, who never dared to carry +himself erect in my presence; the very meats seemed to send up an +incense to my nostrils. The gentle wind that shook the orange-blossoms +seemed made to bear its odors to my senses; all Nature appeared +tributary to my enjoyment. And only to think of it! all this adulation +was for poor Con Cregan, the convict's son; the houseless street-runner +of Dublin; the cabin-boy of the yacht; the flunkey at Quebec; the +penniless wanderer in Texas; the wag of the "Noria," in Mexico. What a +revulsion, and how sudden and unexpected! + +It now became a matter of deep consideration within me how I should +support this unlooked-for change of condition, without betraying +too palpably what the French would call my "antecedents." As to my +"relatives,"--forgive the poor pun,--they gave me little trouble. I had +often remarked in life that vulgar wealth never exhibits itself in a +more absurd and odious light than when indulging in pleasures of which +the sole enjoyment is the amount of the cost. The upstart rich man may +sit in a gallery of pictures where Titian, Velasquez, and Vandyck have +given him a company whose very countenances seem to despise him, while +he thinks of nothing save the price. If he listen to Malibran, the only +sense awakened is the cost of her engagement; and hence that stolid +apathy, the lustreless gaze, the unrelieved weariness, he exhibits in +society, where it is the metal of the "mind" is clinking, and not the +metal of the "mint." To a certain extent I did not incur great danger +on this head: Nature had done me some kind services, the chief of which +was, she had made me an Irishman! + +There may seem--alas! there is too great cause that there should +seem--something paradoxical in this boast, now, when sorrow and +suffering are so much our portion; but I speak only of the individuality +which, above every other I have seen or heard of, invests a man with a +spirit to enjoy whatever is agreeable in life. Now, this same gift is a +great safeguard against the vulgarity of purse-pride, since the man +who launches forth upon the open sea of pleasure is rarely occupied by +thoughts of self. + +As for me, I felt a kind of gluttony for every delight that gold can +purchase. What palaces I would inhabit; what equipages I would drive; +what magnificent fêtes I would give; what inimitable little dinners, +where beauty, wit, and genius alone should be gathered together; +what music should I possess in "my private band;" what exotics in +my conservatory; and how I should dispense these fascinations; what +happiness would I diffuse in the circle in which I moved, and what a +circle would that be! It was to this precise point my buoyant fancy had +brought me, as the second flask of champagne, iced almost to a crystal, +had warmed me into a glow of imaginative enthusiasm. I fancied myself +in a gilded saloon, where, amid the glare of a thousand wax-lights, a +brilliant company were assembled. I thought that at each opening of the +folding-door a servant announced some name, illustrious from position +or great in reputation, and that around me, as I stood, a group was +gathered of all that was distinguished in the world of fashion or +celebrity. "Your Royal Highness has made this the proudest day of my +life," said I, rising, and bowing reverentially before a faded old +arm-chair. "May I offer your Eminence a seat," continued I to a red +sofa-cushion I mistook for a cardinal. "Your Excellency is most heartily +welcome," said I to an empty decanter. And so did I convert every +adjunct of the chamber into some distinguished personage, even, to my +fast expiring lamp, which, with a glimmering flame and a nauseous odor, +was gradually dying away, and which I actually addressed as a great +ambassador! + +After this, I conclude that I must have imagined myself in the +East,--possibly taking a cup of sherbet with the Sultan, or a chibouk +with the Khan of Tammerkabund; for when I became conscious once more, I +found myself upon the hearthrug, where I had been enjoying a delicious +sleep for some hours. + +"Would his Excellency desire to see his chamber?" asked the landlord, +as, with a branch of candles, he stood in the doorway. + +I waved my hand in sign of assent, and followed him. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. GUAJUAQUALLA + +There are few things in this world gold cannot buy: but one among their +number assuredly is--"a happy dream." Now, although I went to sleep in +a great bed with damask hangings and a gilt crown upon it, my pillow +fringed with deep lace, my coverlet of satin edged with gold, I dreamed +the whole night through of strifes, combats, and encounters. At one time +my enemy would be an Indian; at another, a half-breed; now, a negro; +now, a jaguar or a rattlesnake: but with whom, or whatever the struggle, +it was always for money! Nothing else seemed to have any hold upon my +thoughts. Wealth, and wealth alone, appeared the guiding principle of my +being; and, as the penalty, I was now to learn the ceaseless anxieties, +the torturing dreads, this passion begets. + +With daylight, however, I awoke, and the bright sun, streaming in, +brought the glorious reality of my happy lot before me, and reminded +me of the various duties my high state imposed. My first care was +to ascertain the amount and security of my riches; and I resolved to +proceed regularly and in the most business-like manner in the matter. +To this end I ordered my carriage, and proceeded to pay my visit to the +banker, Don Xafire. + +I had devised and demolished full fifty ingenious narratives of myself +when I drove into the courtyard where the banker resided, and found +myself actually without one single satisfactory account of who I was, +whence I came, and by what means I became possessed of the formidable +papers I carried. "Let circumstances pilot the event" was my old maxim; +and, so saying, I entered. + +The rattling tramp of my six mules, the cracking of whips, and the crash +of the wheels, brought many a head to the windows of the old jail-like +palace when my carriage drove up to the door, and the two outriders +stood in "a salute" at each side while I descended. "Sua Eccelenza El +Condé de Cregano" resounded through the arched hall and passages, as +an old servant in a tawdry suit of threadbare livery led the way to Don +Xafire's private apartment. + +After a brief wait in a large but meagrely furnished chamber, an old +man--or a middle-aged one, with a look of age--entered, and, with a +profusion of ceremonial, in which he assured me that his house, his +wife, his oxen, his mules, his asses, and in fact everything "that was +his," stood at my disposal, asked to what fortunate event he owed the +honor of my visit. + +"I am the representative, Señhor Xafire," said I, "of the great house of +Cregan and Company, of which doubtless you have heard, whose ships walk +the waters of the icy seas, and lay at anchor amid the perfumes of the +spice islands, and whose traffic unites two hemispheres." + +"May they always be prosperous!" said the polite Spaniard, bowing. + +"They have hitherto enjoyed that blessing," responded I, almost +thankfully. "Even as the youngest member of the firm, I have nothing +to complain of on the score of prosperity." I smiled, took forth a most +gorgeous snuff-box, all glittering with brilliants, and, presenting it +to the Spaniard, laid it carelessly on the table. After a brief pause, +to let the splendor settle down into his heart, I proceeded to inform +him that in the course of commercial transactions a vast number of +bills, receipts for deposits and other securities, had fallen into our +hands, upon many of which we had advanced large sums, seeing that they +bore the name of that most respectable house, the Bank of Don Xafire, of +Guajuaqualla. "These would," I added, "have been dispersed through the +various channels of trade, had it not been the wish of my partners to +open distinct relations with your house, and consequently they have +retained the papers until a favorable occasion presented itself of +personally making the proposition. This happy opportunity has arisen +by our recent purchase of the great gold mines of the 'Arguareche' for +seventy millions of piastres, of which you may have read in the 'Faros +de la Habanas.'" + +He bowed a humble negative; and I went on to state that, our mining +operations requiring co-operation and assistance, we desired to open +relations with the great house of Don Xafire, whose good fame was well +established on the 'Change of Liverpool. + +"You spoke of paper securities and such like, Señhor; may I ask of what +nature they are?" + +"You shall see them, Don Xafire," said I, opening a very magnificent +pocket-book, and presenting first a receipt, dated forty-eight years +back, for the sum of twelve thousand piastres in silver, and four bags, +weighing two hundred and eighty pounds of gold dust, from the hands +of Menelaus Crick, of the mines of Hajoras, near Guajuaqualla. The +Spaniard's dark cheek trembled, and a faint tinge of sickly yellow +seemed to replace the dusky olive of his tint, as he said, "This is +but waste paper, Señhor, and I trust your excellent house has advanced +nothing on its credit." + +"On the contrary, Señhor Banquiero," responded I, "we have given the +full sum, being much advised thereto by competent counsel." + +The battle was now opened, and the combat begun. + +It is needless I should weary my reader by recapitulating the tissue of +inventions in which, as in a garment, I wrapped myself. I saw quickly +that if _I_ was a rogue, so was my antagonist, and that for every +stratagem _I_ possessed, _he_ was equally ready with another. At last, +pushed hard by his evasions, equivocations, and subterfuges, I was +driven to utter a shadowy kind of menace, in which I artfully contrived +to mix the name of the General Santa Anna,--a word, in those days, of +more than talismanic power. + +"And this reminds me," said I, "that one of my suite who lost his way, +and was taken prisoner in the Rocky Mountains, committed to my charge a +letter, in which I fancy the General is interested." This was a random +shot, but it struck the bull's-eye through the very centre. The Señhora +Dias's letter was enclosed in an envelope, in which a few words only +were written; but these, few as they were, were sufficient to create +considerable emotion in Don Xafire, who retired into a window to read +and re-read them. + +Another shot, thought I, and he's disabled! "It is needless, then, +Don Xafire, to prolong an interview which promises so little. I will +therefore take my leave; my next communication will reach you through +the General Santa Anna." + +"May I not crave a little time for consideration, Señhor?" said he, +humbly. "These are weighty considerations; there may be other demands +still heavier in store for us of the same kind." + +"You are right, Señhor; there are other and still heavier claims, as you +very properly opine. Some of them I have here with me; others are in the +hands of our house; but all shall be forthcoming, I assure you." + +"What may be the gross amount, Señhor?" said the banker, trying, but +very ineffectually, to look at his ease. + +"Without pretending to minute accuracy, I should guess the sum at +something like seven hundred thousand piastres,--this, exclusive +of certain claims for compensation usual in cases of inquiry. You +understand me, I believe." The last menace was a shot in the very centre +of his magazine, and so the little usurer felt it, as he fidgeted among +his papers and concealed his face from me. + +"Come, Señhor Xafire," said I, with the air of a man who means to +deal mercifully, and not to crush the victim in his power, "I will be +moderate with you. These bills and receipts shall be all placed in +your hands on payment of the sums due, without any demand for interest +whatever. We will not speak of the other claims at all. The transaction +shall be strictly in honor between us, and nothing shall ever transpire +to your disadvantage regarding it. Is this enough?" + +The struggle in the banker's mind was a difficult one; but after several +hours passed in going over the papers, after much discussion, and some +altercation, I gained the day; and when I arose to take my leave, it was +with my pocket-book stuffed full of bills on Pernambuco, Mexico, +Santa Cruz, and the Havannah, with letters of credit, bonds, and other +securities; the whole amounting to four hundred thousand piastres. The +remaining sum of three hundred thousand, I had agreed to leave in Don +Xafire's hands at reasonable interest. In fact, I was but too happy +in the possession of so much to think twice about what became of the +remainder. + +I presented my friend Xafire with my ruby brooch, as a souvenir,--not, +indeed, that he needed anything to remind him of our acquaintance; and +we parted with all the regrets of brothers about to separate. + +"You will stay some days with us here, I hope?" said he, as he conducted +me to my carriage. + +"I intend a short visit to some of the old 'Placers' in your +neighborhood," replied I, "after which I mean to return here;" and so, +with a last embrace, we parted. + +My next care was to pay a visit to Don Estaban, for I was burning with +anxiety to see Donna Maria once more, and to open my campaign as a +rich suitor for her hand. The day chosen for this expedition seemed +a fortunate one, for the road, which led through a succession of +vineyards, was thronged with townspeople and peasants in gay holiday +dresses, all wending their way in the same direction with ourselves. I +asked the reason, and heard that it was the _fête_ of the Virgin de los +Dolores, whose chapel was on the estate of Don Estaban. I bethought me +of the time when I had planned a pilgrimage to that same shrine,--little +suspecting that I was to make it in my carriage, with six mules and two +outriders! + +In less than an hour's drive we came in sight of Don Estaban's villa, +built on the side of a richly wooded mountain, and certainly not +betraying any signs of the reduced fortune of which I had heard. A +series of gardens, all terraced in the mountain, lay in front, among +which fountains were playing and _jets d'eau_ springing. A small lake +spread its calm surface beneath, reflecting the whole scene as in a +mirror, with its feathery palm-trees and blossoming mimosas, beneath +whose shade hundreds of visitors were loitering or sitting, while the +tinkling sounds of guitar and mandolin broke the stillness. + +It was a strange and curious sight; for while pleasure seemed to +hold unbounded sway on every side, the procession of priests in rich +vestments, the smoke of censers, the red robes of acolytes, mingled with +the throng, and the deep chanting of the liturgies was blended with the +laughter of children and the merry sounds of light-hearted joy. "I have +come in the very nick of time," thought I, "to complete this scene of +festivity;" and finding that my carriage could only advance slowly along +the crowded avenue, I descended, and proceeded on foot, merely attended +by two lacqueys to make way for me in front. + +A lively controversy ran among the spectators at each side of me, of +which I was evidently the subject, some averring that I was there as a +portion of the pageant, an integral feature in the procession; others, +with equal discrimination, insisting that my presence was a polite +attention on the part of Our Lady de "Los Dolores," who had sent an +illustrious personage to grace the festival as her representative. On +one point all were agreed,--that my appearance amongst them was a favor +which a whole life of devotion to me could not repay; and so rapidly +was this impression propagated that it sped up the long approach through +various groups and knots of people, and actually reached the villa +itself long before my august person arrived at the outer court. + +Never was dignity--at least such dignity as mine--intrusted to better +hands than those of my "Caçadores." They swaggered along, pushing back +the crowds on each side as though it were a profanation to press too +closely upon me. They flourished their great gold-headed canes as if +they would smash the skulls of those whose eager curiosity outstepped +the reverence due to me; and when at length we reached the gates of the +court-yard, they announced my name with a grandeur and pomp of utterance +that, I own it frankly, actually appalled myself! I had not, however, +much time given me for such weaknesses, as, directly in front of the +villa, at a table spread beneath an awning of blue silk, sat a goodly +company, whose splendor of dress and profusion of jewellery bespoke them +the great guests of the occasion. The host--it was easy to detect him +by the elevated seat he occupied--rose as I came forward, and, with a +humility I never can praise too highly, assured me that if any choice +were permitted him in the matter, he would prefer dying on the spot, now +that his worldly honors could never exceed the triumph of that day; +that all the happiness of the festivity was as gloom and darkness to his +soul, compared to the brilliancy my presence diffused; and not only was +everything he owned mine from that moment forth, but, he ardently hoped +he might have a long line of grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be +my slaves in succeeding generations. + +While the worthy man poured forth these "truths" in all the flourish +of his purest Castilian, and while I listened to them with the +condescending urbanity with which a sovereign may be presumed to hear +the strains of some national melody in their praise, as pleasant, though +somewhat stale, another individual was added to the group, whose +cunning features evinced nothing either of the host's reverence or of +my grandeur. This was Fra Miguel, the Friar, who, in a costume of +extraordinary simplicity, stood staring fixedly at me. + +"Il Condé de Cregauo!" repeated Don Estaban. "I have surely heard the +name before. Your highness is doubtless a grandee of Spain?" + +"Of the first class!" said I, with a slight cough; for the confounded +Friar never took his eyes off me. + +"And we have met before, Señhor Condé," said he, with a most equivocal +stress upon the last words. "How pleasant for me to thank the Condé for +what I believed I owed to the mere wayfarer." These words he uttered in +a whisper close to my own ear. + +"Better that, than ungratefully desert a benefactor!" said I, in the +same low tone; then, turning to Don Estaban, who stood amazed at our +dramatic asides, I told him pretty much what I had already related to +the banker at Guajuaqualla; only adding that during an excursion which +it was my caprice to make alone and unaccompanied, I had been able +to render a slight service to his fair daughter, Donna Maria de Los +Dolores, and that I could not pass the neighborhood without inquiring +after her health, and craving permission to kiss her hand. + +"Is this the Señhor Cregan of the 'Rio del Crocodielo '?" cried Don +Estaban, in rapture. + +"The same whom we left in safe keeping with our Brothers of Mercy, at +Bexar!" exclaimed the Friar, in affected amazement. + +"The very same, Fra Miguel, whom you humanely consigned to the Lazaretto +of Bexar,--an establishment which has as little relation to 'mercy' as +need be; the same who, having resumed the rank and station that belong +to him, can afford to forget your cold-hearted desertion." + +"San Joachim of Ulloa knows if I did not pay for masses for your soul's +repose!" exclaimed he. + +"A very little care of me in this world," said I, "had been to the full +as agreeable as all your solicitations for me in the next; and as for +San Joachim," added I, "no witness can be received as evidence who will +not appear in court." + +"It is a pleasure to see your Excellency in the perfect enjoyment of +your faculties," said the Fra, with a deceitful smile; but I paid little +attention to his sneer, and turned willingly to Don Estaban, whose +grateful acknowledgments were beyond all bounds. He vowed that he owed +his daughter's life to my heroism, and that he and she, and all that +were theirs, were mine. + +"Very gratifying tidings these," thought I, "for a man who only asks for +an 'instalment of his debt,' and will be satisfied with the lady." + +"Maria shall tell you so herself," added Don Estaban, in a perfect +paroxysm of grateful emotion. "Don Lopez y Cuesta y Goloso can never +forget your noble conduct." Not caring much how retentive the memory of +the aforesaid hidalgo might prove,--whom I at once set down as an uncle +or a godfather,--I hastened after the host to where his daughter sat at +the table. I had but time to see that she was dressed in black, with a +profusion of diamonds scattered, not only through her hair, but over her +dress, when she arose, and, ere I could prevent it, fell at my feet and +covered my hands with kisses, calling me her "Salvador," in a voice of +the wildest enthusiasm,--an emotion which seemed most electrically to +seize upon the whole company; for I was now laid hold of by every +limb, and hugged, kissed, and embraced by a score of people, the large +majority of whom, I grieve to say, were the very hardest specimens of +what is called the softer sex. + + + +One member of the company maintained a look of cold distrust towards me, +the very opposite of all this cordiality. This was Don Lopez, who did +not need this air of dislike to appear to my eyes the ugliest mortal I +had ever beheld. He was exceedingly short of stature, but of an immense +breadth; and yet, even with this, his head was far too big for his body. +A huge spherical mass, party-colored with habits of debauch, looked like +a terrestrial globe, of which the mouth represented the equator. His +attempts at embellishment had even made him more horrible; for he wore +a great wig, with long curls flowing upon his shoulders, and his immense +moustachios were curled into a series of circles, like a ram's horn. His +nose had been divided across the middle by what seemed the slash of a +cutlass, the cicatrix remaining of an angry red color, amid the florid +hue of the countenance. + +The expression of these benign features did not disgrace their symmetry. +It was a cross between a scowl and a sneer; the eyes and brow performed +the former, the mouth assuming the latter function. + +Blushing with shame and trembling with emotion, Maria led me towards +him, and, in accents I can never forget, told how I had rescued her in +the passage of the Crocodile River. The wretch scowled more darkly +than before, as he listened, and when she ended, he muttered something +between his bloated lips that sounded marvellously like "Picaro!" + +"Your godfather scarcely seems so grateful as one might expect, +Señhora," said I. + +"Muerte de Dios!" he burst out, "I am her husband." + +Whether it was the simple fact so palpably brought forward, the manner +of its announcement, or the terrible curse that involuntarily fell from +my lips, I know not, but Donna Maria fell down in a swoon. Fainting, +among foreigners, I have often found, is regarded next door to actually +dying; and so it was here. A scene of terror and dismay burst forth that +soon converted the festivity into an uproar of wild confusion. Every one +screamed for aid, and dashed water in his neighbor's face. The few who +retained any presence of mind filled out large bumpers of wine, and +drank them off. Meanwhile, Donna Maria was sufficiently recovered to be +conducted into the house, whither she was followed by her "marido," Don +Lopez, whose last look as he passed me was one of insulting defiance. + +The cause of order having triumphed, as the newspapers say, I was led to +one side by Don Estaban, who in a few words told me that Don Lopez was +a special envoy from the Court of Madrid, come out to arrange some +disputed question of a debt between the two countries; that he was a +Grandee d'Espana, a Golden Fleece, and I don't know what besides; his +title of Donna Maria's husband being more than enough to swallow up +every other consideration with me. The ceremony had been performed +that very morning. It was the wedding breakfast I had thrown into such +confusion and dismay. + +Don Estaban, in his triumphal narrative of his daughter's great +elevation in rank, of the proud place she would occupy in the proud +court of the Escurial, her wealth, her splendor, and her dignity, could +not repress the fatherly sorrow he felt at such a disproportioned union; +nor could he say anything of his son-in-law but what concerned his +immense fortune. "Had it been you, Señhor Condé," cried he, throwing +himself into my arms,--"you, young, handsome, and well-born as you are, +I had been happy." + +"Is it too late, Don Estaban?" said I, passionately. "I have wealth +that does not yield to Don Lopez, and Maria is not--at least, she was +not--indifferent regarding me." + +"Oh, it is too late, far too late!" cried the father, wringing his +hands. + +"Let me speak with Maria herself. Let me also speak with this Don +Lopez. I may be able to make him understand reason, however dull his +comprehension." + +"This cannot be, Señhor Caballero," said another voice. It was Fra +Miguel, who, having heard all that passed, now joined the colloquy. +"Nothing short of a dispensation from the Holy See could annul the +marriage, and Don Lopez is not likely to ask for one." + +"I will not suffer it," cried I, in desperation. "I would rather carry +her away by force than permit such a desecration." + +"Hush! for the love of the Virgin, Señhor," cried Don Estaban. "Don +Lopez is captain of the Alguazils of the Guard, and a Grand Inquisitor." + +"What signifies that in Mexico?" said I, boldly. + +"More than you think for, Señhor," whispered Fra Miguel. "We have not +ceased to be good Catholics, although we are no longer subjects of Old +Spain." There was an air of cool menace in the way these words were +spoken that made me feel very ill at ease. I soon rallied, however, +and, drawing the Friar to one side, said, "How many crowns will buy a +candelabrum worthy of your chapel?" + +He looked at me fixedly for a few seconds, and his shrewd features +assumed a character of almost comic cunning. "The Virgin de los Dolores +is too simple for such luxuries, Señhor Condé," said he, with a sly +drollery. + +"Would she not condescend to wear a few gems in her petticoat?" asked I, +with the easy assurance of one not to be balked. + +"She has no pleasure in such vanities," said the Fra, with an +hypocritical casting down of his eyes. + +"Would she not accept of an embroidered handkerchief," said I, "to +dry her tears? I have known one of this pattern to possess the most +extraordinary powers of consolation;" and as I spoke I drew forth a +bank-note of some amount, and gently drew it across his knuckles. + +A slight tremor shook his frame, and a short, convulsive motion was +perceptible in the hand I had "galvanized;" but in an instant, with his +habitual calm smile and mellow voice, he said, "Your piety will bring +a blessing upon you, Señhor, but our poor shrine is unused to such +princely donations." + +"Confound the old hypocrite," muttered I to myself; "what is he at?--Fra +Miguel," said I, assuming the business-like manner of a man who could +not afford to lose time, "the Virgin may be, and doubtless is, all that +you say of her; but there must needs be many excellent and devout men +here, yourself doubtless among the number, who see numberless objects +of charity, for whom their hearts bleed in vain. Take this, and remember +that he who gave it, only asks as a return your prayers and good +wishes." + +The Friar deposited the present in some inscrutable fold of his loose +garment, and then, drawing himself proudly up, said, "Well, now what is +it?" + +"Am I too late?" asked I, with the same purpose-like tone. + +"Of course you are; the ceremony is finished, the contracts are signed +and witnessed. In an hour they will be away on their road to the +Havannah." + +"You have no consolation to offer me,--no hope?" + +"None of an earthly character," said he, with a half-closed eye. + +"Confound your hypocrisy!" cried I, in a rage. + +"Don't be profane," said he, calmly. "What I have said is true. Heaven +will some day take Don Lopez,--he is too good for this wicked world; and +then, who knows what may happen?" + +This was but sorry comfort, waiting for the bride to become a widow; +but, alas, I had no better! Besides it had cost me a heavy sum to +obtain, and accordingly I prized it the more highly. + +If _my_ anxieties were acute, apparently Don Lopez's mind was not in +a state of perfect serenity. He stormed and raved at everybody and +everything. He saw, or, what was pretty much the same thing, he fancied +he saw, a plot in the whole business, and swore he would bring the +vengeance of the Holy Office upon everybody concerned in it. In this +blessed frame of mind the departure of the newly wedded pair took place +in spite of all my entreaties; Don Lopez drove away with his young +bride,--the last I beheld of her was a white hand waving a handkerchief +from the window of the carriage. I looked, and--she was gone! + +If some were kind-hearted enough to pity me, the large majority of the +company felt very differently, and bore anything but friendly feelings +to one who had marred the festivities and cut short--Heaven could +only tell by what number of days--the eating, dancing, singing, and +merriment. + +The old ladies were peculiarly severe in their comments, averring that +no well-bred man would have thought of interfering with a marriage. It +was quite time enough to talk of his passion when the others were six or +eight months married! + +Of the younger ladies, a few condoled with me, praised my heroism and +my constancy, and threw out sly hints that when I tried my luck next, +fortune might possibly be more generous to me. Don Estaban himself +appeared to sympathize sincerely with my sorrow, and evinced the +warmest sense of gratitude for the past. Even the Fra tried a little +good-nature; but it sat ill upon him, and it was easy to see that he +entertained a great mistrust of me. + +From the brief experience of what I suffered in these few days, I am +decidedly of opinion that rich men are far more impatient under reverses +and disappointments than poor ones! It was a marvellous change for one +like me, whose earlier years, it is unnecessary to remind the reader, +were not passed in the lap of that comfortable wet nurse called +"affluence;" and yet with all this brilliant present and still more +fascinating future, at the very first instance of an opposition to my +will, I grew sad, dispirited, and morose. I should have been very angry +with myself for my ingratitude, but that I set it all down to the score +of love; and so I went about the house, visiting each room where Donna +Maria used to sit, reading her books, gazing at her picture, and feeding +my mind with a hundred fancies which the next moment of thought told me +were now impossible. + +Don Estaban, whose grief for the loss of his daughter was in a manner +divided with mine, would not suffer me to leave him; and although the +place itself served to keep open the wound of my regret, and the Fra's +presence was anything but conciliatory, I passed several days at the +villa. + +It would have been the greatest relief to me could I have persuaded +myself to be candid with Don Estaban, and told him frankly the true +story of my life. I felt that all the consolations which he offered me +were of no avail, simply because I had misled him! The ingenious tissue +of fiction in which I enveloped myself was a web so thin that it tore +whenever I stirred, and my whole time was spent, as it were, in +darning, patching, and piecing the frail garment with which I covered my +nakedness. + +A dozen times every day I jumped up, determined to reveal my humble +history; but as regularly did a sentiment of false shame hold me back, +and a dread of old Fra Miguel's malicious leer, should he hear the +story. Another, and a strange feeling, too, influenced me. My imaginary +rank, birth, and station had, from the mere force of repetition, grown +to be a portion of myself. I had played the part with such applause +before the world that I could not find in my heart to retire behind the +scenes and resume the humble dress of my real condition. + +By way of distracting my gloomy thoughts, I made little excursions in +the surrounding country, in one of which I contrived to revisit the +"placer," and carry away all the treasure which I had left behind me. +This was much more considerable than I had at first believed, the gems +being of a size and beauty far beyond any I had ever seen before; while +the gold, in actual coined money, amounted to a large sum. + +Affecting to have changed my original intention of investing a great +capital in the mines of Mexico, and resolved instead to return to +Europe, I consulted Don Estaban as to the safest hands in which to +deposit my money. He named a certain wealthy firm at the Havannah, and +gave me a letter of introduction to them, requesting for me all the +attention in their power to bestow; and so we parted. + +It was with sincere sorrow I shook his hand for the last time; his +cordiality was free-hearted and affectionate; and I carry with me, +to this hour, the memory of his wise counsels and honest precepts, as +treasures, not the least costly, I brought away with me from the New +World. + +I arrived safely at the Havannah, travelling in princely state with +two carriages and a great baggage-wagon guarded by four mounted +"carabinieros" who had taken a solemn oath at the shrine of a certain +Saint Magalano to eat any bandits who should molest us,--a feat of +digestion which I was not sorry their devotion was spared. + +The bankers to whom Don Estaban's letters introduced me were most +profuse in their offers of attention, and treated me with all the +civilities reserved for the most favored client. I only accepted, +however, one invitation to dinner, to meet the great official +dignitaries of the place, and the use of their box each evening at +the opera, affecting to make delicacy of health the reason of not +frequenting society,--a pretext I had often remarked in use among people +of wealth and distinction, among whose privileges there is that of being +sick without suffering. + +There was a French packet-ship to sail for Malaga in about ten days +after my arrival; and as I knew that Don Lopez intended to leave that +port for Europe, I quietly waited in the Havannah, determined to be his +fellow-traveller. In preparing for this voyage, every thought of my +mind was occupied, resolved to outdo the old Spaniard in luxury and +magnificence. I ordered the most costly clothes, I engaged the most +accomplished servants, I bespoke everything which could make the +tediousness of the sea less irksome, even to the services of a +distinguished performer on the guitar, who was about to visit Europe, +and engaged to begin his journey under such distinguished patronage as +that of the Condé de Cregano. + +What wonderful speculations did I revel in as I pictured to myself +Don Lopez's ineffectual rage, and his fair wife's satisfaction, when I +should first make my appearance on deck,--an appearance which I artfully +devised should not take place until we were some days at sea! What +agonies of jealousy should I not inflict upon the old Castilian! what +delicate flatteries should I not offer up to the Donna! I had laid in +a store of moss-rose plants, to present her with a fresh bouquet every +morning; and then I would serenade her each night beneath the very +window of her cabin. So perfectly had I arranged all these details to +my own satisfaction that the voyage began to appear a mere pleasure +excursion, every portion of whose enjoyment originated with me, and all +whose blanks and disappointments owed their paternity to Don Lopez; so +that, following up these self-created convictions in my usual sanguine +manner, I firmly persuaded myself that the worthy husband would either +go mad or jump overboard before we landed at Malaga. Let not the reader +fall into the error of supposing that hatred to Don Lopez was uppermost +in my thoughts,--far from it; I wished him in heaven every hour of the +twenty-four, and would willingly have devoted one-half of my fortune +to make a saint of him in the next world, rather than make a martyr in +this. + +I was walking one evening in my banker's garden, chatting pleasantly +on indifferent topics, when, on ascending a little eminence, we came +in view of the sea. It was a calm and lovely evening, a very light land +breeze was just rippling the waters of the bay, fringing the blue with +white, when we saw the graceful spars of a small sloop of war emerge +from beneath the shadow of the tall cliffs and stand out to sea. + +"The 'Moschetta,'" said he, "has got a fair wind, and will be out of +sight of land by daybreak." + +"Whither is she bound?" asked I, carelessly. + +"For Cadiz," said he; "she came into port only this morning, and is +already off again." + +"With despatches, perhaps?" I remarked, with the same tone of +indifference. + +"No, Señhor; she came to convey Don Lopez y Geloso, the Spanish +ambassador, back to Madrid." + +"And is he on board of her now?" screamed I, in a perfect paroxysm of +terror. "Is _she_ too?" + +"He embarked about an hour ago, with his bride and suite," said the +astonished banker, who evidently was not quite sure of his guest's +sanity. + +Overwhelmed by these tidings, which gave at once the death-blow to all +my plans, I could not speak, but sat down upon a seat, my gaze fixed +upon the vessel which carried all my dearest hopes. + +"You probably desired to see his Excellency before he sailed?" said the +banker, timidly, after waiting a long time in the expectation that I +would speak. + +"Most anxiously did I desire it," said I, shrouding my sorrow under an +affectation of important state solicitude. + +"What a misfortune," exclaimed he, "that you should have missed him! In +all likelihood, had you seen him, he would have agreed to our terms." + +"You are right," said I, shaking my head sententiously, and neither +guessing nor caring what he alluded to. + +"So that he would have accepted the guarantee," exclaimed the banker, +with increased excitement. + +"He would have accepted the guarantee," echoed I, without the remotest +idea of what the words could mean. + +"Oh, Madré de Dios, what an unhappy mischance is this! Is it yet too +late? Alas! the breeze is freshening,--the sloop is already sinking +beyond the horizon; to overtake her would be impossible! And you say +that the guarantee would have been accepted?" + +"You may rely upon it," said I, the more confidently as I saw that the +ship was far beyond the chance of pursuit. + +"What a benefactor to this country you might have been, Señhor, had you +done us this service!" cried the banker, with enthusiasm. + +"Well, it is too late to think of it now," said I, rather captiously; +for I began to be worried with the mystification. + +"Of course, for the present it is too late; but when you arrive in +Europe, Señhor Condé, when you are once more in the land where your +natural influence holds sway, may we entertain the hope that you will +regard our case with the same favorable eyes?" + +"Yes, yes," said I, with impatience, "if I see no reason to change my +opinions." + +"Upon the subject of the original loan there can be no doubt, Señhor +Condé." + +"Perhaps not," said I; "but these are questions I must decline entering +upon. You will yourself perceive that any discussion of them would be +inconvenient and indiscreet." + +The diplomatic reserve of this answer checked the warmth of his +importunity, and he bashfully withdrew, leaving me to the undisturbed +consideration of my own thoughts. + +I sat till it was already near midnight, gazing on the sea, my eyes +still turned to the track by which the vessel had disappeared, and at +last rose to retire, when, to my amazement, I perceived my friend the +banker, accompanied by another person, approaching towards me. + +"Señhor Condé," said he, in a mysterious whisper, "this is his +Excellency the Governor;" and with these words, uttered in all the +reverence of awe, he retired, leaving me face to face with a tall, +dignified-looking personage, whose figure was concealed in the folds of +a great cloak. + +In all the formal politeness of his rank and country, the Governor +begged I would be seated, and took his place beside me. He explained how +the banker, one of the richest and most respected men in the Havannah, +had informed him of my gracious intentions respecting them, and the sad +mishap by which my mediation was foiled. He entered at length into the +question of the debt, and all its financial difficulties,--which, even +had they been far less intricate and complicated, would have puzzled a +head which never had the bump arithmetical. How he himself saw his way +through the labyrinth, I know not; but had the sum been a moderate +one, I vow I would rather have paid it myself than investigate it +any farther, such an inextricable mass of complications, doubles, and +difficulties did it involve. + +"Thus, you perceive," said he, at the close of a formidable sum of +figures, "that these eighteen millions made no part of the old loan, but +were, in fact, the first deposit of what is called the 'Cuba debt;' not +that it ever should have had that name, which more properly belonged to +the original Poyais three-and-a-half--You understand me?" + +"Perfectly; proceed." + +"That being the case, our liability is reduced to the sum of +twenty-seven millions on the old four-and-a-quarters." + +"Clearly so." + +"Now we approach the difficult part of the matter," said he, "and I must +entreat your most marked attention; for here lies the point which has +hitherto proved the stumbling-block in the way of every negotiation." + +I promised the strictest attention, and kept my word till I found myself +in a maze of figures where compound interest and decimal fractions +danced a reel together, whose evolutions would have driven Mr. Babbage +distracted; while the Governor, now grown "warm in the harness," kept +exclaiming at every instant, "Do you see how the 'Ladrones' want to +cheat us here? Do you perceive what the Picaros intend by that?" + +If I could not follow his arithmetic, I could at least sympathize in his +enthusiasm; and I praised the honor of the Mexicans, while I denounced +"the cause of roguery" over the face of the globe, to his heart's +content. + +"You are satisfied about the original debt, Señhor Condé?" at last said +he, after a "four-mile heat" of explanation. + +"Most thoroughly," said I, bowing. + +"You'd not wish for anything farther on that head?" + +"Not a syllable." + +"And as to the Cuba instalment, you see the way in which the first scrip +became entangled in the Chihuahua 'fives,' don't you?" + +"Plain as my hand before me." + +"Then, of course, you acknowledge our right to the reserve fund?" + +"I don't see how it can be disputed," said I. + +"And yet that is precisely what the Madrid Government contest!" + +"What injustice!" exclaimed I. + +"Evident as it is to your enlightened understanding, Señhor Condé, you +are, nevertheless, the first man I have ever found to take the right +view of this transaction. It is a real pleasure to discuss a state +question with a great man." + +Hereupon we both burst forth into an animated duet of compliments, in +which, I am bound to confess, the Governor was the victor. + +"And now, Señhor Condé," said he, after a long volley of panegyric, "may +we reckon upon your support in this affair?" + +"You must understand, first of all, Excellenza," replied I, "that I am +not in any way an official personage. I am,"--here I smiled with a most +fascinating air of mock humility,--"I am, so to speak, a humble--a very +humble--individual, of unpretending rank and small fortune." + +"Ah, Señhor Condé," sighed the Governor, for he had heard of my ingots +from the banker. + +"Being as I say," resumed I, "my influence is naturally small. If I +am listened to in a matter of political importance, I owe the courtesy +rather to the memory of my family's services than to any insignificant +merits I may possess. The cause of justice is, however, never weak, no +matter how humble the means of him who asserts it. Such as I am, rely +upon me." + +We embraced here, and the Governor shed a few official tears at the +thought of so soon separating from one he regarded as more than his +brother. + +"We feel, Señhor Condé," said he, "how inadequate any recognition of +ours must be for services such as yours. We are a young country and a +Republic; honors we have none to bestow,--wealth is already your own; we +have nothing to offer, therefore, but our gratitude." + +"Be it so," thought I; "the burden will not increase my luggage." + +"This box will remind you, however, of an interview, and recall one who +deems this the happiest, as it is the proudest, hour of his life;" here +he presented me with a splendid gold snuff-box containing a miniature of +the President, surrounded by enormous diamonds. + +Resolving not to be outdone in generosity, and at least not to be guilty +of dishonesty before my own conscience, I insisted upon the Governor's +acceptance of my watch,--a very costly repeater, studded with precious +stones. + +"The arms of my family--the Cregans are Irish--will bring me to your +recollection," said I, pointing to a very magnificent heraldic display +on the timepiece, wherein figured the ancient crown of Ireland over +a shield, in one compartment of which was an "eye winking," the motto +being the Gaelic word "Nabocklish," signifying "Maybe not," ironically. + +I will not dwell upon the other particulars of an interview which lasted +till nigh morning. It will be sufficient to mention that I was presented +with letters of introduction and recommendation to the Mexican Ministers +at Paris and Madrid, instructing them to show me every attention, and +desiring them to extend to me their entire confidence, particularly to +furnish me with introductions to any official personages with whom +I desired to be acquainted. This was all that I wanted; for I was +immensely rich, and only needed permission to pass the door of the +"great world," to mingle in that society for which my heart yearned and +longed unceasingly. + +Some of my readers will smile at the simplicity which believed these +passports necessary, and was ignorant that wealth alone is wanting to +attain any position, to frequent any society, to be the intimate of any +set in Europe, and that the rich man is other than he was in classic +days,--"Honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum." + +I have lived to be wiser, and to see vulgarity, coarseness, meanness, +knavery, nay, even convicted guilt, the favored guests of royal saloons. +The moral indictments against crime have to the full as many flaws as +the legal ones; and we see, in every society, men, and women too, as +notoriously criminal as though they wore the red-and-yellow livery +of the galleys. Physicians tell us that every drug whose sanitary +properties are acknowledged in medicine, contains some ingredients of +a noxious or poisonous nature. May not something similar exist in the +moral world? and even in the very healthiest mixture, may not some +"bitter principle" be found to lurk? + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. THE VOYAGE OF THE 'ACADIE' + +I was not sorry to leave the Havannah on the following day. I did not +desire another interview with my "friend" the Governor, but rather felt +impatient to escape a repetition of his arithmetic and the story of the +"original debt." + +Desirous of supporting my character as a great personage, and at the +same time to secure for myself the pleasure of being unmolested during +the voyage, I obtained the sole right to the entire cabin accommodation +of the "Acadie" for myself and suite; my equipages, baggage, and some +eight or ten Mexican horses occupying the deck. + +A salute of honor was fired as I ascended the ladder, and replied to by +the forts,--a recognition of my dignity at which I took occasion to seem +offended; assuring the captain that I was travelling in the strictest +incognito; leaving it to his powers of calculation to compute what +amount of retinue and followers I should have when journeying in the +full blaze of acknowledged identity. + +I sat upon the poop-deck as they weighed the anchor, contrasting in my +mind my present condition with that of my first marine experiences on +board the "Firefly." I am richer, thought I. Am I better? Have I become +more generous, more truthful, more considerate, more forgiving? + +Has my knowledge of the world developed more of good in me, or of evil; +have my own successes ministered rather to my self-esteem than to my +gratefulness; and have I learned to think meanly of all who have been +beaten in the race of fortune? Alas! there was not a count of this +indictment to which I dared plead "Not guilty." I had seen knavery +thrive too often, not to feel a kind of respect for its ability; I saw +honesty too often worsted, not to feel something like contempt for its +meekness. It was difficult to feel a reverence for poverty, whose traits +were frequently ridiculous; and it was hard to censure wealth, which +dispensed its abundance in splendid hospitalities. Oh, the cunning +sophistries by which we cover up our real feelings in this life, +smothering every healthy impulse and every generous aspiration, under +the guise of some "conventionality." + +My conscience was less lenient than I expected. I cut but a sorry figure +"in the dock," and was obliged to throw myself upon the mercy of the +court. I will be more considerate in future, said I to myself; I will +be less exacting with my servants, and more forgiving to their +delinquencies; I will try and remember that there is an acid property in +poverty that sours even the sweetest "milk of human kindness." I will +be trustful, too,--a "gentleman" ought not to be suspicious; it is +eminently becoming a Bow Street officer, but suits not the atmosphere +of good society. These excellent resolutions were to a certain extent "à +propos;" for just as "the foresail began to draw," a boat came alongside +and hailed the ship. I did not deign any attention to a circumstance +so trivial to "one of my condition," and never noticed the conversation +which in very animated tones was kept up between the captain and the +stranger, until the former, approaching me with the most profound +humility, and asking forgiveness for the great liberty he was about +to take, said that a gentleman whom urgent business recalled to Europe +humbly entreated permission to take his passage on board the "Acadie." + +"Are you not aware it is impossible, my good friend?" said I, +listlessly. "The accommodation is lamentably restricted, as it is; my +secretary's cabin is like a dog-kennel, and my second cook has actually +to lie round a corner, like a snake." + +The captain reddened, and bit his lip in silence. + +"As for myself," said I, heroically, "I never complain. Let me have any +little cabin for my bed, a small bath-room, a place to lounge in during +the day, with a few easy sofas, and a snug crib for a dinner-room, and +I can always rough it. It was part of my father's system never to make +Sybarites of his boys." This I asserted with all the sturdy vehemence of +truth. + +"We will do everything to make your Excellency comfortable," said the +captain, who clearly could not see the reasons for my self-praise. "And +as to the Consul, what shall we say to him?" + +"Consul, did you say?" said I. + +"Yes, Señhor Condé, he is the French Consul for the Republic of +'Campecho.'" That this was a State I had never heard of before, was +quite true; yet it was clearly one which the French Government were +better informed upon, and deigned to recognize by an official agent. + +"Hold on there a bit!" shouted out the captain to the boat's crew. +"What shall I say, Señhor Condé? The Chevalier de la Boutonerie is very +anxious on the subject." + +"Let this man have his passage," said I, indolently, and lighted a +cigar, as if to turn my thoughts in another direction, not even noticing +the new arrival, who was hoisted up the side with his portmanteau in a +very undignified fashion for an official character. He soon, however, +baffled this indifference on my part, by advancing towards me, and, in a +manner where considerable ease and tact were evident, thanked me for my +polite consideration regarding him, and expressed a hope that he might +not in any way inconvenience me during the voyage. + +Now, the Chevalier was not in himself a very prepossessing personage, +while his dress was of the very shabbiest, being a worn-out suit of +black, covered by a coarse brown Mexican mantle; and yet his fluency, +his quiet assurance, his seeming self-satisfaction, gained an ascendancy +over me at once. I saw that he was a master in a walk in which I myself +had so long been a student, and that he was a consummate adept in the +"art of impudence." + +And how mistaken is the world at large in the meaning of that art! +How prone to call the unblushing effrontery of every underbred man +impudence! The rudeness that dares any speech, or adventures upon +any familiarity; the soulless, heartless, selfish intrusiveness that +scruples not to invade any society,--these are not impudence, or they +are such specimens of the quality as men only possess in common with +inferior animals. I speak of that educated, cultivated "impudence" +which, never abashed by an inferiority, felt acutely, is resolved to +overbear worldly prejudices by the exercise of gifts that assert a +mastery over others,--a power of rising, by the expansive force of +self-esteem, into something almost estimable. Ordinary mortals tell lies +at intervals, _per saltum_, as the doctors say; but these people's +whole life is a lie. The Chevalier was a fine specimen of the class, +and seemed as indifferent to a hundred little adverse circumstances as +though everything around him went well and pleasantly. + +There was a suave dignity in the way he moved a very dubious hand +over his unshaven chin, in the graceful negligence he exhibited when +disposing the folds of his threadbare cloak, in the jaunty lightness +with which, after saluting, he replaced his miserable hat on the favored +side of his head, that conveyed the whole story of the man. + +What a model for my imitation had he been, thought I, if I had seen him +in the outset of life! what a study he had presented! And yet there he +was, evidently in needy circumstances, pressed on by even urgent want, +and I, Con Cregan, the outcast, the poor, friendless street-runner, had +become a "millionnaire." + +I don't know how it was, but certainly I felt marvellously ill at ease +with my new friend. A real aristocrat, with all the airs of assumption +and haughtiness, would have been a blessing compared with the submissive +softness of the "Chevalier." Through all his flattery there seemed a +sly consciousness that his honeyed words were a snare, and his smile +a delusion; and I could never divest myself of the feeling that he saw +into the very secret of my heart, and knew me thoroughly. + +I must become his dupe, thought I, or it is all over with me. The fellow +will detect me for a "parvenu" long before we reach Malaga! + +No man born and bred to affluence could have acquired the keen insight +into life that I possessed. I must mask this knowledge, then, if I would +still be thought a "born gentleman." This was a wise resolve,--at least, +its effects were immediately such as I hoped for. The Chevalier's little +sly sarcasms, his half-insinuated "équivoques," were changed for a tone +of wonder and admiration for all I said. How one so young could have +seen and learned so much!--what natural gifts I must possess!--how +remarkably just my views were!--how striking the force of my +observations!--and all this while I was discoursing what certainly does +not usually pass for "consummate wisdom." I soon saw that the Chevalier +set me down for a fool; and from that moment we changed places,--_he_ +became the dupe versus _me_. To be sure, the contrivance cost me +something, as we usually spent the evenings at piquet or écarté, and the +consul was the luckiest of men; to use his own phrase, applied to one he +once spoke of, "savait corriger la fortune." + +Although he spoke freely of the fashionable world of Paris and London, +with all whose celebrities he affected a near intimacy, he rarely +touched upon his New World experiences, and blinked all allusion +whatever to the republic of "Campecho." His own history was comprised in +the brief fact that he was the cadet of a great family of Provence,--all +your French rogues, I remark, come from the South of France,--that he +had once held a high diplomatic rank, from which, in consequence of the +fall of a ministry, he was degraded, and, after many vicissitudes +of fortune, he had become Consul-General at Campecho. "My friends," +continued he, "are now looking up again in the world, so that I +entertain hopes of something better than perpetual banishment." + +Of English people, their habits, modes of life, and thought, the +Chevalier spoke to me with a freedom he never would have used if he +had not believed me to be a Spaniard, and only connected with Ireland +through the remote chain of ancestry. This deceit of mine was one he +never penetrated, and I often thought over the fact with satisfaction. +To encourage his frankness on the subject of my country, I affected to +know nothing, or next to nothing, of England; and gradually he grew to +be more communicative, and at last spoke with an unguarded freedom which +soon opened to me a clew of his real history. + +It was one day as we walked the deck together that, after discussing the +tastes and pursuits of the wealthy English, he began to talk of their +passion for sport, and especially horse-racing. The character of this +national pastime he appeared to understand perfectly, not as a +mere foreigner who had witnessed a Derby or a Doncaster, but as one +conversant with the traditions of the turf or the private life of the +jockey and the trainer. + +I saw that he colored all his descriptions with a tint meant to excite +an interest within me for these sports. He drew a picture of an "Ascot +meeting," wherein were assembled all the ingredients that could excite +the curiosity and gratify the ambition of a wealthy, high-spirited +youth; and he dilated with enthusiasm upon his own first impressions of +these scenes, mingled with half-regrets of how many of his once friends +had quitted the "Turf" since he last saw it! + +He spoke familiarly of those whose names I had often read in newspapers +as the great leaders of the "sporting world," and affected to have known +them all on terms of intimacy and friendship. Even had the theme been +less attractive to me, I would have encouraged it for other reasons, a +strange glimmering suspicion ever haunting my mind that I had heard of +the worthy Chevalier before, and under another title; and so completely +had this idea gained possession of me that I could think of nothing +else. + +At length, after we had been some weeks at sea, the welcome cry of +"Land!" was given from the mast-head; but as the weather was hazy and +thick, we were compelled to shorten sail, and made comparatively little +way through the water; so that at nightfall we saw that another day must +elapse ere we touched mother earth again. + +The Chevalier and the Captain both dined with me; the latter, however, +soon repaired to the deck, leaving us in _tête-à-tête_. It was in all +likelihood the last evening we should ever pass together, and I felt a +most eager longing to ascertain the truth of my vague suspicions. Chance +gave me the opportunity. We had been playing cards, and luck--contrary +to custom, and in part owing to my always shuffling the cards _after_ my +adversary--had deserted _him_ and taken _my_ side. At first this seemed +to amuse him, and he merely complimented me upon my fortune, and smiled +blandly at my success. After a while, however, his continued losses +began to irritate him, and I could see that his habitual command of +temper was yielding to a peevish, captious spirit he had never exhibited +previously. + +"Shall we double our stake?" said he, after a long run of ill-luck. + +"If _you_ prefer it, of course," said I. And we played on, but ever with +the same result. + +"Come," cried he, at last, "I 'll wager fifty Napoleons on this game." +The bet was made, and he lost it! With the like fortune he played on and +on, till at last, as day was dawning, he had not only lost all that he +had won from me during the voyage, but a considerable sum besides, and +for which he gave me his check upon a well-known banker at Paris. + +"Shall I tell you your fortune, Monsieur le Comte?" said he, in a tone +of bitterness that almost startled me. + +"With all my heart," said I, laughing. "Are you skilful as a +necromancer?" + +"I can at least decipher what the cards indicate," said he. "There is no +great skill in reading, where the print is legible." With these words, +he shuffled the cards, dividing them into two or three packets; the +first card of each he turned on the face. "Let me premise, Count," said +he, "before I begin, that you will not take anything in bad part which I +may reveal to you, otherwise I'll be silent. You are free to believe, or +not to believe, what I tell you; but you cannot reasonably be angry if +unpleasant discoveries await you." + +"Go on fearlessly," said I; "I'll not promise implicit faith in +everything, but I 'll pledge myself to keep my temper." + +He began at once drawing forth every third card of each heap, and +disposing them in a circle, side by side. When they were so arranged, he +bent over, as if to study them, concealing his eyes from me by his +hand; but at the same time, as I could perceive, keenly watching my +face between his fingers. "There is some great mistake here," said he +at length, in a voice of irritation. "I have drawn the cards wrong, +somehow; it must be so, since the interpretation is clear as print. What +an absurd blunder, too!" and he seemed as if about to dash the cards up +in a heap, from a sense of angry disappointment. + +"Nay, nay," cried I, interposing. "Let us hear what they say, even +though we may dispute the testimony." + +"If it were less ridiculous it might be offensive," said he, smiling; +"but being as it is, it is really good laughing-matter." + +"I am quite impatient,--pray read on." + +"Of course it is too absurd for anything but ridicule," said he, +smiling, but, as I thought, with a most malicious expression. "You +perceive here this four of clubs, which, as the first card we turn, +assumes to indicate your commencement in life. Now, only fancy, Monsieur +le Comte, what this most insolent little demon would insinuate. Really, +I cannot continue. Well, well, be it so. This card would say that you +were not only born without rank or title, but actually in a condition +of the very meanest and most humble poverty. Isn't that excellent?" +said he, bursting out into a fit of immoderate laughter, in which the +spiteful glance of his keen eyes seemed to pierce through and through +me. + +As for me, I laughed too; but what a laugh it was! Never was a burst +of natural sorrow so poignant in suffering as that forced laugh, when, +covered with shame, I sat there, beneath the sarcastic insolence of the +wretch, who seemed to gloat over the tortures he was inflicting. + +"I can scarcely expect that this opening will inspire you with much +confidence in the oracle," said he; "the first step a falsehood, +promises ill for the remainder of the journey." + +"If not very veracious," said I, "it is at least very amusing. Pray +continue." + +"What would the old counts of your ancestry have said to such a +profanation?" cried the Chevalier. "By Saint Denis, I would not +have been the man to asperse their blood thus, in their old halls at +Grenada!" + +"_We_ live in a less haughty age," said I, affecting a smile of +indifference, and motioning to him to proceed. + +"What follows is the very commonest of that nonsense which is revealed +in all lowly fortunes. You are, as usual, the victim of cold and hunger, +suffering from destitution and want. Then there are indications of a +bold spirit, ambitious and energetic, bursting out through all the gloom +of your dark condition, and a small whispered word in your ear, tells +you to hope!" While the Chevalier rattled out this "rodomontade" at a +much greater length than I have time or patience to repeat, his eyes +never quitted me, but seemed to sparkle with a fiend-like intelligence +of what was passing within me. As he concluded, he mixed up the cards +together, merely muttering, half aloud, "adventures and escapes by land +and sea. Abundance of hard luck, to be all compensated for one day, when +wealth in all its richest profusion is showered upon you." Then, dashing +the cards from him in affected anger, he said, "It is enough to make men +despise themselves, the way in which they yield credence to such rank +tomfoolery! but I assure you, Count, however contemptible the oracle has +shown herself to-day, I have on more than one occasion been present at +the most startling revelations,--not alone as regarded the past, but the +future also." + +"I can easily believe it, Chevalier," replied I, with a great effort to +seem philosophically calm. "One must not reject everything that has not +the stamp of reason upon it; and even what I have listened to to-day, +absurd as it is, has not shaken my faith in the divination of the cards. +Perhaps this fancy of mine is the remnant of a childish superstition, +which I owe in great part to my old nurse. She was a Moor by birth, and +imbued with all the traditions and superstitions of her own romantic +land." + +There was a most sneering expression on the Chevalier's face as I +uttered these words. I paid no attention to it, however, but went on: +"From the venerable dame I myself attained to some knowledge of 'destiny +reading,' of which I remember once or twice in life to have afforded +very singular proofs. _My_ skill, however, usually preferred unravelling +the 'future' to the 'present.'" + +"Speculation is always easier than recital," said the Chevalier, dryly. + +"Very true," said I; "and in reading the past I have ever found how want +of sufficient skill has prevented my giving to the great fact of a +story the due and necessary connection; so that, indeed, I appear as if +distinct events alone were revealed to me, without clew to what preceded +or followed them. I see destiny as a traveller sees a landscape by +fitful flashes of lightning at night, great tracts of country suddenly +displayed in all the blaze of noonday, but lost to sight the next moment +forever! Such humble powers as these are, I am well aware, unworthy to +bear competition with your more cultivated gifts; but if, with all +their imperfections, you are disposed to accept their exercise, they are +sincerely at your service." + +The Chevalier, I suspect, acceded to this proposal in the belief that it +was an effort on my part to turn the topic from myself to _him_, for +he neither seemed to believe in my skill, nor feel any interest in its +exercise. + +Affecting to follow implicitly the old Moorish woman's precepts, I +prepared myself for my task by putting on a great mantle with a hood, +which, when drawn forward, effectually concealed the wearer's face. +This was a precaution I took the better to study his face, while my own +remained hid from view. + +"You are certainly far more imposing as a prophet than I can pretend to +be," said he, laughing, as he lighted a cigar, and lay back indolently +to await my revelations. I made a great display of knowledge in +shuffling and arranging the cards, the better to think over what I was +about; and at last, disposing some dozen in certain mystic positions +before me, I began. + +"You startled _me_, Chevalier, by a discovery which only wanted truth +to make it very remarkable. Let me now repay _you_ by another which I +shrewdly suspect to be in the same condition. There are four cards now +before me, whose meaning is most positive, and which distinctly assert +that you, Chevalier de la Boutonerie, are no chevalier at all!" + +"This is capital." said he, filling out a glass of wine and drinking it +off with the most consummate coolness. + +"And here," said I, not heeding his affected ease,--"here is another +still stranger revelation, which says that you are not a Frenchman, but +a native of a land which latterly has taken upon it to supply the rest +of the world with adventurers,--in plain words, a Pole." + +"It is true that my father, who held a command in the Imperial army, +lived some years in that country," said he, hastily; "but I have yet to +learn that he forfeited his nationality by so doing." + +"I only know what the cards tell me," said I, spreading out a mass of +them before me, and pretending to study them attentively; "and here is a +complication which would need a cleverer expositor than I am. Of all +the tangled webs ever I essayed to unravel, this is the knottiest. Why, +really, Chevalier, yours must have been a life of more than ordinary +vicissitude, or else my prophetic skill has suffered sadly from disuse." + +"Judging from what you have just told me, I rather lean to the latter +explanation," said he, swallowing down two glasses of wine with great +rapidity. + +"I suspect such to be the case, indeed," said I, "for otherwise I could +scarcely have such difficulty in reading these mystic signs, once so +familiar to me, and from which I can now only pick up a stray phrase +here and there. Thus I see what implies a high diplomatic employment, +and yet, immediately after, I perceive that this is either a mistake of +mine, or the thing itself a cheat and a deception." + +"It surely does not require divination to tell a diplomatic agent that +he has served on a foreign mission," said the Chevalier, with a sneer. + +"Perhaps not, but I see here vestiges of strange occurrences in which +this fact is concerned. A fleeting picture passes now before my eyes: +I see a race-course, with its crowds of people and its throng of +carriages, and the horses are led out to be saddled, and all is +expectation and eagerness, and--what! This is most singular! the vision +has passed away, and I am looking at two figures who stand side by side +in a richly furnished room, a man and a woman. _She_ is weeping, and +_he_ consoling her. Stay! He lifts his head--the man is yourself, +Chevalier!" + +"Indeed!" said he; but this time the word was uttered in a faint voice, +while a pallor that was almost lividness colored his dark features. + +"She murmurs a name; I almost caught it," exclaimed I, as if +carried away by the rapt excitement of prophecy. "Yes! I hear it now +perfectly,--the name is Alexis!" + +A fearful oath burst from the Chevalier, and with a bound lie sprung to +his feet, and dashed his closed fists against his brow. "Away with +your jugglery, have done with your miserable cheat, sir,--that can only +terrify women and children. Speak out like a man: who are you, and what +are you?" + +"What means this outrage, sir? How have you forgotten yourself so far +as to _use_ this language to _me?_" said I, throwing back the mantle and +standing full before him. + +"Let us have no more acting, sir, whether it be as prophet or bully," +said he, sternly. "You affect to know _me_, who I am, and whence I have +come. Make the game equal between us, or it may be worse for you." + +"You threaten me, then," said I, calmly. + +"I do," was the answer. + +"It is therefore open war between us?" + +"I never said so," replied he, with a most cutting irony of manner; +"but whatever secret malice can do,--and you shall soon know what it +means,--I pledge myself you will not find yourself forgotten." + +"Agreed, then; now leave me, sir." + +"I am your guest, sir," said he, with a most hypocritical air of +deference and courtesy. "It is surely scant politeness to drive me hence +when I am not in a position to find another shelter; we are upon the +high seas; I cannot walk forth and take my leave. Believe me, sir, the +character you would fain perform before the world would not act so." + +Notwithstanding the insult conveyed in the last words, I determined +that I would respect "him who had eaten my salt;" and with a gesture of +assent, for I could not speak, I moved away. + +No sooner was I alone than I repented me of the rash folly into which, +for the indulgence of a mere petty vengeance, I had been betrayed. I saw +that by this absurd piece of malice I had made an enemy of a man whose +whole career vouched for the danger of his malevolence. + +How could he injure me? What species of attack could he make upon me? +Whether was it more likely that he would avoid me as one dangerous to +himself, or pursue me wherever I went by his vengeance? These were hard +questions to solve, and they filled my mind so completely that I neither +heeded the bustle which heralded the arrival on board of the pilot, +or the still busier movement which told that we were approaching the +harbor. At last I went on deck and approached the bulwark, over which +a number of the crew were leaning, watching the course of a boat that, +with all her canvas spread, was making for land. "The pilot-boat," said +the captain, in reply to my glance of inquiry; "she is lying straight +in, as the consul is anxious to land at once." + +"Is he on board of her?" said I, with an anxiety I could not conceal. + +"Yes, Señhor Condé, and your Excellency's secretary too." + +Was it my fear suggested the notion, or was it the simple fact, but I +thought that the words "Count" and "Excellency" were articulated with +something like a sneer? I had no opportunity to put the matter to the +test, for the captain had already quitted the spot, and was busy with +the multifarious cares the near approach to land enforces. My next +thought was, Why had my secretary gone ashore without my orders? +Was this a piece of zeal on his part to make preparations for our +disembarking, or might it be something worse? and, if so, what? Every +moment increased the trouble of my thoughts. Certainly, misfortunes do +cast their shadows before them, for I felt that strange and overwhelming +sense of depression that never is causeless. I ran over every species +of casualty that I could imagine, but except highway robbery, actual +"brigandage," I could not fancy any real positive danger to be +anticipated from the Chevalier. + +How different was my mood from what I expected it would have been on +nearing shore! Where were all my visions of pomp and splendor? Where the +proud circumstances of my more than princely state? Alas! I would have +given a full fourth of my wealth to be landed unostentatiously and +quietly, and to have my mind relieved from all dread of the cursed +Chevalier. + +That I did not overrate the peril before me, events soon proved. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. THE CARCEL MORENA AT MALAGA + +As we sailed proudly into the harbor of Malaga, my attention--at +first directed to the striking features of the shore, where lay a +city actually embowered amid orange-groves--was soon drawn off by the +appearance of a boat, rowed by twelve men, which approached the ship. +The national flag of Spain floated from a standard in her stern, and I +could mark the glitter of arms and uniforms on board of her. + +"The officers of health, I suppose?" said I, carelessly, to the captain. + +"No, Señhor, these are soldiers of the garrison." + +"Ah, I understand," said I, "they are on the alert as to whom they land +in these troublous times; for it was the period of the great Carlist +struggle. + +"Possibly," was his dry remark, and he moved away. + +A hoarse challenge from the boat was answered by something from the +ship; and the "accommodation-ladder" was immediately lowered, and an +officer ascended to the deck, followed by two of his men, with their +side-arms. + +Some of the ordinary greetings being interchanged between the captain +and the officer, the latter said, "My business here is with the person +styling himself the Condé de Cregano. Where is he?" + +"That is my name, Señhor," said I, with a studious admixture of civility +and condescension. + +"Please to walk this way, sir," said the officer, leading towards the +poop cabin, and preceding me with a degree of assurance that boded ill +for his impression of my dignity. + +As we entered the cabin, I could hear the two soldiers taking up their +places as sentries at the door. + +"I wish to see your passport, Señhor," said he, as he seated himself at +the table. + +"My passport shall be produced at the fitting time," said I, "when I +arrive on shore. Here I have no need of any." + +"You are wrong, sir; once within that circle of buoys, at the mouth of +the port, you are within the limits of the shore authorities; but were +it even otherwise, these are not the times for scruples, and I, for one, +would not hesitate to arrest you on the information I have received." + +"Information you have received, sir!" exclaimed I, in terror and +amazement. + +"Yes, sir; I may as well tell you that Malaga is not in the possession +of your friends,--you will not find a Carlist garrison ready to give +you a salute of honor at your landing. Far less formal, but not less +peremptory attentions await you. But produce your papers, for I have no +time to lose." + +I saw at a glance that my position was most perilous, and as rapidly +resolved to make an effort for safety. "Señhor Capitana," said I, +placing an open pocket-book stuffed with bank-notes before him, "please +to accept my passport, and to keep it in your own safe possession. I +shall put to sea again, and order the captain to land me at some port in +Italy." + +"It is too late," said he, with a sigh, as he pushed the pocket-book +away; "the informations against you are already transmitted to Madrid." + +"Great heavens! and for whom do they take me?" cried I. + +"I cannot tell; I never heard. I only know that I have the order for +your arrest as the person assuming to be 'the Condé Cregano.'" + +"What crime is laid to my charge? Have I defrauded any one? What is +alleged against me?" + +"Show me your passport," said he again. + +"There it is," said I, producing the document which by Don Estaban's +intervention I had obtained from the authorities of Guajuaqualla, and +wherein I was called a native of Grenada and a noble of Spain. + +"And all this is true as set forth?" said the officer. + +"It is a principle of law in my native land that no prisoner is called +upon to criminate himself," said I. + +"In that case you are no Spaniard," said the officer, shrewdly, "nor, +indeed, does your accent so bespeak you. You are now under arrest." +He opened the door as he said this, and, pointing me out to the two +sentries, whispered something too low for me to overhear. This done, he +left the cabin and went upon deck. + +I looked up from the chair where I sat, into the faces of my two +guardians, and a more ill-favored pair of gentlemen I never beheld. +Ill-fed but dissipated-looking rascals, they seemed more like highwaymen +than soldiers. Still, even a chance was not to be thrown away, and so +I whispered in a soft voice: "My worthy friends, in that writing-case +yonder there are bank-notes to a very large amount. In a few moments +they will be taken away from me, never to be restored. I may as well +have the satisfaction of knowing that two brave but poor men are +benefited by them. Bring me the desk, and I'll give them to you." They +looked at each other and they looked at me; they then looked towards +the door and the skylight, and although without speaking, it was plain +enough to see what was passing in their minds. + +"Remember," said I, "I ask nothing in return from you. I shall not +attempt to escape, nor, were I to do so, could you aid me in any way. I +merely wish to assist two worthy fellows who certainly do not look like +the 'spoiled children of fortune.'" + +They hesitated and seemed afraid, and at last they whispered for a few +seconds together; and then one of them went over, and, taking up the +desk, laid it down before me. "You can make a fair division at another +time," said I; "it is better not to waste precious moments now, but at +once conceal the money about your persons. Here are some eight or ten +thousand piastres,--and here, fully as much more for you. These are +Mexican notes for a large sum, and these are bills on Amsterdam and +Hamburgh for great amounts. That's right, my lads, make short work of +it,--in your boots, in your shakos; anywhere for the present, only be +quiet!" + +Truly they merited all my encomiums! To "stow away" plunder, I 'd back +them against any pair who ever stopped a diligence on the high road; nor +was it without some little difficulty I could persuade them to leave any +money in the desk, as a precaution to prevent the suspicion of what +had actually occurred. As I aided them in the work of concealment, +I artfully contrived to possess myself of one paper,--the Havannah +banker's receipt for the large deposits I had left in his hands; and +this I managed to slip within the lining of my travelling-cap. It was a +last anchor of hope, if ever I were to weather the storm around me! + +Our work had scarcely been completed, and the desk replaced in its +former situation, when the officer returned. He briefly informed me that +seals had been placed on all my effects, that my household was placed +under an arrest similar to my own, and that when I had pointed out the +various articles of my property in the cabin, there was nothing more for +me to do but to accompany him on shore. + +As I was not suffered to take any portion of my baggage with me, even of +my clothes, I was soon in the boat and pulling rapidly for the land. The +quays and the jetty were crowded with people whose curiosity I at once +perceived had no other object than myself; and although some did not +scruple to exhibit towards me signs of dislike and dissatisfaction, I +could remark that others regarded me with a compassionate, and even a +kindly look. All were, however, scrupulously silent and respectful, +and touched their hats in salutation as I ascended the stairs of the +landing-place. + +This feeling, to my considerable astonishment, I perceived extended even +to the soldiery, one or two of whom saluted as I passed. In any case, +thought I, it is for no insignificant offender I am taken; and even that +is some comfort, provided my crime be not high treason. + +I was conducted straight to the "Carcel Morena," a large, sombre-looking +building which was at once fortress, prison, and residence of the +Governor, exhibiting a curious mixture of these incongruous functions in +all its details. + +The apartment into which I was ushered was a large saloon, dimly lighted +by narrow windows piercing the thick walls. The furniture had once been +handsome, but from time and neglect had become worn and disfigured. A +small table, spread with a very tolerable breakfast, stood in one of +the windows, at which I was invited to seat myself, and then I was +left alone to my own lucubrations. Hunger prevailed over grief, I ate +heartily; and having concluded my meal, amused myself by studying +the Trojan war, which was displayed upon the walls in a very ancient +tapestry. + +I had traced the fortunes of Greeks and Trojans on the walls till 1 was +well-nigh wearied. I had even gazed upon the little patches of brown +grass beneath the windows till my eyes grew dim with watching; but no +one came to look after me, and, in the unbroken silence around, I +half feared that I should be utterly forgotten, and left, like the old +tapestry, to die of moths and years; but at last, as day was declining, +I heard something like the clank of arms and the tramp of soldiery, +and soon the sounds were more distinctly marked, approaching my door. +Suddenly the two leaves of the folding-door were thrown wide, and an +elderly man, in a general's uniform, followed by two other officers, +entered. + +Without taking any notice of the salute I made him, he walked towards +the fireplace, and, standing with his back to it, said to one of his +aides-de-camp, "Read the 'procès-verbal,' José." + +José bowed, and, taking from his sabretache a very lengthy roll +of paper, began to read aloud, but with such rapidity and such +indistinctness withal that I could only, and with the greatest +difficulty, catch a stray word here and there. The titles of her Majesty +the Queen appeared to occupy full ten minutes, and an equal time to be +passed in setting forth the authority under whose jurisdiction I then +stood. These over, there came something about an individual who, born a +Mexican or a native of Texas, has assumed the style, title, and dignity +of a Count of Spain, such rank being taken for purposes of deception, +and the better to effect certain treasonable designs, to be set forth +hereafter. After this there came a flourish about the duties of +loyalty and fidelity to the sovereign, whose private virtues came in by +parenthesis, together with a very energetic denunciation on all base +and wicked men who sought to carry dissension into the bosom of +their country, and convulse with the passions of a civil war a nation +proverbially tranquil and peace-loving. + +Nothing could be less interesting than the style of this paper, except +the manner of him who recited it. State truisms, in inflated language, +and wearisome platitudes about nothing, received no additional grace +from a snuffling nasal intonation and a short cough. + +I listened at first with the anxiety of a man whose fortunes hung on the +issue; then, as the vague, rambling character of the document diminished +this interest, I heard with more indifference; and, lastly, completely +wearied by the monotony of the voice, and the tiresome iterations of +the style, I could not prevent my thoughts from wandering far from the +affair in hand. + +What fearful crimes were alleged against me,--what dire offences I was +charged with,--I was not to hear, since, lost in the pleasant land of +day-dreams, I fancied myself strolling in the shade of a forest, with +Donna Maria beside me, while I poured out a most impassioned narrative +of my love and fidelity. Nor was it till the reading was concluded, and +a loud "Hem!" from the General resounded through the chamber, that I +remembered where I was. + +"Prisoner!" said he, in a stern, authoritative tone, "you have now heard +the nature of the charge against you, and the reasons of your arrest; +you will answer certain questions, the replies to which, if not in +accordance with truth, constitute the crime of 'Traicion,' the penalty +being death. What is your name?" + +"Con Cregan." + +"Native of what country?" + +"Ireland." + +"What rank and position do you hold in society?" + +"A variable one,--as luck favors me." + +"What trade or profession do you follow?" + +"Whatever seems most convenient at the moment." + +"Have you served?" + +"I have." + +"In the land or sea service?" + +"In both." + +"With what grade?" + +"Nothing very distinguished." + +"Have you ever held the command of an expedition?" + +"I have." + +"With what object, and where?" + +"In the prairies of South America, to shoot red-deer." + +"Remember, sir," said the General, "this is no occasion for untimely +jest; these sallies may cost you more dearly than you think for." + +"If I am to speak the truth," said I, boldly, "I must answer as I have +done. If you want fiction, I 'm ready for you at a moment's notice." + +"Make a note of that, José!--' says that he is perfectly indifferent +whether he tells truth or falsehood.'" + +"And add, by way of parenthesis," said I, "that the General is precisely +of my own way of thinking." + +"Write down,' insults the commission,'" said the General, boiling with +rage. + +The paragraph seemed a full one, for the interrogating was not resumed +for some minutes. + +"Now, sir," resumed the General, "state your object in coming to the +country." + +"To get out of it as fast as I could." + +"For whose use were the arms provided,--the horses and horse equipage +with which you embarked?" + +"My own." + +"Name the agent or agents of Don Carlos with whom you have held +correspondence?" + +"None. I never knew any." + +"By whose hands were the large sums of money in your possession +intrusted to you?" + +"I found them." + +"How, and where?" + +"In a hole." + +The General's face grew purple; and more than once I could see the +struggle it cost him to repress his bursting indignation. And in the +mutterings he let fall to his secretary, it was easy to mark that his +comments on the evidence were not too favorable. + +"Were you acquainted with Brigadier Hermose Gonzillos?" + +"No." + +"Nor with his brother, the Canon Gonzillos?" + +"No." + +"When did you first meet Señhor Ruy Peres Y' Hacho?" + +"Never saw him in my life." + +"Nor held intercourse with him?" + +"Never." + +"Were not much in his company, nor intrusted to him the secret details +of the expedition?" + +"I know nothing of what you're talking about." + +"Produce Ruy Peres," said the General; and the door opened, and the +Chevalier, dressed in a military uniform and with several decorations of +foreign orders, entered. + +"Do you know this gentleman?" said the General, dryly. + +"I know him for a Pole whose name is Alexis Radchoffsky--at least, under +such a name he once lived in London, and is well known to the police +there." + +"Go on," said the General to the secretary. "On being confronted with +the Señhor Ruy Peres, the prisoner became suddenly abashed, and at +once confessed that he had known him intimately several years before in +London." + +"Is that man a witness against me?" asked I, eagerly. + +"Attend to me, sir," said the General, while he made a sign to the +Chevalier to retire. "Neither subterfuge nor insolence will avail you +here. You are perfectly well known to us,--your early history, your late +intrigues, your present intentions." + +"With such intimate knowledge of all about me, General," said I, +coolly, "have n't we been wasting a great deal of valuable time in this +interrogatory?" + +"And, notwithstanding repeated admonitions, persisted in using the most +indecorous language to the commission." These words the General dictated +in a loud voice, and they were immediately taken down by his secretary. + +"Señhor Concregan," said he, addressing me, "you stand now committed, +by virtue of a royal warrant, a copy of which, and of the charges laid +against you, will be duly transmitted to you. Whenever the authorities +have decided whether your offence should be submitted to a civil or +military tribunal, you will be brought up for trial." + +"I am an English subject, sir," said I; "I belong to a nation that never +permits its meanest member to be trampled on by foreign tyranny, far +less will it suffer his liberty or life to be sacrificed to a false and +infamous calumny. I claim the protection of my ambassador, or at least +of such a representative of my country as your petty locality may +possess. I desire--" What I was about to demand as my birthright was not +destined to be made public on this occasion, since at a signal from the +General the door opened, and two soldiers, advancing, adjusted handcuffs +on my wrists, and led me away even before I had recovered from the +surprise the whole proceeding occasioned me. + +Whether it was that I enjoyed the prerogative of a State prisoner, or +that the authorities were not quite clear that they were justified in +what they were doing, I cannot say; but my prison discipline was of the +very mildest order. I had a most comfortable room, with a window looking +seaward over the beautiful bay of Malaga, taking a wide range along +shore, where gardens and villas and orange-groves extended for miles. +The furniture was neat, and with some pretensions to luxury; and the +fare, I am bound to own, was excellent. Books, and even newspapers, were +freely supplied to me, and, save that at certain intervals the clank of +a musket, and the shuffling of feet in the corridor without, told that +the sentry of my guard was being relieved, I could have fancied myself +in some homely inn, without a restriction upon my liberty. My handcuffs +had been removed the moment I had entered my chamber, and now the iron +stanchions of my window were the only reminders of a jail around me. + + + +CHAPTER XXX. CONSOLATIONS OF DIPLOMACY + +The first revulsion of feeling over, the terrible shock of that fall +from the pinnacle of wealth and greatness to the lowly condition of a +prisoner unfriended and destitute,--I actually began to enjoy my life, +and feel something wonderfully like happiness. I do not pretend to +say that my disappointment was not most acute and painful, or that I +suffered little from the contemplation of my ruined hopes. No, far from +it; but my grief, like the course of a mountain torrent, soon ran off, +and left the stream of my life clear and untroubled as ever. It is true, +thought I, this is a terrible contrast to what I was a week ago; but +still, is it not a long way in advance of what my original condition +promised? I am a prisoner in a Spanish fortress: is not even that +better than a peasant in an Irish hovel? The very cares with which I am +surrounded bespeak a certain consequence pertaining to me; I am one whom +ministers of State think and speak about, whose name is often on their +lips, whose memory haunts them in their half-waking moments. Is not this +something? Is it not a great deal to one whose whole ideal was to avoid +the bypaths of life, and take his course in its very widest and busiest +thoroughfares? + +The occupations in which I passed my days greatly contributed to sustain +this pleasant illusion. I was eternally writing letters, memorials, +statements of facts, and what not, of interminable narratives, to all +our ministers and consuls, invoking their aid, and protesting in the +name of the British nation against the unwarrantable tyranny of my +imprisonment. It is quite true that these lengthy documents of +mine seemed to meet but sorry acceptance. For a length of time no +acknowledgment of their reception ever reached me; but at last the +following dry epistle informed me that my memorials had reached their +destination:-- + + + "Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for + Foreign Affairs to acknowledge the receipt of your memorials + dated the 9th, 12th, 18th, 23rd, and 25th of last month, + together with various letters bearing on the same subjects + since that time, and to state, in reply, that the matter of + your complaint is at present under investigation with the + authorities of the Spanish Government. + + "His Lordship the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs + desires me to add his regrets that even in the event of your + liberation he can hold out no prospect whatever that any + compensation will be made to you for the loss of property + you allege to have suffered, and which, of course, was + incurred as one of the many risks natural to the course of + such an expedition as you were engaged in. + + "I have the honor to be, sir, + + "F. O., London, + + "Your most obedient servant, + + "Oct. 18--. + + "Joseph Backslip. + + "To Cornelius Cregan, Esq." + +This was a sad damper! To think that I was to lose the immense amount +of property with which I had embarked,--the gems and jewels, the rare +objects of art, the equipages, the beautiful horses of purest Mexican +blood! not to speak of that far greater loss,--the large sum in actual +money! But, then, what a consolation to remember that a Secretary of +State was mingling his sorrows with my own on the subject; that he +actually gave an official character to his grief, by desiring the +Under-Secretary to convey "his regrets" in a despatch! his regrets--to +me, Con Cregan! What inestimable words! That ever I should live to know +that the Right Honorable Lord Puzzleton, the adored cherub of fashion, +the admired of _coteries_, the worshipped of "the Commons," the favored +guest of Windsor, should, under the big seal of his office, assure me of +his heartfelt sympathy! + +I closed my eyes as I read the paragraph, and imagined that we were +weeping together, like the "Babes in the Wood." "How they wrong this +man," thought I, "in England; what calumnies they circulate about his +levity, his heartlessness, and so forth; and see! look at him here +mingling in the private sorrows of an individual, and taking part in all +the private woes of Con Cregan." By this beautiful artifice I contrived +to raise the aforesaid Con to a very considerable elevation in his +own esteem; and thus, worthy reader, by pleasant fancies and ingenious +illusions,--wares that every man can fashion at will,--did I contrive to +make my prison at Malaga a most endurable resting-place, and even now to +make its retrospect full of sweet memories. + +Nor were my imaginings limited to such visions as these, for I loved to +compare my condition with that of other exalted prisoners, and fancy how +_my_ conduct would read by the side of _theirs_. If I were less piously +resigned, less submissive, than Silvio Pellico, assuredly I showed more +dignity in my fall than the Exile of St. Helena. I bore all the little +vexations of my lot with a haughty reserve that entirely subdued every +sign of a querulous nature, and seemed to say, "My time will come yet!" + +At last it appeared either as if my memorials were never opened, or, +if opened, never read. No answer came whatever! and even the Malaga +newspapers, which, in the dearth of shipping intelligence, would +often insert some little notice of me, stating how "the 'Conde' walked +yesterday for an hour upon 'the leads';" "the 'Condé' partook with an +appetite of a partridge, and conversed freely with the officer on duty," +and so on,--now they never by any chance alluded to me; and I seemed, +for all the interest the world manifested about me, to have suffered a +species of moral decease. It was the unhealthy season of the year, and +the Consul had absented himself, leaving his functions to his "Vice," +who, having also a "constitution," had departed likewise, bequeathing +the traditions and cares of office to his Dutch colleague, who neither +spoke nor read any other tongue than that muddy language begotten of +dikes and fogs. Wearied possibly by the daily arrival of half a quire +of my remonstrances, or curious to see the machine by which these broad +sheets were struck off with such unfailing celerity, this official +arrived one day at the prison with an order from the Governor, +permitting him to see the "Condé." + +I was, as usual, writing away, when the turnkey announced his Excellency +(every official is Excellency if too low for Highness), Mynheer van +Hoagendrius, and a very short and immensely fat personage, dressed in +a kind of black-and-white plaid jacket and trousers, entered. He looked +like a huge chess-board set on legs. A grunt, a snort, a thick sound +like a struggle between choking and gurgling, ensued, which I concluded +to be something in Dutch, and he seated himself opposite me. + +I made my compliments to him, polyglot-wise, in French, English, +Spanish, and at last German,--the last evidently striking a spark out of +the embers of his cold intelligence, for he fixed his dull eyes upon +me, and seemed as though he would soon wake up. Animated by this hope, +I proceeded in my very best "Deutsch" to expound my sorrows to him. +Fortunately for me, my German had been acquired in the low companionship +of "skippers" and sailors, and consequently bore a nearer resemblance +to its half-brother of Holland than the more cultivated tongues of +professors and philosophers. + +I cannot, to this hour, say whether it arose from any interest in the +narrative, or whether proceeding from the laudable desire to come at the +truth in a question of much difficulty, but the Mynheer now came to me +each morning, and usually stayed two hours, during which I talked and +he smoked incessantly. Often, when he left me, have I asked myself "what +progress I had made in his good opinion? how far had I made him master +of my case?" but the question remained without an answer; for if +occasionally a stray flash of intelligence would light up his dull +features, on following the direction of his eyes I could perceive that +the animation arose from the sight of some fishing-boat returning loaded +with turbot, or that the savory odor of salt cod had saluted him +from the shore. I felt at length as though I were sailing without +a log-line,--nothing to mark my progress or say in what latitude I +cruised. + +My Dutch friend had now been visiting me for above six weeks, during +which, if he had not supplied himself with every detail of my calamity, +he had at least smoked all the choice tobacco which, as a favor from +the Governor, I was permitted to land for my own use; and as yet he had +given no signs of life other than the act of fumigation aforesaid. I was +half angry, half amused, at the little act of dexterity with which he +emptied the last remnant of my pure Havannah into his pipe, and heard, +with a kind of malicious satisfaction, the little sigh with which he +pushed the empty canister from him. + +He seemed lost for some time in the slough of his Dutch reflections, +but at length he fixed his eyes upon me, and in a low, suffocating tone +said, "Hast a file?" + +"No," said I. + +"There, then," said he, giving me a small parcel tightly tied up in +paper. "Farewell!" and he moved towards the door before I could recover +from my surprise to thank him. As he reached it, he turned about, and +in a very significant voice said, "Der bood est hardt,"--a species of +Plat-Deutsch I might not have understood if unaccompanied by a gesture +which implied that the ground was hard beneath my window, as a caution +to me in the event of a leap. + +No sooner was I alone than I opened my precious packet, which, besides +two files, contained a small phial of aquafortis and another of +oil,--the latter a useful adjunct to prevent the grating noise being +heard. Having concealed the implements in a rat-hole, I proceeded to +examine the iron bars of the window, which, although seemingly of great +size and strength, were in reality coated with a rust of more than half +their actual thickness. This was a most inspiriting discovery, and at +once animated me with glowing hopes of success. + +As I could only work during the night, I affected illness as a +reason for keeping my bed during the day, when I slept profoundly and +refreshingly. + +The non-success of all my efforts to interest diplomacy in my cause was +just beginning to impress me with a sense of gloom and despondency, when +this new incident occurred to rally my drooping courage. Life had now an +object; and that, if not always enough for happiness, is sufficient at +least to rouse those energies which, when stagnant, produce despair. +How I longed for night to come, that I might resume my labor! with what +resolute industry I worked on during the dark hours, only ceasing when +the change of the sentries brought the guard close beneath my window, +and even grudging the few seconds thus wasted! With what delight I used +to measure the fissure which, at first only deep enough for my nail, was +now sufficient to cover the file! This I used to conceal each morning +with bread colored by the rusty powder that fell from the filing, so +that, to all seeming, everything was in its usual order. + +This was almost the only period of my life in which I remembered my +father: from some similarity in our condition, perhaps, he was now +seldom out of my thoughts. I used to wonder if he were still alive, +and how situated; whether he was yet a convict going forth in chains to +daily toil, or a "ticket-of-leave" man working at some settlement in the +"Bush." Did he ever think of me? Did he ever dream of his native land, +or wish to return to it? And what prospect of escape did fortune hold +out to him? That, after all, was the great link which bound him to my +thoughts! Was there any silent and sympathizing Dutchman to take pity on +his captivity? + +At the close of the fifth week, I had the inestimable pleasure of +"reporting the breach practicable," or, in less sounding phrase, of +assuring myself that the middle bar of the window was removable at will, +and thus a free egress was permitted me to an extensive terrace, +which, with a low parapet, overlooked the bay for miles. This was about +five-and-twenty feet from the ground, and was guarded beneath by a +sentry, one of a chain of sentinels, whose "watch" extended around +the entire fortress. The descent and the guard were then the only +difficulties which now remained to be overcome,--so far, at least, as +mere liberation from the prison walls extended. I am sure I invented +at least fifty choice stratagems which afterthought always showed were +perfectly worthless. I bethought me of bribing the sentry with the few +gold pieces which I still possessed; but what security had I that he +might not resist the seduction, or betray me even after receiving the +money? + +The fall, too, was considerable; nor was there anything to which I could +attach my bedclothes to lower myself to the ground. It must be "a drop;" +and what a situation should I be in were I to break a bone, or even +sprain my ankle in the effort! Alas! I now perceived that although the +most laborious portion of my work was accomplished, the most difficult +still remained to be done. + +The obstacles to mere escape were sufficiently great to prevent me +even thinking of the course to be pursued after I reached the ground +in safety, for I was without friend, shelter, passport, or any means of +disguise or concealment whatever. + +I pondered long and carefully over the question; and already had two +dreary weeks passed over since I had cut through the bar, and yet, so +far as I could see, no nearer to liberation than when the solid iron +enclosed me. My mind began to sink under the fatigue of unceasing +contrivance, and a dreamy, dreary sense of hopelessness seemed gaining +on me. It had been a dark, cloudy day, with gusts of wind, followed by +intervals of calm. The air was moist and heavy, and charged with the +depressing influences which the "mestrale," that sickliest of all winds, +ever brings. Masses of leaden-colored clouds floated low over the sea, +which was broken into a short angry "jobbe," as if after a storm. + +All betokened the approach of a gale of wind, and, as night set in, the +signs of bad weather thickened. Scarcely had the sun set, when it became +dark as pitch; the wind, which had lulled for a brief space previous, +now sprung up, and the sea fretted and chafed against the rocks with +that peculiar sharp chirping sound that presages "wind." The clank of +chain cables, the plashing noise of falling anchors, the loud shouts +of the sailors as they prepared to meet the gathering storm, even now +heard, while in the changing position of the different lights of the +bay I could discern the movements of the various vessels as they +sought shelter or made ready for sea, in expectation of the "gale." The +impenetrable darkness, the roaring wind, the flashing of the lights, +the cries of the seamen, the hurrying of feet along the quays, and the +sounds of different boats' crews departing in haste,--all gave a charm +to a scene of which the obscurity increased the interest. A large French +steamer was to have sailed that night for Marseilles; but I overheard a +voice from the street foretelling that the "Gazonne" might leave without +her passengers, "as no one would go on board of her on such a night." A +red lantern at the peak indicated the vessel, and I could see that she +had changed her position and "taken up a berth" farther out in the bay. + +I cannot tell by what instinct I selected her as a peculiar object of my +interest, but so it was. I watched her unceasingly, and rarely took my +eyes from the quarter where she lay; and when the heaving motion of the +"red light" showed that she was tossing in a heavy sea, I listened too +with eagerness to catch anything from those that passed beneath that +might concern this vessel, which now engrossed all my sympathy. "Were I +once but on board of her," thought I, "the wildest hurricane that ever +blew would be sweeter to me than all the balmy airs that ever bore the +odor of orange-blossom through my barred window!" I would have braved +the stormiest seas, the maddest gale, shipwreck itself, rather than +longer remain the helpless, hopeless thing a life of imprisonment was +making of me. "Would that the alternative were given me," said I to +myself: "the free choice to change these four walls for the deck over +which the waves are dancing in foamy sheets! with what a thankful heart +would I take the offer!" + +The last visit of the turnkey, who came to see all safe, broke in for +a moment upon these musings; and now the double-locked door, and his +retiring footsteps, told me that no further molestation was to be +feared, and that I was, at least till daybreak, the undisturbed master +of my own reveries. I opened the window, pushed back the iron stanchion, +and walked out upon the terrace. It was a night of storm and wild +hurricane. The rain swept by in great plashes, increasing the darkness, +and mingling its hissing noise, with the breaking crash of the sea, as +it beat furiously against the rocks. The dancing, bobbing motion of the +lights on board the different craft showed what "a sea" was raging in +the bay; while, even in the city itself, the clatter of falling tiles +and chimneys told the violence of the gale. I stood upon the terrace; +and as the rain penetrated my frail garment, and the wind wafted my wet +hair across my cheeks, I felt a sense of ecstasy that nothing in all my +previous life had ever equalled. It was the sensation of freedom; it +was the burst of delight with which the captive welcomes the long-lost +liberty. "Better this," thought I, "than the snuggest chamber that ever +called itself a prison." + +It was past the hour when any further visit from the turnkey might +be expected. Already the outer door of my chamber had been locked and +barred with all that scrupulous attention to noise and clank that +are supposed only essential in a melodrama. The sentry had just been +relieved on the esplanade beneath the terrace, so that I might consider +myself disencumbered from all fear of interruption in any quarter. I sat +down upon the parapet, and peered into the dark depth below me, where +the hazy glimmer of the sentry's lamp served to mark the height. At +first it seemed a terrific drop; but after a while I began to satisfy +myself that the darkness contributed to this effect; and as my sight +grew more accustomed to the gloom, I was able to trace different +objects,--among others, the conical roof of the sentry-box, at a +distance of scarcely more than fifteen feet beneath me. + +Thus far I could reach by making a rope of my bed-clothes, and attach +one end to a portion of the battlement of the parapet; but how should I +venture on a descent in such a place? how risk the almost certainty of +recapture by the sentry himself? This was a formidable difficulty, and +demanded much consideration; and yet, were I to select any other spot, +I might chance to be disabled by the fall, and then all my efforts +were fruitless, since a broken bone, or even a sprained ankle, would be +certain ruin. + +Never was a knotty point more canvassed, nor the clew to a difficulty +more zealously searched for! As generally happens in such cases, first +thoughts are best, and the bold course the safest. By descending on the +sentry-box, I should at least reach the ground without injury; and if I +were to have a "tussle" for it with the guard, it would be without the +disadvantage of a previous damage. Besides this, the incessant noise +of the tempest, the crashing of the sea, and the deep booming of the +thunder gave hopes that my descent might be unheard. Nay, more, the +sound of my heavy body over his head would be rather an admonition to +stay quietly within than risk himself outside, to the danger of tumbling +tiles or masses of masonry from the parapet. The more I reflected upon +this, the clearer I saw that the storm was a Heaven-sent accident for +me; that the darkness, the tumult, and the deserted streets were all +accessories the most favorable; that to neglect such an occasion of +escape would be downright madness. If I took some time to arrive at this +conclusion, I made up for the delay by the rapidity of my subsequent +movements. I hastily returned to my room; and had I been bred a +ropemaker, my two sheets and counterpane could not have been fashioned +into a three-stranded rope more handily; and, my sailor's experience +favoring, I adjusted the cord in a "timber hitch" round one of the +battlements, and well satisfied myself that I might trust to the other +extremity,--"Con Cregan and his fortunes." + +I then took a hurried survey of my room, trimmed my lamp that it might +burn till morning, secured the three or four papers of value which still +remained to me, and then issued forth to my enterprise. + +A cannon-shot from the bay rung out as I again stepped upon the terrace, +and I accepted the augury as an omen of welcome. I will not deny that +my hands trembled as I examined, for the last time, the fastening of the +cord; nor do I seek to conceal that as I buttoned my coat, the beating +of my heart smote heavily against my fingers. I even hesitated for an +instant; and during that instant, brief as it was, I could have faced +death itself rather than the uncertainty before me. The weakness passed +quickly away, and, with a short but fervent prayer, I grasped the rope +and slipped noiselessly over the parapet. + +A sudden gust of wind swept past at the moment, and swung me out from +the wall as though I had been a thing of no weight, calling for all my +strength to prevent me from being blown away! And now I was buffeted +about, tossed here and thrown there, with a violence that almost +dislocated every joint in my body. The jerking motion and the chafing of +my rope on the parapet made me tremble for my security, and not without +cause; for in one great swing, in which I described an arc no other +pendulum, living or dead, ever compassed before, I came back with such +force against the roof of the sentry-box, striking it with both my feet +together at the same instant, that my cord snapped short in the very +centre. + + + +The force of my fall, added to the previous blow, capsized the +sentry-box, and I came to the ground along with it, in a state of +fright that even to this very hour I cannot recall without shuddering. +Half-stunned by the fall, bruised and almost lifeless from terror, I sat +there waiting for the moment when the sentry would issue forth and seize +me; nor was it till after the lapse of several minutes that I perceived +that the soldier was in a trap, the weighty sentry-box had fallen +over on the front, and effectually debarred him from any chance of +self-extrication. + +I stooped over to listen, but all was still; he never spoke a +word,--probably stunned by the shock, or he might have fainted from +terror. Whatever the cause, neither my humanity nor my curiosity cared +to explore further, but, rising to my feet, and ascertaining, to my +inexpressible delight, that I was uninjured, I set off at full speed +toward the shore. The sea suggested escape, and thither I bent my way, +without thinking more on the matter. + +I could see, from the hurried movement of lights along the pier, that +boats were rapidly leaving for the various ships in the harbor. To get +on board any of these, no matter what, or whither bound, was all my +object,--a Tunis pirate or a Malay prow would have been a happy exchange +for the black prison at Malaga. + +I had almost run myself out of breath, when I came up with a knot of +some dozen people who were hastening onward as fast as they could. Two +heavily laden barrows with luggage, and a multitude of cloaks, shawls, +and mantles, pronounced them to be travellers; and I soon collected, +from the expressions dropped by the boatmen, that they were about to +embark in the French steamer for Leghorn. Mingling with the group, +which the darkness freely permitted, I heard a voice say, in English, +something about the weather; and now, listening more attentively, I +picked up that they were an English family hurrying to Pisa to see a son +whose failing health gave them no time for delay. I gathered, too, that +the packet, which should not have started till the next day, was now +leaving suddenly; the captain haviug sent a message to say that he had +determined to put to sea rather than ride out the gale so near shore. + +The travellers were mingling their complaints at this peremptory +summons, with others over the absence of their courier, who had got +leave to see some of his friends about a league away, and must now +inevitably be left behind. In the course of their lamentings, I could +learn that they had only engaged the man the evening before at the +recommendation of the landlord, and had scarcely seen him above a couple +of times. + +In fact, except that he was an Italian, and his name Raffaello, they +knew nothing about him. At last they reached the jetty where the boat +lay, and now I could hear their discussion, whether it were better to +leave the courier's effects behind, or take them on, in the hope that he +might yet come up. + +"He's a smart fellow, and depend upon it he 'll be here before we sail," +said a young man of the party. + +"No, no," cried another, "he 'll never hear a word of the packet till +she's half way to Leghorn." + +"What did you tell him, William?" asked an elderly lady. + +"To be back by six o'clock to-morrow morning," said the first speaker. + +"Ay, but in what language did you speak?" + +"I spoke Italian, and afterwards I said it in French; for he does n't +know one word of English." + +This was all I wanted; I slipped noiselessly away, and, retiring to some +distance behind the party, waited till I saw them descend the stairs +to the boat. This occupied some time, for the party were numerous, and +their trunks and portmanteaus were without end. At last, just as the +word to shove off was given, I dashed forward at the top of my speed, +crying out in Spanish, "Hold fast there! wait for the courier!" + +"What's the matter?" asked one of the Englishmen. + +"A courier, Señhor," said a sailor, "wants to come with us." + +"Oh, Raffaello, by George!" exclaimed the other; "I knew he 'd be up. +Put back, men; he belongs to us." + +"Pardon, signori," said I, stepping lightly over the gunwale, "I have +had a sharp run for it;" and away we went! Seated on a great-coat of +black sheepskin, which from its style and cut I knew must have belonged +to my predecessor, Raffaello, I could see the rapid passage of lights on +the shore in the direction of my late prison, and at last could detect +one glimmering from a part of the building where my cell stood. The roll +of drums beating to arms was soon heard, and it was evident to me that +my escape had become known,--that the garrison of the fortress was on +the alert to recapture me. Although fully a mile from land, and rowing +with all the vigor of twelve stout sailors towards a vessel whose steam +was already whizzing through the escape funnel, my heart almost sunk +within me from very fear; and rather than be retaken I would have jumped +into the boiling tide that swelled and broke around me. + +The sailors more than once relaxed their efforts to watch what was +going forward on shore; and how fervently did I, in silence, curse their +curiosity! Externally, however, I maintained my calm demeanor, and even +ventured to conjecture that a fire must have broken out in the fortress, +such was the commotion and excitement discernible in that quarter. + +Another suggested the possibility of its being some prisoner that +had made his escape,--a notion which I took occasion to ridicule, by +averring that the Carcel was reputed to be the strongest prison in +Spain, and an instance of evasion altogether unknown. + +Thus chatting, we reached the steamer. To my intense delight, the anchor +was already weighed; and scarcely had we mounted the ladder than she +broached round, head to sea, and clove through the water like a fish. + +Every plunge of the great ship shook the strong timbers and made her +huge framework tremble, sending a thrill of pleasure through me. With +each mountain wave that rolled past, I saw my chance of safety increase, +and knew that no boat--manned by Spaniards, at least--would dare pursuit +in such a storm. I had abundant leisure for these reflections, since +my "masters" had only time to get on board when they retired to their +berths, overcome by sea-sickness, so that I was at full liberty to +indulge my own thoughts, and dispose of myself without the slightest +interruption. From a smart little French maid I learned that the family +was called Grimes; that they had recently come from England by way of +Gibraltar, where one of the sons, now with them, was quartered with his +regiment; that the party consisted of a widow lady with three daughters +and two sons, a third being the invalid at Pisa. They were rich, good +sort of folks, very ignorant of the Continent, very credulous, and +altogether a satisfactory kind of connection for a cunning French +_femme-de-chambre_ and a roguish courier to fall in with. This latter +fact Mademoiselle Virginie insisted upon with no small degree of +self-gratulation, giving me to understand that we might have a very +thriving career as fellow-laborers in the same vineyard. + +Her sketches of English life, manners, and prejudices were not a little +amusing, while the rules she laid down for the due management and +control of her masters were a perfect chapter in domestic machiavelism. +There had once been a time when I would have enlisted willingly under +such a banner,--glad to reach the upper story of life, even by such a +back stair; but now that I had tasted the glorious supremacy of command +myself, that I had revelled in the mastery of a great household, that +I had rolled along in my own chariot, clothed in fine linen and +faring sumptuously every day, I felt my return to a menial situation +a degradation unendurable. I determined that, once in Italy, I would +escape from the thraldom of such servitude, come what might of it. + +By long dwelling on the theme, I had contrived to impress myself with +the most profound conviction that I was a much-injured individual, that +my case, if not sufficient for a war with Spain, was a fair ground for a +parliamentary "flare-up," angry diplomatic notes, and Heaven knows what +threats of our outraged Foreign Office. That a man with such a glorious +grievance should sink down into a courier, to wrangle with landlords, +bully waiters, and flirt with the "maid in the rumble," was not to be +thought of. I felt that I was sworn at Highgate, and destined for the +inside of the travelling-carriage, and not the "out." + +Scarcely were we arrived at Leghorn, and installed at the San Marco, +than I began to prepare for my emancipation,--a bold step, considering +that all the available resources I possessed was a ruby ring set round +with brilliants, which I had concealed in my cap along with my papers. +I was admonished to lose no time in my departure, by remarking that +another packet from Malaga was expected within a week, which probably +would convey the rightful courier, in search of his missing baggage, and +I was by no means desirous of being confronted with the real Simon Pure. + +I am not sure that this latter consideration did not weigh most with me +in the matter, since the novelty of my situation and the sense of its +creature-comforts might have induced me to linger a little longer in a +capacity even as humble. With such people as the Grimes's, the courier +was supreme, and his rule despotic. From the hour at which they were to +dine, to what they were to eat,--how they were to spend the day, what +to see, and what to avoid,--were all at his dictation; while from the +landlord came a perfect volley of civilities that plainly showed who was +the real personage to whom adulation was due. If my masters dined on a +chicken, _I_ fed upon ortolans; while _they_ made wry faces over their +"Chianté," I luxuriated on Château La Rose or Chambertin. For _my_ table +were reserved the oysters of Venice, the fresh "sardines" of Gorgona, +the delicate mutton of Pistoja, the delicious Becafica of the Vai +d'Arno, while Piscia was ransacked for my dessert, till I saw myself +surrounded with rarities that even in my great days I scarcely dreamed +of. + +There was a kind of "abandon," too, in this mode of life that pleased me +well,--a delightful sense of irresponsibility pervaded everything I did +or imagined. + +The courier knows nothing of that hesitation which besets his master at +the thought of some costly indulgence. _He_ neither doubts nor denies +himself. The Emperor of Russia may have bespoke the post-horses, +but _he_ knows how to bribe even against the Czar himself, and would +intrigue for the fish intended for a cardinal's Friday dinner. He is +perhaps the only traveller who is indifferent to the bill,--nay, he even +glories in its extravagance, as increasing his own percentage. I was +beginning to see and appreciate all these advantages when caution +admonished me to escape. The real Raflfaello was doubtless already at +sea, and might arrive ere I had evacuated the territory. + +I only waited, then, to see "my family" snugly housed at Pisa, when I +proceeded to tender my resignation. It was very flattering to my vanity +to see the distress my announcement created; they evidently felt like a +crew about to be deserted by the pilot in a difficult navigation. They +were but indifferent linguists, and worse travellers; and I almost +repented of my resolve as I perceived the dismay it occasioned, the +full measure of which I was admitted to witness, since--from my supposed +ignorance of English--they discussed the question very freely in my +presence. + +"Does he say he 's dissatisfied with his situation?" asked the old lady. + +"It is difficult to make out what he means, Mamma," replied a daughter. + +"These fellows are always intriguing for higher wages," observed the +subaltern. + +"Or to engage with people of greater consequence," remarked the second +son. + +"We had better send for the tutor, Mamma; he speaks French better than +we do." + +This proposition--albeit not accepted as a compliment to themselves by +the two brothers--was at last acceded to, and, after a brief delay, the +individual in question made his appearance. To avoid any semblance of +understanding what went forward, I stood in patient silence, not even +turning my head in the direction where the family were now grouped +around the "Dragoman." + +"You are to find out what he wants," said the old lady, eagerly. "Say +that we are perfectly satisfied with him; and if it be an increase--" + +"That he 'll not get a sou more with my consent," broke in the sub. "He +receives already more than a captain in the line." + +"I only know that I never had as much to spend at Cambridge," echoed the +other. + +"They are always extravagantly paid," said the elder daughter. + +"The creatures give themselves such airs," observed number two. + +"And when they are at all well-looking they're intolerable," broke in +number three, who had been coolly scanning me through her eyeglass. + +The tutor by this time had evidently received his instructions in full, +and beckoned me to follow him into a small room adjoining the saloon. +I obeyed; and scarcely had the door closed upon us than I started, and +broke out into an involuntary exclamation of surprise. The individual +before me was no other than my first friend, the kind youth who had +taken me by the hand at the very outset of my career, the student of +Trinity, Dublin, named Lyndsay. + +As I perceived that he did not recognize me, I had time enough to +observe him well, and mark the change which more than twelve years had +wrought upon him. Though still young, anxiety and mental exertion had +worn him into premature age. His eye was dulled, his cheeks pale and +sunken, and in his manner there was that timid hesitation that stood +abashed in the presence of my own cool effrontery. I could see easily +that the man of thought and reflection was succumbing before the man +of action and of the world, and I was selfish enough to revel in the +triumph. + +In a low, diffident voice he proceeded to ask me if there was anything +in the nature of my situation that induced me to quit a service where I +had given the fullest satisfaction. + +I replied by an easy caress of my long black moustache, and a certain +expressive gesture of the shoulders, meant to convey that my objections +were of a nature that did not admit exactly of discussion,--rather +questions of delicate personal feeling than of actual difficulty. Hinted +that I had rarely served anything less than a royal highness, and feared +that I should be likely to injure myself,--of degenerating into an +easy and familiar manner, by associating with those so nearly of my own +level. + +I saw the blood mantle in the pale cheek of the student as he listened +to this impertinence, and thought that I could mark the struggle that +was passing within him, while, in a calm, collected tone, he said that +those were questions on which he could not give any opinion, and that +if I desired to leave, of course no further objections would be offered. +"Might I ask," added he, with a manner where a most courteous politeness +prevailed,--"might I ask what are the qualifications of a person in your +condition of life?" + +"I think," replied I, "that I appreciate the meaning of your question. +You would ask by what right a man humbly born, educated to mere menial +duties, can aspire to the position and the pay a courier claims. I +am willing to tell you. To begin, then: He must be familiar with +the geography of Europe,--I speak here of the merely Continental +courier,--he must know the boundaries, the high roads, the coinage, +the customs, the privileges of every petty State, from the smallest +principality of Germany to the greatest sovereignty of a Czar. He must +know the languages, not as scholars and grammarians know them, but in +all their dialects and 'patois.' It is not enough that he has learned +the tongue in which Dante wrote, or Metastasio sung, he must speak +Venetian and Milanese, Neapolitan and Piedmontese. He should know the +Low German of the Black Forest, the Wiener dialect of the Austrian, and +talk every gradation of French, from the frontiers of Flanders to the +vine-groves of Provence and Auvergne. He must be as familiar with every +city of Europe as though it were his birthplace; with the churches, +the galleries, their monuments, and their history. He must know the +delicacies of each land, and every rarity it can produce for the palate +of the epicure. He must be a connoisseur in wine, pictures, china, +cuisine, statuary, engravings, armor, ancient furniture, manuscripts, +horseflesh, the drama, and Bohemian glass; able to pack a trunk, +or expatiate upon a Titian; to illustrate a fresco, to cheat a +custom-house, to bully a prefect, make an omelette, ride postilion. +These, with a running knowledge of international law and the Code +Napoléon, and some skill in all the minor operations of surgery,--these +are a brief summary of a courier's qualifications." + +"And do you tell me, friend," said he, earnestly, "that you can do all +this?" + +"Indifferent well," said I, carelessly. "There are, doubtless, others +who have gained a higher proficiency in the craft; but as I am still +young, I'll not despair of future eminence." + +He heaved a deep sigh, and leaned his head upon his hand. + +I fancied I could read what was passing in his mind, and, at a +haphazard, said, "You are contrasting the catalogue with that of your +own acquirements, and perhaps asking yourself, to what end all the +midnight toil of scholarship? Why have I labored hard, with aching brow +and fevered heart, when one with vulgar attainments like these,--the +scattered fragments, the crumbs that fall from the table of real +knowledge,--can secure a better livelihood and more real independence +than myself; and the reason is, mine are marketable wares that find +purchasers in every class, and among every gradation of society. 'My +lord' must have his courier; so must the rich cotton-spinner or the +barrister on his wedding-tour. The wealthy dowager, the blooming widow, +the ex-minister travelling for 'distraction' the young heir journeying +for dissipation, the prelate, the banker, the ruined duke, the newly +enriched mill-owner,--all, however differing in other points, agree in +this one want, and must have one who will think for them and speak +for them, bargain and bully for them, assert their rank and importance +wherever they appear; so that of the obstacles of travel, its +difficulties and contrarieties, they should know as little as though +their road lay between London and Croydon." + +"Still, it is a puzzle to me," sighed the young man, "how these +people achieve the attainments you speak of. Even a smattering of such +knowledge would seem to require both time and study." + +"They have but a smattering," said I; "yet it is gained exactly in +the very school where such small proficiency goes farthest,--'the +world'--and which you will one day discover has its sources of +knowledge, its tests of ability, ay, and its degrees of honor, marked +out as palpably as Oxford and Cambridge. There is this advantage, too, +sir, over the university,--the track in which you are to travel +is marked out for you; you must not stray to the right or to the +left,--while in 'the world' the field of direction is wide, open, and +expanded; there's a path for every one, if they 'll only look for it." + +He started as I said these words; and as his cheeks flushed up, he +said, "I remember once upon a time hearing those very words from a poor +friendless boy in my own country. He was setting out, as he said, to +seek his fortune, and his whole stock in life was the hope inspired by +that sentiment." + +"And what became of him?" + +"I never could learn. He disappeared suddenly; and whether he enlisted +into some regiment abroad, or died at home, I never ascertained." + +"Then I can tell you, sir,--he now stands before you, the same whom +once you so kindly succored! the houseless, friendless child whom you +protected and sheltered. I am Con Cregan." + +It would be difficult to describe the bewilderment of poor Lyndsay as I +said this; he sat down, closed his eyes, opened them again, rubbed them, +stared at me, tried to speak, and at last, rising up, grasped my hand +warmly, and cried, "Then, of course, you remember _my_ name?" + +"I could never forget it, Mr. Lyndsay," said I, affectionately. + +This was enough, and he now shook me by both hands with all the warmth +of old friendship. + +As he was madly eager to learn the story of my life, and as I was bent +on my departure by the morning mail for Genoa, we agreed to meet at an +hour when the household had retired to bed; meanwhile, he was to charge +himself with the office of making an explanation to the family, and +informing them that matters of urgency required my presence at Paris +without delay. This agreed upon, we separated. + +The entire night we passed in talking, for he insisted upon hearing my +adventures from the very hour we had parted company in Dublin, down to +the moment we were then seated together. It was evident, at times, from +the tone of questioning, that he accepted several of my statements at +least as doubtful; but gradually, as he discovered my acquaintance +with various languages, the knowledge I possessed of different remote +countries, their habits and natural productions, this incredulity gave +way; and when finally I produced the letters of the Havannah banker, +with the receipts for my instalments, he showed that every shade of +hesitation had vanished, and that he no longer entertained a doubt of my +veracity. + +As the hour of separating drew nigh, he turned the subject to my own +immediate requirements; and although I assured him that my ring, which +I had already disposed of, was sufficient for all immediate wants, he +insisted upon my accepting a loan of one hundred dollars, to be repaid, +as he himself said, "when I resumed my countship." These were his +parting words as I ascended to the roof of the diligence. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI A NEW WALK IN PROGRESSIVE LIFE + +I will not trespass on my reader's patience with the details of my +journey, nor ask him to form acquaintance with any of those pleasant +travelling companions whose whims, caprices, and merry fancies lightened +the road. The company of a diligence is a little world in all its +features of selfishness, apathy, trustfulness, credulity, and unbelief. +It has its mock humilities and absurd pretensions even more glaringly +displayed than every-day life exhibits them. Enough, then, if I say +ours were fair specimens of the class; and when, on arriving at the +Messageries Royales, the heavy "conveniency" deposited us in the court, +we shook hands all round ere separating, like people who were well +pleased when together, but yet not broken-hearted at the thought of +parting. + +And now I found myself at Paris, that glorious capital, whose very air +is the champagne of atmospheres, and where, amid the brilliant objects +so lavishly thrown on every side, even the poor man forgets his poverty, +and actually thinks he has some share in the gorgeous scene around him. +I heaved one heavy sigh from the very bottom of my heart as I thought +what might have been the condition in which I could once have rolled +along these same streets; and with this brief tribute to the past, I +trudged along towards the Embassy. All my hope lay in the prospect of an +interference on the part of the English Government, and the demand of an +indemnification for my loss. + +After some little delay, and a slight catechizing on the part of a bulky +porter in scarlet livery, I was admitted to a room where a number of +people, chiefly couriers and "Laquais de Place," were assembled, to +obtain signatures or passports, and who were summoned from time to time +to enter an inner chamber where the official sat. _My_ turn came at +length, and, with a heart almost swelling to suffocation, I entered. + +"For England, I suppose," said a pale young gentleman, with black +moustaches, not looking up from the table, where he sat reading his +"Galignaui." + +"No, sir, mine is not a passport case. I am here to make a charge +against the Spanish Government for false imprisonment and spoliation." + +The young gentleman raised his head, and stared at me fixedly for a +couple of seconds, and then, in the most silvery of accents, said, "Be +good enough to repeat what you have said." + +I did so; adding, "As my case has occupied the attention of the +Foreign Office for some time back, you may possibly have heard of my +name,--Count Cregan." + +The youth sprang up from his chair, and hastened into another room, +whence I could hear loud shouts of laughter immediately proceeding. + +"No, no, Barrington," said a deeper and an older voice; "I don't want to +see the fellow, and I advise you to get rid of him at once. He 'll be +a bore to us every day of the week, if you give him the slightest +encouragement." + +"But is there really nothing in his case?" + +"Nothing whatever; he is a downright impostor." + +"But Puzzleton certainly corresponded with him.'' + +"Of course he did, to prevent the Opposition making a handle of his case +in 'the House;' but he soon saw the whole thing was a trumped-up charge, +and as we want to go on smoothly with the Madrid Government, it would be +absurd to disturb our relations for the sake of a fellow like this." + +"Oh, that's it," said the _attaché_, catching a faint glimmering of the +secret machinery of diplomacy. + +"To be sure," added the other; "if we wanted a grievance, that man's +would do as well as another; but there is no need to hold him over, we +can always catch the Spaniards tripping when we want it. My advice is, +therefore, get rid of him. Say that he must embody his statement in the +form of a memorial, supported by whatever he can adduce in the way of +evidence; that a personal interview can lead to nothing; and, in fact, +dismiss him in the usual way." + +And with these lucid instructions,--given in a tone far too loud to be +diplomatic,--the _attaché_ returned to the room where I waited. + +"You 'll have to reduce this to writing, Count Cregan," said he, +standing with his back to the fire, and assuming an air that he fancied +was quite that of a Talleyrand,--"something in the form of a memorial, +you understand." + +"I have already done so, unsuccessfully," said I, shortly. + +"Ah, wasn't aware," sighed the young gentleman, stroking his moustache. + +"The Secretary of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the receipt of my +statement, and at one time held out some hope of redress." + +"Ah, indeed!" echoed the other. + +"The state of our relations with Spain, however," added I, "not +requiring a grievance just then, my case was naturally shelved." + +He started, bit his lip, and evinced unmistakable signs of being ill at +ease. "In fact," resumed I, growing warmer as I proceeded, "no further +notice was taken of me than what barely sufficed to take my case out +of the hands of Opposition members. I was assumed to be an impostor, +because the moment was not favorable to believe me honest. Good +diplomacy, perhaps, but rather lax morality. Now, sir, I have lost _my_ +cause,--that is quite evident; let us see if _you_ have gained _yours_. +The press is the great vindicator of individual wrongs, and I 'll make +its columns the arena in which this struggle shall be decided." + +"Be good enough to wait one instant,--take a seat, Count," observed the +young gentleman, in his very politest of tones, while he hastily retired +into the inner room once more. This time the conversation was so low +that not a whisper reached me. After a few seconds he re-entered. + +"Your case will be inquired into, Count, and representation made to the +Spanish minister at this court. May I ask where you are staying here?" + +"I have not yet taken up my residence at Paris." "Your passport is +of course with the police?" I bowed an assent, while a sudden thought +flashed across me. "They mean to send me out of the country!" The +_attaché_ had twice said "Good morning," ere I remarked it, and with a +hurried leave-taking I quitted the room, well aware of the folly into +which a momentary fit of passion had betrayed me. + +It was palpable enough,--my passport would at once offer a ground for my +expulsion: I was an English subject, travelling on a Spanish passport. I +must, of course, expect to be disowned by the Spanish minister, and not +acknowledged by my own. + +This was a sorry beginning, and I sauntered out into the streets in a +very depressed state of mind. What was I to do? My funds were at a low +ebb,--I had not above four hundred francs in the world. Into what +career could I throw myself, and, while obtaining a livelihood, avoid +discovery? I knew various things, in that smattering sort of way which, +by the aid of puffing and notoriety, often succeeds with the world; but +yet notoriety was the very thing I most dreaded! There was nothing for +it but to change my name. Many would doubtless say that this was not any +great sacrifice,--need not have cost me any very poignant sufferings; +but they would be wrong. I had clung to my name through all the changes +and vicissitudes of my fortune, as though it embodied my very identity. +It was to make that humble name a great one that I had toiled and +struggled through my whole life. In that obscure name lay the whole +impulse of my darings. Take that from me, and you took away the energy +that sustained me, and I sunk down into the mere adventurer, living on +from day to day, and hour to hour, without purpose or ambition. I had +borne my name in the very lowest passages of my fortune, hoping one day +or other to contrast these dark periods with the brilliant hours of my +destiny. And now I must abandon it! "Well, be it so," thought I, "and, +by way of compromise, I 'll keep half of it, and call myself Monsieur +Corneille; and as to nationality, there need be little difficulty. +Whenever a man talks indifferent Spanish, he says he is from the Basque. +If he speaks bad German, he calls himself an Austrian. So I, if there be +any irregularities in my regular verbs, will coolly assert that I am a +brave Belge and a subject of King Leopold; and if humility be a virtue, +this choice of a native land ought to do me credit." + +I raised my head from my musings at this moment, and found myself at +the corner of the Rue Goguenarde, exactly opposite a house covered with +placards and announcements, from the street to the third story, a great +board with gilt letters, over the entrance, proclaiming it the "Bureau +des Affiches" for all nations. Nor was the universality a mere pretence, +as a single glance could show the range of advertisements, taking +in everything, from an estate in Guadaloupe to a neat chamber in the +Marais; from a foundry at Lyons to the sweeping of a passage in the Rue +Rivoli. All the nostrums of medicine, all the cheap appliances of the +toilet, remedies against corpulence, perventives to extreme emaciation, +how to grow hair, how to get rid of it, governesses, ballet-dancers, +even ladies "with suitable portions and great personal attractions," +were all at the command of him rich enough to indulge his indolence. +"There must surely be something applicable to me in all those varied +wants," thought I; and I entered a great room where several knots of men +and women, of different ranks and conditions, were gathered around large +tablets of advertisements. + +Some were in search of lost articles of dress or jewelry, a runaway +child or a missing spaniel; some inquiring for cheap apartments, or +economical modes of travel with others going the same road: but the +greater number were in pursuit of some means of livelihood,--and what +a host they were! Professors of every art, science, and language; +journalists, poets, tenors, gardeners, governesses, missionaries, +rope-dancers, frail little damsels who performed as goddesses in a +pantomime, and powerful fellows who performed the "life-models" of +academies, together with a number of well-dressed gentlemen of a certain +age who announced themselves as "discreet friends to any party engaged +in a delicate and difficult transaction." + +My heart sunk within me as I saw the mass of capability by which I was +surrounded. "What could the world want with me," thought I, "in such a +glut of acquirements as I see here?" And I was about to turn away, +when my attention was drawn to a very little elderly man who was most +importunately entreating one of the clerks to do him some service or +other. The old man's eagerness was actually painful to witness. "I will +sell it for a mere nothing," said he, "although it cost me five hundred +francs!" + +"You'll be fortunate if you get one hundred for it," said the clerk. + +"I would accept of even one hundred,--nay! I'd take eighty," sighed the +old man. + +"So you ought," said the other. "These things are all at a discount now; +men like more active and energetic situations. Retirement is not the +taste of our day." + +"Retirement!" thought I; "that may be exactly what would suit _me_ at +this moment," and I drew near to listen. + +"Find me a purchaser with seventy francs," ejaculated the old man, "and +I'll close with him." + +"What is it, Monsieur?" said I, bowing civilly to both. + +"A 'quatorzième,' sir," said the clerk, interposing, that he might earn +his commission, in the event of a deal. "A quatorzième; and I am bound +to say one of the best in this quarter of Paris. It takes in the Rue +de la Chuine, the Place de la Boucherie, with a very large sweep of the +Boulevard Mont Parnasse." + +"A quatorzième!" cried I, in amazement; "I never heard of any one living +so high up. Are there really houses in Paris fourteen stories high?" + +They both burst into a fit of laughter as I said this, and it was some +time ere the clerk could recover his gravity sufficiently to reply; at +last he said, "I perceive that Monsieur is a stranger to Paris and its +ways, or he would know that a quatorzième is not an apartment fourteen +stories high, but an individual who holds himself always in readiness +at the dining-hours of his neighborhood, to make the fourteenth at any +table, where, by accident, the unlucky number of thirteen should be +assembled,--a party which every well-informed person would otherwise +scruple to sit down with. This, sir, is a quatorzième; and here is a +gentleman desirous of disposing of his interest in such an enviable +property." + +To my question as to what were the necessary qualifications, they both +answered in a kind of duet, by volubly recapitulating that nothing was +needed but a suit of black, and clean gloves; unobtrusive demeanor and +a moderate appetite being the certain recommendations to a high +professional success. I saw the chief requirement well,--to eat little, +and to talk less; to come in with the soup, and go out with the salad; +never to partake of an _entrée_, nor drink save the "ordinaire:" these +were the duties; the reward was ten francs. "It used to be a Napoleon, +Monsieur," said the old mau, wiping his eyes. "In the time of Charles +the Tenth it was always a Napoleon; but these 'canailles' nowadays have +no reverence for anything; I have known even the ministry dine thirteen +on a Friday,--to be sure, the king was fired at two days afterwards for +it; but nothing can teach them." + +The old gentleman grew most communicative on the subject of his "walk," +which he was only abandoning in consequence of the rheumatism, and +the difficulty of ascending to dinner-parties on a high elevation. He +depicted with enthusiasm the enjoyments of a profession that demanded, +as he observed, so little previous study, was removed from all the +vicissitudes of commerce, pleasant in practice, and remunerative in pay. +He also insinuated the possible advantages to a young and handsome +man, who could scarcely fail to secure a good marriage, by observing a +discreet and decorous demeanor; and, in fact, he represented his calling +in such a light as at least to give me the liveliest curiosity to enter +upon it for a brief space, and while meditating what future steps I +should take in life. + +That same afternoon I saw myself announced at the porter's window of +a very shabby-looking house in the Rue de la Forge as "Monsieur de +Corneille,"--the "de" being advised by my predecessor,--"Quatorzième +prêt à toute heure," and thus opened my professional career. I was told +that it was all important in my vocation that I should not be seen much +abroad in the world. There should be a certain mysteriousness about me, +when I appeared at a dinner-table, that might permit the host to speak +of me--to strangers--as his old friend the Baron de So-and-so, who +rarely ventured out even to dine with him. In fact, I should be as +guarded against publicity as though I were a royal personage. This +was not a hard condition at the time, since I was desirous of escaping +notice. I passed all my mornings, therefore, in writing--sometimes +memorials to a minister, sometimes statements for the press; now, they +were letters to the banker at Guajuaqualla, or to Don Estaban, or to +the great firm at the Havannah. The cost of postage deterred me from +despatching most of them, but I continued to write them, as though to +feed the cravings of my hope. When evening drew nigh, I abandoned the +desk for the toilet; and having arrayed myself in most austere black, +waited for the summons which should invite me to some unknown feast. +I have often perused records of the early struggles of a professional +life,--the nervous vacillations between hope and fear which haunt him +who watches day after day, for some time, that he is not forgotten +of the world; the fretful jealousies of the fortunate rival; the sad +depression over his own failures; the eager watching lest the footfall +on the stairs stop not at his door, and the wearisome sinking of the +heart as the sounds die away in the distance, and leave him to the +silence of his own despair. If I had not to feel the corroding regrets +of him who has toiled long and ardently for the attainment of a +knowledge that now lies in rust, unused, unasked for, unwanted, I had to +learn what are his tortures who waits till the world call him. + +There I sat in all my "bravery." What a contrast between my sleek +exterior and the half-famished creature within! Sometimes my impatience +would break out into a fit of passion, in which I railed at the old +knave who had entrapped me, at fortune that deserted me, at myself, who +had grown indolent, and void of enterprise. Sometimes I became almost +stupid by long reflection, and would sit to a late hour of the night, +unconscious of everything; and sometimes I would actually laugh outright +at the absurdity of my assumed calling, wondering how I ever could have +been fool enough to embrace it. + +The world had evidently grown out of its superstitions; republicanism +and socialism, and all the other free and easy notions by which men +persuaded themselves that the rich are thieves, and the poor the just +inheritors of the gains, had knocked down many a mock idol besides +monarchy. Men no longer threw a pinch of salt over their left shoulder +when they upset the salt-cellar; did n't pierce their egg-shell, lest +the fairies might make a boat of it; and so, among many other remains of +the custom of our ancestors abandoned, they sat down to dinner, careless +whether the party were thirteen or thirty. + +"I might as well try and revive astrology," thought I, "as seek to trade +upon superstition in this unbelieving age! I doubt if all Paris contains +another quatorzième than myself; the old villain knew the trade was +ruined, when he sold me his 'goodwill' of the business." + +I was in the very deepest and darkest abyss of these gloomy thoughts +one evening, when a heavy down-pour of rain, and the sorrowful moan of +a December wind, added melancholy to my wearied spirit. It was such +a night that none would have ventured out who could have claimed the +humblest roof to shelter him. The streets were perfectly deserted, and, +early as it was, the shops were already closed for the night. The very +lamps that swung to and fro with the wind, looked hazy and dim amid +the sweeping rain, and the chains clanked with the dreary cadence of a +gibbet. + +I knew it was needless to go through the ceremony of dressing on such a +night. "Better face all the imaginary terrors of a thirteen party than +brave the real danger of a storm like this,"--so I reasoned; and, in all +the freedom of my tattered dressing-gown, I paced my room in a frame of +mind very little above despair. "And this in Paris," cried I; "this the +city where in some hundred gilded saloons,--at this very moment--are met +men brilliant in all the gifts of genius, and women more beautiful and +more fascinating than the houris of Paradise. Wit and polished raillery, +bright glances and soft smiles, are now mingling amid the glitter of +stars, and crosses, and diamonds; while some thousands, like me, are +actually famishing with hunger,--too poor even to have a fire to thaw +the icicles of despair that are gathering around the heart!" + +Had it not been better for me if I had lived on in the same humble +condition to which I was born, than have tasted of the fascinations of +riches, to love and pine after them forever? No! this I could not agree +to. There were some moments of my glorious prosperity that well repaid +me for all I had, or all I could suffer for them; and to whatever depth +of evil destiny I might yet be reserved, I should carry with me +the delicious memory of my once happiness. Con Cregan--the +light-hearted--was himself again! Con,--the vagrant, the passionate +lover of whatever life offered of pleasure, of beauty, and of +splendor,--who only needed a good cash account with Coutts to make his +existence a "fairy tale"! I forgot for a moment that I lived in a mean +chamber with a broken window, a fireless grate, a table that never was +graced with a meal! a bed that resembled a "board," and a chair, to sit +upon which without smashing, required the dexterity of a juggler! + +A sharp knocking at my door cut short these meditations, and a voice at +the same time cried out my name. "Come in," said I, authoritatively. I +fancied it might be the landlord, and was not sorry to brave him--by the +darkness. The door opened, and a figure, which even in the gloom I could +perceive was that of a stranger, entered. "Monsieur de Corneille lives +here?" said he. + +"I have the humble honor to be that individual," responded I. + +"Have you got no light? I have smashed my shins across a confounded +chair," said he, querulously. + +"You 're all safe now," said I; "keep round by the wall, but take care +of the rat-trap near the corner." + +"Let's have a light, mon cher," said the other, half coaxingly. + +"I never have a light," said I; "I detest glare, hate snuffing a candle, +and can't endure the thought of patronizing Russia and her tallow." + +"Could n't we have a bit of fire, then?" asked he. + +"Fire before Christmas!" exclaimed I. "Are we in Tobolsk? What Sybarite +talks of fire in Paris at this season?" + +"I really am ambitious of seeing you, Monsieur," said the other: "can we +not compass this object without any violence to your feelings?" + +"Have you a cigar-case?" said I. + +"Yes." + +"Well, strike a light; and here 's a letter which you may set fire to: +you can thus make an inspection of me by 'inch of paper.'" + +He laughed pleasantly at the conceit, and lighted the letter, by the aid +of which, as he held it above his head, he took a rapid survey of the +chamber and its contents, myself being the chief movable it boasted. + +"Of a truth, my friend," said he, "this apartment has nothing +superfluous about it." + +"Cool and airy," said I, calmly, "with a magnificent view of red-tiled +roofs and chimney-pots." + +"And you--would it be an impertinence to ask if you ever condescend +to the restriction of anything more limited than that very graceful +dressing-room?" + +"Oh, certainly!" exclaimed I; "only be good enough to say why you ask +the question." By this time the stranger's torch had burned down so +close to his fingers as to cause an exclamation of pain as he threw it +on the ground, and thus were we once more in the dark. + +"Not from mere motives of idle curiosity, Monsieur," said he, "did +I ask, but simply, having come here to request the pleasure of your +company at dinner to-day. I made the inquiry with a direct object. My +name is Paul de Minérale." + +"Not the distinguished writer, the inimitable novelist, the delightful +composer of the 'Curate's Niece,' 'The Path through the Vineyard,' 'The +Rose of Auteuil'?" + +"I am much flattered," said he, cutting short my enumeration, "to +discover so ardent an admirer of my poor productions; but, as time +presses, will you be good enough to hasten your toilet, for my 'cottage' +is near Belleville, and will take us nigh an hour to reach." + +I proceeded accordingly to array myself in cleaner costume, while my +visitor kept up an agreeable conversation, chiefly bearing upon my line +of life, the changeful passages of which, he seemed to think, ought to +offer much amusement; nor could he conceal his astonishment on learning +that he himself was my first and only client. "What an age we live in +I" cried he; "where is that 'ancient faith' departed? Can men so openly +disparage the gods?" + +"Though my theology has been changed," said I, "that's all. The Bourse +and the Ballet are the modern deities, and he must be a rare sceptic who +refuses to believe in them." + +"You are a philosopher, I perceive," said he. + +"Only before dinner," replied I. "I am speculative with the soup, and +grave with my 'petit pâté;' reserved with the first entrée; blandly +communicative after the pièce de résistance; playful over the asparagus +or the peas; soothing with the rôti; and so descend into a soft and +gentle sadness as the dessert appears. I leave digestion to take its +course, waiting for my mocha and maraschino. In the drawing-room I blaze +forth in all the vividness of agreeability." + +"What could have induced one so evidently intended for a foreground +figure to prefer the humble and shadowy part of a 'quatorzième '?" said +he, in surprise. + +"The 'Res Dura' that crosses every man's destiny, and a spice of that +spirit of investigation which teaches one to explore very unwholesome +depths and very unrewarding regions,--a blending of that which made the +Czar a carpenter, and Louis Philippe a teacher of mathematics." + +"Ah! that reminds me," interposed he, "that I ought to put you on your +guard. To-day a Royal Prince will honor us with his company. There are +a couple of ministers and a general. The rest of the party are of +the artiste class, whose susceptibilities you cannot wound; authors, +actresses, journalists, and danseuses, however touchy in the great +world, are angels of good temper in small societies." With this he +proceeded to give me a nearer insight into the kind of company into +which I was to be introduced,--a society, so far as I could learn, that +a rigid moralist might have deemed "more fair than honest." I learned, +too, that I owed the distinction of my invitation to a wager between his +Royal Highness the Duc de St. Cloud and my host; the bet being that De +Minérale was to find out a "quatorzième" and bring him to dinner, his +search for one not to begin till after five o'clock p.m.; the Prince +being fully convinced that no regular practitioner in that walk any +longer existed. "Your presence, my dear sir," continued he, "is worth, +independent of the charm of your conversation, fifty Napoleons; +one-half of which I must beg you to accept;" saying which, he gracefully +presented me with a purse, whose pleasant weight descended into my palm +with a sensation indescribably soft and soothing. + +All this time we were rattling along towards Belleville at a rapid pace; +and although the rain swept past in torrents, the lightning flashed, and +the wind tore the strong trees from their roots, and strewed the ground +with their gigantic limbs, I sat in a revery of sweet and delightful +fancies, the only alloy to my ecstasy being a passing fear that at +each moment shot through me: Can this be real? Am I awake? or has +long fasting so weakened my faculties that this is but a delusion; and +instead of hastening to a dinner-party with a royal guest, I am speeding +onwards to a prison, or, mayhap, a madhouse. These fancies, at first but +fitful and at intervals, became at length so distressing that I was on +the very point of communicating them to my companion, and asking for his +counsel and comfort, when we drove into a small avenue, and then almost +immediately drew up in front of a porch, where, amid a blaze of light, +stood three or four servants in gaudy liveries, awaiting our arrival. + +"Well, Paul!" cried a young, fashionable-looking fellow, with a very +imposing black beard, "what success?" + +"I 've won,--here he is!" cried my companion. "Have I much time to +spare?" + +"Something less than two minutes," said the other, as he coolly surveyed +me through his glass. "Present me, Paul." + +"Mons. Alphonse de Langeron--Mons. de Corneille." + +"The author of the 'Fancies by Starlight,'" said I, bowing with a most +respectful devotion. + +"Guilty, sir! and of fifty other indiscretions to the full as great," +said he, laughing. + +"Ah, sir, I know it by heart; that stanza on the 'Waled Letty' haunts me +like a dream." + +"Sharp fellow, our friend the 'quatorzième'!" whispered Alphonse to Paul +as we walked along towards the drawing-room. + +How I should like to dwell upon the details of that dinner, the most +delightful entertainment of my whole life! It needed not the sudden +transition from the dark and dreary chamber I inhabited to the gilded +saloon, all in a blaze with wax-lights, to make me feel it such. The +"service" was splendid--the cookery perfection--the wines the rarest of +every vintage--the apartment itself had all the chastened grandeur of +a mediaeval chamber, with the gorgeous splendor contributed by a +magnificent beauffet of silver;--and the guests! what beauty and +fascination of female loveliness--what charm of wit and agreeability +among the men! The great damper upon my enjoyment was my actual doubt of +the reality of the whole scene. It was not, alone, that all the splendor +appeared so wonderful--that the glitter of gold and the beauty of +porcelain dazzled the eye; but the very names of the illustrious guests +themselves suggested incredulity. What wonder if I could not credit my +senses, as I heard the first names in all the genius of France on every +side of me! Here, the great historian, and philosopher, and statesman; +there, the delightful lyric poet; yonder, the first novelist of Europe; +and next to him the distinguished painter, whose great battle-piece +was in commemoration of the young Prince beside him, a hero of +"two-and-twenty." + +Nothing could be more easy or familiar than the tone of +conversation,--that happy pleasantry that tickles but never wounds, so +unlike the English propensity for "quizzing"--that vulgar version +of Gallic "badinage;" and then how eloquent, without pedantry, how +sparkling, and how suggestive! Ah, my kind reader, I see the rippling +smile over the broad Atlantic of your countenance. You have guessed all +the secret of my enthusiasm, and you know the mystery of my admiration. +Be it so; I am ready to confess all. It was my own success that made +the chief enchantment of the scene. I was the lion of the evening. Not +a theme on which I did not hold forth, not a subject I did not +discuss,--politics, bull-fighting, cookery, dress, literature, duelling, +the ballet, horse-racing, play, scandal, naval tactics, colonization, +cotton-spinning, music, railroads, and the "dry-rot." I was profound, +playful, serious, jocose, instructive, and amusing by turns. Madmlle. de +la Bourdonaye, the first actress of the "Français," was charmed with my +dramatic criticism; the poet--enthusiastic at my recital of a stanza +of his own; the general pronounced me the very best judge of cavalry +evolutions he had ever met; the great painter begged the favor of a +visit from me at his studio; and the Prince's aide-de-camp--himself a +distinguished soldier--told me, in a whisper, to hold myself disengaged +for the following Wednesday. + +These were, after all, but the precursors of greater triumphs in the +drawing-room, where I played and sang several Mexican ballads; danced +the Bollero with Madmlle. Rose Jasmin, of the Grand Opéra; and lassoed +a Mount St. Bernard mastiff with the bell-rope. After this, beat the +statesman at chess; rolled up Indian cigarettes for the ladies, whom +I taught to sit squaw fashion; told various anecdotes of my prairie +adventures; and wound up all by concocting a bowl of "ponch à +l'Américaine," at once the astonishment and the delight of all. I must +not suffer myself to dwell longer on this theme, nor speak of that +supper, with its champagne and culembourgs, its lyrics and its lobster +salads, with ortolans, epigrams, seductive smiles, and maraschino jelly. +Enough. The orgies--for it was no less--lasted till nigh morning; and +when we arose from table, a pale streak of coming day was struggling +between the margins of the curtains. + +"His Royal Highness will set you down, Mons. de Corneille," said the +aide-de-camp, advancing to me. + +Blushing with pleasure and shame together, I accepted what could not be +declined, and proceeded to take leave of my kind host and his friends. +Cordial greetings, and flattering wishes soon to meet again, met me on +every side, and I retired actually overwhelmed with civil attentions. + +"Do we pass by your quarter, Monsieur?" said his Royal Highness, as I +took my seat in the carriage. + +I would have given all my worldly wealth, and expectations to boot, to +be able to say that I lived in the Place Vendôme or the Rue Royale; but +there was no help for it, the murder would out one day, since my host +knew my address; and with an easy, unabashed air, I said that I lodged +in the Rue de la Forge, near the Mount St. Parnasse. + +The Prince bowed, and took no notice of the announcement; but I +thought that I could read a very peculiar twinkle in the eye of the +aide-de-camp. I might have easily been mistaken, however, for I +felt myself on my trial, and thought everything an accusation. How +gratuitously I tortured myself, subsequent knowledge of life has +repeatedly convinced me; for while to some upstart rich man, the +acknowledgment of my humble abode would have been a shock sufficient +to sever us forever, to the Prince the matter had no other significance +than that it suited my means, with which, whether ample or the reverse, +he had no right to meddle. Indeed, I was not sorry to remain in +doubt upon the fact, since in the difficult negotiation between the +aide-de-camp and the coachman, who had never so much as heard of my +unhappy street, his Royal Highness never evinced any surprise whatever, +but sat patiently to the end of the discussion, without vouchsafing even +a word upon the subject. + +"This must be the house, number 21,748," said the chasseur, at length; +and we drew up at the well-known door, where the old porter sat reading +on one side, while his wife was peeling carrots at the other. + +It was the first moment of confusion I suffered, since I had left the +same spot; but my cheek was in a flame as the lacquey let down the +steps, and offered me his arm to descend. The lowly veneration of the +old porter, as he stared at the royal liveries and the emblazoned panels +of the carriage, was but a sorry compensation for the mock servility of +the chasseur, whose eyes seemed to look through into my very heart, +so that I actually did not hear the parting words of the Prince as the +equipage drove away. + +Curious anomaly! the half-insolent glances of the lacqueys sank deeper +into my spirit than the flattering smile of the Prince's adieu. How +much more alive is our nature to the pang of scorn than to the balm +of kindness! These were my reflections as I entered my humble chamber, +every portion of which seemed doubly miserable to me now. "Is it +possible," thought I, "that I have endured this hitherto? Have I really +sat in that crazy old chair, and stretched my limbs upon that wretched +pallet? Can it be real? or which is the delusion,--my recent splendor, +or my present squalor?" Although up all night, I was far too much +excited for sleep, even could I have persuaded myself to seek it on so +humble a couch. I therefore set myself to think over the future, and +wonder whether the brilliant scene in which I had so lately mixed would +remain in its isolated brightness amid the desolation of my life, or +be the guide-star to future greatness and distinction. My late success +emboldened me to think that Fortune had not yet deserted me. "Who +knows," thought I, "but the Spaniards may behave handsomely yet, and +make restitution of my property; or what if the Mexican banker should be +a true man, and acknowledge my claim upon him?" "If I could but enlist +the Prince in my cause," thought I again, "how certain should I be of +the issue! French influence always was powerful in Spain. Napoleon used +to say, 'There were no Pyrenees;' I should be content if there were only +a good road over them to convey the despatches that might assert my just +right." + +A quick step upon the stairs at that instant caught my ear; few ever +ascended so high up as my story, so I listened, and almost at once my +door was thrown open, and my host of the preceding evening rushed into +the room. Having shaken hands with me cordially, he said, "Corneille, +mon ami! I have made another wager about you; and although the sum is +a trifling one, I am curious to ascertain if I am the winner. Jules de +Montserrat and Emile de Gency and myself had a dispute last night about +your nationality, which ended in a bet. I am bound in honor not to tell +you what our several opinions and guesses were, but still at liberty to +ask you, what is your native country?" + +"I am an Irishman, and derive my name from the ancient family of +Cregan. Cornelius is but my Christian name, which I assumed to cover the +disgrace of my altered fortune." + +"As to our wager, then, we were all in error,--none of us guessed +Ireland. As to your being a man of birth and station, I need scarcely +say, we were all agreed." + +"Would it were otherwise," said I, with a deep sigh; "a humble position +might be endured well enough, if unalloyed by the regrets of a condition +forfeited forever. If you are curious to hear a very unhappy story, I am +willing to relate it." + +"You couldn't do me a greater favor," said he, seating himself like one +eager to listen. + +"First, then, we'll have some breakfast," said I; "and then, with a good +fire and no fear of interruption,--for I have not one acquaintance in +Paris,--you shall hear my history from beginning to end." + +Chocolate and cutlets, champagne and devilled kidneys, brioches, +sardines, and coffee, made their appearance as rapidly as though such +delicacies were in the habit of daily mounting these steep stairs; and +a cheerful blaze glowed once more in a grate where the oldest inhabitant +had never beheld a fire. + +These preparations being made, we began our meal, and I opened my +narrative. The reader must not feel offended with me if I ventured to +draw upon my imagination for the earlier facts of my history. Nature had +not been generous to me in the article of a father: what great harm if +I invented one for myself? Fortune had placed my birth beneath the +thatched roof of an Irish cabin: was it not generous of me to call it +the ancient baronial seat of the Cregans? She started me poor and in +rags: I was above repining, and called myself rich and well-nurtured. +But why weary my reader with such a recital? If it was necessary to +raise the foundation on fiction, the after-events of my career I was +satisfied to state pretty nearly as they happened, merely altering the +reasons for my journey to the New World, which I ascribed to my search +after a great inheritance belonging to my family, who were originally +from Andalusia, and grandees of Spain. + +"And this of course you failed in," said my friend, who rather felt +this portion of my story less interesting than certain other and more +stirring passages. + +"On the contrary," said I, "I succeeded perfectly. I not only +discovered the banker in whose hands my family wealth was deposited, but +established my claim most satisfactorily, and received a very large +sum in gold, with bills to a high amount on various mercantile houses, +besides leaving in his hands an important balance, for which I had +no immediate necessity." After a slight sketch of my Mexican +progress,--very little embellished or exaggerated,--I narrated my +voyage to Europe and my capture at Malaga exactly as they occurred, +circumstantially recording every detail of name and date I could +remember down to the very moment of my reaching Paris. + +"One question more, my dear friend," said M. Paul, after some fifty very +searching interrogatories, as closely argued as the cross-examination +of a counsel at law. "One question more, and I have done. I know you 'll +not be offended at the liberty I am about to take,--nay, I feel you 'll +be even gratified with my candor. Tell me frankly, as between man and +man, is there one word of truth in all this, or is it not downright +moonshine,--sheer invention from beginning to end?" + +I started to my legs, my face crimson with anger, but, as suddenly +recovering myself, said, "You were right, sir, to bespeak a degree of +command over my feelings before you ventured upon this freedom, which if +I cannot altogether pardon, yet I will not resent." + +"So it is true, then," said he, with a degree of melancholy in his voice +I could not fathom. + +"Of course it is," rejoined I. + +"Sorry to hear it; deeply, sincerely sorry,--that's all," replied he, +in the self-same manner; "I cannot express to you one-half of my +disappointment." + +"Sorrow! disappointment!" exclaimed I. "May I ask what possible interest +you could have in supposing me to be an impostor and a cheat?" + +"Hard names these," said he, laughing, "but I will explain myself. If +the story that you have just told me were fiction, I could give you +three hundred francs a day to write feuilletons for the 'Débats.' If +one-half of it were even invention, you 'd be worth two hundred on the +'Siècle' or the 'Presse;' say you stole the material, and you 'd still +do admirably for the 'Mode.' + +"Are you--so conversant with a hundred thousand things--ignorant that +the grand principle of division of labor has extended itself from +the common arts of manufacture to the operations of genius; and that, +nowadays, no man would think of composing an entire work himself, any +more than he would of turning mason, carpenter, slater, locksmith, and +glazier, were he about to build a house? On the contrary, having fixed +upon the site, and determined the proportions of his future edifice, he +surrounds himself with competent and skilful hands in all the several +walks of constructiveuess, reserving to himself that supervision and +direction which could not be practicable were he engaged in actual +labor. Thus is he a master-builder in fiction, selecting his artificers, +storing his materials, apportioning the quantity, keenly watching the +variations in public taste, and producing at last a mass and variety +that no one brain--however fertile and assiduous--could be capable of. +This," said he, drawing himself up proudly, "this is my walk. By the aid +of this discovery,--for it is mine, and mine only,--I am enabled to +draw tears in the 'Débats,' and convulse with laughter in the +'Constitutionnel;' and while writing of the torrid zone in one journal, +I have an Icelander as my hero in another. Men stare at the range of my +knowledge of life under aspects so various and discordant; and well may +they wonder, were I to draw upon my own unassisted faculties. But it is +men like you, Cregan, I want,--shrewd, sharp, ready-witted dogs; quick +to remark, and quicker to report. What say you, then, will you join my +corps in the fiction-foundry over which I preside?" + +"Were I but capable--" + +"You are eminently so. We need no literary ability, no craft of +authorship,--no more than the child who picks the wool in the factory +is called on to direct the loom that weaves it into cloth. Let me +finish the article; I 'II give it the gloss for sale! What say you? Five +thousand francs a year, free admission to every theatre in Paris, and a +dinner at 'La Trou aux Bois '--where you dined yesterday--every Sunday?" + +"A bargain," cried I, in ecstasy. + +"Concluded by both parties, who thus acknowledge their hand and seal," +cried he, tossing off a glass of champagne; and then, rising from the +table, he prepared to take his leave. "I conclude," said he, "that you +'ll not continue your residence here much longer. Seek out some quarter +less near to heaven, and more accessible to poor human nature." + +I promised to follow the advice, and we separated: he to repair to his +haunts,--the cafés, the editorial snuggeries, and other gossip shops of +Paris; and I to seek out a more congenial abode, and one more befitting +the favorable turn which Fate had now imparted to my fortune. + +The afternoon of that same day saw me installed in a pleasant little +apartment overlooking the garden of the Luxembourg, and where, from a +little terrace, I could inhale the odor of the orange blossoms, and see +the children at play amid the plashing of fountains and the waving +of the tall grass. It was, as I discovered, the quarter of the whole +artiste class,--poets, painters, actors, sculptors, feuilletonists, and +caricaturists; nor was it difficult to ascertain the fact, as a certain +extravagance of beard, various modifications of hat, and peculiarly cut +coats and trousers presented themselves at every moment. Resolving +to don "the livery of my race," I made my appearance in a suit of +coffee-brown, hat and russet boots to match; as for beard, a life of +seclusion for several weeks had only left me the task of retrenchment; +and the barber whose services I invoked had but to ask my career to +impress me with that artiste stamp that makes every full-faced man a +mock "Holbein," and every thin one a bad Vandyke. + +"The novelists wear it straight across, and square below the chin, sir," +said he. "This is a plate of Monsieur Eugène Sue; but there is a certain +dash of energy about Monsieur's eyes--a kind of 'beauté insolente,' if I +may be pardoned the phrase--that would warrant the beard to be pointed. +May I venture to trim Monsieur as Salvator Rosa?" + +"Use your own discretion, Monsieur Palmyre," said I; "the responsibility +is great, and I will not clog it by even a suggestion." + +To say that I could not have known myself on arising from his hands is +no exaggeration, so perfectly changed had my features become in their +expression. As a disguise, it was perfect; and this alone was no small +recommendation. + +As I walked the alleys of the Luxembourg, where at every instant men +travestied like myself came and went, I could not help recalling the +classical assertion that "no two augurs could meet face to face without +laughing," and I wondered excessively how we artistes surveyed each +other and preserved even a decent gravity. + +My career as a _litterateur_ began the next day, and I received a +short editorial summons from the office of "La Tempête" to furnish a +feuilleton of a hundred and twenty-four lines; the postscript adding +that as Admiral Du Guesclin had just arrived from Macao, some "esquisses +des moeurs Chinoises" would be well timed. Of China I only knew what a +lacquered tea-tray and the willow pattern could teach me; but I set to +work at once, and by assuming my sketches to be personal adventures and +experiences, made up a most imposing account of Chinese domesticity. + +The article had an immense success: the air of veracity was perfect; and +the very officers of the fleet were so deluded by the imposition as +to believe they must have frequently met me at Shang-kee-shing or +Fong-wong-loo. + +Thus was I launched into a career, of all others the most amusing, the +most exciting, and, I must also add, the most dissipated. Living apart +from all mankind in a little circle of our own, where we only recognized +the world as we ourselves were pleased to paint it, our whole lives were +one long scoff and sneer at everybody and everything. Friendship meant +the habit of meeting at dinner; the highest nobility of soul was his who +paid the reckoning. + +If there was little actual happiness among us, there was certainly no +care nor any touch of sorrow. A great picture condemned, a poem cut to +pieces, a play hissed off, only suggested a "souper de consolation," +when the unlucky author would be the first to cut jokes upon his own +failure, and ridicule the offspring of his own brains. Who could look +for sympathy where men had no feeling for themselves? Even thieves, the +proverb tells us, observe "honor" with each other; but we were worse +than thieves, since we actually lived and grew fat upon each other's +mishaps. If one exhibited a statue at the Louvre, another was sure to +caricature it for the Passage de l'Opéra. If one brought out a grand +drama at the Français, a burlesque was certain to follow it at the +Palais-Royal. Every little trait that near intercourse and familiarity +discloses, every weakness that is laid bare in the freedom of friendly +association, were made venal, and worth so much a line for "Le Voleur" +or "L'Espion." + +As to any sulking, or dreaming of resenting these infractions, he might +as well try to repress the free-and-easy habits of a midshipman's berth. +They were the "masonry of the craft," which each tacitly subscribed to +when he entered it. + +All intercourse was completely gladiatorial, not for display, but for +defence. Everlasting badinage on every subject and on everybody was the +order of each day; and as success was to the full as much quizzed +as failure, any exhibition of vanity or self-gratulation met a heavy +retribution. Woe unto him whose romance went through three editions in +a fortnight, or whom the audience called for at the conclusion of his +drama! + +As for the fairer portion of our guild, being for the most part +ostracized in general society, they bore a grudge against their sex, +and affected a thousand airs of mannishness. Some always dressed in male +attire; many sported little moustaches and chin-tufts, rode man-fashion +in the Bois de Boulogne, fought duels; and all smoked. Like other +converts, they went farther in their faith than the old believers, and +talked Communism, Socialism, and Saint Simonianism, with a freedom that +rose high above all the little prejudices ordinary life fosters. + +If great crimes, such as shock the world by their enormity, were quite +unknown among us, all the vices practicable within the Law and the Code +Napoléon were widely popular; and the worst of it all was, none seemed +to have the remotest conception that he was not the beau-ideal of +morality. The simple fact was, we assumed a very low standard of +_right_, and chose to walk even under _that_. + +With Paris and all its varied forms of life I soon became perfectly +familiar,--not merely that city which occupies the Faubourg St. Honoré, +or St. Germain, not the Paris of the Boulevards or the Palais-Royal +only, but with Quartier St. Denis, the Batignolles, the Cité, and the +Pays Latin. I knew every dialect, from the slang of fashion to the +conventional language of its lowest populace. I heard every rumor, +from the cabinet of the Minister down to the latest gossip of the +"Coulisses:" what the world said and thought, in each of its varying and +dissimilar sections; how each political move was judged; what was the +public feeling for this or that measure; how the "many-headed" were +satisfied or dissatisfied, whether with the measures of the Ministry, or +the legs of the new danseuse; and thus I became the very perfection of +a feuilletoniste. There is but one secret in this species of +literature,--the ever-watchful observation of the public; and when it is +considered that this is a Parisian public, the task is not quite so easy +as some would deem it. This watchfulness, and a certain hardihood +that never shrinks from any theme, however sacred to the conventional +reserves of the general world, are all the requisites. + +I have said it was a most amusing life; and if eternal excitement, if +the onward rush of new emotions, the never-ceasing flow of stimulating +thoughts, could have sufficed for happiness, I might have been, and +ought to have been, contented. Still, the whole was unreal. Not only was +the world we had made for ourselves unreal, but all our judgments, all +our speculations, our hopes, fears, anticipations, our very likings and +dislikings! Our antipathies were mock, and what we denounced with all +the pretended seriousness of heartfelt conviction in one journal, we not +unfrequently pronounced to be a heaven-sent blessing in another. Bravos +of the pen, we had no other principle than our pay, and were utterly +indifferent at whom we struck, even though the blow should prove fatal. +That we should become sceptical on every subject; that we should cease +to bestow credence on anything, believing that all around was false, +hypocritical, and unreal as ourselves, was natural enough; but this +frame of mind bears its own weighty retribution, and not even the +miserable victim of superstitious fear dreads solitude like him whose +mind demands the constant stimulant of intercourse, the torrent of new +ideas, that whirls him along, unreflecting and unthinking. + +It will be easily seen that all my narrative of myself met but little +faith in such company. They unhesitatingly rejected the whole story +of my wealth; and my future restoration to rank and riches used to be +employed as a kind of synonym for the Greek calends. The worst of all +this was, their disbelief infected even me, and I gradually began to +look upon myself as an impostor. My hope--the guide-star that cheered +me in many a dark and gloomy period--began to wane, and I felt that ere +long all those aspirations which had spirited me on in life would lie +cold and dead within me, and that my horizon, would extend no further +than where each daily sun sunk to rest. To show any discontent with my +walk, to evince in the slightest degree any misgivings that we of "La +petite Presse" did not give laws to taste, morals, jurisprudence, and +legislation, would have been high treason. To imply a doubt that we held +in our hands, not alone the destinies of Paris, but of Europe,--of all +civilization,--would have been a rank and outrageous heresy. Like the +priest, the journalist can never unfrock himself. The mark of the ink, +more tenacious than the blood on Lady Macbeth's fingers, will "never +out." What, then, could I do? For, wearied of my calling, I yearned +for a little truth, for a new glimpse of reality, however short and +fleeting. + +Full of these thoughts, I repaired one morning to the Trou-aux-Bois, +where fortunately I found my friend Paul alone,--at least, except three +secretaries, to whom he was dictating by turns, he had no one with him! +"Wait till I have finished this 'Attack of Wolves on a Caravan,'" said +he, "and the 'Death of Jules de Tavanne by Poison,' and I 'm your +man. Meanwhile, step into my study; there are masses of newspapers and +letters which you can read freely." + +He did not detain me long. Apparently the wolves were weak, and soon +beaten off, and the poison was strong, and soon did its work; for he +joined me in less than half an hour. + +My explanation was listened to patiently, and, what surprised me more, +without astonishment. He saw nothing exaggerated or high-flown in the +difficulties I started, and even went the length of confessing that +many of my objections had occurred to his own mind. "But then," said he, +"what is to be done? If you turn soldier, are you always certain that +you will concur in the justice of the cause for which you fight? Become +a lawyer, and is not half your life passed in arraigning the right and +defending the wrong? Try medicine; and where will be your 'practice' +if you only prescribe for the really afflicted, and do not indulge the +caprices and foster the complainings of the 'malade imaginaire '? As an +apothecary, you would vend poisons; as an architect, you would devise +jails and penitentiaries; and so to the end of the chapter. Optimism is +just as impracticable as it is dangerous. Accept the world as you find +it, not because it is the best, but because it is the only policy; and, +above all, be slow in changing a career where you have met with success. +The best proof that it suits you is, that the public think so." + +Being determined on my course, I now affected a desire to see life in +some other form, and observe mankind under some other aspect. To this +he assented freely, and, after a few moments' discussion, suddenly +bethought him of a letter he had received that very morning. "You +remember the Duc de St. Cloud, whom you met at dinner the first day you +spent here?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Well, he was, as you are aware, ordered off to Africa, to take a high +military command a few days after, and has not since returned to France. +This day I have received a letter from him, asking me to recommend some +one among my literary acquaintances to fill the office of his private +secretary. You are exactly the man for the appointment. The duties are +light, the pay liberal, the position agreeable in every way; and, +in fact, for one who desires to see something of the world which the +Boulevard du Gent and the Café de Paris cannot show him, the opportunity +is first rate." + +The proposal overjoyed me! Had I been called on to invent a post for +myself, this was exactly the thing I should have fancied. A campaign +against the Arabs; the novelty of country, people, and events; a life of +adventure, with a prince for my companion,--these were the very crowning +desires of my ambition. + +"I 'll write about it this very day: there will be a mail for Algiers +made up this evening, and not a moment shall be lost in making the +application." + +I could not express one half my gratitude for this opportune kindness; +and when I again turned my steps toward Paris, my heart had regained the +buoyant elasticity which had so often lifted me above all the troubled +waves of life. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. MOI ET MON PRINCE + +In less than a fortnight after the interview I have just recorded, I +received a letter from De Minérale, enclosing another, addressed +to himself, and whose royal seal at once proclaimed the writer. De +Minérale's was only a few lines, thus:-- + + + "Dear C,--I forward you the 'Duke's' reply to my note, by + which you will see that we have been in time, and fortunate + enough to secure your appointment. Lose not a moment in + fulfilling the instructions contained in it, and dine with + me to-day at the 'Frères,' at seven. + + "Yours, + + "P. deM." + + The Duke's epistle, almost equally brief, was to the effect: + + "Headquarters, Oran. + + "My Dear De Minérale,--Of course I remember perfectly our + friend the 'Quatorzième,' whose lucubrations in the journals + I have since been much amused with. In some respects he + would suit me well, being a fellow of high animal spirits, + great readiness, and, if I mistake not, well fitted for the + rough usage of a campaign. But it strikes me that if his + position be such as you represent it, the exchange would be + anything but profitable. This is a land of few pleasures and + no luxuries. Tell him that we never see truffles, that + champagne is only a tradition, and, except Moorish damsels, + who never show us more of their faces than a pair of eyes,-- + --darting fire and anger,--we have no beauties. Yet if, + despite all these drawbacks, he be still willing to tempt + his fortune, and trust to 'a razzia' for the rest, let him + call on Count du Verguoble, at the 'Ministère de la Guerre,' + where he will find everything in readiness for his + appointment. + + "Should he desire it, he can also receive his commission in + my own regiment, the 13th Chasseurs-à-cheval; and as he will + not be called on for duty, he might as well accept an + appointment that will at least give him forage for his + horses and some other advantages. + + "Send me all the new things that are out, and tell me what + you and Alphonse are doing. 'Mes amitiés' to our fair + friend in the Rue Ponchaule, and the like--indiscriminately-- + to all the others. + + "Yours affectionately, + + M. dk St. C. + + "You call him 'Le Comte de Creganne,' and so I have written + it for the Minister: is this right?" + +I read and re-read the letter till I knew every sentence of it by heart; +and then, dressing myself with a degree of care the importance of the +occasion suggested, I drove off for the Minister's office. It was not +the hour of his usual reception; but on sending in my name, which I did +as Le Comte de Creganne, I was at once admitted. + +His Excellency was all smiles and affability, praised his Royal +Highness's selection of a name so greatly honored in literature, and +paid me many flattering compliments on my writings,--which, by the +way, he confounded with those of half-a-dozen others; and then, after a +variety of civil speeches, gently diverged into a modest inquiry as to +my native country, rank, and fortune. "We live in days, mon cher Comte," +said he, laughing, "in which high capacity and talent happily take +precedence of mere lineage; but still, an illustrious personage has +always insisted upon the necessity of those immediately about the person +of the princes being of noble families. I am quite aware that you can +fulfil every condition of the kind, and only desire such information as +may satisfy his Majesty." + +I replied by relating the capture of my property at Malaga, which, +among other things, contained all the title-deeds of my estates, and +the patent of my nobility. "These alone," said I, producing the banker's +letters addressed to me as Condé de Cregano, "are all that remain to me +now to remind me of my former standing; and although, as born a British +subject, I might at once apply to my minister to substantiate my claims, +the unhappy events of Ireland which enlisted my family in the ranks of +her patriots have made us exiles,--proscribed exiles forever." + +This explanation went further than my previous one. The old French +antipathy to England found sympathy for Irish rebellion at once; and +after a very brief discussion, my appointment was filled up, and I was +named Private Secretary to the Duc de St. Cloud, and Lieutenant in the +13th Regiment of Chasseurs-à-cheval. + +A new career had now opened before me, and it was one of all others the +most to my choice. The war in Africa had become by that time a kind of +crusade; it was the only field where Frenchmen could win fame and honor +in arms, and the military fever of the nation was at its height. Into +this enthusiasm I threw myself ardently; nor did it need the stimulation +derived from a new and most becoming uniform to make me fancy myself a +very Bayard in chivalry. + +A truly busy week was spent by me in preparations for departure: as I +had to be presented at a private audience of the Court, to wait upon +various high official personages, to receive instructions on many +points, and, lastly, to preside at a parting dinner which I was to give +to my literary brethren, before retiring from the guild forever. + +Last dinners and leave-takings are generally sad affairs; this of +mine was, however, an exception: it was a perfect orgie of wild and +enthusiastic gayety. All the beauty which the theatres and the "artiste" +class generally could boast, was united with the brilliancy and +convivial excellence of the cleverest men in Paris,--the professional +sayers of smart things, the ready-witted ones, whose epigrams were +sufficient to smash a cabinet, or laugh down a new treaty; and all in +high spirits, since what promoted me, also left a vacancy in the corps +that gave many others a step in the ranks of letters. + +What speeches were made in my honor, what toasts, prefaced by all +the exaggeration of praise that would have been fulsome, save for the +lurking diablerie of fun that every now and then burst forth in the +midst of them! And then there were odes, and sonnets, and songs, in +which my future achievements were pictured in a vein half-flattering, +half-satirical,--that peculiar eau sucré, with a squeeze of lemon, that +only a Frenchman knows how to concoct! + + + +During one of my most triumphant moments, when two of the very prettiest +actresses of the "Odéon" were placing a laurel crown upon my brow, +a cabinet-messenger was announced, and presented me with an order to +repair at once to the Tuileries with my official letter of appointment, +as his Majesty, by some accident, had forgotten to append to it his +signature. Apologizing to my worthy friends for a brief absence, which +they assured me should be devoted to expatiating on those virtues of +my character which my presence interdicted them from enlarging upon, I +arose, and left the room. It was necessary to arrange the disorder of my +dress and appearance, and I made a hurried dressing, bathing my +temples in cold water, and composing myself, so far as might be, into +a condition fit to meet the eyes of royalty,--two of my friends +accompanying me the while, and lending their assistance to my toilet. +They at length pronounced me perfect, and I drove off. + +Although already past midnight, the King, with several members of the +royal family, were seated at tea: two of the ministers, a few general +officers, and a foreign ambassador being of the party. + +Into this circle, in which there was nothing to inspire awe, save +the actual rank of the illustrious personages themselves, I was now +introduced by the Minister of War. "Le Comte de Creganne, please your +Majesty," said he, twice, ere the King heard him. + +"Ah, very true," said the King, turning round, and, with a smile of most +cordial expression, adding, "My dear Count, it seems I had forgotten +to sign your appointment,--a mistake that might have caused you some +inconvenience and delay at Algiers. Pray let me amend this piece of +forgetfulness." + +I bowed respectfully, and deposited before him the great square +envelope, with the huge official seal annexed, that contained my +nomination. + +"The Princess de Verneuil will be happy to give you some tea, Count," +said the King, motioning me to sit down; and I obeyed, while my heart, +beating violently at my side, almost overpowered me with emotion. +Only to think of it!--the son of an Irish peasant seated at the family +tea-table of a great sovereign, and the princess herself, the daughter +of a king, pouring out his tea! + +If nothing short of the most consummate effrontery can maintain a cool, +unaffected indifference in presence of royalty, there is another frame +of mind, indicative of ease and self-possession, perfectly compatible +with a kingly presence; and this is altogether dependent on the manner +and tone of the sovereign himself. The King--I have heard it was his +usual manner--was as free from any assumption of superiority as would +be any private gentleman under his own roof; his conversation was +maintained in a tone of perfect familiarity with all around him, and +even when differing in opinion with any one, there was a degree of +almost deference in the way he insinuated his own views. + +On this occasion he directed nearly all his attention to myself, and +made Ireland the subject, asking a vast variety of questions, chiefly +regarding the condition of the peasantry, their modes of life, habits of +thinking, education, and future prospects. I saw that my statements were +all new to him, that he was not prepared for much that I told him, +and he very soon avowed it by saying, "These, I must own, are not +the opinions I have usually heard from your countrymen, Count; but I +conclude that the opportunities of travel, and the liberalism of thought +which intercourse with foreign countries begets, may lead you to take +views not quite in accordance with mere stay-at-home politicians." +I could have given him another and more accurate explanation of +the difference. It was the first and only time that his Majesty had +conversed with the son of a peasant,--one, himself born and bred beneath +the thatch of a cabin, and who had felt the very emotions which others +merely draw from their imaginations. As it grew late, his Majesty arose, +and the Ministers one by one retired, leaving me the only stranger +present. "Now, Count, I must not detain you longer; you leave Paris +early to-morrow morning, and I should have remembered how large a +portion of your night I have monopolized. This paper,--where is it?" + +I at once took up the envelope, and drew forth a document; but conceive +my horror when I discerned that it was a piece of verse,--a droll song +upon my new dignity that one of my villanous companions had stuffed into +the envelope in place of my official letter of appointment. Crushing it +in my hand, I pulled out another. Worse again! It was the bill-of-fare +of our dinner at Very's, where "entrées" and "hors-d'ouvres, salmis and +macédoines," figured in imposing array. One document still remained, and +I drew it out; but as his Majesty's eyes were this time bent upon me, +I had not a moment to see what might be its contents,--indeed, I half +suspected the King saw my indecision; and, determining to put a bold +face on the matter, I doubled down a blank piece of the paper, and +placed it for his Majesty. Apparently his thoughts were wandering in +some other direction, for he took up the pen abstractedly, and wrote +the words, "Approved by us," with his name in a routine sort of way that +showed he gave no attention to the act whatever. + +It was all I could do! To avoid any indecent show of haste in enclosing +the paper within the envelope, my hand trembled so that I could scarcely +accomplish it. When I had replaced it in my pocket, I felt like a +drowning man at the moment he touches land. + +The King dismissed me with many flattering speeches, and I returned to +Very's, where my friends were still at table. Resolved not to gratify +the triumph of their malice, I affected to have discovered the trick in +time to remedy it, and to replace my appointment in its enclosure. Of +course the possibility of what might have occurred gave rise to many +a droll fancy and absurd conceit, and I plainly saw how very little +compunction there would have been for my disaster if a ludicrous scene +had ensued between the king and myself. + +We separated now, with all the testimonies of sincere affection,--some +of my fair friends even wept; and our parting had all the parade and +about the same amount of sincerity as a scene in a drama. Paul alone +showed any real feeling: he liked me probably because he had served +me,--a stronger bond of affection than many people are aware of. "Tell +me one thing, Creganne," cried he, as he shook my hand for the +last time,--"we are perhaps never to meet again, life has so many +vicissitudes,--tell me frankly, then, if your Mexican history, your +riches and gems and gold, your diamonds, your rubies, your doubloons, +and your moidores, are not all a humbug, together with your imprisonment +in Malaga, and all its consequences?" + +"True, every word of it," said I, impressively. + +"Come, come, now, your secret is safe with _me_. Be open and +above-board; say honestly that the whole was a 'get up.' I promise you +fairly that, if you do, I 'll have a higher value for your talents at +an episode than I now place upon your lost wealth and your countship to +boot." + +"I'm sorry for it," replied I; "there are few men whose esteem I set +more store by. If I could oblige you by becoming a cheat, my regard for +you might possibly overmaster my better judgment; but, unhappily, I am +what I represent myself, and what I trust one day yet to convince you." +With this we parted. As the diligence drove away, I could see Paul still +standing in the same place, evidently unable to resolve the difficult +problem of my veraciousness. + +And now I am approaching a chapter of my history whose adventures +and chances are alone a story in themselves. The varied fortunes of +a campaign in a strange land, with strange enemies, new scenes and +climate, of course were not without incidents to diversify and interest +them; and although I could probably select more passages of curious +adventure from this than from any other portion of my life, I am forced +to pass by all in silence; and for these reasons: first, the narrative +would lead me to a greater length than I have any right to presume upon +in this history, or to believe that my reader would be a willing party +to; and, secondly, the recital would entail the acquaintance with a +vast variety of characters, not one of whom ever again occurred to me +in life, and of whom, when I quitted Africa, their very names never were +heard by me more. And here I may be pardoned for saying that I have been +sadly constrained, in these my Confessions, to avoid, upon the one hand, +any mention of those persons who merely exercised a passing influence +on my fortunes, and yet to show by what agencies of personal +acquaintanceship my character became formed and moulded. In a novel, the +world would seem to consist of only the very characters introduced, +or, rather, the characters serve as abstractions to represent certain +qualities and passions of mankind; but in real life is this the case? +Nay, is it not precisely the reverse? Do not the chance intimacies we +form in the steamboat or the diligence very frequently leave deep and +lasting impressions behind them? Are not phrases remembered, and words +treasured up as axioms, that we have heard passingly from those we are +never to see again? Of how many of our strongest convictions the origin +was mere accident,--ideas dropped like those seeds of distant plants +that are borne for thousands of miles upon the wind, and let fall in +some far-away land to take root and fructify? And are these the agencies +to be omitted when a man would give a "confession" to the world? Why are +the letters of an individual his best biography, save as recording his +judgment upon passing events or people, with whom, in all likelihood, +he has little subsequent connection? But enough of this; I have said +sufficient for apology to those who see the difficulty of the case. To +those who do not, I have been prolix without being profitable. + + + +Of Africa, then, I must not speak. Three years of its burning sun and +parched soil--the life of bivouac and battle--had done the work of ten +upon my constitution and appearance. I was bronzed almost to a Moorish +tint; a few straggling hairs of gray showed themselves in my dark beard +and moustache; while emergencies and hazards of different kinds had +imparted a sterner character to my features, that little resembled the +careless gayety of my earlier days. In addition to this, I was wounded: +a sabre cut received in defending the Prince from an attack of +Arab horsemen had severed the muscles of my right arm; and although +encouraged to believe that I should yet recover its use, I was for the +time, at least, totally disabled, and as incompetent to wield a sword +as a pen. A very flattering mention of me in "general orders," my name +recorded in a despatch, and the ribbon of the "Legion," well rewarded me +for these mishaps; and now, as a season of peace intervened, I was about +to return to France with the rank of "Chef d'Escadron" and the fame of +a distinguished officer. As the Prince, my master, was to make a tour +in the provinces before his return to Paris, permission was given me to +visit Italy, whither the physician advised me to repair to recruit my +strength, before adventuring upon the trials of a more northern climate. +The "Duc" overwhelmed me with kind protestations at parting, and gave me +a letter to the French Minister at Naples, especially commending me to +his friendship, and speaking of my services in terms that my modesty +cannot permit me to repeat. Thus was Fortune once more my friend; and +could I have but obliterated all memory of the past, and of those fatal +riches,--the brief enjoyment of which had given an impulse to all my +desires,--I might now have been well contented. High character as a +soldier, a certain rank in the service, and the friendship of a Royal +Prince, were not trifling advantages to one who had often sued destiny +with success, even "_in forma pauperis_;" still, the "great game" I +should have played, as the man of large fortune, was never out of my +thoughts, and in secret I resolved to return to Mexico, and, as the +phrase has it, "look after my affairs." + +This determination grew more fixed the longer I considered it; and +here I may remark that the document to which the King had appended his +signature and approval was a statement of my claims on Spain, drawn up +by myself,--one of those hundred representations which I made, in idle +hours, to while away time and amuse hope. If I was well aware that the +signature was obtained by a mere accident, and without knowledge of the +contents, I was not deterred from speculating as to what useful purpose +it might be employed,--scruples of conscience being of all things in the +world those I best knew how to dispose of. + +On reaching Naples I discovered that the Envoy to whom my letter was +addressed had just been recalled, and in his place a young Secretary of +Embassy was officiating,--one of those admirably dressed and inimitably +gloved young gentlemen whom France despatches to foreign countries +as representatives of her skill in neckcloths and waistcoats, and her +incomparable superiority in lacquered leather. Monsieur de Bussenaç was +a veritable type of Paris dandyism,--vain, empty, and conceited, with +considerable smartness in conversation, and unquestionable personal +courage; his life was passed in abusing England and affecting the most +ludicrous imitation of all that was English,--in dress, equipage, and +livery. + +Although my name was not unknown to him, he received me with the +condescending courtesy the diplomatist usually assumes in his +intercourse with the soldier: protested his regret that the gay season +was over, that Naples was thinning every day, that he hardly knew where, +or to whom, to present me. + +I assured him that pleasure was not among the ambitions of an invalid +like myself; but, next to the care of my health, one of my objects in +Naples was to press a claim upon the Spanish Government, to which +the residence of a Spanish Minister of high rank at that court gave a +favorable opportunity; and with this preface I gave a brief history of +my loss and imprisonment. The young Chargé d'Affaires looked horridly +bored by my story, of which, it was clear, he only heard a very small +part; and when I concluded, he made a few notes of my statement, and +promised to see the Spanish Ambassador upon it that very day. + +I believe that my experience is not a singular one; but from the moment +that I announced myself as a person claiming the aid of the "Mission," +the doors of the Embassy were hermetically sealed against me. If I +called, "His Excellency" (everything is Excellency to an embassy porter) +was either in conference with a colleague, or replying to a despatch, or +with the court. If I wrote, my answer was always a polite acknowledgment +of my note, and no more. Even when we met passingly in the street, his +salute was cold and markedly distant; so that I began to suspect that +either he had heard something to my disadvantage among his colleagues, +or that he had received some hint respecting me. + +I knew if I were to address the Duc de St. Cloud on the subject, that +my essenced friend would at once receive a check, and possibly a heavy +reprimand; but I was too proud to descend to this, and resolved to right +myself without calling in the aid of others. With this intention, I +repaired one day to the Mission, and having waited for some time, till +I saw a person leave the cabinet, from whom I learned that the Envoy was +at home, I advanced to the door. "Out, sir," said the porter, barring +the way. I pushed him aside, with the air of one who was not to be +trifled with, and, opening the door, walked in. + +Whether it was that the suddenness of my appearance unmanned him, +or that something in my manner showed there was no time for further +deception, he arose to receive me, and handed me a chair. + +"I have come, sir," said I, calmly but resolutely, "to ask if, in the +matter which I intrusted to your hands, any progress has been made, +or if I am still to be the patient recipient of notes which tell me +nothing?" + +"What if there be nothing to tell, sir?" said the young diplomatist, now +recovering his self-possession, and standing with his back to the fire, +in the very easiest of attitudes. + +"I will beg of you to be more explicit," said I. + +"You shall not have to complain of me on that score, sir," said he, with +a most affected air of courtesy; "and, as brevity is the very essence of +clearness, I may as well state that on representing the case of El Condé +de Cregano to the Minister of Spain, he very gravely assured me that +I was inventing a personage, for that no such name existed among the +nobility of his land. The dignity may be recognized in Mexico," added +he, "but the Mexician Minister is equally perverse, and disclaims having +so much as heard of you. I spoke of your wealth and great treasures, +and they actually were rude enough to laugh,--not at you, sir, don't be +angry,--but at _me_. The Spanish Ambassador, indeed, said that nothing +was more common than for Carlist agents of inferior station to assume +styles and titles which might entitle them to greater consideration if +taken prisoner, and that in this wise you might have succeeded to your +countship; but that to real rank, he persisted in asserting you had no +claim whatever. This you must allow, sir, is awkward." + +"For you, certainly, it will prove so," said I, haughtily. "You may rely +upon it, sir, that your career as a diplomatist will end where it begun. +You have dared to insult one whose slightest word could crush you, did +he not feel that such an exercise of influence would be ludicrously +disproportioned to the object it was directed against. There, sir, there +is a written statement of my claim; there a full and explicit demand +for reparation; and there, the signature of your master the King, at +the foot of it. You cannot be ignorant of the hand, nor can you dare to +pretend it is a forgery." + +If my insulting language had brought the flush of anger to his cheek, +this "damning proof" completely overcame all his presence of mind, +and left him in a state of confusion and perplexity that any one, save +myself, must have pitied. + +"The writing is certainly in the King's hand," said he, "and therefore I +am obliged to concede the fact that your claim possesses features I was +not previously aware of; with your leave, then, I will lay this document +before the Spanish Minister--" + +"You shall do no such thing, sir," said I, haughtily; "my asserted right +is just what it was before I showed you that paper; nor shall I stoop to +any corroborative testimony of my claim, even from the hand of royalty;" +and with this impertinent speech I advanced towards the grate and thrust +the paper into the fire, pressing it down into the blaze with my foot, +and watching till I saw it consumed. + +The diplomatist watched me narrowly throughout this brief proceeding, +and I half feared that he had seen through my stratagem, as he said, +"Well, Count, as not a shadow of doubt can exist now as to the authentic +character of your demand, the best course will be to have a personal +interview with the Spanish Ambassador. He 'receives' this evening at his +palace, and, with your leave, we will wait upon him together. Of course +the time and place will not admit of any discussion of this claim, but +you can be presented,--a necessary preliminary to the intercourse that +will follow." + +This all looked marvellously like a trap; but as any doubt or indecision +now would be ruin, I affected to be much pleased with the proposal, and +we parted. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. A SOIRÉE IN THE GREAT WORLD + +It was not without considerable trepidation and great misgiving that I +awaited the evening. What subtlety might be in store for me, I could not +guess; but it seemed clear that the young secretary meditated a heavy +vengeance upon me, and would not lightly pardon the insult I had passed +upon him. + +"I have it," thought I, after long and deep pondering: "his plan is +to introduce me into a great and crowded assembly, with ministers, +ambassadors, and generals, and then, in the face of a distinguished +company, to proclaim me a cheat and impostor. He has doubtless the +train all laid, only waiting for the match; and as the outrage will +be inflicted conjointly and diplomatically, any demand for personal +satisfaction will be vain, while a very slight hint at the Prefecture +would suffice to have me expelled from the country." + +Should I confront this danger, or hazard the risk of such an exposure, +or should I suffer judgment to be given against me by default? What +a trying alternative! In the one case, a peril the greater for +its shadowy, ill-defined consequences; in the other, certain and +irretrievable disgrace! How often did I curse my ambitious yearning +after wealth, that had not left me contented with my own fortune,--the +hard-won, but incontestable, rewards of personal distinction. As the +gallant officer who had gained each step upon the field of battle, and +whose services had claimed the especial notice of his prince, I ought to +have rested satisfied. + +My promotion would have been certain and rapid, and what higher +condition should I dare to aspire to than the command of a French +regiment, or possibly some brilliant staff appointment? Why will not +men look downward as they climb the mountain of life, and see the humble +abyss from which they have issued? Were they but to do so, how many +would be convinced that they had done enough, and not risk all by +striving to mount higher! The son of the poor peasant a General of +Division!--one among that decorated group surrounding the sovereign of a +great nation!--was not this sufficient? And so much assuredly was within +my reach, merely by length of life and the ordinary routine of events! +And yet all this must I jeopardize for the sake of gold! And now +what course should I adopt? My whole philosophy through life had +been comprised in that one word which summed up all Marshal Blucher's +"tactics,"--"Forwards!" It had sufficed for me in many a trying +emergency,--it had cut the black knot of many a tangle;--should I not +still abide by it? Of course. This was not the moment to abandon the +bold policy. + +From the "host of mine inn" I learned that the Spanish minister, whose +receptions were little less splendid than those of the court itself, +occupied a position which in countries of more rigid morality would have +left his salons less crowded. In fact, it was asserted that he owed his +eminent station to his having consented to marry a lady who had once +been the rival of royalty itself in Spain, and whose banishment had +been thus secured. Being still in the full pride of her beauty, and +possessing great wealth, the "scandal" only added to her claim, in a +society where notoriety of any kind is regarded as a distinction. + +She was the reigning belle of the capital. Her word was law on every +theme of fashion and taste; her opinions exerted a considerable +influence on matters of high political bearing; and despite the +ambiguity of her position, she was the arbitress of every claim to +admission into that society which arrogated to itself the name of being +"the best." + +It is needless to say that a station of the kind engenders a species of +tyranny to which the world responds by inventing all manner of stories +and strange histories; and thus the Marchesa de la Norada was by some +proclaimed a natural daughter of the Emperor Napoleon,--by others, of +an English Royal Duke. She was a widow, and the wife of half-a-dozen +personages together. There was not an European court into which she had +not brought discord,--not a cabinet where she had not sown intrigue. Her +beauty had seduced, her gold corrupted, and her wiles entrapped half the +great statesmen of the age; while there was scarcely a crime within the +red catalogue of the law that was not laid to her charge; and yet, +with all these allegations against her, she was more sovereign in that +capital than the rightful queen of the land. This was the presence into +which I was to be introduced to-night, and--I frankly own it--I would +have rather confronted the searching scrutiny of the most penetrating of +men than meet the careless, half-bestowed glances of that woman! nor was +it at all unlikely that to such a test they wished now to subject me and +my pretensions. + +It is far easier for many men to confront a personal danger, the peril +of life or limb, than to meet the trying difficulty of a slight before +the world. To myself, the former would be as nothing in comparison. I +could face any amount of peril in preference to the risk of a public +mark of depreciation, and from a woman, too! where redress was as +impossible as reply was useless. + +It was already midnight ere I could muster courage to set out,--not that +the hour was inappropriate, for the Marchesa's receptions only began +when the opera was over. As I drove along the Chiaia, the crowd of +carriages told that this was a night of more than ordinary attraction, +and more than one equipage of the Court passed by, showing that some +members of the royal family would be present. This again terrified me. +Was royalty to be among the witnesses of my shame? When a man's thoughts +do take the turn of self-tormenting, what ingenuity will they not +exhibit,--what astonishing resources of annoyance! I am convinced that +my greatest enemy in life could never have inflicted a tenth part of +that suffering which now I experienced from my own fancies! Among the +thoughts which crossed my mind, one kept continually recurring, and made +an impression that my memory will probably never lose,--it was my doubt +whether I ought not to return and exchange my uniform for plain clothes, +and thus avoid exposing the epaulette of a French officer, and the proud +cordon I wore, to the chances of open insult. + +This question was yet unsolved in my mind as I drove into the court-yard +of the palace. The turmoil and confusion of the scene--carriages +interlocked, poles smashing panels, and horses rearing--was an actual +relief to me, and I would have felt a heart-warm gratitude for any +accident that might have upset half the company, and broken up the +reception in disorder. Such "good-luck" was, however, not in store for +me. My calèche at length drew up at the door, and I handed my card with +my name to the major-domo, who stood at the top of the stairs with an +army of liveried lacqueys around him. "Le Comte de Creganne!" resounded +now through the spacious antechamber, and the voices of others took it +up, and the echo without repeated it, every syllable falling upon my +heart like the bang of a death-bell! + +Although our progress was soon arrested by the dense crowd, and all +chance of moving farther, for a time at least, out of the question, +the lacquey continued to call my name aloud, with what I deemed a most +needless importunity of announcement. At last he ceased, leaving me to +the enjoyment of a momentary tranquillity in mixing with the crowd. It +was indeed but momentary; for the young attaché had made his way through +the throng, and whispered in my ear, "Let us retire this way, and I +'ll lead you by another passage, otherwise you will run a great risk +of never being presented to the Marchesa." I could have told him that +I would have borne even this misfortune like a man; but I did not, and +merely followed him as he led the way through a suite of rooms, of which +only one was occupied, and that by a card-party. + +The buzz and hum of voices apprised me that we were again approaching +the company, and suddenly, on opening a door, we found ourselves in a +small but gorgeously furnished chamber, where three or four ladies and +about a dozen men were assembled, while the main body of the guests +passed through in defile, each stopping to salute and say a few words to +a lady who did the honors of the reception. As her back was towards me, +I could only mark that she was tall, and of an air that was queenly in +state and dignity. The stars and decorations around her showed that +some of the party were princes of the blood, and others, ambassadors and +ministers of state. + +"Wait where you are," whispered my companion; and he moved forward and +entered the crowd. I stood an eager spectator of the scene, in which, +despite all my anxieties, I could not but feel interested. It was the +first great review I had ever witnessed of that fashionable world +whose recognition and acceptance I so ardently coveted. Its slightest +gestures, its least and most insignificant observances, were all +matters of study to me. Every deep reverence, each motion of respectful +courtesy, were things to mark and imitate, and I was storing up many a +hint for future guidance, when I observed that a gentleman, whom I had +rightly conjectured to be a royal prince, appeared to press some remark +upon the "Marchesa," to which at last she replied, "I believe I must +follow your Royal Highness's counsel, and take a few minutes' rest;" +and, so saying, she dropped back from the group, and retired within a +few paces of where I stood. + +"May I beg you to hand that chair, sir," said the Prince to me, and in +a tone in which I own a certain haughtiness seemed to rebuke my want of +thoughtfulness in not presenting it unbidden. I hastened to perform this +service. The lady turned to acknowledge it; our eyes met, and we stood +fixed and rooted to the spot, each speechless and pale with emotion. In +those few seconds I felt as if I had lived years. + +"La Senhora Dias," murmured I, unconsciously to myself. + +"Lupo!" ejaculated she, as if in answer, and she trembled from head to +foot. + +"You have really over-exerted yourself," said the prince, as, taking her +hand, he pressed her down into a seat. + +Her eyes never quitted me for an instant, and the expression of her +features became almost that of agonizing pain as she motioned me to +approach her. "Is it possible that I see before me my old friend the +Duke of------?" She stopped, and, with a look of entreaty I can never +forget, intimated that I should fill up the blank. + +"Le Comte de Creganne, Madame," said I, coming to the rescue, "who is +but too happy to find himself remembered by the Marchesa de la Norada." + +"Very true, Comte; I was confounding you with your constant companion, +the Duke de la Breanza; I hope he is well, and the dear duchess. And +you,--when did you arrive from the Brazils? I trust very lately, or you +have treated me shamefully." + +Rapidly as these words were uttered, they were enough to give me the +"consigne" of what rank my intimate friends held, in what class we met, +and from whence I came. While I replied to her questions, she motioned +me to a seat beside her, and, with a smile and a courteous apology +to the prince for devoting herself to the old friend who had so +unexpectedly presented himself, she dropped her voice to a whisper and +said, "Not now, nor here, but to-morrow we will speak together." + +"Enough," said I, rapidly; "I am your old and esteemed friend the Comte +de Creganne; you are not compromised in calling me so." + +"Nor can your memory fail to recall me as a Lady of Honor at the +Brazilian court!" + +And now some of the company had gathered around us, to most of whom she +presented me, always adding some few courteous expressions, indicative +of our ancient friendship, and of the pleasure she felt at our +unexpected meeting. If I have occasionally given way to those erratic +flights of fancy which led me to believe myself a scion of a noble +house, well born and nurtured, with wealth at my command and a high +station in store, all these delusions were nothing to the creative +efforts of _her_ imagination, who commenced by reminding me of a hundred +people who never existed, and places and incidents which were all as +unreal. How we did bewail the death of some, rejoice over the good +fortune of other "dear, dear friends" who had never breathed! and with +what pleasant laughter we remembered eccentricities and oddities that +once used to amuse us so much! + +Never can I forget the look of astonishment of the young attache as he +came up and found me seated on the ottoman beside the Marchesa, with +her pet spaniel upon my lap, while my whole air was redolent of that +triumphant expression so unmistakably denoting security. + +"I perceive," said he, with difficulty repressing his ill-humor, "that +Madame la Marchesa is acquainted with the Comte de Creganne." + +"For many years, sir, the Comte and I have known each other, and I have +only to own my surprise that none of my friends at Naples ever mentioned +to me the arrival of one in every way so distinguished. But here is the +Marquese; I must present you, Comte." So saying, she introduced me to a +tall, pompous-looking elderly gentleman, who, it is but fair to add, did +not evince half so much satisfaction at sight of me as his wife showed. +And now was I the lion of the evening. I, who had walked the Chiaia +every day for weeks back without notice or recognition, and who might, +had the idea occurred to me, have fallen down and died without one to +pity me,--I became all of a sudden a most "interesting personage"! My +African campaign was exalted into a perfect career of glory, and +even _my_ modesty was pushed hard to accept the praises most lavishly +bestowed upon acts of heroism of which I had not even heard. + +The Duke of Vallabretta, the younger brother of the king, was certain +he had often heard of me from his "friend De St. Cloud." He was quite +positive that I was the officer of dragoons who, with one squadron of +horse, captured "a Smala" defended by twelve hundred Arabs, while fully +one half of the illustrious cruelties of the Oran war was generously +laid to my charge. A dash of atrocity adds immensely to the charm of +heroism in Italian estimation; and so I discovered that various acts of +roasting prisoners, sending a cargo of noses to Toulon, and such like, +were exceedingly popular with the ladies, who regarded me as a modern +"Bayard." + +Not all these sensations of triumph, however, gave me one half the +pleasure that I felt in trampling upon the little French attaché, whom +I persecuted with a proud disdain that nearly drove him mad. All my +ignorance of Neapolitan society, the obscurity in which I had lived +hitherto, I laid at his door. I deplored most feelingly to the prince +the inefficient mode in which we were represented at his court, +and promised to use my influence in effecting a change. I fear my +disposition is not so angelic as I usually conceive it, for I actually +taxed my ingenuity for little subjects of attack against the unlucky +diplomatist, and saw him at length retire from the salons crushed, +crest-fallen, and miserable. + +Another consideration, perhaps, added venom to my malignity: I knew not +how short-lived might be my power, and determined to "make my running +while the course was free." The vicissitudes of fortune had often +reversed in one short day all the prospect I trusted to be the most +stable and certain; and, for the future, I was fully resolved never to +forego the stroke to-day for which my arm might be too weak to-morrow. +As I saw him depart, I felt like a naval hero when his enemy has struck, +and, in the pride of victory, abandoned myself to pleasure. + +If the Marchesa watched me at first with an uneasy and anxious eye, +doubtful, perhaps, how I should acquit myself in that high and polished +world, I soon saw that her fears were allayed as she saw the easy +quietude of my manner, and that tranquil self-possession which is +supposed to be only acquired by long admixture with the world of +fashion. It was evident, too, that if any failure on my part would +entail disgrace, success was just as certain to do her honor and credit, +since I was a strong rebutting evidence against all those who denied +that the Marchesa was ever known or recognized before in the high +circles of a court. + +"To-morrow, at noon," said she, as I made my bow at parting; and it was +not likely I should forget the appointment. + +It was with very different feelings I drove up to the palace of +the Marchesa on the day following, from those I had experienced on +approaching it on the evening of the reception; nor was I long without +perceiving that my confidence was well founded. The Groom of the +Chambers received me with his most bland courtesy, and by his manner +showed that he expected my arrival. + +Preceding me through a suite of rooms whose magnificence I had not time +to observe on the previous evening, he ushered me into a small chamber +leading into a conservatory, from which the view extended over the wide +Bay of Naples, and presented Vesuvius from base to summit. As I was +left by myself here for some minutes, I had leisure to notice the varied +elegance by which I was surrounded. Rare plants and flowers in jars of +costly porcelain; alabaster statues and rich bronzes appeared amid the +clustering foliage; and in the midst of all, two tiny swans, of the rare +breed of Morocco, lay tranquilly in a little basin, whose water spouted +from a silver fountain of most elaborate workmanship. + +While yet gazing on the tasteful objects around, the Marchesa had +entered, and so noiselessly that she was at my side ere I knew it. Paler +than on the previous evening, she looked even handsomer; but in the +sunken eye and the wearied expression of the mouth I could see that she +had passed a sleepless night. + +Having taken a seat upon a sofa, and motioned me to seat myself beside +her, she looked fixedly at me for several minutes without a word. At +last, in a voice of deep feeling, she said, "Do you remember the pledge +with which we parted? Do you recollect the oath by which you bound +yourself?' + +"Perfectly, Señhora!" said I; "nor was I aware yesterday, till the very +moment of our meeting, in whose presence I was standing." + +"But you had heard of me here?" + +"Only as the Marchesa de la Norada, not as the Señhora." + +"Hush! let that name never escape your lips; I believe you and trust +you. The commission I gave you was well and faithfully executed: were it +otherwise, and did I deem you false, it would not be difficult for me to +rid myself of the embarrassment. We live in a city where such things are +well understood." My blood ran cold at this threat, for I remembered the +accusation which hung over her, in Mexico. She saw what was passing in +my mind, and added, "You have nothing to fear; we shall be good friends +while you remain here; but that time must be brief. I cannot, I will +not, live a life of terror; a moment of impatience, an unguarded word, +a hasty expression of yours, might compromise me, and then--When can you +leave Naples?" + +"To-morrow--to-day, if you desire it." + +"That would be too hurried," she said thoughtfully. "We must not +encourage suspicion. Why are you here?" + +I gave the restoration of my health as the reason, and then alluded to +the circumstances of my Spanish claim, which I had hoped Naples would +have proved a suitable place for pressing. + +"Who knows of this transaction? What evidence have you of its truth?" +said she, hurriedly. + +"The minister by whose order I was imprisoned, the Governor of Malaga, +his official underlings, all know of it." + +"Enough. Now, by whom was the information given on which you were +arrested?" + +"A man who called himself the Consul at Campecho, and to whose +early history I am disposed to suspect I have the clew, but to whom, +unfortunately, in a hasty moment, I betrayed that secret knowledge." + +"And thus he dreads and hates you," said she, fixing her dark eyes +sternly on me. + +"He rather fears me without reason," said I. + +"But still you would have traded on that fear, had it served your +purpose?" reiterated she, with a pointedness that showed how the +application to her own case was uppermost in her thoughts. + +"You are less than just to me, Señhora!" said I, proudly. "A variety of +circumstances led me to connect this man with a very unhappy +incident which took place years ago in England, and wherein his +conduct--supposing him to be the same--was base to the last degree. +This suspicion I was weak enough to let escape me. His enmity was the +consequence, and from it followed all the misfortunes I have suffered." + +"Was he a murderer?" + +"No,--not that." + +"Nor a forger?--for methinks in English esteem such is the parallel +offence." + +"In the case I speak of, forgery was the least of his crimes: he seduced +the wife of his friend and benefactor." + +"Oh, the wretch!" exclaimed she, with a derisive smile that gave her +features--beautiful as they were--an almost demoniac expression. "I +trust he never prospered after such iniquity." + +Not heeding the tone of sneer in which she uttered this, I replied, +"You are right, Señhora; he lived a life of terror and misery. He was +a coward; and the man he had injured never ceased to track him from +country to country. Over sea and land he followed him; the thirst for +vengeance stimulating a heart dead to every other emotion. Accident, +when I was a mere boy, brought me into close relation with poor +Broughton." + +"With whom?" said she, grasping my wrist, while her eyes strained till +the very blood started in them. + +"Sir Dudley Broughton," said I; but the words were not out ere she fell +senseless on the floor. I raised her, and placed her on a sofa; and +then, dipping her handkerchief in the fountain, bathed her temples and +her lips. But she gave no sign of returning animation; her arms dropped +powerless at either side; she did not even seem to breathe. What was +I to do? I knew not where to find a bell to summon the servants, even +should I dare to leave her. In my excitement, I believed that she was +dead, and that I had killed her; aud then there darted through my brain +the terrible conviction that this could be no other than Lady Broughton +herself,--the unhappy Lydia Delmar. With a long-drawn sigh she at length +awoke, and, opening her eyes, looked up at me. A convulsive shudder +speedily followed, and she closed them again, and remained still, with +her hands clasped tightly over her heart. + +"Have I been dreaming a terrible dream," said she, at last, in a weak +and broken voice, "or are my dreadful thoughts realities? Tell me of +what were we speaking?" + +I did not answer. I could not tell her of the sad theme, nor did I dare +to deceive her. In this dilemma I became silent; but my confusion did +not escape her, and with a voice, every syllable of which struck deep +into my heart, she said, "Is this secret your own, or have you ever +revealed it to another?" + +"I have never told it, nor, indeed, till now, was the full mystery known +to myself." + +These few words, which served to confirm her own wavering terrors, at +the same time that they showed how she herself had betrayed her dreadful +secret, increased her suffering, and for a space she seemed overwhelmed +by affliction. + +"Let us speak of this no more," said she at last, in the same hurried +voice which once before had made me suspect the soundness of her +intellect. "I cannot, I dare not, trust myself to dwell upon this theme; +nor will I suffer any one to usurp an ascendency over me from terror. +No, sir; you shall not deceive yourself by such a delusion. I have +friends--great and powerful friends--who will protect me. I have money, +and can buy the aid that outstrips patronage. Beware, then, how you +threaten me!" + +"You are unjust to me, lady," said I, calmly, but resolutely. "I never +meant to threaten. A mere accident hae put me in possession of a secret +which, while you live, none shall ever hear from my lips; nor need you +fear any allusion to it will ever escape me, to yourself." + +"Then let us part. Let us see each other no more," said she, rising, +and approaching a small ivory cabinet which she unlocked. "See, here +is enough to satisfy the desire for mere money, if your heart be so set +upon wealth that it has no other idol. Take these, and these, and these; +they are gems of price, and taken from a royal crown. That necklace +of rubies once graced the shoulders of an empress; and here are rings, +whose value will buy long years of dissipation and excess." + +"I must interrupt you, Señhora," said I, offended at the tone she +assumed towards me. "There is no need to 'buy me off;' I am ready to +take my leave,--to quit Naples within an hour,--and I pledge myself +that we shall never meet again, or if we do, as utter strangers to each +other." + +"These were the terms of our contract once before," said she, fixing her +gaze steadfastly on me. + +"And by whom broken, and how?" said I. + +"True,--too true!" exclaimed she, in a voice of deep emotion. "Fate, +that did this, has doubtless other punishments in store for me! It +is plain, then, that I must trust you,--I, who can feel confidence in +none!" + +"I do not seek for it, Señhora," replied I; "my offer is to leave this +city, where already I see but little prospect of urging my suit +with success. Why should we meet again in life, when both of us are +travelling opposite roads?" + +"This suit of yours is, then, a real demand, founded upon an actual +loss,--matter of fact throughout?" This, although said in these few +words, had nothing offensive in its tone, and I replied by an assurance +of my good faith and veracity. + +"Send me the memorial this evening; to-morrow, or the day after +at farthest, you shall have an answer. As for your demand upon the +Havannah, the banker is my own, and I can answer for your being +honorably dealt with; all your property in his keeping, I will +guarantee." + +"If that be so, Señhora, I am indifferent about the Spanish Minister's +reply; I shall have wealth more than enough for all my desires, without +him." + +"How do you call yourself in these papers?" asked she, hurriedly. + +"El Condé de Cregano." + +"And you were known by that title in Mexico?" + +"Certainly; I have no other." + +She stared at me fixedly for a minute or two, and then muttered to +herself, "By what pretension should _I_ question his rank!" then, +turning to me, said, "Señhor el Condé de Cregano, I receive the world at +large every evening save Saturday; that night I reserve for my friends. +Come as often as you can during the week, but never omit a Saturday; +visit me at the opera frequently; speak to me always when we meet in +public places; be my intimate friend, in fact, but not more,--you have +too much tact to be my admirer." With this she gave me her hand, which +I pressed respectfully to my lips, and bowing deeply, moved towards the +door. + +"We understand each other," said she, calmly. + +"Perfectly, Madame," replied I. + +"Then never say, sir," resumed she, in a stern, determined voice, "never +say that you are not an adventurer; never dare to tell me that one who +so quickly assumes a part is not a professed actor on the great boards +of life, ready to take the character assigned him, be it broad farce +or comedy,--ay, or even tragedy, if needs were. Do not deny or seek +to contradict me; I did not care that your countship had fourteen +quarterings behind it,--nay, I like you even better as you are. There, +now you look natural and at your ease. Adieu, Monsieur le Comte." + +"Adieu, Madame la Marquise," said I putting as much irony into my accent +as might repay her; and then we parted. Whatever her feelings, I know +not,--mine, I own, were scarcely of the pleasantest; prompting me to +make my residence at Naples as brief as might be, and to see no more of +my "dear friend of former years" than was absolutely indispensable. + +Were I to dwell upon those portions of my history which afforded me the +highest amount of enjoyment, while passing I might linger upon the weeks +I spent in Naples as perhaps the very pleasantest of my life. The world +of fashion was new to me. All those fascinations to which habit renders +men either apathetic or indifferent, came fresh upon _me_. The outward +show of splendor in dress and jewels, gorgeous saloons, rare flowers, +exquisite pictures and statues, soon cease to astonish and amaze; but +it takes a long while ere the charm of intercourse with really brilliant +society begins to wear off, and ere a man recognizes a degree of +sameness in the pleasures and amusements of his fashionable friends. + +I am not sure that the society which I frequented had not more power of +captivation than a more rigidly scrupulous circle, since, while exacting +all the observances of polished life, it yet admitted a degree of +liberty, almost of familiarity, among its members, that I have since +remarked is not common in the wider intercourse of the world. + +Pretty women were not ashamed to look their best, and dress the most +becomingly; witty men were not chary of their smartness; courtiers were +confidential; statesmen were candid; men of the world unbent, as if in +a circle where their freedom would not be misinterpreted, and said +a hundred things that in other societies would have been, to say the +least, indiscreet. It is true that individuals were more discussed than +events, and that characters, not facts, formed the staple of the talk; +but how amusing was it, what stores of anecdote were opened, what +strange histories and curious illustrations of life unfolded! Pretension +was ridiculed, vulgarity exposed, stupidity laughed at, awkwardness +criticized, and want of tact condemned, with most unsparing ridicule; +but I am bound to own that there were few commendations reserved for +virtuous conduct or honorable action. The debtor side of the account was +full, but the credit had not an item on it! + +No rank, however exalted, could escape the judgments of a "set" who, +with all the exclusiveness of fashion, affected a most democratic spirit +of equality. It was, however, a "communism" that assumed to start on the +basis of every one haviug at least ten thousand a year,--not so bad a +theory, were it only practicable. + +I must not linger longer on this subject, on which I have only touched +to remark that here it was where I acquired that knowledge of forms +and conventionalities which constitute the tactique of life,--those +"gambits" and "openings," to use a chess phrase, by which you at once +obtain an advantage over an equal adversary, and secure yourself +against injury with even a superior player. I learned when to use an +illustration or a story; when to become a mere listener; how to assist +a slow man without his detecting the aid; and how to close a +discussion with an epigram,--and all this without the faintest show +of premeditation or the very slightest sign of forethought. While my +education as a man of the world was progressing, my material fortune was +also advancing. The Spanish Ambassador, who had referred my case to his +court, ascertained that I had been most infamously treated; that not +alone my rank and fortune were indisputable, but that the individual +on whose affirmation I was arrested was himself a Carlist spy, and the +noted agent of a great Northern power. In fact, so manifold were his +infractions against law, in every country in Europe, that the only +difficulty was to what particular power to hand him over, so many laying +claim to the honor of punishing him. In the end, Naples obtained +this distinction! and at the very period I was enjoying the luxurious +pleasures of that capital, "my friend the Consul" was expanding +his chest and his faculties in the less captivating career of a +galley-slave. "Fortune is just," said I, as I arranged my cravat at the +window which overlooked the Bay, on whose glassy surface some half-dozen +boats moved sluggishly, as the red and yellow rowers kept time to the +"stroke" by the clanking of their fetters. + +Governments move slowly, particularly when the case is one of refunding +a previous spoliation; meanwhile they admitted my claim; and by way of +keeping me in good-humor, they sent me a cross of the Order of Isabella, +of the first class,--a very gratifying recognition of my noble birth +and merits. My intimacy with the Duke of Medina--the brother of the +king--obtained for me the Neapolitan Order; and thus was I decorated +with three very distinguished cordons, which I wore in my button-hole as +a "tricolor,"--a fact insignificant in itself; but I mention it here, as +many of my imitators have since that affected to be the inventors of the +method. + +Periods of expectancy are generally deemed great trials, making inroads +upon the health, and sapping the energies of the mind. Such was not +my case here; I waited like one who loiters in some delicious garden, +surrounded with blooming flowers and sweet odors. The delays and +procrastinations of cabinets--for which the most profuse apologies +were made--I bore with a degree of calm equanimity that won for me +the appellation of a most finished gentleman; and thus was I almost +unconsciously perfecting myself in that grand element of breeding whose +triumph is "impassiveness." + +There were moments when I actually dreaded the termination of my cause, +so agreeable had Naples become to me; but as the rich gamester is +certain to win, while the poor player is luckless ever, successes +crowded on me, because I was half indifferent to them. + +Six months had now nearly elapsed since my arrival at Naples, and I was +paying a morning visit to the Marchesa, whom I was engaged to accompany +to a grand _déjeuner_, to be given on board of a British ship of war in +the Bay. It was one of those gorgeous days of brilliant coloring, which, +in Italy, seem to exaggerate the effect of landscape, and defy all +efforts of art to imitate; the scene was heightened, too, by the objects +moving across the bay. The various boats, with ensigns floating and +music playing; the swift "La-teeners," skimming along the glassy +surface, almost without a breath of wind; and then the great +three-decker herself, in all the pride of her majestic size, with flags +of every nation fluttering from her halyards,--were splendid adjuncts to +the picture. + +"Here are three letters for you, Monsieur le Comte," said the Marchesa, +"they came in the Spanish Minister's bag this morning; but I suppose +there is nothing sufficiently interesting in them to withdraw your +thoughts from that magnificent panorama." + +Of course I affected concurrence in the sentiment, and thrust them into +my pocket with assumed indifference. The room soon after filled with +arriving visitors, and among the rest the Spanish Ambassador. + +"Ha, Señhor Condé," said he, approaching me, "let me offer my warmest +felicitations. How happy am I to be the means through which your good +tidings have reached you!" + +I bowed, smiled, and seemed charmed, without the slightest notion +wherein lay my good fortune. His practised eye, however, soon detected +my game, and he said, "You have received your letters, I hope?" + +"Yes," replied I, carelessly; "the Marchesa has been kind enough to give +them to me." + +"And you have read them?" asked he again. + +"Not yet," said I; "I make it a rule never to risk the pleasure of a +happy day by opening a letter at hazard." + +"What if its contents were but to increase the enjoyment; what if the +tidings were to fill up the very measure of your wishes, Señhor?" + +"In that case," rejoined I, as coldly as before, "they will be very +acceptable to-morrow morning; and thus I shall have gained two days of +happiness, _vice_ one." + +"Admirable philosophy, indeed," said he. "Still, I must be pardoned for +interfering with its exercise. I shall therefore take upon me to inform +the honorable company that her Majesty, my royal mistress, has named the +Count de Cregano a Grand Cordon of the Fleece, in consideration of +his distinguished services in arranging the Mexican debt; that all his +property, taken from him under a false and traitorous imputation, shall +be at once restored; that any additional recompense he may demand for +his imprisonment and other inconveniences incurred shall be immediately +accorded; and that all Envoys and Ministers of the Court of Spain +are instructed to receive the Count de Cregano with every honor and +distinction, affording him every protection, and facilitating him in the +prosecution of any project in which he may be interested." + +This speech, delivered in a very imposing manner, was followed by a +round of felicitation from the assembled company the Marchesa offering +me her hand in congratulation, and whispering the words, "How soon?" + +"To-morrow, if I must," replied I, sorrowfully. + +"To-morrow be it," said she, and turned away hastily. + +The information conveyed to me by the Ambassador was what formed the +substance of two of the letters; the third I contrived to peep into +unobserved, was a formal notification from the Havannah that my bills +for the amount in the bankers' hands would be accepted and negotiated at +a well-known house in Paris. Thus, then, and in one moment, was I once +more rich,--the possessor of immense wealth, and not alone of mere +fortune, but of all the honors and dignities which can grace and adorn +it. Of course I became the hero of the day. To me was intrusted the arm +of the Marchesa as we descended to the pier; to me was accorded the seat +of honor beside her in the boat. All the pleasant flatteries that are +reserved for rich men were heaped upon me, and I felt that life had but +one prize more with which to fill up the most ambitious of my cravings. +That, alas! could never be,--Donna Maria was the wife of another; and +thus should I learn that complete happiness is never to be the lot of +any mere mortal! + +The fête on board the "Tariffa" was very splendid; but it had another +charm still more rarely met with,--I mean that hearty cordiality which +graces every entertainment where British sailors are the hosts, their +courtesy being blended with an actual warmth of hospitality that wins +even upon the coldest guest, and gives a tone of friendliness to the +most promiscuous gathering. + +Every one appeared to experience the influence of this peculiar magic, +and all gave way to the impulse that suggested the fullest enjoyment of +the hour. + +To waltzes had succeeded the manolo and the bolero; dances of the wild +regions of Calabria and Sicily were performed by men of noble birth, +the petty princes of those countries; and all were vying who should +introduce something new and unknown to the rest, when, suddenly, the +distant sound of the church bells of the city was borne along the water, +announcing the "Vinti quatro," as it is called,--the hour of evening +prayer. In a moment a sudden air of devotional seriousness spread itself +over the company, and most bent their heads in pious reverence while +they recited to themselves the words of the "Angelus." If there seemed, +to the sense of English Protestantism, something strange and unnatural +in this great revulsion, there was a degree of earnestness and sincerity +in the features of the worshippers that showed their piety to be +unfeigned; and here I might leave the theme, were it not for an incident +which, taking place at the same moment, will remain forever associated +in my mind with that brief interval of prayer. + +The hour of sunset, or, as the Neapolitans term it, the "Vinti quatro," +is that in which the galley-slaves, employed from dawn of day at convict +labor, return to their prisons; and while the streets at that period +exhibit long lines of men whose terrible appearance needs not the +heightening accessories of a shocking dress and a heavy lumbering chain +to pronounce them criminals, over the bay are seen boats moving in sad +procession, the clanking of the fetters creaking mournfully upon the +ear, and sounding like the wail of hopeless captivity. + +No scene of pleasurable enjoyment can stand the contrast of such a +sight; the revulsion is too sudden and too painful from the light +frivolity of mirth to the terrible reality of suffering and sorrow. To +escape, therefore, from the gloomy picture, the officers of the vessel +endeavored to withdraw their guests from the deck to the shelter of the +cabin. The change was accomplished well and naturally, and we were +all gathered between decks in that turmoil and confusion which form no +insignificant part of the success of every entertainment, the buzz +of talking and the sounds of pleasant laughter were heard on every +side,--when suddenly a cry was heard above, and then the loud voice of +the officer of the watch, commanding a boat to be instantly manned and +lowered. + +A hundred conjectures at once ran round as to the meaning of the order; +but one of the officers hastily entering, a few minutes later, put an +end to all guessing, by informing us that a very dreadful incident had +just occurred within a short distance from where we lay. "You may have +remarked a handsome yacht, which anchored last night in the bay, coming +up from the eastward: she belonged to an English gentleman, with whose +name we were not acquainted, but whose conduct is calculated to confirm +all that Frenchmen are accustomed to say of our national taste for +eccentricity, even in crime. It would seem that at an early hour this +morning he landed at the Mole, and by means of letters with which he +was provided to the Minister of Police, obtained leave to inspect +the different prisons of the city, and to pass under the most minute +examination all those condemned to the galleys for life. As already all +those who work at Castelamare had been sent away, he obtained an order +to visit the galleys there, being determined, as it would seem, to +leave nothing unseen. On reaching Castelamare, it is said that he again +commenced his tour of inspection, going over the roll of the prisoners, +with the muster-book in his hand, as if to compare their features with +the crimes alleged against them, and scrutinizing each with a most +searching look. The visit lasted till nigh evening; and although the +governor was not a little astonished at the proceeding of the stranger, +still less was he prepared for the singular request which succeeded: +it was, that he might be permitted to return to Naples in one of the +convict boats instead of in his own gig. The demand might have been +treated lightly, or altogether refused, but that the Englishman's +appearance and manner indicated rank, while the letter he carried from +the minister showed him to be one with claims for consideration. The +governor, therefore, gave the permission, smiling at the same time at +a caprice which could not have proceeded from the native of any other +country. + +"The Englishman took his seat in the stern of the boat, and, as I am +told by the steersman, never spoke nor moved for nigh an hour's time, +muffling himself up in his cloak so that his very face was concealed; +he neither cast his eyes over the bay, nor looked towards the shore, but +sat like one in deep reflection. As we neared the 'Tariffa,'" said my +informant, "our passenger affected to feel cold and chilly,--he might +have been so, since the evening breeze was just springing up,--and said +that he would like to row for a spell, just to warm himself. The petty +officer in charge explained that the request could not be complied with, +since, amongst other reasons, the men were chained two and two on every +bench, and then obliged to tug at the same oar. + +"The Englishman, who throughout the day had invariably overruled every +objection opposed to him, grew only more positive in his demand, and +at last produced the minister's order, to strengthen his proposal; and +finally said, that as he had obtained the permission to learn all he +could of the condition of the convicts, he was determined not to depart +without experiencing in his own person the amount of labor exacted from +them. 'You shall chain me to that fellow in the bow of the boat,' said +he, 'for I have my doubts that this same punishment is not equal to what +our own sailors perform every day, as a mere duty.' + +"I need not dwell upon the arguments he used, and the reason he pressed; +and although I have not heard it, I have little doubt that bribery +was among the rest. His demand was granted, and he was actually placed +beside the convict, and his left wrist enclosed in the same fetter with +the other's right. + +"His face became almost purple as he grasped the oar, and his eyes +glared fiercely round upon his fellow-laborer, like the red and staring +orbs of a wild beast. 'So dreadful was the expression of his face,' said +the steersman, 'that I believed him to be insane; and a shocking fear of +evil consequences shot through me for having yielded to him.' + +"I at once called out to the crew to ship their oars, determining to +make him resume his place beside me. The order was obeyed by the bow-oar +as by the rest. I was then about to issue a command for him to be +released when, with a yell that I shall never forget, he sprang up in +the boat, and then, calling out something in English which I could not +understand, he seized his comrade by the throat and shook him violently. + +"The convict--himself a strong man, yet in the prime of life--seemed +nothing in the grasp of the other, who held him at arm's length, as +though he were a child; and then, letting go his hold, clasping him +round the waist with both arms, he jumped into the sea. + +"They were seen in mortal conflict for a second or two as they sank in +the clear water, but they never rose to the surface; the weight of the +massive fetters and their own struggles soon finished their sufferings!" + +Such was the terrible story which now broke in upon the gay current of +our festivity, and threw a gloom over a scene of brilliant pleasure. +Of course various surmises as to the motive of this fearful act were +uttered, but they all tended to the conclusion that it proceeded from +insanity, which occasionally displays amongst its wonderful phenomena +all the premeditation and circumspection of accomplished guilt. + +There is that of solemnity about an event of this nature that even +frivolity itself stands rebuked by, and so, now, instead of resuming the +occupations of pleasure, many took their leave suddenly; and of those +who still remained, but one topic engrossed the conversation,--that of +madness as an element in all great cases of guilt. + +Of course, as in all similar discussions, the superiority lay with those +who, with more readiness of expression, also possessed greater resources +in anecdote and illustration; and of these the greater number were +disposed to believe that all great criminality is allied with deranged +intellect. The Marchesa, however, took the opposite side, and insisted +that the passion which prompted to the most terrible and appalling acts +was perfectly consistent with right reason and sound judgment. + +"It is too rash in us," said she, "to assume a mere blind impulse in +cases even where recognized insanity exists. Were we to know the secrets +of the human heart, we might, perhaps, see a long-cherished purpose in +acts which appear to be dictated by momentary passion. These impulses +may be excessive, ill-directed, and ill-judging; but still they may have +their origin in some train of thought where generous feelings and noble +aspirations mingle. Witness those heroic--for they are, after all, +heroic--assassinations of the student Sandt and Charlotte Corday. What +a perfect abrogation of self did these acts evince; what consummate +devotion to a cause! Deeply as we may condemn the horrid nature of +the crime, it would be a great error to class these men with vulgar +criminals, or deny to them the motives, at least, of something great." + +I am not able--were I even disposed--to repeat all the ingenious +arguments by which the Marchesa supported her opinion, nor the instances +she so readily adduced in support of it. She became highly excited by +the theme, and soon, by the eloquence of her words and the fascinations +of her manner, enchained the whole company in a mute attention around +her. + +It was just as she concluded a very animated and glowing description of +that condition of the human mind when, by a volcanic effort, as it were, +the long-buried flames burst forth, to scatter ruin and destruction on +every side, that a young officer entered the cabin, and stood fascinated +by the powers of her fervid eloquence. + +"Well, Mr. Hardy," said the Captain, recalling the youth's attention to +duty, "have you been on board of her?" + +"Yes, sir, she is an English yacht, the 'Firefly,' and her late +owner was an English baronet, whose name I have written down in my +pocket-book." + +The Captain took the note-book from the young officer's hand, and, after +reading the name, said, "If I mistake not, this is the same person that +once was so well known in London life. Most of the present company must +have heard of the rich and eccentric Sir Dudley Broughton." + +A low groan broke from me, and I turned my eyes slowly and stealthily +towards the end of the table, where the Marchesa sat. Not a word, not +the faintest sound, had issued from her lips; but she sat still and +motionless, her lips slightly parted, and her eyes staring straight +before her. The pallor of her features was that of death itself; and, +indeed, the rigid contour of the cheeks and the firm tension of the +muscles gave no evidence of life. + +"You are ill, Madame la Marchesa," said a gentleman who sat beside her; +but as she made no reply, several now turned towards her, to press their +attentions and suggest advice. She never spoke,--indeed, she seemed +not to hear them,--but sat with her head erect, and her arms rigidly +stretched out on either side, motionless as a statue. + +The shocking incident that had occurred, and the discussion which +followed it, were sufficient to account for this sudden attack in one +whose nervous temperament was so finely strung; but as she showed no +signs of recovering consciousness, nor gave the slightest indication of +rallying, it was decided at once that she should be conveyed to shore, +where in her own house medical aid might be had recourse to. + +I was one of those who assisted to carry her to the boat, and sat beside +her afterwards, and held her hand in mine; but she never recognized +me; her hand, too, was cold and clammy, and the fingers felt rigid and +cramped. The stern, impressive look of her features, the cold stare +of her fixed eyes, were terrible to behold,--far more so than even the +workings of mere bodily sufferings. + +During the passage to the shore, at the landing itself, and on our way +to the Palazzo, she remained in the same state; nor did she ever evince +any trait of consciousness till she reached the foot of the great +staircase, where a crowd of servants, in the richest liveries, awaited +to offer their services. Then suddenly she moved her head from side to +side, regarding the crowd with a glance of wild and terrific meaning; +she raised her hand to her brow, and passed it slowly across her +forehead. For an instant it seemed as if the lethargic paroxysm was +about to pass away, for her features softened into a look of calm but +melancholy beauty. This, too, glided away, and her mouth settled into a +hard and rigid smile. It was the last change of all, for she had become +an idiot! + +From that hour forth she never spoke again! she never knew those about +her, neither missing them while absent, nor recognizing them when they +reappeared. She had none of the childish wilfulness of others in her +sad condition, nor did she show the likings and dislikings they usually +manifest; and thus she lingered on to her death. + +Of her secret I was the sole depositary; and from that hour to this, in +which I write, it has never escaped my lips. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. CONCLUSION + +I had few inducements to prolong my stay at Naples. The society in which +I moved had received a shock so terrible that for some time, at least, +it could not hope to recover, and an air of gloom and despondency +prevailed, where so lately all had worn the livery of pleasure. + +I made my farewell visit, therefore, at the court, and the various +embassies, and set out for Paris. This time, grown wiser by experience, +I did not seek to astonish the world by any gorgeous display of my +riches. I travelled with but two carriages, one of which contained my +luggage; the other, a light "coupé," I occupied alone. My route lay +through Rome and Florence, across the Apennines to Milan, and thence, by +the glorious scenery of the Splügen, into Switzerland; but I saw little +of the varied scenes through which I journeyed. My whole thoughts were +engaged upon the future. + +I had once more won the great prize in the world's lottery, and I never +ceased catechizing myself in what way I should exercise my power. + +From what I had already observed of life, the great mistake of rich men +seemed to me, their addiction to some one pursuit of pleasure, which +gradually gained an undue ascendency over their minds, and exercised at +last an unwonted degree of tyranny. The passion for play, the love of +pictures, the taste for company-seeing, the sports of the field, and so +on, ought never to be allowed any paramount place, or used as pursuits; +all these things should be simply employed as means of obtaining an +ascendency over other men, and of exercising that sway which is never +denied to success. + +Some men are your slaves because your cook is unrivalled, or your cellar +incomparable: others look up to you because your equipages exhibit an +elegance with which none can vie; because your thoroughbreds are larger, +show more bone, and carry the highest condition. Others, again, revere +you for your Vandykes and your Titians, your Rembrandts and Murillos, +your illuminated missals, your antique marbles. To every section of +society you can exhibit some peculiar and special temptation, which, in +their blind admiration, they refer to as an attribute of yourself. +Your own fault is it if they ever discover their error! The triumphs +of Raphael and Velasquez shed a reflected light upon him who possesses +them; and so of each excellence that wealth can purchase. You stand +embodied in the exercise of your taste, and in your own person receive +the adulation which greatness and genius have achieved. + +To accomplish this, however, requires infinite tact and a great +abrogation of self. All individuality must be merged, and a new +character created, from the "disjecta membra" of many crafts and +callings. + +To have any one inordinate passion is to betray a weak spot in one's +armor of which the cunning will soon take advantage. Such were among my +meditations as I rolled along towards Paris; and so long as I journeyed +alone, with no other companionship than my own thoughts, these opinions +appeared sage and well reasoned; but how soon were they routed as +I drove into that gorgeous capital, and saw the full tide of its +pleasure-loving inhabitants as it rolled proudly past! How vain to +reason farther upon the regulation of a life to which wealth set no +limits! how impossible to restrain one's self within the barriers of +cold prudential thought, where all was to be had for asking! + +Ah, Con, your philosophy was excellent while, sitting in the corner of +your coupe, you rolled along unnoticed, save by the vacant stare of some +vigneron in a blue cotton nightcap, or some short-legged wench in wooden +"sabots;" but now that you stand in the window of your great hotel in +the Place Vendôme and see the gathering crowd which inquires, who is the +illustrious arrival? your heart begins to beat quicker and fuller; you +feel like a great actor, for whom the house is already impatient; nor +is the curtain to remain longer down. You are scarcely an hour in +Paris when your visitors began to call. Here are cards without +number,--officers in high command, courtiers, ministers, and +aides-de-camp of those whose rank precludes the first visit. The "place" +is like a fair, with its crush of equipages, the hotel is actually +besieged. Every language of Europe is heard within its "porte-cochère," +and your own chasseur is overwhelmed with questionings enough to drive +him distracted. + +Is it any wonder how the poor man adulates wealth, when those in high +station--the great and titled of the earth--are so ready to worship and +revere it! + +My first care was, of course, to present myself before the Prince, +my gracious master, and I drove at once to the Tuileries. There was +a reception that morning by the King, and the Duc de St. Cloud led me +forward and presented me to his Majesty, with a very eulogistic account +of my services in Africa. + +The King listened most graciously to the narrative, and then, with +a cordial courtesy that at once put me at my ease, asked me several +questions about my campaigns, all ingeniously contrived to be +complimentary to me. + +"Yours is not originally a Spanish family, Count; I fancy the name is +Celtic." + +"Yes, Sire, we came from Ireland," said I, blushing in spite of myself. + +"Ah, very true. There was always a great interchange of races between +the two nations. And have you never tried to trace back among your Irish +ancestors, so as to learn who are the lineal descendants of your house?" + +"I have been hitherto, Sire, rather a man of action than of thought or +reflection. To obtain possession of a property belonging to my family, +I undertook a journey to, and a long residence in, Mexico; and although +successful in this, a subsequent misfortune deprived me of all I owned, +and left me actually in want. The good fortune which led me to take +service under your Majesty has, however, never deserted me, and I am +enabled once again to assume the station that belonged to me." + +The King heard me with apparent pleasure, and after a few generalities +about Paris and my acquaintances, said: "His Royal Highness the Duc de +St. Cloud has asked me to appoint you on my personal staff. There is +not at the present a vacancy, but you shall be named as an extra +aide-de-camp in the meanwhile." + +Overwhelmed by this distinction, I could only bow my gratitude in +silence; and, with an air and show of great devotion, I retired from the +royal presence. Thus did proper feeling suggest the truest politeness; +for had I been more assured, the chances were I should have endeavored +to say something, and consequently committed a very grievous breach of +etiquette. + +The following day I received an invitation to dine at Court. The company +was numerous, and among them I discovered the young English attaché who +had so insolently treated my demands on my first visit to Paris. With +what sovereign contempt did I now look down upon him! He was there, +exactly as I left him, muddling away in the petty details of his little +routine life,--signing a passport or copying a despatch, playing off the +airs of grand seigneur to couriers and laquais de place, while in the +same time I had won honors and rewards upon the field of battle, and now +stood while the Prince leaned upon my arm and chatted familiarly over +the assembled company. Nothing gave me a more confident sense of my own +standing in the world than the feeling with which I now regarded those +whom once I looked up to with a kind of awe. It is precisely as we +discover that the hills which in childhood we believed to be gigantic +mountains are mere hillocks, that in after life we find out how +indescribably small are many of those we used to think of as "high and +mighty." + +I therefore sneered down my poor attaché, and as I passed him, I believe +I even suffered my sabre to jar against his leg, not without hoping that +he might notice the slight, and seek satisfaction for it. In this I was +disappointed, and I left him, never to trouble my head more about him. + +Among the pleasures which awaited me in Paris, none gave me more sincere +satisfaction than the renewal of my acquaintance with De Minérale, who, +however, could never believe that my good fortune was other than some +lucky accident of my African campaign. + +"Come, out with it," he would say. "You robbed a 'Smala,' you pillaged +a 'Deira,' or something of the sort. Tell me frankly how it was, and, on +my honor, I 'll never print it till you 're dead and gone. In fact, if +you persist in refusing, I 'll give you to the world, with name in full. +I 'll describe you as a fellow that picked up a treasure in some small +island of the Mediterranean, and turned millionnaire after being a +pirate." + +"Put me down for fifty copies of the book," said I, laughing; "I'm rich +enough now to encourage the small-fry of literature." + +Thus did we often jest with each other, and we met continually; for +when not invited out myself, I gave entertainments at home, at which +I assembled various members of that artistic set in which I had once +moved,--a very different order of society from that in which I mixed in +Naples, and, I am free to own, with far less claim to real agreeability. +The "wits by profession" were not only less natural than the smart +people of society, but they wearied you by the exactions of their +drollery. Not to laugh at the sorriest jest was to discredit the +jester, and the omission became a serious thing when it touched a man's +livelihood. In fact, from first to last, in whatever country I +have lived, I have ever found that the best--that is, the highest +society--was always the most agreeable as well as the most profitable. +Its forms were not alone regulated upon the surest basis of comfort, but +its tone ever tended to promote whatever was pleasurable, and exclude +everything that could hurt or offend. So is it, your great aristocrats +are very democratic in a drawing-room,--professing and practising +the most perfect equality; while your "rights of man" and "popular +sovereignty advocate" insists upon always being the king of his company. +Forgive this digression, my dear reader, if for nothing else than +because it shall be the last time of my offending. + +I had now enjoyed myself at Paris about two months, or thereabouts, +in which, having most satisfactorily arranged all my monetary matters, +and--besides having a considerable sum in the English funds--found +myself down in the "Grand Livre" for a couple of million of francs,--a +feature which made me a much-caressed individual in that new social +order just then springing up, called the "financière" class, one which, +if with few claims to the stately manners of the "Faubourg," numbered as +many pretty women and as agreeable ones as could be found anywhere. +Had I been matrimonially disposed, this set would certainly have been +dangerous ground for me,--the attentions which beset me being almost +like adulation. The truth was, however, Donna Maria had left an +impression which comparison with others did not efface. I felt, if I +were to marry, it might as well be for high rank and family influence, +since I never could do so for love. My nobility required a little +strengthening, nor was there any easier or more efficient mode of +supporting it than by an alliance with some of those antiquated houses +who, with small fortunes but undiminished pride, inhabited the solitudes +of the "Faubourg St. Germain." I cannot afford space here to recount +my adventures in that peaceful and deserted quarter, whose amusements +ranged between masses and tric-trac,--where Piety and Pope Joan divided +the hours. The antiquity of my family and the pureness of my Castilian +blood! had been the pretensions which obtained admission for me into +these sacred precincts; and there, I must say, everything seemed old and +worn out: the houses, the salons, the furniture, the masters, servants, +horses, carriages,--all were as old as the formalities and the opinions +they professed. + +Even the young ladies had got a premature cast of seriousness that took +away every semblance of juvenility. Whether from associating with them, +or that I had voluntarily conformed to the staid Puritanism of their +manners, I cannot say, but my other acquaintances began to quiz and +rally me about my "Legitimist" air, and even said that the change had +been remarked at Court. + +This was an observation that gave me some uneasiness, and I hastened off +to the Duc de St. Cloud, whose kindness had always admitted me to the +most open intercourse. + +"It is quite true, Creganne," said he, "we all remarked that you were +coquetting with the 'vieux,'--the old ones of the Faubourg; and although +_I_ had never any misgivings about you, _others_ were less charitable." + +"What is to be done, then?" said I, in my distress at the bare thought +of seeming ungrateful. + +"I'll tell you," said he: "there's the post of secretary of embassy +just vacant at Madrid; your knowledge of the language, and your Spanish +blood, admirably fit you for the mission. Shall I ask for it in your +behalf?" + +I could scarcely speak, for gratitude. I was longing for some "charge," +some public station that would give me a recognized position as well as +wealth. + +The "Duc" hurried from the room, and after an absence of half-an-hour +came back, laughing, to say: "This was quite a brilliant idea of mine, +for the Minister of Foreign Affairs was just in conversation with the +King, and seeing that they were both in good humor, and discussing the +Madrid mission, I even asked for the post of ambassador for you,--ay, +and, what's better, obtained it, too." + +I could not believe my ears as I heard these words, and the Prince was +obliged to repeat his tidings ere I could bring myself to credit them. +"And now for a little plan of my own," resumed he; "I am about to make +a short visit to England, and, better still, to Ireland. You must +accompany me. Of course I travel 'incog.,' which means that my real rank +will be known to all persons in authority; but, avoiding all state and +parade, I shall be able to see something of that remarkable country of +which I have heard so much." + +I acknowledged a degree of curiosity to the full as great, but bewailed +my ignorance of the language as a great drawback to the pleasures of the +journey. + +"But you do know a little English," said the Prince. + +"Not a word," said I, coolly. "When a child, I believe I could speak +it fluently,--so I have heard; but since that period I have utterly +forgotten all about it." This may seem to have been a gratuitous fiction +on my part, but it was not so; and to prove it, I must tell the reader +a little incident which was running in my mind at that moment. A certain +Tipperary gentleman, whose name is too familiar for me to print, once +called upon a countryman in Paris, and, after ringing stoutly at the +bell, the door was opened by a very smartly dressed "maid," whose +grisette cap and apron immediately seemed to pronounce her to be French. +"Est Capitaine,--est Monsieur O'Shea ici?" asked he, in considerable +hesitation. + +"Oh, sir! you're English," exclaimed the maid, in a very London accent. + +"Yes, my little darlin', I was asking for Captain O'Shea." + +"Ah, sir, you 're Irish!" said she, with a very significant fall of the +voice. "So," as he afterwards remarked, "my French showed that I was +English, and my English that I was Irish." + +Now, although my French would have passed muster from Cannes to Caen, my +English had something of the idiomatic peculiarity of the gentleman +just alluded to; and were I only to speak once in Ireland, I must +be inevitably detected. There was then no choice for it; I must even +consent to talk through an interpreter,--a rather dull situation for a +man about to "tour it" in Ireland! + +As the Prince's journey was a secret in Paris, our arrangements were +made with great caution and despatch. We travelled down to Boulogne with +merely one other companion, an old Colonel Demaunais, who had been for +some years a prisoner in England, and spoke English fluently, and with +only three servants; there was nothing in our "cortège" betraying the +rank of his Royal Highness. + +Apartments had been prepared for us at Mivart's, and we dined each +day at the French Embassy,--going to the Opera in the evening, and +sight-seeing all the forenoon, like genuine "country cousins." The Court +was in Scotland; but even had it been in London, I conclude that the +Prince would have been received in some mode which should not have +attracted publicity. + +Ten days sufficed for "town," and we set out for Ireland, to visit which +his Royal Highness was all impatience and eagerness. + +Never can I forget the sensations with which I landed on that shore, +which, about a dozen years before, I had quitted barefooted and hungry! +Was the change alone in me; or what had come over the objects, to +make them so very different from what they once were? The hotel that +I remembered to have regarded as a kind of palace, where splendor and +profusion prevailed, seemed now dirty and uncared-for; the waiters +slovenly, the landlord rude, the apartments mean, and the food +detestable! The public itself, as it paraded on the pier, was not that +gorgeous panorama I once saw there,--the mingled elegance and fashion I +used to regard with such eyes of wonderment and envy. What had become of +them? Good looks there were, and in abundance,--for Irish women will +be pretty, no matter what changes come over the land; but the men! good +lack, what a strange aspect did they present! Without the air of fashion +you see in Paris, or that more strongly marked characteristic of style +and manliness the parks of London exhibit, here were displayed a kind +of swaggering self-sufficiency whose pretension was awfully at variance +with the mediocrity of their dress, and the easy jocularity that leered +from their eyes. Some were aquatics, and wore Jersey shirts and frocks, +loose trousers, and low shoes; but they overdid their parts, and lounged +like Tom Cooke in a sea-piece. + +Others appeared as _élégans_, and were even greater burlesques on the +part. It was quite clear, however, that these formed no portion of the +better classes of the capital, and so I hastened to assure the Prince, +whose looks bespoke very palpable disappointment. + +In Dublin, however, the changes were greater than I expected. It was not +alone that I had seen other and greater capitals, where affluence and +taste abound, and where, while the full tide of fashion sets "in" in one +quarter, the still more exciting course of activity and industry flows +along in another; but here an actual decline had taken place in the +appearance of everything. The shops, the streets, the inhabitants, all +looked in disrepair. There were few carriages, nothing deserving the +name of equipage,--none of that stir and movement which characterize a +capital. It all looked like a place where people dwelt to wear out +their old houses and old garments, and to leave both behind them when +no longer wearable. Windows mended with paper, pantaloons patched with +party-colored cloth, "shocking bad hats," mangy car-drivers, and great +troops of beggars of every age and walk of mendicancy, were met with +even in the best quarters; and with all these signs of poverty and +decay, there was an air of swaggering recklessness in every one that was +particularly striking. All were out of temper with England and +English rule; and "Ireland for the Irish" was becoming a popular cant +phrase,--pretty much on the same principle that blacklegs extinguish the +lights when luck goes against them, and have a scramble for "the bank" +in the dark. The strangest of all was, however, that nobody seemed to +have died or left the place since I remembered it as a boy. There went +the burly barrister down Bachelor's Walk, with the same sturdy stride +I used to admire of yore,--his cheek a little redder, his presence +somewhat more portly, perhaps, but with the self-same smile with which +he then cajoled the jury, and that imposing frown with which he repelled +the freedom of a witness. There were the same civic magistrates, the +same attorneys, dancing-masters,--ay, even the dandies had not been +replaced, but were the old crop, sadly running to seed, and marvellously +ill cared for. + +Even the Castle officials were beautifully consistent, and true to their +old traditions; they were as empty and insolent as ever. It was the +English pale performed over again at the Upper Castle Yard, and all +without its limits were the kerns and "wild Irish" of centuries ago. + +How is a craft like this ever to take the sea, thought I, with misery +and mutiny everywhere! With six feet of water in the hold, the crew are +turning out for higher wages, and ready to throw overboard the man who +counsels them to put a hand to the pump! + +But what had I to do with all this? Nor would I allude to it here, save +to mention the straits and difficulties which beset me, to account for +changes that I had never anticipated. + +We dined everywhere, from that viceregal palace in a swamp, to the musty +halls of the Chief Secretary in the Castle. We partook of a civic feast, +a picnic at the waterfall; we had one day with the military! And here, +by the way, I recognized an old acquaintance of other days, the Hon. +Captain De Courcy. He was still on the staff, and still constant to his +ancient flame, who, with a little higher complexion and more profuse +ringlets,--it is strange how color and hair go on increasing with +years,--looked pretty much what I remembered her of yore. + +"You had better wait for your groom, Mons. Le Comte," said De Courcy to +me at the review, as I was dismounting to speak to some people in the +crowd of carriages. "Don't trust those fellows. I once had a valuable +mare stolen by one of those vagrants, and, what was worse, the rascal +rode her at a steeplechase the same day." + +"Pas possible!" exclaimed I, at the bare thought of such an indignity. +"What became of the young villain?" + +"I forget, now, whether I let him off, or whether he was publicly +whipped; but I am certain he never came to good." + +I felt a flush of anger rise to my cheek at this speech, but I checked +my passion; and well I might, as I thought upon my _own_ condition and +upon _his_. To have expended any interest or sympathy as to the +boy, besides, would have been absurd, and I was silent. Among our +invitations, was one to the house of a baronet who resided in a midland +county, only a few miles from my native place. We arrived at night at +Knockdangan Castle, an edifice of modern gothic style, which means a +marvellously expensive residence, rendered almost uninhabitable by the +necessity of having winding stairs, narrow corridors, low ceilings, and +pointed windows. The house was full of company, the greater part of +whom had arrived unexpectedly; still, our reception was everything that +genial hospitality could dictate. One of the drawing-rooms had been +already converted into a kind of barrack-room, with half-a-dozen beds in +it; and now the library was to be devoted to the Prince, while a small +octagon tower leading off it, about the size and shape of a tea-tray, +was reserved for me. If these arrangements were attended with +inconvenience, certainly nothing in the manner of either host or hostess +showed it. They and their numerous family of sons and daughters seemed +to take it as the most natural thing in life to be thrown into disorder +to accommodate their friends; not alone their friends, but their +friends' friends: for so proved more than half of the present company. +Several of "the boys," meaning the sons of the host, slept at houses +in the neighborhood; we actually bivouacked in a little temple in +the garden. There seemed no limit to the contrivances of our kind +entertainers, either in the variety of the plans for pleasure, or the +hearty good-nature with which they concurred in any suggestion of the +guests. All that Spanish politeness expresses, as a phrase, was here +reduced to actual practice. Everything was at the disposal of the +stranger. Not alone was he at liberty to ride, drive, fish, shoot, hunt, +boat, or course at will, but all his hours were at his own disposal, +and his liberty unfettered, even as to whether he dined in his own +apartment, or joined the general company. Nothing that the most +courteous attention could provide was omitted, at the same time that the +most ample freedom was secured to all. Here, too, was found a tone of +cultivation that would have graced the most polished society of any +European capital. Foreign languages were well understood and spoken; +music practised in its higher walks; drawing cultivated with a skill +rarely seen out of the hands of professed masters; subjects of politics +and general literature were discussed with a knowledge and a liberality +that bespoke the highest degree of enlightenment; while to all these +gifts the general warmth of native character lent an indescribable charm +of kindliness and cordiality that left none a stranger who spent even +twelve hours beneath their roof. + +The Prince was in ecstasies with everything and every one, and he +himself no less a favorite with all. Every fall he got in hunting made +him more popular; every misadventure that occurred to him, in trying to +conform to native tastes, gave a new grace and charm to his character. +The ladies pronounced him "a love," and the men, in less polished, but +not less hearty, encomium, called him "a devilish good fellow for a +Frenchman." + +The habits I have already alluded to, of each guest living exactly how +he pleased, gave a continual novelty to the company; sometimes two or +three new faces would appear at the dinner-table or in the drawing-room, +and conjecture was ever at work whether the last arrivals had been yet +seen, and who were they who presented themselves at table? + +"You will meet two new guests to-day, Count," said the host one day, +as we entered the drawing-room before dinner: "a Spanish Bishop and his +niece,--a very charming person, and a widow of nineteen! They came over +to Ireland about some disputed question of property,--being originally +Irish by family,--and are now, I regret to say, about to return to Spain +in a few days. Hitherto a severe cold has confined the Bishop to his +chamber; and his niece, not being, I fancy, a proficient in any but her +native language, had not courage to face a miscellaneous party. They +will both, however, favor us to-day; and as you are the only one here +who can command the 'true Castilian tongue,' you will take the Countess +in to dinner." + +I bowed my acknowledgments, not sorry to have the occasion of displaying +my Spanish and playing the agreeable to my fair countrywoman. + +The drawing-room each day before dinner had no other light than that +afforded by a great fire of bog deal, which, although diffusing a rich +and ruddy glow over all who sat within the circle around it, left the +remainder of the apartment in comparative darkness; and few, except +those very intimate, were able to recognize each other in the obscurity. +Whether this was a whim of the host, or a pardonable artifice to make +the splendor of the well-lighted dinner-table more effective, on the +principle of orators, who begin at a whisper to create silence, I know +not, but we used to jest over the broken shins and upset spider tables +that each day announced the entrance of some guest less familiarized to +the geography of the apartment. + +On this particular occasion the party was unusually large; possibly a +certain curiosity to see the new guests had added to the number, while +some of the neighboring families were also present. Various were the new +names announced; and at last came the Bishop, with the lady of the house +upon his arm, the young widow following with one of the daughters of the +house. I could only distinguish a very white head, with a small +black skull-cap, a stooping figure, and a great gold cross, which, I +concluded, represented the holy man; something in black, with a very +long veil descending from the back of her head, being as evidently the +niece. + +A few formal introductions were gone through in clever pantomime, dinner +was announced, and the company paired off in all stateliness, while +the host, seizing my arm, led me across the room, and in a few words +presented me to the fair widow, who courtesied, and accepted my arm, and +away we marched in that solemn procession by which people endeavor to +thaw the ice of first acquaintance. + +"Your first visit to Ireland, I believe, Señhora?" said I, in Spanish, +wishing to say something as we walked along. + +"Yes, Señhor, and yours also, I understand?" replied she. + +"Not exactly," muttered I, taken too suddenly to recover myself; "when +I was a boy, a mere child--" I here by accident employed a Mexican +word almost synonymous with the French "gamin." She started, and said +eagerly, "How! you have been in Mexico?" + +"Yes, Señhora, I have passed some years in that country." + +"I am a Mexican," cried she, delightedly. "Tell me, where have you +traveiled, and whom did you know there?" + +"I have travelled a good deal, but scarcely knew any one," replied I. +"At Guajuaqualla--" + +"Oh, were you there? My own neighborhood,--my home," exclaimed she, +fervidly. + +"Then probably you know Don Estaban Olares," said I. + +"My own father!" + +I turned round; our eyes met; it was just at the very entrance of the +dinner-room, where a blaze of light was shed on everything, and there +upon my arm--her hand trembling, her cheek colorless, and her eyes +swimming in tears--was Donna Maria! Neither of us spoke, neither of us +could speak!--and while her eyes wandered from my face to the several +decorations I wore upon my breast, and I watched with agonizing +intensity the look of terror she threw down the table towards the place +where her uncle was seated, I saw plainly that some painful mystery was +struggling within her mind. + +"Do not let my uncle recognize you," said she, in a low whisper; "he is +not likely to do so, for both his sight and hearing are much impaired." + +"But why should I not claim him as an old acquaintance, if not a friend, +Señhora, if he be the same Fra Miguel?" + +"Hush! be cautious," cried she; "I will tell you all +tomorrow,--to-night, if there be a fitting opportunity. Let us talk of +something else, or we shall be remarked." + +I tried my best to obey her, but I fear my attempt was a poor one; I was +able, however, to listen to her with a certain amount of composure, and, +while doing so, to remark how much she had improved in grace and beauty +since we met. Years had developed the charms which girlhood then but +shadowed forth, and in the full and liquid softness of her dark and +long-lashed eyes, and the playful delicacy of her mouth, I saw how a +consciousness of fascination had served to lend new powers of pleasing. + +She spoke to me of her widowhood without any affectation of feeling +grieved or sorry. So long as Don Geloso had lived, her existence had +been like that of a nun in a cloister; he was too jealous to suffer her +to go into the world, and, save at the Court Chapel each morning and +evening, she never saw anything of that brilliant society in which her +equals were moving. When her uncle was created Bishop of Seville, she +removed to that city to visit him, and had never seen her husband after. +Such, in few words, was the story of a life, whose monotony would have +broken the spirit of any nature less buoyant and elastic than her own. +Don Estaban was dead; and of him she spoke with deep and affectionate +feeling; betraying besides that her own lot was rendered almost a +friendless one by the bereavement. + +That same evening, as we walked through the rooms, examining pictures +and ancient armor, of which our host was somewhat vain, I learned the +secret to which the Senhora had alluded at table, and divesting which +of all the embarrassment the revelation occasioned herself, was briefly +this: The Fra, who had never, for some reasons of his own, either liked +or trusted me, happened to discover some circumstances of my earlier +adventures in Texas, and even traced me in my rambles to the night of my +duel with the Ranchero. Hence he drew the somewhat rash and ungenerous +conclusion that my character was not so unimpeachable as I affected, and +that my veracity was actually open to question! An active correspondence +had taken place between Don Geloso and himself about me, in which the +former, after great researches, pronounced that no noble family of my +name had existed in Old Spain, and that, in plain fact, I was nothing +better than an impostor! In this terrible delusion the old gentleman +died; but so fearful was he of the bare possibility of injuring one in +whose veins flowed the pure blood of Castile that on his death-bed he +besought the Bishop to ascertain the fact to a certainty, and not +to desist in the investigation till he had traced me to my birth, +parentage, and country. Upon this condition he had bequeathed all his +fortune to the Church, and not alone all his own wealth, but all Donna +Maria's also. + +The Bishop's visit to Ireland, therefore, had no other object than to +look for my baptismal certificate,--an investigation, I need scarcely +say, somewhat difficult and intricate! + +Of course, in this confession, the fair Contessa never hesitated to +regard me as an injured and calumniated individual; but so assured was +she of the Bishop's desire to endow the Church with her wealth that +he would have less brooked to discover me a noble of title and rank +indisputable, than to find me a poor and ignoble adventurer. "Were he +but to recognize you," said she, "I should be condemned to a nunnery for +life!" and this terror, however little startling to _my_ ears, had too +much of significance to _her_ mind to be undervalued. + +Of course my present position, the companionship of me Prince, the +foreign orders I wore, were more than sufficient to accredit me to her +as anything I pleased to represent myself; but somehow I felt little +inclination for that vein of fiction in which so often and so largely +I had indulged! For the first time in my life I regarded this flow of +invention as a treachery! and, when pressed by her to relate the full +story of my life, I limited myself to that period which, beginning with +my African campaign, brought me down to the moment of telling I was in +love. Such is the simple solution of the mystery; nor can I cite a more +convincing evidence of the ennobling nature of the passion than that it +made me, such as I was, tenacious of the truth. + +Every succeeding day brought me into closer intimacy with the Señhora, +and taught me more and more to value her for other graces than those +of personal beauty. The seclusion in which she had passed her last few +years had led her to cultivate her mind by a course of study such as few +Spanish women ever think of, and which gave an almost serious character +to a nature of more than childlike buoyancy. We talked of her own joyous +land, to which she seemed longing to return, and of our first meeting +beside the "Rio Colloredo," and then of our next meeting on her own +marriage-day; and she wondered where, if ever, we should see each other +again! The opportunity was not to be lost. I pressed her hand to my +lips, and asked her never to leave me! I told her that, for me, country +had no ties,--that I had neither home nor kindred. I would at that +moment have confessed everything, even to my humble birth! I pledged +myself to live with her amidst the sierras of the Far West, or, if she +liked better, in some city of the Old World. I told her that I was rich, +and that I needed not that wealth of which her uncle's covetousness +would rob her. In fact, I said a great deal that was true; and when I +added anything that was not so, it was simply as painters introduce a +figure with a "bit of red," to heighten the landscape. I will not weary +my _fair_ reader with all the little doubts, and hesitations, and fears, +so natural for her to experience and express; nor will I tire my male +companion by saying how I combated each in turn. Love, like a lawsuit, +has but one ritual. First comes the declaration,--usually a pretty +unintelligible piece of business, in either case; then come the +"affidavits," the sworn depositions; then follow the cross-examinations; +after which, the charge and the verdict. In my case it was a favorable +one, and I was almost out of my senses with delight. + + + +The Bishop, with whom my acquaintanceship had never betrayed my secret, +was to leave Ireland in a few days, and the Prince, to whom I told +everything, with the kindness of a true friend promised that he would +take the very same day for his own departure. The remainder we were +to leave to fortune. Love-making left me little time for any other +thoughts; but still as, for appearance' sake, I was obliged to pass some +hours of every day apart from Donna Maria, I took the occasion of one of +these forced absences to visit a scene which had never quitted my mind +through all the changeful fortunes of my life,--the little spot where I +was born. Rising one morning at break of day, I set out for Horseleap, +to see once more, and for the last time, the humble home of my +childhood. The distance was about sixteen miles; but as I rode slowly, +my mind full of old memories and reflections, I did not reach the place +till nigh noon. Alas! I should never have known the spot! There had been +a season of famine and pestilence, and now the little village was almost +tenantless. Many of the cabins were unroofed; in some, the blackened +rafters bore tokens of fire. The one shop that used to supply the humble +luxuries of the poor was closed, and I passed on with a heavy heart +towards the cross-roads where "Con's Acre" lay. + +I had not gone far when my eye, straining to catch it, detected the roof +of the cabin rising above the little thorn hedge that flanked the +road. Ay, there was the old stone-quarry I used to play in, as a child, +fancying that its granite sides were mountain precipices, and its little +pools were lakes. There was the gate on which for hours long I have sat, +gazing at the bleak expanse of moorland, and wondering if all the wide +world beyond had nothing fairer or more beautiful than this. + +"Who lives in that cabin yonder?" asked I, of a peasant on the road. + +The man replied that it was "the minister;" adding his name, which, +however, I could not catch. Long as I had been away from Ireland, +I could not forget that this was the especial title given to the +Protestant clergyman of the parish, and I rode up to the door wondering +how it chanced that he was reduced to a dwelling of such humble +pretensions. An old woman came out as I drew up, and told me that the +curate was from home, but would be back in less than an hour; requesting +me to "put in my beast," and sit down in the parlor till he came. + +I accepted the invitation, followed her into the cabin, which, although +in a condition of neatness very different from what I remembered it +of old, brought back all my boyish days in an instant. There was the +fireside, where, with naked feet roasting before the blazing turf, I had +sat and slept full many an hour, dreaming of adventures which were as +nothing to those my real life had met with. There the corner where I +used to sit throughout the night, copying those law papers my father +would bring back with him from Kilbeggan. There stood the little bed +where often I have sobbed myself to sleep, when, wearied and worn out, +I was punished for some trifling omission, some slight and accidental +mistake. I sat down, and covered my face with my hands, for a sense of +my utter loneliness in the world came suddenly over me; I felt as if +this poor hovel was my only real home, and that all my success in life +was a mere passing dream. + +Meanwhile the old woman, with true native volubility, was explaining how +the Bishop--"bad scran to him!--would n't let his riv'rence have pace +and ease till he kem and lived in the parish, though there was n't a +spot fit for a gentleman in the whole length and breadth of it! and +signs on it," added she, "we had to put up with this little place here, +they call Con's Acre, and it was all a ruin when we got it." + +"And who owned this cabin before?" asked I. + +"A villain they call Con Cregan, your honor,--the biggest thief ye +ever heard of; he was paid for informin' agin the people, and whin the +Government had done wid him, they transported him too!" + +"Had he any children, this same Con?" + +"He had a brat of a boy that was drowned at 'say,' they tell me; but I'd +never believe it was that way that Con Cregan's son was to die!" + +I need scarcely remark that I saw no inducement for prolonging this +conversation, wherein all the facts quoted were already familiar, +and all the speculations the reverse of flattery; and I was far more +agreeably occupied in discussing the eggs and milk the old lady had +placed before me, when the door opened, and the curate entered. A +deep cavernous cough and a stooped figure announcing the signs of some +serious chest disease, were all I had time to observe; when, with the +politeness of a gentleman, he advanced towards me. The first sound of +his voice was enough, and I cried out, "Lyndsay! my oldest and best +friend,--don't you know me?" + +"I am ashamed to say that I do not," said he, faltering, while he still +held my hand, and gazed into my face. + +"Not yet?" asked I again, smiling at the embarrassment of his +countenance. + +"Not even yet," said he. "Tell me, I beseech you, where did we meet?" + +"Come here," said I, leading him to the door, and pointing to the +wide-stretching moor that lay before us; "it was there,--yonder, where +you see that heavy cloud-shadow stealing along,--yonder we first met. Do +you know me now?" + +He started; his pale cheek grew paler, and he fell upon my neck in a +burst of tears. Who shall ever know the source, or what the meaning? +They were not of joy, still less of sorrow,--they were the outbreak of a +hundred emotions. Old memories of happy days, never to come back; boyish +triumphs, successes, failures; moments of ecstasy--of bitter anguish; +his own bleak, joyless existence, perhaps, contrasting with mine; and +then at last the fell consciousness of the malady in which he was but +lingering out life. + +"And here are you, and here!" cried he, in a voice which his faltering +accents made scarce intelligible; "who should say that we were to meet +thus?" Then, as if his words had conveyed a meaning of which he was +ashamed, he blushed deeply, and said, "And oh, my friend! how truly you +told me that life had its path for each, if we but knew how to choose +it." + +I must not say how the hours were passed, nor how it was nightfall ere +either of us guessed it. Lyndsay insisted upon hearing every adventure +that had befallen me, questioning me eagerly as I went, how each new +feature of prosperity had "worked with me," and whether gold had yet +hardened my heart, and taught me indifference to the poor. + +I told him of my love, and with such rapturous delight that he even +offered to aid me in my object, by marrying me to Donna Maria,--a piece +of generous zeal, I am certain, that originated less in friendship +than in the prospect of a proselyte,--the niece of a bishop, too! Poor +fellow, he might make many converts, if he were thus easily satisfied. + +The next day I drove Donna Maria out for an airing, and, while occupying +her mind with various matters, contrived to prolong our excursion to +Horseleap. "What a dreary spot you have chosen for our drive!" said she, +looking around her. + +"Do you see yonder little hut," said I, "where the smoke is rising?" + +"Yes, that poor cabin yonder! You have not come to show me _that?_" said +she, laughing. + +"Even so, Maria," said I; "to show you that poor and humble hut, and to +tell you that it was there I was born,--a peasant's son; that from that +same lowly roof I wandered out upon the world friendless and hungry; +that partly by energy, partly by a resolution to succeed, partly by the +daring determination that would not admit a failure, I have become what +I am,--titled, honored, wealthy, but still the son of a poor man. I +could not have gone on deceiving you, even though this confession should +separate us forever." I could not speak more, nor needed I. Her hand had +already clasped mine as she murmured: "Yours more than ever." + +"Now is the moment, then, to become so," said I, as I lifted her from +the carriage and led her within the cabin. + +The company were already waiting dinner ere we returned to the Castle. +"I have to make our excuses," said I to the hostess; "but we prolonged +our drive to a considerable distance." + +"Ah, we feared you might have taken the road by the lake, where there is +no turning back," said she. + +"Exactly, madam; that is what we did precisely, for we are married!" + +Need I dwell upon the surprise and astonishment of this announcement? +The Bishop--fortunately it was in Spanish--uttered something very like +an oath. The bride blushed--some of the ladies looked shocked--the men +shook hands with me, and the Prince, saluting Donna Maria with a most +hearty embrace, begged to say "that the lady would be very welcomely +received in Paris, since it was the only drawback to my appointment as +an ambassador--that I was unmarried." + +Here I have done,--not that my Confessions are exhausted, but that I +fear my reader's patience may be; I may, however, add that this was not +the only "Spanish marriage" in which I had a share,--that my career in +greatness was not less eventful than my life in obscurity, and that I +draw up at this stage, leaving it for the traveller to say if he should +ever care hereafter to journey further with me. + +THE END. + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Confessions Of Con Cregan, by Charles James +Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF CON CREGAN *** + +***** This file should be named 32060-8.txt or 32060-8.zip ***** This +and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/0/6/32060/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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