THE “OULD DHRAGOON”
[I am indebted to my husband for this sketch.]
Behold that man, with lanky locks,
Which hang in strange confusion o'er his brow;
And nicely scan his garments, rent and patch'd,
In colours varied, like a pictured map;
And watch his restless glance--now grave, now gay--
As saddening thought, or merry humour's flash
Sweeps o'er the deep-mark'd lines which care hath left;
As when the world is steep'd in blackest night,
The forked lightning flashes through the sky,
And all around leaps into life and light,
To sink again in darkness blacker still.
Yes! look upon that face lugubrious, long,
As thoughtfully he stands with folded arms
Amid his realm of charr'd and spectral stumps,
Which once were trees, but now, with sprawling roots,
Cling to the rocks which peep above the soil.
Ay! look again,
And say if you discern the faintest trace
Of warrior bold;--the gait erect and proud,
The steady glance that speaks the fearless soul,
Watchful and prompt to do what man can do
When duty calls. All wreck'd and reckless now;--
But let the trumpet's soul-inspiring sound
Wake up the brattling echoes of the woods,
Then watch his kindling eye--his eagle glance--
While thoughts of glorious fields, and battles won,
And visions bright of joyous, hopeful youth
Sweep o'er his soul. A soldier now once more--
Touch'd by the magic sound, he rears his head,
Responsive to the well-known martial note,
And stands again a hero 'mid his rags.
It is delightful to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse
circumstances. We may smile at the rude and clumsy attempts of the
remote and isolated backwoodsman to attain something like comfort,
but happy he who, with the buoyant spirits of the light-hearted
Irishman, contrives to make himself happy even when all others would
be miserable.
A certain degree of dissatisfaction with our present circumstances
is necessary to stimulate us to exertion, and thus to enable us to
secure future comfort; but where the delusive prospect of future
happiness is too remote for any reasonable hope of ultimate
attainment, then surely it is true wisdom to make the most of the
present, and to cultivate a spirit of happy contentment with the lot
assigned to us by Providence.
“Ould Simpson,” or the “Ould Dhragoon,” as he was generally called,
was a good sample of this happy character; and I shall proceed to
give the reader a sketch of his history, and a description of his
establishment. He was one of that unfortunate class of discharged
soldiers who are tempted to sell their pensions often far below
their true value, for the sake of getting a lot of land in some
remote settlement, where it is only rendered valuable by the labour
of the settler, and where they will have the unenviable privilege of
expending the last remains of their strength in clearing a patch of
land for the benefit of some grasping storekeeper who has given them
credit while engaged in the work.
The old dragoon had fixed his abode on the verge of an extensive
beaver-meadow, which was considered a sort of natural curiosity in
the neighbourhood; and where he managed, by cutting the rank grass
in the summer time, to support several cows, which afforded the
chief subsistence of his family. He had also managed, with the
assistance of his devoted partner, Judy, to clear a few acres of
poor rocky land on the sloping margin of the level meadow, which
he planted year after year with potatoes. Scattered over this
small clearing, here and there might be seen the but-end of some
half-burnt hemlock tree, which had escaped the general combustion
of the log heaps, and now formed a striking contrast to the white
limestone rocks which showed their rounded surfaces above the meagre
soil.
The “ould dhragoon” seemed, moreover, to have some taste for the
picturesque, and by way of ornament, had left standing sundry tall
pines and hemlocks neatly girdled to destroy their foliage, the
shade of which would have been detrimental to the “blessed praties”
which he designed to grow in his clearing, but which, in the
meantime, like martyrs at the stake, stretched their naked branches
imploringly towards the smiling heavens. As he was a kind of hermit,
from choice, and far removed from other settlers, whose assistance
is so necessary in new settlements, old Simpson was compelled to
resort to the most extraordinary contrivances while clearing his
land. Thus, after felling the trees, instead of chopping them into
lengths, for the purpose of facilitating the operation of piling
them preparatory to burning, which would have cost him too much
labour, he resorted to the practice of “niggering,” as it is called;
which is simply laying light pieces of round timber across the
trunks of the trees, and setting fire to them at the point of
contact, by which means the trees are slowly burned through.
It was while busily engaged in this interesting operation that I
first became acquainted with the subject of this sketch.
Some twenty or thirty little fires were burning briskly in different
parts of the blackened field, and the old fellow was watching the
slow progress of his silent “niggers,” and replacing them from time
to time as they smouldered away. After threading my way among the
uncouth logs, blazing and smoking in all directions, I encountered
the old man, attired in an old hood, or bonnet, of his wife Judy,
with his patched canvas trousers rolled up to his knees; one foot
bare, and the other furnished with an old boot, which from its
appearance had once belonged to some more aristocratic foot. His
person was long, straight, and sinewy, and there was a light
springiness and elasticity in his step which would have suited a
younger man, as he skipped along with a long handspike over his
shoulder. He was singing a stave from the “Enniskillen Dragoon”
when I came up with him.
“With his silver-mounted pistols, and his long carbine,
Long life to the brave Inniskillen dragoon.”
His face would have been one of the most lugubrious imaginable, with
his long, tangled hair hanging confusedly over it, in a manner which
has been happily compared to a “bewitched haystack,” had it not been
for a certain humorous twitch or convulsive movement, which affected
one side of his countenance, whenever any droll idea passed
through his mind. It was with a twitch of this kind, and a certain
indescribable twinkle of his somewhat melancholy eye, as he seemed
intuitively to form a hasty conception of the oddity of his
appearance to a stranger unused to the bush, that he welcomed me
to his clearing. He instantly threw down his handspike, and leaving
his “niggers” to finish their work at their leisure, insisted on our
going to his house to get something to drink.
On the way, I explained to him the object of my visit, which was
to mark out, or “blaze,” the sidelines of a lot of land I had
received as part of a military grant, immediately adjoining the
beaver-meadow, and I asked him to accompany me, as he was well
acquainted with the different lots.
“Och! by all manner of manes, and welcome; the dhevil a foot of the
way but I know as well as my own clearing; but come into the house,
and get a dhrink of milk, an' a bite of bread an' butther, for
sorrow a dhrop of the whiskey has crossed my teeth for the last
month; an' it's but poor intertainment for man or baste I can offer
you, but shure you're heartily welcome.”
The precincts of the homestead were divided and subdivided into an
infinity of enclosures, of all shapes and sizes. The outer enclosure
was a bush fence, formed of trees felled on each other in a row, and
the gaps filled up with brushwood. There was a large gate, swung
with wooden hinges, and a wooden latch to fasten it; the smaller
enclosures were made with round poles, tied together with bark.
The house was of the rudest description of “shanty,” with hollowed
basswood logs, fitting into each other somewhat in the manner of
tiles for a roof, instead of shingles. No iron was to be seen, in
the absence of which there was plenty of leathern hinges, wooden
latches for locks, and bark-strings instead of nails. There was
a large fireplace at one end of the shanty, with a chimney,
constructed of split laths, plastered with a mixture of clay and
cowdung. As for windows, these were luxuries which could well be
dispensed with; the open door was an excellent substitute for them
in the daytime, and at night none were required. When I ventured
to object to this arrangement, that he would have to keep the door
shut in the winter time, the old man replied, in the style so
characteristic of his country, “Shure it will be time enough to
think of that when the could weather sets in.” Everything about
the house wore a Robinson Crusoe aspect, and though there was not
any appearance of original plan or foresight, there was no lack
of ingenious contrivance to meet every want as it arose.
Judy dropped us a low curtsey as we entered, which was followed by
a similar compliment from a stout girl of twelve, and two or three
more of the children, who all seemed to share the pleasure of their
parents in receiving strangers in their unpretending tenement. Many
were the apologies that poor Judy offered for the homely cheer she
furnished us, and great was her delight at the notice we took of the
“childher.” She set little Biddy, who was the pride of her heart, to
reading the Bible; and she took down a curious machine from a shelf,
which she had “conthrived out of her own head,” as she said, for
teaching the children to read. This was a flat box, or frame, filled
with sand, which saved paper, pens, and ink. Poor Judy had evidently
seen better days, but, with a humble and contented spirit, she
blessed God for the food and scanty raiment their labour afforded
them. Her only sorrow was the want of “idication” for the children.
She would have told us a long story about her trials and sufferings,
before they had attained their present comparative comfort and
independence, but, as we had a tedious scramble before us, through
cedar-swamps, beaver-meadows, and piny ridges, the “ould dhragoon”
cut her short, and we straightway started on our toilsome journey.
Simpson, in spite of a certain dash of melancholy in his
composition, was one of those happy fellows of the “light heart
and thin pair of breeches” school, who, when they meet with
difficulty or misfortune, never stop to measure its dimensions,
but hold in their breath, and run lightly over, as in crossing
a bog, where to stand still is to sink.
Off, then, we went, with the “ould dhragoon” skipping and bounding
on before us, over fallen trees and mossy rocks; now ducking under
the low, tangled branches of the white cedar, then carefully
piloting us along rotten logs, covered with green moss, to save us
from the discomfort of wet feet. All this time he still kept one of
his feet safely ensconced in the boot, while the other seemed to
luxuriate in the water, as if there was something amphibious in
his nature.
We soon reached the beaver-meadow, which extended two or three
miles; sometimes contracting into a narrow gorge, between the wooded
heights, then spreading out again into an ample field of verdure,
and presenting everywhere the same unvarying level surface,
surrounded with rising grounds, covered with the dense unbroken
forest, as if its surface had formerly been covered by the waters of
a lake; which in all probability has been the case at some not very
remote period. In many places the meadow was so wet that it required
a very large share of faith to support us in passing over its
surface; but our friend, the dragoon, soon brought us safe through
all dangers to a deep ditch, which he had dug to carry off the
superfluous water from the part of the meadow which he owned. When
we had obtained firm footing on the opposite side, we sat down to
rest ourselves before commencing the operation of “blazing,” or
marking the trees with our axes, along the side-line of my lot. Here
the mystery of the boot was explained. Simpson very coolly took it
off from the hitherto favoured foot, and drew it on the other.
He was not a bit ashamed of his poverty, and candidly owned that
this was the only boot he possessed, and he was desirous of giving
each of his feet fair play.
Nearly the whole day was occupied in completing our job, in which
the “dhragoon” assisted us, with the most hearty good-will,
enlivening us with his inexhaustible fund of good-humour and
drollery. It was nearly dark when we got back to his “shanty,” where
the kind-hearted Judy was preparing a huge pot of potatoes and other
“combustibles,” as Simpson called the other eatables, for our
entertainment.
Previous to starting on our surveying expedition, we had observed
Judy very earnestly giving some important instructions to one of her
little boys, on whom she seemed to be most seriously impressing the
necessity of using the utmost diligence. The happy contentment which
now beamed in poor Judy's still comely countenance bespoke the
success of the messenger. She could not “call up spirits from the
vasty deep” of the cellar, but she had procured some whiskey from
her next-door neighbour--some five or six miles off, and there it
stood somewhat ostentatiously on the table in a “greybeard,” with a
“corn cob,” or ear of Indian corn, stripped of its grain, for a
cork, smiling most benevolently on the family circle, and looking
a hundred welcomes to the strangers.
An indescribably enlivening influence seemed to exude from every
pore of that homely earthen vessel, diffusing mirth and good-humour
in all directions. The old man jumped and danced about on the rough
floor of the “shanty”; and the children sat giggling and nudging
each other in a corner, casting a timid look, from time to time, at
their mother, for fear she might check them for being “over bould.”
“Is it crazy ye are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!” said Judy, whose
notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified
levity of her partner; “the likes of you I never seed; ye are too
foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the
stools for the gintlemens, while I get the supper for yes.”
Our plentiful though homely meal was soon discussed, for hunger,
like a good conscience, can laugh at luxury; and the “greybeard”
made its appearance, with the usual accompaniments of hot water
and maple sugar, which Judy had scraped from the cake, and placed
in a saucer on the table before us.
The “ould dhragoon,” despising his wife's admonitions, gave way
freely to his feelings, and knew no bounds to his hilarity. He
laughed and joked, and sang snatches of old songs picked up in
the course of his service at home and abroad. At length Judy,
who looked on him as a “raal janius,” begged him to “sing the
gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry.”
Of course we ardently seconded the motion, and nothing loth, the
old man, throwing himself back on his stool, and stretching out
his long neck, poured forth the following ditty, with which I
shall conclude my hasty sketch of the “ould dhragoon”:--
Och! it's here I'm intirely continted,
In the wild woods of swate 'Mericay;
God's blessing on him that invinted
Big ships for our crossing the say!
Here praties grow bigger nor turnips;
And though cruel hard is our work,
In ould Ireland we'd nothing but praties,
But here we have praties and pork.
I live on the banks of a meadow,
Now see that my maning you take;
It bates all the bogs of ould Ireland--
Six months in the year it's a lake.
Bad luck to the beavers that dammed it!
I wish them all kilt for their pains;
For shure though the craters are clever,
Tis sartin they've drown'd my domains.
I've built a log hut of the timber
That grows on my charmin' estate;
And an illigant root-house erected,
Just facing the front of my gate.
And I've made me an illigant pig-sty,
Well litter'd wid straw and wid hay;
And it's there, free from noise of the chilther,
I sleep in the heat of the day.
It's there I'm intirely at aise, sir,
And enjoy all the comforts of home;
I stretch out my legs as I plase, sir,
And dhrame of the pleasures to come.
Shure, it's pleasant to hear the frogs croakin',
When the sun's going down in the sky,
And my Judy sits quietly smokin'
While the praties are boil'd till they're dhry.
Och! thin, if you love indepindence,
And have money your passage to pay,
You must quit the ould counthry intirely,
And start in the middle of May.
J.W.D.M.