LANDING IN THE EMERALD ISLE.
Wall, after all, as much as I wuz afraid of the deepness and length and
breadth of the ocean, I had a pretty good time, after all.
Somehow, I got to feelin’ that the ship wuz a big city, and I got to
feelin’ as if it wuz about as safe as the land.
We d’no what is a-goin’ on under us on land--no, indeed, we don’t, and
if we git to forgittin’ it, we often git a shake-up and a hunch from
old Mom Nater to let us know that we are entirely ignorant of what
she’s a-doin’ down in the depths of the earth.
Yes, we git shook up with earthquakes, or cyclones lift us up and sweep
us off, and hurricanes and water-spouts are abroad, and cars break
down, and horses throw us out of wagons, etc., etc.
I’d bring up these consolin’ thoughts a sight when I’d be a-layin’ on
my narrer piller and a-thinkin’ that only a few boards wuz between me
and--what? And I’d kinder shudder and turn over, and try to forgit it.
How cold the water wuz and how deep, and how lonesome it would be
a-sinkin’ down, and down, and down, and how big the shark’s mouth wuz,
and how the cold, bitter, chokin’ waves would wash anythin’ to and fro
like a piece of weed, and sweep one so fur off and so fur down that it
didn’t seem as if the Angel of the Resurrection could ever find us!
But I spoze he could.
It stands to reason that we could as well be found in a shark as in
some poseys that grow up from the dust of our body, and whose perfume
exhale in the mornin’ dew goin’ up to the clouds, fallin’ in rain, and
goin’ through countless forms before the resurrection.
Oh! did I not bring up all these thoughts anon or oftener? And did I
not say to myself, time and agin, for my comfort and consolation, “The
One who formed me out of nothin’ is able to reform me.” Yes, my best
comfort wuz to ask the One who careth for ’em who go down to the sea in
ships to care for me, and to rest in that thought.
To lay down in the depths of that wide love and care and repose myself
in it.
Wall, we had a pretty good time on board. There wuz lots of different
kinds of folks there, jest as there always is on land.
I had hearn that there wuz a live English Lord on board, and Josiah
picked him out the first time we went on deck.
Yes, there he wuz, as we spozed, a tall, slim, supercilious-actin’ and
lookin’ feller, who ordered round the ship’s crew, and wuz dissatisfied
with his food, and snubbed the ocean, and felt that it hadn’t no need
to breathe so loud, and looked askance at the Heavens if the day wuz
dull.
Yes, he looked down on everybody and everything. And Josiah sez--“He
can’t help it, he wuz brung up that way; he is a Lord.”
“Wall,” sez I, “Lord or not, he acts like a fool!” Sez I, “He might
lower his nose once in awhile to rest it.”
Truly, he held it right up in the air the hull of the time.
But come to find out, that feller wuz a Grocer’s clerk, who wuz
a-makin’ his first trip, and felt as if Heaven and earth wuz a-watchin’
and admirin’ his move.
And the Lord we found out wuz a short, square-built man, dressed in
rough tweed, so jolly and full of fun that his wife had to hold him
back all the time.
She would have been glad to had him put on some dignity and things, but
he wouldn’t.
[Illustration: The lord with a pink paper suit on.]
One night some pretty American girls give a dance, and they handed
round some little favors that looked like big nuts, and when you opened
’em a hull tissue-paper suit come out on ’em, and that Lord come out
with a pink paper suit on, and went round through the dance half bent,
for the skirt wuz but short, with a woman’s ruffled cap on, and a dress.
His wife seemed to suffer agonies. Her pride ached, I spozed. But his
didn’t; he wuz as happy as a lark, and didn’t put on any more airs than
any common medder lark would.
I liked him first-rate, but that clerk wuz austere and exclusive to the
last. He wouldn’t mingle with us.
He wuz a-travellin’ abroad. And, to use a common adage, usually applied
to horses--“He felt his oats.”
Wall, they got up a paper on board and printed it on a typewriter--the
Lord furnishin’ most of the jokes for it.
And then they had a peanut-party, and the Lord carried the most of
anybody on the back of his hand and got the prize--3 long strings of
glass beads, and he wore ’em all the evenin’, to his wife’s horrow.
But the clerk, whose father kep’ a peanut-stand, and who had dwelt with
’em all the days of his youth, he thought it wuz a vulgar party, and
he looked at peanuts as if he knew ’em not.
There wuz times when the sea wuz rough, and Josiah and I retired to the
cabin, and for hours bemoaned our fate and wondered if we should ever
agin see the cliffs of Jonesville.
And on one heavey day, when the floor of our cell seemed to rise up and
smite us in the pits of our stumicks, Josiah made his will, and handed
it to me, with a face on which love and agony and fear appeared, about
a third of each on ’em.
Sez he, in a voice tremblin’ with emotion--“Take my last tribute of
love, and,” sez he, “have it recorded, or it may be broke.”
“But,” sez I, “dear Josiah”--for his love awoke my own; it had been
havin’ a nap while I wuz a-wrestlin’ with the elements, and furniture
that wuz a-tryin’ to upset me.
Sez I--“If you die, I, too, shall perish. So what avails a will?”
He hadn’t thought of that, and sez he, a-speakin’ out feebly from his
bunk with his eyes shet--
“You’re fat; you may float,” sez he; “my prize shoat did that slipped
out of the wagon fordin’ the creek.”
Sez I, in the same faint axents--truly our two voices wuz as feeble as
a pair of feeble cats, and weaker--sez I, “I always said you would twit
me of my heft on your death-bed if the subject come up, and you had
your conscientiousness.”
Sez he, “I’ve showed my love to you--I have left you everything
onconditional. You can marry agin.” Sez he, “This is no time for
selfishness and jealousy.”
“Marry agin!” sez I feebly; “what do I want of another pardner? Heaven
knows, I don’t know!”
“Wall,” says he tenderly, for my words touched him--“you may feel
different when you hain’t so sick to your stumick.”
“Yes,” sez I, “and you may, too!”
He had never made a will before that left me onhampered, and I felt
that when his legs wuz firmer under him, and his stumick and head wuz
steadier, that he, too, might undergo a change.
And he did.
It wuz a bright, calm day. He felt well, and I see him the next mornin’
a furtively tearin’ up that will and a-strewin’ the torn bits out of
the port-hole winder.
As he did so his hands got entangled in a cord I’d made out of weltin’
cord.
And sez he, a-lookin’ down onto it--“In the name of the gracious Peter!
what is this?”
He thought in a minute of rope ladders and troubadors--he acted jealous.
Sez I, “It is some handkerchiefs that I am a-washin’ in the Atlantic
Ocean, Josiah.”
He didn’t know I wuz awake, and it startled him. And sez he--
“How did you ever come to think on’t?”
“I d’no,” sez I; “but I thought it would be sunthin’ to think on, to
say I had used the Atlantic for a washtub.”
Sez he--“Wash one of mine, Samantha. I’d love to tell Deacon Garvin
on’t.”
Sez I--“Your second best bandanna is on the line.”
He looked down onto the heavin’ billows with content, and sez he--“I’m
as hungry as a bear.”
That mornin’ the sea lay calm and beautiful. The sun riz up on it and
flooded it with delicious waves of color; the east wuz a flame of
color, and the crest of the heavin’ billows wuz aflame with gold and
crimson and amethyst, and fur off some tall icebergs loomed up like
cold, pale ghosts, a-hantin’ us with a vague sense of danger, like the
undertone of sadness that underlays all things the most beautiful and
grand.
Then there wuz moonlight evenin’s, when the moon shone down full and
clear, and the glorified sky and the glorified water seemed to be a
part of each other, and the long and deep rythm of the waves seemed to
bear us up with ’em in a grand hymn that all creation wuz a-chantin’.
And then there wuz misty days, when clouds of fog settled down round
us like gray, mysterious wings, a-holdin’ us clost in their folds of
mystery, when we knew not what wuz a yard in front of us; when we
sailed on, blind creeters, not a-knowin’ what we wuz a-comin’ bunt up
aginst--a iceberg, or another ship, or jest the open space ahead. When
the cries of the fog-horn seemed to be a-hollerin’ out--
“Git out of the way, we’re a-comin’!”
But how could a iceberg hear and wheel round? No, it hadn’t come down
from the pole for no sech a purpose, it wuz a-goin’ straight ahead.
Them wuz solemn times, and we would think that we couldn’t never forgit
’em.
But we did. When the sun shone bright agin, we wuz ready to forgit the
sorrer and danger of the night and be happy agin. And at times, fur off
on the fur, watery plain--fur off ahead, we would see a sail.
Nearer and nearer it would come, and then go by us and dissapear in
the horizen back of us--meetin’ and partin’ at some distance without a
word; some like human bein’s goin’ by each other on the ocean of Life.
Separate worlds full of human life and interest meetin’ and partin’,
floatin’ by onbeknown.
I took a strange and a mysterious comfort sometimes a-bendin’ over the
sides of the ship and lookin’ fur down into the depths of the water and
a-seein’ huge forms a-playin’ down in their strange, green depths, or
imaginin’ I could. And I took a kind of dretful enjoyment a-ponderin’
on what would foller on and ensue if I should fall off and plunge down
into the liquid depths. But them thoughts wuz too full of or to indulge
in long. They driv me back to the side of my beloved pardner, or the
society of little Adrian and Alice.
Adrian knew everybody on board, and everybody loved him. But, above
all, he liked a sailor called Mike. From all I could learn, that seaman
racked his brain to tell all sorts of wild sea stories to the child.
I d’no as I’ve told about Josiah’s appetite durin’ that voyage.
My pardner’s appetite wuz always a strong subject, but now it wuz
exceedingly queer.
After he got over his seasickness, most the first words he said, and
they come right after his “good-by” and partin’ words to me, though
some time after--he waked up out of a deep sleep, and the first words
he said to me wuz, in middlin’ feeble axents--
“Do you spoze, Samantha, I could git a little biled beef and cabbage,
and some pork and beans?”
He had been a-livin’ on water gruel, and the words almost startled
me. But I obtained the ingregients with some trouble, and as I bore
them in, a large platter full of each, he looked up dretful feeble and
languishin’, and sez he--
“Set ’em down by the bed, Samantha, and mebby I could eat a bean, or
part of one.”
“Part of one bean” didn’t sound very encouragin’, but I set ’em down,
and the next time I see them platters, about ten minutes afterwards,
they wuz both clean as though they had been swept and garnished.
And from that minute he gained on’t. My own first hankerin’ after I got
better wuz for a biled dinner. Of course, I couldn’t git that, but I
exchanged milk porridge for roast pork, and sassige, and cabbage hot
slaw the first thing, and felt satisfied and happy with the change.
Curous, hain’t it? If I’d been on land I believe they would a-killed
me, but I thrived on the diet.
Wall, I never shall forgit how good the land looked to me as I looked
fur forrerds over the heavin’ billows of blue, and see the beautiful
green shores of Queenstown a-risin’ up ahead.
Adrian said, “Auntie, is that the Emerald Isle, and are the hills all
covered with emeralds, like Alice’s ring?” Sez he, “Mike told me they
were.”
Sez I, “Don’t you pay any attention to what Mike sez. The hills are
jest covered with soft, green grass that would look enough sight better
to me than any jewelled stuns would.”
Al Faizi stood motionless, lookin’ on the fair seen ahead, as if he wuz
a-lookin’ over the Swellin’s of Jordan into the Promised Land; part of
the time that riz up look rested on Alice’s sweet face.
Alice and Martin wuz a-walkin’ arm-in-arm up and down the deck, as much
took up with the sight as we wuz, only Martin thought it looked more
wise to not act tickled and enthuastick about it.
That is the first rule in etiket with some folks, to not act tickled
and glad about anything, but to look as stunny and onmoved at a
masterpiece of Art, or a towerin’ Alp, as at a plate of cold ham.
Josiah, he wuz a-worryin’ about the tug that wuz to take us on shore.
“A tug!” sez he; “I don’t like that name, it don’t sound reliable. If
it is a good convenience, why is it sech a tug to it to carry us?”
Sez I, “Be calm, Josiah, everything will come out right.”
And sez he, “One of the passengers called it a ‘tender.’ If it is so
tender, I don’t believe it is safe. Tenderness means weakness,” says he.
“Not always,” sez I, “quite the reverse.” But I see that it wuz no time
to plunge into metaphysicks and prove to him what I knew well, that
“the bravest are the tenderest--the lovin’ are the darin’.”
Then sez he, “If we ever live to git into that tug, we have got to have
our baggage all overhauled by the Custom House Officers.”
“Wall,” sez I, “what of it? We hain’t nothin’ to conceal or cover up.”
“Wall,” sez he, “that dressin’-gown of mine will jest as likely as not
be all throwed round and mussed up. It worries me!” sez he.
Sez I, “Don’t worry, Josiah Allen; it is good rep, and it will stand a
good overhaulin’ and not hurt it.”
“Wall,” sez he, “them tossels can’t be handled over by all Ireland and
come out hull and sound. It is nothin’ but dum foolishness to have to
go through all them performances.”
But his worryin’ wuz worse than the reality. For anon we sailed into
Cork harbor, and got into the tug that come out to meet us. The
officers jest give our things the lightest examination possible. They
didn’t throw things around at all, and they wuz real polite, only in
one thing--they asked us if we had tobacco or sperits.
[Illustration: With a stern look, calculated to wither him.]
Josiah never took his eyes offen that dressin’-gown through the hull of
the ordeal, and he wuz foldin’ them tossels lovin’ly as soon as they
dropped his satchel, when I wuz lookin’ back and a-wonderin’ at the
size of the steamer that loomed up above us some like a cliff.
As I say, the man with the officers asked me if I had sperits or
tobacco in my luggage.
I confronted him with a stern look, calculated to wither him, and sez
I--
“Do I look like it, sir?”
“Look like what?” sez he.
“Like a old toper who carrys round whiskey and a pipe?” Sez I, “I never
drink a drop stronger than coffee, half cream, and I never smoked a
pipe in my life, only once I smoked a little mullen for asthma.”
He felt ashamed, jest as I wanted him to. He see the power of
principle, and he didn’t hardly touch my things.
Wall, it wuz no wonder that Josiah worried some. These things were new
to us. He and I wuz, as you may say, the only students and novices in
travellin’ in the hull party, for Al Faizi had been everywhere, his
conversation wuz enriched by allusions to every land.
And Alice had been to Paris to school for three years. And Martin had
took her over and went after her. He often spoke of his familiarity
with foreign life and the exhaustive study he had made in foreign
fields. “There wuz little left for him to see,” he claimed.
He had took Alice over and went after her, but went with lightnin’
speed only when he wuz bed-sick. So Alice told me with her own lips.
He boasted a sight of his intimacy with foreign ways and customs.
Wall, did it not seem good to set our feet on land once more! But I wuz
almost ashamed to see the way my pardner reeled round, for he acted
for all the world as if he had been a-drinkin’. I wuz jest a-goin’ to
mention it to him when he whispered to me--
“Hang on to me, Samantha,” sez he; “I will never tell on’t in the
world.”
“Tell of what?” sez I, as I made a effort to stand up straight and
strong.
“Why,” sez he, “if you took a little too much sling for that cold of
yourn, I hain’t one to throw it in your face.”
Sez he, “That Stewardess wuz always a-recomendin’ it.”
“Sling!” sez I coldly; “I hain’t took a drop of anything stronger than
tea, and,” sez I, “knowin’ my principles as you do, I should think
you’d be ashamed of yourself to misuse a pardner in this shameful way!”
“Wall,” sez he, “you can’t walk straight to save your life! and,” sez
he, “you grew so indignant on the tug at that man, that one would
almost mistrust you.”
I see that there wuz some reason in his talk, for too much indignation
looks like guilt, lots of times.
Sez I, “You talk about my reelin’ round; what are you doin’?” sez I, as
his knees crooked and he crumpled down like one intoxicated.
Wall, he gin up that it wuz the effects of the ship, and erelong we
were in a good, clean tarvern and had breakfast.
After breakfast we wuz indeed glad to lay down and rest for a little
while, and then, as the rest of the party had all sallied out, my
Josiah and me took a walk all to ourselves, or that is what we had
lotted on.
But of all the droves of beggars that follered us, I never see the
beat--nasty and shiftless and talkin’ and teasin’ the very life out on
us.
I gin ’em a few cents in order to git rid on ’em.
But the more I gin the more they follered on. So I jest shet up my
portmoney and put it into my pocket.
Josiah poohed at ’em and didn’t give a cent, and didn’t approve of the
three cents I’d expended.
Till one old woman whispered to him, and I hearn her say--
“I see, young man, that you are good to your old mother; won’t you for
her sake give me a shilling?”
He wavered--he almost gin it to her. Sez she--“I will pray for
blessin’s on your handsome young head.”
He handed her the shillin’ with a happy, foolish look, which lasted
till she come round to my side, and she whispered to me--
“My pretty young lady, give me a sixpence. Your poor old father has
give me a gift, and do not let your own young heart be harder nor his.”
His liniment darkened rapidly, and he hurried me through the narrer
streets, full of shops and tarverns; and he did not console himself
as I did by lookin’ up on the steep hill and seein’ the handsome
residences--no, he seemed cut to the heart.
Wall, Martin said when we got back that we would go up to Cork at once,
as he wuz anxious to see all he could in Ireland as rapidly as possible.
He said that in a week at the outside he thought we could exhaust
all the sight-seein’ in Ireland and git to the bottom of the “Irish
Question.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll do well if you do that.”
And I didn’t make no moves to break it up, and we wuz soon a-ridin’
through the beautiful green country. And we seen on each side on us
“sweet fields arrayed in livin’ green.”
Never wuz there sech velvety grass, and the roads wuz as smooth and as
hard as a pavement.
Stun walls run along, with their soft, gray color, and anon a hedge,
birds, and flowers would break the seen. And little, low cottages
covered with vines dotted the landscape here and there; and now and
then a chapel would point its spire up into the blue overhead.
Once in awhile a queer rig with seats rigged out back to back, drawed
by horses, and full of folks, and once in awhile a smaller cart drawed
by a donkey, and once in awhile a woman with a red or blue cloak and a
white cap, and a man with short pantaloons and coat.
And so we rid on, green underneath, blue overhead, until we arrived in
Cork.
Wall, we put up at the Imperial Hotel. Everything wuz clean and sweet
about the house, and we had plenty to eat, and that wuz good. It wuz
indeed a comfort. And the waiters wuz dretful civil and eager to please.
It beats all, the difference in their actions here and in Jonesville.
I’ve had Irish wimmen work for me who seemed to look down on me, and
accepted their dollar a day hautily; but here they would thankfully
receive their sixpence a day, and treat you like a lady, too, which is
more ’n half the battle.
Queer, hain’t it? But human nater is human nater, and even a little
child, if she has been tyranized over by her Ma, will misuse her dolly
or the cat. I spoze that trait in nater can’t be helped from caperin’
when it gits a chance.
Wall, the next day Martin said he “wanted to go to Blarney Castle for
several reasons.”
He didn’t say what they wuz, but I spoze one of ’em wuz that old reason
of hisen about wantin’ to do what other folks did. And then, mebby, he
wanted to try to palaver better than he had palavered. Tenny rate, we
all set out for the castle next mornin’ after breakfast.
We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.” The passengers sot back to
back, but as my Josiah wuz placed by my side I did not mind it.
[Illustration: We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.”]
On one side sot we two, and Al Faizi, on the other Martin and his
children.
Wall, the view wuz enchantin’ beyend description. The road wuz as
smooth and level as smooth glass, bordered by hedges full of pure white
and other colored poseys, a-fillin’ the air full of perfume, and the
cottages and every old tower and ruin wuz covered with the glossy green
of the ivy.
It wuz a fair seen--a fair seen!
Nater duz her best in Ireland, anyway. She seems to delight to
cover the meanest things--old straw-thatched cabins, and stuns, and
everything--with a robe of the richest, brightest green; mebby she
wants to kinder make up to the Irish for what they hain’t got, Jestice
and comfort and sech, and mebby, agin, it is the moist climate.