"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.