FRED POWER’S ADVENTURE IN PHILIPSTOWN.
The lazy hours of the long summer day crept slowly over. The sea, unbroken
by foam or ripple, shone like a broad blue mirror, reflecting here and
there some fleecy patches of snow-white cloud as they stood unmoved in the
sky. The good ship rocked to and fro with a heavy and lumbering motion, the
cordage rattled, the bulkheads creaked, the sails flapped lazily against
the masts, the very sea-gulls seemed to sleep as they rested on the long
swell that bore them along, and everything in sea and sky bespoke the calm.
No sailor trod the deck; no watch was stirring; the very tiller ropes were
deserted; and as they traversed backwards and forwards with every roll of
the vessel, told that we had no steerage-way, and lay a mere log upon the
water.
I sat alone in the bow, and fell into a musing fit upon the past and
the future. How happily for us is it ordained that in the most stirring
existences there are every here and there such little resting-spots of
reflection, from which, as from some eminence, we look back upon the road
we have been treading in life, and cast a wistful glance at the dark vista
before us! When first we set out upon our worldly pilgrimage, these are
indeed precious moments, when with buoyant heart and spirit high, believing
all things, trusting all things, our very youth comes back to us, reflected
from every object we meet; and like Narcissus, we are but worshipping our
own image in the water. As we go on in life, the cares, the anxieties, and
the business of the world engross us more and more, and such moments become
fewer and shorter. Many a bright dream has been dissolved, many a fairy
vision replaced, by some dark reality; blighted hopes, false friendships
have gradually worn callous the heart once alive to every gentle feeling,
and time begins to tell upon us,--yet still, as the well-remembered melody
to which we listened with delight in infancy brings to our mature age a
touch of early years, so will the very association of these happy moments
recur to us in our revery, and make us young again in thought. Then it is
that, as we look back upon our worldly career, we become convinced how
truly is the child the father of the man, how frequently are the projects
of our manhood the fruit of some boyish predilection; and that in the
emulative ardor that stirs the schoolboy’s heart, we may read the
_prestige_ of that high daring that makes a hero of its possessor.
These moments, too, are scarcely more pleasurable than they are salutary to
us. Disengaged for the time from every worldly anxiety, we pass in review
before our own selves, and in the solitude of our own hearts are we judged.
That still small voice of conscience, unheard and unlistened to amidst the
din and bustle of life, speaks audibly to us now; and while chastened
on one side by regrets, we are sustained on the other by some approving
thought; and with many a sorrow for the past, and many a promise for the
future, we begin to feel “how good it is for us to be here.”
The evening wore later; the red sun sank down upon the sea, growing larger
and larger; the long line of mellow gold that sheeted along the distant
horizon grew first of a dark ruddy tinge, then paler and paler, till it
became almost gray; a single star shone faintly in the east, and darkness
soon set in. With night came the wind, for almost imperceptibly the sails
swelled slowly out, a slight rustle at the bow followed, the ship lay
gently over, and we were once more in motion. It struck four bells; some
casual resemblance in the sound of the old pendulum that marked the hour at
my uncle’s house startled me so that I actually knew not where I was. With
lightning speed my once home rose up before me with its happy hearts; the
old familiar faces were there; the gay laugh was in my ears; there sat
my dear old uncle, as with bright eye and mellow voice he looked a very
welcome to his guests; there Boyle; there Considine; there the grim-visaged
portraits that graced the old walls whose black oak wainscot stood in broad
light and shadow, as the blazing turf fire shone upon it; there was my own
place, now vacant; methought my uncle’s eye was turned towards it and that
I heard him say, “My poor boy! I wonder where is he now!” My heart swelled,
my chest heaved, the tears coursed slowly down my cheeks, as I asked
myself, “Shall I ever see them more?” Oh, how little, how very little to us
are the accustomed blessings of our life till some change has robbed us of
them, and how dear are they when lost to us! My uncle’s dark foreboding
that we should never meet again on earth, came for the first time forcibly
to my mind, and my heart was full to bursting. What could repay me for
the agony of that moment as I thought of him, my first, my best, my only
friend, whom I had deserted? And how gladly would I have resigned my bright
day-dawn of ambition to be once more beside his chair, to hear his voice,
to see his smile, to feel his love for me! A loud laugh from the cabin
roused me from my sad, depressing revery, and at the same instant
Mike’s well-known voice informed me that the captain was looking for me
everywhere, as supper was on the table. Little as I felt disposed to join
the party at such a moment, as I knew there was no escaping Power, I
resolved to make the best of matters; so after a few minutes I followed
Mickey down the companion and entered the cabin.
The scene before me was certainly not calculated to perpetuate depressing
thoughts. At the head of a rude old-fashioned table, upon which figured
several black bottles and various ill-looking drinking vessels of every
shape and material, sat Fred Power; on his right was placed the skipper, on
his left the doctor,--the bronzed, merry-looking, weather-beaten features
of the one contrasting ludicrously with the pale, ascetic, acute-looking
expression of the other. Sparks, more than half-drunk, with the mark of a
red-hot cigar upon his nether lip, was lower down; while Major Monsoon, to
preserve the symmetry of the party, had protruded his head, surmounted by a
huge red nightcap, from the berth opposite, and held out his goblet to be
replenished from the punch-bowl.
“Welcome, thrice welcome, thou man of Galway!” cried out Power, as he
pointed to a seat, and pushed a wine-glass towards me. “Just in time, too,
to pronounce upon a new brewery. Taste that; a little more of the lemon you
would say, perhaps? Well, I agree with you. Rum and brandy, glenlivet
and guava jelly, limes, green tea, and a slight suspicion of preserved
ginger,--nothing else, upon honor,--and the most simple mixture for the
cure, the radical cure, of blue devils and debt I know of; eh, Doctor? You
advise it yourself, to be taken before bed-time; nothing inflammatory in
it, nothing pugnacious; a mere circulation of the better juices and more
genial spirits of the marly clay, without arousing any of the baser
passions; whiskey is the devil for that.”
“I canna say that I dinna like whiskey toddy,” said the doctor; “in the
cauld winter nights it’s no sae bad.”
“Ah, that’s it,” said Power; “there’s the pull you Scotch have upon us poor
Patlanders,--cool, calculating, long-headed fellows, you only come up to
the mark after fifteen tumblers; whereas we hot-brained devils, with a
blood at 212 degrees of Fahrenheit and a high-pressure engine of good
spirits always ready for an explosion, we go clean mad when tipsy; not but
I am fully convinced that a mad Irishman is worth two sane people of any
other country under heaven.”
“If you mean by that insin--insin--sinuation to imply any disrespect to the
English,” stuttered out Sparks, “I am bound to say that I for one, and the
doctor, I am sure, for another--”
“Na, na,” interrupted the doctor, “ye mauna coont upon me; I’m no disposed
to fetch ower our liquor.”
“Then, Major Monsoon, I’m certain--”
“Are ye, faith?” said the major, with a grin; “blessed are they who expect
nothing,--of which number you are not,--for most decidedly you shall be
disappointed.”
“Never mind, Sparks, take the whole fight to your own proper self, and
do battle like a man; and here I stand, ready at all arms to prove my
position,--that we drink better, sing better, court better, fight better,
and make better punch than every John Bull, from Berwick to the Land’s
End.”
Sparks, however, who seemed not exactly sure how far his antagonist was
disposed to quiz, relapsed into a half-tipsy expression of contemptuous
silence, and sipped his liquor without reply.
“Yes,” said Power, after a pause, “bad luck to it for whiskey; it nearly
got me broke once, and poor Tom O’Reilly of the 5th, too, the best-tempered
fellow in the service. We were as near it as touch and go; and all for some
confounded Loughrea spirits that we believed to be perfectly innocent, and
used to swill away freely without suspicion of any kind.”
“Let’s hear the story,” said I, “by all means.”
“It’s not a long one,” said Power, “so I don’t care if I tell it; and
besides, if I make a clean breast of my own sins, I’ll insist upon
Monsoon’s telling you afterwards how he stocked his cellar in Cadiz. Eh,
Major; there’s worse tipple than the King of Spain’s sherry?”
“You shall judge for yourself, old boy,” said Monsoon, good-humoredly; “and
as for the narrative, it is equally at your service. Of course it goes no
further. The commander-in-chief, long life to him! is a glorious fellow;
but he has no more idea of a joke than the Archbishop of Canterbury, and it
might chance to reach him.”
“Recount, and fear not!” cried Power; “we are discreet as the worshipful
company of apothecaries.”
“But you forget you are to lead the way.”
“Here goes, then,” said the jolly captain; “not that the story has any
merit in it, but the moral is beautiful.
“Ireland, to be sure, is a beautiful country; but somehow it would prove a
very dull one to be quartered in, if it were not that the people seem to
have a natural taste for the army. From the belle of Merrion Square down
to the inn-keeper’s daughter in Tralee, the loveliest part of the
creation seem to have a perfect appreciation of our high acquirements and
advantages; and in no other part of the globe, the Tonga Islands included,
is a red-coat more in favor. To be sure, they would be very ungrateful if
it were not the case; for we, upon our side, leave no stone unturned to
make ourselves agreeable. We ride, drink, play, and make love to the ladies
from Fairhead to Killarney, in a way greatly calculated to render us
popular; and as far as making the time pass pleasantly, we are the boys for
the ‘greatest happiness’ principle. I repeat it; we deserve our popularity.
Which of us does not get head and ears in debt with garrison balls and
steeple-chases, picnics, regattas, and the thousand-and-one inventions to
get rid of one’s spare cash,--so called for being so sparingly dealt out
by our governors? Now and then, too, when all else fails, we take a
newly-joined ensign and make him marry some pretty but penniless lass in
a country town, just to show the rest that we are not joking, but have
serious ideas of matrimony in the midst of all our flirtations. If it were
all like this, the Green Isle would be a paradise; but unluckily every now
and then one is condemned to some infernal place where there is neither a
pretty face nor tight ankle, where the priest himself is not a good fellow,
and long, ill-paved, straggling streets, filled on market days with booths
of striped calico and soapy cheese, is the only promenade, and a ruinous
barrack, with mouldy walls and a tumbling chimney, the only quarters.
“In vain, on your return from your morning stroll or afternoon canter, you
look on the chimney-piece for a shower of visiting-cards and pink notes of
invitation; in vain you ask your servant, ‘Has any one called.’ Alas,
your only visitor has been the ganger, to demand a party to assist in
still-hunting amidst that interesting class of the population who, having
nothing to eat, are engaged in devising drink, and care as much for the
life of a red-coat as you do for that of a crow or a curlew. This may seem
overdrawn; but I would ask you, Were you ever for your sins quartered in
that capital city of the Bog of Allen they call Philipstown? Oh, but it is
a romantic spot! They tell us somewhere that much of the expression of the
human face divine depends upon the objects which constantly surround us.
Thus the inhabitants of mountain districts imbibe, as it were, a certain
bold and daring character of expression from the scenery, very different
from the placid and monotonous look of those who dwell in plains and
valleys; and I can certainly credit the theory in this instance, for every
man, woman, and child you meet has a brown, baked, scruffy, turf-like face,
that fully satisfies you that if Adam were formed of clay the Philipstown
people were worse treated and only made of bog mould.
“Well, one fine morning poor Tom and myself were marched off from Birr,
where one might ‘live and love forever,’ to take up our quarters at this
sweet spot. Little we knew of Philipstown; and like my friend the adjutant
there, when he laid siege to Derry, we made our _entrée_ with all the pomp
we could muster, and though we had no band, our drums and fifes did duty
for it; and we brushed along through turf-creels and wicker-baskets of new
brogues that obstructed the street till we reached the barrack,--the only
testimony of admiration we met with being, I feel bound to admit, from a
ragged urchin of ten years, who, with a wattle in his hand, imitated me as
I marched along, and when I cried halt, took his leave of us by dexterously
fixing his thumb to the side of his nose and outstretching his fingers, as
if thus to convey a very strong hint that we were not half so fine fellows
as we thought ourselves. Well, four mortal summer months of hot sun and
cloudless sky went over, and still we lingered in that vile village, the
everlasting monotony of our days being marked by the same brief morning
drill, the same blue-legged chicken dinner, the same smoky Loughrea
whiskey, and the same evening stroll along the canal bank to watch for
the Dublin packet-boat, with its never-varying cargo of cattle-dealers,
priests, and peelers on their way to the west country, as though the demand
for such colonial productions in these parts was insatiable. This was
pleasant, you will say; but what was to be done? We had nothing else. Now,
nothing saps a man’s temper like _ennui_. The cranky, peevish people one
meets with would be excellent folk, if they only had something to do. As
for us, I’ll venture to say two men more disposed to go pleasantly down
the current of life it were hard to meet with; and yet, such was the
consequence of these confounded four months’ sequestration from all other
society, we became sour and cross-grained, everlastingly disputing
about trifles, and continually arguing about matters which neither were
interested in, nor, indeed, knew anything about. There were, it is true,
few topics to discuss; newspapers we never saw; sporting there was
none,--but then, the drill, the return of duty, the probable chances of our
being ordered for service, were all daily subjects to be talked over, and
usually with considerable asperity and bitterness. One point, however,
always served us when hard pushed for a bone of contention; and which,
begun by a mere accident at first, gradually increased to a sore and
peevish subject, and finally led to the consequences which I have hinted at
in the beginning. This was no less than the respective merits of our mutual
servants; each everlastingly indulging in a tirade against the other for
awkwardness, incivility, unhandiness,--charges, I am bound to confess, most
amply proved on either side.
“‘Well, I am sure, O’Reilly, if you can stand that fellow, it’s no affair
of mine; but such an ungainly savage I never met,’ I would say.
“To which he would reply, ‘Bad enough he is, certainly; but, by Jove! when
I only think of your Hottentot, I feel grateful for what I’ve got.’
“Then ensued a discussion, with attack, rejoinder, charge, and
recrimination till we retired for the night, wearied with our exertions,
and not a little ashamed of ourselves at bottom for our absurd warmth and
excitement. In the morning the matter would be rigidly avoided by each
party until some chance occasion had brought it on the _tapis_, when
hostilities would be immediately renewed, and carried on with the same
vigor, to end as before.
“In this agreeable state of matters we sat one warm summer evening before
the mess-room, under the shade of a canvas awning, discussing, by way of
refrigerant, our eighth tumbler of whiskey punch. We had, as usual, been
jarring away about everything under heaven. A lately arrived post-chaise,
with an old, stiff-looking gentleman in a queue, had formed a kind of
‘godsend’ for debate, as to who he was, whither he was going, whether
he really had intended to spend the night there, or that he only put up
because the chaise was broken; each, as was customary, maintaining his own
opinion with an obstinacy we have often since laughed at, though, at the
time, we had few mirthful thoughts about the matter.
“As the debate waxed warm, O’Reilly asserted that he positively knew
the individual in question to be a United Irishman, travelling with
instructions from the French government; while I laughed him to scorn by
swearing that he was the rector of Tyrrell’s Pass, that I knew him well,
and, moreover, that he was the worst preacher in Ireland. Singular enough
it was that all this while the disputed identity was himself standing
coolly at the inn window, with his snuff-box in his hand, leisurely
surveying us as we sat, appearing, at least, to take a very lively interest
in our debate.
“‘Come, now,’ said O’Reilly, ‘there’s only one way to conclude this, and
make you pay for your obstinacy. What will you bet that he’s the rector of
Tyrrell’s Pass?’
“‘What odds will you take that he’s Wolfe Tone?’ inquired I, sneeringly.
“‘Five to one against the rector,’ said he, exultingly.
“‘An elephant’s molar to a toothpick against Wolfe Tone,’ cried I.
“‘Ten pounds even that I’m nearer the mark than you,’ said Tom, with a
smash of his fist upon the table.
“‘Done,’ said I,--‘done. But how are we to decide the wager?’
“‘That’s soon done,’ said he. At the same instant he sprang to his legs and
called out: ‘Pat, I say, Pat, I want you to present my respects to--’
“‘No, no, I bar that; no _ex parte_ statements. Here, Jem, do you simply
tell that--’
“‘That fellow can’t deliver a message. Do come here, Pat. Just beg of--’
“‘He’ll blunder it, the confounded fool; so, Jem, do you go.’
“The two individuals thus addressed were just in the act of conveying a
tray of glasses and a spiced round of beef for supper into the mess-room;
and as I may remark that they fully entered into the feelings of jealousy
their respective masters professed, each eyed the other with a look of very
unequivocal dislike.
“‘Arrah! you needn’t be pushing me that way,’ said Pat, ‘an’ the round o’
beef in my hands.’
“‘Devil’s luck to ye, it’s the glasses you’ll be breaking with your awkward
elbow!’
“‘Then, why don’t ye leave the way? Ain’t I your suparior?’
“‘Ain’t I the captain’s own man?’
“‘Ay, and if you war. Don’t I belong to his betters? Isn’t my master the
two liftenants?’
“This, strange as it may sound, was so far true, as I held a commission in
an African corps, with my lieutenancy in the 5th.
“‘Be-gorra, av he was six--There now, you done it!’
“At the same moment, a tremendous crash took place and the large dish
fell in a thousand pieces on the pavement, while the spiced round rolled
pensively down the yard.
[Illustration: THE RIVAL FLUNKIES.]
“Scarcely was the noise heard when, with one vigorous kick, the tray of
glasses was sent spinning into the air, and the next moment the disputants
were engaged in bloody battle. It was at this moment that our attention was
first drawn towards them, and I need not say with what feelings of interest
we looked on.
“‘Hit him, Pat--there, Jem, under the guard! That’s it--go in! Well done,
left hand! By Jove! that was a facer! His eye’s closed--he’s down! Not a
bit of it--how do you like that? Unfair, unfair! No such thing! I say it
was! Not at all--I deny it!’
“By this time we had approached the combatants, each man patting his own
fellow on the back, and encouraging him by the most lavish promises. Now it
was, but in what way I never could exactly tell, that I threw out my right
hand to stop a blow that I saw coming rather too near me, when, by some
unhappy mischance, my doubled fist lighted upon Tom O’Reilly’s nose. Before
I could express my sincere regret for the accident, the blow was returned
with double force, and the next moment we were at it harder than the
others. After five minutes’ sharp work, we both stopped for breath, and
incontinently burst out a-laughing. There was Tom, with a nose as large as
three, a huge cheek on one side, and the whole head swinging round like a
harlequin’s; while I, with one eye closed, and the other like a half-shut
cockle-shell, looked scarcely less rueful. We had not much time for mirth,
for at the same instant a sharp, full voice called out close beside us--
“To your quarters, sirs. I put you both under arrest, from which you are
not to be released until the sentence of a court-martial decide if conduct
such as this becomes officers and gentlemen.’
“I looked round, and saw the old fellow in the queue.
“‘Wolfe Tone, by all that’s unlucky!’ said I, with an attempt at a smile.
“‘The rector of Tyrrell’s Pass,’ cried out Tom, with a snuffle; ‘the worst
preacher in Ireland--eh, Fred?’
“We had not much time for further commentaries upon our friend, for he at
once opened his frock coat, and displayed to our horrified gaze the uniform
of a general officer.
“‘Yes, sir, General Johnson, if you will allow me to present him to your
acquaintance; and now, guard, turn out.’
“In a few minutes more the orders were issued, and poor Tom and myself
found ourselves fast confined to our quarters, with a sentinel at the door,
and the pleasant prospect that, in the space of about ten days, we should
be broke, and dismissed the service; which verdict, as the general order
would say, the commander of the forces has been graciously pleased to
approve.
“However, when morning came the old general, who was really a trump,
inquired a little further into the matter, saw it was partly accidental,
and after a severe reprimand, and a caution about Loughrea whiskey after
the sixth tumbler, released us from arrest, and forgave the whole affair.”