THE LAND.
It was late when we separated for the night, and the morning was already
far advanced ere I awoke; the monotonous tramp overhead showed me that the
others were stirring, and I gently moved the shutter of the narrow window
beside me to look out.
The sea, slightly rippled upon its surface, shone like a plate of fretted
gold,--not a wave, not a breaker appeared; but the rushing sound close by
showed that we were moving fast through the water.
“Always calm hereabouts,” said a gruff voice on deck, which I soon
recognized as the skipper’s; “no sea whatever.”
“I can make nothing of it,” cried out Power, from the forepart of the
vessel. “It appears to me all cloud.”
“No, no, sir, believe me; it’s no fog-bank, that large dark mass to leeward
there,--that’s Cintra.”
“Land!” cried I, springing up, and rushing upon deck; “where,
Skipper,--where is the land?”
“I say, Charley,” said Power, “I hope you mean to adopt a little more
clothing on reaching Lisbon; for though the climate is a warm one--”
“Never mind, O’Malley,” said the major, “the Portuguese will only be
flattered by the attention, if you land as you are.”
“Why, how so?”
“Surely, you remember what the niggers said when they saw the 79th
Highlanders landing at St. Lucie. They had never seen a Scotch regiment
before, and were consequently somewhat puzzled at the costume; till at
last, one more cunning than the rest explained it by saying: ‘They are in
such a hurry to kill the poor black men that they came away without their
breeches.’”
“Now, what say you?” cried the skipper, as he pointed with his telescope to
a dark-blue mass in the distance; “see there!”
“Ah, true enough; that’s Cintra!”
“Then we shall probably be in the Tagus River before morning?”
“Before midnight, if the wind holds,” said the skipper. We breakfasted on
deck beneath an awning. The vessel scarcely seemed to move as she cut her
way through the calm water.
The misty outline of the coast grew gradually more defined, and at length
the blue mountains could be seen; at first but dimly, but as the day wore
on, their many-colored hues shone forth, and patches of green verdure,
dotted with sheep or sheltered by dark foliage, met the eye. The bulwarks
were crowded with anxious faces; each looked pointedly towards the shore,
and many a stout heart beat high, as the land drew near, fated to cover
with its earth more than one among us.
“And that’s Portingale, Mister Charles,” said a voice behind me. I turned
and saw my man Mike, as with anxious joy, he fixed his eyes upon the shore.
“They tell me it’s a beautiful place, with wine for nothing and spirits for
less. Isn’t it a pity they won’t be raisonable and make peace with us?”
“Why, my good fellow, we are excellent friends; it’s the French who want to
beat us all.”
“Upon my conscience, that’s not right. There’s an ould saying in Connaught,
‘It’s not fair for one to fall upon twenty.’ Sergeant Haggarty says that
I’ll see none of the divarsion at all.”
“I don’t well understand--”
“He does be telling me that, as I’m only your footboy, he’ll send me away
to the rear, where there’s nothing but wounded and wagons and women.”
“I believe the sergeant is right there; but after all, Mike, it’s a safe
place.”
“Ah, then, musha for the safety! I don’t think much of it. Sure, they might
circumvint us. And av it wasn’t displazing to you, I’d rather list.”
“Well, I’ve no objection, Mickey. Would you like to join my regiment?”
“By coorse, your honor. I’d like to be near yourself; bekase, too, if
anything happens to you,--the Lord be betune us and harm,” here he crossed
himself piously,--“sure, I’d like to be able to tell the master how you
died; and sure, there’s Mr. Considine--God pardon him! He’ll be beating my
brains out av I couldn’t explain it all.”
“Well, Mike, I’ll speak to some of my friends here about you, and we’ll
settle it all properly. Here’s the doctor.”
“Arrah, Mr. Charles, don’t mind him. He’s a poor crayture entirely. Devil a
thing he knows.”
“Why, what do you mean, man? He’s physician to the forces.”
“Oh, be-gorra, and so he may be!” said Mike, with a toss of his head.
“Those army docthers isn’t worth their salt. It’s thruth I’m telling you.
Sure, didn’t he come to see me when I was sick below in the hould?
“‘How do you feel?’ says he.
“‘Terribly dhry in the mouth,’ says I.
“‘But your bones,’ says he; ‘how’s them?’
“‘As if cripples was kicking me,’ says I.
“Well, with that he wint away, and brought back two powders.
“‘Take them,’ says he, ‘and you’ll be cured in no time.’
“‘What’s them?’ says I.
“‘They’re ematics,’ says he.
“‘Blood and ages!’ says I, ‘are they?’
“‘Devil a lie,’ says he; ‘take them immediately.’
“And I tuk them; and would you believe me, Mister Charles?--it’s thruth I’m
telling you,--devil a one o’ them would stay on my stomach. So you see what
a docther he is!”
I could not help smiling at Mike’s ideas of medicine, as I turned away
to talk to the major, who was busily engaged beside me. His occupation
consisted in furbishing up a very tarnished and faded uniform, whose white
seams and threadbare lace betokened many years of service.
“Getting up our traps, you see, O’Malley,” said he, as he looked with no
small pride at the faded glories of his old vestment. “Astonish them at
Lisbon, we flatter ourselves. I say, Power, what a bad style of dress
they’ve got into latterly, with their tight waist and strapped trousers;
nothing free, nothing easy, nothing _dégagé_ about it. When in a campaign,
a man ought to be able to stow prog for twenty-four hours about his person,
and no one the wiser. A very good rule, I assure you, though it sometimes
leads to awkward results. At Vimeira, I got into a sad scrape that way. Old
Sir Harry, that commanded there, sent for the sick return. I was at dinner
when the orderly came, so I packed up the eatables about me, and rode off.
Just, however, as I came up to the quarters, my horse stumbled and threw me
slap on my head.
“‘Is he killed?’ said Sir Harry.
“‘Only stunned, your Excellency,’ said some one.
“‘Then he’ll come to, I suppose. Look for the papers in his pocket.’
“So they turned me on my back, and plunged a hand into my side-pocket;
but, the devil take it! they pulled out a roast hen. Well, the laugh was
scarcely over at this, when another fellow dived into my coat behind, and
lugged out three sausages; and so they went on, till the ground was covered
with ham, pigeon-pie, veal, kidney, and potatoes; and the only thing like a
paper was a mess-roll of the 4th, with a droll song about Sir Harry written
in pencil on the back of it. Devil of a bad affair for me! I was nearly
broke for it; but they only reprimanded me a little, and I was afterwards
attached to the victualling department.”
What an anxious thing is the last day of a voyage! How slowly creep the
hours, teeming with memories of the past and expectations of the future!
Every plan, every well-devised expedient to cheat the long and weary
days is at once abandoned; the chess-board and the new novel are alike
forgotten, and the very quarter-deck walk, with its merry gossip and
careless chit-chat, becomes distasteful. One blue and misty mountain, one
faint outline of the far-off shore, has dispelled all thought of these; and
with straining eye and anxious heart, we watch for land.
As the day wears on apace, the excitement increases; the faint and shadowy
forms of distant objects grow gradually clearer. Where before some tall and
misty mountain peak was seen, we now descry patches of deepest blue and
sombre olive; the mellow corn and the waving woods, the village spire and
the lowly cot, come out of the landscape; and like some well-remembered
voice, they speak of home. The objects we have seen, the sounds we have
heard a hundred times before without interest, become to us now things that
stir the heart.
For a time the bright glare of the noonday sun dazzles the view and renders
indistinct the prospect; but as evening falls, once more is all fair and
bright and rich before us. Rocked by the long and rolling swell, I lay
beside the bowsprit, watching the shore-birds that came to rest upon the
rigging, or following some long and tangled seaweed as it floated by; my
thoughts now wandering back to the brown hills and the broad river of my
early home, now straying off in dreary fancies of the future.
How flat and unprofitable does all ambition seem at such moments as these;
how valueless, how poor, in our estimation, those worldly distinctions
we have so often longed and thirsted for, as with lowly heart and simple
spirit we watch each humble cottage, weaving to ourselves some story of its
inmates as we pass!
The night at length closed in, but it was a bright and starry one, lending
to the landscape a hue of sombre shadow, while the outlines of the objects
were still sharp and distinct as before. One solitary star twinkled near
the horizon. I watched it as, at intervals disappearing, it would again
shine out, marking the calm sea with a tall pillar of light.
“Come down, Mr. O’Malley,” cried the skipper’s well-known voice,--“come
down below and join us in a parting glass; that’s the Lisbon light to
leeward, and before two hours we drop our anchor in the Tagus.”