“And whether we shall meet again, I know not.”
Julius Caesar, VI. 114.
One fine morning about this time, we had just anchored on our return
from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a letter from the
secretary, desiring me instantly to wait on the Admiral, as I was
promoted to the rank of commander, (how I did dance and sing, my eye!)
and appointed to the Lotus--Leaf, of eighteen guns, then refitting at
the dockyard, and under orders for England.
I accordingly, after calling and making my bow, proceeded to the
dockyard to enter on my new command, and I was happy in being able to
get Tailtackle and Reefpoint once more removed along with me.
The gunner of Lotus--Leaf having died, Timotheus got an acting warrant,
which I rejoice to say was ultimately confirmed, and little Reefy, now a
commander in the service, weathered it many a day with me afterwards,
both as midshipman and lieutenant.
After seeing every thing in a fair train on board, I applied for a
fortnight’s leave, which I got, as the trade which I was to convoy had
not yet congregated, nor were they likely to do so before the expiry of
this period.
Having paid my respects at the Admiral’s pen, I returned to Kingston.
Most of the houses in the lower part of the town are surmounted by a
small lookout, as it is called, like a little belfry, and usually
furnished with one or more good telescopes, fitted with green blinds.
It is the habit of the Kingstonians to resort in great numbers to those
gardemange-looking boxes, whenever a strange sail appears in the
offing, or any circumstance takes place at sea worth reconnoitring. It
was about nine o’clock on a fine morning, and I had taken my stand in
one of them, peering out towards the east, but no white speck on the
verge of the horizon indicated an approaching sail, so I slewed round
the glass to the westward, to have a squint at the goings on amongst the
squadron, lying at anchor at Port Royal, about six miles off, then
mustering no fewer than eighteen pennants, viz. one line of battle ship,
one fifty, five frigates, two corvettes, one ship-sloop, four eighteen
gun brigs, three schooners, and a cutter. All was quiet, not even one
solitary signal making amongst them; so I again scoured the horizon
towards the east, when I noticed a very dashing schooner, which had
sailed that morning, as she crept along the Palisadoes. She was lying
up the inner channel, taking advantage of the land-wind, in place of
staggering away to the southward through the ship-channel, already
within the influence of the sea breeze, but which was as yet neutralized
close in shore where she was by the terral. The speed of the craft--the
rapidity with which she slid along the land with the light air, riveted
my attention. On enquiry, I found she was the Carthagenian schooner
Josefa. At this moment the splash of oars was heard right below where
we stood, and a very roguish-looking craft, also schooner-rigged,
about a hundred tons burden apparently, passed rapidly beneath us,
tearing up the shining surface of the sleeping harbour, with no fewer
than fourteen sweeps. She was very heavily rigged, with her main mast
raking over the tafferel, and full of men. I noticed she had a long gun
on a pivot, and several carronades mounted. Presently there was a good
deal of whispering amongst the group of half-a-dozen gentlemen who
were with me in the lookout, who, from their conversation, I soon found
were underwriters on the schooner outside.
“Heyday,” said one, “the Antonio is off somewhat suddenly this morning.”
“Where may that schooner, that is sweeping so handsomely down harbour,
belong to?” said I to the gentleman who had spoken.
‘To Havanna,’ was the answer; “but I fear he intends to overhaul the
Josefa there, and she would be a good prize to him, now since Carthagena
has thrown off allegiance to Spain.”
“But he will never venture to infract the neutrality of the waters
surely,” rejoined I, “within sight of the squadron too?”
The gentleman I spoke to smiled incredulously; and as I had nothing
particular to do for a couple of hours, I resolved to remain and see the
issue. In a few minutes, the sea-breeze came thundering down, in half
a gale of wind, singing through the rigging of the ships alongside of
the wharfs, and making the wooden blinds rattle again. The Antonio laid
in her sweeps, spread her canvass in an instant, and was lying-to, off
the fort at Port Royal, to land her pass, in little more than half-an-hour
from the time she passed us, a distance of no less than seven
miles, as she had to sail it. In a minute the jib sheet was again
hauled over to leeward, and away she was like an arrow, crowding all
sail. I had seldom seen a vessel so weatherly before. In an hour more,
she was abreast of the town, and abeam of the Josefa, who, from being
cooped up in the narrow inner channel, had, ever since the sea-breeze
set down, been bothering with short tacks, about, and about, every
minute. Presently the Antonio dashed in through a streak of blue water
in the reef, so narrow, that to look at it, I did not think a boat could
have passed, and got between the Josefa and Port Royal, when he took in
his gaff-topsail, and hauled down his flying-jib, but made no hostile
demonstration, beyond keeping dead to leeward, tack for tack with the
Josefa; and once, when the latter seemed about to bear up and run past
him, I noticed the foot of his foresail lift, and his sails shiver as he
came to the wind, as much as to say, “Luff again, my lady, or I’ll fire
at you.” It was now clear Josefa did not like her playmate, for she
cracked on all the canvass she could carry; and, having tried every
other manoeuvre to escape without effect, she at length, with reckless
desperation, edged away a point, and flew like smoke through another
gap, even smaller and shallower than the one the Antonio had entered by.
We all held our breath until she got into blue water again, expecting
every moment to see her stick fast, and her masts tumble over the side;
but she scraped clear very cleverly, and the next moment was tearing and
plunging through the tumbling waves outside of the reefs. Antonio, as I
expected, followed her, but all very quietly, still keeping well to
leeward, however. Thus they continued for half an hour, running to the
southward and eastward, when I noticed the Havanero, who had gradually
crept up under the Josefa’s lee-quarter, hoist his colours and pennant,
and fire a gun at her. She immediately tacked in great confusion, and
made all sail to get back through the canal into the inner channel, with
the other schooner close at her heels, blazing away from his long gun as
fast as he could load. A Spaniard, who was one of the principal owners
of the Josefa’s cargo, happened to be standing beside me in the lookout;
at every shot, he would, with a face of the most intense anxiety, while
the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands on his thighs, and
shrink down on his hams, cowering his head at the same time, as if the
shot had been aimed at him, and he was trying to shun it, apostrophizing
himself, with an agitated voice, as follows:
“Valga me Dios, que demonio, que demonio! Ah, Pancho Roque, tu es
ruinado, mi amigo.” Another shot. “Tu es ruinado, chicatico, tan cierto
como navos no son coles.” A third flash. “Oh, rabo de lechon de San
Antonio, que es eso, que es eso!”
Neck and neck, however, in came the Josefa, staggering right through the
narrow channel once more, persecuted by the Antonio, with the white
breakers foaming and flashing close to on each side of her, but by this
time there was a third party in the game. I had noticed a lot of signals
made in the flag-ship. Presently one of the sloops of war fired a gun,
and before the smoke blew off, she was under weigh, with her topsails,
spanker, and fore-topmast-staysail set. This was his Majesty’s sloop
of war Seaflower, which had slipped from her moorings, and was now
crowding all sail in chase of the arrogant Don, who had dared to fire a
shot in anger in the sanctuary of British waters. All this while, the
Antonio had been so intent on hooking the Carthagenian, that the sloop
was nearly up to him before he hove about and gave up the chase; and now
the tables were beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower’s shot was
flying over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been
taken, when, crack, away went the sloop’s foretopgallant mast, which
gave the rogue a start. In an hour he was away to windward as far as
you could see, and his pursuer and the Josefa were once more at anchor
in Port Royal.
That evening I returned to the dockyard, where I found every thing going
on with Lotus--Leaf as I could wish. So I returned, after a three days
sojourn on board, to Kingston, and next afternoon mounted my horse, or
rather a horse that a friend was fool enough to lend me, at the agent’s
wharf, with the thermometer at ninety-five in the shade, and cantering
off, landed at my aunt Mrs Palma’s mountain residence, where the mercury
stood at sixty-two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. I
need not say that we had a pleasant party, as Mary was there; so, having
rigged very killingly as I thought, I made my appearance at dinner, a
mighty man, indeed, with my two epaulets; but to my great
disappointment, when I walked into the piazza, not a soul seemed to
acknowledge my promotion. How blind people are! thought I. Even my
cousins, little creole urchins, dressed in small transparent cambric
shifts, tied into a knot over their tails, and with devil the thing else
on, seemed to perceive no difference, as they pulled me about, with a
volley of “Cousin Taam, what you bring we?”
At length, dinner was announced, and we adjourned from the dark balcony
to the dining room. “Come, there is light enough here; my rank will be
noticed now, surely--but no, so patience.” The only males of the party
were the doctor of the district, two Kingston gentlemen, and Colonel
B---- of the Guards; the ladies at dinner being my aunt, Mary, and her
younger sister. We sat down all in high glee; I was sitting opposite
my dearie. “Deuced strange--neither does she take any notice of my two
epaulets;” and I glanced my eye, to be sure that they were both really
there. I then, with some small misgiving, stole a look towards the
Colonel--a very handsome fellow, with all the ease and polish of a
soldier and a gentleman about him. “The devil, it cannot be, surely,”
for the black-eyed and black-haired pale face, seemed annoyingly
attentive to the militaire. At length this said officer addressed me,
“Captain Cringle, do me the honour to take wine.” Mary started at the
Captain.
“She gazed, she redden’d like a rose, Syne pale as ony lily.”
Aha, thought I, all right still. She trembled extremely, and her mother
at length noticed it, I saw; but all this while, B---- was balancing a
land-crab on his silver fork, while, with a wine-glass in his other
claw, he was ogling me in some wonderment. I saw the awkwardness of the
affair, and seizing a bottle of catchup for one of sercial, I filled my
glass with such vehemence, that I spilt a great part of it; but even the
colour and flavour did not recover me; so, with a face like a northwest
moon, I swilled off the potion, and instantly fell back in my chair
“Poisoned! by all that is nonsensical--poisoned catchup oh Lord!” and
off I started to my bedroom, where, by dint of an ocean of hot water, I
got quit of the sauce, and clinching the whole with a caulker of brandy,
I returned to the dinner-table a good deal abashed, I will confess, but
endeavouring most emphatically all the while to laugh it off as a good
jest. But my Mary was flown; she had been ailing for some days, her
mother alleged, and she required rest. Presently my aunt rose, and we
were left to our bottle, and sorry am I to say it, I bumpered away, from
some strong unaccountable impulse, until I got three parts drunk, to the
great surprise of the rest of the party, for guzzling wine was not
certainly a failing of mine, unless on the strong provocation of good
fellowship.
Mary did not appear that evening, and I may as well tell the whole
truth, that she was pledged to marry me whenever I got my step; and next
morning all this sort of thing was duly communicated to mamma, &c. &c.
&c., and I was the happiest, and so forth--all of which, as it concerns
no one but myself, if you please, we shall say no more about it.
The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated about three
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and half way up the great
prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the name of the Liguanea range,
which rises behind, and overhangs the city of Kingston. The road to it,
after you have ridden about five miles over the hot plain of Liguanea,
brings you to Hope estate, where an anatomy of an old watchman greeted
me with the negro’s constant solicitation--“Massa, me beg you for one
fee-penny.” This youth was, as authentic records show, one hundred and
forty years old only.--The Hope is situated in the very gorge of the
pass, wherein you have to travel nine miles farther, through most
magnificent scenery; at one time struggling among the hot stones of the
all but dry river-course; at others, winding along the breezy cliffs,
on mule-paths not twelve inches wide, with a perpendicular wall of rock
rising five hundred feet above you on one side, while a dark gulf, a
thousand feet deep, yawned on the other, from the bottom of which arose
the hoarse murmur of the foliage-screened brook. Noble trees spread
their boughs overhead, and the most beautiful shrubs and bushes grew and
blossomed close at hand, and all was moist, and cool, and fresh, until
you turned the bare pinnacle of some limestone-rock, naked as the
summit of the Andes, where the hot sun, even through the thin attenuated
air of that altitude, would suddenly blaze on you so fiercely, that your
eyes were blinded and your face blistered, as if you had been suddenly
transported within the influence of a sirocco. Well, now, since you
know the road, let us take a walk after breakfast. It shall be a
beautiful clear day--not a speck or cloud in the heavens. Mary is with
me.
“Well, Tom,” says she, “you were very sentimental last evening.”
“Sentimental! I was deucedly sick, let me tell you--a wineglassful of
cold catchup is rather trying even to a lover’s stomach, Mary. Murder,
I never was so sick, even in my first cruise in the old Breeze! Bah!
Do you know I did not think of you for an hour afterwards?--not until
that bumper of brandy stayed my calamity. But come, when shall we be
married, Maria? Oh! have done with your blushing and botheration
tomorrow or next day? It would not be quite the thing this evening,
would it?”
“Tom, you are crazy. Time enough, surely, when we all meet in England.”
“And when may that be?” said I, drawing her arm closer through mine.
“No, no--tomorrow I will call on the admiral; and as you are all going
to England in the fleet at any rate, I will ask his leave to give you a
passage.”
All of which, as I said before, being parish news, we shall drop a veil
over it--so a small touch at the scenery again.
Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of mountains those
nearest us, covered with the laurel-looking coffee-bushes,
interspersed with negro villages hanging amongst the fruit-trees like
clusters of birds nests on the hillside, with a bright green patch of
plantain suckers here and there, and a white painted overseer’s house
peeping from out the wood, and herds of cattle in the Guinea-grass
pieces. Beyond these, stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea,
covered with luxuriant cane-pieces, and groups of negro houses, and
Guinea-grass pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes;
and small towns of sugar-works rose every here and there, with their
threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as the
plain receded, the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually became
sterile, hot, and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove its back like a
whale from out the sea-like level of the plain; while to the right of
it appeared the city of Kingston, like a model, with its parade, or
place d’armes, in the centre, from which its long lines of hot sandy
streets stretched out at right angles, with the military post of Up
park camp, situated about a mile and a half to the northward and
eastward of the town. Through a tolerably good glass, the church spire
looked like a needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall
cocoa-nut trees like harebells; a slow crawling black speck here and
there denoted a carriage moving along, while waggons, with their teams
of eighteen and twenty oxen, looked like so many centipedes. At the
camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, with two nine-pounders on
each flank, and their attendant gunners, looked like a red sparkling
line, with two black spots at each end, surrounded by small black dots.
Presently the red line wavered, and finally broke up, as the regiments
wheeled into open column, when the whole fifteen hundred men crawled
past three little scarlet spots, denoting the general and his staff.
When they began to manoeuvre, each company looked like a single piece in
a game at chess; and as they fired by companies, the little tiny puffs
of smoke floated up like wreaths of wool, suddenly surmounting and
overlaying the red lines, while the light companies breaking away into
skirmishers, seemed, for all the world, like two red bricks suddenly
cast down, and shattered on the ground, whereby the fragments were
scattered all over the green fields, and under the noble trees, the
biggest of which looked like small cabbages. At length the line was
again formed, and the inspection being over, it broke up once more, and
the minute red fragments presently vanished altogether like a nest of
ants, the guns, looking like so many barleycorns, under the long lines
of barracks, that looked no bigger than houses in a child’s toy. As for
the other arm, we of the navy had no reason to glorify ourselves. For,
while the review proceeded on shore, a strange man-of-war hove in
sight in the offing, looming like a mussel-shell, although she was a
forty-four-gun frigate, and ran down before the wind, close to the
Palisadoes, or natural tongue of land, which juts out like a bow from
Rock Fort, to the eastward of Kingston, and hoops in the harbour, and
then lengthens out, trending about five miles due west, where it widens
out into a sandy flat, on which the town and forts of Port Royal are
situated. She was saluting the admiral when I first saw her. A red
spark and a small puff on the starboard side--a puff, but no spark, on
the larboard, which was the side farthest from us, but no report from
either reached our ears; and presently down came the little red flag,
and up went the St George’s ensign, white, with a red cross, while the
sails of the gallant craft seemed about the size of those of a little
schoolboy’s plaything. After a short interval, the flag ship, a seventy
four, lying at Port Royal, returned the salute. She, again, appeared
somewhat loftier; she might have been an oyster-shell; while the
squadron of four frigates, two sloops of war, and several brigs and
schooners, looked like ants in the wake of a beetle. As for the dear
little Wave, I can compare her to nothing but a musquitto, and the large
500--ton West Indiamen lying off Kingston, five miles nearer, were but
as small cock-boats to the eye. In the offing the sea appeared like
ice, for the waves were not seen at all, and the swell could only be
marked by the difference in the reflection of the sun’s rays as it rose
and fell, while a hot haze hung over the whole, making every thing
indistinct, so that the water blended into sky, without the line of
demarcation being visible. But even as we looked forth on this most
glorious scene, a small black cloud rose to windward. At this time we
were both sitting on the grass on a most beautiful bank, beneath an
orange-tree--the ominous appearance increased in size--the sea breeze
was suddenly stifled--the swelling sails of the frigate that had first
saluted, fell, and, as she rolled, flattened in against the masts the
rustling of the green leaves overhead ceased.
The cloud rolled onward from the east, and spread out, and out, as it
sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gradually covered the
whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp,
and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet.
Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out
from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and
smiling under the unclouded noon-day sun. This continued for half an
hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us
brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like wool, which gradually
broke away into detached masses, discovering another layer of still
thinner vapour underneath, which again parted, disclosing through the
interstices a fresh gauze-like veil of transparent mist, through which
the lower ranges of hills, and the sugar estates, and the town and
shipping, were once more dimly visible; but this in turn vanished, and
the clouds, attracted by the hills, floated away, and hung around them
in festoons, and gradually rose and rose until presently we were
enveloped in mist, and Mary spoke. “Tom, there will be thunder here
what shall we do?”
“Poo, never mind. Mary, you have a conductor on the house.”
“True,” said she; “but the servants, when the post that supported it was
blown down t’other day, very judiciously unlinked the rods, and now,
since I remember me, they are, to use your phrase, ‘stowed away’ below
the house;” and so they were, sure enough. However, we had no more
thunder, and soon the only indications of the spent storm were the red
discoloured appearance of the margin of the harbour, from the rush of
muddy water off the land, and the chocolate colour of the previously
snow-white sandy roads, that now twisted through the plain like black
snakes, and a fleecy dolphin-shaped cloud here and there stretching
out, and floating horizontally in the blue sky, as if it had been hooked
to the precipitous mountain tops above us. Next day it was agreed that
we should all return to Kingston, and the day after that, we proceeded
to Mr Bangs’s Pen, on the Spanish Town road, as a sort of halfway house,
or stepping stone to his beautiful residence in St Thomas in the Vale,
where we were all invited to spend a fortnight. Our friend himself was
on the other side of the island, but he was to join us in the valley,
and we found our comforts carefully attended to; and as the day after
we had set up our tent at the Pen was to be one of rest to my aunt, I
took the opportunity of paying my respects to the admiral, who was then
careening at his mountain retreat in the vicinity with his family.
Accordingly, I took horse, and rode along the margin of the great lagoon,
on the Spanish Town road, through tremendous defiles; and after being
driven into a watchman’s hut by the rain, I reached the house, and was
most graciously received by Sir Samuel Semaphore and his lady, and their
lovely daughters. Oh, the most splendid women that ever were built! The
youngest is now, I believe, the prime ornament of the Scottish Peerage;
and I never can forget the pleasure I so frequently experienced in those
days in the society of this delightful family. The same evening I
returned to the Pen. On my way I fell in with three officers in white
jackets, and broad-brimmed straw hats, wading up to the waist amongst
the reeds of the lagoon, with guns held high above their heads. They
were shooting ducks, it seemed; and their negro servants were heard
ploutering and shouting amidst the thickets of the crackling reeds,
while their dogs were swimming all about them.
“Hillo!” shouted the nearest--“Cringle, my lad--whither bound? how is
Sir Samuel and Lady Semaphore, eh? Capital sport, ten brace of teal
there”--and the spokesman threw two beautiful birds ashore to me. This
wise man of the bulrushes was no less a personage than Sir Jeremy Mayo,
the commander of the forces, one of the bravest fellows in the army, and
respected and beloved by all who ever knew him, but a regular dare
devil of an Irishman, who, not satisfied with his chance of yellow fever
on shore, had thus chosen to hunt for it with his staff, in the Caymanas
Lagoon.
Next morning, we set out in earnest on our travels for St Thomas in the
Vale, in two of our friend Bang’s gigs, and my aunt’s ketureen, laden
with her black maiden and a lot of bandboxes, while two mounted servants
brought up the rear, and my old friend Jupiter, who had descended, not
from the clouds, but from the excellent Mr Fyall, who was by this time
gathered to his fathers, to Massa Aaron, rode a musket shot ahead of the
convoy to clear away, or give notice of any impediments, of wagons or
carts, or droves of cattle, that might be meeting us.
After driving five miles or so, we reached the seat of government,
Spanish Town. Here we stopped at the Speaker’s house--by the way, one
of the handsomest and most agreeable men I ever saw--intending to
proceed in the afternoon to our destination. But the rain in the
forenoon fell so heavily, that we had to delay our journey until next
morning; and that afternoon I spent in attending the debates in the
House of Assembly, where every thing was conducted with much greater
decorum than I ever saw maintained in the House of Commons, and no great
daring in the assertion either. The Hall itself, fitted with polished
mahogany benches, was handsome and well aired, and between it and the
grand court, as it is called, occupying the other end of the building,
which was then sitting, there is a large cool saloon, generally in term
time well filled with wigless lawyers and their clients. The House of
Assembly (this saloon and the court-house forming one side of the
square) is situated over against the Government House; while another
side is occupied by a very handsome temple, covering in a statue erected
to Lord Rodney, the saviour of the Island, as he is always called, from
having crushed the fleet of Count de Grasse.
At length, at grey-dawn the next day, as the report of the morning gun
came booming along the level plain from Port Royal, we weighed and
finally started on our cruise. As we drove up towards St Thomas in the
Vale, from Spanish Town, along the hot sandy road, the plain gradually
roughened into small rocky eminences, covered with patches of bushes
here and there, with luxuriant Guinea-grass growing in the clefts; the
road then sank between abrupt little hills the Guinea corn fields began
to disappear, the grass became greener, the trees rose higher, the air
felt fresher and cooler, and proceeding still farther, the hills on
either side swelled into mountains, and became rocky and precipitous,
and drew together, as it were, until they appeared to impend over us.
We had now arrived at the gorge of the pass, leading into the valley,
through which flowed a most beautiful limpid clear blue stream, along
the margin of which the road wound, while the tree-clothed precipices
rose five hundred feet perpendicularly on each brink. Presently we
crossed a wooden bridge, supported by a stone pier in the centre, when
Jupiter pricked a-head to give notice of the approach of waggons, that
our cavalcade might haul up, out of danger, into some nook in the rock,
to allow the lumbersome teams to pass.
“What is that?”--I was driving my dearie in the leading gig--“is that a
pistol shot?” It was the crack of the long whip carried by the negro
waggoner, reverberated from hill to hill, and from cliff to cliff; and
presently the father of gods came thundering down the steep acclivity
we were ascending.
“Massa, draw up into dat corner; draw up.”
I did as I was desired, and presently the shrill whistle of the negro
waggoners, and the increasing sharpness of the reports of their loud
whips, the handles of which were as long as fishing-rods, and their
wild exclamations to their cattle, to whom they addressed themselves by
name, as if they had been reasonable creatures, gave notice of the near
approach of a train of no fewer than seven waggons, each with three
drivers, eighteen oxen, three hogsheads of sugar, and two puncheons of
rum.
Come, thought I--if the negroes are overworked, it is more than the
bullocks are, at all events. They passed us with abundance of yelling
and cracking, and as soon as the coast was clear, we again pursued our
way up the ravine, than which nothing could be more beautiful or
magnificent. On our right hand now rose, almost perpendicularly, the
everlasting rocks, to a height of a thousand feet, covered with the
richest foliage that imagination can picture, while here and there a
sharp steeple-like pinnacle of grey-stone, overgrown with lichens,
shot up, and out from the face of them, into the blue sky, mixing with
the tall forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and
withes of different kinds, like the rigging of a ship, round which the
tendrils of many a beautiful wild-flower crept twining up, while all
was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down on us, with every
breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed the roaring river, and on
the other brink the opposite bank rose equally precipitously, clothed
also with superb trees, that spread their blending boughs over the
chasm, until they wove themselves together with those that grew on the
side we were on, qualifying the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into
a green cool twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river,
with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them,
lengthened out beneath in the distance. Oh! the very look of it
refreshed one unspeakably.
Presently a group of half-a-dozen country Buccras-overseers, or
coffee-planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either--hove
in sight, all in their blue-white jean trowsers, and long Hessian boots
pulled up over them, and new blue square-cut, bright-buttoned coatees,
and thread-bare silk broad-brimmed hats. They dashed past us on
goodish nags, followed at a distance of three hundred yards by a covey
of negro-servants, mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trowsers, with a
shirt or frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the
stirrup-iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while a
snow-white sheep’s fleece covered their massas portmanteaus, strapped
on to the mail pillion behind. We drove on for about seven miles, after
entering the pass, the whole scenery of which was by far the finest
thing I had ever seen, the precipices on each side becoming more and
more rugged and abrupt as we advanced, until all at once we emerged from
the chasm on the parish of St Thomas in the Vale, which opened on us
like a magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness. But
by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron’s mansion, situated
on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which rose and fell before
the passing breeze like the waves of the ocean, was the most consolatory
object in the view; and thither we drove is fast as our wearied horses
could carry us, and found every thing most carefully prepared for our
reception. Having dressed, we had a glorious dinner, lots of good wine;
and, the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of leading
a division of line-of-battle ships into action, and of Mary, and of
our eldest son being my first lieutenant.
“Massa”--quoth Jupiter--“you take cup of coffee, dis marning, massa?”
“Thank you--certainly.”
It was by this time grey dawn. My window had been left open the evening
before, when it was hot and sultry enough, but it was now cold and damp,
and a wetting mist boiled in through the open sash, like rolling wreaths
of white smoke.
“What is that--where are we in the North Sea, or on the top of Mont
Blanc? Why, clouds may be all in your way, Massa Jupiter, but....”
“Cloud!” rejoined the Deity--“him no more den marning fag, massa;
always hab him over de Vale in de morning, until de sun melt him. And
where is you?--why, you is in Massa Aaron house, here in St Thomas in de
Vale--and Miss.”
“Miss”--said I--“what Miss?”
“Oh, for you Miss,” rejoined Jupiter with a grin, “Miss Mary up and
dress already, and de horses are at de door; him wait for you to ride
wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see de clearing of de fag.”
“Ride before breakfast!--see the clearing of the fog!” grumbled I.
“Romantic it may be, but consumedly inconvenient.” However, my
knighthood was at stake; so up I got, drank my coffee, dressed, and
adjourned to the piazza, where my adorable was all ready rigged with
riding-habit and whip; straightway we mounted, she into her side
saddle with her riding-habit, and who knows how many petticoats beneath
her, while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jean trowsers upon a cold,
damp, indeed wet, saddle, that made me shiver again. But I was
understood to be in love; ergo, I was expected to be agreeable.
However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trowsers allays one’s ardour a
good deal too. But if any one had seen the impervious fog in which we
sat--why, you could not see a tree three yards from you--a cabbage
looked like a laurel bush, and Sneezer became a dromedary, and the
negroes passing the little gate to their work were absolute Titans.
Boom, a long reverberating noise thundered in the distance, and amongst
the hills, gradually dying away in a hollow rumble. “The admiral
tumbling down the hatchway, Tom--the morning gun fired at Port Royal,”
said Mary; and so it was.
The fire-flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beautiful
orange-trees in front of the house; but we could see no farther, the
whole view being shrouded under the thick watery veil which rolled and
boiled about us, sometimes thick, and sometimes thinner; hovering
between a mist and small rain, and wetting ones hair, and face, and
clothes, most completely. We descended from the eminence on which the
house stood, rode along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter
of a couple of miles, we began to ascend a bridle-path, through the
Guinea-grass pastures, which rose rank and soaking wet, as high as
one’s saddlebow, drenching me to the skin, in the few patches where I
was not wet before. All this while the fog continued as thick as ever;
at length we suddenly rose above it--rode out of it, as it were.
St Thomas in the Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, about ten
miles long by six broad, into which there is but one inlet comfortably
passable for carriages--the road along which we had come. The hills, by
which it is surrounded on all sides, are, for the most part, covered
with Guinea--grass pastures on the lower ranges, and with coffee
plantations and provision grounds higher up. When we had ridden clear
of the mist, the sun was shining brightly overhead, and every thing was
fresh and sparkling with dewdrops near us; but the vale was still
concealed under the wool-like sea of white mist, only pierced here and
there by a tall cocoa--nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a
foundered vessel. But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces
appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing breeze,
which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, disclosed every
now and then the works on some high-lying sugar estate, and again
rolled over them like the tide covering the shallows of the sea, while
shouts of laughter, and the whooping of the negroes in the fields, rose
from out the obscurity, blended with the signal cries of the sugar
boilers to the stockholemen of “Fire, fire grand copper, grand copper,”
and the ca cawing, like so many rooks, of the children driving the mules
and oxen in the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the
water-wheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and
smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill rollers;
and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen’s long whips, and the
rumbling, and creaking, and squealing of the machinery of the mills, and
of the carriage-wheels; while the smoke from the unseen chimney stalks
of the sugar-works rose whirling darkly up through the watery veil,
like spinning waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep. Anon
the veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in clouds.
Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us like a
gauze-like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole level plain,
through which the red quenched sun, which a moment before was flaming
with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly assumed the appearance of
a round red globe in an apothecary’s window, surrounded by a broad
yellow sickly halo, which dimly lit up, as if the sun had been in
eclipse, the cane-fields, then in arrow, as it is called, (a lavender
coloured flower, about three feet long, that shoots out from the top of
the cane, denoting that it is mature, and fit to be ground,) and the
Guinea-grass plats, and the nice-looking houses of the bushas, and the
busy mill-yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which
were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene.
At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast; and
beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang of about three
dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their work, the oldest
not above twelve years of age, under the care of an old negress. They
had all their little packies, or calabashes, on their heads, full of
provisions; while an old cook, with a bundle of fagots on her head, and
a fire stick in her hand, brought up the rear, her province being to
cook the food which the tiny little work-people carried. Presently one
or two book-keepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation,
also passed,--strong healthy looking young fellows, in stuff jackets and
white trowsers, and all with good cudgels in their hands. The mist,
which had continued to rise up and up, growing thinner and thinner as it
ascended, now rent overhead about the middle of the vale, and the
masses, like scattered clouds, drew towards the ledge of the hills that
surrounded it, like floating chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in
long shreds towards @he most precipitous peaks, to which as they
ascended they attached themselves, and remained at rest. And now the
fierce sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his
tropical fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare,
and heat, and bustle.
Next morning, I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, who had arrived
on the previous evening. We stopped to breakfast at a property of his
about four miles distant, and certainly we had no reason to complain of
our fare-fresh fish from the gully, nicely roasted yams, a capital junk
of salt beef, a dish I always glory in on shore, although a hint of it
at sea makes me quake; and, after our repast, I once more took the road
to see the estate, in company of my learned friend. There was a long
narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred feet high, that
separated the southern quarter of the parish from the northern. The
cane-pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, lay in a dead level of
deep black mould, to the southward of this ridge, from out which the
latter rose abruptly. The lower part of the ridge was clothed with the
most luxuriant orange, shaddock, lime, star-apple, breadfruit, and
custard apple-trees, besides numberless others that I cannot
particularize, while the summit was shaded by tall forest timber.
Proceeding along a rough bridle path for the space of two miles, we
attained the highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the
right, to follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush,
being the lines recently run by the land-surveyor between Mr Bang’s
property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine host was
desirous of personally inspecting. We therefore left our horses in
charge of the servants, who had followed us running behind, holding on
by the tails of our horses, and began to brush through the narrow path
cut in the hot underwood. After walking a hundred yards or so, we
arrived at the point where the path ended abruptly, abutting against a
large tree that had been felled, the stump of which remained, being
about three feet high, and at least five in diameter. Mr Bang
immediately perched himself on it to look about him, to see the lay of
the land over the sea of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly
of the heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while
most energetically, when I saw my friend start.
“Zounds, Tom, look behind you!” We had nothing but our riding switches
in our hands. A large snake, about ten feet long, had closed up the
path in our rear, sliding slowly from one branch to another, and hissing
and striking out its forked tongue, as it twisted itself, at the height
of my head from the ground, amongst the trees and bushes, round and
round about, occasionally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my
body, on one side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in
girth than my leg, on the other; when it would, with prodigious
strength, but the greatest ease, and the most oily smoothness, bend the
smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although
growing full six feet asunder; as if a tackle fall, or other strong
purchase, had been applied; but continuing all the while it was putting
forth its power, to glide soapily along, quite unconcernedly, and to all
appearance as pliant as a leather thong,--shooting out its glancing
neck, and glowering about with its little blasting fiery eyes,--and
sliding the forepart of the body onwards without pausing, as if there had
been no strain on the tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees
were at length brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud
spank, that shook the dew off the neighbouring branches, and the
perspiration from Tom Cringle’s forehead-whose nerves were not more
steady than the tree-like rain, and frightened all the birds in the
neighbourhood; while it, the only unstartled thing, continued steadily
and silently on its course,--turning and looking at us, and poking its
head within arm’s length, and raising it with a loud hiss, and a
threatening attitude, on our smallest motion.
“A modern group of the Laocoon--lord, what a neckcloth we shall both have
presently!” thought I.
Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our quietude, and
came so near, that I thought I perceived the hot glow of its breath,
with its scales glancing like gold and silver, and its diamond-like
eyes sparkling; but all so still and smooth, that unless it were an
occasional hiss, its motions were noiseless as those of an apparition.
At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand it no
longer. We had both up to this period been really and truly fascinated;
but the very instant that the coast was clear in my wake, by the snake
heading me, and gliding between me and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me
all of a heap, and, turning tail, I gave a loud shout, and started off
down the path at speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to
his fate, perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr; however, the
next moment I heard him thundering in my rear. My panic had been
contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had frightened the snake
out of his way, he started forth after me at speed, and away we both
raced, until a stump caught my foot, and both of us, after flying
through the air a couple of fathoms or so, trundled head over heels,
over and over, shouting and laughing. Pegtop now came up to us in no
small surprise, but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr
Bangs to dinner.
Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy Mayo, and
the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, his lady, his two most
amiable daughters, and the husband of the eldest.
Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy man, Mr
Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the neighbourhood of
which there were several natural curiosities to be seen. Although the
extent of our party startled him a good deal, he received us most
hospitably. He ushered us into the piazza, where breakfast was laid,
when uprose ten thousand flies from the breakfast table, that was
covered with marmalade, and guava jelly, and nicely roasted yams, and
fair white bread; and the fragrant bread-fruit roasted in the ashes,
and wrapped in plantain leaves; while the chocolate and coffee pots--the
latter equal in cubic content to one of the Wave’s water-butts
emulated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent
forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and
really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main
body of the entertainment on a side table, all strong provocative to
fall to.
“You, Quacco--Peter--Monkey”--shouted Stornaway--“where are you, with
your brushes; don’t you see the flies covering the table?” The three
sable pages forthwith appeared, each with a large green branch in his
hand, which they waved over the viands, and we sat down and had a most
splendid breakfast. Lady Semaphore and I--for I have always had a touch
of the old woman in me--were exceedingly tickled with the way in which
the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro children,
received our friend Bang. After breakfast, a regular muster took place
under the piazza of all the children on the property, under eight years
of age, accompanied by their mothers.
“Ah, Massa Bang,” shouted one, “why you no come see we oftener? you
forget your poor piccaniny hereabout.”
“You grow foolish old man now,” quoth another.
“You no wort--you go live in town, an no care about we who make Massa
money here; you no see we all tarving here;” and the nice cleanly
looking fat matron, who made the remark, laughed loudly.
He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, and
verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a half-pay
lieutenant’s. His fee pennies were flying about in all directions.
After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge, a band of rock that
connects two hills together, and beneath which a roaring stream rushes,
hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the
ravine. We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river course,
and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was any thing
finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell. The arch overhead was nearly
fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet
voices of the ladies, blending in softest harmony--(lord, how fine you
become, Tom!)--in one of Moore’s melodies, were reflected back on us at
the close with the most thrilling distinctness; while a stone, pitched
against any of the ivy-like creepers, with which the face of the rock
was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole cloud of birds, and not
infrequently a slow-sailing white-winged owl. Shortly after the
Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this most interesting spot, it
sinks, and runs for three miles under ground, and again reappears on the
surface, and gurgles over the stones, as if nothing had happened. By
the by, this is a common vagary of nature in Jamaica. For instance, the
Rio Cobre, I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three
miles, suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a
solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I remember,
in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, in the leeward part
of the Island, we came to an estate, where the supply of water for the
machinery rose up within the bounds of the mill-dam itself, into which
there was no flow, with such force, that above the spring, if I might so
call it, the bubbling water was projected into a blunt cone, like the
bottom of a cauldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level
of the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep.
After an exceedingly pleasant day we returned home, and next morning,
when I got out of bed, I complained of a violent itching and pain, a
sort of nondescript sensation, a mixture of pain and pleasure in my
starboard great toe, and on reconnoitring, I discovered it to be a good
deal inflamed on the ball, round a blue spot about the size of a
pinhead. Pegtop had come into the room, and while he was placing my
clothes in order, I asked him “What this could be--gout, think you,
Massa Pegtop--gout?”
“Gote, massa--gote--no, no, him chiger, massa--chiger--little something
like one flea; poke him head under de kin, dere lay egg; ah, great
luxury to creole gentleman and lady, dat chiger; sweet pain, creole miss
say--nice for cratch him, him say.”
“Why, it may be a creole luxury, Pegtop, but I wish you would relieve me
of it.”
“Surely, massa surely, if you wish it,” said Pegtop, in some surprise at
my want of taste. “Lend me your penknife den, massa;” and he gabbled
away as he extracted from my flesh the chiger bag-like a blue pill in
size and colour.
“Oh, massa, top till you marry creole wife,--she will tell you me say
true; ah, daresay Miss Mary himself love chiger to tickle him--to be
sure him love to be tickle--him love to be tickle--ay, all Creole miss
love to be tickle--he, he, he!”
By agreement, Mr Bang and I met Mr Stornaway this morning, in order to
visit some other estates together, and during our ride I was
particularly gratified by his company. He was a man of solid and very
extensive acquirements, and far above what his situation in life at that
time led one to expect. When I revisited the island some years
afterwards, I was rejoiced to find that his intrinsic worth and ability
had floated him up into a very extensive business, and I believe he is
now a man of property. I rather think he is engaged in some statistical
work connected with Jamaica, which, I am certain, will do him credit
whenever it appears. Odd enough, the very first time I saw him, I said
I was sure he would succeed in the world; and I am glad to find I was a
true prophet. To return: Our chief object at present was to visit a
neighbouring estate, the overseer of which was, we were led to believe
from a message sent to Mr Bang, very ill with fever. He was a most
respectable young man, Mr Stomaway told me, a Swede by birth, who had
came over to England with his parents at the early age of eight years,
where both he and his cousin Agatha had continued, until he embarked for
the West Indies. This was an orphan girl whom his father had adopted,
and both of them, as he had often told Mr Stornaway, had utterly
forgotten their Swedish,--in fact, they understood no language but
English at the time he embarked. I have been thus particular, from a
very extraordinary phenomenon that occurred immediately, preceding his
dissolution, of which I was a witness.
We rode up in front of the door, close to the fixed manger, where the
horses and mules belonging to the busha are usually fed, and encountered
a negro servant on a mule, with an umbrella-case slung across his back,
and a portmanteau behind him, covered with the usual sheep’s fleece, and
holding a saddle horse.
“Where is your master?” said Mr Bang.
“De dactor is in de hose,” replied quashie. “Busha dere upon dying.”
We ascended the rocky unhewn steps, and entered the cool, dark hall,
smelling strong of camphor, and slid over the polished floors towards an
open door, that led into the back piazza, where we were received by the
head book-keeper and carpenter. They told us that the overseer had
been seized three days before with fever, and was now desperately ill;
and presently the doctor came forth out of the sick-room.
“Poor Wedderfelt is fast going, sir--cold at the extremities already
very bad fever--the bilious remittent of the country, of the worst type.”
All this while the servants, male and female, were whispering to each
other; while a poor little black fellow sat at the door of the room,
crying bitterly--this was the overseer’s servant. We entered the room.
which was darkened from the jealousies being, all shut, except one of
the uppermost, which happening to be broken, there was a strong pencil
of light cast across the head of the bed where the sick man lay while
the rest of the room was involved in gloom.
The sufferer seemed in the last stage of yellow fever; his skin was a
bright yellow, his nose sharp, and his general features very much
pinched. His head had been shaven, and there was a handkerchief bound
round it over a plantain leaf, the mark of the blister coming low down
on his forehead, where the skin was shrivelled like dry parchment
apparently it had not risen. There was also a blister on his chest. He
was very restless, clutching the bedclothes, and tossing his limbs
about; his mouth was ulcerated, and blood oozed from the corners; his
eyes were a deep yellow, with the pupil much dilated, and very,
lustrous; he was breathing with a heavy moaning noise when we entered,
and looked wildly round, mistaking Mr Bang and me for some other
persons. Presently he began to speak very quickly, and to lift one of
his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there was something in it
he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair
haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see
it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress
him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but
his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no
one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively--it
struck me is being like--I was certain of it--it was Swedish, which in
health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying moments vividly
remembered. Alas, it was a melancholy and a moving sight, to perceive
all the hitherto engrossing thoughts and incidents of his youth and
manhood, all save the love of one dear object, suddenly vanish from the
tablet of his memory, ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great
agony--or like worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful
ancient inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their
primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dieing heart, the long
smothered, but never to be obliterated impressions of his early,
childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, whenever he
peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature. All this while a nice
little brown child was lying playing with his watch and seals on the bed
beside him, while a handsome coloured girl, a slight young creature,
apparently its mother, sat on the other side of the dying man,
supporting his head on her lap, and wetting his mouth every now and then
with a cloth dipped in brandy.
As he raised the miniature to his face, she would gently endeavour to
turn away his hand, that he might not look at one whom she, poor thing,
no doubt considered was usurping the place in his fluttering heart, that
she long fancied had been filled by herself solely; and at other times
she would vainly try to coax it out of his cold hand, but the dieing
grasp was now one of iron, and her attempts evidently discomposed the
departing sinner; but all was done kindly and quietly, and a flood of
tears would every now and then stream down her cheeks, as she failed in
her endeavours, or as the murmured, gasped name, Agatha, reached her
ear.
“Ah!” said she, “him heart riot wid me now--it far away in him own
country, him never will make me yeerie what him say again no more.”
Oh, woman, woman! who can fathom that heart of thine! By this time the
hiccup grew stronger, and all at once he sat up strong in his bed
without assistance, “light as if he felt no wound;” but immediately
thereafter gave a strong shudder, ejecting from his mouth a jet of dark
matter like the grounds of chocolate, and fell back dead whereupon the
negroes began to howl and shriek in such a horrible fashion, that we
were glad to leave the scene.
Next day, when we returned to attend the poor fellow’s funeral, we found
a complete bivouac of horses and black servants below the trees in front
of the house, which was full of neighbouring planters and overseers, all
walking about, and talking, and laughing, as if it had been a public
meeting on parish business. Some of them occasionally went into the
room to look at the body as it lay in the open coffin, the lid of which
was at length screwed down, and the corpse carried on four negroes
shoulders to its long home, followed by the brown girl and all the
servants, the latter weeping and howling,--but she, poor thing, said not
a word, although her heart seemed, from the convulsive heaving of her
bosom, like to burst. He was buried under a neighbouring orange-tree,
the service being read by the Irish carpenter of the estate, who got
half a page into the marriage service by mistake before either he or any
one else noticed he was wrong.
Three days after this the admiral extended my leave for a fortnight,
which I spent in a tour round this most glorious island with friend
Aaron, whose smiling face, like the sun, (more like the nor’west moon in
a fog, by the by,) seemed to diffuse warmth, and comfort, and happiness,
wherever he went, while Sir Samuel and his charming family, and the
general, and my dearie, and her aunt, returned home; and after a three
weeks philandering, I was married, and all that sort of thing, and a
week afterwards embarked with my treasure for I had half a million of
dollars on freight, as well as my own particular jewel; and don’t grin
at the former, for they gave me a handsome sum, and helped to rig us
when we got to Ould England, where Lotus--Leaf was paid off, and I
settled for a time on shore, the happiest, &c. &c. &c., until some years
afterwards, when the wee Cringles began to tumble home so deucedly fast,
that I had to cut and run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea.
My aunt and her family returned at the same time to England, in a
merchant ship under my convoy, and became our neighbours. Bang also got
married soon after to Miss Lucretia Wagtail, by whom he got the Slap
estate. But old Gelid and my other allies remain, I believe, in single
blessedness until this hour.
MY TALE is told--my yarn is ended,--and were I to spin it longer, I fear
it would be only bending it “end for end;” yet still I linger, “like the
sough of an auld sang” on the ear, loath to pronounce that stern heart
crushing word, that yet “has been, and must be,” and which, during my
boisterous and unsettled morning, has been, alas! a too familiar one
with me. I hope I shall always bless Heaven for my fair Blinks,
although, as the day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee
currents, hard gales, and foul weather; and many an old and dear friend
has lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved out
to replace them. But suffering, that scathes the heart, does not always
make it callous; and I feel much of the woman hanging about mine still,
even now, when the tide is on the turn with me, and the iron voice of
the inexorable First--Lieutenant, Time, has sung out, “Strike the bell
eight,”--every chime smiting on my soul as if an angel spoke, to warn
me, that my stormy forenoon watch is at length over--that the sun, now
passing the meridian, must soon decline towards the western horizon, and
who shall assure himself of a cloudless setting.
I have, in very truth, now reached the summit of the bald spray washed
promontory, and stand on the slippery ledge of the cliff, that trembles
to the thundering of the surge beneath; but the plunge must be made--so
at once, Farewell all hands, and God bless ye. If, while chucking the
cap about at a venture--but I hope and trust there has been no such
thing--it has alighted on the head of some ancient ally, and pinched in
any the remotest degree, I hereby express my most sincere and heartfelt
regret; and to such a one I would say, as he said, who wrote for all
time,
“I have shot Mine arrow o’er the house, and hurt my brother.”
Thus I cut my stick while the play is good, and before the public gets
wearied of me; and, as for the Log, it is now launched, swim, or
founder; if those things be good, it will float from its own buoyancy;
if they be naught, let it sink at once and for ever--all that Tom
Cringle expects at the hands of his countrymen is--A CLEAR STAGE, AND NO
FAVOUR.
THE END.