THE ROAD—TRAVELLING ACQUAINTANCES—A PACKET ADVENTURE.
[Illustration: Mrs. Mulrooney and Sir Stewart Moore]
I shall not stop now to narrate the particulars of my visit to the
worthies of the medical board; the rather, as some of my “confessions
to come” have reference to Dublin, and many of those that dwell
therein. I shall therefore content myself here with stating, that
without any difficulty I obtained a six months’ leave, and having
received much advice and more sympathy from many members of that body,
took a respectful leave of them, and adjourned to Bilton’s where I had
ordered dinner, and (as I was advised to live low) a bottle of Sneyd’s
claret. My hours in Dublin were numbered; at eight o’clock on the
evening of my arrival I hastened to the Pidgeon House pier, to take my
berth in the packet for Liverpool; and here, gentle reader, let me
implore you if you have bowels of compassion, to commiserate the
condition of a sorry mortal like myself. In the days of which I now
speak, steam packets were not—men knew not then, of the pleasure of
going to a comfortable bed in Kingstown harbour, and waking on the
morning after in the Clarence dock at Liverpool, with only the addition
of a little sharper appetite for breakfast, before they set out on an
excursion of forty miles per hour through the air.
In the time I have now to commemorate, the intercourse between the two
countries was maintained by two sailing vessels of small tonnage, and
still scantier accommodation. Of the one now in question I well
recollect the name—she was called the “Alert,” and certainly a more
unfortunate misnomer could scarcely be conceived. Well, there was no
choice; so I took my place upon the crowded deck of the little craft,
and in a drizzling shower of chilly rain, and amid more noise,
confusion, and bustle, than would prelude the launch of a
line-of-battle ship, we “sidled,” goose-fashion, from the shore, and
began our voyage towards England.
It is not my intention, in the present stage of “my Confessions,” to
delay on the road towards an event which influenced so powerfully, and
so permanently, my after life; yet I cannot refrain from chronicling a
slight incident which occurred on board the packet, and which, I have
no doubt, may be remembered by some of those who throw their eyes on
these pages.
One of my fellow-passengers was a gentleman holding a high official
appointment in the viceregal court, either comptroller of the
household, master of the horse, or something else equally magnificent;
however, whatever the nature of the situation, one thing is certain—one
possessed of more courtly manners, and more polished address, cannot be
conceived, to which he added all the attractions of a very handsome
person and a most prepossessing countenance. The only thing the most
scrupulous critic could possibly detect as faulty in his whole air and
bearing, was a certain ultra refinement and fastidiousness, which in a
man of acknowledged family and connections was somewhat unaccountable,
and certainly unnecessary. The fastidiousness I speak of, extended to
everything round and about him; he never eat of the wrong dish, nor
spoke to the wrong man in his life, and that very consciousness gave
him a kind of horror of chance acquaintances, which made him shrink
within himself from persons in every respect his equals. Those who knew
Sir Stewart Moore, will know I do not exaggerate in either my praise or
censure, and to those who have not had that pleasure, I have only to
say, theirs was the loss, and they must take my word for the facts.
The very antithesis to the person just mentioned, was another passenger
then on board. She, for even in sex they were different—she was a
short, squat, red-faced, vulgar-looking woman, of about fifty,
possessed of a most garrulous tendency, and talking indiscriminately
with every one about her, careless what reception her addresses met
with, and quite indifferent to the many rebuffs she momentarily
encountered. To me by what impulse driven Heaven knows this amorphous
piece of womanhood seemed determined to attach herself. Whether in the
smoky and almost impenetrable recesses of the cabin, or braving the
cold and penetrating rain upon deck, it mattered not, she was ever at
my side, and not only martyring me by the insufferable annoyance of her
vulgar loquacity, but actually, from the appearance of acquaintanceship
such constant association gave rise to, frightening any one else from
conversing with me, and rendering me, ere many hours, a perfect pariah
among the passengers. By not one were we—for, alas, we had become
Siamese—so thoroughly dreaded as by the refined baronet I have
mentioned; he appeared to shrink from our very approach, and avoided us
as though we had the plagues of Egypt about us. I saw this—I felt it
deeply, and as deeply and resolutely I vowed to be revenged, and the
time was not long distant in affording me the opportunity.
The interesting Mrs. Mulrooney, for such was my fair companion called,
was on the present occasion making her debut on what she was pleased to
call the “says;” she was proceeding to the Liverpool market as
proprietor and supercargo over some legion of swine that occupied the
hold of the vessel, and whose mellifluous tones were occasionally heard
in all parts of the ship. Having informed me on these, together with
some circumstances of her birth and parentage, she proceeded to narrate
some of the cautions given by her friends as to her safety when making
such a long voyage, and also to detail some of the antiseptics to that
dread scourge, sea-sickness, in the fear and terror of which she had
come on board, and seemed every hour to be increasing in alarm about.
“Do you think then sir, that pork is no good agin the sickness? Mickey,
that’s my husband, sir, says it’s the only thing in life for it, av
it’s toasted.”
“Not the least use, I assure you.”
“Nor sperits and wather?”
“Worse and worse, ma’am.”
“Oh, thin, maybe oaten mail tay would do? it’s a beautiful thing for
the stomick, any how.”
“Rank poison on the present occasion, believe me.”
“Oh, then, blessed Mary, what am I to do—what is to become of me?”
“Go down at once to your berth, ma’am; lie still and without speaking
till we come in sight of land; or,” and here a bright thought seized
me, “if you really feel very ill, call for that man there, with the fur
collar on his coat; he can give you the only thing I ever knew of any
efficacy; he’s the steward, ma’am, Stewart Moore; but you must be on
your guard too as you are a stranger, for he’s a conceited fellow, and
has saved a trifle, and sets up for a half gentleman; so don’t be
surprised at his manner; though, after all, you may find him very
different; some people, I’ve heard, think him extremely civil.”
“And he has a cure, ye say?”
“The only one I ever heard of; it is a little cordial of which you
take, I don’t know how much, every ten or fifteen minutes.”
“And the naygur doesn’t let the saycret out, bad manners to him?”
“No, ma’am; he has refused every offer on the subject.’
“May I be so bowld as to ax his name again?”
“Stewart Moore, ma’am. Moore is the name, but people always call him
Stewart Moore; just say that in a loud clear voice, and you’ll soon
have him.”
With the most profuse protestations of gratitude and promises of pork
“at discretion,” if I ever sojourned at Ballinasloe, my fair friend
proceeded to follow my advice, and descended to the cabin.
Some hours after, I also betook myself to my rest, from which, however,
towards midnight I was awoke by the heavy working and pitching of the
little vessel, as she laboured in a rough sea. As I looked forth from
my narrow crib, a more woe-begone picture can scarcely be imagined than
that before me. Here and there through the gloomy cabin lay the victims
of the fell malady, in every stage of suffering, and in every attitude
of misery. Their cries and lamentings mingled with the creaking of the
bulk-heads and the jarring twang of the dirty lamp, whose irregular
swing told plainly how oscillatory was our present motion. I turned
from the unpleasant sight, and was about again to address myself to
slumber with what success I might, when I started at the sound of a
voice in the very berth next to me—whose tones, once heard, there was
no forgetting. The words ran as nearly as I can recollect thus:—
“Oh, then, bad luck to ye for pigs, that ever brought me into the like
of this. Oh, Lord, there it is again.” And here a slight interruption
to eloquence took place, during which I was enabled to reflect upon the
author of the complaint, who, I need not say, was Mrs. Mulrooney.
“I think a little tay would settle my stomach, if I only could get it;
but what’s the use of talking in this horrid place? They never mind me
no more than if I was a pig. Steward, steward—oh, then, it’s wishing
you well I am for a steward. Steward, I say;” and this she really did
say, with an energy of voice and manner that startled more than one
sleeper. “Oh, you’re coming at last, steward.”
“Ma’am,” said a little dapper and dirty personage, in a blue jacket,
with a greasy napkin negligently thrown over one arm “ex officio,”
“Ma’am, did you call?”
“Call, is it call? No; but I’m roaring for you this half hour. Come
here. Have you any of the cordial dhrops agin the sickness?—you know
what I mean.”
“Is it brandy, ma’am?”
“No, it isn’t brandy;”
“We have got gin, ma’am, and bottled porter—cider, ma’am, if you like.”
“Agh, no! sure I want the dhrops agin the sickness.”
“Don’t know indeed, ma’am.”
“Ah, you stupid creature; maybe you’re not the real steward. What’s
your name?”
“Smith, ma’am.”
“Ah, I thought so; go away, man, go away.”
This injunction, given in a diminuendo cadence, was quickly obeyed, and
all was silence for a moment or two. Once more was I dropping asleep,
when the same voice as before burst out with—
“Am I to die here like a haythen, and nobody to come near me? Steward,
steward, steward Moore, I say,”
“Who calls me?” said a deep sonorous voice from the opposite side of
the cabin, while at the same instant a tall green silk nightcap,
surmounting a very aristocratic-looking forehead, appeared between the
curtains of the opposite berth.
“Steward Moore,” said the lady again, with her eyes straining in the
direction of the door by which she expected him to enter.
“This is most strange,” muttered the baronet, half aloud. “Why, madam,
you are calling me!”
“And if I am,” said Mrs. Mulrooney, “and if ye heerd me, have ye no
manners to answer your name, eh? Are ye steward Moore?”
“Upon my soul ma’am I thought so last night, when I came on board; but
you really have contrived to make me doubt my own identity.”
“And is it there ye’re lying on the broad of yer back, and me as sick
as a dog fornent ye?”
“I concede ma’am the fact; the position is a most irksome one on every
account.”
“Then why don’t ye come over to me?” and this Mrs. Mulrooney said with
a voice of something like tenderness—wishing at all hazards to
conciliate so important a functionary.
“Why, really you are the most incomprehensible person I ever met.”
“I’m what?” said Mrs. Mulrooney, her blood rushing to her face and
temples as she spoke—for the same reason as her fair townswoman is
reported to have borne with stoical fortitude every harsh epithet of
the language, until it occurred to her opponent to tell her that “the
divil a bit better she was nor a pronoun;” so Mrs. Mulrooney, taking
“omne ignotum pro horribili,” became perfectly beside herself at the
unlucky phrase. “I’m what? repate it av ye dare, and I’ll tear yer eyes
out? Ye dirty bla—guard, to be lying there at yer ease under the
blankets, grinning at me. What’s your thrade—answer me that—av it isn’t
to wait on the ladies, eh?”
“Oh, the woman must be mad,” said Sir Stewart.
“The devil a taste mad, my dear—I’m only sick. Now just come over to
me, like a decent creature, and give me the dhrop of comfort ye have.
Come, avick.”
“Go over to you?”
“Ay, and why not? or if it’s so lazy ye are, why then I’ll thry and
cross over to your side.”
These words being accompanied by a certain indication of change of
residence on the part of Mrs. Mulrooney, Sir Stewart perceived there
was no time to lose, and springing from his berth, he rushed
half-dressed through the cabin, and up the companion-ladder, just as
Mrs. Mulrooney had protruded a pair of enormous legs from her couch,
and hung for a moment pendulous before she dropped upon the floor, and
followed him to the deck. A tremendous shout of laughter from the
sailors and deck passengers prevented my hearing the dialogue which
ensued; nor do I yet know how Mrs. Mulrooney learned her mistake.
Certain it is, she no more appeared among the passengers in the cabin,
and Sir Stewart’s manner the following morning at breakfast amply
satisfied me that I had had my revenge.