Jack began his story thus:
Of course you've heard of Donnybrook Fair, close to the city of Dublin.
What a strange scene it was, to be sure, of uproar and wild confusion--
of quarrelling and fighting from beginning to end--of broken heads, of
black eyes, and bruised shins--of shouting, of shrieking and swearing--
of blasphemy and drunkenness in all its forms of brutality. Ay, and as
I've heard say, of many a deed of darkness, not omitting murder, and
other crimes not less foul and hateful to Him who made this beautiful
world, and gave to man a religion of love and purity. There the
rollicking, roaring, bullying, fighting, harum-scarum Irishman of olden
days had full swing for all the propensities and vile passions which
have ruined him at home, and gained him a name and a fame not to be
envied throughout the world. Often have I wondered whether, had a North
American Indian, or a South-Sea Islander, visited the place, he could
have been persuaded that he had come to a land of Christian men.
Certainly an angel from heaven would have looked upon the assemblage as
a multitude of Satan's imps let loose upon the world. They tell me that
the fair and its bedevilments have pretty well been knocked on the head.
I am glad of it, though I have never again been to the spot from the
day of which I am about to speak.
I remember very little of my childish life. Indeed, my memory is nearly
a blank up to the time to which I allude. That time was one of the
first days of that same Donnybrook Fair; but I remember _that_ and good
reason I have so to do. I was, however, but a small chap then, young in
years, and little as to size.
My father's name was Amos Williams. He came from England and settled in
Dublin, where he married my mother, who was an Irishwoman. Her name I
never heard. If she had relations, they did not, at all events, own
her. I suspect, from some remarks she once let drop which I did not
then understand, that they had discarded her because she had become a
Protestant when she married my father. She was gentle and pious, and
did her utmost, during the short time she remained on earth, to teach me
the truths of that glorious gospel to which, in many a trial, she held
fast, as a ship to the sheet-anchor with a gale blowing on a lee-shore.
She died young, carried off by a malignant fever. Her last prayers were
for my welfare here and hereafter. Had I always remembered her precepts
I should, I believe, have been in a very different position to what I
now am in my old age. My poor father took her death very much to heart.
For days after her funeral he sat on his chair in our little cottage
with his hands before him, scarcely lifting up his head from his breast,
forgetting entirely that he ought to go out and seek for work, as
without it he had no means of finding food for himself and me. I should
have starved had not a kind woman, a neighbour, brought me in some
potatoes and buttermilk. Little enough I suspect she had to spare after
feeding her own children.
At length my father roused himself to action. Early one morning,
seizing his hat and bidding me stay quiet till his return, he rushed out
of the house. He was a stonemason. He got work, I believe, but the
tempter came in his way. A fellow-workman induced him to enter a whisky
shop. Spirits had, in his early days, been his bane. My mother's
influence had kept him sober. He now tried to forget his sorrow in
liquor. "Surely I have a right to cure my grief as best I can," said
he. Unhappily he did not wait for a reply from conscience. Little food
could he buy from the remnant of his day's wages. Thus he went on from
day to day, working hard when sober, drinking while he had money to pay
for liquor.
Still his affection for me did not diminish. While in his right mind he
could not bear to have me out of his sight. Every morning we might have
been seen leaving our cottage, I holding his hand as he went to his
work; yet nearly as certainly as the evening came round I had to creep
supperless to bed. All day he would keep me playing about in his sight,
except when any of his fellow-workmen, or people living near where we
happened to be, wanted a lad to run on an errand. Then I was always
glad of the job. Whenever, by happy chance, he came home sober in an
evening, he would take me between his knees, and, parting my hair, look
into my face and weep till his heart seemed ready to burst. But these
occasions grew less and less frequent. What I have said will show that
I have reason to love the memory of both my parents, in spite of the
faults my unhappy father undoubtedly possessed.
Several months had thus passed away after my mother's death, when one
afternoon my father entered our cottage where he had left me since the
morning.
"Jack, my boy," said he, taking my hand, "come along, and I will show
you what _life is_." Oh, had he said, "what _death is_," he would have
spoken the truth.
I accompanied him willingly, though I saw at a glance that he had
already been drinking. Crowds of people were going in the direction we
took. For some days past I had heard the neighbours talking of the
fair. I now knew that we were bound there. My mother had never allowed
me to go to the place, so I had no notion what it was like. I expected
to see something very grand and very beautiful--I could not tell what.
I pushed on into the crowd with my father as eagerly as any one,
thinking that we should arrive at the fair at last. I did not know that
we were already in the middle of it. I remember, however, having a
confused sight of booths, and canvas theatres, and actors in fine
clothes strutting about and spouting and trumpeting and drumming; of
rope-dancers and tumblers with painted faces; and doctors in gilded
chariots selling all sorts of wonderful remedies for every possible
complaint; and the horsemanship, with men leaping through hoops and
striding over six steeds or more at full gallop; and the gingerbread
stalls, and toy shops, and similar wonders; but what was bought and sold
at the fair of use to any one I never heard.
My father had taken me round to several of the shows I have spoken of:
when he entered a drinking-booth, and set himself down with me on his
knee, among a number of men who seemed to be drinking hard. Their
example stimulated him to drink harder than ever, and in a short time
his senses completely left him. As, however, even though the worse
liquor, he was peaceable in his disposition, instead of sallying forth
as many did in search of adventures, he laid himself down on the ground
with his head against the canvas of the tent, and told me to call him
when it was morning. Some one at the same time handed me a piece of
gingerbread, so I set myself down by his side to do as he bid me.
Those were the days of faction fights; and if people happened to have no
cause for a quarrel, they very soon found one. The tent we were in was
patronised by Orangemen, and of course was a mark for the attacks of the
opposite party. My poor father had slept an hour or so, with three or
four men near him in a similar condition, when a half-drunken body of
men came by, shillelah in hand, looking out for a row. Unhappily the
shapes of the heads of most of the sleepers were clearly developed
through the canvas. The temptation was not to be resisted--whack--
whack--whack! Down came the heavy stick of a sturdy Irishman upon that
of my father. "Get up out of that, and defend yourselves!" sung out
their assailants. Most of his companions rushed out to avenge the
insult offered them, but my father made no answer. Numbers joined from
all directions--shillelahs were flourished rapidly, and the scrimmage
became general. I ran to the front of the tent and clapped my hands,
and shouted with sympathy. Now the mass of fighting, shrieking men
swayed to one side, now to the other; now they advanced, now they
retreated, till by degrees the fight had reached a considerable distance
from the tent.
I then went back to my place by my father's side, wondering that he did
not get up to join the fray. I listened, he breathed, but he did not
speak. Still I thought he must be awake. "Father, father," said I,
"get up, do. It's time to go home, sure now." I shook him gently, but
he made no reply. At length I could hear no sound proceeding from his
lips. I cried out in alarm. The keeper of the booth saw that something
was wrong, and came and looked curiously into his face. He lifted up my
father's hand. It fell like lead by his side.
"Why won't father speak to me?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"He'll never speak again! Your father's dead, lad," answered the man in
a tone of commiseration.
With what oppressive heaviness did those words strike on my young heart,
though at that time I did not fully comprehend the extent of my loss,--
that I should never again hear the tone of his voice--that we were for
ever parted in this world--that I was an orphan, without a human being
to care for me. But though bewildered and confused at that awful
moment, the words he had uttered as we left home rung strangely in my
ears--"Lad, I'll show you what life is." Too truly did he show me what
death was. Often and often have I since seen the same promise fulfilled
in a similar fearful way. What men call _life_ is a certain road to
_death_; death of the body, death of the soul. Of course I did not
understand this truth in those days; not indeed till long, long
afterwards, when I had gone through much pain and suffering, and had
been well-nigh worn-out. I was then very ignorant and very simple, and
I should probably have been vicious also had not my mother watchfully
kept me out of the way of bad example; and even after she was taken from
me, I was prevented from associating with bad companions.
When I found that my poor father was really dead, I stood wringing my
hands and crying bitterly. The sounds of my grief attracted many of the
passers-by; some stopped to inquire its cause, and when they had
satisfied their curiosity they went their way. At last several seamen,
with an independent air, came rolling up near the tent. The leader of
the party was one of the tallest men I ever saw. Though he stooped
slightly as he walked, his head towered above all the rest of the crowd.
"What's the matter with the young squeaker there, mate?" he asked in a
bantering tone, thinking probably that I had broken a toy, or lost a
lump of gingerbread from my pocket.
"His daddy's dead, and he's no one to look after him!" shouted an urchin
from the crowd of bystanders.
"He's in a bad case then," replied the seaman, coming up to me. "What,
lad! is it true that you have no friends?" he asked, stooping down and
taking me by the hand.
"No one but father, and he lies there!" I answered, giving way to a
fresh burst of grief as I pointed to my parent's corpse.
"He speaks the truth," observed the man of the booth; "he has no mother,
nor kith nor kin that I know of, and must starve if no one takes charge
of him, I suspect."
The tall sailor looked at me with an expression of countenance which at
once gained my confidence. "What say you, lad, will you come with us?"
he asked, pointing to his companions; "we'll take you to sea, and make a
man of you!"
"We may get him entered aboard the _Rainbow_, I think, mates," he added,
addressing them. "He'll do as well as the monkey we lost overboard
during the last gale; and though he may be as mischievous now, he will
learn better manners, which Jocko hadn't the sense to do."
"Oh ay! Bear him along with us," replied the other sea men; "he'll be
better afloat, whichever way the wind blows, than starving on shore."
"Come along, youngster, then," said the tall seaman; and, without
waiting for my reply, he seized me by the arm, and began to move off
with me through the crowd.
"But what will be done with poor father? Sure I cannot leave him now!"
I exclaimed, looking back with anguish at my father's corpse.
"Oh, we'll see all about that," answered my new friend; "he shall be
waked in proper style, and have a decent funeral; so you may leave home
with a clear conscience. Never fear!"
I need not dwell longer on the events of that sad day. Aided by some of
the men who knew my father, and who returned to the tent after the fray
was over, the kind-hearted seamen bore the corpse to our cottage. The
promise of a supply of whisky easily induced some of the neighbours to
come and howl during the livelong night. This they did with right good
will, although my father was a Protestant and a foreigner; and I cried
and howled in sympathy. I would fain, however, have forgotten my grief
in sleep. The seamen had taken their departure, promising to return to
look after me.
As there was no chance of a man with a fractured skull coming to life
again, the funeral speedily took place. The small quantity of furniture
remaining in the cottage was sold; but the proceeds were barely
sufficient to pay the expenses.
Thus I was left, with the exception of a suit of somewhat ragged clothes
on my back, as naked and poor as when I came into the world about twelve
years before, with a much more expensive appetite than I then had to
supply. Some boys at that age are well able to take care of themselves,
but, as I have said, I was small for my years, and I had been kept by my
poor mother so much by myself, that I knew nothing of the world and its
ways.
Alter the funeral a compassionate neighbour, with a dozen or more
children of her own to feed, took me to her house till it was settled
what was to become of me. She and her husband laughed at the idea of
the tall sailor coming to take me away.
"I know what sailors are," said the husband; "they'll just chuck a
handful of silver to the first beggar who asks them for it, and then
they'll go away and forget all about it! Maybe your friend was only
after joking with you, and is off to sea long ago!"
"Oh no! he meant what he said," I replied; "I know that by the look of
his face. He's a kind man, I'm certain!"
"It may be better for us all if he comes, but it's not very likely," was
the answer. Still I trusted that my new friend would not deceive me.
I was standing in front of the cottage which was next to that my father
and I had inhabited, when my heart beat quick at seeing a tall figure
turn a corner at the other end of the street. I was certain it was my
sailor friend. "It's him! It's him! I knew he'd come!" I shouted,
and ran forward to meet him.
He smiled as he saw my eagerness. "You've not forgotten me, I see,
lad," said he; "well, come along. It's all arranged; and if you're in
the same mind, you've only to say so, and we'll enter you aboard the
_Rainbow_!"
I told the tall sailor that I was ready to go wherever he liked to take
me. This seemed to please him. After I had wished the neighbours, who
had been so kind to me, good-bye, he took me by the hand, and led me
rapidly along in the direction of the docks. Before reaching them, we
entered a house where some old gentlemen were sitting at a table. One
of them asked me if I wished to go to sea and become an admiral. I
replied, "Yes, surely," though I did not know what being an admiral
meant; and on this the other old gentlemen laughed, and the first wrote
something on a paper, which he handed across the table.
On this a sunburnt fine-looking man stepped forward and wrote on the
paper, and I was then told that I was bound apprentice to Captain
Helfrich, of the _Rainbow_ brig. The fine-looking man was, I found,
Captain Helfrich. "Well, that matter is squared now!" exclaimed the
tall sailor; "so, youngster, we'll aboard at once, before either you or
I get into mischief."
On our way to the brig, we stopped at a slop clothes-shop. "Here, Mr
Levi! I want an outfit for this youngster," said my friend, taking me
in. "Let his duds be big enough, that he may have room to grow in them.
Good food and sea air will soon make him sprout like a young cabbage."
The order was literally fulfilled, and I speedily found myself the
possessor of a new suit of sailors' clothes, of two spare shirts, and
sundry other articles of dress. My friend made me put them on at once.
"Now, do the old ones up in that handkerchief," said he; "we'll find a
use for them before long."
The spare new things he did up into a bundle, and carried it himself.
"I did not want the Jew to get your old clothes, for which he would have
allowed nothing," said he, as we left the shop. "We shall soon fall in
with a little ragged fellow, to whom they'll be a rich prize."
As we went along, two or three boys begged of us, and pointed to their
rags as a plea for their begging. "They'll not do," said he; "the
better clothes would ruin them."
At last, passing along the quays, we saw a little fellow sitting on the
stock of an anchor, and looking very miserable. He had no shoes on his
feet; his trousers were almost legless, and fastened up over one
shoulder by a piece of string, while his arms were thrust into the
sleeves of an old coat, much too large for him, and patched and torn
again in all directions. He did not beg, but just looked up into my
tall friend's face, as if he saw something pleasing there.
"What do you want?" said the sailor.
"Nothing," answered the boy, not understanding him.
"You're well off then, lad," said the tall sailor, smiling at him. "But
I think that you would be the better for some few things in this world--
for a suit of clothes, for instance."
"The very things I do want!" exclaimed the lad. "You've hit it, your
honour. I'd a dacent suit as ever you'd wish to see, and they were run
away with, just as I'd got the office of an errand-boy with a gentleman,
and was in a fair way to make my fortune."
"Well, then, here's a suit for you, my lad," said the sailor; "just get
your mother to give them a darning up, and they'll serve your purpose, I
daresay. Give him your bundle."
"Sure your honour isn't joking with me!" exclaimed the lad, his
countenance beaming with pleasure as he undid the bundle of clothes,
which were certainly very far better than those he had on. "I'm a made
man--that I am! Blessings on your honour, and the young master there!"
"You're welcome, lad, with all my heart," answered my friend.
"Oh, it's Terence McSwiney will have to thank you to the end of his
days, and ever after!" exclaimed the boy, as we were walking on.
"Well, Terence, I hope you'll get the post, and do your duty in it,"
said the tall sailor, moving off to avoid listening to the expressions
of gratitude which the lad poured forth.
The incident made a deep impression on me. I learned by it that others
might be worse off than I was, and also that a gift at the right time
might be of the greatest service. Of this I had the proof many years
afterwards. If the rich and the well-to-do did but know of what use
their own or their children's cast-off clothes would be to many not only
among the labouring classes, but to people of education and refinement,
struggling with poverty, they would not carelessly throw them away, or
let them get into the hands of Jews, sold by their servants for a sixth
of their value. I must observe that, in the course of my narrative I
shall often make remarks on various ideas which, at the time I speak of,
could not possibly have occurred to me.
The tall sailor and I walked along the quay. All of a sudden it
occurred to me that I did not know his name. I looked up in his face
and asked him.
"I'm called Peter Poplar," he answered, with one of his kind smiles.
"The name suits me, and I suit the name; so I do not quarrel with it.
You'll have to learn the names, pretty quickly too, of all the people on
board. There are a good many of us, and each and every one of them will
consider himself your master, and you'll have to look out to please them
all."
"I'll do my best to please them, Mr Poplar," said I.
"That's right! But I say, lad, don't address me so. Call me plain
Peter, or Peter Poplar; we don't deal in misters aboard the _Rainbow_.
It is all very well for shore-going people to call each other mister; or
when you speak to an officer, just to show that he is an officer; but
sharp's the word with us forward--we haven't time for compliments."
"But I thought you were an officer, Peter," said I. "You look like
one."
"Do I?" he answered, with his pleasant smile. "Well, Jack, perhaps I
ought to have been one, and it's my own fault that I am not. But the
truth is, I haven't got the learning necessary for it. I never have
learned to read, and so I haven't been able to master navigation.
Without it, you know, a man cannot be an officer, however good a seaman
he may be; and in that point I'll yield to no man."
Peter, as he spoke, drew himself up to his full height, and I thought he
looked fit to be a very great officer indeed; even to be an admiral,
such as the old gentleman in the office had spoken of.
"I am very bad at my books too," said I. "I can just read a little
though, and if I can get the chance of falling in with a book, I'll like
to read to you, Peter."
My friend thanked me, but said books were not often seen aboard the
_Rainbow_; nor were they found in many other merchant-craft, for that
matter, in those days.
We found the brig just ready to haul out into the outer basin,
preparatory to putting to sea. She was a fine large craft, and had been
built for a privateer in the war-time. Her heavy guns had been landed,
but she still carried some eight six-pounders; and as she had a strong
crew of fully twenty men, she was well able to defend herself from any
piratical craft, or other gentry of that description.
When Peter first took me on board, some of the seamen would scarcely
believe I was the same little boy they had seen at the fair, I looked so
much stouter and stronger in my seaman's dress. I did not much like the
look of the forepeak, into which Peter introduced me, telling me that it
was to be my house and home for the next few years of my life. I had
been accustomed to the dingy obscurity of an Irish cabin, but never had
I been, I thought, in a more dark and gloomy habitation than this.
"Never fear, Jack, you'll soon find yourself at home here," said Peter,
divining my thoughts. While he was speaking, a seaman lighted a lantern
which hung from a beam, and its glare showed me that the place was more
roomy than I had supposed, and that every part of it was perfectly
clean. I found, indeed, afterwards, that it was very superior to the
places merchant-seamen are compelled often to live in. Some of the crew
slept in standing bed-places ranged round the sides of the vessel, or
rather inside her bows, while for others hammocks were slung from the
beams which supported the deck. The chests were arranged to serve as
seats, while there was a rack for the plates and mugs belonging to their
mess.
The greater part of the crew was still on shore. "Now, Jack, that you
know the sort of place we have to live in, I'll show you the
accommodation prepared for the captain and his passengers. It must not
make you envious any more than it does me, for I think that those who
have learning and education should enjoy advantages in proportion. I
feel that it is my own fault that I do not live in as fine a cabin as
the captain does."
Even though Peter had thus prepared me to see something very fine, the
richness of the cabin fittings and furniture surpassed anything I had in
my simplicity imagined to exist. Perhaps those accustomed to such
things might not have thought it so very great. I know that there were
damask curtains, and coverings to the sofas, and mirrors, and pictures
in gold frames, and mahogany tables and chairs, and cut-glass decanters,
and china in racks, and a number of pistols and muskets and cutlasses,
all burnished and shining, fixed against a bulkhead.
"Why, this is a place fit for a king," I exclaimed; "sure he can't have
anything grander."
Peter laughed. "The captain prides himself on being very natty, and
having everything in good order," said he; "but kings, I fancy, live in
finer places than this. However, my reason for bringing you here was to
show you the place, that you may know how to behave yourself should you
be sent for to attend on the captain. You must obey him quickly, try
and understand his wishes, and keep things clean and in their places.
If you do this, you are certain to please him."
Thus it was that my friend kindly tried to prepare me for my new career.
"Now, Jack," said he at last, "I've done my best to set you on your
legs. You must try to walk alone. I don't want to make a nursing baby
of you, remember." From that day forward Peter left me very much to
take care of myself. Still I felt that his eye was watching over me,
and this feeling gave me a considerable amount of confidence which I
should not otherwise have possessed.
By the next day at noon, the rest of the crew had assembled; the captain
and several passengers, mostly merchants and planters, came on board.
There was a fair wind blowing down the Liffey. "Open the dock-gates,
Mr Thompson, and let her go. She'll find her own way to Jamaica and
back again by herself, without a hand at the helm, she knows it so
well," the captain, as he stood on the poop, sung out to the
dock-master. I found that this was a standing joke of his.
The _Rainbow_ was a regular West India trader, and had had many
successful voyages there. Captain Helfrich was chief owner as well as
master, and was a great favourite with the merchants and planters at the
different islands at which he was in the habit of touching, and
consequently had always plenty of passengers, and never had to wait long
for freight. He was very proud of his brig, and of everything connected
with her. He himself also was a person not a little worthy of note. He
was, as I have said, a tall, fine man, robust and upright in figure,
with large, handsome features, and teeth of pearly whiteness. He was
probably at this time rather more than forty years old, but not a
particle of his crisp, curly, brown hair had a silvery tint. He had a
fine beaming smile, though he was very firm and determined, and could
look very fierce when angry. I had an unbounded respect for him. Thus
commanded, and with as good a crew as ever manned a ship, the _Rainbow_
dropped down the Liffey, and made sail to the southward; and under these
propitious circumstances I found myself fairly launched in my career as
a sailor.