HE GETS A PEEP AT IRELAND, AND AT LAST ARRIVES AT LIVERPOOL
The Highlander was not a grayhound, not a very fast sailer; and so, the
passage, which some of the packet ships make in fifteen or sixteen
days, employed us about thirty.
At last, one morning I came on deck, and they told me that Ireland was
in sight.
Ireland in sight! A foreign country actually visible! I peered hard,
but could see nothing but a bluish, cloud-like spot to the northeast.
Was that Ireland? Why, there was nothing remarkable about that; nothing
startling. If _that’s_ the way a foreign country looks, I might as well
have staid at home.
Now what, exactly, I had fancied the shore would look like, I can not
say; but I had a vague idea that it would be something strange and
wonderful. However, there it was; and as the light increased and the
ship sailed nearer and nearer, the land began to magnify, and I gazed
at it with increasing interest.
Ireland! I thought of Robert Emmet, and that last speech of his before
Lord Norbury; I thought of Tommy Moore, and his amatory verses: I
thought of Curran, Grattan, Plunket, and O’Connell; I thought of my
uncle’s ostler, Patrick Flinnigan; and I thought of the shipwreck of
the gallant Albion, tost to pieces on the very shore now in sight; and
I thought I should very much like to leave the ship and visit Dublin
and the Giant’s Causeway.
Presently a fishing-boat drew near, and I rushed to get a view of it;
but it was a very ordinary looking boat, bobbing up and down, as any
other boat would have done; yet, when I considered that the solitary
man in it was actually a born native of the land in sight; that in all
probability he had never been in America, and knew nothing about my
friends at home, I began to think that he looked somewhat strange.
He was a very fluent fellow, and as soon as we were within hailing
distance, cried out—“Ah, my fine sailors, from Ameriky, ain’t ye, my
beautiful sailors?” And concluded by calling upon us to stop and heave
a rope. Thinking he might have something important to communicate, the
mate accordingly backed the main yard, and a rope being thrown, the
stranger kept hauling in upon it, and coiling it down, crying, “pay
out! pay out, my honeys; ah! but you’re noble fellows!” Till at last
the mate asked him why he did not come alongside, adding, “Haven’t you
enough rope yet?”
“Sure and I have,” replied the fisherman, “and it’s time for Pat to cut
and run!” and so saying, his knife severed the rope, and with a
Kilkenny grin, he sprang to his tiller, put his little craft before the
wind, and bowled away from us, with some fifteen fathoms of our
tow-line.
“And may the Old Boy hurry after you, and hang you in your stolen hemp,
you Irish blackguard!” cried the mate, shaking his fist at the receding
boat, after recovering from his first fit of amazement.
Here, then, was a beautiful introduction to the eastern hemisphere;
fairly robbed before striking soundings. This trick upon experienced
travelers certainly beat all I had ever heard about the wooden nutmegs
and bass-wood pumpkin seeds of Connecticut. And I thought if there were
any more Hibernians like our friend Pat, the Yankee peddlers might as
well give it up.
The next land we saw was Wales. It was high noon, and a long line of
purple mountains lay like banks of clouds against the east.
Could this be really Wales?—Wales?—and I thought of the Prince of
Wales.
And did a real queen with a diadem reign over that very land I was
looking at, with the identical eyes in my own head?—And then I thought
of a grandfather of mine, who had fought against the ancestor of this
queen at Bunker’s Hill.
But, after all, the general effect of these mountains was mortifyingly
like the general effect of the Kaatskill Mountains on the Hudson River.
With a light breeze, we sailed on till next day, when we made Holyhead
and Anglesea. Then it fell almost calm, and what little wind we had,
was ahead; so we kept tacking to and fro, just gliding through the
water, and always hovering in sight of a snow-white tower in the
distance, which might have been a fort, or a light-house. I lost myself
in conjectures as to what sort of people might be tenanting that lonely
edifice, and whether they knew any thing about us.
The third day, with a good wind over the taffrail, we arrived so near
our destination, that we took a pilot at dusk.
He, and every thing connected with him were very different from our New
York pilot. In the first place, the pilot boat that brought him was a
plethoric looking sloop-rigged boat, with flat bows, that went wheezing
through the water; quite in contrast to the little gull of a schooner,
that bade us adieu off Sandy Hook. Aboard of her were ten or twelve
other pilots, fellows with shaggy brows, and muffled in shaggy coats,
who sat grouped together on deck like a fire-side of bears, wintering
in Aroostook. They must have had fine sociable times, though, together;
cruising about the Irish Sea in quest of Liverpool-bound vessels;
smoking cigars, drinking brandy-and-water, and spinning yarns; till at
last, one by one, they are all scattered on board of different ships,
and meet again by the side of a blazing sea-coal fire in some Liverpool
taproom, and prepare for another yachting.
Now, when this English pilot boarded us, I stared at him as if he had
been some wild animal just escaped from the Zoological Gardens; for
here was a real live Englishman, just from England. Nevertheless, as he
soon fell to ordering us here and there, and swearing vociferously in a
language quite familiar to me; I began to think him very common-place,
and considerable of a bore after all.
After running till about midnight, we _“hove-to”_ near the mouth of the
Mersey; and next morning, before day-break, took the first of the
flood; and with a fair wind, stood into the river; which, at its mouth,
is quite an arm of the sea. Presently, in the misty twilight, we passed
immense buoys, and caught sight of distant objects on shore, vague and
shadowy shapes, like Ossian’s ghosts.
As I stood leaning over the side, and trying to summon up some image of
Liverpool, to see how the reality would answer to my conceit; and while
the fog, and mist, and gray dawn were investing every thing with a
mysterious interest, I was startled by the doleful, dismal sound of a
great bell, whose slow intermitting tolling seemed in unison with the
solemn roll of the billows. I thought I had never heard so boding a
sound; a sound that seemed to speak of judgment and the resurrection,
like belfry-mouthed Paul of Tarsus.
It was not in the direction of the shore; but seemed to come out of the
vaults of the sea, and out of the mist and fog.
Who was dead, and what could it be?
I soon learned from my shipmates, that this was the famous _Bett-Buoy,_
which is precisely what its name implies; and tolls fast or slow,
according to the agitation of the waves. In a calm, it is dumb; in a
moderate breeze, it tolls gently; but in a gale, it is an alarum like
the tocsin, warning all mariners to flee. But it seemed fuller of
dirges for the past, than of monitions for the future; and no one can
give ear to it, without thinking of the sailors who sleep far beneath
it at the bottom of the deep.
As we sailed ahead the river contracted. The day came, and soon,
passing two lofty land-marks on the Lancashire shore, we rapidly drew
near the town, and at last, came to anchor in the stream.
Looking shoreward, I beheld lofty ranges of dingy warehouses, which
seemed very deficient in the elements of the marvelous; and bore a most
unexpected resemblance to the ware-houses along South-street in New
York. There was nothing strange; nothing extraordinary about them.
There they stood; a row of calm and collected ware-houses; very good
and substantial edifices, doubtless, and admirably adapted to the ends
had in view by the builders; but plain, matter-of-fact ware-houses,
nevertheless, and that was all that could be said of them.
To be sure, I did not expect that every house in Liverpool must be a
Leaning Tower of Pisa, or a Strasbourg Cathedral; but yet, these
edifices I must confess, were a sad and bitter disappointment to me.
But it was different with Larry the whaleman; who to my surprise,
looking about him delighted, exclaimed, “Why, this ’ere is a
considerable place—I’m _dummed if_ it ain’t quite a place.—Why, them
’ere houses is considerable houses. It beats the coast of Afriky, all
hollow; nothing like this in _Madagasky,_ I tell you;—I’m _dummed,_
boys if Liverpool ain’t a city!”
Upon this occasion, indeed, Larry altogether forgot his hostility to
civilization. Having been so long accustomed to associate foreign lands
with the savage places of the Indian Ocean, he had been under the
impression, that Liverpool must be a town of bamboos, situated in some
swamp, and whose inhabitants turned their attention principally to the
cultivation of log-wood and curing of flying-fish. For that any great
commercial city existed three thousand miles from home, was a thing, of
which Larry had never before had a _“realizing sense.”_ He was
accordingly astonished and delighted; and began to feel a sort of
consideration for the country which could boast so extensive a town.
Instead of holding Queen Victoria on a par with the Queen of
Madagascar, as he had been accustomed to do; he ever after alluded to
that lady with feeling and respect.
As for the other seamen, the sight of a foreign country seemed to
kindle no enthusiasm in them at all: no emotion in the least. They
looked around them with great presence of mind, and acted precisely as
you or I would, if, after a morning’s absence round the corner, we
found ourselves returning home. Nearly all of them had made frequent
voyages to Liverpool.
Not long after anchoring, several boats came off; and from one of them
stept a neatly-dressed and very respectable-looking woman, some thirty
years of age, I should think, carrying a bundle. Coming forward among
the sailors, she inquired for Max the Dutchman, who immediately was
forthcoming, and saluted her by the mellifluous appellation of _Sally._
Now during the passage, Max in discoursing to me of Liverpool, had
often assured me, that that city had the honor of containing a spouse
of his; and that in all probability, I would have the pleasure of
seeing her. But having heard a good many stories about the bigamies of
seamen, and their having wives and sweethearts in every port, the round
world over; and having been an eye-witness to a nuptial parting between
this very Max and a lady in New York; I put down this relation of his,
for what I thought it might reasonably be worth. What was my
astonishment, therefore, to see this really decent, civil woman coming
with a neat parcel of Max’s shore clothes, all washed, plaited, and
ironed, and ready to put on at a moment’s warning.
They stood apart a few moments giving loose to those transports of
pleasure, which always take place, I suppose, between man and wife
after long separations.
At last, after many earnest inquiries as to how he had behaved himself
in New York; and concerning the state of his wardrobe; and going down
into the forecastle, and inspecting it in person, Sally departed;
having exchanged her bundle of clean clothes for a bundle of soiled
ones, and this was precisely what the New York wife had done for Max,
not thirty days previous.
So long as we laid in port, Sally visited the Highlander daily; and
approved herself a neat and expeditious getter-up of duck frocks and
trowsers, a capital tailoress, and as far as I could see, a very
well-behaved, discreet, and reputable woman.
But from all I had seen of her, I should suppose Meg, the New York
wife, to have been equally well-behaved, discreet, and reputable; and
equally devoted to the keeping in good order Max’s wardrobe.
And when we left England at last, Sally bade Max good-by, just as Meg
had done; and when we arrived at New York, Meg greeted Max precisely as
Sally had greeted him in Liverpool. Indeed, a pair of more amiable
wives never belonged to one man; they never quarreled, or had so much
as a difference of any kind; the whole broad Atlantic being between
them; and Max was equally polite and civil to both. For many years, he
had been going Liverpool and New York voyages, plying between wife and
wife with great regularity, and sure of receiving a hearty domestic
welcome on either side of the ocean.
Thinking this conduct of his, however, altogether wrong and every way
immoral, I once ventured to express to him my opinion on the subject.
But I never did so again. He turned round on me, very savagely; and
after rating me soundly for meddling in concerns not my own, concluded
by asking me triumphantly, whether _old King Sol,_ as he called the son
of David, did not have a whole frigate-full of wives; and that being
the case, whether he, a poor sailor, did not have just as good a right
to have two? “What was not wrong then, is right now,” said Max; “so,
mind your eye, Buttons, or I’ll crack your pepper-box for you!”