Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 29

"There," said she, lighting the candle, "you may stay here; 't is all I 'm able to do for yez, is to give ye shelter."

"And nothing to eat?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old man, sorrowfully.

"Hav' n't you a few potatoes?" said Joe.

"I did n't taste food since yesterday morning," said the hag; "and that's what's to keep life in me to-morrow!" and as she spoke, she held out a fragment of blackened sea-biscuit such as Russian sailors call "rusk."

"Well, by coorse, there's no use in talking," said Joe, who always seemed the first to see his way clearly. "Tis worse for the girls, for _we_ can take a draw of the pipe. Lucky for us we have it!"

Meanwhile, the two girls had taken off their cloaks, and were busy gathering some loose sticks together, to make a fire,--a piece of practical wisdom I at once lent all aid to.

The hag, apparently moved by the ready compliance to make the best of matters, went out, and returned with some more wood,--fragments of ship-timber,--which she offered us, saying, "'T is all I can give yez.

Good night to yez all!"

"Well, father," said Joe, as soon as he had lighted his pipe, and taken a seat by the fire, "ye wor tired enough of the ship, but I think ye wish yerself back again there, now."

"I wish more nor that," said the old man, querulously; "I wish I never seen the same ship; nor ever left ould Ireland!"

This sentiment threw a gloom over the whole party, by awakening, not only memories of home and that far-away land, but also by the confession of a sense of disappointment which each was only able to struggle against while unavowed. The sorrow made them silent, and at last sleepy.

At first, the three "boys," great fellows of six feet high, stretched themselves full-length on the floor, and snored away in concert; then the two girls, one with her head on the other's lap, fell off; while the old man, sitting directly in front of the fire, nodded backwards and forwards, waking up, every half hour or so, to light his pipe; which done, he immediately fell off into a doze once more, leaving Joe and myself alone, waking and watchful.

CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT IN THE LOWER TOWN

Joe's eyes were bent upon me, as I sat directly opposite him, with a fixedness that I could easily see was occasioned by my showy costume; his glances ranged from my buckled shoes to my white cravat, adorned with a splendid brooch of mock amethyst; nay, I almost fancied once that he was counting the silver clocks on my silk stockings! It was a look of most undisguised astonishment,--such a look as one bestows upon some new and singular animal, of whose habits and instincts we are lost in conjecture.

Now, I was "York too,"--that is to say, I was Irish as well as himself; and I well knew that there was no rank nor condition of man for which the peasant in Ireland conceives the same low estimate as the "Livery Servant." The cla.s.s is a.s.sociated in his mind with chicanery, impudence, falsehood, theft, and a score of similar good properties; not to add that, being occasionally, in great families, a native of England, the Saxon element is united to the other "bitters" of the potion.

Scarcely a "tenant" could be found that would not rather face a mastiff than a footman,--such is the proverbial dislike to these human lilies who neither toil nor spin. Now, I have said I knew this well: I had been reared in the knowledge and practice of this and many similar antipathies, so that I at once took counsel with myself what I should do to escape from the reproach of a mark so indelibly stamped upon me by externals. "La famille Cullinane" suited _me_ admirably; they were precisely the kind of people _I_ wanted; my care, therefore, was that they should reciprocate the want, and be utterly helpless without _me_.

Thus reflecting, I could not help saying to myself, how gladly would I have parted with all these gauds for a homely, ay, or even a ragged, suit of native frieze. I remembered the c.o.c.k on the dunghill who would have given his diamond for one single grain of corn; and I felt that "aesop" was a grand political economist.

From these and similar mental meanderings I was brought back by Joe, who, after emptying the ashes from his pipe, said, and with a peculiarly dry voice, "Ye 'r in a service, young man?"

Now, although the words are few, and the speaker did not intend that his manner should have given them any particular significance, yet the tone, the cautious slowness of the enunciation, coupled with the stern, steady stare at my "bravery," made them tingle on my ears, and send the blood rushing to my cheeks with shame. It was like a sharp p.r.i.c.k of the spur; and so it turned out.

"In a service!" said I, with a look of offended dignity. "No, I flatter myself not that low yet. What could have made you suppose so? Oh, I see!

"--here I burst out into a very well-a.s.sumed laugh. "That is excellent, to be sure! ha, ha, ha! so it was these"--and I stretched forth my embroidered shins--"it was these deceived you! And a very natural mistake, too. No, my worthy friend,--not but, indeed, I might envy many in that same ign.o.ble position." I said this with a sudden change of voice, as though overcast by some sad recollection.

"'Twas indeed your dress," said Joe, with a modest deference in his manner, meant to be a full apology for his late blunder. "Maybe 'tis the fashion here."

"No, Cullinane," said I, using a freedom which should open the way to our relative future standing; "no, not even that." Here I heaved a heavy sigh, and became silent. My companion, abashed by his mistake, said nothing; and so we sat, without interchanging a word, for full five minutes.

"I have had a struggle with myself, Cullinane," said I, at last, "and I have conquered. Ay, I have gained the day in a hard-fought battle against my sense of shame. I will be frank with you, therefore. In this dress I appeared to-night on the boards of the Quebec theatre."

"A play actor!" exclaimed Joe, with a face very far from expressing any high sense of the histrionic art.

"Not exactly," said I, "only a would-be one. I am a gentleman by birth, family, and fortune; but taking it into my head, in a foolish hour, that I should like the excitement of an actor's life, I fled from home, quitted friends, relatives, affluence, and ease, to follow a strolling company. At another time I may relate to you all the disguises I a.s.sumed to escape detection. Immense sums were offered for my apprehension--why do I say _were?_--ay, Cullinane, are offered. I will not deceive you. It is in your power this instant, by surrendering me to my family, to earn five thousand dollars!"

"Do ye think I'd be--"

"No, I do not. In proof of my confidence in you, hear my story. We travelled through the States at first by unfrequented routes till we reached the North, when, gaining courage, I ventured to take a high range of characters, and, I will own it, with success. At last we came to Canada, in which country, although the reward had not been announced, my father had acquainted all the princ.i.p.al people with my flight, entreating them to do their utmost to dissuade me from a career so far below my rank and future prospects. Among others, he wrote to an old friend and schoolfellow, the Governor-General, requesting his aid in this affair. I was always able, from other sources, to learn every step that was taken with this object; so that I not only knew this, but actually possessed a copy of my father's letter to Lord Poynder, wherein this pa.s.sage occurred: 'Above all things, my dear Poynder, no publicity, no exposure! Remember the position Cornelius will one day hold, and let him not be ashamed when he may meet you in after-life. If the silly boy can be induced, by his own sense of dignity, to abandon this unworthy pursuit, so much the better; but coercion would, I fear, give faint hope of eradicating the evil.' Now, as I perceived that no actual force was to be employed against me, I did not hesitate to appear in the part for which the bills announced me. Have you ever read Shakespeare?"

"No, sir," said Joe, respectfully.

"Well, no matter. I was to appear as Hamlet,--this is the dress of that character,--little suspecting, indeed, how the applause I was accustomed to receive was to be changed. To be brief. In the very centre of the dress-circle was the Governor himself, he came with his whole staff, but with out any previous intimation. No sooner had I made my entrance on the scene,--scarcely had I begun that magnificent soliloquy, 'Show me the thief that stole my fame,'--when his Excellency commenced hissing!

Now, when the Governor-General hisses, all the staff hiss; then the President of the Council and all his colleagues hiss; then come the bishop and the inferior clergy, with the judges and the Attorney-General, and so on; then all the loyal population of the house joined in, with the exception of a few in the galleries that hated the British connection, and who cried out, 'Three cheers for Con Cregan and the independence of Canada!' In this way went on the first act; groans and yells and cat-calls overtopping all I tried to say, and screams for the manager to come out issuing from every part of the house. At last out he did come. This for a while made matters worse; so many directions were given, questions asked, and demands made that it was clearly impossible to hear any one voice; and there stood the manager, swinging his arms about like an insane telegraph, now running to the stage-box at one side, then crossing over to the other, to maintain a little private conversation by signs, till the sense of the house spoke out by accidentally catching a glimpse of me in the side-scenes.

"'Is it your pleasure, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen, that this actor should not appear again before you?'

"'Yes--yes. No--no--no.'were shouted from hundreds of voices.

"' What am I to understand?' said he, bowing, with his arms crossed submissively before him. 'I submit myself to your orders. If Mr. Cregan does not meet your approbation--'

"'Throw him into the dock!--break his neck!--set him adrift on a log down the Gulf-stream!--chip him up for bark!--burn him for charcoal!'--and twenty other like humane proposals burst forth together; and so, not waiting to see how far the manager's politeness would carry him, I fled from the theatre. Yes, Cullinane, I fled with shame and disgust from that fickle public, who applaud with ecstasy today that they may condemn with infamy to-morrow. Nor was I deceived by the vain egotism of supposing that _I_ was the object of their ungenerous anger.

Alas! my friend, the evil lay deeper,--it was my Irish name and family they sought to insult! The old grudge that they bear us at home, they carry over the seas with them. How plain it is: they never can forgive our superiority. It is this they seek revenge upon wherever they find us."

I own that in giving this peculiar turn to my narrative I was led by perceiving that my listener had begun to show a most lamentable want of sympathy for myself and my sufferings; so I was driven to try what a little patriotism might do in arousing his feelings; and I was right.

Some of Cullnane's connections had been Terrys,--or Blackfeet, or White-feet, or some one or other of these pleasant fraternities who study ball-practice, with a landlord for the bull's-eye. He at once caught up the spirit of my remarks, and even quoted some eloquent pa.s.sages of Mr. O'Connell about the width of our shoulders and the calves of our legs, and other like personal advantages, incontestably showing as they do that we never were made to be subject to the Saxon.

It was the law of the land, however, which had his heartiest abhorrence.

This, like nine-tenths of his own cla.s.s in Ireland, he regarded as a systematic means of oppression, invented by the rich to give them the tyrannical dominion over the poor. Nor is the belief to be wondered at, considering how cognizant the peasant often is of all the schemes and wiles by which a conviction is compa.s.sed; nay, the very adroitness of a legal defence in criminal cases,--the feints, the quips, the stratagems,--instead of suggesting admiration for those barriers by which the life and liberty of a subject are protected, only engendered a stronger conviction of the roguish character of that ordeal where craft and subtlety could do so much.

It was at the close of a very long diatribe over Irish law and lawyers that Cullinane, whose confidence increased each moment, said, with a sigh, "Ay! they wor n't so 'cute in ould times, when my poor grandfather was tried, as they are now, or may be he'd have had betther luck."

"What happened to him?" said I.

"He was hanged, acushla!" said he, knocking the ashes out of his pipe as leisurely as might be, and then mumbling a sc.r.a.p of a prayer below his breath.

"For what?" asked I, in some agitation; but he didn't hear me, being sunk in his own reflections, so that I was forced to repeat my question.

"Ye never heerd of one Mr. Shinane, of the Grove?" said he, after a pause. "Of coorse ye did n't,--'tis many years ago now; but he was well known oncet, and owned a great part of Ennistymore, and a hard man he was. But no matter for that,--he was a strong, full man, with rosy cheeks and stout built, and sorra a lease in the country had not his life in it!--a thing he liked well, for he used to say, 't 'll be the ruin of ye all, if any one shoots me!' Well, my grandfather--rest his sowl in glory!--was his driver, and used to manage everything on the property for him; and considerin' what a hard thing it is, he was well liked by the country round,--all but by one man, Maurice Cafferty by name. I never seed him, for it was all 'fore I was born; but the name is in my mind as if I knew him well,--I used to hear it every night of my life when I was a child!

"There was a dispute about Cafferty's houldin', and my grandfather was for turnin' him out, for he was a bad tenant; but Mr. Shinane was afeerd of him, and said, 'Leave him quiet, Mat,' says he; 'he's a troublesome chap, and we 'll get rid of him in our own good time; but don't drive him to extremities: I told him to come up to the cottage, this morning: come with me there, and we 'll talk to him.' Now, the cottage was a little place about two miles off, in the woods, where the master used to dine sometimes in summer, when they were chipping bark; but n.o.body lived there.

"It was remarked by many that morning, as they went along, that my grandfather and Mr. Shinane were in high words all the time,--at least, so the people working in the fields thought, and even the childer that was picking bark said that they were talking as if they were very angry with each other.

"This was about eleven o'clock, and at the same time Cafferty, who was selling a pig in Ennistymore, said to the butcher, 'Be quick, and tell me what you 'll give, for I must go home and clean myself, as I 'm to speak to the master today about my lease.' Well, at a little before twelve Cafferty came through the wood, and asked the people had they seen Mr. Shinane pa.s.s by, for that he towld him to meet him at the cottage; and the workmen said yes, and more by token that he was quarrellin' with Mat Cullinane. 'I'm sorry for that,' says Cafferty, 'for I wanted him to be in a good humor, and long life to him! 'The words was n't well out, but what would they see but my grandfather running towards them, at the top of his speed, screeching out like mad, 'The master's murdered! the master's kilt dead!' Away they all went to the cottage, and there upon the floor was the dead body, with an axe buried deep in the skull,--so deep that only the thick part of the iron was outside. That was the dreadful sight! and, sure enough, after looking at the corpse, every eye was turned on my grandfather, who was leaning on the dresser, pale and trembling, and his hands and knees all covered with blood. 'How did it happen, Mat?' said three or four together; but Cafferty muttered, 'It's better ask nothing about it; it's not likely _he 'll_ tell us the truth!'

"The same night my grandfather was arrested on suspicion and brought to Ennis, where he was lodged in jail; and although there was no witness agin' him, nor anything more than I towld ye,--the high words between them, the axe being my grandfather's, the blood on his clothes and hands, and his dreadful confusion when the people came up,--all these went so hard against him, and particularly as the judge said it was good to make an example, that he was condemned; and so it was he was hanged on the next Sat.u.r.day in front of the jail!"

"But what defence did he make; what account did he give of the circ.u.mstance?"

"All he could tell was, that he was standing beside the master at the table, talking quietly, when he heard a shout and a yell in the wood, and he said, 'They 're stealing the bark out there; they 'll not leave us a hundredweight of it yet!' and out he rushed into the copse. The shouting grew louder, and he thought it was some of the men cryin' for help, and so he never stopped running till he came where they were at work felling trees. 'What's the matter?' says he, to the men, as he came up panting and breathless; 'where was the screeching?'

"'We heerd nothing,' says the men.

"'Ye heerd nothing! didn't ye hear yells and shouting this minute?'