Peter Simple; and, The Three Cutters Part 46

Swinburne was summoned, and came rolling up the hatchway. "Swinburne,"

said O'Brien, "you have done your duty well, and you are now gunner of the _Rattlesnake_. Here is your warrant, and I've great pleasure in getting it for you."

Swinburne turned the quid in his cheek, and then replied, "May I be so bold as to ax, Captain O'Brien, whether I must wear one of them long tog, swallow-tailed coats--because, if so, I'd prefer being a quarter-master?"

"A gunner may wear a jacket, Swinburne, if he likes; when you go on sh.o.r.e you may bend the swallow-tail, if you please."

"Well, sir, then if that's the case, I'll take the warrant, because I know it will please the old woman."

So saying, Swinburne hitched up his trousers, and went down below. I may here observe that Swinburne kept his round jacket until our arrival in England, when the "old woman," his wife, who thought her dignity at stake, soon made him ship the swallow-tail; and, after it was once on, Swinburne took a fancy to it, and always wore it, except when he was at sea.

The same evening, as I was coming with O'Brien from the governor's house, where I had dined, we pa.s.sed a building, lighted up. "What can that be?" observed O'Brien; "not a dignity ball--there is no music." Our curiosity induced us to enter, and we found it to be fitted up as a temporary chapel, filled with black and coloured people, who were ranged on the forms, and waiting for the preacher.

"It is a Methodist meeting," said I to O'Brien.

"Never mind," said he, "let us hear what is going on."

In a moment afterwards the pulpit was filled, not by a white man, as we had antic.i.p.ated, but by a tall negro. He was dressed in black, and his hair, which it was impossible to comb down straight, was plaited into fifty little tails, well tied at the end of them, like you sometimes see the mane of a horse; this produced a somewhat more clerical appearance.

His throat was open and collar laid back; the wristbands of his shirt very large and white, and he flourished a white cambric handkerchief.

"What a dandy he is!" whispered O'Brien.

I thought it almost too absurd when he said he would take the liberty to praise G.o.d in the 17th hymn, and beg all the company to join chorus. He then gave out the stanzas in the most strange p.r.o.nunciation.

"Gentle Jesus, G.o.d um lub," &c.

When the hymn was finished, which was sung by the whole congregation, in the most delightful discord,--everyone chose his own key--he gave an extempore prayer, which was most unfortunately incomprehensible, and then commenced his discourse, which was on _Faith_. I shall omit the head and front of his offending, which would, perhaps, hardly be gratifying although ludicrous. He reminded me of a monkey imitating a man; but what amused me most was his finale, in which he told his audience that there could be no faith without charity. For a little while he descanted upon this generally, and at last became personal. His words were, as well as I can recollect, nearly as follows:--

"And now you see, my dear bredren, how unpossible to go to heaven, with all the faith in the world, without charity. Charity mean, give away.

Suppose you no give--you no ab charity; suppose you no ab charity--you no ab faith; suppose you no ab faith--you all go to h.e.l.l and be d.a.m.ned.

Now den, let me see if you ab charity. Here, you see, I come to save all your soul from h.e.l.l-fire; and h.e.l.l-fire dam hot, I can tell you. Dere you all burn like coal, till you turn white powder, and den burn on till you come black again; and so you go on, burn, burn, sometime white, sometime black, for ebber and ebber. The debil never allow Sangoree to cool tongue. No, no cocoa-nut milk,--not a lilly drap of water; debil see you d.a.m.ned first. Suppose you ask, he poke um fire, and laugh. Well, den, ab you charity? No, you ab not. You, Quashee, how you dare look me in the face? You keep shop--you sell egg--you sell yam--you sell pepper hot--but when you give to me? Eh! nebber, so help me G.o.d. Suppose you no send--you no ab charity, and you go to h.e.l.l. You black Sambo," continued he, pointing to a man in the corner, "ab very fine boat, go out all day, catch fly-fish, bring um back, fry um, and sell for money; but when you send to me? not one little fish ebber find way to my mouth. What I tell you 'bout Peter and 'postles--all fishermen; good men, give 'way to poor. Sambo, you no ab charity; and 'spose you no repent this week, and send one very fine fish in plantain leaf, you go to h.e.l.l, and burn for ebber and ebber. Eh! so you will run away, Ma.s.sa Johnson," cried he out to another, who was edging to the door; "but you no run away from h.e.l.l-fire: when debil catch you, he hold dam tight. You know you kill sheep and goat ebery day. You send bell ring all 'bout town for people to come buy; but when you send to me? nebber, 'cept once, you gave me lilly bit of libber. That not do, Ma.s.sa Johnson; you no ab charity; and suppose you no send me sheep's head to-morrow morning, dam you libber, that's all. I see many more, but I see um all very sorry, and dat they mean to sin no more, so dis time I let um off, and say noting about it, because I know plenty of plantain and banana (pointing to one) and oranges and shaddock (pointing to another), and salt fish (pointing to a fourth), and ginger-pop and spruce beer (pointing to a fifth), and a straw hat (pointing to a sixth), and eberything else, come to my house to-morrow. So I say no more 'bout it; I see you all very sorry--you only forget. You all ab charity, and all ab faith; so now, my dear bredren, we go down on our knees, and thank G.o.d for all this, and more especially that I save all your souls from going to the debil, who run about Barbadoes like one roaring lion, seeking what he may lay hold of, and cram into his dam fiery jaw."

"That will do, Peter," said O'Brien; "we have the cream of it, I think."

We left the house, and walked down to the boat. "Surely, O'Brien," said I, "this should not be permitted?"

"He's no worse than his neighbours," replied O'Brien, "and perhaps does less harm. I admire the rascal's ingenuity; he gave his flock what, in Ireland, we should call a pretty broad hint."

"Yes, there was no mistaking him: but is he a licensed preacher?"

"Very little licence in his preaching, I take it; no, I suppose he has had a _call_."

"A call!--what do you mean?"

"I mean that he wants to fill his belly. Hunger is a call of nature, Peter."

"He seems to want a good many things, if we were to judge by his catalogue; what a pity it is that these poor people are not better instructed."

"That they never will be, Peter, while there is what may be called free trade in religion."

"You speak like a Catholic, O'Brien."

"I am one," replied he. And here our conversation ended, for we were close to the boat, which was waiting for us on the beach.

The next day a man-of-war brig arrived from England, bringing letters for the squadron on the station. I had two from my sister Ellen which made me very uncomfortable. She stated that my father had seen my uncle, Lord Privilege, and had had high words with him; indeed, as far as she could ascertain of the facts, my father had struck my uncle, and had been turned out of the house by the servants; that he had returned in a state of great excitement, and was very ill ever since; that there was a great deal of talk in the neighbourhood on the subject, people generally highly blaming my father's conduct, thinking that he was deranged in his intellect--a supposition very much encouraged by my uncle. She again expressed her hopes of my speedy return. I had now been absent nearly three years, and she had been so uncomfortable that she felt as if it had been at least ten. O'Brien also received a letter from Father M'Grath, which I shall lay before the reader:--

"MY DEAR SON,--Long life, and all the blessings of all the saints be upon you now and for evermore! Amen. And may you live to be married, and may I dance at your wedding, and may you never want children, and may they grow up as handsome as their father and their mother (whoever she may hereafter be), and may you die of a good old age, and in the true faith, and be waked handsomely, as your own father was last Friday s'ennight, seeing as how he took it into his head to leave this world for a better. It was a very dacent funeral-procession, my dear Terence, and your father must have been delighted to see himself so well attinded. No man ever made a more handsome corpse, considering how old, and thin, and haggard he had grown of late, and how gray his hair had turned. He held the nosegay between his fingers, across his breast as natural as life, and reminded us all of the blessed saint, Pope Gregory, who was called to glory some hundred years before either you or I was born.

"Your mother's quite comfortable; and there she sits in her ould chair, rocking to and fro all day long, and never speaking a word to n.o.body, thinking about heaven, I dare to say; which is just what she ought to do, seeing that she stands a very pretty chance of going there in the course of a month or so. Divil a word has she ever said since your father's departure, but then she screamed and yelled enough to last for seven years at the least. She screamed away all her senses anyhow, for she has done nothing since but cough, cough, and fumble at her pater-nosters--a very blessed way to pa.s.s the remainder of her days, seeing that I expect her to drop every minute like an over-ripe sleepy pear. So don't think any more about her, my son, for without you are back in a jiffy, her body will be laid in consecrated ground, and her happy, blessed soul in purgatory. _Pax vobisc.u.m._ Amen! amen!

"And now having disposed of your father and your mother so much to your satisfaction, I'll just tell you that Ella's mother died in the convent at Dieppe, but whether she kept her secret or not I do not know; but this I do know, that if she didn't relieve her soul by confession, she's d.a.m.ned to all eternity. Thanks be to G.o.d for all his mercies. Amen! Ella Flanagan is still alive, and, for a nun, is as well as can be expected. I find that she knows nothing at all about the matter of the exchanging the genders of the babbies--only that her mother was on oath to Father M'Dermot, who ought to be hanged, drawn, and quartered instead of those poor fellows whom the government called rebels, but who were no more rebels than Father M'Grath himself, who'll uphold the Pretender, as they call our true Catholic king, as long as there's life in his body or a drop of whiskey left in ould Ireland to drink his health wid.--

"Talking about Father M'Dermot puts me in mind that the bishop has not yet decided our little bit of a dispute, saying that he must take time to think about it. Now, considering that it's just three years since the row took place, the old gentleman must be a very slow thinker not to have found out by this time that I was in the right, and that Father M'Dermot, the baste, is not good enough to be hanged.

"Your two married sisters are steady and diligent young women, having each made three children since you last saw them. Fine boys, every mother's son of them, with elegant s.p.a.cious features, and famous mouths for taking in whole potatoes. By the powers, but the offsets of the tree of the O'Briens begin to make a noise in the land, anyhow, as you would say if you only heard them roaring for their bit of suppers.

"And now, my dear son Terence, the real purport of this letter, which is just to put to your soul's conscience, as a dutiful son, whether you ought not to send me a small matter of money to save your poor father's soul from pain and anguish--for it's no joke that being in purgatory, I can tell you; and you wouldn't care how soon you were tripped out of it yourself. I only wish you had but your little toe in it, and then you'd burn with impatience to have it out again. But you're a dutiful son, so I'll say no more about it--a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse.

"When your mother goes, which, with the blessing of G.o.d, will be in a very little while, seeing that she has only to follow her senses, which are gone already, I'll take upon myself to sell everything, as worldly goods and chattels are of no use to dead people; and I have no doubt but that, what with the furniture and the two cows, and the pigs, and the crops in the ground, there will be enough to save her soul from the flames, and bury her dacently into the bargain. However, as you are the heir-at-law, seeing that the property is all your own, I'll keep a debtor and creditor account of the whole; and should there be any over, I'll use it all out in ma.s.ses, so as to send her up to heaven by express; and if there's not sufficient, she must remain where she is till you come back and make up the deficiency. In the meanwhile I am your loving father in the faith,

"URTAGH M'GRATH."

Chapter LII

Good sense in Swinburne--No man a hero to his valet de chambre, or a prophet in his own country--O'Brien takes a step by strategy--O'Brien parts with his friend, and Peter's star no longer in the ascendant.

O'Brien was sorry for the death of his father, but he could not feel as most people would have done, as his father had certainly never been a father to him. He was sent to sea to be got rid of, and ever since he had been there, had been the chief support of his family; his father was very fond of whiskey, and not very fond of exertion. He was too proud of the true Milesian blood in his veins to do anything to support himself, but not too proud to live upon his son's hard-earned gains. For his mother O'Brien felt very much; she had always been kind and affectionate, and was very fond of him. Sailors, however, are so estranged from their families when they have been long in their profession and so accustomed to vicissitudes, that no grief for the loss of a relation lasts very long, and in a week O'Brien had recovered his usual spirits, when a vessel brought us the intelligence that a French squadron had been seen off St Domingo. This put us all on the _qui vive_. O'Brien was sent for by the admiral, and ordered to hasten his brig for sea with all possible despatch, as he was to proceed with despatches to England forthwith. In three days we were reported ready, received our orders, and at eight o'clock in the evening made sail from Carlisle Bay. "Well, Mr Swinburne," said I, "how do you like your new situation?"

"Why, Mr Simple, I like it well enough; and it's not disagreeable to be an officer, and sit in your own cabin; but still I feel that I should get on better if I were in another ship. I've been hail-fellow well met with the ship's company so long, that I can't top the officer over them, and we can't get the duty done as smart as I could wish: and then at night I find it very lonely stuck up in my cabin like a parson's clerk, and n.o.body to talk to; for the other warrants are particular, and say that I'm only acting, and may not be confirmed, so they hold aloof. I don't much like being answerable for all that lot of gunpowder--it's queer stuff to handle."

"Very true, Swinburne; but still, if there were no responsibility, we should require no officers. You recollect that you are now provided for life, and will have half-pay."

"That's what made me bite, Mr Simple. I thought of the old woman, and how comfortable it would make her in her old age; and so, d'ye see, I sacrificed myself."

"How long have you been married, Swinburne?"

"Ever since Christmas '94. I wasn't going to be hooked carelessly, so I nibbled afore I took the bait. Had four years' trial of her first, and, finding that she had plenty of ballast, I sailed her as my own."

"How do you mean by plenty of ballast?"

"I don't mean, Mr Simple, a broad bow and square hulk. You know very well that if a vessel has not ballast, she's bottom up in no time. Now, what keeps a woman stiff under her canvas is her modesty."

"Very true; but it's a rare commodity on the beach."

"And why, Mr Simple? because liquor is more valued. Many a good man has found it to be his bane; and as for a woman, when once she takes to it, she's like a ship without a rudder, and goes right before the wind to the devil. Not that I think a man ought not to take a nor-wester or two, when he can get them. Rum was not given by G.o.d Almighty only to make the n.i.g.g.e.rs dance, but to make all our hearts glad; neither do I see why a woman is to stand out neither; what's good for Jack can't hurt Poll; only there is a medium, as they say, in all things, and half-an-half is quite strong enough."