Tom Cringle's Log Part 34

"Why, I don't remember that Mr Cringle has ever asked leave."

"Indeed, sir, I neither did ask leave, nor have I thought of doing so,"

said I.

"But I do for you," chimed in my friend Whiffle. "Come, captain, give him leave, just for two days, that's a prime chap. Why, Tom, you see you have got it, so off with you and come to me with your kit as soon as possible; I will hobble on and make the coffee and chocolate; and, Captain Transom, come along and breakfast with me too. No refusal, I require society. Nearly drowned yesterday, do you know that? Off this same cursed wharf too--just here. I was looking down at the small fish playing about the piles, precisely in this position; one of them was as bright in the scales as a gold fish in my old grandmother's gla.s.s globe, and I had to crane over the ledge in this fashion," suiting the action to the word, "when away I went"--

And, to our unutterable surprise, splash went Peregrine Whiffle, Esquire, for the second time, and there--he was shouting, and puffing, and splashing in the water. We were both so convulsed with laughter that I believe he would have been drowned for us; but the boat-keeper of the gig, the strong athletic negro before mentioned, promptly jumped on the wharf with his boat-hook, and caught the dapper little old beau by the waistband of his breeches, swaying him up, frightened enough, with his little coat skirts fluttering in the breeze, and no wonder, but not much the worse for it all.

"Diable porte l'amour," whispered Captain Transom.

"Swallowed a Scotch pint of salt water to a certainty--run, Pilfer, bring me some brandy--gout will be into my stomach, sure as fate--feel him now--run, Pilfer, run, or gout will beat you--a dead heat that will be!" And he keckled at his small joke very complacently.

We had him carried by our people to his lodgings, where, after shifting and brandying to some tune, he took his place at the breakfast table, and did the honours with his usual amenity and warm heartedness.

After breakfast Peregrine remembered, what the sly rogue had never forgotten I suspect, that he was engaged to dine with his friend Mr Pepperpot Wagtail, in Kingston.

"But it don't signify, Wagtail will be delighted to see you, Tom hospitable fellow Wagtail--and, now I recollect myself, Fyall and Aaron Bang are to be there; dang it, were it not for the gout, we should have a night on't!"

After breakfast we started in a canoe for Kingston, touching at the Firebrand for my kit.

Moses Yerk, the unpoetical first lieutenant, was standing well forward on the quarterdeck as I pa.s.sed over the side to get into the canoe, with the gunroom steward following me, carrying my kit under his arm.

"I say, Tom, good for you, one lark after another."

"Don't like that fellow," quoth Whiffle; "he is quarrelsome in his drink for a thousand, I know it by the cut of his jib."

He had better have held his tongue, honest man; for as he looked up broad in Yerk's face, who was leaning over the hammocks, the scupper immediately over head, through whose instrumentality I never knew, was suddenly cleared, and a rush of dirty water, that had been lodged there since the decks had been washed down at daydawn, splashed slapdash over his head and shoulders and into his mouth, so as to set the dear little man a-coughing so violently that I thought he would have been throttled. Before he had recovered sufficiently to find his tongue, we had pulled fifty yards from the ship, and a little farther on we overtook the captain, who had preceded us in the cutter, into which we transhipped ourselves. But Whiffle never could acquit Yerk of having been, directly or indirectly, the cause of his suffering from the impure shower.

This day was the first of the Negro Carnival or Christmas Holydays, and at the distance of two miles from Kingston the sound of the negro drums and horns, the barbarous music and yelling of the different African tribes, and the more mellow singing of the Set Girls, came off upon the breeze loud and strong.

When we got nearer, the wharfs and different streets, as we successively opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, women, and children, dancing and singing and shouting, and all rigged out in their best.

When we landed on the agents wharf we were immediately surrounded by a group of these merry-makers, which happened to be the Butchers John Canoe party, and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was. The prominent character was, as usual, the John Canoe or Jack Pudding. He was a light, active, clean made young Creole negro, without shoes or stockings; he wore a pair of light jean small-clothes, all too wide, but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of red tape, after the manner that Malvolio would have called cross-gartering. He wore a splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old-fashioned flaps coming down over his hips, and covered with tarnished embroidery. His shirt was absent on leave, I suppose, but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or white iron frills, with loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he moved, and set off the dingy paws that were stuck through these strange manacles, like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks. His coat was an old blue artillery uniform one, with a small bell hung to the extreme points of the swallow-tailed skirts, and three tarnished epaulets; one on each shoulder, and, O ye immortal G.o.ds! O Mars omnipotent! the biggest of the three stuck at his rump, the point d'appuit for a sheep's tail. He had an enormous c.o.c.ked hat on, to which was appended in front a white false-face or mask, of a most methodistical expression, while, Ja.n.u.s like, there was another face behind, of the most quizzical description, a sort of living Ant.i.thesis, both being garnished and overtopped with one coa.r.s.e wig, made of the hair of bullocks tails, on which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of gold lace.

He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a dirty handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and mowings, first wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face, (murder, what a flavour of salt fish and onions it had!) he made a smart enough pirouette, and then sprung on the back of a nondescript animal, that now advanced capering and jumping about after the most grotesque fashion that can be imagined. This was the signal for the music to begin. The performers were two gigantic men, dressed in calf-skins entire, head, four legs, and tail. The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, the two fore-feet hung dangling down in front, one over each shoulder, while the other two legs, or hind-feet, and the tail, trailed behind on the ground; deuce another article they had on in the shape of clothing except a handkerchief, of some flaming pattern, tied round the waist.

There were also two flute-players in sheepskins, looking still more outlandish from the horns on the animals heads being preserved; and three stout fellows, who were dressed in the common white frock and trowsers, who kept sounding on bullocks horns. These formed the band as it were, and might be considered John's immediate tail or following; but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, all neatly dressed-blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburgh trowsers, with their steels and knife-cases by their sides, as bright as Turkish yataghans, and they all wore clean blue and white striped ap.r.o.ns. I could see and tell what they were; but the Thing John Canoe had perched himself upon I could make nothing of. At length I began to comprehend the device.

The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the butcher-gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one. He was clothed in an entire bullock's hide horns, tail, and the other particulars, the whole of the skull being retained, and the effect of the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling.

His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind-legs, while the arms were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind-legs, he used, in order to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders, like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then.

After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute or two, it came to a stand-still, and, sticking the end of the sprit into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things in the world, a fiddle to the ox. He then shook off the John Canoe, who began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune of Guinea Corn, the following ditty:

"Ma.s.sa Buccra lobfor see, Bullock caper like monkee, Dance, and shump, and poke him toe, Like one humane person--just so."

And hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music men, John Canoe and all, began to rampauge about, as if they had been possessed by a devil whose name was Legion:

"But Ma.s.sa Buccra have white love, soft and silken like one dove.

To brown girl--him barely shivel, to black girl--oh, Lord, de Devil!"

Then a tremendous gallopading, in the which Tailtackle was nearly capsized over the wharf. He looked quietly over the edge of it.

"Boat keeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher," (Friend, if thou be'st not nautical, thou knowest what a rack-pin, something of the stoutest is.)

The boy did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dexter claw with tobacco juice, seized the stick with his left by the middle, and balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten the end of it into his right fist, as if he had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a bolt into a socket. Having satisfied himself that his grip was secure, he let go the hold with his left hand, and crossed his arms on his breast, with the weapon projecting over his left shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe.

The Device continued his chant, giving the seaman a wide berth, however:

"But when him once two tree year here, Him tink white lady wery great boder; De coloured peoples, never fear, Ah, him lob him de morest nor any oder."

Then another tumblification of the whole party.

"But top-one time bad fever catch him, colour'd peoples kindly watch him in sick-room, nurse voice like music from him hand taste sweet de physic.

Another trampoline."

"So alway come--in two tree year, and so wid you, ma.s.sa never fear brown girl for cook--for wife--for nurse: buccra lady--poo--no wort a curse."

"Get away, you scandalous scoundrel," cried I; "away with you, sir!"

Here the morrice-dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping him on the move, spinning round like a weatherc.o.c.k in a whirlwind, while they shouted, "Oh, ma.s.sa, one macaronilt if you please." To get quit of their importunity, Captain Transom gave them one. "Ah, good ma.s.sa, tank you, sweet ma.s.sa!" And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering up the street.

In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their Gumbimen, Hornblowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript. The Gardeners came nearest of any thing I had seen before to the Mayday boys in London; with this advantage, that their jack-in-the--Green was incomparably more beautiful, from the superior bloom of the larger flowers used in composing it.

The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard the Negro culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them, when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to him. The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a lawyer's cast off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings nor shoes, but with sandals of bullock's hide strapped on his great splay feet, a small c.o.c.ked hat on his head, to which were appended a large cauliflower wig, and the usual white false-face, bearing a very laughable resemblance to Chief-justice S----, with whom I happened to be personally acquainted.

The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, musicians and tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable resemblance of the Bar broke loose, and they were all pretty considerably well drunk. As we pa.s.sed along, the Device was once more laid down, and we could notice a shield of tough hide strapped over the fellow's stem frame, so as to save the lashes of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all his force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had been receiving the punishment on his naked flesh. Presently, as he rolled over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, I noticed the leather shield slip upwards to the small of his back, leaving the lower story uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a first Lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the gangway,--"Twenty-twenty-one twenty-two"--and so on, while the patient roared you, an it were any thing but a nightingales At length he broke away from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient flogging, to revenge which he immediately fastened on the John Canoe, wrenched his cat from him, and employed it so scientifically on him and his followers, giving them pa.s.sing taps on the shins now and then with the handle, by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot as if Old Nick had held them in chase.

The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their Lilliputian John Canoes and Devices. But the beautiful part of the exhibition was the Set Girls. They danced along the streets, in bands of from fifteen to thirty. There were brown sets, and black sets, and sets of all the intermediate gradations of colour. Each set was dressed pin for pin alike, and carried umbrellas or parasols of the same colour and size, held over their nice showy, well put on toques, or Madras handkerchiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh out of the fold.--They sang, as they swam along the streets, in the most luxurious att.i.tudes. I had never seen more beautiful creatures than there were amongst the brown sets--clear olive complexions, and fine faces, elegant carriages, splendid figures,--full, plump, and magnificent.

Most of the Sets were as much of a size as Lord----'s eighteen daughters, sailing down Regent Street, like a Charity School of a Sunday, led by a rum-looking old beadle--others again had large Roman matron-looking women in the leading files, the figurantes in their tails becoming slighter and smaller, as they tapered away, until they ended in leetle picaniny, no bigger as my tumb, but always preserving the uniformity of dress, and colour of the umbrella or parasol.

Sometimes the breeze, on opening a corner, would strike the stern most of a set composed in this manner of small fry, and stagger the little things, getting beneath their tiny umbrellas, and fairly blowing them out of the line, and ruffling their ribbons and finery, as if they had been tulips bending and shaking their leaves before it. But the colours were never blended in the same set--no blackie ever interloped with the browns, nor did the browns in any case mix with the sables--always keeping in mind--black woman--brown lady.

But, as if the whole city had been tom-fooling, a loud burst of military music was now heard, and the north end of the street we were ascending, which leads out of the Place d'Armes or parade, that occupies the centre of the town, was filled with a cloud of dust, that rose as high as the house tops, through which the head of a column of troops sparkled; swords, and bayonets, and gay uniforms glancing in the sun.

This was the Kingston regiment marching down to the Court-house in the lower part of the town, to mount the Christmas guards, which is always carefully attended to, in case any of the John Canoes should take a small fancy to burn or pillage the town, or to rise and cut the throats of their masters, or any little innocent recreation of the kind, out of compliment to Dr Lushington, or Messrs Macauley and Babington.

First came a tolerably good band, a little too drummy, but still not amiss--well dressed, only the performers being of all colours, from white, down to jet-black, had a curious hodge-podge, or piebald appearance. Then came a dozen mounted officers at the very least colonels-in-chief, and colonels, and lieutenant-colonels, and majors all very fine, and very bad hors.e.m.e.n. Then the grenadier company, composed of white clerks of the place, very fine-looking young men indeed--another white company followed, not quite so smart looking--then came a century of the children of Israel, not over military in appearance--the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, had pa.s.sed away, the glory had long departed from their house,--a phalanx of light browns succeeded, then a company of dark browns, or mulattoes; the regular half and--half in this, as well as in grog, is the best mixture after all, then quashie himself, or a company of free blacks, who, with the browns, seemed the best soldiers of the set, excepting the flank companies--and after blackie the battalion again gradually whitened away, until it ended in a very fine light company of buccras, smart young fellows as need be--all the officers were white, and all the soldiers, whatever their caste or colour, free of course. Another battalion succeeded, composed in the same way, and really I was agreeably surprised to find the indigenous force of the colony so efficient. I had never seen any thing more soldier-like amongst our volunteers at home. Presently a halt was called, and a mounted officer, evidently desirous of showing off, galloped up to where we were standing, and began to swear at the drivers of a wagon, with a long team of sixteen bullocks, who had placed their vehicle, whether intentionally or not I could not tell, directly across the street, where being met by another wagon of the same kind, coming through the opposite lane, a regular jam had taken place, as they had contrived, being redolent of new rum, to lock their wheels, and twist their lines of bullocks together in much admired confusion.

"Out of the way, sir, out of the way, you black rascals--don't you see the regiment coming?"

The men spanked their long whips, and shouted to the steers by name "Back, back--Caesar--Antony--Crab, back, sir, back;" and they whistled loud and long, but Caesar and the rest only became more and more involved.

"Order arms," roared another officer, fairly beaten by the bullocks and wagons--"Stand at ease."

On this last signal, a whole cloud of spruce-beer sellers started fiercely from under the piazzas.

"An insurrection of the slave population, mayhap,"--thought I, but their object was a very peaceable one, for presently, I verily believe, every man and officer in the regiment, had a tumbler of this, to me, most delicious beverage at his head--the drawing of the corks was more like street--firing than any thing else--a regular feu de joue. In the meantime, a council of war seemed to be holden by the mounted officers, as to how the obstacle in front was to be overcome; but at this moment confusion became worse confounded, by the approach of what I concluded to be the white man's John Canoe party, mounted by way of preeminence.

First came a trumpeter John Canoe with a black face, which was all in rule, as his black counterparts wore white ones; but his Device, a curious little old man, dressed in a sort of blue uniform, and mounted on the skeleton, or ghost, of a gig-horse, I could make nothing of. It carried a drawn sword in its hand, with which it made various flourishes, at each one of which I trembled for its Rosinante's ears.

The Device was followed by about fifty other odd-looking creatures all on horseback; but they had no more seat than so many pairs of tongs, which in truth they greatly resembled, and made no show, and less fun.

So we were wishing them out of the way, when some one whispered that the Kingston Light Horse mustered strong this morning. I found afterwards that every man who kept a good horse, or could ride, invariably served in the foot--all free persons must join some corps or other; so that the troop, as it was called, was composed exclusively of those who could not ride, and who kept no saddle horses.

The line was now formed, and after a variety of c.u.mbrous manoeuvres out of Dundas, sixteen at the least, the regiment was countermarched, and filed along another street, where they gave three cheers, in honour of their having had a drink of spruce, and of having circ.u.mvented the bullocks and wagons. A little farther on we encountered four beautiful nine-pounder fieldpieces, each lumbering along, drawn by half a dozen mules, and accompanied by three or four negroes, but with no escort whatsoever.