Part 14 (1/2)
Now what, exactly, I had fancied the sh.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+pwreck of the gallant Albion, tost to pieces on the very sh.o.r.e now in sight; and I thought I should very much like to leave the s.h.i.+p and visit Dublin and the Giant's Causeway.
Presently a fis.h.i.+ng-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 I 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 n.o.ble 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 ba.s.s-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 s.h.a.ggy brows, and m.u.f.fled in s.h.a.ggy 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 pa.s.sed immense buoys, and caught sight of distant objects on sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 s.h.i.+pmates, 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, pa.s.sing two lofty land-marks on the Lancas.h.i.+re sh.o.r.e, we rapidly drew near the town, and at last, came to anchor in the stream.
Looking sh.o.r.eward, 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 Afrilcy, 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 a.s.sociate 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 princ.i.p.ally 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.