Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851

If Uncle Pat would occasionally remonstrate on the score of these long absences, he never ceased to supply means for them, and my sea store and a well-filled purse were never wanting, when the blue Peter floated from "La Hoche," as in my ardor I had named my cutter. Perhaps at heart he was not sorry to see me avoid the capital and its society. The bitterness which had succeeded the struggle for independence was now at its highest point, and there was what, to my thinking at least, appeared something like the cruelty of revenge in the sentences which followed the state trials. I will not suffer myself to stray into the debatable ground of politics, nor dare I give an opinion on matters, where, with all the experience of fifty years superadded, the wisest heads are puzzled how to decide; but my impression at the time was, that lenity would have been a safer and a better policy than severity, and that in the momentary prostration of the country lay the precise conjuncture for those measures of grace and favor, which were afterward rather wrung from than conceded by the English government. Be this as it may, Dublin offered a strange spectacle at that period. The triumphant joy of one party – the discomfiture and depression of the other. All the exuberant delight of success here; all the bitterness of failure there. On one side festivities, rejoicings, and public demonstrations; on the other, confinement, banishment, or the scaffold.

The excitement was almost madness. The passion for pleasure, restrained by the terrible contingencies of the time, now broke forth with redoubled force, and the capital was thronged with all its rank, riches, and fashion, when its jails were crowded, and the heaviest sentences of the law were in daily execution. The state trials were crowded by all the fashion of the metropolis; and the heart-moving eloquence of Curran was succeeded by the strains of a merry concert. It was just then, too, that the great lyric poet of Ireland began to appear in society, and those songs which were to be known afterwards as "The Melodies," par excellence, were first heard in all the witching enchantment which his own taste and voice could lend them. To such as were indifferent to or could forget the past, it was a brilliant period. It was the last flickering blaze of Irish nationality, before the lamp was extinguished for ever.

Of this society I myself saw nothing. But even in the retirement of my humble life the sounds of its mirth and pleasure penetrated, and I often wished to witness the scenes which even in vague description were fascinating. It was then in a kind of discontent at my exclusion, that I grew from day to day more disposed to solitude, and fonder of those excursions which led me out of all reach of companionship or acquaintance. In this spirit I planned a long cruise down channel, resolving to visit the Island of Valencia, or, if the wind and weather favored, to creep around the southwest coast as far as Bantry or Kenmare. A man and his son, a boy of about sixteen, formed all my crew, and were quite sufficient for the light tackle and easy rig of my craft. Uncle Pat was already mounted on his pony, and ready to set out for market, as we prepared to start. It was a bright spring morning – such a one as now and then the changeful climate of Ireland brings forth, in a brilliancy of color and softness of atmosphere that are rare in even more favored lands.

"You have a fine day of it, Maurice, and just enough wind," said he, looking at the point from whence it came. "I almost wish I was going with you."

"And why not come, then?" asked I. "You never will give yourself a holiday. Do so for once, now."

"Not to-day, any how," said he, half sighing at his self-denial. "I have a great deal of business on my hands to-day; but the next time – the very next you're up to a long cruise, I'll go with you."

"That's a bargain, then?"

"A bargain. Here's my hand on it."

We shook hands cordially on the compact. Little knew I it was to be for the last time, and that we were never to meet again.

I was soon aboard, and with a free mainsail skimming rapidly over the bright waters of the bay. The wind freshened as the day wore on, and we quickly passed the Kish light-ship, and held our course boldly down channel. The height of my enjoyment in these excursions consisted in the unbroken quietude of mind I felt, when removed from all chance of interruption, and left free to follow out my own fancies, and indulge my dreamy conceptions to my heart's content. It was then I used to revel in imaginings which sometimes soared into the boldest realms of ambition, and at other strayed contemplatively in the humblest walks of obscure fortune. My crew never broke in upon these musings; indeed old Tom Finnerty's low crooning song rather aided than interrupted them. He was not much given to talking, and a chance allusion to some vessel afar off, or some head-land we were passing, were about the extent of his communicativeness, and even these often fell on my ear unnoticed.

It was thus, at night, we made the Hook Tower; and on the next day passed, in a spanking breeze, under the bold cliffs of Tramore, just catching, as the sun was sinking, the sight of Youghal Bay, and the tall headlands beyond it.

"The wind is drawing more to the nor'ard," said old Tom, as night closed in, "and the clouds look dirty."

"Bear her up a point or two," said I, "and let us stand in for Cork harbor, if it comes on to blow."

He muttered something in reply, but I did not catch the words, nor, indeed, cared I to hear them, for I had just wrapped myself in my boat-cloak, and stretched at full length on the shingle ballast of the yawl, was gazing in rapture at the brilliancy of the starry sky above me. Light skiffs of feathery cloud would now and then flit past, and a peculiar hissing sound of the sea told, at the same time, that the breeze was freshening. But old Tom had done his duty in mentioning this once; and thus having disburdened his conscience, he closehauled his mainsail, shifted the ballast a little to midships, and, putting up the collar of his pilot-coat, screwed himself tighter into the corner beside the tiller, and chewed his quid in quietness. The boy slept soundly in the bow, and I, lulled by the motion and the plashing waves, fell into a dreamy stupor, like a pleasant sleep. The pitching of the boat continued to increase, and twice or thrice, struck by a heavy sea, she lay over, till the white waves came tumbling in over her gunwale. I heard Tom call to his boy, something about the head-sail, but for the life of me I could not or would not arouse myself from a train of thought that I was following.

"She's a stout boat to stand this," said Tom, as he rounded her off, at a coming wave, which, even thus escaped, splashed over her like a cataract. "I know many a bigger craft wouldn't hold up her canvas under such a gale."

"Here it comes, father. Here's a squall," cried the boy, and with a crash like thunder, the wind struck the sail, and laid the boy half-under.

"She'd float if she was full of water," said the old man, as the craft "righted."

"But maybe the spars wouldn't stand," said the boy, anxiously.

"'Tis what I'm thinking," rejoined the father. "There's a shake in the mast, below the caps."

"Tell him it's better to bear up, and go before it," whispered the lad, with a gesture toward where I was lying.

"Troth it's little he'd care," said the other; "besides, he's never plazed to be woke up."

"Here it comes again," cried the boy. But this time the squall swept past ahead of us, and the craft only reeled to the swollen waves, as they tore by.

"We'd better go about, sir," said Tom to me; "there's a heavy sea outside, and it's blowing hard now."

"And there's a split in the mast as long as my arm," cried the boy.

"I thought she'd live through any sea, Tom!" said I, laughing; for it was his constant boast that no weather could harm her.

"There goes the spar," shouted he, while with a loud snap the mast gave way, and fell with a crash over the side. The boat immediately came head to wind, and sea after sea broke upon her bow, and fell in great floods over us.

"Cut away the stays – clear the wreck," cried Tom, "before the squall catches her."

And although we now labored like men whose lives depended on the exertion, the trailing sail and heavy rigging, shifting the ballast as they fell, laid her completely over; and when the first sea struck her, over she went. The violence of the gale sent me a considerable distance out, and for several seconds I felt as though I should never reach the surface again. Wave after wave rolled over me, and seemed bearing me downward with their weight. At last I grasped something; it was a rope – a broken halyard – but by its means I gained the mast, which floated alongside of the yawl as she now lay keel uppermost. With what energy did I struggle to reach her. The space was scarcely a dozen feet, and yet it cost me what seemed an age to traverse. Through all the roaring of the breakers, and the crashing sounds of storm, I thought I could hear my comrades' voices shouting and screaming, but this was in all likelihood a mere deception, for I never saw them more.

Grasping with a death-grip the slippery keel, I hung on the boat through all the night. The gale continued to increase, and by day-break it blew a perfect hurricane. With an aching anxiety I watched for the light to see if I were near the land, or if any ship were in sight, but when the sun rose nothing met my eyes but a vast expanse of waves tumbling and tossing in mad confusion, while overhead some streaked and mottled clouds were hurried along with the wind. Happily for me, I have no correct memory of that long day of suffering. The continual noise, but more still, the incessant motion of the sea and sky around brought on a vertigo, that seemed like madness; and although the instinct of self-preservation remained, the wildest and most incoherent fancies filled my brain. Some of these were powerful enough to impress themselves upon my memory for years after, and one I have never yet been able to dispel. It clings to me in every season of unusual depression or dejection; it recurs in the half nightmare sleep of over fatigue, and even invades me when, restless and feverish, I lie for hours incapable of repose. This is the notion that my state was one of after-life punishment; that I had died, and was now expiating a sinful life by the everlasting misery of a castaway. The fever brought on by thirst and exhaustion and the burning sun which beamed down upon my uncovered head, soon completed the measure of this infatuation, and all sense and guidance left me.

By what instinctive impulse I still held on my grasp I can not explain, but there I clung during the whole of that long dreadful day, and the still more dreadful night, when the piercing cold cramped my limbs, and seemed as if freezing the very blood within me. It was no wish for life; it was no anxiety to save myself that now filled me. It seemed like a vague impulse of necessity that compelled me to hang on. It was, as it were, part of that terrible sentence which made this my doom forever!

An utter unconsciousness must have followed this state, and a dreary blank, with flitting shapes of suffering, is all that remains to my recollection…

Probably within the whole range of human sensations, there is not one so perfect in its calm and soothing influence as the first burst of gratitude we feel when recovering from a long and severe illness! There is not an object, however humble and insignificant, that is not for the time invested with a new interest. The air is balmier, flowers are sweeter, the voices of friends, the smiles and kind looks, are dearer and fonder than we have ever known them. The whole world has put on a new aspect for us, and we have not a thought that is not teeming with forgiveness and affection. Such, in all their completeness, were my feelings as I lay on the poop-deck of a large three-masted ship, which, with studding and top-gallant sails all set, proudly held her course up the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

She was a Dantzig barque, the "Hoffnung," bound for Quebec, her only passengers being a Moravian minister and his wife, on their way to join a small German colony established near Lake Champlain. To Gottfried Kröller and his dear little wife I owe not life alone, but nearly all that has made it valuable. With means barely removed from absolute poverty, I found that they had spared nothing to assist in my recovery; for, when discovered, emaciation and wasting had so far reduced me that nothing but the most unremitting care and kindness could have succeeded in restoring me. To this end they bestowed not only their whole time and attention, but every little delicacy of their humble sea-store. All the little cordials and restoratives meant for a season of sickness or debility were lavished unsparingly on me, and every instinct of national thrift and carefulness gave way before the more powerful influence of Christian benevolence.

I can think of nothing but that bright morning, as I lay on a mattress on the deck, with the "Pfarrer" on one side of me, and his good little wife, Lyschen, on the other; he, with his volume of "Wieland," and she working away with her long knitting-needles, and never raising her head save to bestow a glance at the poor sick boy, whose bloodless lips were trying to mutter her name in thankfulness. It is like the most delicious dream as I think over those hours, when, rocked by the surging motion of the large ship, hearing in half distinctness the words of the "Pfarrer's" reading, I followed out little fancies – now self-originating, now rising from the theme of the poet's musings.

How softly the cloud shadows moved over the white sails and swept along the bright deck! How pleasantly the water rippled against the vessel's side! With what a glad sound the great ensign flapped and fluttered in the breeze! There was light, and life, and motion on every side, and I felt all the intoxication of enjoyment.

And like a dream was the portion of my life which followed. I accompanied the Pfarrer to a small settlement near "Crown Point," where he was to take up his residence as minister. Here we lived amid a population of about four or five hundred Germans, principally from Pomerania, on the shores of the Baltic, a peaceful, thrifty, quiet set of beings, who, content with the little interests revolving around themselves, never troubled their heads about the great events of war or politics; and here in all likelihood should I have been content to pass my days, when an accidental journey I made to Albany, to receive some letters for the Pfarrer, once more turned the fortune of my life.

It was a great incident in the quiet monotony of my life, when I set out one morning, arrayed in a full suit of coarse glossy black, with buttons like small saucers, and a hat whose brim almost protected my shoulders. I was, indeed, an object of very considerable envy to some, and I hope, also, not denied the admiring approval of some others. Had the respectable city I was about to visit been the chief metropolis of a certain destination which I must not name, the warnings I received about its dangers, dissipations, and seductions, could scarcely have been more earnest or impressive. I was neither to speak with, nor even to look at, those I met in the streets. I was carefully to avoid taking my meals at any of the public eating-houses, rigidly guarding myself from the contamination of even a chance acquaintance. It was deemed as needless to caution me against theatres or places of amusement, as to hint to me that I should not commit a highway robbery or a murder, and so, in sooth, I should myself have felt it. The patriarchal simplicity in which I had lived for above a year, had not been without its effect in subduing exaggerated feeling, or controlling that passion for excitement so common to youth. I felt a kind of drowsy, dreamy languor over me, which I sincerely believed represented a pious and well-regulated temperament. Perhaps in time it might have become such. Perhaps with others, more happily constituted, the impression would have been confirmed and fixed; but in my case it was a mere lacker that the first rubbing in the world was sure to brush off.

I arrived safely at Albany, and having presented myself at the bank of Gabriel Shultze, was desired to call the following morning, when all the letters and papers of Gottfried Kröller should be delivered to me. A very cold invitation to supper was the only hospitality extended to me. This I declined on pretext of weariness, and set out to explore the town, to which my long residence in rural life imparted a high degree of interest.

I don't know what it may now be: doubtless a great capital, like one of the European cities; but at the time I speak of, Albany was a strange, incongruous assemblage of stores and wooden houses, great buildings like granaries, with whole streets of low sheds around them, where open to the passer-by, men worked at various trades, and people followed out the various duties of domestic life in sight of the public; the daughters knitted and sewed; mothers cooked and nursed their children; men ate, and worked, and smoked, and sang, as if in all the privacy of closed dwellings, while a thick current of population poured by, apparently too much immersed in their own cares, or too much accustomed to the scene, to give it more than passing notice.

It was curious how one bred and born in the great city of Paris, with all its sights and sounds, and scenes of excitement and display, could have been so rusticated by time, as to feel a lively interest in surveying the motley aspect of this quaint town. There were, it is true, features in the picture very unlike the figures in "Old World" landscape. A group of red men, seated around a fire in the open street, or a squaw carrying on her back a baby, firmly tied to a piece of curved bark; a Southern-stater, with a spanking wagon-team, and two grinning negroes behind, were new and strange elements in the life of a city. Still, the mere movement, the actual busy stir and occupation of the inhabitants, attracted me as much as any thing else; and the shops and stalls where trades were carried on were a seduction I could not resist.

The strict puritanism in which I had lately lived taught me to regard all these things with a certain degree of distrust. They were the impulses of that gold-seeking passion of which Gottfried had spoken so frequently; they were the great vice of that civilization, whose luxurious tendency he often deplored; and here, now, more than one-half around me were arts that only ministered to voluptuous tastes. Brilliant articles of jewelry; gay cloaks, worked with wampum, in Indian taste; ornamental turning, and costly weapons, inlaid with gold and silver, succeeded each other, street after street; and the very sight of them, however pleasurable to the eye, set me a-moralizing, in a strain that would have done credit to a son of Geneva. It might have been, that in my enthusiasm I uttered half aloud what I intended for soliloquy: or perhaps some gesture, or peculiarity of manner, had the effect; but so it was: I found myself an object of notice; and my queer-cut coat and wide hat, contrasting so strangely with my youthful appearance and slender make, drew many a criticism on me.

"He ain't a Quaker, that's a fact," cried one, "for they don't wear black."

"He's a down-Easter – a horse jockey chap, I'll be bound," cried another. "They put on all manner of disguises and 'masqueroonings.' I know 'em!"

"He's a calf preacher – a young bottle-nosed Gospeller," broke in a thick, short fellow, like the skipper of a merchant ship. "Let's have him out for a preachment."

"Ay, you're right," chimed in another. "I'll get you a sugar hogshead in no time;" and away he ran on the mission.

Between twenty and thirty persons had now collected; and I saw myself, to my unspeakable shame and mortification, the centre of all their looks and speculations. A little more aplomb or knowledge of life would have taught me coolness enough in a few words to undeceive them: but such a task was far above me now; and I saw nothing for it but flight. Could I only have known which way to take, I need not have feared any pursuer, for I was a capital runner, and in high condition; but of the locality I was utterly ignorant, and should only surrender myself to mere chance. With a bold rush, then, I dashed right through the crowd, and set off down the street, the whole crew after me. The dusk of the closing evening was in my favor; and although volunteers were enlisted in the chase at every corner and turning, I distanced them, and held on my way in advance. My great object being not to turn on my course, lest I should come back to my starting point, I directed my steps nearly straight onward, clearing apple-stalls and fruit tables at a bound; and more than once taking a flying leap over an Indian's fire, when the mad shout of the red man would swell the chorus that followed me. At last I reached a network of narrow lanes and alleys, by turning and winding through which, I speedily found myself in a quiet secluded spot, with here and there a flickering candle-light from the windows, but no other sign of habitation. I looked anxiously about for an open door; but they were all safe barred and fastened; and it was only on turning a corner I spied what seemed to me a little shop, with a solitary lamp over the entrance. A narrow canal, crossed by a rickety old bridge, led to this; and the moment I had crossed over, I seized the single plank which formed the footway, and shoved it into the stream. My retreat being thus secured, I opened the door, and entered. It was a barber's shop; at least, so a great chair before a cracked old looking glass, with some well-worn combs and brushes, bespoke it; but the place seemed untenanted, and although I called aloud several times, none came or responded to my summons.

I now took a survey of the spot which seemed of the poorest imaginable. A few empty pomatum pots, a case of razors that might have defied the most determined suicide, and a half-finished wig, on a block painted like a red man, were the entire stock in trade. On the walls, however, were some colored prints of the battles of the French army in Germany and Italy. Execrably done things they were, but full of meaning and interest to my eyes in spite of that. With all the faults of drawing and all the travesties of costume, I could recognize different corps of the service, and my heart bounded as I gazed on the tall shakos swarming to a breach, or the loose jacket as it floated from the hussar in a charge. All the wild pleasures of soldiering rose once more to my mind, and I thought over old comrades who doubtless were now earning the high rewards of their bravery in the great career of glory. And as I did so, my own image confronted me in the glass, as with long, lank hair, and a great bolster of a white cravat, I stood before it. What a contrast! – how unlike the smart hussar, with curling locks and fierce mustache! Was I as much changed in heart as in looks. Had my spirit died out within me. Would the proud notes of the bugle or the trumpet fall meaningless on my ears, or the hoarse cry of "Charge!" send no bursting fullness to my temples? Ay, even these coarse representations stirred the blood in my veins, and my step grew firmer as I walked the room.

In a passionate burst of enthusiasm I tore off my slouched hat and hurled it from me. It felt like the badge of some ignoble slavery, and I determined to endure it no longer. The noise of the act called up a voice from the inner room, and a man, to all appearance suddenly roused from sleep, stood at the door. He was evidently young, but poverty, dissipation, and raggedness made the question of his age a difficult one to solve. A light-colored mustache and beard covered all the lower part of his face, and his long blonde hair fell heavily over his shoulders.

"Well," cried he, half angrily, "what's the matter; are you so impatient that you must smash the furniture?"

Although the words were spoken as correctly as I have written them, they were uttered with a foreign accent; and, hazarding the stroke, I answered him in French by apologizing for the noise.

"What! a Frenchman," exclaimed he, "and in that dress; what can that mean?"

"If you'll shut your door, and cut off pursuit of me, I'll tell you every thing," said I, "for I hear the voices of people coming down that street in front."