We shoved along at a brisk rate, close in the wake of Mr Twig's voiture, and followed by aplumpof black cavaliers—a beautiful little sumpter-mule, loaded with two portmanteaus, leading the cavalcade; while Mr Flamingo's servant Twister pricked a-head, for the twofold purpose of driving the mule and clearing the road of impediments, such as a few stray jackasses, or a group of negroes going to market, neither of whom ever get out of one's way.
After proceeding about ten miles, the road wound into a cocoa-nut grove close to the beach; indeed, the beachbecamethe road for a good mile, with the white surf rolling in and frothing over the beautiful hard sand, quickly obliterating all traces of the wheels. Macadam was at a discount here. One fine peculiarity of the West India seas is, independent of their crystal clearness, they are always brimfull—no steamy wastes of slush and slime, no muddy tideways. And overhead the sea-breeze was whistling through the tall trees, making their long feather-like leaves rustle andrattlelike a thousand watchmen's alarms sprung in the midst of a torrent of rain, or a fall ofpeas.
"Hillo! what is that?" as a cocoa-nut fell bang into the bottom of my gig, and bounded out again like a foot-ball.
"Oh, only a cocoa-nut," said Twig, looking over his shoulder with the usual knowing twist of his mouth, but without pulling up.
"Only a cocoa-nut! But it would have fractured a man's skull, I presume, if it had struck him."
"A white man's certainly," quoth Flamingo, with all the coolness in life, as if it had fallen a hundred miles from me, in place of barely shaving the point of my nose: "But ithas nothit you—a miss is as good as a mile, you know; so suppose we go and bathe until they get dinner ready yonder. Let us send the boys on to the tavern to order dinner. We are within two miles of it, Jacob—eh?"
"No, no," quoth Twig; "come along a quarter of a mile further, and I will show you a nook within the reef where we shall be safe from John Shark, or rather the sharks will be safe from Flamingo's bones there. He would be like a sackful of wooden ladles tossed to them. The fish would find him as digestible as a bag of nutcrackers, seasoned with cocoa-nut shells—ah!—but come along, come along. Oh such a bath, Mr Brail, as I will show you!"
We left the cocoa-nut grove, and when we arrived at the spot indicated we got out to reconnoitre. There was a long reef, about musket-shot from the beach at the widest, on the outside of which the swell broke in thunder, the strong breeze blowing the spray and flakes of frothy brine back in our faces, even where we stood.
The reef, like a bow, hemmed in a most beautiful semicircular pool of green sea water, clear as crystal; its surface darkened and crisped by tiny blue sparkling wavelets, which formed a glorious and pellucid covering to the forest, if I may so speak, of coral branches and seaferns that covered the bottom, and which, even where deepest, were seen distinctly in every fibre. When you held your face close to the water, and looked steadily into its pure depths, you saw the bottom at three fathoms perfectly alive, and sparkling with shoals of fishes of the most glowing colours, gamboling in the sun, birdlike amongst the boughs, as if conscious of their safety from their ravenous comrades outside; while nothing could be more beautiful than the smooth sparkling silver sand as the water shoaled towards the beach. The last was composed of a belt of small transparent pebbles, about ten yards wide, overhung by a rotten bank of turf of the greenest and most fragrant description, that had been only sufficiently undermined by the lap lapping of the water at tempestuous spring-tides (at no time rising here above three feet), to form a continuous although rugged bench the whole way along the shore.
"Now, if one were riding incautiously here, he might break his horse's leg without much trouble," quoth Don Felix.
"Why, Jacob, speaking of horsemanship, how did you like your style of immersion yesterday?—a novel sort of bathing-machine, to be sure."
"You be hanged, Felix," quoth his ally, with a most quizzical grin, as he continued his peeling.
"Do you know I've a great mind to try an equestrian dip myself," persisted his friend. "Here, Twister—take off Monkey's saddle, and bring him here."
"Oh, I see what you would be at," said Jacob. "Romulus, bring me Dare-devil—so"—and thereupon, to my great surprise and amazement, it pleased my friends to undress under a neighbouring clump of trees, and to send the equipages and servants on to the tavern, about half a mile distant. They then mounted two led horses, bare-backed, with watering bits, and, naked as the day they were born, with the exception of a red handkerchief tied round Mr Twig's head and down his redder cheeks, they dashed right into the sea.
As cavalry was an arm I had never seen used with much effect at sea, I swam out to the reef, and thereplowteringabout in the dead water, under the lee of it, enjoyed the most glorious shower-bath from the descending spray, that flew up and curled far overhead, like a snow storm, mingled with ten thousand miniature rainbows. I had cooled myself sufficiently, and was leisurely swimming for the shore.
"Now this is what I call bathing," quoth Twig, as he kept meandering about on the snorting Dare-devil, who seemed to enjoy the dip as much as his master—"I would back this horse against Bucephalus at swimming."
Here Flamingo's steed threw him, by rearing and pawing the water with his fore legs and sinking his croup, so that his master, after an unavailing attempt to mount him again, had to strike out for the beach, the animal following, and splashing him, as if he wanted to get onhisback by way of a change.
"And that's what I call swimming," roared Don Felix. But he scarcely had uttered the words when the horse made at him in earnest, and I thought he had struck him with the near fore-foot.
"And that's what I call drowning," thought I, "or something deuced like it."
However, he was really a good swimmer, and got to shore safe.
Master Twister had been all this time enacting groom of the stole to the two equestrian bathers, and so soon as he had arrayed them, we proceeded to the tavern, dined, and after enjoying a cool bottle of wine, continued our journey to Ballywindle, which we hoped to reach shortly after nightfall.
The sun was now fast declining; I had shot ahead of my two cronies and their outriders, I cannot now recollect why, and we were just entering a grove of magnificent trees, with their hoary trunks gilded by his setting effulgence, when Twister's head (he had changed places with Cousin Teemoty, and was driving me) suddenly, to my great alarm, gave a sharp crack, as if it had split open, and a tiny jet of smoke puffed out of his mouth—I was all wonder and amazement, but before I could gather my wits about me, he jumped from the voiture into the dirty ditch by the side of the road, and popped his head, ears and all, below the stagnant green scum, while his limbs, and all that was seen of him above water, quivered in the utmost extremity of fear.
As soon as Twig and Flamingo came up, I saw that neither they nor Serjeant Quacco could contain themselves for laughter. The latter was scarcely able to sit his mule—at length he jumped, or rather tumbled, oft, and pulled Twister out by the legs; who, the instant he could stand, and long before he could see for the mud that filled his eyes, started up the road like a demoniac, shouting, "Obeah, Obeah!" which so frightened the sumpter-mule, that he was by this time alongside of, that she turned and came down, rattling past us like a whirlwind, until she jammed between the stems of two of the cocoa-nut trees with a most furious shock, when lo! the starboard portmanteau she carried burst and blew up like a shell, and shirts, trowsers, nightcaps, and handkerchiefs, of all colours, shapes, and sizes, were shot hither and thither, upwards and downwards, this side and that, until the neighbouring trees and bushes were hung with all manner of garments and streamers, like a pawnbroker's shop.
Twig shouted, "There—that's your share of the joke, Felix—there goes your patent portmanteau with the Bramah lock—see if the very brimstones in which you gloried be not streaming like a commodore's broad pennant from the top of the orange tree. The green silk night-cap on the prickly pear—and the shirts and the vests, and the real bandanas—ha, ha, ha!"
"Ay, ay," shouted Flamingo, who had dismounted and was endeavouring to catch the mule as she careered through the wood towards the sea, kicking and flinging in a vain attempt to disentangle herself from the other portmanteau, which had now turned under her belly, and the sumpter-saddle that hung at her side; "and there goes your kit, Jacob, an offering to Neptune bodily, mule and all"—as the poor beast dashed into the surf, after having threaded through the stems of the trees without farther damage.
The cause of all this was no longer a mystery, for I had made my guess already; but presently I was enlightened, if need had been, by friend Quacco. He had, it appeared, with Mr Twig's sanction, charged certain of the pieces of patent tobacco in thespleuchanwith several small quantities of detonating powder, enclosed in the glass-brittle seeds of the sand-box, as a trap for Master Twister, who was suspected of making free with it—the issue, so far as he was concerned, has been seen; but in the hurry of coming away and packing up, instead of placing the bottle containing the powder in Mr Flamingo's gun-case, where it should have been, he hurriedly dropped it into his portmanteau, as Twister was packing it; so that when the sumpter mule jambed between the trunks of the trees after it took fright it exploded and blew up.
"I say, Massa Twister, you never make free with my patent tobacco?"
"Oh, oh, oh!" roared poor Twister, holding his jaws with both hands—"Oh, massa, my tongue blow out—my palate blow down—de roof of my mouse blow up—and all my teets blow clean gan—Oh no, massa, never, never will touch him no more, massa—never, never no more."
"I'll answer for it you don't, my boy," quoth Jacob.
After picking up the fugitive and clambered garments as well as we could, we travelled onwards for about two miles, when we struck inland, and as the night fell entered a dark tree-shaded ravine, with a brawling brook rushing through the bottom, up which we threaded our way by a narrow road scarped out of the red earth of the hill side.
"Now, Mr Brail, give your horse the rein—let him pick his own steps, if you please; for the road is cruelly cut up by the weather and waggons hereabouts, and none of the widest either, as you mayfeel, for you can't see it."
I took his advice, and soon found the advantage of it, as we came to several groups of negroes sitting invariably on the inner side of the road, which I would certainly have been tempted to avoid at my own peril; but my horse was not so scrupulous, for he always poked his nose between them and the bank, and snorted and nuzzled until they rose and shuffled out of our way, either by creeping to the side next the ravine, or up on the bank; presently the road widened, and we got along more comfortably.
I could not but admire the thousands and tens of thousands of fire-flies that spangled the gulf below us, in a tiny galaxy; they did not twinkle promiscuously, but seemed to emit their small green lights by signal, beginning at the head of the ravine, and glancing all the way down in a wavy continuous lambent flash, every individual fly, as it were, taking the time from his neighbour ahead. Then for a moment all would be dark again, until the stream of sparkles flowed down once more from the head of the valley, and again disappeared astern of us; while the usual West India concert of lizards, beetles, crickets, and tree toads, filled the dull ear of night with their sleepy monotony.
The night soon began to be heavily overcast, and as we entered below some high wood the darkness would have become palpable, had it not been for the fire-flies,—even darkness which might have been felt.
"I must heave to until I get my bat's eyes shipped, Mr Twig," said I—"I can't see an inch before my nose."
"Then send Flamingo ahead, my dear fellow, for if he sees thelengthofhiswe shall do—his proboscis is long enough to give us warning of any impediment."
"What a clear glowworm-coloured light some of these insects do give," quoth I: "See that one creeping up the handle of my whip—it comes along with its two tiny burners, like the lights in a distant carriage rolling towards you."
"Come, you must get on, though, since we have not room to pass—no time to study natural philosophy," said Twig; and I once more fanned my horse into a gentle trot, with very much the sensation of one running through an unknown sound in the night, without either chart or pilot.
After a little, I saw a cluster ofredfire-flies, as I thought, before us. "Oh, come along, I see now famously."
"Oh massa, massa!"—Crack!—I had got entangled with a string of mules going to fetch a last turn of canes from the field; the red sparks that I had seen ahead having proceeded from the pipes in the mouths of the drivers. However there was no great damage done.
The rain now began to descend in torrents, with a roar like a cataract.—"What uncommonly pleasant weather," thought I. "Why, Mr Twig, you see I am a bad pilot—so, do you think you have room to pass me now? for, to say the truth, I don't think I can see a yard of the road, and you know I am an utter stranger here."
He could not pass, however, and at length I had to set Master Teemoty to lead the horse. Presently I heard a splash.
"Hilloa, cousin Teemoty! where have you got to?"
"De Fairywell no tell lie, massa—De Devil's Golly,[1] dat has been dry like one bone for tree mont, habcome down, massa—dat all."
[1] Gully—ravine or river course.
"Comedown," said I; "I wish it had stayedup!"
"Ah!" said Twig,—"and we are to sleep here in the cold and damp, I suppose—the fellow's a fool, and must have got off the path into some puddle. We are a mile from the gully—let me see"—and before you could have turned, Massa Jacob was splashing up to the knees alongside of Massa Teemoty. However, he was right—it was only a streamlet—and we got across without much difficulty; but in ten minutes the roar of a large torrent, heard hoarse and loud above the sound of the rain, gave convincing proof that we were at length approaching the gully—moreover, that it was down, and that with a vengeance. We now found ourselves amongst a group of negroes, who had also been stopped by the swollen stream. There was a loud thundering noise above us on the left hand, which (we had now all alighted) absolutely shook the solid earth under our feet, as if in that direction the waters had been pitched from the mountain side headlong over a precipice. From the same quarter, although quite calm otherwise, a strong cold wind gushed in eddies and sudden gusts, as if from a nook or valley in the hill-side, charged with a thick, wetting spray, that we could feel curling and boiling about us, sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker, like the undulations of a London fog. Close to our feet we could hear the river tearing past us, with a great rushing and gurgling, occasionally intermingled with the rasping and crashing of trees and floating spars, as they were dashed along on the gushes and swirls of the stream; while every now and then thewarmwater (for so it felt in contrast with the cold damp night-breeze) surged a foot or two beyond its usual level, so as to cover us to the ankle, and make us start back; and immediately ebb again. It was some time, amidst this "groan of rock and roar of stream" before we could make out any thing that the negroes about us said.
"Hillo," cried Twig—to be heard by each other we had to shout as loud as we could—"hillo, friend Felix, here's a coil—what shall we do—sleep here, eh?"
"We shall sleep soft, then," roared his friend in reply.
"As how, my lord?"
"Why, you may have mud of all consistencies, and of any depth."
"True,waterbeds are all the fashion now, and possiblymudones might be an improvement; but had we not better try back," I continued, as I really began to think it no joke remaining where we were all night.
"A good idea," said Twig.
"About ship, then," quoth Flamingo.
"Wery good plan, wery good plan," shouted Cousin Teemoty; "but"——
"But, but, but—oh, confound yourbuts," roared Twig; "but what, sir?"
"Oh," said Tim, whose dignity was a little hurt, "noting, noting—no reason why massa should not return—only Carrion-crow gully dat we lef behind, will, by dis time, be twenty time moredownas dis,dat all."
"And so it will—the boy is right," rejoined Jacob; "What is to be done? Stop—I see, I see."
"The deuce you do! then you have good eyes," quoth Felix.
"I say, Flamingo, pick me up a stone that I can sling, and hold your tongue; do, that's a good fellow."
"Sling? where is the Goliah you mean to attack?"
"Never you mind, Flam, but pick me up a stone that I can tie a string to, will ye?—There, you absurd creature, you have given me one as round and smooth as a cricket ball; how can I fasten a string roundit?—give me a longish one, man—one shaped like a kidney-potato or your own nose, you blundering good-for-nothing—ah, that will do. Now, some string, boys—string."
Every negro carries a string of one kind or another with him in the crown of his hat, and three or four black paws were in an instant groping for Jacob Twig's hand in the dark with pieces of twine.
"Hillo, what is that?" as an auxiliary-current, more than ankle deep, began to flow down the road with a loud ripple from behind us, thus threatening to cut off our retreat—"Mind we are not in a scrape here!" cried I.
"If we be, we can't better it," shouted Twig—"Here, gentlemen, give me your cards, will ye?'
"Cards—cards!" ejaculated Flamingo and I in a breath.
"Yes—your calling-cards; do grope for them—make haste."
He got the cards, and all was silent except the turmoil of the elements for a few seconds. At length, in a temporary lull of the rain, I thought I heard the shout of a human voice from the opposite bank, blending with the roar of the stream.
"Ay, ay," cried Jacob—"there, don't you hear people on the other side?—so here goes."
"Hillo, who the deuce has knocked off my hat?" cried Flamingo.
"Why don't you stand on one side then, or get yourself shortened by the knees? such a steeple is always in the way," bawled Twig. "Leave me scope to make my cast now, will ye—don't youseeI want to throw the stone with the cards across amongst the people on the opposite bank—There," and he made another cast—"ah, I have caught a fish this time—more string, Teemoty—more string—or they will drag it out of my hand. Now some one has got a precious pelt on the skull with the kidney potato, Felix, as I am a gentleman; but he understands us, whoever he may be that has got hold of it—feel here—how he jerks the string without hauling on it—wait—wait!"
Presently the line was let go at the opposite side, and our friend hauled it in—it had been cut short off, and instead of the stone and cards, a negro clasp knife was now attached to it.
"There—didn't I tell you—there's a barbarian telegraph for you—there's a new invented code of signals—now you shall see how my scheme will work," cried Jacob. However, near a quarter of an hour elapsed without any thing particular occurring, during which time, we distinctly heard shouting on the other side, as if to attract our attention, but we could not make out what was said.
At length we observed a red spark, glancing and disappearing like a will-o'-the-wisp as it zigzagged amongst the dark bushes, down the hill side above. Presently we lost sight of it and all was dark again. However, just as I began to lose all hope of the success of Massa Twig's device, the light again appeared coming steadily down the road opposite us. It approached the impassable ford, and we now saw that it was a lantern carried by a negro, who was lighting the steps of a short squat figure of a man, dressed in a fustian coatee and nankeen trowsers, with an umbrella over his head. "I've caught my fish—I've caught my fish—Rory Macgregor himself, or I am a baboon," shouted Twig, as the party he spoke of came down to the water's edge, and, holding up the lantern above his head, peered across the gully with outstretched neck, apparently in a vain attempt to make us out.
By the light we saw a whole crowd of poor, drenched, stormstaid devils, in their blue pennistone greatcoats, shivering on the opposite bank. The white man appeared to be giving them instructions, as two of them immediately disappeared up the hill-side, whence he had descended; while several of the others entered a watchman's hut that we could observe close to the waterside, and fetched some wood and dry branches from it, with which they began to kindle a fire under a projecting cliff, which soon burned up brightly, and showed us whereabouts we were.
The scene was striking enough. A quantity of dry splinters of some kind of resinous wood being heaped on the fire, it now blazed up brilliantly in massive tongues of flame, that glanced as they twined up the fissures, scorching the lichens into sudden blackness, and licking, like fiery serpents, the tortuous fretwork of naked roots depending from the trees that grew on the verge of the bank above, which spread like a net over the face of the bald grey rock; and lighting up the fringe of dry fibres depending from the narrow eave of red earth that projected over the brink of the precipice, under which the bank appeared white and dusty, but lower down, where wet by the beating of the rain, it was red, and glittering with pebbles, as if it had been the wall of a salt mine in Cheshire.
The bright glare, and luminous smoke of the fire, in which a number of birds, frightened from their perches, glanced about like sparks, blasted the figures of such of the negroes as stood beyond it into the appearance of demons—little Rory Macgregor looking, to use his own phrase, likethe deil himsell, while those of them who intervened between us and the fire seemed magnified into giants—their dark bodies edged with red flame; while every tree, and stock, and stone appeared as if half bronze and half red-hot iron—a shadock growing close by, looked as if hung with clusters of red-hot cannon balls.
Our own party was very noticeable. I was leaning on the neck of my gig-horse, with his eyes glancing, and the brazen ornaments of his harness flashing like burnished gold. Abreast of me were Massas Twig, Flamingo, and Cosin Teemoty, wet asmuck, and quite as steamy, to use a genteel phrase, with our cold drenched physiognomies thrust into the light, and the sparkling rain-drops hanging at our noses; Jacob's glazed hat glancing as if his caput had been covered with a glass porringer; while the group of mounted negroes and led horses in the background, with the animals pawing and splashing in the red stream that ran rippling and twinkling down the road, and the steam of our rapid travelling rising up like smoke above them, gave one a very lively idea of a cavalry picquet on thequi vive.
On our larboard hand the mountain ascended precipitously, in all the glory of magnificent trees, sparkling with diamond water-drops, stupendous rocks, and all that sort of thing; with the swollen waters thundering and chafing, and foaming down a dark deep cleft over a ledge of stone about thirty feet high, in a solid mass, which in the descent took a spiral turn, as if it had been ejected from a tortuous channel above, and then sending up a thick mist, that rose boiling amongst the dark trees. From the foot of this fall the torrent roared along its overflowing channel in whirling eddies that sparkled in the firelight, towards where we stood; the red stream appearing, by some deception of the sight, to be convex, or higher in the middle than the sides, and semifluid, as if composed of earth and water; while trees, and branches, and rolling stones were launched and trundled along as if borne on a lava stream.
As we looked, the bodies of two bullocks and a mule came past, rolling over and over, legs, tails, and heads, in much admired confusion.
On the starboard hand the ravine sunk down as dark as Erebus; and now the weather clearing, disclosed in that direction, through storm-rents of the heavy clouds, shreds of translucent blue sky, sparkling with bright stars; and lo! the fair moon once more!—her cold, pale-green light struggling with the hot red glare of the fire, as she reposed on the fleecy edge of that dark——
"Confound it, what's that—what's that, Mr Twig?"
"An owl, Master Brail—an owl which the light has dazzled, and that has flown against your head by mistake—but catch, man—catch"—as he sprang into the water up to the knees to secure my hat, that the bird of Minerva had knocked off—and be hanged to it. "An owl may be a wise bird, but it is a deuced blind one to bounce against your head as unceremoniously as if it had been a pumpkin or a calabash."
Little Rory Macgregor had all this time remained at the edge of the stream, squatted on his hams like a large bull-frog, and apparently, if we could judge from his action, shouting at the top of his voice; but it was all dumb show to us, or very nearly so, as we could not make out one word that he said.
Flamingo confronted him, assuming the same attitude. "See how he has doubled up his long legs—there, now—said the grasshopper to the frog," quoth Twig to me. Here friend Felix made most energetic signs, a-la Grimaldi, that he wanted some food and drink.
Rory nodded promptly, as much as to say, "I understand you;" indeed it appeared that he had taken the hint before, for the two men that we had seen ascend the mountain-road, now returned; one carrying a joint of roast meat and a roast fowl, and the other with a bottle in each hand.
The puzzle now was, "how were the good things to be had across?" but my friends seemed up to every emergency. In a moment Flamingo had ascended a scathed stump that projected a good way over the gully, with Twig's string and stone in his hand; the latter enabling him to pitch the line at Rory's feet, who immediately made the joint of meat fast, which Don Felix swung across, and untying it, chucked it down to us who stood below; the fowl, and the rum, and the bottle of lemonade, or beverage, as it is called in Jamaica, were secured in like manner.
"So," said our ally, "we shan't starve for want of food, anyhow, whatever we may do of cold." But we were nearer being released than we thought; for suddenly, as if from the giving way of some obstruction below that had dammed up the water in the gully, it ebbed nearly two feet, of which we promptly availed ourselves to pass over to the other side of the Devil's Gully. But, notwithstanding, this was a work of no small difficulty, and even considerable danger. Being safely landed, and having thanked Mr Macgregor, who owned a very fine coffee property in the neighbourhood, for his kindness, we mounted our vehicles once more, and drove rapidly out of the defile, now lit by the moon, and in a quarter of an hour found ourselves amongst theWorks; that is, in the very centre of the mill-yard of Ballywindle.
Here, late as it was, all was bustle and activity; the boiling-house was brilliantly lighted up, the clouds of white luminous vapour steaming through the apertures in the roof; while the negroes feeding the fires, sheltered under the stokehole arches from the weather, and almost smothered amongst heaps of dry cane-stalks, or trash, as it is called, from which the juice had been crushed, looked in their glancing nakedness like fiends, as their dark bodies flitted between us and the glowing mouths of the furnaces. A little farther on we came to the two cone-roofed mill-houses, one of which was put in motion by a spell of oxen, the other being worked by mules, while the shouting of the drivers, the cries of the boilermen to the firemakers to make stronger fires, the crashing of the canes as they were crushed in the mills, the groaning and squealing of the machinery, the spanking of whips, the lumbering and rattling of wains and waggons, the hot dry axles screaming for grease, and the loud laugh and song rising occasionally shrill above the Babel sounds, absolutely confounded me.
We stopped at the boiling-house door, and asked the book-keeper on duty, a tall cadaverous-looking young man, dressed in a fustian jacket and white trowsers, who appeared more than half asleep, if the overseer was at home. He said he was, and, as we intended to leave our horses at his house, we turned their heads towards it, guided by one of the negroes from the mill.
The peep I had of the boiling-house was very enlivening;—for, independently of the regular watch of boiler-negroes, who were ranged beside the large poppling and roaring coppers, each having a bright copper laddie, with a long shank like a boathook, in his hands, it was at this time filled with numbers of the estate's people, some getting hot liquor, others sitting against the wall, eating their suppers by the lamp light, and not a few quizzing and loitering about in the mist of hot vapour, as if the place had been a sort of lounge, instead of a busy sugar manufactory—a kind of sablesoirée.
By the time we arrived in front of the overseer's house, we found the door surrounded by a group of four patriarchal-looking negroes and an old respectable-looking negro woman. The men were clad in Osnaburg frocks, like those worn by waggoners in England, with blue frieze jackets over them, and white trowsers. The old dame was rigged in a man's jacket also, over as many garments apparently as worn by the grave-digger in Hamlet. I had never seen such a round ball of a body. They were all hat-in-hand, with Madras handkerchiefs bound round their heads, and leaning on tall staffs made from peeled young hardwood trees, the roots forming very fantastical tops. Their whips were twisted round these symbols of office, like the snakes round the caduceus of their tutelary deity, Mercury. These were the drivers of the various gangs of negroes on the estate, who were waiting to receive busha's[1] orders for the morrow.
[1] The West India name for overseer, or manager of an estate; a corruption, no doubt, of bashaw.
On seeing us, the overseer hastily dismissed his levee, and ordered his people to take charge of our horses.
"Mr Frenche is at home, I hope?" said Mr Twig.
"Oh, yes, sir—all alone up at thegreathouse there," pointing to alittleshed of a place, perched on an insulated rocky eminence, to the left of the abode he himself occupied, which overlooked the works and whole neighbourhood.
This hill, rising as abruptly from the dead level of the estate as if it had been a rock recently dropped on it,—rather a huge areolite, by the way,—was seen in strong relief against the sky, now clear of clouds, and illuminated by the moon.
At the easternmost end of the solitary great house—in shape like a Chinese pavilion, with a projecting roof, on a punch bowl, that adhered to the sharp outline of the hill like a limpet to a rock—a tall solitary palm shot up and tossed its wide-spreading, fan-like leaves in the night wind high into the pure heaven. The fabric was entirely dark—not a soul moving about it—nothing living in the neighbourhood apparently, if we except a goat or two moving slowly along the ridge of the hill. At the end of the house next the palm-tree there was a low but steep wooden stair, with a landing-place at top, surrounded by a simple wooden railing, so that it looked like a scaffold.
"There is Mr Frenche, sir," continued busha, pointing to the figure of a man lounging in a low chair on the landing place, with his feet resting on the rail before him, and far higher than his head, which leant against the wall of the house, as if he had been a carronade planted against the opposite hill. Under the guidance of one of the overseer's waiting boys, we commenced the zig-zag ascent towards my uncle's dwelling, and as we approached, the feeling of desolateness that pressed on my heart increased, from the extreme stillness of the place even when near to it. Light, or other indication of an inhabited mansion, there was none—even the goats had vanished.
"Cold comfort in prospect for me," thought I; "butallons, let us see,"—and we moved on until we came to a small outhouse beside a gate, which seemed to open into the enclosure, in the centre of which stood the solitary building.
"How terribly still every thing is about Mr Frenche's domicile," said I, as we paused until Flamingo undid the fastening of the gate. "And, pray, what hovel is this that we have come to?"
"This?—Oh, it is the kitchen," quoth Twig. "Stop, I will knock up the people."
"Don't do any such thing," said Flamingo, who, I saw, was after some vagary. "Here, Mr Brail, get up the stair,"—we had now reached the small platform on which the house stood,—"and creep under his legs, will ye—there, get into the house and conceal yourself, and Twig and I will rouse him, and have some fun before you make your appearance."
I gave in to the frolic of the moment, and slipped silently up the few steps of the steep stair, as I was desired. There, on the landing-place, reposed,al fresco, Uncle Lathom, sure enough—his chair swung back, his head resting on the door-post, and his legs cocked up, as already described, on the outer railing of the stair. He was sound asleep, and snoring most harmoniously; but just as I stole up, and was in the very act of creeping beneath the yoke to get past him, I touched his limbs slightly; but the start made him lose his balance and fall back into the house, and there I was, like a shrimp in the claws of a lobster, firmly locked in the embrace of my excellent relative—for although his arms were not round my neck,his legs were.
"Who is that, and what is that, and what have I got hold of now?" roared Uncle Latham, in purest Tipperary.
"It is me, sir," I shouted as loud as I could bellow; for as we rolled over and over on the head of the stair, I discovered he had spurs on; but the devil a bit would he relax in his hold of my neck with his legs,—"me, your dutiful nephew, Benjamin Brail—but, for goodness sake, mind you have spurs on, uncle."
"My nephew—my nephew, Benjamin Brail, did you say?—Oh, murder, fire, and botheration of all sorts—spurs, sir?—spurs?—Hookey, but I'll find stronger fare than spurs for you—You are a robber, sir—a robber—Murphy, you villain—Murphy—Dennis—Potatoblossom—bring me a handsaw, till I cut his throat—or a gimblet—or any other deleterious eatable—Oh, you thieves of the world, why don't you come and help your master?—Lights, boys—lights—hubaboo!"
By this I had contrived to wriggle out of my Irish pillory, and to withdraw my corpus into the house, where I crept behind a leaf of the door—any thing to be out of the row. I could now hear my uncle crawling about the dark room like the aforesaid lobster, disconsolate for the loss of its prey, arguing with himself aloud whether he were awake, or whether it was not all adrame, as he called it;—and then shouting for his servants at one moment, and stumbling against the table, or falling rattle over a lot of chairs, that all seemed to have placed themselves most provokingly in his way, the next. During his soliloquy, I heard Twig and Flamingo's suppressed laughter at the other end of the room. At length Mr Frenche thundered in his gropings against the sideboard, when such a clash and clang of glasses arose, as if he had been literally the bull in the china shop.
"Ah," he said, "it must be all a drame, and looking at people drinking, has made me dry—so let me wet my whistle a bit—here's the beverage, so—now—ah, this is the rum bottle—I know it by the smell—and what the devil else should I know it by in the dark before tasting, I should like to know?—he! he!—if I could but lay my paw on a tumbler now, or a glass of any kind—not one to be found, I declare—Murphy, you villain, why don't you come when I call you, sirrah?"—There was now a concerto of coughing, and sneezing, andoich, oiching, and yawning, as if from beneath.—"Will these lazy rascals never make their appearance?" continued Mr Frenche, impatiently—"Well, I cannot find even a teacup to make some punch in—hard enough this in a man's own house, any how—but I have the materials—and—and—now, for the fun of the thing—I will mix it Irish fashion—deuce take me if I don't," and thereupon I heard himgurgle, gurglesomething out of one bottle—and then a longgurgle, gurgle, gurgle, out of another, apparently, for the gurgling was on different keys,—both followed by a long expiration. He then gave several jumps on the floor.
He had, as I guessed, first swallowed the raw caulker from the rum decanter, and then sent down the lemonade to take care of it. "Now, that rum is very strong—stop, let me qualify it a bit with some more beverage—how thirsty I am, to be sure—murder!—confound that wide-necked decanter." Here I could hear the liquid splash all over him. "There—so much for having a beautiful small mouth—why, Rory Macgregor, with that hole in his face from ear to ear, would have drunk you the whole bottle without spilling a drop, and here am I, suffocated and drowned entirely, and as wet as if I had been dragged through the Bog of Allan—Murphy, you scoundrel?"
Anon, two negro servants, stretching and yawning, each with a candle in his hand, made their appearance, one in his shirt, with his livery coat hanging over his head, the cape projecting forward, and a sleeve hanging down on each side; the other had his coat on certainly, but stern foremost, and not another rag of any kind or description whatever, saving and excepting his Kilmarnock nightcap.
By the illumination which those ebony candlesticks furnished, I now could see about me. The room we were in was about twenty feet square, panelled, ceiled, and floored—it looked like a large box—with unpainted, but highly-polished hard-wood, of the colour of very old mahogany—handsomer than any oak panelling I had ever seen. There was a folding door that communicated with the front piazza, out of which we had scrambled—-another, that opened into a kind of back dining-hall, or large porch, and two on each hand, which opened into bedrooms. A sideboard was placed by the wall to the right, between the two bedroom doors, at which stood a tall and very handsome elderly gentleman, who, if I had not instantly known to be my uncle, from his likeness to my poor mother, I might, after the adventures of the day, and the oddities ofmessieursmy friends—theTwig of the Dream, and the Flamingo of Peaweep, Snipe, and Flamingo—have suspected some quiz or practical joke in the matter.
The gentleman, evidently not broad awake yet, was dressed in light-coloured kerseymere small-clothes, top-boots, white vest, and blue coat—he was very bald, with the exception of two tufts of jet-black hair behind his ears, blending into very bushy whiskers. His forehead was round and beetling—you would have said he was somewhat bullet-headed; had the obduracy of the feature not been redeemed by his eyebrows, which were thick, well arched, and, like his hair and whiskers, jet-black—and also by his genuine Irish sparklers, dark, flashing, and frolicsome.
His complexion was of the clearest I had seen in Jamaica—I could never have guessed that he had been above a few weeks from the "First gem of the Sea,"—and his features generally large and well formed. There was a playful opening of the lips every now and then, disclosing nice ivory teeth, and evincing, like his eyes, the native humour of his country.
"So, Master Murphy, you are there at last," said he.
"Yes, massa—yes, massa."
"Pray, can you tell me, Murphy, if any one has arrived here—any stranger come into the house while I slept;" thenaside, as the players say, "or has it really and truly been all adrame?"
"No see noting, massa—nor nobody"—[yawn.]
"You didn't, oh—there, do you see any thing now?" said my uncle—as he took the candle out of the black paw, and put the lighted end, with all the composure in life, into Murphy's open mouth, where it shone through his cheeks like a rushlight in a winter turnip, until it burned the poor fellow, and he started back, overturning his sleepy coadjutor, Dennis, headlong on the floor. On which signal, Twig and Flamingo, who were all this time coiled up like two baboons below the sideboard, choking with laughter, caught Uncle Frenche by the legs, a limb a piece, who thereupon set up a regular howl—"ach, murder! murder! it is abducted, and ravished, and married against my will I shall be—murder!"—ashein turn capsized over the prostrate negroes, and all was confusion and vociferation once more—until my two travelling friends, who had cleverly slipped out of themêlée, while my uncle was clapperclawing with his serving-men, returned from the pantry, whither they had betaken themselves; and now stood on the original field of battle, the landing-place of the stair, each with a lighted candle in his hand, and making believe to be in great amazement at the scene before them.
"Heyday," quoth Twig, "what's the matter, Master Frenche?—what uproar is this in the house?—we heard it at the Devil's Gully, two miles off, believe me."
"Uproar?" shouted Uncle Lathom, still sitting on the floor, scratching his poll—"uproar, were you pleased to say?—pray, who the mischief are you, gentlemen, who conceive yourselves privileged to speak of any little noise I choose to make in my own house?—tell me in an instant, or by the powers I will shoot you for a brace of robbers"—clapping the lemonade decanter, which had all this time escaped by a miracle, to his shoulder, blunderbuss fashion.
Here gradually slewing himself round on his tail, and rubbing his eyes, he at length confronted me, as I sat coiled up behind the leaf of the door—"Why,hereis a second edition of my drame." The very absurd expression of face with which he said this, and regarded me, fairly upset my gravity, already heavily taxed, and losing all control, I laughed outright.
"Another of them! and whomay you be, young gentleman?—youseem to find yourself at home, at any rate, I think."
"Come, come," said Flamingo—"enough of this nonsense—don't you know your friends Twig and Flamingo, Mr Frenche?"
"Twig and Flamingo, did you say?—Twig and Flamingo—Twig—oh dear, oh dear—it is no drame after all—my dear fellows, how are you?—why, what a reception I have given you—you must have thought me mad?" By this time he had got on his legs again, and was welcoming my fellow-travellers with great cordiality, which gave me time to resume the perpendicular also. "I am so glad to see you—why, Jacob, I did not look for you until Tuesday next, but you are the welcomer, my good boy—most heartily welcome—how wet you must have got, though—boys, get supper—Felix, I am so rejoiced to see you—supper, you villains—why, we shall have a night on't, my lads."
"Give me leave to introduce this young gentleman to you first," said Twig, very gravely, leading me forward into the light, "your nephew, Mr Benjamin Brail."
"My nephew!" quoth Mr Frenche—"why, there's my drame again—my nephew!—when did he arrive?"—here he held a candle close to my face, as if my nose had been a candle-wick, and he meant to light it; then fumbling in his bosom with the other hand, he drew forth a miniature of my mother—"my nephew!—my poor sister's boy, Benjie!—as like her as possible, I declare—how are you, Benjamin?—oh, Benjie, I am rejoiced to see you—my heart is full, full—how are"——And as the tear glistened in his eye, he made as if he would have taken me in his arms, when a sudden light seemed to flash on him, and he turned sharply round to Twig—"If you are playing me a trick here, Jacob; if you are trifling with the old man's feelings, and allowing his dearest wish on earth to lead his imagination to deceive him in this matter"——
Twig held out his hand; I could notice that the kind-hearted fellow's own eye was moist. "You cannot seriously believe me capable of such heartless conduct, Mr Frenche, with all my absurdities; believe me, I would sooner cut off this right hand than play with the kindly feelings or affections of any one, far less with those of my long-tried and highly-esteemed friend;" and he shook my uncle's proffered paw warmly as he spoke.
"Tol, lol, de roll—Murphy, Dennis—supper, you villains—supper—Benjie, my darling, kiss me, my boy—I am so happy—tol de roll"—here, in his joy and dancing, he struck his toe sharply against the leg of a table; and as it was the member from whence the gout had been but recently dislodged, the pain made him change his tune with a vengeance; so he caught hold of the extremity in one hand, and pirouetted, with my assistance, to an arm-chair. But we were all tired; therefore, suffice it to say, that we had an excellent meal, and a drop of capitalhotwhisky-punch—a rare luxury in Jamaica—and were soon all happy and snoozing in our comfortable beds.
The first thing I heard next morning, before I got out of bed, was Mr Rory Macgregor, the Samaritan to whom our cards had been carried the night before, squealing about the house in his strong Celtic accent, for he spoke as broad as he did the day he first left home, some twenty years before. He was too proud, I presume, to be obliged to theEnglishers, as he called them, even for a dash of their lingo. He had come to invite us to dine with him on the following day; and the fame of my arrival having spread, a number of the neighbours also paid their respects during the forenoon, so that my levee was larger than many a German prince's.
Mr Macgregor, and the overseer of the neighbouring estate, remained that day to dinner; the latter was also a Scotchman, a Lowlander, and although I always resist first impressions when they are unfavourable, still there was something about him that I did not like. I felt a sort of innate antipathy towards him.
From what I was told, and indeed, from what I saw, I knew that he was a well-connected and a well-educated man, and both by birth and education far above the status of an overseer on a sugar estate in Jamaica; but he had bent himself, and stooped to his condition, instead of dignifying by his conduct an honest although humble calling.
His manners had grown coarse and familiar; and after dinner, when we were taking our wine, and Flamingo and Twig were drawing out little Roderick, much to our entertainment, this youth chose to bring the subject of religion on the table, in some way or other I cannot well tell how. My uncle, I think, had asked him if he had attended the consecration of the new church or chapel, and he had made a rough and indecent answer, expressing his thankfulness toHeaven!that he was above all bigotry, and had never been in a church, except at a funeral, since he had left Scotland. He was instantly checked by Mr Frenche, who was unexpectedly warm on the subject; but it seems this was not the first time he had offended in a similar way; so I was startled, and not a little pleased at thedressinghe now received at the hands of my usually good-natured uncle.
"Young gentleman," said he, with a gravity that I was altogether unprepared for, "you compel me to do a thing I abhor at any time, especially in my own house, and that is to touch on sacred subjects at untimely seasons; but this is not the first time you have offended under this roof, and I therefore am driven to tell you once for all, that I never will allow any sneering at sacred subjects at my table. I just now asked you a simple and a civil question, and you have returned me a most indecent and unchristian answer."
"Christian—Christian!" exclaimed the overseer; "you believe in those things, I suppose?"
"I believe my Bible, sir," rejoined my uncle, "as I hope you do?"
"Oh!" said the overseer, "Mr Frenche has turned Methodist," and burst into a vulgar laugh.
He had gone too far, however. My uncle at this rose, and for several seconds looked so witheringly at him, that, with all his effrontery, I could perceive his self-possession evaporating rapidly.
"Methodist, sir—Methodist I am none, unless to believe in the religion of my fathers be Methodism. Heaven knows, whatever my belief may be, my practice is little akin to what theirs was; but let me tell you, once for all, although I am ever reluctant to cast national reflections, it is your young Scotchmen, who, whatever they may have been in their own country, and theirs we all know to be a highly religious and moral one, become, when left to themselves in Jamaica, beyond all comparison, the most irreligious of the whole community. How this comes about I cannot tell; but I see, young man, false modesty has overlaid your better sense, and made you ashamed of what should have been your glory to avow, as it will assuredly be one day your greatest consolation, if you are a reasonable being, when you come to die. At all events, if you do not believe what you have so improperly endeavoured to make a jest of, Ipityyou. If you do believe, and yet so speak, Idespiseyou; and I recommend you hereafter, instead of blushing to avow the Christian principles that I know were early instilled into your mind, to blush at your conduct, whenever it is such as we have just witnessed; but let us change the subject. I say, Benjie, let us have a touch of politics—politics."
Here the kind-hearted old man's anxiety to smooth the downfall of the sulky young Scotchman was so apparent, that we all lent a hand to help him to gather way on the other tack; but our Scotch friend could not stomach being shown up, or put down, whichever you may call it, so peremptorily; and the first dinner I ate in mine uncle's house was any thing but a pleasant one.
According to previous arrangement, we had the whole of the next forenoon to ourselves. Many a long and kindly family yarn was spun between us; but as this is all parish news, I will not weary the reader with it, simply contenting myself with stating, that, before we began to prepare for our ride, I had more reason than ever to be grateful to my dear uncle.
At two o'clock we mounted our horses, and set out, accompanied by Messrs Twig and Flamingo, to dine with our Highland friend, Roderick Macgregor, Esq. We rode along theintervalor passage between two large cane-pieces, the richest on the estate, which was situated in a dead level, surrounded by low limestone hills. By the way, the locality of Ballywindle was very peculiar, and merits a word or two as we scull along. Stop, and I will paint it to the comprehension of all the world, as thus—Take a punch bowl, or any other vessel you choose approaching to the same shape, and fill it half full of black mould; pop three or four lumps of sugar into the centre, so that they may stick on the surface of the mould, without sinking above a half of their diameter. They are the works, boiling-house, still-house, trash-houses, and mill-houses. Then drop a large lump a little on one side, and balance a very tiny one on the top of it, and you have the small insulated hill on which the great house stands. As for the edges of the vessel, they are the limestone hills, surrounding the small circular valley, the faces of them being covered with Guinea grass pieces, sprinkled with orange and other fruit-trees; both grass and trees finding their sustenance of black earth, as they best may, amongst the clefts of the honey-combed limestone that crops out in all directions, of which indeed the hills are entirely composed, without any continuous superstratum of earth whatever. You see the place now, I suppose? Well, but to make it plainer still—take a sheet of paper, andcrumpleit in your hand; then throw it on the table, and you have a good idea of one of those hills, and not a bad one of the general surface of the island taken as a whole.
The ridges of the hills were in this case covered with high wood. So now let us get hold of our yarn once more. The field on the right hand, from a large sink-hole, as it is called, or aperture in the centre—I love to be particular—was called "Tom's Pot," and the cane patch on the left, "Mammy Polder's Bottom."
I found that a level cane-piece, in such a situation, was always called aBottom. Again, as for those sink-holes, or caverns in the rock, I can compare them, from their sinuosities, to nothing more aptly than the human ear. They generally seem to be placed in situations where they answer the purpose of natural drains to carry off the water; the one in question, for instance, always receiving the drainings of the little valley, and never filling; having a communication, beyond doubt, with some of the numberless streamlets, gullies, or small rivers (hence such natural syphons as the Fairywell), that cross one's path at every turn in this "land of streams," as the name Jamaica imports in the Charib tongue, as I have heard say.
The canes grew on each side of the interval, to the height of eighteen or twenty feet; but as they did not arch overhead, they afforded no shelter from the sun, although they prevented the breeze reaching us, and it was in consequence most consumedly hot.
"Now for a cigar tocoolone," quoth Twig, chipping away, cigar in mouth, with his small flint and steel, as we began to ascend the narrow corkscrew path that spiralled through the rocky grass-piece bounding the cane fields.
After we had zigzagged for a quarter of an hour on the face of the hill, we attained the breezy summit, where the guinea grass-piece ended, and entered, beneath the high wood, on a narrow bridle-path, that presently led us through a guava plantation, the trees heavily laden with the fruit, which makes a capital preserve, but is far from nice to eat raw. It is in shape and colour somewhat like a small yellow pippin, with a reddish pulp, and the flavour being rather captivating, I had demolished two or three, when Flamingo picked two very fine ones, and shortened sail until I ranged alongside of him. He then deliberately broke first the one and then the other, and held up the halves to me; they were both full of worms.
"Dangerous for cattle," quoth Don Felix, dryly.
"Come, that is rough wit, Flamingo," chimed in Twig. "But never mind, Mr Brail. Cowsdodie of bots sometimes hereabouts, after trespassing; but then you know they also die of a surfeit of wet clover. At all events, there is nothing bucolical about you."
"Bots," thought I; "how remarkably genteel and comfortable, and what an uncommonly delicate fruit for a dessert."
Leaving the guava jungle, we proceeded through a district that seemed to have once been in cultivation, as all the high timber, with the exception of a solitary mahogany or cedar here and there, was cut down, and there was nothing to be seen but a thicket of palma Christi, or castor oil bushes, on every side. There had apparently been some heavy showers on this table land during the time we had been winding up the hill, as the bushes and long grass were sparkling brilliantly with rain-drops, and the ground was heavily saturated with water.
"Hillo, Twig, my darling," sung out uncle Lathom, who was the sternmost of all, except the servants, as westrungalong the narrow path in single file "mind you take the road to the right there—it will save us a mile."
"Ay, ay, sir," returned he of the Dream.
Master Flamingo, who was between him and me, was busy at this moment with his fowling-piece, that he carried in his hand; the fame of abundance of teal and quails in the Macgregor's neighbourhood having reached him before starting.
"What a very beautiful bird that is, Mr Brail," here he pointed with the gun to the huge branch of a cotton tree that crossed the path overhead, where a large parrot was perched, looking at us; one moment scratching its beak with its claws, and the next, peeping knowingly down, and slewing its head first to one side and then to the other—a parrot, amongst the feathered tribes, being unquestionably what a monkey is amongst quadrupeds.
"I should like to bring that chap down now," said Flam, stopping in his career, and damming us up in the narrow path, whereby we all became clustered in a group about him; then suiting the action to the word, he, without any farther warning, dropped the rein into the hollow of his arm, and taking aim, let drive—and away went the whole party helter skelter at the report, in every direction, by a beautiful centrifugal movement. If we had been rockets disposed like the spokes of a cart-wheel, with the matches converging to a centre, and fired all at once, we could scarcely have radiated more suddenly. It was quite surprising the precision with which we flew crashing through the wet bushes, some of us nearly unhorsed amongst them, if the truth were known:—and such shouting from whites and blacks, and uproarious laughter, as we all got once more into sailing order!
"Now, friend Felix," said Twig, as he and his horse emerged from the brushwood, with his pale yellow nankeens as dark with moisture as a wet sail, his shirt frill and collar as if the garment had been donned fresh from the washing-tub, and with the large silvery globules of moisture as thickly clustered on the black silk frogs of his coat as diamonds on the Dowager Lady Castlereagh's stomacher—there's a simile for you,—"now, friend Felix—give one some notice next time you begin your fusilade, if you please. Why, did you ever see a pulk of Cossacks on a forage, Mr Frenche?—I declare I am glad to find myself on the beaten path again, for my horse took so many turns that I was fairly dumfounded, and having no pocket-compass nor a sextant to take the sun by—you perceive I have been at sea, Master Brail—I thought I should have been lost entirely, until you should have been piloted to me some days hence by the John Crows. But ah, ye little fishes, what is that—whatisthat?"
It was neither more nor less than the sound of an ill-blown, yelling and grunting bagpipe. We rode on—the diabolical instrument squealing louder and louder—until the path ended in a cleared space amidst the brushwood, with a small one-storywattledhouse in the centre, having a little piazza in front, with a yard or two at each end, shut in with wooden blinds, sadly bleached by the weather. There was a group of half-naked negroes squatting before it, and a number of little naked black children, and a sprinkling of brown ones, running about, and puddling in a dirty pond, amongst innumerable ducks, fowls of many kinds, and at least a dozen pigs. "No signs of any approach to famine in the land at all events," thought I.
There was no rail or fence of any kind enclosing this building, which, to all appearance, was neither more nor less than a superior kind of negro-house. It stood on the very edge—indeed was overshadowed by some gigantic trees (beneath whose Babylonish dimensions it shrank to a dog-kennel) of the high natural forest, a magnificent vista through which opened right behind it, overarching a broken up and deeply rutted road, the path, apparently, through which some heavy timber had been drawn, it being part of Rory's trade to prepare mill-rollers and other large pieces of hard-wood required for the estates below.
In front of this shed—full fig, in regular Highland costume, philabeg, short hose, green coatee, bonnet and feather—marched the bagpiper, whose strains had surprised us so much, blowing his instrument, and strutting and swelling like a turkey-cock, to some most barbarous mixture of "a gathering of the clans," and the negro tune of "Guinea corn, I love for nyam you."
The fellow was a negro, and as black as the ace of spades—shade of Ossian, let thy departed heroes hereafter recline on clouds of tobacco smoke—and as we approached he "loud and louder blew," to the great discomfiture of our whole party, as the animals we bestrode seemed to like the "chanter" as little as they had done the report of Flamingo's gun, one and all resolutely refusing, as if by common consent, to face the performer—so there we were, jammed, snorting, and funking, and splashing each other to the eyes with mud of the complexion and consistency ofpeas brose, in the narrow path; Twig and I, the head of the column, as it were, being the only individuals visible on the fringe of the brushwood.
"I say, Rory—Rory Macgregor," shouted Twig, "do give over—do tell your black bagpiper to have done with his most infernal noise, and be hanged to him—or we must all go home again without our dinner—none of our horses willdebouchein the face of such a salutation, don't you see?"
"Ou ay, ou ay," rejoined Rory, emerging from the house himself, also dressed, like his man, in full Highland costume—and having desired the piper inGaelic, with the air of the hundredth and fiftieth cousin to "her Grace the Tuke," to ceaseher bumming, he marshalled us into the house, evidently in no small surprise that any breathing creature whatever, biped or quadruped, should have any the smallest objections to the "music of thecods."
The bagpiper, we found afterwards, was his servant, whom he had taken to Scotland with him two years before, and polished him there, through the instrumentality of a Highland Serjeant, to the brilliancy we had witnessed. However, let me be honest—he received us with the most superabundant kindness; and when we had retired into the inner part of the house, which was his dining-hall, he gave the word for dinner, and, every thing considered, the set out was exceedingly good—we had a noble pea-fowl—and, as if that had not been sufficient, a young turkey also—a capital round of beef—a beautiful small joint of mutton; excellent mountain mullet; a dish of Cray-fish; and a small sort of fresh-water lobster, three or four times bigger than a large prawn, which are found in great plenty below the stones in the Jamaica mountain streams—black or land crabs, wild-duck, and wild Guinea fowl, and a parrot-pie—only fancy a parrot-pie!—wild pigeons, and I don't know what all besides—in truth, a feast for six times our number—but in the opinion of our host, there appeared to be something wanting still.
"Tuncan," this was our friend the musician, who had laid down his instrument to officiate as butler—"Tuncan, whar hae ye stowed tae hackis—whar hae ye stowed tae hackis, man?—a Heeland shentleman's tinner is nae tinner ava without tae hackis!"
"Me no know, massa," quoth the Celticneger.
"You ton't know—ten you pehuvet to know, sir—Maister Frenche, shall I help you to aspaulof tae peacock hen?—Maister Flamingo, will you oplige me py cutting up tae turkey polt?"
"All the pleasure in life—whew!—what is this?" as a cloud of fragrant vapour gushed from the plump breast of the bird.
"As I am a shentleman, if tae prute peast of a cook has na stuffet tae turkey polt we tae hackis—as I am a shentleman!"
"And what is this, then," said Dr Tozy, a neighbouring surgeon, who was one of the party—and a mostcomfortablelooking personage in every sense of the word, as a dish, containing the veritable haggis to all appearance, was handed over his shoulder and placed on the table. "A deuced good-looking affair it is, I declare," looking at it through his eyeglass—"here is the real haggis, Master Macgregor, here it is."
"Ah, so it is—so it is"—quoth Rory, rubbing his hands. "Here, poy—here, Tuncan—pring it here—let me cut it up mysell—let me cut it mysell."
It was accordingly placed before Rory, who, all impatience, plunged his knife into it—murder, what ahautgout, and no wonder; for it actually proved to be a guava pudding, that the drunken cook had stuffed into the sheep's stomach!
However, we had all a good laugh, doing great honour, notwithstanding, to an excellent dinner; and when we began to enjoy ourselves over our wine, Dr Tozy and Twig, aided and abetted by Flamingo, amused us exceedingly by the fun they extracted from our friend Rory.
Mr Macgregor not being quite so polished a gentleman as his Majesty George IV., had been rather particular, shortly after this, in his notice of Mr Twig's coat—the colour of which some how did not please him.
"Noo, I taresay, Maister Twick, you ca' that plue—a plue coat—put I think it mair plack tan plue."
"Why, Mac, you are not so far wrong, it is more black than blue."
"Ah, so I thought," quoth Rory.
"And I'll give you the reason, if you promise not to tell," said Twig. "It is the first trial piece of my new patent cloth."
"Your patent cloth!" whispered the last of the Goths, "haveyoua patent for cloth."
"To be sure I have—that never loses the colour, and is as impervious to wet as a lawyer's wig, or a duck's wing."
"It al no pe a Mackintosh, will it?"
"Mackintosh!" exclaimed his jovial friend—"Mackintosh!—why Charley cannot hold the candle to me—no, no, it is the first spun out of—here lend me your lugs," and he laid hold of the Highland man's ear, so as to draw his head half across the table in a most ludicrous fashion. "It is made entirely out of negro wool."
"Necroo wool?" rejoined Rory, lying back in his chair, holding up his hands, and looking to the roof, with a most absurd expression of face, half credulous, half doubting—"wool from tae veritable neger's heads, tid you say?"
"Negro-head wool, Rory, every fibre of it. The last bale I sent home was entirely composed of the autumn shearing of my own people at the Dream—I sent it to some manufacturing friends of mine in Halifax"—and, holding out his sleeve—"there, the Duke of Devonshire patronises it, I assure ye—nothing else will go down next season at Almack's."
"Allmac's?" exclaimed Rory, "to you mean to say it will shoopersede tae forty-second tartan?"
"Ay, and ninety-second too. However, I find it will not take on indigo freely, in consequence of the essential oil."
"Oil!" said Rory; "creeshy prutes."
"So, in consequence, I intend after this to confine the manufacture toblackcloth, which will require no dye you know; if you choose to contract, Rory, I will give you half-a-crown per pound for all you can deliver during the next year—or threepence a-fleece—head, I mean—and that is the top of the market for Spanish wool—but it must be clean—free of—you understand?"
By this time I perceived that Dr Tozy and Flamingo were both literati in a small way, whereby one or two amusing mistakes took place on the part of Master Rory Macgregor, who, of all points of the compass, had no pretensions to any kind or description of erudition.
The conversation happened to turn on Irish politics, and Mr Frenche had just remarked that, notwithstanding all the noise and smoke of the demagogues who lived and battened on the disturbances of the country, he believed on his conscience, from what he saw, when he was last in Ireland, that there were very few influential men of respectability or property who countenanced them or their doings.
"Yet, strange as it does appear, there are some, uncle," said I.
"Oh yes, undoubtedly," exclaimed Tozy, an Irishman himself; "but very few—very few indeed—mere drops in the bucket—rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
"Fat's tat, toctor?—is tat Creek?"
"Yes; it means capital brandy for a long drink," said Tozy, swigging off his glass of cold brandy grog as coolly as possible.
"What an expressive language!—maist as much sae as tae Gaelic. To you know, py the very soond, I guessed it was something apoot pranty and a long trink?" quoth Rory.
"You shine to-day, doctor," said Twig; but presently Flamingo flew off with the thread of the conversation, like a magpie stealing twine, and I forget the prominent topics we discussed, but we had a great deal of fun and laughter, until Don Felix once more settled down in some literary talk with Tozy, and incidentally noticed the Decameron of Boccaccio.
Rory, unfortunate Rory, once more pricked up his ears at this, and determined to show his conversational powers now, if he had been interrupted before, being by this time also a little in the wind. So, after grunting to himself, "Cameron—Cameron," he, after a moment's thought, perked himself up in his chair and swore stoutly that he knewhimvery well—"as fine a chiel as ever pore the name of Cameron, and her place was ane of tae finest in the west coast of Arkyleshire—na, am no shust shure put she may pe a farawa' cousin of Lochiel's hersell."
"The very same," quoth Twig, trotting away with the Macgregor, as if he had got him on one of his ownshelties, and entering on a long rambling conversation, during which he took care to butter him an inch thick—"Why, you do make the shrewdest remarks, Mac; shrewd! nay, the wisest, I should say. You really knowevery thingandevery body—you are a perfect Solon."
Flamingo here saw, and so did I, that Macgregor—whether he began to feel that Jacob was quizzing him or not, I could not tell—looked as black as thunder, so he good-humouredly struck in with—"Now, Jacob, do hold your tongue, you are such a chatterbox!"
"Chatterbox!—to be sure—I can't help it. I have dined on parrot-pie, you know, Felix."
"I wish tae hat peen hoolets for your sake, Maister Twick," said Roderick, fiercely.
"Why, Rory, why? An owl-pie would not quite suit my complexion.—But, hang it, man, what is wrong? Judging from your own physiog, one might suppose you had been making your dinner on the bird of Minerva yourself."
"Maister Twick," said Rory, with a face as sour as vinegar, "I am unwilling to pe uncivil in my own house;—but I red you no to pe sae free wi' your nicknames."
"Nicknames!" interjected Twig, in great surprise.
"Yes, sir—you have taken tae unwarrantaple liperty of calling me a Solan—yes, sir, a Solan.—Tid you mean it offensively, sir?"
"No offence, Mac," shouted Twig, "none in the least.—Offence!—in likening you to Solon, the glory of Greece—the great lawgiver—theAthenianSolon!"
Rory grew frantic at this (as he thought) additional insult.—"Creese—Creese!—I ken o' nae Solans, sir, put tae filthy ill-faured pirds tat leeve in tae water."