Kitabı oku: «The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844», sayfa 6
Our invalid was now enjoying a momentary interval of ease, and welcomed his guest very cheerfully, although without attempting to do more than extend his hand to him and beg him to sit near. Notwithstanding all deafness the compliments of the morning, the enquiries after different members of each other’s family, and the comments on the weather, were made and understood and interchanged with great facility, and the visit went off swimmingly; until the stout gentleman, probably actuated by his desire to speak of his successful purchase of the morning, ventured, at the first pause, to ask his acquaintance if he were fond of fish?
‘I thank you,’ said the latter, ‘the mare is decidedly better; that bleeding in the hoof did her business completely, and I don’t doubt that by autumn she will be as well as ever.’
‘I asked you,’ said the visitor, in a determined tone, and like a person who has something to say, ‘I asked you, whether you were fond of Fish?’—Alas! my masters! how many unnecessary, how many futile, how many absurd questions, among the idle words that are dignified with the title of conversation, are daily propounded in this grave world of ours! Fond of fish! Fond of Fish! and that fish, a Shad! and that shad, a Connecticut River Shad! and that Connecticut River Shad, a prime brace of shad! in the highest season, and the highest order, and the finest brace of shad in the entire haul of Enoch Smith, now yet quivering, without the loss of one radiant scale, upon the snow-white dresser of this man’s imagination! Ought I to call it, an imagination? Ought I to go on with the story, or abandon it as an impracticable thing? Fond of fish!
Oh commend me to a life of leisure in a small town upon the right bank of the River Connecticut, and let my lease begin at the beginning of the shad season! Give me Enoch Smith to draw the seine, a green lane to conduct me to the river shore, and a Claude Lorraine morning for my day of purchase! Fond of Fish! Why what an idea, to be conveyed upon the subject of this brace of shad, from one Christian Being to another Christian Being, who had both—as it is to be supposed—read and studied the lives of the apostles! Fond of Fish!!!
But the stout man, finding that he was not apprehended, reiterated the remarkable question; and in a still louder tone, exclaimed: I—asked—you—whether—you—are—fond—of—Fish?’ making a pause between each of these peculiar words, and shooting the last word of the singular interrogatory out of his mouth, by means of his fore-teeth and a most emphatic under-lip, as a boy does a marble with the bent fore-finger and thumb of the right hand.
‘I perceive,’ said the quiet person upon the couch, ‘that you are asking me a question; but really the rhumatis, (this is the way in which the quiet person upon the couch thought proper to pronounce it,) has, I think, quite got the better of my right ear. Would you do me the favour,’ continued he, turning the left side of his head toward his interlocutor with the suavity of a person already obliged, ‘would you do me the great favour to repeat your enquiry?’
‘I asked you,’ said the other, growing scarlet in the gills like the shad of his imagination, ‘I—merely—asked—you,’—for he began (I thought at the time) to grow vexed with the absurdity of his position in having given utterance to a conception at once so feeble and yet so eccentrick; and being a coarse man, could only get out by passionately going through what he had to say; ‘if—you—were—fond—of—Fish?’ And on this occasion each word seemed to me to have the force of a pistol-shot, and the last word that of a cannon ball; and he rose as he spoke like a man of might and purpose as he was, and clenched his hand, and quivered upon the stout bow legs that sustained him as he stood: ‘Fish,’ roared he! ‘Fish,’ shouted he! ‘I asked you if you were fond of FISH,’ thundered he!
‘I quite regret being so very deaf to-day, and yet I should be sorry,’ replied his imperturbable friend, fumbling in his pockets and looking about the couch, ‘to lose any observation of yours, and particularly one in which you seem so earnest; here is a piece of paper, and here is a pencil; be kind enough to write it down while I get on my glasses.’ By the time his eyes were reinforced the paper was ready, and glancing it over he answered at once, raising himself suddenly upward, as he exclaimed at the utmost reach of his voice and with deep and increasing energy, ‘Oh, Very!’ ‘Very!’ ‘Very!’
‘Good morning, Mr. Johnson,’ said his now blown and indignant visitor. ‘Are you off? Well, good morning, captain!’ replied the other; and as soon as the door was closed, ‘My neighbor Captain Tompkins, I am sorry to perceive, has grown quite as deaf as myself,’ said he in a musing manner. ‘If I had his legs—’tis there he has the advantage of me—if I had his legs, I could have collected all the news of the parish in the time that he has been prosing here about my mare! And I wanted too to know something this morning about shad. Here, Sally! tell Bob to run down the lane and find out whether Enoch Smith is going to draw soon; and if Bob meet any persons on the way with shad let him ask the price of the day before he says a word to Smith.’
Away flew the little flaxen-haired fairy with her eyes of sapphire, leaving her grandfather to relapse upon his couch in the posture in which we first saw him, and to moralize on the impatience with which his neighbour Captain Tompkins seemed to bear the approaching infirmities of age. And now, Dear Reader, do thou emulate the patience of the old Valetudinarian, while I relieve thee of my further presence; or, if thou wilt permit the thought to enter the charities of thine heart, vanish from thee like the blue-eyed girl.
John Waters.
TO A CERTAIN BOUQUET
I
In chill December’s month, sweet flowers!
Your brilliant eyes first saw the light;
And you, instead of sun and showers,
Had watering-pots and anthracite.
II
Go ye to Mary then, and while
Ye cease to mourn for summer skies,
Bask in the sunbeam of her smile,
And the sweet heaven of her eyes.
Horace.
APOSTROPHE TO TIME
Grave of the mighty past!
Ocean of time! whose surges breaking high,
Wash the dim shores of old Eternity,
Year after year has cast
Spoils of uncounted value unto thee,
And yet thou rollest on, unheeding, wild and free.
Within thy caverns wide,
The charnel-house of ages! gathered lie
Nations and empires, flung by destiny
Beneath thy flowing tide:
There rest alike the monarch and the slave;
There is no galling chain, no crown beneath thy wave.
The conqueror in his pride
Smiled a defiance, and the warrior stood
Firm as the rock that bides the raging flood;
The poet turned aside
And flung upon thy breast the wreath of Fame,
And thou hast swept away perchance his very name!
The craven and the brave,
The smile of blooming youth, and grey-haired age,
The ragged peasant and the learned sage,
Have found in thee a grave:
The vanquished land and despot on his ear,
Went down beneath thy wave, as falls the glancing star.
Thou hast the soaring thought,
The lofty visions of the daring soul;
The piercing eye, that bade the darkness roll
From Nature’s laws, and sought
For years to trace her mysteries divine:
Oh! who shall count the gems that glitter on thy shrine?
Yet more is thine, proud sea!
Thou hast the mighty spoils of human wo,
The bright hopes crushed, the dark and bitter flow
Of grief and agony;
Thou hast the burning tears of wild despair,
Thou the wrung spirit’s cry, the broken heart’s strong prayer.
Thou hast the deathless love,
That smiled upon the storm and warred with life,
And looked serene, unscathed by earthly strife,
To realms of light above:
Thy priceless gems! oh! dost thou treasure these,
The jewels of the heart, within thy trackless seas?
When the loud voice of God
Shall shake the earth, and like a gathered scroll
At His command the boundless skies shall roll;
When from the grassy sod
The living soul shall start to life sublime,
Wilt thou not render back thy spoils, insatiate Time?
M. G.
REMINISCENCES OF A DARTMOOR PRISONER
NUMBER TWO
It was my intention in closing my last number to have opened the next in the prison, and then to proceed with the narrative; but upon reflection, I thought it might be more acceptable to the reader if I were to relate all that took place; giving as it were a moving panorama of the events as they occurred: but if he should be in greater haste to get to the prison than I was, he has only to skip a few lines, to arrive there. But to proceed. Our vessel, with several others, anchored at Gravesend, where the crews received their pay. The amount coming to me, although small, was very acceptable. I now received from the captain what he ought to have given me on my joining his ship. I had stipulated with him, on signing his papers, that he should give me a written pledge, exonerating me from fighting against my country, should we fall in with any of our vessels. This he withheld until the end of the voyage; and then, when it could be of no possible use, he most magnanimously gave it to me. What the result would have been had we fallen in with any of our cruisers, is beyond conjecture.
All was now bustle and confusion on board. The ship was like a floating Babel. The decks were crowded with hucksters, boatmen, landlords, and women of undoubted character; all upon one errand, and actuated by one motive; united in purpose though divided by interest, they were bent upon fleecing poor Jack of his hard-earned money. No doubt they succeeded, for Jack is at best but a poor financier.
Amid the confusion, I managed to slip unobserved on board a Gravesend boat which was crowded with passengers, and in a few minutes was flying before a smart breeze, on my way to London. It was past sun-down, and the shades of evening were fast veiling surrounding objects as we approached this vast and mighty city, the heart’s-core as it were of the world. I cannot express my feelings, nor convey by words the ideas that swelled my mind until the sensation became intensely exciting, as the dusky spires of the Tower, St. Paul’s, etc., peered above the smoky atmosphere. All that I had read from early childhood of London, its bridges, towers and domes, came rushing and crowding upon my memory. It was lamp-light when we landed at Wapping, (gas was then unknown,) and I felt the full force of my lonely condition. Young and inexperienced; surrounded by vast multitudes, yet known to none; I was completely bewildered.
I was aroused from my reverie by a person touching my elbow, and inquiring if I wanted lodgings. He was a keeper of a boarding-house; and thinking I might as well be imposed upon by him as by any other of the fraternity, I accepted his offer to show me to his house. I went home with him, and agreed to pay him a guinea per week for such board and accommodations as might be had for half that price by any one but a stranger. I ate more fresh salmon during the short time I tarried with him, than I ever did before or since. I infer from this that it must have been very cheap, as his object was more to make money than to accommodate. I was in London about three weeks, and during that time made the best use of my poor means to learn all I could of a place I had longed but never hoped to see. As I traversed Tower Hill, my mind wandered back for centuries, and dwelt upon the strange events in history which had been enacted there; of the soil where I stood, that had been moistened by the blood of monarchs, soldiers and statesmen. As I gazed upon the massive gray walls of the Tower, the magic scenes of Shakspeare arose, and passed in review before me. I thought of Gloucester, Clarence, Hastings, Henry VI., his two murdered nephews: then came forth the unhappy Jane Shore, pale, exhausted, and starving; no one daring to offer a mouthful of food to save the poor wretch from death. But the scene changes. It is night; and I see Falstaff and his companions at the rising of the moon, ‘by whose light they steal.’ They go forth and are lost sight of in the misty shadows of those dark, time-worn buildings; and anon we hear him waging battle with the ‘ten men in buckram suits.’
Bartholomew Fair came on while I was in London. This I was desirous of witnessing; to see how far it would accord with the descriptions by ‘rare Ben Jonson,’ some centuries before. The weather proved remarkably fine, and I set out with my curiosity on tip-toe to see the sport. I had some distance to go; and as I turned up one street and down another, the throng of people increased, until my arrival at Smithfield, where the fair was held, and where the crowd became so dense as to be hardly passable. The spectators consisted of both sexes, of all ages and degrees. But how shall I describe the scene that presented itself? A large field of several acres was filled with tents, stages and booths, with Punch and Judys, quack doctors, mountebanks and monkeys, and cages containing wild animals of various kinds. The shouting of people, the cry of beasts, the beating of drums, the discord of the abortive attempts at music, producing such a triumph of discord as beggars description. ‘Verily,’ thought I, ‘time cannot have diminished the glories of Bartholomew Fair.’
Years have rolled on and passed by like the waves of the ocean, since I traversed the streets of London, but many a laugh have I had to myself as memory recalled a whimsical mistake which I stumbled upon in my peregrinations. In passing the streets I frequently saw fine portly-looking men dressed in blue coats, faced and trimmed with a profusion of broad gold lace; breeches and white stockings, and shoes with large buckles, and on their heads cocked hats or chapeaux, as large as coach-wheels. ‘Thinks I to myself,’ the continental wars are over, England has recalled her fleets, and the streets of London are swarming with admirals of the white and blue, off duty. What a blunder! They were a pack of fat, lazy footmen! My respect for what I supposed were the heroes of ‘England’s wooden walls’ was turned into contempt for men who could debase themselves by strutting about in the livery of those whom God created of the same materials as themselves. I sometimes (but very rarely) see such things in my own country; but when I do, my face burns with indignation at both master and man, to think that the one should require, and that the other should submit to such degradation.
I spent two or three weeks, as above stated, endeavoring in the mean time to get away as a hand on board some vessel bound to any port out of the jurisdiction of the British government. This I found more difficult than I had supposed; for London was at this time literally crowded with seamen dismissed from the China, Bengal and West-India fleets. I began to be anxious, as my money was getting rather low; and although I felt comparatively safe from being discovered among so great a multitude, still I thought it much the safest plan to get off if I could. It would have been well for me if I could have accomplished it, for notwithstanding my supposed security, I was suspected and watched. One day as I was seeking to obtain a situation on board a vessel bound to Marseilles, I was accosted by a suspicious individual. I was soon made acquainted with his business, and in a few hours I was on my way to prison. I did not much regret it. My money was all gone; and as the date of my first imprisonment was from an early period, I was in hopes of being among the first sent home, should a cartel be despatched with any of the prisoners. I was in a sad mistake, as it was only United States’ seamen and soldiers who were exchanged. Had I imagined half of the trouble and sorrow that awaited me, I should have acted with more caution; but it was too late, and I had to abide my fate.
It was a beautiful morning in autumn, and our journey was through a delightful country. The fields were enclosed in hedges instead of fences, which had a novel and pleasing effect, especially to me, as I was not accustomed to seeing the like; and I should have enjoyed it very much had I been on any other errand than going to prison. It was near sunset when we arrived at a bend in the river Medway, where lay moored several huge dark hulls, that were once the bulwark of the fast-anchored isle, but now used as receptacles for those who had the misfortune to become prisoners of war. We were soon swept alongside by one of the watermen in attendance, and in a few moments more were on board the ‘Irresistible.’ I was conducted below and introduced to my future associates.
It was several minutes before I could discern the objects around me. It was like going into a cellar. The only air and light were admitted through port-holes, few and far between, which were left open for the purpose, and secured by strong iron gratings to prevent escape. As soon as I regained the use of my sight, I began to look around me to ‘define my position;’ and I believe it would have puzzled the ingenuity of the most acute politician to know where he stood, had he been placed in the same ‘fix’ as myself. Casting a glance around, I found myself amidst a squalid, cadaverous throng of about six hundred, ranging from about fourteen to sixty years of age; and I never beheld a set of more wretched human beings. They were nearly starved and almost naked, and wholly unable to take exercise, from their crowded condition. It was too dark to read, and they yielded their minds up to corroding despondency, and became sullen and morose. Their features became rigid; and to see a smile upon a face was like a sunbeam illumining a thunder-cloud.
I must here record an unparalleled instance of self-denial, love and devotion in the female character, seldom to be met with. One of the prisoners in making frequent voyages to the English ports, (I believe Liverpool,) had become acquainted with and married a young English woman early in the war. He was taken and sent on board one of these ships. No sooner was this made known to his young and affectionate wife, than she resolved to partake of all the hardships, privations, and imprisonment with him; and never ceased her exertions until she had accomplished her purpose. In admiration and respect for her heroic virtues, and kind feelings toward her husband, the prisoners screened off a small space for them with old canvass, etc., although much to their inconvenience, owing to the crowded condition of the ship. It was amid these trials and privations that she became a mother, and was covered by the American flag. They are now living in Newark, New-Jersey, enjoying each other’s society in the down-hill of life, and surrounded by a numerous family.
The prisoners were divided into companies or messes of six each; the provisions, which were very coarse and scanty, were prepared in a cook-house erected on the forward part of the upper-deck, and when ready, passed to the prisoners down below. Hammocks were provided for them to sleep in, which were slung side by side, so close as hardly to admit a passage between them. They were three tiers deep, bringing the lower ones within three feet of the floor. No light was allowed, and of course all was in utter darkness. And it was quite a perilous undertaking to go on a necessary excursion across the deck at night. Many was the one who became so bewildered in his journey that he could not find his lodgings, and had to sit down and quietly wait until morning; at which time all hands must turn out, lash up the hammocks and pass them upon the upper deck to be stowed away until night came round again, in order to make more room below. Several guards with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets constantly paced the upper deck; and aft, on the quarter-deck, were two carronades loaded to the muzzle and pointed forward. Two or three of the prisoners were permitted to come on deck at a time; but at night none were allowed on deck for any purpose whatever; the entrance being secured by strong gratings, and sentries stationed by them continually.
Time passed wearily on. Days seemed months and months appeared to be lengthened into years; and even existence itself had become as it were paralyzed by the monotonous life we led. It was an interposition of Divine Providence, that in our destitute and helpless condition we were not afflicted with any pestilential disease; as in the crowded state we were in, it must have made rapid and fearful havoc in our midst. At length it was rumored that the prisoners were to be removed; but where to, none of them knew. Several weeks passed on, and they were relapsing into their ordinary indifference to the state of things around them, when one morning word was passed among us that a draft of one hundred was to be sent to Dartmoor prison, and those who thought proper might volunteer; but that that number must go at any rate. So seeing it was ‘Grumble you may, but go you must,’ was the order of the day, the number required soon availed themselves of the privilege, and were sent in barges on board the vessel which was to convey them to their future abode. Other drafts were sent from time to time, until the whole were removed. For myself, I remained until the last: I felt a reluctance to leave what I knew to be bad, for what I feared might be worse. It was to a ‘bourne whence no traveller returned’ to disclose the secrets of the prison-house.
At last the time had arrived when the remnant were to leave. We were all mustered upon deck, numbering about one hundred and fifty. Our baggage, poor and scant as it was, we had need to take the utmost care of, as winter was advancing, and we knew of no means of procuring more. We were then conveyed in barges and put on board the ‘Leyden,’ an old sixty-four gun ship, taken from the Dutch in by-gone days, and now used for a transport for troops, prisoners, etc. In due course of time we were landed in Plymouth. It was early on a bleak, cloudy morning, late in the autumn, that we disembarked, and were placed in immediate line of march, under a guard of a sufficient number of soldiers with loaded muskets, who had orders to shoot down the first who evinced a disposition to leave the line. The whole was under the command of a captain, lieutenant, etc., who were on horseback. We had been on the road scarcely an hour, when the rain, which had been threatening all the morning, now came down with sweeping fury; and although not sufficiently cold to freeze, yet it possessed a keenness that appeared to penetrate the skin. The roads being of a clayey soil soon became of the consistency of mortar by the tramping of so many feet, and our march might have been traced for several miles by the old boots, shoes, and stockings, which were left sticking in the mud in the hurry of the march. I have no doubt that we made a very grotesque appearance, and raised many a smile from some of the passers-by. Our march continued throughout the day without interruption, save occasional short halts to bring up those who lagged behind; for many began to be exhausted from cold, fatigue and hunger. We had not tasted a morsel of food since the day before.
As we advanced, the scene became more gloomy. Habitations became fewer, and the hedged and cultivated fields gave place to moors and ‘blasted heaths;’ and the sombre hue of the sky imparted the same tone to our feelings. Night had now overtaken us, and the rain was still pouring down in torrents. Way-worn and hungry, we hailed our gloomy prison, which now presented itself, and we looked upon it almost with joy. From the darkness of the night we could scarcely discern the dim outline of its lofty walls and ponderous gates, as they swung open, grating upon their hinges, to engulf a fresh supply of misery within that sepulchre of the living. We were now thrust into a building, reeking wet and benumbed with cold. All was in total darkness, and we were in dread of breaking some of our limbs, should we undertake to explore the limits or condition of our prison. As it was, we were fain to lie down upon the stone pavement which formed the floor of our abode. In this state we passed a long and weary night, without bedding or covering of any kind, as our baggage had not yet arrived. A description of the prison of Dartmoor, and of the scenes and occurrences which took place within its walls, I shall defer to a subsequent number, as it would occupy too much space to be embodied in this.