ARTHUR O’LEARY.
CHAPTER I. THE “ATTWOOD.”
Old Woodcock says, that if Providence had not made him a Justice of the Peace, he’d have been a vagabond himself. No such kind interference prevailed in my case. I was a vagabond from my cradle. I never could be sent to school, alone, like other children—they always had to see me there safe, and fetch me back again. The rambling bump monopolized my whole head. I’m sure my god-father must have been the wandering Jew, or a king’s messenger. Here I am again, en route, and sorely puzzled to know whither? There’s the fellow for my trunk.
“What packet, sir?”
“Eh? What packet? The vessel at the Tower stairs?”
“Yes, sir; there are two with the steam up, the Rotterdam and the Hamburgh.”
“Which goes first?”
“Why, I think the Attwood, sir.”
“Well, then, shove aboard the Attwood. Where is she for?”
“She’s for Rotterdam.——He’s a queer cove too,” said the fellow under his teeth, as he moved out of the room, “and don’t seem to care where he goes.”
A capital lesson in life may be learned from the few moments preceding departure from an inn. The surly waiter that always said “coming” when he was leaving the room, and never came, now grown smiling and smirking; the landlord expressing a hope to see you again, while he watches your upthrown eyebrows at the exorbitancy of his bill: the boots attentively looking from your feet to your face, and back again; the housemaid passing and repassing a dozen times, on her way, no where, with a look half saucy, half shy; the landlord’s son, an abortion of two feet high, a kind of family chief remembrancer, that sits on a high stool in the bar, and always detects something you have had, that was not “put down in the bill”—two shillings for a cab, or a “brandy and water;” a curse upon them all; this poll-tax upon travellers is utter ruin; your bill, compared to its dependencies, is but Falstaffs “pennyworth of bread,” to all the score for sack.
Well, here I am at last. “Take care I say! you’ll upset us. Shove off, Bill; ship your oar,” splash, splash. “Bear a hand. What a noise, they make,” bang, crash, buzz; what a crowd of men in pilot coats and caps; women in plaid shawls and big reticules, band-boxes, bags, and babies, and what higgling for sixpences with the wherrymen.
All the places round the companion are taken by pale ladies in black silk, with a thin man in spectacles beside them; the deck is littered with luggage, and little groups seated thereon; some very strange young gentlemen with many-coloured waistcoats are going to Greenwich, and one as far as Margate; a widow and daughters, rather prettyish girls, for Herne Bay; a thin, bilious-looking man of about fifty, with four outside coats, and a bearskin round his legs, reading beside the wheel, occasionally taking a sly look at the new arrivals.—I’ve seen him before; he is the Secretary of Embassy at Constantinople; and here’s a jolly-looking, rosy-cheeked fellow, with a fat florid face, and two dashing-looking girls in black velvet. Eh! who’s this? Sir Peter, the steward calls him; a London Alderman going up the Rhine for two months—he’s got his courier, and a strong carriage, with the springs well corded for the pavé;—but they come too fast for counting: so now I’ll have a look after my berth.
Alas! the cabin has been crowded all the while by some fifty others, wrangling, scolding, laughing, joking, complaining, and threatening, and not a berth to be had.
“You’ve put me next the tiller,” said one; “I’m over the boiler,” screamed another.
“I have the pleasure of speaking to Sir Willoughby Steward,” said the captain, to a tall, gray-headed, soldier-like figure, with a closely-buttoned blue, frock. “Sir Willoughby, your berth is No. 8.”
“Eh! that’s the way they come it,” whispers a Cockney to his friend. “That ere chap gets a berth before us all.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” says the baronet mildly, “I took mine three days ago.”
“Oh! I didn’t mean anything,” stammers out the other, and sneaks off.
“Laura-Mariar—where’s Laurar?” calls out a shrill voice from the aft-cabin.
“Here, Ma,” replies a pretty girl, who is arranging her ringlets at a glass, much to the satisfaction of a young fellow in a braided frock, that stands gazing at her in the mirror with something very like a smile on his lip.
There’s no mistaking that pair of dark-eyed fellows with aquiline noses and black ill-shaven beards—Hamburgh or Dutch Jews, dealers in smuggled lace, cigars, and Geneva watches, and occasionally small money-lenders. How they scan the company, as if calculating the profit they might turn them to! The very smile they wear seems to say, ‘Comment c’est doux de tromper les Chrétiens.’ But, holloa! there was a splash! we are moving, and the river is now more amusing than the passengers.
I should like to see the man that ever saw London from the Thames; or any part of it, save the big dome of St. Paul’s, the top of the Monument, or the gable of the great black wharf inscribed with “Hodson’s Pale Ale.” What a devil of a row they do make. I thought we were into that fellow. See, here’s a wherry actually under our bow; where is she now? are they all lost already? No! there they go bobbing up and down, and looking after us, as if asking, why we didn’t sail over them. Ay! there comes an Indiaman, and that little black slug that ‘s towing her up against the stream, is one of the Tug Company’s craft; and see how all the others at anchor keep tossing and pitching about, as we pass by, like an awkward room full of company, rising at each new arrival.
There’s Greenwich! a fine thing Greenwich. I like the old fellows that the first lord always makes stand in front, without legs or arms; a cheery sight: and there’s a hulk, or an hospital ship, or something of that kind.
“That’s the Hexcellent,” saith a shrill voice behind me.
“Ah! I know her, she’s a revenue cruizer.”
Lord, what liars are the Cockneys! The plot thickens every moment; here come little bright green and gold things, shooting past, like dragon-flies skimming the water, steaming down to Gravesend. What a mob of parasols cover the deck, and what kissing of hands and waving of handkerchiefs to anonymous acquaintances nowhere. More steamers—here’s the “Boulogne boat,” followed by the Ostender, and there, rounding the reach, comes the Ramsgate; and a white funnel, they say, is the Cork packet; and yonder, with her steam escaping, is the Edinburgh, her deck crowded with soldiers.
“Port—port it is—steady there—steady.”
“Do you dine, sir!” quoth the steward to the pale gentleman. A faint “Yes,” “And the ladies too?” A more audible “No.”
“I say, steward,” cries Sir Peter, “what’s the hour for dinner?”
“Four o’clock, sir, after we pass Gravesend.”
“Bring me some brandy and water and a biscuit, then.”
“Lud, Pa!”
“To be sure, dear, we shall be sick in the pool. They say there’s a head wind.”
How crowded they are on the fore-part of the vessel! six carriages and eight horses; the latter belong to a Dutch dealer, who, by-the-by, seems a shrewd fellow, who, well knowing the extreme sympathy between horses and asses, leaves the care of his, to some Cockneys, who come down every half hour to look after the tarpaulins, inspect the coverings,