Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands

“Among my visitors was an old captain of the rough school of military habit, with all the dry jokes of the recruiting service, and all the coarseness which a life spent for the most part in remote stations, and small detachments, is sure to impart. This old fellow, Mat Hubbart, a well known name in the Glengarries, had the greatest partiality for practical jokes – and could calculate to a nicety, the precise amount of a liberty which any man’s rank in the service permitted, without the risk of being called to account: and the same scale of equivalents, by which he established the nomenclature for female rank in the army, was regarded by him as the test for those licences he permitted himself to take with any man beneath him: and as he spoke of the colonel’s ‘lady,’ the major’s ‘wife,’ the captain’s ‘woman,’ the lieutenant’s ‘thing’ – so did he graduate his conduct to the husbands – never transgressing for a moment on the grade, by any undue familiarity, or any unwonted freedom. With me, of course, his powers were discretionary – or rather, had no discretion whatever. I was a kind of military outlaw, that any man might shoot at – and certainly, he spared not his powder in my behalf.

“Among the few reliques of my Indian life, was a bear-skin cap and hood, which I prised highly. It was a present from my old guide – his parting gift – when I put into his hands the last few pieces of silver I possessed in the world. This was then to me a thing, which, as I had met with not many kindnesses in the world, I valued at something far beyond its mere price; and would rather have parted with any, or everything I possessed, than lose it. Well, one day on my return from a fishing excursion, as I was passing the door of the mess-room, what should I see but a poor idiot that frequented the barrack, dressed in my bear-skin.

“‘Holloa! Rokey,’ said I, ‘where did you get that?’ scarce able to restrain my temper.

“‘The captain gave it me,’ said the fellow, touching his cap, with a grateful look towards the mess-room window, where I saw Captain Hubbart standing, convulsed with laughter.

“‘Impossible!’ said I – yet half-fearing the truth of his assertion. ‘The Captain couldn’t give away what’s mine, and not his.’

“‘Yes, but he did though,’ said the fool, ‘and told me, too, he’d make me the “talk man” with the Indians, if you didn’t behave better in future.’

“I felt my blood boil up as I heard these words. I saw at once that the joke was intended to insult and offend me; and he probably meant as, a lesson, for my presumption, a few evenings before, since I had the folly, in a moment of open-hearted gaiety, to speak of my family, and perhaps to boast of my having been a gentleman: I hung my head in shame, and all my presence of mind was too little to allow me to feign a look of carelessness as I walked by the window: from whence the coarse laughter of the captain was now heard peal after peal. I shall not tell you how I suffered when I reached my hut, and what I felt at every portion of this transaction. One thing forcibly impressed itself on my mind, that the part I was playing must be an unworthy one, or I had never incurred such a penalty; that if these men associated with me, it was on terms which permitted all from them – nothing, in return; and for a while, I deemed no vengeance enough to satisfy my wounded pride. Happily for me, my thoughts took another turn, and I saw that the position in which I had placed myself, invited the insolence it met with; and that if any man stoop to be kicked in this world, he’ll always find some kind friend ready to oblige him with the compliment. Had an equal so treated me, my course had presented no difficulty whatever Now, what could I do?

“While I pondered over these things, a corporal came up to say, that a party of the officers were about to pay me a visit after evening parade, and hoped I’d have something for supper for them. Such was the general tone of their invitations, and I had received in my time above a hundred similar messages, without any other feeling than one of pride, at my being in a position to have so many distinguished guests. Now, on the contrary, the announcement was a downright insult: my long sleeping pride suddenly awakened, I felt all the contumely of my condition; and: my spirit, sunk for many a day in the slavish observance of a miserable vanity, rebelled against farther outrage. I muttered a hasty ‘all right,’ to the soldier, and turned away to meditate on some scheme of vengeance.

“Having given directions to my Indian follower, a half-breed fellow of the most cunning description, to have all ready in the wigwam; I wandered into the woods. To no use was it that I thought over my grievance, nothing presented itself in any shape as a vindication of my wounded feelings – nor could I see how anything short of ridicule could ensue, from all mention of the transaction. The clanking sound of an Indian drum broke on my musings, and told me that the party were assembled; and on my entering the wigwam, I found them all waiting for me. There were full a dozen; many who had never done me the honour of a visit previously, came on this occasion to enjoy the laugh at my expense, the captain’s joke was sure to excite. Husbanding their resources, they talked only about indifferent matters – the gossip and chit-chat of the day – but still with such a secret air of something to come, that even an ignorant observer could notice, that there was in reserve somewhat that must abide its time for development. By mere accident, I overheard the captain whisper in reply to a question of one of the subalterns – ‘No! no! – not now – wait, till we have the punch up.’ I guessed at once that such was the period they proposed to discuss the joke played off at my cost, and I was right; for no sooner had the large wooden bowl of sangaree made its appearance, than Hubbart filling his glass; proposed a bumper to our new ally, Rokey; a cheer drowned half his speech, which ended in a roar of laughter, as the individual, so complimented, stood at the door of the wigwam, dressed out in full costume with my bear-skin.

“I had just time to whisper a command to my Indian imp, concluding with an order for another bowl of sangaree, before the burst of merriment had subsided – a hail-storm of jokes, many, poor enough, but still cause for laughter, now pelted me on every side. My generosity was lauded, my good taste extolled, and as many impertinences as could well be offered up to a man at his own table, went the round of the party. No allusion was spared either to my humble position as interpreter to the force, or my former life among the Indians, to furnish food for joke; even my family – of whom, as I have mentioned, I foolishly spoke to them lately – they introduced into their tirade of attack and ridicule, which nothing but a sense of coming vengeance could hove enabled me to endure.

“‘Come, come,’ said one, ‘the bowl is empty. I say, O’Kelly, if you wish us to be agreeable, as I’m certain you find us, will you order a fresh supply?’

“‘Most willingly,’ said I, ‘but there is just enough left in the old bowl to drink the health of Captain Hubbart, to whom we are certainly indebted for most of the amusement of the evening. Now, therefore, if you please, with all the honours, gentlemen – for let me say, in no one quality has he his superior in the regiment. His wit we can all appreciate; his ingenuity I can speak to; his generosity – you have lauded ‘mine’ – but think of ‘his.’ As I spoke I pointed to the door, where my ferocious-looking Indian stood, in all his war-paint, wearing on his head the full-dress cocked-hat of the captain, while over his shoulders was thrown his large blue military-cloak, over which, he had skilfully contrived to make a hasty decoration of brass ornaments, and wild-birds’ feathers.

“‘Look there!’ said I, exultingly, as the fellow nodded his plumed-hat and turned majestically round, to be fully admired.

“‘Have you dared, sir?’ – roared he, frothing with passion and clenching his fist towards me – but a perfect cheer of laughter overpowered his words. Many rolled off their seats and lay panting and puffing on the ground; some, turned away half-suffocated with their struggles, while a few, more timid than the rest, endeavoured to conceal their feelings, and seemed half-alarmed at the consequences of my impertinence. When the mirth had a little subsided, it was remarked, that Hubbart was gone – no one had seen how or when – but he was no longer among us.

“‘Come, gentlemen, said I, ‘the new bowl is ready for you, and your toast is not yet drunk. All going so early? Why, it’s not eleven yet.’

“But so it was – the impulse of merriment over – the esprit du corps came back in all its force, and the man, whose feelings they had not scrupled to outrage and insult, they turned on, the very moment he had the courage to assert his honour. One by one passed out – some, with a cool nod – others, a mere look – many, never even noticed me at all; and one, the last, I believe, dropping a little behind, whispered as he went, ‘Sorry for you, faith, but all your own doing, though.’

“‘My own doing,’ said I in bitterness, as I sat me down at the door of the wigwam. ‘My own doing!’ and the words ate into my very heart’s core. Heaven knows, had any one of them who left me, but turned his head, and looked at me then, as I sat – my head buried in my hands, my frame trembling with strong passion – he had formed a most false estimate of my feelings. In all likelihood, he would have regarded me as a man sorrowing over a lost position in society – grieved at the mistaken vanity that made him presume upon those who associated with him by grace especial, and never, on terms of equality. Nothing in the world was then farther from my heart: no, my humiliation had another source – my sorrowing penetrated into a deeper soil. I awoke to the conviction that my position was such, that even the temporary countenance they gave me by their society, was to be deemed my greatest honour, as its withdrawal should be my deepest disgrace – that these poor heartless brainless fools for whom I taxed my time, my intellect, and my means, were in the light of patrons to me. Let any man who has felt what it is to live among those on whose capacity he has looked down, while he has been obliged to pay homage to their rank – whose society he has frequented, not for pleasure nor enjoyment – not for the charm of social intercourse, or the interchange of friendly feeling, but for the mere vulgar object that he might seem to others to be in a position to which he had no claim – to be intimate, when he was only endured – to be on terms of ease, when he was barely admitted; let him sympathise with me. Now, I awoke to the full knowledge of my state, and saw myself at last in a true light. ‘My own doing!’ repeated I to myself. Would it had been so many a day since, ere I lost self-respect – ere I had felt the humiliation I now feel.”

“‘You are under arrest, sir,’ said the sergeant, as with a party of soldiers he stood prepared to accompany me to the quarters. “‘Under arrest! By whose orders?’

“‘The colonel’s orders,’ said the man briefly, and in a voice that showed I was to expect little compassion from one of a class who had long regarded me as an upstart, giving himself airs unbecoming his condition.

“My imprisonment, of which I dared not ask the reason, gave me time to meditate on my fortunes, and think over the vicisicitudes of my life, – to reflect on the errors which had rendered abortive every chance of success in whatever career I adopted; but, more than all, to consider how poor were all my hopes of happiness in the road I had chosen, while I dedicated to the amusement of others, the qualities which, if cultivated for myself, might be made sources of contentment and pleasure. If I seem prolix in all this – if I dwell on these memories, it is, first, because few men may not reap a lesson from considering them; and again, because on them hinged my whole future life.

“There, do you see that little drawing yonder? it is a sketch, a mere sketch I made from recollection, of the room I was confined in. That’s the St. Lawrence flowing beneath the window, and there, far in the distance, you see the tall cedars of the opposite bank. On that little table I laid my head the whole night long; I slept too, and soundly, and when I awoke the next day I was a changed man.

“‘You are relieved from arrest,’ said the same sergeant who conducted me to prison, ‘and the colonel desires to see you on parade.’

“As I entered the square, the regiment was formed in line, and the officers, as usual, stood in a group chatting together in the centre. A half smile, quickly subdued as I came near, ran along the party.

“‘O’Kelly,’ said the colonel, ‘I have sent for you to hear a reprimand which it is fitting you should receive at the head of the regiment, and which, from my knowledge of you, I have supposed would be the most effectual punishment I could inflict for your late disrespectful conduct to Captain Hubbart.’

“‘May I ask, colonel, have you heard of the provocation which induced my offence?’

“‘I hope, sir,’ replied he, with a look of stern dignity, ‘you are aware of the difference of your relative rank and station, and that, in condescending to associate with you, Captain Hubbart conferred an honour which doubly compensated for any liberty he was pleased to take. Read the general order, Lieutenant Wood.’

“A confused murmur of something, from which I could collect nothing, reached me; a vague feeling of weight seemed to press my head, and a giddiness that made me reel, was on me; and I only knew the ceremony was over, as I heard the order to march given, and saw the troops begin to move off the ground.

“‘A moment, colonel,’ said, I, in a voice that made him start and drew on me the look of all the others. ‘I have too much respect for you, and I hope also for myself, to attempt any explanation of a mere jest, where the consequences have taken a serious turn; besides, I feel conscious of one fault, far too grave a one, to venture on an excuse for any other I have been guilty of. I wish to resign my post. I here leave the badge of the only servitude I ever did, or ever intend to submit to; and now, as a free man once more, and a gentleman, too, if you’ll permit me, I beg to wish you adieu: and as for you, captain, I have only to add, that whenever you feel disposed for a practical joke, or any other interchange of politeness, Con O’Kelly will be always delighted to meet your views – the more so as he feels, though you may not believe it, something still in your debt.’

“With that I turned on my heel, and left the barrack-yard, not a word being spoken by any of the others, nor any evidence of their being so much amused as they seemed to expect from my exposure.

“Did it never strike you as a strange thing, that while none but the very poorest and humblest people can bear to confess to present poverty, very few men decline to speak of the narrow circumstances they have struggled through – nay, rather take a kind of pleasure in relating what difficulties once beset their path – what obstacles were opposed to their success? The reason perhaps is, there is a reflective merit in thus surmounting opposition.

“The acknowledgment implies a sense of triumph. It seams to say – ‘Here am I, such as you see me now, and yet time was, when I was houseless and friendless – when the clouds darkened around my path, and I saw not even the faintest glimmer of hope to light up the future; yet with a stout heart and strong courage, with the will came the way; and I conquered.’ I do confess, I could dwell, and with great pleasure too, on those portions of my life when I was poorest and most forsaken, in preference to the days of my prosperity, and the hours of my greatest wealth: like the traveller who, after a long journey through some dark winter’s day, finds himself at the approach of night, seated by the corner of a cheery fire in his inn; every rushing gust of wind that shakes the building, every plash of the beating rain against the glass, but adds to this sense of comfort, and makes him hug himself with satisfaction to think how he is no longer exposed to such a storm – that his journey is accomplished – his goal is reached – and as he draws his chair closer to the blaze, it is the remembrance of the past, gives all the enjoyment to the present. In the same way, the pleasantest memories of old age are of those periods in youth when we have been successful over difficulty, and have won our way through every opposing obstacle. ‘Joy’s memory is indeed no longer joy.’ Few can look back on happy hours without thinking of those with whom they spent them, and then comes the sad question, Where are they now? What man reaches even the middle term of life with a tithe of the friends he started with in youth; and as they drop off, one by one around him, comes the sad reflection, that the period is passed when such ties can be formed anew – The book of the heart once closed, opens no more. But why these reflections? I must close them, and with them my story at once.

“The few pounds I possessed in the world enabled me to reach Quebec, and take my passage in a timber vessel bound for Cork. Why I returned to Ireland, and with what intentions, I should be sorely puzzled, were you to ask of me. Some vague, indistinct feeling of home, connected with my birthplace had, perhaps, its influence over me. So it was – I did so.

[Editor’s Note: Another edition of this book (Downey and

Co., 1897) was scannned for the middle part of this etext as large portions of the original 1845 edition were defective.

The reader will note that the two editions initiate a quoted passages in different ways: the 1845 edition with a double quote and the 1897 edition with a single quotation mark.]

‘After a good voyage of some five weeks, we anchored in Cove, where I landed, and proceeded on foot to Tralee. It was night when I arrived. A few faint glimmering lights could be seen here and there from an upper window; but all the rest was in darkness. Instinctively I wandered on, till I came to the little street where my aunt had lived. I knew every stone in it. There was not a house I passed but I was familiar with all its history. There was Mark Cassidy’s provision store, as he proudly called a long dark room, the ceiling thickly studded with hams and bacon, coils of rope, candles, flakes of glue, and loaves of sugar; while a narrow pathway was eked out below between a sugar-hogshead, some sacks of flour and potatoes, hemp-seed, tar, and treacle, interspersed with scythe-blades, reaping-hooks, and sweeping-brushes – a great coffee-roaster adorning the wall, and forming a conspicuous object for the wonderment of the country-people, who never could satisfy themselves whether it was a new-fashioned clock or a weather-glass, or a little thrashing-machine or a money-box. Next door was Maurice Fitzgerald’s, the apothecary, a cosy little cell of eight feet by six, where there was just space left for a long-practised individual to grind with a pestle without putting his right elbow through a blue-glass bottle that figured in the front window, or his left into active intercourse with a regiment of tinctures that stood up, brown and muddy and fetid, on a shelf hard by. Then came Joe M’Evoy’s, “licensed for spirits and enthertainment,” where I had often stood as a boy to listen to the pleasant sounds of Larry Branaghan’s pipes, or to the agreeable ditties of “Adieu, ye shinin’ daisies, I loved you well and long,” as sung by him, with an accompaniment. Then there was Misther Moriarty’s, the attorney, a great man in the petty sessions, a bitter pill for all the country gentlemen; he was always raking up knotty cases of their decisions, and reporting them to the Limerick Vindicator under the cognomen of “Brutus” or “Coriolanus.” I could just see by the faint light that his house had been raised a storey higher, and little iron balconies, like railings, stuck to the drawing-room windows.

‘Next came my aunt’s. There it was: my foot was on the door where I stood as a child, my little heart wavering between fears of the unknown world without and hopes of doing something – Heaven knows what! – which would make me a name hereafter. And there I was now, after years of toil and peril of every kind, enough to have won me distinction, success enough to have made me rich, had either been but well directed; and yet I was poor and humble, as the very hour I quitted that home. I sat down on the steps, my heart heavy and sad, my limbs tired, and before many minutes fell fast asleep, and never awoke till the bright sun was shining gaily on one side of the little street, and already the preparations for the coming day were going on about me. I started up, afraid and ashamed of being seen, and turned into the little ale-house close by, to get my breakfast. Joe himself was not forthcoming; but a fat, pleasant-looking, yellow-haired fellow, his very image, only some dozen years younger, was there, bustling about among some pewter quarts and tin measures, arranging tobacco-pipes, and making up little pennyworths of tobacco.

‘“Is your name M’Evoy?” said I.

‘“The same, at your service,” said he, scarce raising his eyes from his occupation.

‘“Not Joe M’Evoy?”

‘“No, sir, Ned M’Evoy; the old man’s name was Joe.”

‘“He ‘s dead, then, I suppose?”

‘“Ay, sir; these eight years come Micklemass. Is it a pint or a naggin of sperits?”

‘“Neither; it’s some breakfast, a rasher and a few potatoes, I want most. I’ll take it here, or in the little room.”

‘“Faix, ye seem to know the ways of the place,” said he, smiling, as he saw me deliberately push open a small door, and enter a little parlour once reserved for favourite visitors.

‘“It’s many years since I was here before,” said I to the host, as he stood opposite to me, watching the progress I was making with my breakfast – “so many that I can scarce remember more than the names of the people I knew very-well. Is there a Miss O’Kelly living in the town? It was somewhere near this, her house.”

‘“Yes, above Mr. Moriarty’s, that’s where she lived; but sure she’s dead and gone, many a day ago. I mind Father Donnellan, the priest that was here before Mr. Nolan, saying Masses for her sowl, when I was a slip of a boy.”

‘“Dead and gone,” repeated I to myself sadly – for, though I scarcely expected to meet my poor old relative again, I cherished a kind of half hope that she might still be living. “And the priest, Father Donnellan, is he dead too?”

‘“Yes, sir; he died of the fever, that was so bad four years ago.”

‘“And Mrs. Brown that kept the post-office?”

‘“She went away to Ennis when her daughter was married there; I never heard tell of her since.”

‘“So that, in fact, there are none of the old inhabitants of the town remaining. All have died off?”

“Every one, except the ould captain; he’s the only one left”

‘“Who is he?”

‘“Captain Dwyer; maybe you knew him?”

‘“Yes, I knew him well; and he’s alive? He must be very old by this time.”

‘“He ‘s something about eighty-six or seven; but he doesn’t let on to more nor sixty, I believe; but, sure, talk of – God preserve us, here he is!”

‘As he spoke, a thin, withered-looking old man, bent double with age, and walking with great difficulty, came to the door, and, in a cracked voice, called out —

‘“Ned M’Evoy; here’s the paper for you; plenty of news in it, too, about Mister O’Connell and the meetings in Dublin. If Cavanagh takes any fish, buy a sole or a whiting for me, and send me the paper back.”

‘“There’s a gentleman, inside here, was just asking for you, sir,” said the host.

‘“Who is he? Is it Mr. Creagh? At your service, sir,” said the old man, sitting down on a chair near me, and looking at me from under the shadow of his hand spread over his brow. “You ‘re Mr. Studdart, I ‘m thinking?”

‘“No, sir; I do not suspect you know me; and, indeed, I merely mentioned your name as one I had heard of many years ago when I was here, but not as being personally known to you.”

‘“Oh, troth, and so you might, for I ‘m well known in these parts – eh, Ned?” said he, with a chuckling cackle, that sounded very like hopeless dotage. “I was in the army – in the ‘Buffs’; maybe you knew one Clancy who was in them?”

‘“No, sir; I have not many military acquaintances. I came here this morning on my way to Dublin, and thought I would just ask a few questions about some people I knew a little about. Miss O’Kelly – ”

‘“Ah, dear! Poor Miss Judy – she’s gone these two or three years.”