Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

“You confess it! you own it, then, you infernal rascal!” said the major, almost hoarse with rage.

“Oh, forgive me, sir! oh, forgive me! It was Mr Cregan, sir, the butler, who told me! Oh dear, I’m – ” What, he couldn’t finish; for the major, in relinquishing his grasp, flung him backwards, and he fell against the stairs.

“So it was Mr. – Cregan, – the – butler, – was it?” said the major, with an emphasis on each word as though he had bitten the syllables. “Well! as sure as my name is Tony McCan, Mr. Cregan shall pay for this! Turn about is fair play; you have marked me, and may I be drummer to the Cape Fencibles if I don’t mark you!” and with this denunciation, uttered in a tone, every accent of which vouched for truth, he took a hat – the first next to him – and issued from the house.

Shivering with terror, – and not without cause, – I waited till Smush had, with Sambo’s aid, carried downstairs the broken fragments; and then, the coast being clear, I stepped from my hiding-place, and opening the hall-door, fled, – ay, ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I crossed the grass terrace in front of the barrack, not heeding the hoarse “Who goes there?” of the sentry; and then, dashing along the battery-wall, hastened down the stairs that lead in successive flights to the filthy “Lower Town,” in whose dingy recesses I well knew that crime or shame could soon find a sanctuary.

CHAPTER XV. AN EMIGRANTS FIRST STEP ON SHORE

If I say that the Lower Town of Quebec is the St. Giles’s of the metropolis, I convey but a very faint notion indeed of that terrible locality. I have seen life in some of its least attractive situations. I am not ignorant of the Liberties of Dublin and the Claddagh of Galway; I have passed more time than I care to mention in the Isle St. Louis of Paris; while the Leopoldstadt of Vienna and the Ghetto of Rome are tolerably familiar to me; but still, for wickedness in its most unwashed state, I give palm to the Lower Town of Quebec.

The population, originally French, became gradually intermixed with emigrants, most of whom came from Ireland, and who, having expended the little means they could scrape together for the voyage, firmly believing that, once landed in America, gold was a “chimera” not worth troubling one’s head about, they were unable to go farther, and either became laborers in the city, or, as the market grew speedily overstocked, sunk down into a state of pauperism, the very counterpart of that they had left on the other side of the ocean. Their turbulence, their drunkenness, the reckless violence of all their habits, at first shocked and then terrified the poor timid Canadians, – of all people the most submissive and yielding, – so that very soon, feeling how impossible it was to maintain co-partnery with such associates, they left the neighborhood, and abandoned the field to the new race. Intermarriages had, however, taken place to a great extent; from which, and the daily intercourse with the natives, a species of language came to be spoken which was currently called French, but which might, certainly with equal propriety, be called Cherokee. Of course this new tongue modified itself with the exigencies of those who spoke it; and as the French ingredient declined, the Milesian preponderated, till at length it became far more Irish than French.

Nothing assists barbarism like a dialect adapted to its own wants. Slang is infinitely more conducive to the propagation of vice than is generally believed; it is the “paper currency” of iniquity, and each man issues as much as he likes. If I wanted an evidence of this fact, I should “call up” the place I am speaking of, where the very jargon at once defied civilization and ignored the “schoolmaster.” The authorities, either regarding the task as too hopeless, or too dangerous, or too troublesome, seemed to slur over the existence of this infamous locality. It is not impossible that they saw with some satisfaction that wickedness had selected its only peculiar and appropriate territory, and that they had left this den of vice, as Yankee farmers are accustomed to leave a spot of tall grass to attract the snakes, by way of preventing them scattering and spreading over a larger surface.

As each emigrant ship arrived, hosts of these idlers of the Lower Town beset the newly landed strangers, and by their voice and accent imposed upon the poor wanderers. The very tones of the old country were a magic the new-comers could not withstand, after weeks of voyaging that seemed like years of travel. Whatever reminded them of the country they had quitted, ay, – strange inconsistency of the human heart! – of the land they had left for very hopelessness, touched their hearts, and moved them to the very tenderest emotions. To trade on this susceptibility became a recognized livelihood; so that the quays were crowded with idle vagabonds who sought out the prey with as much skill as a West-end waiter displays in detecting the rank of a new arrival.

This filthy locality, too, contained all the lodging-houses resorted to by the emigrants, who were easily persuaded to follow their “countryman” wherever he might lead. Here were spent the days – sometimes, unhappily, the weeks – before they could fix upon the part of the country to which they should bend their steps; and here, but too often, were wasted in excess and debauchery the little hoards that had cost years to accumulate, till farther progress became impossible; and the stranger who landed but a few weeks back full of strong hope, sunk down into the degraded condition of those who had been his ruin, – the old story, the dupe become blackleg.

It were well if deceit and falsehood, if heartless treachery and calculating baseness, were all that went forward here. But not so; crimes of every character were rife also, and not an inhabitant of the city, with money or character, would have, for any consideration, put foot within this district after nightfall. The very cries that broke upon the stillness of the night were often heard in the Upper Town; and whenever a shriek of agony arose, or the heartrending cry for help, prudent citizens would close the window, and say, “It is some of the Irish in the Lower Town,” – a comprehensive statement that needed no commentary.

Towards this pleasant locality I now hastened, with a kind of instinctive sense that I had some claims on the sanctuary. It chanced that an emigrant ship which had arrived that evening was just disembarking its passengers; mingling with the throng of which, I entered the filthy and narrow lanes of this Alsatia. The new arrivals were all Irish, and, as usual, were heralded by parties of the resident population, eagerly canvassing them for this or that lodging-house. Had not my own troubles been enough for me, I should have felt interested in the strange contrast between the simple peasant first stepping on a foreign shore, and the shrewd roguery of him who proposed guidance, and who doubtless had himself once been as unsuspecting and artless as those he now cajoled and endeavored to dupe.

I soon saw that single individuals were accounted of little consequence; the claim of the various lodging-houses was as family hotels, perhaps; so that I mixed myself up with a group of some eight or ten, whose voices sounded pleasant, for, in the dark, I had no other indication to suggest a preference.

I was not long in establishing a footing, so far as talking went, with one of this party, – an old, very old man, whose greatest anxiety was to know, first, if “there was any Ingins where we were going,” and, secondly, if I had ever heard of his grandson, Dan Cullinane. The first doubt I solved for him frankly and freely, that an Indian would n’t dare to show his nose where we were walking; and as to the second, I hesitated, promising to refer to “my tablets” when I came to the light, for I thought the name was familiar to me.

“He was a shoemaker by trade,” said the old man, “and a better never left Ireland; he was ‘prentice to ould Finucane in Ennis, and might have done well, if he had n’t the turn for Americay.”

“But he’ll do better here, rely upon it,” said I, inviting some further disclosures; “I’m certain he’s not disappointed with having come out.”

“No, indeed; glory be to God! he’s doing finely; and ‘t was that persuaded my son Joe to sell the little place and come here; and a wonderful long way it is!”

After expending a few generalities on sea voyages in general, with a cursory glance at naval architecture, from Noah’s “square” stern, down to the modern “round” innovation, we again returned to Dan, for whom I already conceived a strong interest.

“And is it far to New Orleans from this?” said the old man, who, I perceived, was struck by the air of sagacity in my discourse.

“New Orleans! why that’s in the States, a thousand miles away!”

“Oh, murther, murther!” cried the old fellow, wringing his hands; “and ain’t we in the States?”

“No,” said I; “this is Canada.”

“Joe, Joe!” cried he, pulling his son by the collar, “listen to this, acushla. Oh, murther, murther! we’re kilt and destroyed intirely!”

“What is it, father?” said a tall, powerfully built man, who spoke in a low but resolute voice; “what ails you?”

“Tell him, darlint, tell him!” said the old man, not able to utter his griefs.

“It seems,” said I, “that you believed yourselves in the States; now, this is not so. This is British America, – Lower Canada.”

“Isn’t it ‘Quaybec’?” said he, standing full in front of me.

“It is Quebec – , but still, that is Canada.”

“And it’s ten thousand miles from Dan!” said the old fellow, whose cries were almost suffocating him.

“Whisht, father, and let me talk,” said the son; “do you know New Orleans?”

“Perfectly. – every street of it,” said I, with an effrontery the darkness aided considerably.

“And how far is’t from here?”

“Something like thirteen or fourteen hundred miles, at a rough guess.”

“Oh, th’ eternal villain! if I had him by the neck!” cried Joe, as he struck the ground a blow with his blackthorn which certainly would not have improved the human face divine; “he towld me they were a few miles asunder, – an easy day’s walk!”

“Who said so?” asked I.

“The chap on Eden Quay, in Dublin, where we took our passage.”

“Don’t be down-hearted, anyway,” said I; “distance is nothing here: we think no more of a hundred miles than you do in Ireland of a walk before breakfast. If it’s any comfort to you, I’m going the same way myself.” This very consolatory assurance, which I learned then for the first time also, did not appear to give the full confidence I expected, for Joe made no answer, but, with head dropped and clasped hands, continued to mutter some words in Irish that, so far as sound went, had not the “clink” of blessings.

“He knows Dan,” said the old man to his son, in a whisper which, low as it was, my quick ears detected.

“What does he know about him?” exclaimed the son, savagely; for the memory of one deception was too strong upon him to make him lightly credulous.

“I knew a very smart young man, – a very promising young fellow indeed, – at New Orleans,” said I, “of the name you speak of, – Dan Cullinane.”

“What part of Ireland did he come from?” asked Joe.

“The man I mean was from Clare, somewhere in the neighborhood of Ennis.”

“That’s it!” said the old man.

“Whisht!” said the son, whose caution was not so easily satisfied; and, turning to me, added, “What was he by trade?”

“He was a shoemaker, and an excellent one, – indeed, I’ve no hesitation in saying, one of the best in New Orleans.”

“What was the street he lived in?”

Here was a puzzler; for, as my reader knows, I was at the end of my information, and had not the slightest knowledge of New Orleans or its localities. The little scrap of newspaper I had picked up on Anticosti was the only thing having any reference to that city I ever possessed in my life. But, true to my theory to let nothing go to loss, I remembered this now, and, with an easy confidence, said, “I cannot recall the street, but it is just as you turn out of the street where the ‘Picayune’ newspaper-office stands.”

“Right! – all right, by the father of Moses!” cried Joe, stretching out a brawny hand, and shaking mine with the cordiality of friendship. Then, stepping forward to where the rest of the party were walking, with two most loquacious guides, he said, “Molly! here’s a boy knows Dan! Biddy! come here, and hear about Dan!”

Two young girls, in long cloth cloaks, turned hastily round, and drew near, as they exclaimed in a breath, “Oh, tell us about Dan, sir!”

“T is betther wait till we ‘re in a house,” said the old man, who was, however greedy for news, not a little desirous of a fire and something to eat. “Sure, you ‘ll come with us, and take yer share of what ‘s going,” said he to me, – an invitation which, ere I could reply to, was reiterated by the whole party.

“Do you know where we’re going here?” asked Joe of me, as we continued our way through mazes of gloomy lanes that grew gradually less and less frequented.

“No,” said I, in a whisper, “but ‘tis best be on our guard here: we are in a bad neighborhood.”

“Well, there’s three boys there,” said he, pointing to his sons, who walked in front, “that will pay for all they get. Will you ax the fellows how far we ‘re to go yet, for they don’t mind me.”

“Are we near this same lodging-house?” said I, bluntly, to the guides, and using French, to show that I was no unfledged arrival from beyond the seas.

“Ah!” cried one, “a gaillard from the battery.”

“Where from, à la gueule de loup, young mounsieur?” said the other, familiarly catching me by the lapel of my coat.

“Because I am not afraid of his teeth,” said I, with an easy effrontery my heart gave a flat lie to.

“Vrai?” said he, with a laugh of horrible meaning.

“Vrai!” repeated I, with a sinking courage, but a very bold voice.

“I wish we were in better company,” whispered I to Joe; “what directions did you give these fellows?”

“To show us the best lodging-house for the night, and that we ‘d pay well for it.”

“Ah!” thought I, “that explains something.”

“Here we are, mounseers,” said one, as, stopping at the door of a two-storied house, he knocked with his knuckles on the panel.

“Nous filions, slick, en suite, here,” said the other, holding out his hand.

“They are going!” whispered I; “they want to be paid, and we are well rid of them.”

“It would be manners to wait and see if they ‘ll let us in,” said Joe, who did not fancy this summary departure, while he fumbled in his pocket for a suitable coin.

“Vite! – quick! – sharp time!” cried one of the fellows, who, as the sound of voices was heard from within, seemed impatient to be off; and so, snatching rather than taking the shilling which still lingered in Joe’s reluctant fingers, he wheeled about and fled, followed rapidly by the other.

“Qui va!” cried a sharp voice from within, as I knocked for the second time on the door-panel with a stone.

“Friends,” said I; “we want a lodging and something to eat.”

The door was at once opened, and, by the light of a lantern, we saw the figure of an old woman, whose eyes, bleared and bloodshot, glared at us fixedly.

“‘Tis a lodgen’ yez want?” said she, in an accent that showed her to be Irish. “And who brought yez here?”

“Two young fellows we met on the quay,” said Joe; “one called the other ‘Tony.’”

“Ay, indeed!” muttered the hag; “I was sure of it: his own son! his own son!”

These words she repeated in a tone of profound sorrow, and for a time seemed quite unmindful of our presence.

“Are we to get in at all?” said the old man, in an accent of impatience.

“What a hurry yer in; and maybe ‘tis wishing yerself out again ye ‘d be, after ye wor in!”

“I think we’d better try somewhere else,” whispered Joe to me; “I don’t like the look of this place.” Before I could reply to this, a loud yell burst forth from the end of the street, accompanied by the tramp of many people, who seemed to move in a kind of regulated step.

“Here they are! Here they come!” cried the old woman; “step in quick, or ye ‘ll be too late!” and she dragged the young girls forward by the cloak into the hall; we followed without further question. Then, placing the lantern on the floor, she drew a heavy chain across the door, and dropped her cloak over the light, saying in a low, tremulous voice, “Them’s the ‘Tapageers!’”

The crowd now came closer, and we perceived that they were singing in chorus a song, of which the air, at least, was Irish.

The barbarous rhyme of one rude verse, as they sung it in passing, still lingers in my memory:

“No bloody agint here we see,Ready to rack, distrain, and saze us;Whatever we ax, we have it free,And take at hand, whatever plaze us.Row, row, row, Will yez show me, now,The polis that ‘ll dare to face us!”

“There they go! ‘tis well ye wor safe!” said the old hag, as the sounds died away, and all became silent in the street without.

“Who or what are they?” said I, my curiosity being stimulated by fear.

“Them ‘s the ‘Tapageers ‘! The chaps that never spared man or woman in their rounds. ‘T is bad enough, the place is; but they make it far worse!”

“Can we stop here for the night?” said Joe, growing impatient at the colloquy.

“And what for wud ye stop here?” asked the crone, as she held up the lantern the better to see him who made the demand.

“We want our supper, and a place to sleep,” said the old man; “and we ‘re able and willin’ to pay for both.”

“‘T is a nice place ye kem for either!” said she; and she leaned back against the wall and laughed with a fiend-like malice that made my blood chill.

“Then I suppose we must go somewhere else,” said Joe. “Come, boys; ‘t is no use losing our time here!”

“God speed you!” said she, preparing to undo the chain that fastened the door. “Ye have bould hearts, any way! There they go! d’ ye hear them?” This was said in a half-whisper, as the wild yells of the “Tapageers” arose without; and soon after, the noise and tumult of a scuffle, – at least we could hear the crashing of sticks, and the shouting of a fray; from which, too, piercing cries for help burst forth.

“What are ye doin’? Are ye mad? Are ye out of your sinses?” cried the hag, as Joe endeavored to wrest open the chain, the secret of which he did not understand.

“They’re murdering some one without there!” said he. “Let me free, or I’ll kick down your old door this minute!”

“Kick away, honey!” said the hag; “as strong men as yourself tried that a’ready; and – d’ye hear? – it’s done now; it ‘s over!” These terrible words were in allusion to a low kind of sobbing sound, which grew fainter and fainter, and then ceased altogether.

“They ‘re taking the body away,” whispered she, after a pause of death-like stillness.

“Where to?” said I, half breathless with terror.

“To the river! the stream runs fast, and the corpse will be down below Goose Island, – ay, in the Gulf, ‘fore morning!”

The two young girls, unable longer to control their feelings, here burst out a crying; and the old man, pulling out a rosary, turned to the wall and began his prayers.

“‘Tis a bloody place; glory be to God!” said Joe, at last, with a sigh, and clasped his hands before him, like one unable to decide on what course to follow.

I saw, now, that all were so paralyzed by fear that it devolved upon me to act for the rest; so, summoning my best courage, I said, “Will you allow us to stay here for the night, since we are strangers, and do not know where to seek shelter?” She shook her head, not so much with the air of refusing my request as to convey that I had asked for something scarce worth the granting.

“We only want a shelter for the night – ”

“And a bit to eat,” broke in the old man, turning round from his prayers. “Sanctificatur in sec’la, – if it was only a bit of belly bacon, and – Tower of Ivory, purtect us – with a pot of praties, and – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – ”

“Is he a friar?” said the hag to me, eagerly; “does he belong to an ‘ordher’?”

“No,” said I;” he’s only a good Catholic.”

She wrung her hands, as if in disappointment; and then, taking up the lantern once more, said, “Come along! I ‘ll show yez where ye can stay.”

We followed, I leading the others, up a narrow and rickety stair, between two walls streaming with damp and patched with mould. When she reached the landing she searched for a moment for a key, which having found, she opened the door of a long low room, whose only furniture was a deal table and a few chairs; a candle stuck in a bottle, and some drinking-vessels of tin, were on the table, and a piece of newspaper containing some tobacco.

“There,” said she, lighting the candle, “you may stay here; ‘t is all I ‘m able to do for yez, is to give ye shelter.”

“And nothing to eat?” ejaculated the old man, sorrowfully.

“Hav’ n’t you a few potatoes?” said Joe.

“I did n’t taste food since yesterday morning,” said the hag; “and that’s what’s to keep life in me to-morrow!” and as she spoke, she held out a fragment of blackened sea-biscuit such as Russian sailors call “rusk.”

“Well, by coorse, there’s no use in talking,” said Joe, who always seemed the first to see his way clearly. “Tis worse for the girls, for we can take a draw of the pipe. Lucky for us we have it!”

Meanwhile, the two girls had taken off their cloaks, and were busy gathering some loose sticks together, to make a fire, – a piece of practical wisdom I at once lent all aid to.

The hag, apparently moved by the ready compliance to make the best of matters, went out, and returned with some more wood, – fragments of ship-timber, – which she offered us, saying, “‘T is all I can give yez. Good night to yez all!”

“Well, father,” said Joe, as soon as he had lighted his pipe, and taken a seat by the fire, “ye wor tired enough of the ship, but I think ye wish yerself back again there, now.”

“I wish more nor that,” said the old man, querulously; “I wish I never seen the same ship; nor ever left ould Ireland!”

This sentiment threw a gloom over the whole party, by awakening, not only memories of home and that far-away land, but also by the confession of a sense of disappointment which each was only able to struggle against while unavowed. The sorrow made them silent, and at last sleepy. At first, the three “boys,” great fellows of six feet high, stretched themselves full-length on the floor, and snored away in concert; then the two girls, one with her head on the other’s lap, fell off; while the old man, sitting directly in front of the fire, nodded backwards and forwards, waking up, every half hour or so, to light his pipe; which done, he immediately fell off into a doze once more, leaving Joe and myself alone, waking and watchful.

CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT IN THE LOWER TOWN

Joe’s eyes were bent upon me, as I sat directly opposite him, with a fixedness that I could easily see was occasioned by my showy costume; his glances ranged from my buckled shoes to my white cravat, adorned with a splendid brooch of mock amethyst; nay, I almost fancied once that he was counting the silver clocks on my silk stockings! It was a look of most undisguised astonishment, – such a look as one bestows upon some new and singular animal, of whose habits and instincts we are lost in conjecture.

Now, I was “York too,” – that is to say, I was Irish as well as himself; and I well knew that there was no rank nor condition of man for which the peasant in Ireland conceives the same low estimate as the “Livery Servant.” The class is associated in his mind with chicanery, impudence, falsehood, theft, and a score of similar good properties; not to add that, being occasionally, in great families, a native of England, the Saxon element is united to the other “bitters” of the potion.

Scarcely a “tenant” could be found that would not rather face a mastiff than a footman, – such is the proverbial dislike to these human lilies who neither toil nor spin. Now, I have said I knew this well: I had been reared in the knowledge and practice of this and many similar antipathies, so that I at once took counsel with myself what I should do to escape from the reproach of a mark so indelibly stamped upon me by externals. “La famille Cullinane” suited me admirably; they were precisely the kind of people I wanted; my care, therefore, was that they should reciprocate the want, and be utterly helpless without me. Thus reflecting, I could not help saying to myself, how gladly would I have parted with all these gauds for a homely, ay, or even a ragged, suit of native frieze. I remembered the cock on the dunghill who would have given his diamond for one single grain of corn; and I felt that “Æsop” was a grand political economist.