Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

“Lie down, my son, and compose yourself for an hour or two; sleep and rest will calm your agitated brain, and you will then listen to my counsels with profit: your present excitement overmasters your reason, and my words would be of no effect.”

“I know it – I feel it here, across my temples – that it is a kind of paroxysm; but I never close my eyes that I do not fancy I see the fellow, now in one shape, now in another, for he can assume a thousand disguises; while in my ears his accursed name is always ringing.”

“I pity you from my heart!” said the other; and certainly a sadder expression I never saw in any human face before. “But go down below; go down, I beseech you.”

“I have only taken a deck-passage,” said I, doggedly; “I determined that I would see no one, speak to no one.”

“Nor need you, my son,” said he, coaxingly. “They are all sound asleep in the after-cabin; take my berth, – I do not want it; I am always better upon deck.”

“If you will have it so,” said I, yielding; “but, for your life, not a word of what I have said to you! Do not deceive yourself by any false idea of humanity. Were you to shoot me where I stand, you could not save him, —his doom is spoken. If I fail, there is Broughton, and, after him, a score of others, sworn to do the work.”

“Lie down and calm yourself,” said he, leading me to the companion-ladder; “we must speak of this to-morrow.”

I squeezed his hand, and slowly descended to the cabin. At first the thought occurred to me that he might give the alarm and have me seized; but then this would expose him so palpably to my recognition, should I chance to escape, it was unlikely he would do so. The stillness on deck showed me I was correct in this latter estimate, and so I turned into his comfortable berth, and, while I drew the counterpane over me, thought I had made a capital exchange for the hard ribs of the “long-boat.”

If my stratagem had succeeded in impressing my friend Chico with a most lively fear, it did not leave my own mind at perfect tranquillity. I knew that he must be a fellow of infinite resources, and that the game between us, in all likelihood, had but commenced. In circumstances of difficulty, I have constantly made a practice of changing places with my antagonist, fancying myself in his position, and asking myself how I should act? This taking the “adversary’s hand” is admirable practice in the game of life; it suggests an immense range of combinations, and improves one’s play prodigiously.

I now began to myself a little exercise after this fashion: but what between previous fatigue, the warmth of the cabin, and the luxury of a real bed, Chico and I changed places so often, in my brain, that confusion ensued, then came weariness, and, at last sound sleep, – so sound that I was only awoke by the steward as he popped his greasy head into the berth and said, “I say, master, here we are, standing close in: had n’t you better get up?”

I did as he advised; and, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, said, “Where’s the Padre, steward? – what’s become of him?”

“He was took ill last night, and stopped at Fork Island; he ‘ll go back with us to-morrow to Galveston.”

“You know him, I suppose?” said I, looking at the fellow with a shrewd intelligence that he knew how to construe.

“Well,” cried he, scratching his head, “well, mayhap I do guess a bit who he is.”

“So do I, steward; and when we meet again, he ‘ll know me.” said I, with a look of such imposing sternness that I saw the fellow was recording it. “You may tell him so, steward. I ‘ll wait for him here till I catch him; and if he escape both myself and my friend Broughton, – Broughton; don’t forget the name, – he is deeper than I give him credit for.”

As I was about to leave the cabin, I caught sight of the corner of a red handkerchief peeping out beneath the pillow of the berth. I drew it forth, and found it was Chico’s travelling kit, which he preferred abandoning to the risk of again meeting me. It contained a small black skull-cap such as priests wear, a Romish missal, a string of beads, with a few common articles of dress, and eight dollars in silver.

“The spoils of victory,” quoth I, embodying the whole in my own bundle: “the enemy’s baggage and the military chest captured.”

“Which is the White Hart?” said I, as I came on deck, now crowded with shore folk, porters, and waiters.

“This way, sir, – follow me,” said a smart fellow in a waiter’s dress; and I handed him my bundle and stepped on shore.

CHAPTER XX. THE LOG-HUT AT BRAZOS

I was all impatience to see my prize: and scarcely had I entered the inn than I passed out into the stable-yard, now crowded with many of those equestrian-looking figures I had seen on board the steamer.

“Butcher’s mare here still, Georgie?” said a huge fellow, with high boots of red-brown leather, and a sheepskin capote belted round him with a red sash.

“Yes, Master Seth, there she stands. You’ll be getting a bargain of her, one of these days.”

“If I had her up at Austin next week for the fair, she ‘d bring a few hundred dollars.”

“You ‘d never think of selling a beast like that at Austin, Seth?” said a bystander.

“Why not? Do you fancy I ‘ll bring her into the States, and see her claimed in every town of the Union? Why, man, she’s been stolen once a month, that mare has, since she was a two-year-old. I knew an old general up in the Maine frontier had her last year; and he rid her away from a ‘stump meeting’ in Vermont, in change of his own mule, – blind, – and never know’d the differ till he was nigh home. I sold her twice, myself, in one week. Scott of Muckleburg stained her off fore-leg white, and sold her back, as a new one, to the fellow who returned her for lameness; and she can pretend lameness, she can.”

A roar of very unbelieving laughter followed this sally, but Seth resumed, —

“Well, I’ll lay fifty dollars with any gentleman here that she comes out of the stable dead lame, or all sound, just as I bid her.”

Nobody seemed to fancy this wager; and Seth, satisfied with having established his veracity, went on, —

“You ‘ve but to touch the coronet of the off-foot with the point of your bowie, – a mere touch, not draw blood, – and see if she won’t come out limping on the toe, all as one as a dead breakdown in the coffin joint; rub her a bit then with your hand, – she ‘s all right again! It was Wrecksley of Ohio taught her the trick; he used to lame her that way, and buy her in, wherever he found her.”

“Who’s won her this time?” cried another.

“I have, gentlemen,” said I, slapping my boot with my cane, and affecting a very knowing air as I spoke. The company turned round and surveyed me some seconds in deep silence.

“You an’t a-goin’ to ride her, young ‘un?” said one, half contemptuously.

“No, he an’t; the gent’s willin’ to sell her,” chimed in another.

“He’s goin’ to ax me three hundred dollars,” said a third, “an’ I an’t a-goin’ to gi’ him no more than two hundred.”

“You are all wrong, every man of you,” said Seth. “He’s bringing her to England, a present for the Queen, for her own ridin’.”

“And I beg to say, gentlemen, that none of you have hit upon the right track yet; nor do I think it necessary to correct you more fully. But as you appear to take an interest in my concerns, I may mention that I shall want a hack for my servant’s riding, – a short-legged, square-jointed thing, clever to go, and a good feeder, not much above fourteen hands in height, or four hundred dollars in price. If you chance upon this – ”

“I know your mark.”

“My roan, with the wall-eye. You don’t mind a walleye?”

“No, no! my black pony mare’s the thing the gent’s a lookin’ for.”

“I say it’s nothing like it,” broke in Seth. “He’s a-wantin’ a half-bred mustang, with a down-east cross, – a critter to go through fire and water; liftin’ the fore-legs like a high-pressure piston, and with a jerk of the ‘stifle’ like the recoil of a brass eight-pounder. An’t I near the mark?”

“Not very wide of it,” said I, nodding encouragingly.

“She ‘s at Austin now. You an’t a-goin’ there?”

“Yes,” said I; “I shall be in Austin next week.”

“Well, never you make a deal till you see my black pony,” cried one.

“Nor the roan cob,” shouted another.

“He ‘d better see ‘em ‘fore he sees Split-the-wind, then, or he ‘d not look at ‘em arter,” said Seth. “You ‘ve only to ask for Seth Chiseller, and they ‘ll look me up.”

“You an’t a-goin’ to let us see Butcher’s mare afore we go?” said one to the ostler.

“I an’t, because I have n’t got the key. She’s a double-locked, and the cap ‘n never gives it to no one, but comes a-feedin’ time himself, to give her corn.”

After a few muttered remarks on this caution, the horse-dealers sauntered out of the yard, leaving me musing over what I had heard, and wondering if this excessive care of the landlord boded any suspicion regarding the winner of the prize.

“Jist draw that bolt across the gate, there, will ye,” said the ostler, while he produced a huge key from his pocket. “I know ‘em well, them gents. A man must have fourteen eyes in his head, and have ‘em back and front too, that shows ‘em a horse beast! Darn me coarse! if they can’t gi’ ‘un a blood spavin in a squirt of tobacco! Let’s see your ticket, young master, and I ‘ll show you Charcoal, – . that’s her name.”

“Here it is,” said I, “signed by the agent at Galveston, all right and regular.”

“The cap’n must see to that. I only want to know that ye have the number. Yes, that ‘s it; now stand a bit on one side. Ye ‘ll see her when she comes out.”

He entered the stable as he spoke, and soon re-appeared, leading a tall mare, fully sixteen hands high, and black as jet; a single white star on her forehead, and a dash of white across the tail, being the only marks on her. She was bursting with condition, and both in symmetry and action a splendid creature.

“An’t she a streak of lightnin’, and no mistake?” said he, gazing on her with rapture. “An’t she glibber to move nor a wag of a comet’s tail, when he ‘s taking a lark round the moon? There’s hocks! there’s pasterns! Show me a gal with ankles like ‘em, and look at her, here! An’t she a-made for sittin’ on?”

I entered into all his raptures. She was faultless in every point, – save, perhaps, that in looking at you she would throw her eye backwards, and show a little bit too much of the white. I remarked this to the ostler.

“The only fault she has,” said he, shaking his head; “she mistrusts a body always, and so she’s eternally a lookin’ back, and a gatherin’ up her quarters, and a holdin’ of her tail tight in; but for that, she’s a downright regular beauty, and for stride and bottom there ain’t her equal nowhere.”

“Her late master was unlucky, I’ve heard,” said I, insinuatingly.

“He was so far unlucky that he could n’t sit his beast over a torrent and a down leap. He would hold her in, and she won’t bear it at a spring, and so she flung him before she took the leap; and when she lit, ‘t other side, with her head high and her hind legs under her, he was a sittin’ with his ‘n under his arm, and his neck bruck, – that was the way o’ it. See now, master, if ever ye do want a great streak out of her, leave the head free a bit, press her wi’ your calves, and give a right down reg’lar halloo, – ha! like a Mexican chap; then she’ll do it!”

The ostler found me a willing listener, either when dwelling on the animal’s perfections, or suggesting hints for her future management; and when at last both these themes were tolerably exhausted, he proceeded to show me the horse-gear of saddle, and bridle, and halter, and holsters, all handsomely finished in Mexican taste, and studded with brass nails in various gay devices. At last he produced the rifle, – a regular Kentucky one, of Colt’s making, – and what he considered a still greater prize, a bell-mouthed thing half horse-pistol, half blunderbuss, which he called “a almighty fine ‘Harper’s Ferry tool,’ that would throw thirty bullets through an oak panel two inches thick.”

It was evident that he looked upon the whole equipment as worthy of the most exalted possession, and he gazed on me as one whose lot was indeed to be envied.

“Seth and the others leave this to-morrow a’ternoon,” said he; “but if ye be a-goin’ to Austin, where the ‘Spedeshin’ puts up, take my advice, and get away before ‘em. You ‘ve a fine road, – no trouble to find the way; your beast will carry you forty, fifty, if you want it, sixty, miles between sunrise and ‘down;’ and you ‘ll be snug over the journey before they reach Killian’s Mill, the half-way. An’ if ye want to know why I say so, it’s just because that’s too good a beast to tempt a tramper wi’, and them’s all trampers!”

I gave the ostler a dollar for all his information and civility, and re-entered the inn to have my supper. The cap’n had already returned home, and after verifying my ticket, took my receipt for the mare, which I gave in all form, writing my name, “Con Cregan,” as though it were to a check for a thousand pounds.

I supped comfortably, and then walked out to the stable to see Charcoal. “Get her corn; you’ll see if she don’t, eat it in less than winkin’,” said the ostler; “and if she wor my beast, she’d never taste another feed till she had her nose in the manger at Croft’s Gulley.”

“And where is Croft’s Gulley?”

“It’s the bottoms after you pass the larch wood; the road dips a bit, and is heavy there, and it’s a good baitin’ place, just eighteen miles from here.”

“On the road to Austin?”

He nodded. “Ye see,” he said, “the moon’s a risin’; there’s no one out this time. Ye know what I said afore.”

“I’ll take the advice, then. Get the traps ready; I’ll pack the saddle-bags and set out.”

If any one had asked me why I was in such haste to reach Austin, my answer would have been, “To join the expedition;” and if interrogated, “With what object then?” I should have been utterly dumbfoundered. Little as I knew of its intentions, they must all have been above the range of my ability and means to participate in. True, I had a horse and a rifle; but there was the end of my worldly possessions, not to say that my title, even to these, admitted of litigation. A kind of vague notion possessed me that, once up with the expedition, I should find my place “somewhere,” – a very Irish idea of a responsible situation. I trusted to the “making myself generally useful” category for employment, and to a ready-wittedness never cramped nor restrained by the petty prejudices of a conscience.

The love of enterprise and adventure is conspicuous among the springs of action in Irish life, occasionally developing a Wellesley or a Captain Rock. Peninsular glories and predial outrage have just the same one origin, – a love of distinction, and a craving desire for the enjoyment of that most fascinating of all excitements, – whatever perils life.

Without this element, pleasure soon palls; without the cracked skulls and fractured “femurs,” fox-hunting would be mere galloping; a review might vie with a battle, if they fire blank cartridge in both! Who ‘d climb the Peter Bot, or cross the “petit mulets” of Mont Blanc, if it were not that a false step or a totter would send him down a thousand fathoms into the deep gorge below. This playing hide-and-seek with Death seems to have a great charm, and is very possibly the attraction some folks feel in playing invalid, and passing their lives amid black draughts and blue lotions!

I shrewdly suspect this luxury of tempting peril distinguishes man from the whole of the other animal creation; and if we were to examine it a little, we should see that it opens the way to many of his highest aspirings and most noble enterprises. Now, let not the gentle reader ask, “Does Mr. Cregan include horse-stealing in the list of these heroic darings?” Believe me, he does not; he rather regarded the act of appropriation in the present case in the light some noble lords did when voting away church property, – “a hard necessity, but preferable to being mulct oneself!” With many a thought like this, I rode out into the now silent town, and took my way towards Austin.

It is a strange thing to find oneself in a foreign land, thousands of miles from home, alone, and at night; the sense of isolation is almost overwhelming. So long as daylight lasts, the stir of the busy world and the business of life ward off these thoughts, – the novelty of the scene even combats them; but when night has closed in, and we see above us the stars that we have known in other lands, the self-same moon by whose light we wandered years ago, and then look around and mark the features of a new world, with objects which tell of another hemisphere; and then think that we are there alone, without tie or link to all around us, the sensation is thrilling in its intensity.

Every one of us – the least imaginative, even – will associate the strangeness of a foreign scene with something of that adventure of which he has read in his childhood; and we people vacancy, as we go, with images to suit the spot in our own country. The little pathway along the river side suggests the lovers’ walk at sunset as surely as the dark grove speaks of a woodman’s hut or a gypsy camp. But abroad, the scene evokes different dwellers: the Sierra suggests the brigand; the thick jungle, the jaguar or the rattlesnake; the heavy plash in the muddy river is the sound of the cayman; and the dull roar, like wind within a cavern, is the cry of the hungry lion. The presence around us of objects of which we have read long ago, but never expected to see, is highly exciting; it is like taking our place among the characters of a story, and investing us with an interest to ourselves, as the hero of some unwrought history.

This is the most fascinating of all castle-building, since we have a spot for an edifice, – a territory actually given to us.

I thought long upon this theme, and wondered to what I was yet destined, – whether to some condition of real eminence, or to move on among that vulgar herd who are the spectators of life, but never its conspicuous actors. I really believe this ignoble course was more distasteful to me from its flatness and insipidity than from its mere humility. It seemed so devoid of all interest, so tame and so monotonous, I would have chosen peril and vicissitude any day in preference. About midnight I reached Croft’s Gulley, where, after knocking for some time, a very sulky old negro admitted me into a stable while I baited my mare. The house was shut up for the night; and even had I sought refreshment, I could not have obtained it.

After a brief halt, I again resumed the road, which led through a close pine forest, and, however much praised, was anything but a good surface to travel on. Charcoal, however, made light of such difficulties, and picked her steps over holes and stumps with the caution of a trapper, detecting with a rare instinct the safe ground, and never venturing on spots where any difficulty or danger existed. I left her to herself, and it was curious to see that whenever a short interval of better footway intervened, she would, as if to “make play,” as the jockeys call it, strike out in a long swinging canter, “pulling up” to the walk the moment the uneven surface admonished her to caution.

As day broke, the road improved so that I was able to push along at a better pace, and by breakfast-time I found myself at a low, poor-looking log-house called “Brazos.” A picture representing Texas as a young child receiving some admirable counsel from a very matronly lady with thirteen stars on her petticoat, flaunted over the door, with the motto, “Filial Affection, and Candy Flip at all hours.”

A large, dull-eyed man, in a flannel pea-jacket and loose trousers to match, was seated in a rocking-chair at the door, smoking an enormous cigar, a little charmed circle of expectoration seeming to defend him from the assaults of the vulgar. A huge can of cider stood beside him, and a piece of Indian corn bread. He eyed me with the coolest unconcern as I dismounted, nor did he show the slightest sign of welcome.

“This is an inn, I believe, friend?” said I, saluting him.

“I take it to be a hotel,” said he, in a voice very like a yawn.

“And the landlord, where is he?”

“Where he ought to be, – at his own door, a smokin’ his own rearin’.”

“Is there an ostler to be found? I want to refresh my horse, and get some breakfast for myself too.”

“There an’t none.”

“No help?”

“Never was.”

“That’s singular, I fancy.”

“No, it an’t.”

“Why, what do travellers do with their cattle, then?”

“There bean’t none.”

“No cattle?”

“No travellers.”

“No travellers! and this the high road between two considerable towns!”

“It an’t.”

“Why, surely this is the road to Austin?”

“It an’t.”

“Then this is not Brazos?”

“It be Upper Brazos.”

“There are two of them, then; and the other, I suppose, is on the Austin road?”

He nodded.

“What a piece of business!” sighed I; “and how far have I come astray?”

“A good bit.”

“A mile or two?”

“Twenty.”

“Will you be kind enough to be a little more communicative, and just say where this road leads to; if I can join the Austin road without turning back again; and where?”

Had I propounded any one of these queries, it is just possible I might have had an answer; but, in my zeal, I outwitted myself. I drew my check for too large an amount, and consequently was refused payment altogether.

“Well,” said I, after a long and vain wait for an answer, “what am I to do with my horse? There is a stable, I hope?”

“There an’t,” said he, with a grunt.

“So that I can’t bait my beast?”

“No!”

“Bad enough! Can I have something to eat myself, – a cup of coffee – ?”

A rude burst of laughter stopped me, and the flannel man actually shook with the drollery of his own thoughts. “It bean’t Astor House, I reckon!” said he, wiping his eyes.

“Not very like it, certainly,” said I, smiling.

“What o’ that? Who says it ought to be like it?” said he, and his fishy eyes flared up, and his yellow cheeks grew orange with anger. “I an’t very like old Hickory, I s’pose! and maybe I don’t want to be! I’m a free Texan! I an’t a nigger nor a blue-nose! I an’t one of your old country slaves, that black King George’s boots, and ask leave to pay his taxes! I an’t.”

“And I,” said I, assuming an imitation of his tone, for experiment’s sake, “I am no lazy, rocking-chair, whittling, tobacco-chewing Texan! but a traveller, able and willing to pay for his accommodation, and who will have it, too!”

“Will ye? Will ye, then?” cried he, springing up with an agility I could not have believed possible; while, rushing into the hut, he reappeared with a long Kentucky rifle, and a bayonet a-top of it. “Ye han’t long to seek yer man, if ye want a flash of powder! Come out into the bush and ‘see it out,’ I say!”

The tone of this challenge was too insulting not to call for at least the semblance of acceptance; and so, fastening my mare to a huge staple beside the door, I unslung my rifle, and cried, “Come along, my friend; I’m quite ready for you!”

Nothing daunted at my apparent willingness, he threw back the hammer of his lock, and said, “Hark ye, young un! You can’t give me a cap or two? Mine are considerable rusty!”

The request was rather singular, but its oddity was its success; and so, opening a small case in the stock of my rifle, I gave him some.

“Ah, them ‘s real chaps, – the true ‘tin jackets,’ as we used to say at St. Louis!” cried he, his tongue seeming wonderfully loosened by the theme. “Now, lad, let’s see if one of your bullets fit this bore; she’s a heavy one, and carries twenty to the pound; and I ‘ve nothing in her now but some loose chips of iron for the bears.”

Loose chips of iron for the bears! thought I; did ever mortal hear such a barbarian! “You don’t fancy, friend, I came here to supply you with lead and powder, to be used upon myself, too! I supposed, when you asked me to come out into the bush, that you had everything a gentleman ought to have for such a purpose.”

“Well, I never seed the like of that!” exclaimed he, striking the ground with the butt end of his piece. “If we don’t stand at four guns’ length – ”

“We ‘ll do no such thing, friend,” said I, shouldering my piece, and advancing towards him. “I never meant to offend you; nor have you any object in wounding, mayhap killing, me. Let me have something to eat; I ‘ll pay for it freely, and go my ways.”