But notwithstanding all these contrivances, the dreadful sequel could not be avoided. Eight bells would at last be struck, and the men on deck, exhilarated by the prospect of changing places with us, would call the watch in a most provoking but mirthful and facetious style.
As thus:-
"Starboard watch, ahoy! eight bells there, below! Tumble up, my lively hearties; steamboat alongside waiting for your trunks: bear a hand, bear a hand with your knee-buckles, my sweet and pleasant fellows! fine shower-bath here on deck. Hurrah, hurrah! your ice-cream is getting cold!"
Whereupon some of the old croakers who were getting into their trowsers would reply with-"Oh, stop your gabble, will you? don't be in such a hurry, now. You feel sweet, don't you?" with other exclamations, some of which were full of fury.
And it was not a little curious to remark, that at the expiration of the ensuing watch, the tables would be turned; and we on deck became the wits and jokers, and those below the grizzly bears and growlers.
XXVII
HE GETS A PEEP AT IRELAND, AND AT LAST ARRIVES AT LIVERPOOL
The Highlander was not a grayhound, not a very fast sailer; and so, the passage, which some of the packet ships make in fifteen or sixteen days, employed us about thirty.
At last, one morning I came on deck, and they told me that Ireland was in sight.
Ireland in sight! A foreign country actually visible! I peered hard, but could see nothing but a bluish, cloud-like spot to the northeast. Was that Ireland? Why, there was nothing remarkable about that; nothing startling. If that's the way a foreign country looks, I might as well have staid at home.
Now what, exactly, I had fancied the shore would look like, I can not say; but I had a vague idea that it would be something strange and wonderful. However, there it was; and as the light increased and the ship sailed nearer and nearer, the land began to magnify, and I gazed at it with increasing interest.
Ireland! I thought of Robert Emmet, and that last speech of his before Lord Norbury; I thought of Tommy Moore, and his amatory verses: I thought of Curran, Grattan, Plunket, and O'Connell; I thought of my uncle's ostler, Patrick Flinnigan; and I thought of the shipwreck of the gallant Albion, tost to pieces on the very shore now in sight; and I thought I should very much like to leave the ship and visit Dublin and the Giant's Causeway.
Presently a fishing-boat drew near, and I rushed to get a view of it; but it was a very ordinary looking boat, bobbing up and down, as any other boat would have done; yet, when I considered that the solitary man in it was actually a born native of the land in sight; that in all probability he had never been in America, and knew nothing about my friends at home, I began to think that he looked somewhat strange.
He was a very fluent fellow, and as soon as we were within hailing distance, cried out-"Ah, my fine sailors, from Ameriky, ain't ye, my beautiful sailors?" And concluded by calling upon; us to stop and heave a rope. Thinking he might have something important to communicate, the mate accordingly backed I the main yard, and a rope being thrown, the stranger kept hauling in upon it, and coiling it down, crying, "pay out! pay out, my honeys; ah! but you're noble fellows!" Till at last the mate asked him why he did not come alongside, adding, "Haven't you enough rope yet?"
"Sure and I have," replied the fisherman, "and it's time for Pat to cut and run!" and so saying, his knife severed the rope, and with a Kilkenny grin, he sprang to his tiller, put his little craft before the wind, and bowled away from us, with some fifteen fathoms of our tow-line.
"And may the Old Boy hurry after you, and hang you in your stolen hemp, you Irish blackguard!" cried the mate, shaking his fist at the receding boat, after recovering from his first fit of amazement.
Here, then, was a beautiful introduction to the eastern hemisphere; fairly robbed before striking soundings. This trick upon experienced travelers certainly beat all I had ever heard about the wooden nutmegs and bass-wood pumpkin seeds of Connecticut. And I thought if there were any more Hibernians like our friend Pat, the Yankee peddlers might as well give it up.
The next land we saw was Wales. It was high noon, and a long line of purple mountains lay like banks of clouds against the east.
Could this be really Wales? — Wales? — and I thought of the Prince of Wales.
And did a real queen with a diadem reign over that very land I was looking at, with the identical eyes in my own head? — And then I thought of a grandfather of mine, who had fought against the ancestor of this queen at Bunker's Hill.
But, after all, the general effect of these mountains was mortifyingly like the general effect of the Kaatskill Mountains on the Hudson River.
With a light breeze, we sailed on till next day, when we made Holyhead and Anglesea. Then it fell almost calm, and what little wind we had, was ahead; so we kept tacking to and fro, just gliding through the water, and always hovering in sight of a snow-white tower in the distance, which might have been a fort, or a light-house. I lost myself in conjectures as to what sort of people might be tenanting that lonely edifice, and whether they knew any thing about us.
The third day, with a good wind over the taffrail, we arrived so near our destination, that we took a pilot at dusk.
He, and every thing connected with him were very different from our New York pilot. In the first place, the pilot boat that brought him was a plethoric looking sloop-rigged boat, with flat bows, that went wheezing through the water; quite in contrast to the little gull of a schooner, that bade us adieu off Sandy Hook. Aboard of her were ten or twelve other pilots, fellows with shaggy brows, and muffled in shaggy coats, who sat grouped together on deck like a fire-side of bears, wintering in Aroostook. They must have had fine sociable times, though, together; cruising about the Irish Sea in quest of Liverpool-bound vessels; smoking cigars, drinking brandy-and-water, and spinning yarns; till at last, one by one, they are all scattered on board of different ships, and meet again by the side of a blazing sea-coal fire in some Liverpool taproom, and prepare for another yachting.
Now, when this English pilot boarded us, I stared at him as if he had been some wild animal just escaped from the Zoological Gardens; for here was a real live Englishman, just from England. Nevertheless, as he soon fell to ordering us here and there, and swearing vociferously in a language quite familiar to me; I began to think him very common-place, and considerable of a bore after all.
After running till about midnight, we "hove-to" near the mouth of the Mersey; and next morning, before day-break, took the first of the flood; and with a fair wind, stood into the river; which, at its mouth, is quite an arm of the sea. Presently, in the misty twilight, we passed immense buoys, and caught sight of distant objects on shore, vague and shadowy shapes, like Ossian's ghosts.
As I stood leaning over the side, and trying to summon up some image of Liverpool, to see how the reality would answer to my conceit; and while the fog, and mist, and gray dawn were investing every thing with a mysterious interest, I was startled by the doleful, dismal sound of a great bell, whose slow intermitting tolling seemed in unison with the solemn roll of the billows. I thought I had never heard so boding a sound; a sound that seemed to speak of judgment and the resurrection, like belfry-mouthed Paul of Tarsus.