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Peter Simple

<h3>Chapter Fifty One.</h3> <h4>Peter turned out of his command by his vessel turning bottom up—A cruise on a main-boom, with sharks “en attendant”—self and crew, with several flying fish, taken on board a negro boat—Peter regenerates by putting on a new outward man.</h4> We made Barbadoes without any further adventure, and were about ten miles off the bay, steering with a very light breeze, and I went down into the cabin expecting to be at anchor before breakfast the next morning. It was just daylight, when I found myself thrown out of my bed-place, on the deck, on the other side of the cabin, and heard the rushing of water. I sprang up. I knew the schooner was on her beam ends, and gained the deck. I was correct in my supposition: she had been upset by what is called a white squall, and in two minutes would be down. All the men were up on deck, some dressed, others, like myself, in their shirts. Swinburne was aft; he had an axe in his hand, cutting away the rigging of the main-boom. I saw what he was about; I seized another, and disengaged the jaw-rope and small gear about the mast. We had no other chance; our boat was under the water, being hoisted up on the side to leeward. All this, however, was but the work of two minutes; and I could not help observing by what trifles lives are lost or saved. Had the axe not been fortunately at the capstan, I should not have been able to cut the jaw-rope, Swinburne would not have had time, and the main-boom would have gone down with the schooner. Fortunately we had cleared it; the schooner filled, righted a little, and then sank, dragging us and the main-boom for a few seconds down in its vortex, and then we rose to the surface. The squall still continued, but the water was smooth. It soon passed over, and again it was nearly calm. I counted the men clinging to the boom, and found that they were all there. Swinburne was next to me. He was holding with one hand, while with the other he felt in his pocket for his quid of tobacco, which he thrust into his cheek. “I wasn’t on deck at the time, Mr Simple,” said he, “or this wouldn’t have happened. I had just been relieved, and I told Collins to look out sharp for squalls. I only mention it, that if you are saved, and I am not, you mayn’t think I was neglectful of my duty. We ain’t far from the land, but still we are more likely to fall in with a shark than a friend, I’m thinking.” This, indeed, had been my thoughts, but I had concealed them; but after Swinburne had mentioned the shark, I very often looked along the water for their fins, and down below to see if they were coming up to tear us to pieces. It was a dreadful feeling. “It was not your fault, Swinburne, I am sure. I ought to have relieved you myself, but I kept the first watch and was tired. We must put our trust in God: perhaps we may yet be spared.” It was now almost calm, and the sun had mounted in the heavens: the scorching rays were intolerable upon our heads, for we had not the defence of hats. I felt my brain on fire, and was inclined to drop into the water, to screen myself from the intolerable heat. As the day advanced, so did our sufferings increase. It was a dead calm, the sun perpendicular over us, actually burning that part of our bodies which rose clear of the water. I could have welcomed even a shark to relieve me of my torment; but I thought of Celeste, and I clung to life. Towards the afternoon, I felt sick and dizzy; my resolution failed me; my vision was imperfect; but I was roused by Swinburne, who cried out, “A boat, by all that’s gracious! Hang on a little longer, my men, and you are saved.” It was a boat full of negroes, who had come out to catch flying fish. They had perceived the spar on the water, and hastened to secure the prize. They dragged us all in, gave us water, which appeared like nectar, and restored us to our fleeting senses. They made fast the boom, and towed it in-shore. We had not been ten minutes on our way, when Swinburne pointed to the fin of a large shark above the water. “Look there, Mr Simple.” I shuddered, and made no answer; but I thanked God in my heart. In two hours we were landed, but were too ill to walk. We were carried up to the hospital, bled, and put into cots. I had a brain fever which lasted six or seven days, during which O’Brien never left my bedside. My head was shaved, all the skin came off my face like a mask, as well as off my back and shoulders. We were put into baths of brandy and water, and in three weeks were all recovered. “That was but an unlucky schooner from beginning to end,” observed O’Brien, after I had narrated the events of my cruise. “We had a bad beginning with her, and we had a bad ending. She’s gone to the bottom, and the devil go with her; however, all’s well that ends well, and Peter, you’re worth a dozen dead men yet; but you occasion me a great deal of trouble and anxiety, that’s the truth of it, and I doubt if I shall ever rear you, after all.” I returned to my duty on board of the brig, which was now nearly ready for sea. One morning O’Brien came on board and said, “Peter, I’ve a piece of news for you. Our gunner is appointed to the Araxes, and the admiral has given me a gunner’s warrant for old Swinburne. Send for him on deck.” Swinburne was summoned, and came rolling up the hatchway. “Swinburne,” said O’Brien, “you have done your duty well, and you are now gunner of the Rattlesnake. Here is your warrant, and I’ve great pleasure in getting it for you.” Swinburne turned the quid in his cheek, and then replied, “May I be so bold as to ax, Captain O’Brien, whether I must wear one of them long tog, swallow-tailed coats—because if so, I’d prefer being a quarter-master?” “A gunner may wear a jacket, Swinburne, if he likes: when you go on shore, you may bend the swallow-tail if you please.” “Well, sir, then if that’s the case, I’ll take the warrant, because I know it will please the old woman.” So saying, Swinburne hitched up his trowsers, and went down below. I may here observe, that Swinburne kept to his round jacket until our arrival in England, when the “old woman,” his wife, who thought her dignity at stake, soon made him ship the swallow-tail; and after it was once on, Swinburne took a fancy to it himself, and always wore it, except when he was at sea. The same evening, as I was coming with O’Brien from the governor’s house, where I had dined, we passed a building, lighted up. “What can that be?” observed O’Brien: “not a dignity ball—there is no music.” Our curiosity induced us to enter, and we found it to be fitted up as a temporary chapel, filled with black and coloured people, who were ranged on the forms, and waiting for the preacher. “It is a Methodist meeting,” said I to O’Brien. “Never mind,” said he, “let us hear what is going on.” In a moment afterwards the pulpit was filled, not by a white man, as we had anticipated, but by a tall negro. He was dressed in black, and his hair, which it was impossible to comb down straight, was plaited into fifty little tails, with lead tied at the end of them, like you sometimes see the mane of a horse: this produced a somewhat more clerical appearance. His throat was open, and collar laid back; the wristbands of his shirt very large and white, and he flourished a white cambric handkerchief. “What a dandy he is!” whispered O’Brien. I thought it almost too absurd, when he said he would take the liberty to praise God in the 17th hymn, and beg all the company to join chorus. He then gave out the stanzas in the most strange pronunciation. <blockquote> “Gentle Jesus, God um lub,” etc. </blockquote> When the hymn was finished, which was sung by the whole congregation, in most delightful discord—for every one chose his own key—he gave an extempore prayer, which was most unfortunately incomprehensible, and then commenced his discourse, which was on Faith. I shall omit the head and front of his offending, which would, perhaps, hardly be gratifying, although ludicrous. He reminded me of a monkey imitating a man; but what amused me most, was his finale, in which he told his audience that there could be no faith without charity. For a little while he descanted upon this generally, and at last became personal. His words were, as well as I can recollect, nearly as follows:— “And now you see, my dear bredren, how unpossible to go to heaven with all the faith in the world, without charity. Charity mean, give away. Suppose you no give—you no ab charity; suppose you no ab charity—you no ab faith; suppose you no ab faith—you all go to hell and be damned. Now den, let me see if you ab charity. Here, you see, I come to save all your soul from hell-fire; and hell-fire dam hot, I can tell you. Dere you all burn, like coal, till you turn white powder, and den burn on till you come black again: and so you go on, burn, burn, sometime white, sometime black, for ebber and ebber. The debil never allow Sangoree to cool tongue. No, no cocoa-nut milk—not a lilly drap of water; debil see you damned first. Suppose you ask, he poke um fire and laugh. Well, den, ab you charity? No, you ab not. You, Quashee, how you dare look me in the face? You keep shop—you sell egg—you sell yam—you sell pepper hot—but when you give to me? Eh! nebber, so help me God. Suppose you no send—you no ab charity, and you go to hell. You black Sambo,” continued he, pointing to a man in a corner, “ab very fine boat, go out all day, catch fly-fish, bring um back, fry um, and sell for money: but when you send to me? not one little fish ebber find way to my mouth. What I tell you ’bout Peter and ’postles—all fishermen? good men; give ’way to poor. Sambo, you no ab charity; and ’spose you no repent this week, and send one very fine fish in plantain leaf, you go to hell, and burn for ebber and ebber. Eh! so you will run away, Massa Johnson,” cried he out to another, who was edging to the door; “but you no run away from hell-fire; when debil catch you he hold dam tight. You know you kill sheep and goat ebery day. You send bell ring all ’bout town for people to come buy; but when you send to me? nebber, ’cept once, you give me lilly bit of libber. That no do, Massa Johnson; you no ab charity; and suppose you no send me sheep’s head to-morrow morning, dam you libber, that’s all. I see many more, but I see um all very sorry, and dat they mean to sin no more, so dis time I let um off, and say nothing about it, because I know plenty of plantain and banana” (pointing to one), “and oranges and shaddock” (pointing to another), “and salt fish” (pointing to a third), “and ginger pop and spruce beer,” (pointing to a fourth), “and a straw hat” (pointing to a fifth), “and eberything else, come to my house to-morrow. So I say no more bout it; I see you all very sorry—you only forget. You all ab charity and all ab faith; so now, my dear bredren, we go down on our knees, and thank God for all this, and more especially that I save all your souls from going to the debil, who run about Barbadoes like one roaring lion, seeking what he may lay hold off, and cram into his dam fiery jaw.” “That will do, Peter,” said O’Brien; “we have the cream of it I think.” We left the house and walked down to the boat. “Surely. O’Brien,” said I, “this should not be permitted?” “He’s no worse than his neighbours,” replied O’Brien, “and perhaps does less harm. I admired the rascal’s ingenuity; he gave his flock what, in Ireland, we should call a pretty broad hint.” “Yes, there was no mistaking him; but is he a licensed preacher?” “Very little license in his preaching, I take it; no, I suppose he has had a call.” “A call!—what do you mean?” “I mean that he wants to fill his belly. Hunger is a call of nature, Peter.” “He seems to want a good many things, if we were to judge by his catalogue: what a pity it is that these poor people are not better instructed.” “That they never will be, Peter, while there is, what may be called, free trade in religion.” “You speak like a Catholic, O’Brien.” “I am one,” replied he. And here our conversation ended, for we were close to the boat, which was waiting for us on the beach. The next day a man-of-war brig arrived from England, bringing letters for the squadron on the station. I had two from my sister Ellen, which made me very uncomfortable. She stated, that my father had seen my uncle, Lord Privilege, and had had high words with him; indeed, as far as she could ascertain of the facts, my father had struck my uncle, and had been turned out of the house by the servants. That he had returned in a state of great excitement, and had been ill ever since. That there was a great deal of talk in the neighbourhood on the subject—people generally highly blaming my father’s conduct and thinking that he was deranged in his intellect,—a supposition very much encouraged by my uncle. She again expressed her hopes of my speedy return. I had now been absent nearly three years, and she had been so uncomfortable that she felt as if it had been at least ten. O’Brien also received a letter from Father McGrath, which I shall lay before the reader. <blockquote> “My dear son,—Long life, and all the blessings of all the saints be upon you now and for evermore! Amen. And may you live to be married, and may I dance at your wedding, and may you never want children, and may they grow up as handsome as their father and their mother (whoever she may hereafter be), and may you die of a good old age, and in the true faith, and be waked handsomely, as your own father was last Friday s’ennight, seeing as how he took it into his head to leave this world for a better. It was a very dacent funeral-procession, my dear Terence, and your father must have been delighted to see himself so well attinded. No man ever made a more handsome corpse, considering how old, and thin, and haggard he had grown of late; and how grey his hair had turned. He held the nosegay between his fingers, across his breast, as natural as life, and reminded us all of the blessed saint Pope Gregory who was called to glory some hundred years before either you or I was born. “Your mother’s quite comfortable; and there she sits in the ould chair, rocking to and fro all day long, and never speaking a word to nobody, thinking about heaven, I dare to say; which is just what she ought to do, seeing that she stands a very pretty chance of going there in the course of a month or so. Divil a word has she ever said since your father’s departure, but then she screamed and yelled enough to last for seven years at the least. She screamed away all her senses any how, for she has done nothing since but cough, cough, and fumble at her pater-nosters,—a very blessed way to pass the remainder of her days, seeing that I expect her to drop every minute, like an over ripe sleepy pear. So don’t think any more about her, my son, for without you are back in a jiffy, her body will be laid in consecrated ground, and her happy, blessed soul in purgatory. Pax vobiscum. Amen! Amen! “And now having disposed of your father and your mother so much to your satisfaction, I’ll just tell you that Ella’s mother died in the convent at Dieppe, but whether she kept her secret or not I do not know; but this I do know, that if she didn’t relieve her soul by confession, she’s damned to all eternity. Thanks be to God for all his mercies. Amen! Ella Flanagan is still alive, and, for a nun, is as well as can be expected. I find that she knows nothing at all about the matter of the exchanging the genders of the babbies—only that her mother was on oath to Father O’Toole, who ought to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, instead of those poor fellows whom the government called rebels, but who were no more rebels than Father McGrath himself, who’ll uphold the Pretender, as they call our true Catholic King, as long as there’s life in his body, or a drop of whisky left in ould Ireland to drink his health wid.—Talking about Father O’Toole puts me in mind that the bishop has not yet decided our little bit of dispute, saying that he must take time to think about it. Now considering that it’s just three years since the row took place, the old gentleman must be a very slow thinker, not to have found out by this time that I was in the right, and that Father O’Toole, the baste, is not good enough to be hanged. “Your two married sisters are steady and diligent young women, having each made three children since you last saw them. Fine boys, every mother’s son of them, with elegant spacious features, and famous mouths for taking in whole potatoes. By the powers, but the effects of the tree of the O’Briens begin to make a noise in the land, anyhow, as you would say if you only heard them roaring for their bit of suppers. “And now, my dear son Terence, to the real purport of this letter, which is just to put to your soul’s conscience, as a dutiful son, whether you ought not to send me a small matter of money to save your poor father’s soul from pain and anguish—for it’s no joke that being in purgatory, I can tell you; and you wouldn’t care how soon you were tripped out of it yourself. I only wish you had but your little toe in it, and then you’d burn with impatience to have it out again. But you’re a dutiful son, so I’ll say no more about it—a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse. “When your mother goes, which, with the blessing of God, will be in a very little while, seeing that she has only to follow her senses, which are gone already, I’ll take upon myself to sell everything, as worldly goods and chattels are of no use to dead people: and I have no doubt but that what, with the furniture, and the two cows, and the pigs, and the crops in the ground, there will be enough to save her soul from the flames, and bury her dacently into the bargain. However, as you are the heir-at-law, seeing that the property is all your own, I’ll keep a debtor and creditor account of the whole; and should there be any over, I’ll use it all out in masses, so as to send her up to heaven by express and if there’s not sufficient, she must remain where she is till you come back and make up the deficiency. In the meanwhile I am your loving father in faith, “Urtagh McGrath.” </blockquote> <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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