Confessions Of Con Cregan.
by Charles James Lever.
PREFACE.
An eminent apothecary of my acquaintance once told me that at each increase to his family, he added ten per cent to the price of his drugs, and as his quiver was full of daughters, Blackdraught, when I knew him, was a more costly cordial than Curacoa.
To apply this to my own case, I may mention that I had a daughter born to me about the time this story dates from, and not having at my command the same resource as my friend the chemist, I adopted the alternative of writing another story, to be published contemporaneously with that now appearing,--"The Daltons;" and not to incur the reproach so natural in criticism--of over-writing myself--I took care that the work should come out without a name.
I am not sure that I made any attempt to disguise my style; I was conscious of scores of blemishes--I decline to call them mannerisms--that would betray me: but I believe I trusted most of all to the fact that I was making my monthly appearance to the world in another story, and with another publisher, and I had my hope that my small duplicity would thus escape undetected.
I was aware that there was a certain amount of peril in running an opposition coach on the line I had made in some degree my own; not to say that it might be questionable policy to glut the public with a kind of writing more remarkable for peculiarity than perfection.
I remember that excellent Irishman Bianconi, not the less Irish that he was born at Lucca,--which was simply a "bull,"--once telling me that to popularize a road on which few people were then travelling, and on which his daily two-horse car was accustomed to go its journey, with two or at most three pa.s.sengers, the idea occurred to him that he would start an opposition conveyance, of course in perfect secrecy, and with every outward show of its being a genuine rival. He effected his object with such success that his own agents were completely taken in, and never wearied of reporting, for his gratification, all the shortcomings and disasters of the rival company.
At length, and when the struggle between the compet.i.tors was at its height, one of his drivers rushed frantically into his office one day, crying out, "Give a crown-piece to drink your honor"s health for what I done to-day."
"What was it, Larry?"
"I killed the yallow mare of the opposition car; I pa.s.sed her on the long hill, when she was blown, and I bruk her heart before she reached the top."
"After this I gave up the opposition," said my friend; ""mocking was catching," as the old proverb says; and I thought that one might carry a joke a little too far."
I had this experience before me, and I will not say it did not impress me. My puzzle was, however, in this wise: I imagined I did not care on which horse I stood to win; in other words, I persuaded myself that it was a matter of perfect indifference to me which book took best with the public, and whether the reader thought better of "The Daltons" or "Con Cregan," that it could in no way concern me.
That I totally misunderstood myself, or misconceived the case before me, I am now quite ready to own. For one notice of "The Daltons" by the Press, there were at least three or four of "Con Cregan," and while the former was dismissed with a few polite and measured phrases, the latter was largely praised and freely quoted. Nor was this all. The critics discovered in "Con Cregan" a freshness and a vigor which were so sadly deficient in "The Daltons." It was, they averred, the work of a less practised writer, but of one whose humor was more subtle, and whose portraits, roughly sketched as they were, indicated a far higher power than the well-known author of "Harry Lorre-quer."
The unknown--for there was no attempt to guess him--was p.r.o.nounced not to be an imitator of Mr. Lever, though there were certain small points of resemblance; for he was clearly original in his conception of character, in his conduct of his story, and in his dialogues, and there were traits of knowledge of life in scenes and under conditions to which Mr. Lever could lay no claim. One critic, who had found out more features of resemblance between the two writers than his colleagues, uttered a friendly caution to Mr. Lever to look to his laurels, for there was a rival in the field possessing many of the characteristics by which he first won public favor, but a racy drollery in description and a quaintness in his humor all his own. It was the amus.e.m.e.nt of one of my children at the time to collect these sage comments and torment me with their judgments, and I remember a droll little note-book, in which they were pasted, and read aloud from time to time with no small amus.e.m.e.nt and laughter.
One or two of these I have even now before me:--
"Our new novelist has great stuff in him."--_Bath Gazette_.
""Con Cregan"--author unknown--begins promisingly; his first number is a decided hit."--_Cambridge Chronicle_.
"The writer of "Con Cregan" is a new hand, but we predict he will be a success"."--_Cambridge Advertiser_.
"A new tale, in a style with which Lever and his followers have made us acquainted."--_Hampshire Advertiser_.
"This tale is from the pen of an able Irish writer. The dialogue is very smartly written, so much so--and we cannot pay the writer a more genuine compliment--that it bespeaks the author to be an Irishman, &c."--_Somerset Gazette_.
""Con Cregan "--by an unnamed author--is a new candidate for popularity," &c.--_Northern Whig_, Belfast.
"The writer must be an Irishman."--_Nottingham Gazette_.
"A new bark, launched by an unknown builder."--_Cheltenham Chronicle_.
"That the author"s name is not disclosed will not affect the popularity of this work,--one of the most attractive," &c.--_Oxford Journal_.
"This is a new tale by the pen of some able Irish writer, the first part of which is only published."--_Ten Town Messenger_.
"Another new candidate for popular fame, and "Harry Lorrequer" had better look to his laurels. There is a poacher in the manor in the person of the writer of "Con Cregan.""--_Yorkshireman_.
""Con Cregan" promises to become as great a fact as "Harry Lorrequer."
"--_People"s Journal_.
"The author of "Con Cregan," whoever he be, is no ordinary man."
"Another daring author has entered the lists, and with every promise of success."--_Exeter Post_.
It may sound very absurd to confess it, but I was excessively provoked at the superior success of the unacknowledged book, and felt the rivalry to the full as painfully as though I had never written a line of it. Was it that I thought well of one story and very meanly of the other, and in consequence was angry at the want of concurrence of my critics? I suspect not. I rather imagine I felt hurt at discovering how little hold I had, in my acknowledged name, on a public with whom I fancied myself on such good terms; and it pained me to see with what little difficulty a new and a nameless man could push for the place I had believed to be my own.
"The Daltons" I always wrote, after my habit, in the morning; I never turned to "Con Cregan" until nigh midnight; and I can still remember the widely different feelings with which I addressed myself to the task I liked, and to a story which, in the absurd fashion I have mentioned, was a.s.sociated with wounded self-love.
It is scarcely necessary for me to say that there was no plan whatever in this book. My notion was, that "Con Cregan," once created, would not fail to find adventures. The vicissitudes of daily poverty would beget shifts and contrivances; with these successes would come ambition and daring. Meanwhile a growing knowledge of life would develop his character, and I should soon see whether he would win the silver spoon or spoil the horn. I ask pardon in the most humble manner for presuming for a moment to a.s.sociate my hero with the great original of Le Sage.
But I used the word "Irish" adjectively, and with the same amount of qualification that one employs to a diamond, and indeed, as I have read it in a London paper, to a "Lord."
An American officer, of whom I saw much at the time, was my guide to the interior of Mexico; he had been originally in the Santa Fe expedition, was a man of most adventurous disposition, and a love of stirring incident and peril, that even broken-down health and a failing const.i.tution could not subdue.
It was often very difficult for me to tear myself away from his Texan and Mexican experiences, his wild scenes of prairie life, or his sojourn amongst Indian tribes, and keep to the more commonplace events of my own story; nor could all my entreaties confine him to those descriptions of places and scenes which I needed for my own characters.
The saunter after tea-time, with this companion, generally along that little river that tumbles through the valley of the Bagno di Lucca, was the usual preparation for my night"s work; and I came to it as intensely possessed by Mexico--dress, manner, and landscape--as though I had been drawing on the recollection of a former journey.
So completely separated in my mind were the two tales by the different parts of the day in which I wrote them, that no character of "The Daltons" ever crossed my mind after nightfall, nor was there a trace of "Con Cregan" in my head at my breakfast next morning.
None of the characters of this story have been taken from life. The one bit of reality in the whole is in the sketch of "Anticosti," where I myself suffered once a very small shipwreck, but of which I retain a very vivid recollection to this hour.
I have already owned that I bore a grudge to the story as I wrote it; nor have I outlived the memory of the chagrin it cost me, though it is many a year since I acknowledged that "Con Cregan" was by the author of "Harry Lorrequer."
CHAPTER I. A PEEP AT MY FATHER
When we shall have become better acquainted, my worthy reader, there will be little necessity for my insisting upon a fact which at this early stage of our intimacy, I deem it requisite to mention; namely, that my native modesty and bashfulness are only second to my veracity, and that while the latter quality in a manner compels me to lay an occasional stress upon my own goodness of heart, generosity, candor, and so forth, I have, notwithstanding, never introduced the subject without a pang,--such a pang as only a sensitive and diffident nature can suffer or comprehend. There now, not another word of preface or apology!
I was born in a little cabin on the borders of Meath and King"s County.
It stood on a small triangular bit of ground, beside a cross-road; and although the place was surveyed every ten years or so, they were never able to say to which county we belonged; there being just the same number of arguments for one side as for the other,--a circ.u.mstance, many believed, that decided my father in his original choice of the residence; for while, under the "disputed boundary question," he paid no rates or county cess, he always made a point of voting at both county elections! This may seem to indicate that my parent was of a naturally acute habit; and indeed the way he became possessed of the bit of ground will confirm that impression.
There was n.o.body of the rank of gentry in the parish, nor even "squireen;" the richest being a farmer, a snug old fellow, one Henry M"Cabe, that had two sons, who were always fighting between themselves which was to have the old man"s money,--Peter, the elder, doing everything to injure Mat, and Mat never backward in paying off the obligation. At last Mat, tired out in the struggle, resolved he would bear no more. He took leave of his father one night, and next day set off for Dublin, and "listed in the "Buffs." Three weeks after, he sailed for India; and the old man, overwhelmed by grief, took to his bed, and never arose from it after.
Not that his death was any way sudden, for he lingered on for months long,--Peter always teasing him to make his will, and be revenged on "the dirty spalpeen" that disgraced the family, but old Harry as stoutly resisting, and declaring that whatever he owned should be fairly divided between them.
These disputes between them were well known in the neighborhood. Few of the country people pa.s.sing the house at night but had overheard the old man"s weak, reedy voice, and Peter"s deep, hoa.r.s.e one, in altercation.
When at last--it was on a Sunday night--all was still and quiet in the house,--not a word, not a footstep, could be heard, no more than if it were uninhabited,--the neighbors looked knowingly at each other, and wondered if the old man was worse--if he was dead!
It was a little after midnight that a knock came to the door of our cabin. I heard it first, for I used to sleep in a little snug basket near the fire; but I did n"t speak, for I was frightened. It was repeated still louder, and then came a cry, "Con Cregan! Con, I say, open the door! I want you." I knew the voice well; it was Peter M"Cabe"s; but I pretended to be fast asleep, and snored loudly. At last my father unbolted the door, and I heard him say, "Oh, Mr. Peter, what"s the matter? Is the ould man worse?"