Old Jack

Old Jack.

by W.H.G. Kingston.

Preface.

I had more than once, in my rambles in the neighbourhood of Blackheath, Greenwich and Woolwich, met an old man walking briskly along, whose appearance struck me as unusual; but we never even exchanged salutations. One day, however, when I was in company with my friend Captain N--- of the Navy, seeing the stranger, he stopped and addressed a few words to him, from which I gleaned that he had been a sailor. My friend told me, as we moved on, that he often had conversations on religious subjects with the old man, who had for long been in a South Sea whaler, and had seen many parts of the world. My interest was much excited. I took an early opportunity of making the acquaintance of Old Jack--for such, he told me, was the name by which he was best known; and without reluctance he gave me his history. This I now present to the public with certain emendations, with which I do not think my younger readers will find fault. W.H.G.K.

OLD JACK, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.

CHAPTER ONE.

DONNYBROOK FAIR.

Jack began his story thus:

Of course you"ve heard of Donnybrook Fair, close to the city of Dublin.

What a strange scene it was, to be sure, of uproar and wild confusion-- of quarrelling and fighting from beginning to end--of broken heads, of black eyes, and bruised shins--of shouting, of shrieking and swearing-- of blasphemy and drunkenness in all its forms of brutality. Ay, and as I"ve heard say, of many a deed of darkness, not omitting murder, and other crimes not less foul and hateful to Him who made this beautiful world, and gave to man a religion of love and purity. There the rollicking, roaring, bullying, fighting, harum-scarum Irishman of olden days had full swing for all the propensities and vile pa.s.sions which have ruined him at home, and gained him a name and a fame not to be envied throughout the world. Often have I wondered whether, had a North American Indian, or a South-Sea Islander, visited the place, he could have been persuaded that he had come to a land of Christian men.

Certainly an angel from heaven would have looked upon the a.s.semblage as a mult.i.tude of Satan"s imps let loose upon the world. They tell me that the fair and its bedevilments have pretty well been knocked on the head.

I am glad of it, though I have never again been to the spot from the day of which I am about to speak.

I remember very little of my childish life. Indeed, my memory is nearly a blank up to the time to which I allude. That time was one of the first days of that same Donnybrook Fair; but I remember _that_ and good reason I have so to do. I was, however, but a small chap then, young in years, and little as to size.

My father"s name was Amos Williams. He came from England and settled in Dublin, where he married my mother, who was an Irishwoman. Her name I never heard. If she had relations, they did not, at all events, own her. I suspect, from some remarks she once let drop which I did not then understand, that they had discarded her because she had become a Protestant when she married my father. She was gentle and pious, and did her utmost, during the short time she remained on earth, to teach me the truths of that glorious gospel to which, in many a trial, she held fast, as a ship to the sheet-anchor with a gale blowing on a lee-sh.o.r.e.

She died young, carried off by a malignant fever. Her last prayers were for my welfare here and hereafter. Had I always remembered her precepts I should, I believe, have been in a very different position to what I now am in my old age. My poor father took her death very much to heart.

For days after her funeral he sat on his chair in our little cottage with his hands before him, scarcely lifting up his head from his breast, forgetting entirely that he ought to go out and seek for work, as without it he had no means of finding food for himself and me. I should have starved had not a kind woman, a neighbour, brought me in some potatoes and b.u.t.termilk. Little enough I suspect she had to spare after feeding her own children.

At length my father roused himself to action. Early one morning, seizing his hat and bidding me stay quiet till his return, he rushed out of the house. He was a stonemason. He got work, I believe, but the tempter came in his way. A fellow-workman induced him to enter a whisky shop. Spirits had, in his early days, been his bane. My mother"s influence had kept him sober. He now tried to forget his sorrow in liquor. "Surely I have a right to cure my grief as best I can," said he. Unhappily he did not wait for a reply from conscience. Little food could he buy from the remnant of his day"s wages. Thus he went on from day to day, working hard when sober, drinking while he had money to pay for liquor.

Still his affection for me did not diminish. While in his right mind he could not bear to have me out of his sight. Every morning we might have been seen leaving our cottage, I holding his hand as he went to his work; yet nearly as certainly as the evening came round I had to creep supperless to bed. All day he would keep me playing about in his sight, except when any of his fellow-workmen, or people living near where we happened to be, wanted a lad to run on an errand. Then I was always glad of the job. Whenever, by happy chance, he came home sober in an evening, he would take me between his knees, and, parting my hair, look into my face and weep till his heart seemed ready to burst. But these occasions grew less and less frequent. What I have said will show that I have reason to love the memory of both my parents, in spite of the faults my unhappy father undoubtedly possessed.

Several months had thus pa.s.sed away after my mother"s death, when one afternoon my father entered our cottage where he had left me since the morning.

"Jack, my boy," said he, taking my hand, "come along, and I will show you what _life is_." Oh, had he said, "what _death is_," he would have spoken the truth.

I accompanied him willingly, though I saw at a glance that he had already been drinking. Crowds of people were going in the direction we took. For some days past I had heard the neighbours talking of the fair. I now knew that we were bound there. My mother had never allowed me to go to the place, so I had no notion what it was like. I expected to see something very grand and very beautiful--I could not tell what.

I pushed on into the crowd with my father as eagerly as any one, thinking that we should arrive at the fair at last. I did not know that we were already in the middle of it. I remember, however, having a confused sight of booths, and canvas theatres, and actors in fine clothes strutting about and spouting and trumpeting and drumming; of rope-dancers and tumblers with painted faces; and doctors in gilded chariots selling all sorts of wonderful remedies for every possible complaint; and the horsemanship, with men leaping through hoops and striding over six steeds or more at full gallop; and the gingerbread stalls, and toy shops, and similar wonders; but what was bought and sold at the fair of use to any one I never heard.

My father had taken me round to several of the shows I have spoken of: when he entered a drinking-booth, and set himself down with me on his knee, among a number of men who seemed to be drinking hard. Their example stimulated him to drink harder than ever, and in a short time his senses completely left him. As, however, even though the worse liquor, he was peaceable in his disposition, instead of sallying forth as many did in search of adventures, he laid himself down on the ground with his head against the canvas of the tent, and told me to call him when it was morning. Some one at the same time handed me a piece of gingerbread, so I set myself down by his side to do as he bid me.

Those were the days of faction fights; and if people happened to have no cause for a quarrel, they very soon found one. The tent we were in was patronised by Orangemen, and of course was a mark for the attacks of the opposite party. My poor father had slept an hour or so, with three or four men near him in a similar condition, when a half-drunken body of men came by, shillelah in hand, looking out for a row. Unhappily the shapes of the heads of most of the sleepers were clearly developed through the canvas. The temptation was not to be resisted--whack-- whack--whack! Down came the heavy stick of a st.u.r.dy Irishman upon that of my father. "Get up out of that, and defend yourselves!" sung out their a.s.sailants. Most of his companions rushed out to avenge the insult offered them, but my father made no answer. Numbers joined from all directions--shillelahs were flourished rapidly, and the scrimmage became general. I ran to the front of the tent and clapped my hands, and shouted with sympathy. Now the ma.s.s of fighting, shrieking men swayed to one side, now to the other; now they advanced, now they retreated, till by degrees the fight had reached a considerable distance from the tent.

I then went back to my place by my father"s side, wondering that he did not get up to join the fray. I listened, he breathed, but he did not speak. Still I thought he must be awake. "Father, father," said I, "get up, do. It"s time to go home, sure now." I shook him gently, but he made no reply. At length I could hear no sound proceeding from his lips. I cried out in alarm. The keeper of the booth saw that something was wrong, and came and looked curiously into his face. He lifted up my father"s hand. It fell like lead by his side.

"Why won"t father speak to me?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"He"ll never speak again! Your father"s dead, lad," answered the man in a tone of commiseration.

With what oppressive heaviness did those words strike on my young heart, though at that time I did not fully comprehend the extent of my loss,-- that I should never again hear the tone of his voice--that we were for ever parted in this world--that I was an orphan, without a human being to care for me. But though bewildered and confused at that awful moment, the words he had uttered as we left home rung strangely in my ears--"Lad, I"ll show you what life is." Too truly did he show me what death was. Often and often have I since seen the same promise fulfilled in a similar fearful way. What men call _life_ is a certain road to _death_; death of the body, death of the soul. Of course I did not understand this truth in those days; not indeed till long, long afterwards, when I had gone through much pain and suffering, and had been well-nigh worn-out. I was then very ignorant and very simple, and I should probably have been vicious also had not my mother watchfully kept me out of the way of bad example; and even after she was taken from me, I was prevented from a.s.sociating with bad companions.

When I found that my poor father was really dead, I stood wringing my hands and crying bitterly. The sounds of my grief attracted many of the pa.s.sers-by; some stopped to inquire its cause, and when they had satisfied their curiosity they went their way. At last several seamen, with an independent air, came rolling up near the tent. The leader of the party was one of the tallest men I ever saw. Though he stooped slightly as he walked, his head towered above all the rest of the crowd.

"What"s the matter with the young squeaker there, mate?" he asked in a bantering tone, thinking probably that I had broken a toy, or lost a lump of gingerbread from my pocket.

"His daddy"s dead, and he"s no one to look after him!" shouted an urchin from the crowd of bystanders.

"He"s in a bad case then," replied the seaman, coming up to me. "What, lad! is it true that you have no friends?" he asked, stooping down and taking me by the hand.

"No one but father, and he lies there!" I answered, giving way to a fresh burst of grief as I pointed to my parent"s corpse.

"He speaks the truth," observed the man of the booth; "he has no mother, nor kith nor kin that I know of, and must starve if no one takes charge of him, I suspect."

The tall sailor looked at me with an expression of countenance which at once gained my confidence. "What say you, lad, will you come with us?"

he asked, pointing to his companions; "we"ll take you to sea, and make a man of you!"

"We may get him entered aboard the _Rainbow_, I think, mates," he added, addressing them. "He"ll do as well as the monkey we lost overboard during the last gale; and though he may be as mischievous now, he will learn better manners, which Jocko hadn"t the sense to do."

"Oh ay! Bear him along with us," replied the other sea men; "he"ll be better afloat, whichever way the wind blows, than starving on sh.o.r.e."

"Come along, youngster, then," said the tall seaman; and, without waiting for my reply, he seized me by the arm, and began to move off with me through the crowd.

"But what will be done with poor father? Sure I cannot leave him now!"

I exclaimed, looking back with anguish at my father"s corpse.

"Oh, we"ll see all about that," answered my new friend; "he shall be waked in proper style, and have a decent funeral; so you may leave home with a clear conscience. Never fear!"

I need not dwell longer on the events of that sad day. Aided by some of the men who knew my father, and who returned to the tent after the fray was over, the kind-hearted seamen bore the corpse to our cottage. The promise of a supply of whisky easily induced some of the neighbours to come and howl during the livelong night. This they did with right good will, although my father was a Protestant and a foreigner; and I cried and howled in sympathy. I would fain, however, have forgotten my grief in sleep. The seamen had taken their departure, promising to return to look after me.

As there was no chance of a man with a fractured skull coming to life again, the funeral speedily took place. The small quant.i.ty of furniture remaining in the cottage was sold; but the proceeds were barely sufficient to pay the expenses.

Thus I was left, with the exception of a suit of somewhat ragged clothes on my back, as naked and poor as when I came into the world about twelve years before, with a much more expensive appet.i.te than I then had to supply. Some boys at that age are well able to take care of themselves, but, as I have said, I was small for my years, and I had been kept by my poor mother so much by myself, that I knew nothing of the world and its ways.

Alter the funeral a compa.s.sionate neighbour, with a dozen or more children of her own to feed, took me to her house till it was settled what was to become of me. She and her husband laughed at the idea of the tall sailor coming to take me away.

"I know what sailors are," said the husband; "they"ll just chuck a handful of silver to the first beggar who asks them for it, and then they"ll go away and forget all about it! Maybe your friend was only after joking with you, and is off to sea long ago!"

"Oh no! he meant what he said," I replied; "I know that by the look of his face. He"s a kind man, I"m certain!"

"It may be better for us all if he comes, but it"s not very likely," was the answer. Still I trusted that my new friend would not deceive me.

I was standing in front of the cottage which was next to that my father and I had inhabited, when my heart beat quick at seeing a tall figure turn a corner at the other end of the street. I was certain it was my sailor friend. "It"s him! It"s him! I knew he"d come!" I shouted, and ran forward to meet him.

He smiled as he saw my eagerness. "You"ve not forgotten me, I see, lad," said he; "well, come along. It"s all arranged; and if you"re in the same mind, you"ve only to say so, and we"ll enter you aboard the _Rainbow_!"

I told the tall sailor that I was ready to go wherever he liked to take me. This seemed to please him. After I had wished the neighbours, who had been so kind to me, good-bye, he took me by the hand, and led me rapidly along in the direction of the docks. Before reaching them, we entered a house where some old gentlemen were sitting at a table. One of them asked me if I wished to go to sea and become an admiral. I replied, "Yes, surely," though I did not know what being an admiral meant; and on this the other old gentlemen laughed, and the first wrote something on a paper, which he handed across the table.