 | The diary of a hackney coachman |  |
2. DONALD FAY.
Donald Fay, the hero of our tale of true life, had been at the time of his
marriage, sixteen years before the story opens, a thrifty young farmer on Bergen
Hill; no one bade fairer to arrive at independence. His landlord was indulgent,
and leased him his house, barn, and forty acres at a rate that, with industry,
he easily paid the first three years, and laid by something for a `rainy
day.' Sarah, his wife, was an excellent, frugal and industrious partner, just
such an one as a young farmer in his condition, needed, a `help-meet' truly in
every thing he did towards advancing the prosperity of his situation. She had
presented him also, with a little girl, a year after his marriage, and the interesting
prattler, as it reached its third year, he felt united him closer to its fair
mother, and was an additional spur to his industry. There were many ways by
which Donald increased his profits, and turned all his labors to advantage,
which are unknown to farmers living at a distance from a great city. His little
farm was but three miles from New York, on the south side of Begen Hill
in Jersey, and an hourly ferry, at that time, gave him easy access to the market.
week, he himself, hired and sent in a man with milk every morning to a large
number of regular customers, the receipts from which were no small income at
the year's end; besides, he found in the city a ready cash market for his pork,
veal and mutton, for his hay, corn and other produce. Thus Donald Fay was
a thrifty farmer, and promised one day, to be as rich a man as Henry Brevoort
and others, who began the world in a small way, like him. Three years he had
been thus prosperous, and as he was not intemperate, there seemed no prospect
of any check being put to it, so long as he remained in health, and his wife
proved so frugal. But Donald was avaricious! The more money he made,
the more he loved it; and at length he began to think he did not make it fast
enough. He had calculated, and found that it would take a good many
years to get as rich as some of his neighbors; and he was ambitious to
be rich! This was the period when lotteries—those curses which are paralleled
only by distilleries—filled a large share of the public mind. Every
body was talking of them, and every body felt tempted to leave the honest and
laborious toil by which they lived, to arrive suddenly at wealth by a lucky turn
of the wheel of Fortune. The mains filled the land, and men became discontented
with labor, and leaving their benches, their ploughs, their hammers and
their anvils, flocked to the lottery-offices to win riches by a turn of the lottery
director's hand. But Donald Fay had been too attentive to his farm, and the
routine of his daily business, to pay much attention to the subject of lotteries;
and if he ever spoke of them, it was without thinking of himself, or of improving
his position in connection with them. But it chanced that one day he
had sold off the mutton, veal, turkies and geese he had brought to market, a
little earlier than usual; when, instead of going directly home, as he should
have done, he lingered about the market, idly looking at the other seller's stalls,
and proudly, in his heart, comparing them with his own neat stand, clean bench
and polished meat hooks. But idleness is a dangerous indulgence; time accidentally
gained, should be twice improved, instead of indolently spent. Five
idle minutes after Donald had closed his stall, laid the foundation for years of
future sorrow.
While he was carelessly lounging through the market, a lively young butcher
who had often come out to his farm the year before, to buy of him sneep,
and a beeve or two to kill for market, but who, having become intemperate, had
of late, so neglected his business, that he rarely now had money to purchase
even a single lamb, came up and clapped him on the shoulder.
`Ah, Donald, my man, glad to see you! how do you come on out there to
Bergen?'
`Oh, very well, James,' said Donald, not feeling quite at ease in the society
of his quondam friend, since he had taken to drinking.
`Very well, hey, Donald!' repeated Jim Talbot with a slight sneer; `I don't
call it very well to rise early and go to bed late, the year round, just to get together
three or four hundred dollars to put in bank at the end o' the year!'
`I think for a poor man like me, who am nothing but a small farmer, and a
tenant at that, Jamie, I would do well to lay by four hundred dollars clear of
the world each christmas!'
`Hoit, man! You will always be a `poor man,' as you say, and a tenant too,
said Jim, loudly; `you don't know what is for your interest. You want to be
a rich man, Donald; now tell the truth.'
`Yes, I would prefer to be independent,' said Donald, his eyes brightening
at the thought.
`I know it—I see it in you! You work like a dog! but riches don't come of
hard work, nor never did! I have learned that, and so have knocked off, this
eight months,' said Jim, a little tipsily.
“But I dont't see that you are growing any richer the last eight months,'
said Donald, with a smile, glancing at Jim's old coat, greasy vest, and badly
worn trowsers, while a glance a little lower showed him that his shoes were
through at the toes, and sadly one-sided at the heels.
`No, not yet; not yet, my boy,' said Jim, with a hiccup; “but I am goin'
to be—d—d soon too! I guess you'll stare, Donald, lad, when you are driving
along Broadway in your milk cart, to see me ride past you in my carriage.'
`Guess I should, Jamie.'
`You needn't look so incredulous, Donald. But come with me into Burling's
cellar, and take a mug of ale. You don't drink, I know, but ale wont
hurt you.'
`No, Jamie, I thank you. But how are you going to get rich so all of a sudden?
asked Donald, his avarice, which was ever topmost in his heart, roused
by his late friends words—trifling and scarcely worthy of a sober man's attention
as they were.
`Come down in the cellar, and I'll talk with you. You'll be glad to learn it,
and repent all your life if you don't. I can show you how to get rich without
such a slave's life as you have of it. You do work hard—d—d hard, don't
you, Donald?' and Jamie hung his arm familiarly over Donald's shoulder.
`Why, I do work—yes, perhaps I work hard, Jamie—but then I have to, or
I'd never get along,” answered Donald, already beginning to feel the insinuating
temptation to idleness that irresistibly followed Jamies's words. `Let me
hear your plan, Jamie?'
`Come along into Burling's,' said Jim, pulling him by the arm; `yon needn't
drink—though a pint of ale wouldn't harm a baby. Come along, and I'll talk
with you. I've always been a friend to you, Donald, and I want you to profit
by it as well as myself. Come!'
Donald suffered himself to be led by Jim Talbot from the market house to the
cellar beneath it, a place which he had never suffered himself to enter during
his three year's marketing there; but he excused himself on the plea that Jamie
probably had some scheme in view for him to improve his fortune, and which it
would not be prudent for him to let pass without learning the nature of it, and
seeing what facilities it afforded for enriching himself; in a word, his avarice
chose to consider it a matter of business! for as all `business' involves
the acquisition of money on one side or the other, so all interviews relating to
the acquisition of money are `business engagements.' Thus reasoned Donald's
avaricious disposition with his conscience, which condemned him for going
into a drinking cellar; and so avarice led him into his first temptation.
After Jamie had got into the dark, damp and noisome apartment, with its
broken floor, its little dirty boxes, to hold two men placed on each side, with its
smoky atmosphere and crowd of topers, swearing, hugging each other, and
drinking, and singing songs, Jim led him to one of the blue painted boxes,
holding him the while fast by the arm, as he saw he didn't like the place, nor
the company, and was inclined to retreat.
`Come, Donald, never mind these—let's take seats in this snug box; we can
drop the curtain, and here, with our elbows on the table between us, talk as we
like, and be as private as a in lady's parlor.'
Donald, now that he had got into the cellar, was by no means sorry to escape
from view into the little dark nook, from the front of which Jamie held up a
dirty, greasy piece of sixpenny calico, which he had dignified by the appellation
of `curtain.' A narrow board, which the same personage had dignified by the
name of a table, was placed lengthwise within it, and covered with a coarse
towel, which, for Jamie's sake, might, in courtesy, be called a table-cloth. It
was covered with filthy blotches of all sorts of abominations that had been partaken
off it for the last three weeks, and sent up to Donald's nose a compound
odor, that, like Paddy Goulan's pole-cat, had no particular smell—but not a
very `pertickerly swate one.' At the farther end sat black japaned castors,
the muddy-looking and broken-nosed cruits containing articles that evidently
were meant to represent pepper, vinegar and mustard: near it stood a glass
salt-cellar, containing a whity-brown material, with the imprints therein of the
fore-finger and thumb of some previous occupant of the box.
Before entering, Jim had tipped the bar-keeper a wink which he understood,
from a sometime knowledge of his customer's habits, to mean two brandies; so
they had hardly got seated, before he lifted the curtain, and placed on the table
a dirty waiter, containing two stiff glasses of brandy and water.
`No; but one orandy, Burling—this gentleman drinks ale,' said Jim, placing
sixpence on the waiter to pay for the two glasses, at three cents each.
`I thank you, Jamie,' said Donald, decidedly, `I wont drink any thing. I
never do—you know I am a sober man!'
`Oh, yes, the gentleman is a sober man, Tom, said Jim, significantly, to the
keeper of the cellar, a little offended at the moral superiority over him the words
implied; but never mind, he'll drink with me! Take away the brandy, and
give us a mug of Albany;' for Jim had now resolved he should, at all events,
drink with him.
`No, no, I don't wish it,' said Donald.
The man had already disappeared, and soon returned with the ale foaming
white above the lip of the pewter mug.
`Set it down, Tom. Now, Donald, here's your health, and success to
our being rich men! Take it, take it up, man—what, wont you drink that
toast?'
Donald half extended his hand towards the mug—colored, hesitated, and then
drew it back.
`Now, then, if a man considers himself too good to drink with another,' said
Jim, setting down, untasted, the glass he had lifted to his mouth, quite offended;
`I don't see what he need trouble himself about him for; you may stay
poor for all I will show you a way to get rich, Mr. Fay; `if I aint fit to drink
with, I aint fit to sit with;' and with these words Jim got up to leave the box.
`Stop Jamie,' said Donald, forcing a smile; a glass of ale is neither here nor
there, between friends. So sit down, and I'll drink with you for this once,
though I don't need it, if ye'll never ask me again.'
`Well, this once, then, Donald!' said Jim, mollified, and sitting down; `I
hate to see a fellow so stiff up, that he thinks nobody good enough for him just
because he keeps sober. D—n such fellows! Give me a boy that 'l take his
glass with a friend, and grasp his hand over it as if he had a warm heart in his
breast. Here then, is to you, Donald,' added Jim, touching Donald's mug,
which he had taken in his hand; `and success to our enterprize.'
Jim's brandy and water went quickly the way of all brandies and water, in
the hands of an amateur like him; Donald's ale disappeared less quickly, but
he finally emptied his mug, for the first taste of it inspired a peculiar thirst,
which, though he did not intend to drink but little of it, he could not help yielding
to.
`That's a friend, now, Donald,' said Jim, taking his hand across the board,
and squeezing it in a very tipsy friendly way; `I like to see a man come down
to a level with his friends.'
These words struck Donald very unpleasantly, and he felt uneasy and sorry
he had taken the ale; the reflection forced upon him—I have indeed come
down to the level which he would drag me to! Instead of elevating him to
mine, by dissuading him from drink, I have suffered myself to fall to his! and
he inwardly resolved never to drink another glass again under any circumstances.
Avarice had thus led Donald to take the first step in intemperance!
`Well, Jamie, now you have got me down here, and made me drink with you,
let me know what is the way of getting so soon rich as you spoke of?'
`Well, you see, Donald, it's a dull life this, to work 'till we are old and worn
out, to get rich; and I have made up my mind, as I told you long ago to quit it!
I mean to live like a gentleman.'
`But how, Jamie, how?' demanded Donald, impatiently.
`Why, you see, I was yesterday down in Nassau street, and being thirsty, I
wanted something to drink, in course; so finding, you see, I had, somehow
left my purse at home, I hadn't a red cent—no, not a red cent, Donald! A fix,
wasn't it for a gentleman to be in that means to ride in his carriage! So, thinks
I to myself, I must have a drink if I have to work it—because, it was an all-fired
ways to get at my purse!'
`I dare say, Jamie,' said Donald dryly.
`Yes, and so I looked about for a chance to do a odd job, for a minute to get a
sixpence; and I saw a fellow ragged as a beggar leading an old worn-out horse
with two bags filled with street-pickings across his back. Says he, seeing by
my looks I was'nt very particular what I did, `hold my horse till I jest go up
them are steps, and I'll give you three cents.' I did'nt like the chap's looks
over much, nor his horse's neither, but when a man's dry, he'll do any thing to
get the metal to pay for a drink.'
`Water don't cost any thing, Jamie.'
`Water don't quench my thirst, Donald; water was only made to mix liquor
in—raw water gives a man the cholic. I told the chap if he'd pay me in advance
(for I did'nt believe he had three cents, and I knew if he went off his old
horse would'nt bring me that—) I'd do it. Well, he launches out the coppers
and hands them to me and I takes hold o' the rope to hold the critter—though
he looked more like an animal in danger of taking root on the ground where he
stood, than moving of his own free will. He had'nt been gone up the steps
more than two minutes, when he threw up the window over my head and told
me `to let the old horse go to the devil—for he did'nt want to see him or his
bags again.' I did'nt stop to be told a second time, but hitting the critter a
kick, set him moving, while I stopped and wondered what the fellow had got
since he went up. So, thinks I, I'll see; and climbed up the stairs after him.
At the top was a door set all round with red and green pasteboard signs, with
`Lottery Office' on it large as life. Over the door was, `Wheel of Fortune,'
`The Mint,' `The way to Wealth,' `The Ladder te Riches,' and all such
things. I walked in, and there I saw this ragged chap lolling over a pile of
gold and silver and bank notes that two chaps was counting out to him as fast
as they could move their fingers, and there was'nt fingers enough at that for all
the money heeped up before 'em. Well, the old fellow like a basket full of
smiles! He no sooner saw me than he sung out, coming and hugging me round
the neck—
`Hurrah, I've drawn a prize—ten thousand dollars! down cash! Hurrah,'
and he ran back to his money again.
`A prize,' said I, staring at the gold.
`Yes, sir,' said a man who had been writing, and came up to me, as perlite
as a pair of tongs bowing to a poker, `this gentleman has drawn a prize of ten
thousand dollars. He came in here two weeks ago and bought it—saying it was
the last money he had and he had been four months getting that; and now to-day
he has brought his ticket and finds himself a rich man, as if by magic. You
had best purchase a ticket, sir--Whole's $16; halves, $8; quarters, $4;
eights, $2.' And he shoved in my face a little pile of blue and red tickets.
`Money down, fifteen per cent off, the very hour the prize is drawn. Best
buy, sir! No way like this to get rich.'
`I tell you, Donald, the sight o' the gold made my eyes water; and when I
thought if only I had sixteen dollars how rich I could be. I began to make up
my mind to try and raise the wind. While I was thinking about it, and gloating
on the money the ragged fellow was tying up in a pocket handkerchief they
sold him, I began to think you would like to know this; and as you had plenty
o' money and would'nt mind sixteen dollars, you might try your luck. So, I
said, I'd tell you about it when you come to market this morning; and you see,
Donald, I've been as good as my word.'
`I thank you, Jamie, indeed, and in truth,' said Donald warmly grasping his
hand; `but then I doubt if it wonld be right to venture in a lottery. It is a
species of gambling I'm thinking.'
`No more than if you buy a calf for five dollars, and keep and fat it till it netts
you forty as a beeve. It is venturing a little to receive more! Come, let us
have one more drink! Here, Burling, give us two more glasses—ale and
brandy.'
`No, Jamie, indeed!' protested Donald, though fainter than he had done at
first, for the one glass he had indulgred in had weakened his resolution, and increased
his thirst; while, at the same time, it had, from his uniform sobriety,
flown into his head, and added to the exciting hopes, created by Jamie's narrative,
made him a `little happy.' Jamie saw this, and felt that he had to make
use of but a little more persuasion, after the ale should be brought to induce him
to drink a second time with him; for next to his fondness so characteristic of
inebriates, of having some one hob and nob within his cups, he felt as degraded
drunkards all do, a pleased revenge in bringing a sober and steady acquaint
ance of better days down to his own bestial level.
`But I cannot venture in a lottery, Jamie,' he said, after Burling had placed on
the table the replenished glasses; `it is a sin, and God would not bless it.
`None of your Methodistical cant, now, Donald; you would over-reach a
neighbor in a fair bargain and never think to ask God's forgiveness for it in
your go-to-bed prayers. Here you've only got to plank the hard pewter of
be worth twenty thousand or a hundred thousand dollars.'
`But I can't play in a lottery, for it, Jamie; it goes again' my conscience.
I should never enjoy the wealth come of gambling. It's a great temptation to
an honest man, though Jamie.'
`And many an honest man hath suffered himself to be tempted and thanked
Heaven for it! But never mind, let it go; I only thought to do you a favor,
knowing you worked so hard to get money. Come, drink off your ale!' And
Jim watching his opportunity secretly poured into it half of the brandy out of
his own glass.
`I don't want it Jamie,' said Donald, taking it up `but seeing it is you, and
the last glass, I'll do it to oblige you. Here's to you kindly, Jamie.'
`Then here's to you, kindly back again, Donald,' answered the plotting Jim,
who, having no money himself, had laid and matured this plan to get Donald
to buy both for himself and him. He now, that it had progressed so far, resolved
not to be defeated in his own expectations of wealth, the basis of which
was to be Donald's purse—the purse which he very probably alluded to when
relating his adventure with the ragged chiffonier and his horse. He knew
enough of Donald's principles to know that he would be likely to refuse, much
as he loved to grow rich, to adventure money in a lottery; he therefore, determined
to tempt him to drink, trusting to his avaricious curiosity to lead him
into the snare.
`That ale is good, very good—but I think something stronger than the last
mug,' said Donald, with the tears gushing from his eyes. `I think it has got
into my nose! I'll drink no more, Jamie, dear.'
`It won't hurt you. It does a man good to take something once in a while.
A cold water stomach is like a wet rag. I wonder temperance people don't
mortify inside for want of proper keeping! Spirits is the pickle to keep mankind
in!'
`Yes, yes, good—pickle—good!' hiccupped Donald; on whose brain the
mixed ale and brandy was taking effect. `He, he, he! You're a d—d good
fellow, Jamie.'
`I knew you'd say so—I knew it, Donald! Now you're coming out! You'd
be a gentleman if 'twant for your confounded sobriety.' `So, s-s-so, sobriety?'
`Yes, I said sobriety, Donald,' answered Jamie, who saw with pleasure his
friend was getting into the state he would see him; `you're a good fellow, too!'
`A, a-m I—am I! Jamie! I say, Jamie,' and Donald put an arm round his
neck, `Jamie, I say?' `Well, Donald?'
`Do you know, I think—I think, you are a good fellow.' `You just told me so.'
`D-d-d—did, did I, Jamie?' `Yes.'
`Then you're a devilish good fel-fel-fel—I say—Jamie?'
`What Donald?' answered Jamie, whose own experience now telling him, the
time was come to make his friend do any thing.
`I say, you know where that, that lot-lot—'
`Lottery,' cried Jamie eagerly, completing the word Donald drunkenly stumbled
at.
`Yes, lottery! I say, Jamie, do you know?'
`I'll go with you there, now,' said Jim, rising and taking Donald's arm.
`That's a good fellow—didn't I just say you was a good fellow?'
`Yes—come along!'
`I am coming—I mean to buy a ticket, Jamie.'
`Well, let us go,' said Jamie persuading and coaxing him as if he feared his
game would slip his net, and he led him out of the box, whispering to Burling
to order a hackney coach.
Without resistance, but giving his will wholly up to Jem's direction, he suffered
himself to be led quite tipsy, to the coach. Jim jumped in after him, and
the driver receiving his orders, drove in the direction of Nassau street.
`I—is—is this your coach, Jamie?' asked poor Donald, as they drove rapidly
along.
`Yes, Donald, my boy,' said Jim, elated; `did'nt I tell you I was going to
ride in a coach o my own?
`Oh, yes, yes, I recollect! I say, Jamie, I want to buy one of those lottery
tickets, hey?'
`You shall, Donald; we are going there now.'
`You are a goo-good tellow, Jamie; give us your hand, Jamie.'
`Have you any money with you, Donald, lad?' asked Jamie in a low solicitous
tone.
`Money! yes, Jamie I always have money; what should I do without money;
I never leave my pur-pur-purse at home, Jamie,' said Donald with a drunken
shrewdness often seen in men in his state, and winking tipsily at Jim.
Jim did not blush, though nature tried to for him, but the mirror in his cheek
through which she would have reflected was too thickly coated with vice and
hardihood. He felt, however, that Donald had his wits about him, and that he
must play his hand with caution. `Count and see if you have sixteen dollars,
Donald.'
`Sixteen! s-s-s-sixteen dol-dollars,' he repeated, taking out his pocket-book,
with the kind assistance of the hardy Jim, and opening it: `sixteen—yes—here
is ten—five—that's fifteen, an't it, Jamie?' he hiccupped and looked up with a
vacant stare. `Yes, Donald.'
`Yes—I thought—thought so! but that a'nt sixteen, Jamie.'
`There is a twenty and five besides,' said Jim eagerly.
`I know that, but I only want sixteen—here's a one to—to—to make it!' and
he drew a one from between two leaves of the pocket book.
`Oh, but you will buy two tickets, Donald?' said Jim, quickly.
`And what will I buy two for, Jamie?' asked Donald with characteristie
caution.
`You will give me one, you know, Donald dear, for telling you,' said Jim in his
most insinuating way.
`Oh, no, man Jamie! Sixteen dollars is much to lose, without throwing away
six-six-teen on you Jamie. What do you want a ti-ti-tick-ticket for Jamie?—
You are too poor to want a ticket. You'd get drunk.'
Jamie's feeling's were hurt, by this unkind cut—in plain terms he was angry
at Donald. Donald took out the sixteen dollars, and began to shut up his pocket
book, preparatory to replacing it in its customary recepticle. Jim saw at a
glance, that he would get no ticket with Donald's leave. He was not so drunk
but his avarice would be sober. He was not `drunk all over.' Jim felt that
the crisis had arrived for himself; and that unless he could manage adroitly, he
would have lost his morning's work, to the sole benefit of his avaricious friend.
This disinterested issue was no part of his original tactics.
Donald had began to tie it with very tipsy fingers, when Jim managed, as
the carriage jolted in crossing the gutter, to knock himself against him, and
throw the pocket book to the bottom of the carriage.
`Oh, confound this hackman! I'll pick it up, Donald,' cried Jim, stooping
down so that Donald could not have stooped himself, if he had wished to, and
while seeming to be feeling for it, he slipped out the twenty dollar note, and
concealed it in his cuff, and handed him the book, though not without first assiduously
blowing and brushing the dirt off. `Here it is—not hurt a bit;' and
he thrust it into his friend's pocket and made him button his coat over it, lest,
he said, `some rogue should pick it! What a pleasant circumstance it must be
for a drunken gentleman to have at such times, a `friend in need!'
At length, they alighted at the Lottery Office, and Donald after a little delay,
for a man in liquor' invariably makes a slow bargain, the ticket was purchased,
and he placed it in his pocket book without missing the note Jim had stolen.—
They then returned to the cellar, when Jim dismissed the hack after paying
the backman a dollar, leaving nineteen for himself. He could not, nor did he
now try very hard, to persuade Donald to drink again; and the friends soon afterwards
parted; Donald Fay to go home with a headache to wake up the ensuing
morning late, feverish, and worst of all, with a heavy conscience; Jim to
purchase one-sixteenth of a ticket, and to spend the night and the whole of
the following week, frolicking on his remaining eighteen. Thus, in one of these
individuals, intemperance had led to poverty, deception, and finally to crime;
in the other, a few idle moments had found the way to dissolute companions,
intemperance and gambling; throwing down the bulwarks of principle, and
letting in vice and folly to run riot over the moral guerdon of the heart. Suffice
it to say that Donald's ticket was a blank, and he himself became a ruined
man—a drunkard and an outcast.
| The diary of a hackney coachman | |