University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.

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 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 tap-room,
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.

It was not in the direction of the shore; but seemed to
come out of the vaults of the sea, and out of the mist and fog.

Who was dead, and what could it be?

I soon learned from my ship-mates, that this was the
famous Bell-Buoy, which is precisely what its name implies;
and tolls fast or slow, according to the agitation of
the waves. In a calm, it is dumb; in a moderate breeze,
it tolls gently; but in a gale, it is an alarum like the
tocsin, warning all mariners to flee. But it seemed fuller
of dirges for the past, than of monitions for the future; and
no one can give ear to it, without thinking of the sailors
who sleep far beneath it at the bottom of the deep.

As we sailed ahead the river contracted. The day came,
and soon, passing two lofty land-marks on the Lancashire
shore, we rapidly drew near the town, and at last, came to
anchor in the stream.

Looking shoreward, I beheld lofty ranges of dingy warehouses,
which seemed very deficient in the elements of the
marvelous; and bore a most unexpected resemblance to the
ware-houses along South-street in New York. There was
nothing strange; nothing extraordinary about them. There
they stood; a row of calm and collected ware-houses; very
good and substantial edifices, doubtless, and admirably adapted
to the ends had in view by the builders; but plain, matter-of-fact
ware-houses, nevertheless, and that was all that could
be said of them.

To be sure, I did not expect that every house in Liverpool
must be a Leaning Tower of Pisa, or a Strasbourg Cathedral;
but yet, these edifices I must confess, were a sad and
bitter disappointment to me.

But it was different with Larry the whaleman; who to
my surprise, looking about him delighted, exclaimed, “Why,
this 'ere is a considerable place—I'm dummed if it ain't
quite a place.—Why, them 'ere houses is considerable houses.
It beats the coast of Afriky, all hollow; nothing like this
in Madagasky, I tell you;—I'm dummed, boys, if Liverpool
ain't a city!”

Upon this occasion, indeed, Larry altogether forgot his
hostility to civilization. Having been so long accustomed
to associate foreign lands with the savage places of the Indian
Ocean, he had been under the impression, that Liverpool
must be a town of bamboos, situated in some swamp,
and whose inhabitants turned their attention principally to
the cultivation of log-wood and curing of flying-fish. For
that any great commercial city existed three thousand miles
from home, was a thing, of which Larry had never before
had a “realizing sense.” He was accordingly astonished
and delighted; and began to feel a sort of consideration for

the country which could boast so extensive a town. Instead
of holding Queen Victoria on a par with the Queen
of Madagascar, as he had been accustomed to do; he ever
after alluded to that lady with feeling and respect.

As for the other seamen, the sight of a foreign country
seemed to kindle no enthusiasm in them at all: no emotion
in the least. They looked round them with great presence
of mind, and acted precisely as you or I would, if, after a
morning's absence round the corner, we found ourselves returning
home. Nearly all of them had made frequent voyages
to Liverpool.

Not long after anchoring, several boats came off; and
from one of them stept a neatly-dressed and very respectable-looking
woman, some thirty years of age, I should
think, carrying a bundle. Coming forward among the sailors,
she inquired for Max the Dutchman, who immediately
was forthcoming, and saluted her by the mellifluous appellation
of Sally.

Now during the passage, Max in discoursing to me of
Liverpool, had often assured me, that that city had the
honor of containing a spouse of his; and that in all probability,
I would have the pleasure of seeing her. But having
heard a good many stories about the bigamies of seamen,
and their having wives and sweethearts in every port, the
round world over; and having been an eye-witness to a
nuptial parting between this very Max and a lady in New
York; I put down this relation of his, for what I thought
it might reasonably be worth. What was my astonishment,
therefore, to see this really decent, civil woman coming
with a neat parcel of Max's shore clothes, all washed, plaited,
and ironed, and ready to put on at a moment's warning.

They stood apart a few moments giving loose to those
transports of pleasure, which always take place, I suppose,
between man and wife after long separations.

At last, after many earnest inquiries as to how he had
behaved himself in New York; and concerning the state

of his wardrobe; and going down into the forecastle, and
inspecting it in person, Sally departed; having exchanged
her bundle of clean clothes for a bundle of soiled ones, and
this was precisely what the New York wife had done for
Max, not thirty days previous.

So long as we laid in port, Sally visited the Highlander
daily; and approved herself a neat and expeditious getter-up
of duck frocks and trowsers, a capital tailoress, and as
far as I could see, a very well-behaved, discreet, and reputable
woman.

But from all I had seen of her, I should suppose Meg,
the New York wife, to have been equally well-behaved, discreet,
and reputable; and equally devoted to the keeping in
good order Max's wardrobe.

And when we left England at last, Sally bade Max good-by,
just as Meg had done; and when we arrived at New
York, Meg greeted Max precisely as Sally had greeted him
in Liverpool. Indeed, a pair of more amiable wives never
belonged to one man; they never quarreled, or had so much
as a difference of any kind; the whole broad Atlantic being
between them; and Max was equally polite and civil to
both. For many years, he had been going Liverpool and
New York voyages, plying between wife and wife with
great regularity, and sure of receiving a hearty domestic
welcome on either side of the ocean.

Thinking this conduct of his, however, altogether wrong
and every way immoral, I once ventured to express to him
my opinion on the subject. But I never did so again. He
turned round on me, very savagely; and after rating me
soundly for meddling in concerns not my own, concluded by
asking me triumphantly, whether old King Sol, as he called
the son of David, did not have a whole frigate-full of
wives; and that being the case, whether he, a poor sailor,
did not have just as good a right to have two? “What
was not wrong then, is right now,” said Max; “so, mind
your eye, Buttons, or I'll crack your pepper-box for you!”