Thus in all puzzlement he lifted his glass to the bland and cheerful faces of the Irish merchants, if merchants they were, and bade them continue their tale, if they liked.
‘It may be wondered,’ said Master Michael, closing his fingers over his stomach and taking up the thread that had been dropped, ‘how one who would prove himself such a friend to Liberty, and that for
all
men, not only his own Nation, could have served in the army committed to the suppression of the Americans’ just desires to determine for themselves. Well! He was a British soldier, and ’twas his nature—the
soldier’s
nature—to serve, and to fight, not considering his own opinions of the rightness of his Army’s cause—or, rather, keeping those opinions lock’d up in his breast, lest, by conflicting with his Duty, they may weaken his resolve, or soften his blow, and thereby endanger himself, or those under his command. A hard task at times, though a common one.
‘There is no doubt his head, and his heart, turned toward the Americans—though not his Arm. He liked the people, and he thought them in the right. He despised the unending concern of the British with the minutest marks of rank and subordination—liked the Americans for having none such, and accounting no man greater or lesser merely by
name,
or
birth
—liked a land where any man, or man and woman, possessed of an axe, a gun, a pair of oxen and a willing spirit, might make a home for themselves, and furnish forth their children, to do the same—to live as they liked—frank and free—beholden to none, except as they agreed. Indeed, as soon as he could after that war ended in the victory of Washington, Lord Edward contrived to return to the Continent—to Canada, there to serve with the British Army occupying that land, but also to travel, to explore, to see for himself.
‘I invite you, young Sir,’ he cried, rising from his seat in urgent suasion, ‘to picture the land of Canada, as ’twas then, and no doubt still is—the great rivers and mountains, never yet named or seen but by savages—the falls of Niagara—the flotillas of Canoes by which the savage Nations travel—the snows—’
‘
Our
experience of snow is as nothing,’ interjected his brother. ‘It is as the powdered sugar on a cake. There, the snows fall in November, and heap up higher than a man’s head, never melting till summer—and yet there they go, the savage hunters, walking upon the shining surface in their
snow-shoes,
and drawing behind them their
tabargans
loaded with the pelts of Beaver and Moose they have slain—and get on more easily than in the summer forest!
‘Lord Edward travelled thus for many a month—slept out under those stars—made his bed of spruce—or a hole in the snow—and eat his
pemican,
of the dry’d flesh of the
moose
—often in the company of a famous Chieftain of the savages, named Joseph Brant by the English, and no other companion, save the faithful Tony.’
Now his brother had also risen, as though the sights they spoke of lay before his inspired vision. ‘What man of Africa,’ cried he, ‘what slave of Carolina, ever beheld, or acted in, scenes as diverse and wondrous as did the faithful Tony? Chased a moose for days, till it dropt from exhaustion—stood in the thunders and sprays of Niagara—shared with his Friend and Master every hardship—and with him every triumph? No American
slave-driver
could have compelled his loyalty—much less his love—but an Irish lover of Liberty could do!’
‘At the headwaters of the great river of the Mississippi,’ said Master Michael, ‘Lord Edward was inducted by Chief Joseph into his own sept of the tribe of the Mohawks, that of the Bear. Then he parted from that proud savage, whom he had learned to
admire
as much as to
love
—while well knowing how many white men’s throats he had cut, and settlements burnt—and made his way down the river to New Orleans, whence he expected to return home. It was there that he learned, from letters long in pursuit of him, that a certain lady of Ireland, upon whom his heart had long been fixed—
‘And whom he had reason to believe returned his feelings—despite the unyielding opposition of her father—a cruel man, or at least obtuse and obstructive—which had, as he believed, prevented him from contracting with her—
‘The Lady, it now appeared, had, in the long time of his absence, married another—showing, it may be thought, that Lord Edward was mistaken in the causes of her reluctance toward accepting himself.
‘There, then, he stood—upon the Continent’s lip—with his last connexion to his native land severed by these news—and found that he had little desire to return to the Old and distant World. Rather than returning to his oppressed land, or to the Army of the oppressor, he thought to go on—for there seemed a
forever
into which he might go—to the mountains of Mexico, to South America, to the Orinoco, or the Amazon—to the bottom of the world, where the ice and snow appear again—to return never!
‘And yet—a letter from his mother was also awaiting him—a lady to whom he was utterly devoted—who was indeed
worthy
of that devotion. Her desire once again to set eyes upon her beloved Son, melted his heart, and weakened his resolve—and with heavy heart, and few expectations, he began his preparations to return.
‘Now see what may come, when Time and Chance wrestle with a man’s will, like Jacob with that sporting Angel, to see who may be the shaper of his fate! Within a month of his returning from America, he had gone on from his mother’s house, to Paris, where the Directorate had then been formed—the year, it must be noted, was seventeen ninety-two—and where the embattled Revolution faced its several enemies among the Monarchs of Europe—which did not yet include, tho’ soon it would, his own nominal & befuddled King. On a certain night, at White’s hotel, British subjects present in Paris foregathered who were sympathetic to the Revolution, and who wished it success; and amid the wild hopes felt that night and the oaths taken, the songs sung and the toasts made, Lord Edward, of the oldest and grandest House his native isle could boast,
renounced his title,
and in its place took that only of
citoyen, frère, camarade
!’
‘That night,’ his brother continued, ‘at the least, I
believe
it to have been that very night, the erstwhile noble Lord attended a ball, and there he glimpsed a beautiful young woman, and his heart—that he had thought
dead
—made known it was alive after all within his bosom. The lady was the illegitimate daughter, by a man
formerly
a great Duke of France, of a Lady Writer of renown—’
‘Chieftainess of that tribe of scribbling women, none other than Madame de Genlis!’
‘He woo’d, was accepted, and within weeks was married to the lady. During those weeks he was dismissed from the British Army for the oaths he had taken at White’s hotel. So there he stood—not a broken Heart—not a Bachelor—nor an English soldier—nor an Irish lord (tho’ all would ever call him so still), and before him lay all things. No sooner hardly than he had brought home his Wife, he attended Parliament in Dublin, and struck out upon that path—as unknown and full of hazards as any in wild America!—that would lead to his martyrdom in the cause of his People and of Liberty, and his place eternal in the hearts of all who love them both!’
‘So you may see,’ said Master Michael—the storm of feeling inspired in him by this tale now somewhat blown by—‘we do not know what awaits, nor what we may be called upon to chuse, when once our way divides from what it was, and we know not what it shall be.’
‘Step upon a Ship’s deck,’ said Patrick, ‘it may convey you merely from place to place—but know that it may carry you from Life to Life.’
‘And now,’ his brother said, ‘our duties call us, and we are shorthanded—so I may ask you, to give us what Assistance you can—no knowledge of the mariner’s art required—but a strong Arm—and a Will likewise.’
Ali averred that he would do all he could to help the kindly pair, and was soon at work doing tasks he had never done before, involving tarry ropes, and great yards of canvas, and dizzy heights, and a
language
never heard on land, which he must learn—and sometimes when aloft above the Irish Sea, he would bethink him, how he had been himself but recently a
Lord,
or the son of one; and before that a
shepherd,
and now was neither, nor hardly yet a
mariner
—and truly he knew not, what he might yet be, nor cared. He chose not to tell his own tale to the brothers, who did not seek it of themselves, however much they studied him in smiling curiosity. They were as silent upon the subject of their own business, and Ali learned nothing of their purposes, save that they seemed solely to
take on
goods as they rounded their native Isle, and to deliver none—that they seemed to have many dealings at night—and that they avoided the greater ports and more commodious harbours, where the Royal customs-houses are maintained. Yet it was not until, with running lights extinguished, they turned the
Hibernia
out to sea, meaning (as it appeared) to round the great toe of England, and make for the Bay of Biscay, and the Western coast of France, that Ali knew certainly their name & trade.
It was still the days when Buonaparte ‘bestrode the narrow world like a Colossus’, and among other actions shocking to the world—as, the knocking off of Crowns, the tearing up of ancient charters of Privilege, the freeing of the imprisoned, the granting of suffrage to the despised—he had locked up the whole of Europe in his ‘Continental System’, which forbade any of those lands he ruled as his demesne to trade with those outside it. In response, the English government—to whom a blow against
trade
must have been felt more keenly than even one struck against
honour,
or
religion
—proceeded to ban all other Nations whatsoever from trading with the French, thus beggaring themselves, provoking the Americans to a futile war, and achieving very little. For trade nonetheless flourished—tho’ no duties were levelled against it—and it had largely to be done inconveniently, at night—and investors were oft-times discouraged, when a cutter of one side or the other sent their argosies to the bottom, or to impoundment—it mattered not, for like water, Trade is neither compressible, nor destructible, and will flow
underground
if stopt above. It was withal an occupation for brave men, and cold of blood: and however mild the brothers Hannigan (or it may have been Flannigan, my notes are illegible upon this point) seemed to Ali, there was little they would stop—or
had stopt
—at, to conclude their business with a profit to themselves.
‘Indeed,’ said Master Michael, ‘there is a wisdom in choosing the right cargo to carry. We are fortunate in that, and what we bring will not be stopt, for it goes from our ships to the highest offices in the land.’
Dark was upon the face of the ocean, and a sweet breeze carried the odours of the shores of France, which lay beyond a far line of whitening breakers that could not yet be heard. Ali begged to know what this precious cargo was.
‘Razors of Smithfield,’ replied Michael, and clasped his hands in satisfaction behind his back. ‘His Highness the Emperor may despise the English, and their soldiers and sailors, and their King and Princes, and the “nation of Shopkeepers” they rule. But he will not have his cheeks shaved with any but razors of Smithfield, the world’s best, a good number of which we carry below. And corn and tar and tallow and
good white ’taters
too.’
Ali’s eye was now drawn to the horizon, where a dark shape had blotted out a square of pale horizon. He asked, ‘If that was not a ship, and making a beeline for us?’ At which the First Mate went to the taffrail—approaching thus a few feet closer to the approaching vessel, the better to inspect it—and bent out over it to sea.
‘By certain signs displayed,’ said the Master, ‘we are assured passage to port, so long as we are
modest,
and make no show. I tell you thrice,’ he added, and held up before him crossed fingers, ‘we have an Arrangement.’ But now a signal-lamp was flashed from the approaching Frenchman, which made clear its intent to interfere with the
Hibernia
.
‘What means this?’ asked Pat.
‘The devil I know,’ replied his brother, ‘but I shall not stop to learn. Hard about!’
‘I think it may be,’ said Pat, ‘that the
arrangement
you boasted of just now, Brother, may be in abeyance.’
‘Well, well, Pat,’ said Mike, and crossed himself with great delicacy, ‘perhaps you may have a part of the truth. And now that I think upon it, it may be the better part of valor to be discreet, and heave to.’
For they at that moment saw, as the cutter approached, a red flash of fire—and an instant later
heard the sound,
and a moment after that
felt the passage
across their bows, all too near their
heads,
of a ball—and the simple Truth pronounced by the Irishmen, that ‘when we step upon a ship’s deck, we may be carried not only from shore to shore, but from Life to Life’, was to be illustrated, once again, in the story of Ali.
NOTES FOR THE 6TH CHAPTER
I believe that the phenomenon of the
zombi
is another aspect of that Hypnotic Sleep elsewhere explored and described in this novel in such farsighted fashion: it seems to me that persons placed by clever masters or powerful Witch-doctors into that state, might appear to others to be both dead and alive.
2.
Miss Edge-worth:
Ld. B. was by his own estimate a prodigious reader of novels, and claimed at one time to have read five thousand—though Mr Hobhouse says this is impossible—that Lord Byron counted a book as read if he had but looked briefly into it. He had also little compunction in respect of exaggeration, a fault I have shared, and was punished for as a child, when the thing exaggerated was not of the approved kind—as filial piety, or religious impulses, or grief at the sufferings of others who had claim on my compassion. I can well believe that Ld. B. read widely in fiction; he had no airs, where literature was concerned, and thought none the less of his own work, that many readers delighted in it.
3.
Lord Edward Fitzgerald:
The tale here interpolated is a true one—the Irish patriot, slain in the uprising of 1798, did have such a black servant, and had these adventures in America. The tale is told in the biography of that Lord by the ubiquitous Mr Thomas Moore, who can at times seem unnervingly like a shadow cast by Lord Byron, without whom he would not exist—but this is an unfair aspersion on the name of the author of
Lallah Rookh
and many lovely songs. Nevertheless it is true that Ld. B., long before he knew of Moore, or Irish matters in any way at first hand, became enamoured of the chivalrous figure (as he perceived it) of Fitzgerald, and declared at the time of the Irish rebellion of 1798, that had he been a grown man, he would have become an
English
Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Lady Byron has granted me that tit-bit from the store of anecdotes told her by her late husband.
No doubt it was during his later long friendship with Mr Moore that Ld. B. learned the story here related. His reasons for telling this tale within his own is less clear. Perhaps it is only the vision of America which drew him to include it. I know not.
4.
Madame de Genlis:
The Comtesse de Genlis was the tutor of the children of the Duc de Chartres, and at least one of her children is now generally supposed to have been his. She is the well-known author of
Madame de Maintenon, Memoires,
&c. Like so many of his generation, Ld. B. professed to despise the ‘bluestocking’ lady writer, the ‘crowd of scribbling women’ held up so often in his time to contempt. Madame de Staël was excepted by him, and I suspect that, in this as in so much else, his easy mockery is less
felt
than merely assumed, and unexamined.
5.
Buonaparte:
This is Ld. B.’s habitual spelling. As a boy he was much taken with Napoleon, but like many of his coevals, he was finally disappointed in the apparent liberator of Europe, who became a Dictator worse than any he overthrew, and instead of removing Kings from the world, merely set their crowns upon the heads of his own incompetent relatives. Lord Byron’s poems and letters are rich in allusions to this cynosure of his youthful fancy, and anyone doubting the complexity of the poet’s mind, or the subtlety of his judgement, need only assemble them, and see how variously, without contradiction, Napoleon is pictured—as dream of glory, or of justice and hope; as welcome affront to the settled world; as figure of comical self-deception; and as blood-stained tyrant. I for one would trade all Byron’s verse dramas for
one
on the subject of Napoleon.
6.
a ship’s deck:
There was nothing he loved so much as to be on a ship, both leaving
behind
what he no longer wanted, or what no longer wanted him, and going on to what he knew not. For only that moment he could love again what he had lost, or discarded; and was not yet disappointed in what he would have. I was among the left. It was not altogether his choice, yet it was his doing. He would not deny it, if I could ask him; but I cannot, and that is his doing, too—and Death’s.