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CHAPTER III....continued
On their arrival in St. John they lost no time in seeking the Bishop, to whom they presented their only credential, the letter that was 'to make a landlord of Dinny.' The wife at that time spoke English imperfectly, while the husband understood no other language than that which is the sweetest to the ear and the softest to the tongue of the Connaught peasant; and clustering round this seemingly helpless couple was a swarm of young children, some little more than toddling infants. As the Bishop heard their story, and glanced at the group of young creatures, he looked upon the case as almost desperate: the husband, who had to rely on his wife's somewhat questionable powers as an interpreter, might not be able to make himself understood, and probably the struggle would be too severe for the children. Therefore he sought to dissuade them from the attempt which they were so anxious to make. But to go into the forest they were determined, and go into it they did--with a result which is pleasant to narrate.
Their entire worldly means consisted of 20l., with which they had to provide every necessary for a large family until the first crop could be reaped and gathered in. There was, however, the right stuff in the poor Galway emigrants, although they were of the purest type of that Celtic race of whose capacity your self-complacent Anglo-Saxon stupidly affects to despair. In an incredibly short space of time the Crehans had a sufficient quantity of land cleared, fenced, and cropped, a spacious log house and ample barn constructed; a horse, and cows, and hogs, and sheep, were purchased, or raised on this farm in the wilderness; and when the Bishop and I walked through their property, and inspected their wealth in barn and field, these despised and persecuted peasants were in possession of 200 acres of land, and such independence as they never dreamed of in Galway.
Volubly did Mrs. Crehan--a dark-haired, sharp-eyed, comely matron--tell of her treatment in Ireland, and her trials in her new home, as she welcomed the Bishop and 'the gentleman from the ould country' into her log cabin, which, in a few days, she was to abandon for a grand frame house, constructed on the most approved principles of American domestic architecture. This mansion was evidently an object of the most intense pride to Mrs. Crehan, who was much complimented by the expression of our desire to see it. As we proceeded towards the new building, which was then receiving its protecting coat of 'shingle,' I remarked that she must have felt somewhat lonely on her first entrance into the forest.
'Thrue for you, sir, it was lonely for us, and not a living sowl near us, but the childer. Indeed, sir, 'twas only by an ould stump that I knew whether I was near home or not; and other times we couldn't find our way at all, only for a cut on a tree. And 'twas the owls--the divils!--that would make a body's heart jump into their mouth. Oh, sir, they screeched and screeched, I declare, like any Christian, till they frightened the childer out of their sivin sinses. The little boy--he's a fine fellow now--would catch hould of me by the gownd, and cry out, "Oh mammy, mammy! what a place daddy brought us to!--we'll be all ate up to-night--mammy, mammy, we'll be all ate up tonight!" You know, sir, it's easy to frighten childer, the craychers,' apologised the mother.
'But, Mrs. Crehan, I suppose you don't regret having come here?'
'Deed then no, sir, not a bit of it. No, thanks be to the Lord, and blessed be His holy name! We have plenty to ate and drink, and a good bed to lie on, and a warm roof over our heads, and, what's more than that, all we have is our own, and no one to take it from us, or to say "boo" to us. The grief I have is that there's only the 200 acres--for I'd dearly like another hundred for the second boy. And, sir, if you ever happen to go to Galway and see Mr. Blank (the gentleman with the fine old Galwegian name), you may tell him from me that I'm better off than himself, and more indipindent in my mind; and tell him, sir, all the harm I wish him is for him to know that much. 'Twas the lucky day he took our turf and the sayweed--and a bad weed he was, the Lord knows.'
'Mrs. Crehan, where's the ould man?' asked a crabbed little fellow, who seemed anxious to do the honours of the settlement to the strange gentleman, and who would keep us company 'for a bit of the road.'
'Where is he gone, is it? Why then, Jimmy, he's gone to sell a cow,' was the good woman's reply.
'Gone to sell a cow!' exclaimed Jimmy, with an expression of affected horror. 'Yea, Mrs. Crehan, ma'am, what do you want partin' with your beautiful cow?'
'What do I want partin' with the cow, is it? Then, Jimmy, it's to pay what I owe, and I don't like to be in debt; that's what it manes, Jimmy.'
'Bravo, Mrs. Crehan!' said the Bishop; 'I admire your principle. Never be in debt, if you possibly can avoid it.'
Jimmy was silenced, thinking perhaps that Mrs. Crehan had the best of the argument, the more so as his lordship was on her side.
Jimmy M'Allister may not be the wisest or most sagacious adult male in the settlement; but, fortunately for him, he has a better half who looks sharply after all things, Jimmy included. Mrs. M'Allister is of so thrifty a turn that she would pick a feather off the road; and indeed so successfully had she picked up and bartered this article of comfort and commerce, that she was then after selling four good beds for the respectable sum of 16l.--no small addition to the annual revenue of the M'Allisters. Jimmy was of a different turn of mind: he would rather pick up a grievance than a feather; and the want of a priest for the settlement was a topic on which he dilated with persistent eloquence, notwithstanding the Bishop's repeated assurances that there would be a resident priest in the course of the following spring.
'But, my lord,' persisted Jimmy, 'he's wanted bad; and that's no lie. Faith, my lord, a body may die three times over in this place before he could send for the priest; and as for that, a poor fellow mightn't have the dollars convaynient to send for the doctor--two dollars goin' and two dollars comin' --Be dad, my lord ----'
'Well, Jimmy, please God, you shall have the priest next spring,' said the Bishop.
'That may all be thrue, sir--my lord!--but, after all, a body may die three times over before he could send for him, and then, my lord----'
'Very well, Jimmy, you will be sure to have him,' said the Bishop with additional emphasis, in the hope of satisfying the unappeasable grievance-monger.
'And, my lord, sure this settlement is well able to support its own priest, and I tell you he's much wanted--and, for the matter of that, a poor body may die three times over before he could be able to send for him----'
A rumour that Mrs. M'Allister was in sight had a marvellous influence on Jimmy, who asked for and obtained a ready leave of absence from the Bishop, on the plea of 'urgent private business,' which, in his zeal for the spiritual welfare of his fellow-sinners, he had altogether forgotten. Jimmy rapidly fell behind, and was not seen till the following morning.
Amongst other settlers whom we visited was a Cork man, named Reilly, from beyond Macroom, and who, 'every day he rose in the old country saw Ballyvourney before his two eyes.' Reilly was a man of middle age, grave countenance, handsome features, including a marked aquiline nose, of deliberate utterance, the richest of Munster brogues, and a splendid faculty for rolling the 'r' like the rattle of a drum under the hands of a Frenchman; and it would seem as if honest Reilly had a preference for words that enabled him to display this faculty to the greatest perfection. The manner in which he pronounced 'your lordship,' 'your-r-r lor-r-rdship,' was grand.
Reilly had come out in the May of 1862; and all he had, besides an immense family--there were eleven children in the settlement in October 1866--was a little money for provisions, and an axe. But the man, and the axe, and the will and power to use it, were 'with God's help,' equal to the work to be done; and so resolutely did he set to his task, so vigorously did he and his eldest boy hew away at the forest, that he was enabled to gather in 100 bushels of potatoes that fall. These, and what remained in the flour-barrel, kept the wolf from the door of Reilly's little sheepfold. And so the stout Cork man and his sturdy boy toiled on, season after season, and year after year, until, in October 1866, the settler of 1862 had cleared between forty and fifty acres of land, and was the owner of two yoke of oxen, six cows, several sheep and hogs, a good log house, to which he had just added a commodious loft, a fine barn, a piggery of suitable strength and dimensions.
'Well, Reilly, I congratulate you,' said the Bishop. 'What you have done in the time is most creditable to you.'
'Well, my lord, I am getting along purty well, I thank my Maker for it. We have raison to be grateful and contented, your lordship, with what we've done. There is a good prospect for us and the children, the Lord be praised! Sure enough, 'twas a great change from the ould country to this. Glory, too, to the Lord for that same!'
It may be remarked, that my excellent countryman secured to himself in this short speech ample opportunity for the display of his r's, which came magnificently into play.
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