BARNY O’GRADY.
Behold me safely landed at Philadelphia, with one hundred pounds in my pocket—a small sum of money; but many, from yet more trifling beginnings, have grown rich in America. Many passengers who came over in the same ship with me had not half so much. Several of them were indeed wretchedly poor. Among others there was an Irishman, who was known by the name of Barny—a contraction, I believe, for Barnaby. As to his surname, he could not undertake to spell it, but he assured me there was no better. This man, with many of his relatives, had come to England, according to their custom, during harvest time, to assist in reaping, because they gain higher wages than in their own country. Barny had heard that he should get still higher wages for labour in America, and accordingly he and his two sons, lads of eighteen and twenty, took their passage for Philadelphia. A merrier mortal I never saw. We used to hear him upon deck, continually singing or whistling his Irish tunes; and I should never have guessed that this man’s life had been a series of hardships and misfortunes.
When we were leaving the ship, I saw him, to my great surprise, crying bitterly; and upon inquiring what was the matter, he answered that it was not for himself, but for his two sons, he was grieving; because they were to be made redemption men; that is, they were to be bound to work, during a certain time, for the captain, or for whomsoever he pleased, till the money due for their passage should be paid. Although I was somewhat surprised at any one’s thinking of coming on board a vessel without having one farthing in his pocket, yet I could not forbear paying the money for this poor fellow. He dropped down on the deck upon both his knees, as suddenly as if he had been shot, and holding up his hands to heaven, prayed, first in Irish, and then in English, with fervent fluency, that “I and mine might never want; that I might live long to reign over him; that success might attend my honour wherever I went; and that I might enjoy for evermore all sorts of blessings and crowns of glory.” As I had an English prejudice in favour of silent gratitude, I was rather disgusted by all this eloquence; I turned away abruptly, and got into the boat which waited to carry me to shore.
I had now passed three years in Philadelphia, and was not a farthing the richer, but, alas, a great deal poorer. My inveterate habit of procrastination—of delaying every thing till TO-MORROW, always stood betwixt me and prosperity. I at last resolved upon leaving the land of the star-spangled banner; but when I came to reckon up my resources, I found that I could not do so, unless I disposed of my watch and my wife’s trinkets. I was not accustomed to such things, and I was ashamed to go to the pawnbroker’s, lest I should be met and recognised by some of my friends. I wrapped myself up in an old surtout, and slouched my hat over my face. As I was crossing the quay, I met a party of gentlemen walking arm in arm. I squeezed past them, but one stopped and looked after me; and though I turned down another street to escape him, he dodged me unperceived. Just as I came out of the pawnbroker’s shop, I saw him posted opposite me; I brushed by; I could with pleasure have knocked him down for his impertinence. By the time that I had reached the corner of the street, I heard a child calling after me; I stopped, and a little boy put into my hand my watch, saying, “Sir, the gentleman says you left your watch and these thingumbobs by mistake.”
“What gentleman?”
“I don’t know, but he was one that said I looked like an honest chap, and he’d trust me to run and give you the watch. He is dressed in a blue coat, and went towards the quay. That’s all I know.”
On opening the paper of trinkets, I found a card with these words:—“Barny—with kind thanks.”
“Barny! poor Barny! An Irishman whose passage I paid coming to America three years ago. Is it possible?”
I ran after him the way which the child directed, and was so fortunate as just to catch a glimpse of the skirt of his coat as he went into a neat, good-looking house. I walked up and down for some time, expecting him to come out again; for I could not suppose that it belonged to Barny. I asked a grocer who was leaning over his hatch-door, if he knew who lived in the next house?
“An Irish gentleman of the name of O’Grady.”
“And his Christian name?”
“Here it is in my books, sir—Barnaby O’Grady.”
I knocked at Mr O’Grady’s door, and made my way into the parlour, where I found him, his two sons, and his wife, sitting very sociably at tea. He and the two young men rose immediately, to set me a chair.
“You are welcome, kindly welcome, sir,” said he. “This is an honour I never expected, any way. Be pleased to take the seat next the fire. ’Twould be hard indeed if you should not have the best seat’s that to be had in this house, where we none of us ever should have sat, nor had seats to sit upon, but for you.”
The sons pulled off my shabby greatcoat, and took away my hat, and Mrs O’Grady made up the fire. There was something in their manner, altogether, which touched me so much that it was with difficulty I could keep myself from bursting into tears. They saw this, and Barny (for I shall never call him any thing else), as he thought that I should like better to hear of public affairs than to speak of my own, began to ask his sons if they had seen the day’s paper, and what news there were.
As soon as I could command my voice, I congratulated this family upon the happy situation in which I found them, and asked by what lucky accident they had succeeded so well.
“The luckiest accident ever happened me before or since I came to America,” said Barny, “was being on board the same vessel with such a man as you. If you had not given me the first lift, I had been down for good and all, and trampled under foot, long and long ago. But after that first lift, all was as easy as life. My two sons here were not taken from me—God bless you; for I never can bless you enough for that. The lads were left to work for me and with me; and we never parted, hand or heart, but just kept working on together, and put all our earnings, as fast as we got them, into the hands of that good woman, and lived hard at first, as we were born and bred to do, thanks be to heaven! Then we swore against all sorts of drink entirely. And as I had occasionally served the masons when I lived a labouring man in the county of Dublin, and knew something of that business, why, whatever I knew, I made the most of, and a trowel felt noways strange to me, so I went to work, and had higher wages at first than I deserved. The same with the two boys; one was as much of a blacksmith as would shoe a horse, and the other a bit of a carpenter; so the one got plenty of work in the forges, and the other in the dockyards as a ship-carpenter. So, early and late, morning and evening, we were all at the work, and just went this way struggling on even for a twelvemonth, and found, with the high wages and constant employ we had met, that we were getting greatly better in the world. Besides, the wife was not idle. When a girl, she had seen baking, and had always a good notion of it, and just tried her hand upon it now, and found the loaves went down with the customers, who came faster and faster for them; and this was a great help. Then I turned master mason, and had my men under me, and took a house to build by the job, and that did; and then on to another; and after building many for the neighbours, ’twas fit and my turn, I thought, to build one for myself, which I did out of theirs, without wronging them of a penny. In short,” continued Barny, “if you were to question me how I have got on so well in the world, upon my conscience I should answer, we never made Saint Monday, and never put off till to-morrow what we could do to-day.”
I believe I sighed deeply at this observation of Barny’s notwithstanding the comic phraseology in which it was expressed.
“And would it be too much liberty to ask you,” said Barny, “to drink a cup of tea, and to taste a slice of my good woman’s bread and butter? And happy the day we see you eating it, and only wish we could serve you in any way whatsoever.”
I verily believe the generous fellow forgot at this instant that he had redeemed my watch and wife’s trinkets. He would not let me thank him as much as I wished, but kept pressing upon me fresh offers of service. When he found I was going to leave America, he asked what vessel we should go in. I was really afraid to tell him, lest he should attempt to pay for my passage. But for this he had, as I afterwards found, too much delicacy of sentiment. He discovered, by questioning the captains, in what ship we were to sail; and when we went on board, we found him and his sons there to take leave of us, which they did in the most affectionate manner; and after they were gone, we found in the state cabin, directed to me, every thing that could be useful or agreeable to us, as sea stores for a long voyage.—Incident in a Tale entitled “To-morrow,” by Miss Edgeworth.
Decision of Character: Howard the Philanthropist.—In decision of character no man ever exceeded, or ever will exceed, the late illustrious Howard. The energy of his determination was so great, that if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted it had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse of any thing like turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling almost equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common minds; as a great river, in its customary state, is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe in emolument or pleasure that would have detained him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The law which carries water down a declivity was not more unconquerable and invariable than the determination of his feelings towards the main object. The importance of this object held his faculties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling which he could spare to be diverted among the innumerable varieties of the extensive scenes which he traversed: all his subordinate feelings lost their separate existence and operation by falling into the grand one. There have not been wanting trivial minds to mark this as a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard: he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits who fulfil their commission of philanthropy among mortals do not care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings; and no more did he, when the time in which he must have inspected and admired them would have been taken from the work to which he had consecrated his life. His labours implied an inconceivable severity of conviction that he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle spectators who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him with a luminous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toilsome length of labour and enterprise by which he was to reach it. It was so conspicuous before him that not a step deviated from the direction, and every movement and every day was an approximation. As his method referred every thing he did and thought to the end, and as his exertions did not relax for a moment, he made the trial, so seldom made, what the utmost effect is, which may be granted to the last possible efforts of a human agent; and, therefore, what he did not accomplish he might conclude to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly leave to the immediate disposal of Omnipotence.—Foster’s Essays.