“I sprang to my legs on this, and made a rush to the fireplace to secure the poker; but Tim was beforehand with me, and seizing me by the waist with both hands, flung me across his shoulders as though I were a baby, saying, at the same time, ‘I’ll take you away at half-past eight to-morrow, as you’re as rampageous again.’ I kicked, I plunged, I swore, I threatened, I even begged and implored to be set down; but whether my voice was lost in the uproar around me, or that Tim only regarded my denunciations in the light of cursing, I know not, but he carried me bodily down the stairs, steadying himself by one hand on the banisters, while with the other he held me as in a vice. I had but one consolation all this while; it was this, that as my quarters lay immediately behind the mess-room, Tim’s excursion would soon come to an end, and I should be free once more; but guess my terror to find that the drunken scoundrel, instead of going as usual to the left, turned short to the right hand, and marched boldly into Ship Quay Street. Every window in the mess-room was filled with our fellows, absolutely shouting with laughter. ‘Go it Tim! That’s the fellow! Hold him tight! Never let go!’ cried a dozen voices; while the wretch, with the tenacity of drunkenness, gripped me still harder, and took his way down the middle of the street.
“It was a beautiful evening in July, a soft summer night, as I made this pleasing excursion down the most frequented thoroughfare in the maiden city, my struggles every moment exciting roars of laughter from an increasing crowd of spectators, who seemed scarcely less amused than puzzled at the exhibition. In the midst of a torrent of imprecations against my torturer, a loud noise attracted me. I turned my head, and saw,—horror of horrors!—the door of the meeting-house just flung open, and the congregation issuing forth en masse. Is it any wonder if I remember no more? There I was, the chosen one of the widow Boggs, the elder elect, the favored friend and admired associate of Mr. M’Phun, taking an airing on a summer’s evening on the back of a drunken Irishman. Oh, the thought was horrible! and certainly the short and pithy epithets by which I was characterized in the crowd, neither improved my temper nor assuaged my wrath, and I feel bound to confess that my own language was neither serious nor becoming. Tim, however, cared little for all this, and pursued the even tenor of his way through the whole crowd, nor stopped till, having made half the circuit of the wall, he deposited me safe at my own door; adding, as he set me down, ‘Oh, av you’re as throublesome every evening, it’s a wheelbarrow I’ll be obleeged to bring for you!’
“The next day I obtained a short leave of absence, and ere a fortnight expired, exchanged into the —th, preferring Halifax itself to the ridicule that awaited me in Londonderry.”
CHAPTER XXX.
FRED POWER’S ADVENTURE IN PHILIPSTOWN.
The lazy hours of the long summer day crept slowly over. The sea, unbroken by foam or ripple, shone like a broad blue mirror, reflecting here and there some fleecy patches of snow-white cloud as they stood unmoved in the sky. The good ship rocked to and fro with a heavy and lumbering motion, the cordage rattled, the bulkheads creaked, the sails flapped lazily against the masts, the very sea-gulls seemed to sleep as they rested on the long swell that bore them along, and everything in sea and sky bespoke the calm. No sailor trod the deck; no watch was stirring; the very tiller ropes were deserted; and as they traversed backwards and forwards with every roll of the vessel, told that we had no steerage-way, and lay a mere log upon the water.
I sat alone in the bow, and fell into a musing fit upon the past and the future. How happily for us is it ordained that in the most stirring existences there are every here and there such little resting-spots of reflection, from which, as from some eminence, we look back upon the road we have been treading in life, and cast a wistful glance at the dark vista before us! When first we set out upon our worldly pilgrimage, these are indeed precious moments, when with buoyant heart and spirit high, believing all things, trusting all things, our very youth comes back to us, reflected from every object we meet; and like Narcissus, we are but worshipping our own image in the water. As we go on in life, the cares, the anxieties, and the business of the world engross us more and more, and such moments become fewer and shorter. Many a bright dream has been dissolved, many a fairy vision replaced, by some dark reality; blighted hopes, false friendships have gradually worn callous the heart once alive to every gentle feeling, and time begins to tell upon us,—yet still, as the well-remembered melody to which we listened with delight in infancy brings to our mature age a touch of early years, so will the very association of these happy moments recur to us in our revery, and make us young again in thought. Then it is that, as we look back upon our worldly career, we become convinced how truly is the child the father of the man, how frequently are the projects of our manhood the fruit of some boyish predilection; and that in the emulative ardor that stirs the schoolboy’s heart, we may read the prestige of that high daring that makes a hero of its possessor.