Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

by Charles James Lever

CHAPTER XXIV. THE FATE OF A GAMBUSINO

“The life of the prairie,” with all its seeming monotony, was very far from wearisome. The chase, which to some might have presented the same unvarying aspect, to those who passionately loved sport abounded in new and exciting incidents. If upon one day the object of pursuit was the powerful bison bull, with his shaggy mane and short straight horns, on another, it was the swift antelope or the prairie fox, whose sable skin is the rarest piece of dandyism a hunter's pelisse can exhibit; now and then the wide-spread paw of a brown bear would mark the earth, and give us days of exciting pursuit; or, again, some Indian “trail”—some red-man “sign”—would warn us that we were approaching the hunting-grounds of a tribe, and that all our circumspection was needed. Besides these, there were changes, inappreciable to the uninitiated, but thoroughly understood by us, in the landscape itself, highly interesting. It is a well-known fact that the shepherd becomes conversant with the face of every sheep in his flock, tracing differences of expression where others would recognize nothing but a blank uniformity; so did the prairie, which at first presented one unvarying expanse, become at last marked by a hundred peculiarities, with which close observation made us intimate. Indeed, I often wondered how a great stretching plain, without a house, a tree, a shrub, or a trickling brook, could supply the materials of scenic interest; and the explanation is almost as difficult as the fact. One must have lived the life of solitude and isolation which these wild wastes compel, to feel how every moss-clad stone can have its meaning,—how the presence of some little insignificant lichen indicates the vicinity of water,—how the blue foxbell shows where honey is to be found,—how the faint spiral motion of the pirn grass gives warning that rain is nigh at hand. Then with what interest at each sunset is the horizon invested, when the eye can pierce space to a vast extent, and mark the fog-banks which tower afar off, and distinguish the gathering clouds from the dark-backed herd of buffaloes or a group of Indians on a march. Every prairie “roll,” every dip and undulation of that vast surface, had its own interest, till at length I learned to think that all other prospects must be tame, spiritless, and unexciting, in comparison with that glorious expanse, where sky and earth were one, and where the clouds alone threw shadows upon the vast plain.

The habit of a hunter's life in such scenes, the constant watchfulness against sudden peril, inspire a frame of mind in which deep reflectiveness is blended with a readiness and promptitude of action,—gifts which circumstances far more favorable to moral training do not always supply. The long day passed in total solitude, since very often the party separates to rendezvous at nightfall, necessarily calls for thought,—not, indeed, the dreamy revery of the visionary, forgetful of himself and all the world, but of that active, stirring mental operation which demands effort and will. If fanciful pictures of the future as we would wish to make it, intervene, they come without displacing the stern realities of the present, any more than the far distances of a picture interfere with the figures of the foreground.

Forgive, most kind reader, the prolix fondness with which I linger on this theme. Fortune gave me but scant opportunity of cultivation, but my best schooling was obtained upon the prairies. It was there I learned the virtue of self-reliance,—the only real independence. It was there I taught myself to endure reverses without disappointment, and bear hardships without repining. It was there I came to know that he who would win an upward way in life must not build upon some self-imagined superiority, but boldly enter the lists with others, and make competitorship the test of his capacity. They were inferior acquirements, it is true; but I learned also to bear hunger and cold, and want of rest and sleep, which in my after-life were not without their value. It would savor too much of a “bull” for him who writes his own memoirs to apologize for egotism; still, I do feel compunctions of conscience about the length of these personal details,—and now to my story.

While we pursued our hunting pastime over the prairies, the “expedition” was successful beyond all expectation. No sooner was the bed of the river laid bare, than gold was discovered in quantities, and the “washers,” despising the slower process of “sifting,” betook themselves to the pick and the “barreta,” like their comrades. It was a season of rejoicing, and, so far as our humble means permitted, of festivity; for though abounding in gold, our daily food was buffalo and “tough doe,” unseasoned by bread or anything that could prove its substitute. If the days were passed in successful labor, the evenings were prolonged with narratives of the late discoveries, and gorgeous imaginings of the future as each fancied the bright vista should be. Some were for a life of unbounded excess and dissipation,—the “amende,” as they deemed it, for all their toil and endurance; others anticipated a career of splendor and display in the Old World. The Frenchman raved of Paris and its cafés and restaurants, its theatres and its thousand pleasures. A few speculated upon setting forth on fresh expeditions with better means of success. Halkett alone bethought him of home and of an aged mother, in the far-away valley of Llanberris, whose remainder of life he longed to render easy and independent.

Nor was it the least courageous act of his daring life to avow such a feeling among such associates. How they laughed at his humility! how they scoffed at the filial reverence of the Gambusino! Few of them had known a parent's care. Most were outcasts from their birth, and started in life with that selfish indifference to all others which is so often the passport to success. I saw this, and perceived how affection and sympathy are so much additional weight upon the back of him “who enters for the plate of Fortune;” but yet my esteem for Halkett increased from that moment. I fancied that his capacity for labor and exertion was greater from the force of a higher and a nobler impulse than that which animated the others; and I thought I could trace to this source the untiring energy for which he was conspicuous above all the rest. It was evident, too, that this “weakness,” as they deemed it, had sapped nothing of his courage, nor detracted in aught from his resolute daring,—ever foremost, as he was, wherever peril was to be confronted.

I ruminated long and frequently over this, to me, singular trait of character,—whole days as I rambled the prairies alone in search of game; the tedious hours of the night I would lie awake speculating upon it, and wondering if it were impulses of this nature that elevated men to high deeds and generous actions, and—to realize my conception in one word—made them “gentlemen.”

To be sure, in all the accessory advantages of such, Halkett was most lamentably deficient, and it would have been labor in vain to endeavor to conform him to any one of the usages of the polite world; and yet, I thought, might it not be possible that this rude, unlettered man might have within him, in the recesses of his own heart, all those finer instincts, all those refinements of high feeling and honor that make up a gentleman,—like a lump of pure virgin gold encased in a mass of pudding-stone. The study of this problem took an intense hold upon me; for while I could recognize in myself a considerable power for imitating all the observations of the well-bred world, I grieved to see that these graces were mere garments, which no more influenced a man's real actions than the color of his coat or the shape of his hat will affect the stages of an ague or the paroxysms of a fever.

To become a “gentleman,” according to my very crude notions of that character, was the ruling principle of my life. I knew that rank, wealth, and station were all indispensably requisite; but these I also fancied might be easily counterfeited, while other gifts must be absolutely possessed,—such as a good address; a skill in all manly exercises; a personal courage ever ready to the proof; a steady adherence to a pledged word. Now I tried to educate myself to all these, and to a certain extent I succeeded. In fact, I experienced what all men have who have set up a standard before them, that constant measurement will make one grow taller. I fancied that Halkett and myself were on the way to the same object, by different roads. Forgive the absurd presumption, most benevolent reader; for there is really something insufferably ludicrous in the very thought; and I make the “confession” now only in the fulness of a heart which is determined to have no concealments.

That I rode my “mustang” with a greater air; that I wore my black fox pelisse more jauntily; that I slung my rifle at my back with a certain affectation of grace; that I was altogether “got up” with an eye to the picturesque,—did not escape my companions, who made themselves vastly merry at pretensions which, in their eyes, were so supremely ridiculous, but which amply repaid me for all the sarcasm, by suggesting a change of their name for me,—my old appellation, “Il Lépero,” being abandoned for “Il Condé,” the Count. It matters little in what spirit you give a man a peculiar designation: the world take it up in their own fashion, and he himself conforms to it, whether for good or evil.