As soon as I could command my voice, I congratulated his family upon the happy situation in which I found them; and asked by what lucky accidents 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 bred and born to do, thanks be to Heaven! Then we swore against drink of all sorts 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 no ways 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 t’other a bit of a carpenter; and the one got plenty of work in the forges, and t’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, and the customers coming faster and faster for them; and this was a great help. Then I grew 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 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. And the boys grew master-men in their line; and when they got good coats, nobody could say against them, for they had come fairly by them, and became them well perhaps for that reason. So, not to be tiring you too much, we went on from good to better, and better to best; and if it pleased God to question me how it was we got on so well in the world, I should answer, Upon my conscience, myself does not know; except it be that we never made Saint Monday, {Footnote: Saint Monday, or Saint Crispin. It is a custom in Ireland, among shoemakers, if they intoxicate themselves on Sunday, to do no work on Monday; and this they call making a Saint Monday, or keeping Saint Crispin’s day. Many have adopted this good custom from the example of the shoemakers.} nor never put off till the morrow what we could do the day.” I believe I sighed deeply at this observation, notwithstanding the comic phraseology in which it was expressed.
“But all this is no rule for a gentleman born,” pursued the good-natured Barny, in answer, I suppose, to the sigh which I uttered; “nor is it any disparagement to him if he has not done as well in a place like America, where he had not the means; not being used to bricklaying and slaving with his hands, and striving as we did. Would it be too much liberty to ask you 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.
How I wronged this man, when I thought his expressions of gratitude were not sincere, because they were not made exactly in the mode and with the accent of my own countrymen! I little thought that Barny and his sons would be the only persons who would bid us a friendly adieu when we were to leave America.
We had not exhausted our bountiful provision of sea-stores when we were set ashore in England. We landed at Liverpool; and I cannot describe the melancholy feelings with which I sat down, in the little back parlour of the inn, to count my money, and to calculate whether we had enough to carry us to London. Is this, thought I, as I looked at the few guineas and shillings spread on the table, is this all I have in this world? I, my wife, and child! And is this the end of three years’ absence from my native country? As the negroes say of a fool who takes a voyage in vain, I am come back “with little more than the hair upon my head.” Is this the end of all my hopes, and all my talents? What will become of my wife and child? I ought to insist upon her going home to her friends, that she may at least have the necessaries and comforts of life, till I am able to maintain her.
The tears started from my eyes; they fell upon an old newspaper, which lay upon the table under my elbow. I took it up to hide my face from Lucy and my child, who just then came into the room: and, as I read without well knowing what, I came among the advertisements to my own name.
“If Mr. Basil Lowe, or his heir, will apply to Mr. Gregory, attorney, No. 34, Cecil-street, he will hear of something to his advantage.”
I started up with an exclamation of joy, wiped my tears from the newspaper, put it into Lucy’s hand, pointed to the advertisement, and ran to take places in the London coach for the next morning. Upon this occasion I certainly did not delay. Nor did I, when we arrived in London, put off one moment going to Mr. Gregory’s, No. 34, Cecil-street.
Upon application to him I was informed that a very distant relation of mine, a rich miser, had just died, and had left his accumulated treasures to me, “because I was the only one of his relations who had never cost him a single farthing.” Other men have to complain of their ill fortune, perhaps with justice; and this is a great satisfaction, which I have never enjoyed; for I must acknowledge that all my disasters have arisen from my own folly. Fortune has been uncommonly favourable to me. Without any merit of my own, or rather, as it appeared, in consequence of my negligent habits, which prevented me from visiting a rich relation, I was suddenly raised from the lowest state of pecuniary distress to the height of affluent prosperity.