As I approached the high-way, I began to feel something like a sense of shame creeping over me while I contemplated the possibility of meeting any one in my own condition of life. "It is never ungenteel to walk," thought I, and therefore, weary as I am, I will keep at a little distance from my unsightly equipage, and enter the little town at which we are to halt, on foot. Along the king's high road then, I made the best speed that I was able to do, lowered as was the tone of my spirits since first meeting the morning gale on the mountain top. My philosophy, too, had taken a more humble level, and much of my boldness had evaporated.
Proceeding slowly, and with fallen crest, I heard a rumbling noise, and turning round espied a rattling, tattered, post-chaise advance. As it gained upon me, I heard my name roared from one of its broken windows, and stop! stop! shouted from another. Two young men stepped out—a joyous shake hands ensued. They belonged to our mountain muster, and were going up to College examinations. A few minutes settled the transfer of my luggage, and placed me between them. This was a delightful omen, in my mind, of prosperous fortune. All were pleased with the unexpected meeting, and the poor bony beasts that drew us were the only dissentients to the new arrangement. Their opposition was overruled however, and away we went.
Four delectable days were passed in Dublin, with these young men and their associates; but the sinews of pleasure, like those of war, reside in the purse, and mine was too ill provided for longer dalliance. I was obliged to sail most reluctantly, but not till I had laid in a store of sedition, bought all the cheap prints of the day, and established correspondences, by which I was to learn all the news from Ireland.
On reaching Liverpool, which was a new world to me, I went in quest of the gentleman to whom I was consigned. I found him in a princely residence surrounded by all that wealth could purchase. Mr. Arnold received me with most friendly hospitality. He was a man of high character in his dealings, and regarded all things in this sublunary sphere with more or less respect as they were connected with commerce, which in his opinion was the summum bonum of earth. Considering, as he did, the Hibernian disturbances with the most profound contempt, he was more amused than shocked by details of our civil warfare; and seemed greatly diverted by my pompous accounts of marching and countermarching, attack, and defence. Any attempt at interrupting the established order of Church and State, was, in his eyes, the grossest absurdity, and to be put down, vi et armis, by the strong hand of power. He never troubled himself with history, and therefore was not aware of former revolution, or at least despised the Irish so entirely that he did not apprehend any resistance which millions of them could make. I used to burn with anger at hearing him say, "Sir, I would hang them every one, or, if I could, I would tie a stone to the Island and sink it like a dog in the sea."
Numbers of people were flocking, about this time, to Liverpool for refuge. Some, through fear of the rebels, and many from dread of being considered such themselves, and treated accordingly. Mr. Arnold was a single man, and of convivial habits. His custom was to give the whole morning to business, and relax at four o'clock, with a few friends, at an excellent dinner, of which several of my countrymen were happy to partake, and pay for "solid pudding with empty praise;" and the most exaggerated descriptions of "hair-breadth scapes, and fights of flood and field," to the great diversion of their host. Some of these men had been obliged to fly with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, but such was the kind feeling excited for the refugees that they were received with the most liberal hospitality, not only by the wealthy traders, but into a society, which at that period could boast of being distinguished for literary taste, talents, and acquirement.
It was wonderful to observe the fascination in which a company, composed of highly gifted and enlightened individuals, were often held by the dramatizing mountebanks, who came in droves amongst them; one of whom I particularly recollect, a coarse and vulgar man, but a master in the art of producing effect. His eye was quick as the lightning's flash, and could discern, with such celerity, the various expressions of countenance around, that he felt, with the rapidity of intuition, who, how, and when he was moving by his eloquence.
I remember his affecting a numerous audience one day by a story which furnished a good specimen of his manner. It was of a boy who had suffered death for treason. The particulars of his trial and execution were similar to other details, of which the orator had recounted so many, that attention ceased to hang upon his words, and he began to feel that eyes and ears were dropping off. When, suddenly rising from his chair, and pointing as if to the fatal tree, he exclaimed,
"Behold, my friends! see the accursed agents of despotism bearing that child to an ignominious death! Look at the little ruffled collar which plays to the breeze on that innocent neck which is presently to feel the hangman's murderous gripe—and sigh over your fallen country!"
The "little ruffled shirt collar" achieved the desired end, and not a cheek in the room remained unbedewed, so well did this man understand the power of minute and incidental circumstances in working on the human soul.
Like grammar rules, which are amassed in the memory long before they are understood or applied, my observations were made, because I had leisure to look on, but without affording any salutary deductions till a far subsequent period. My youth, and the retirement in which I had lived, gave me perhaps an awkward air, and though treated with the utmost good nature, I was not brought forward, which wounded my vanity, and afforded me much more time than I wished, for meditation upon many subjects, though I had not then sense enough to turn the remarks which forced themselves on my view to my own advantage.