Part 20

LOVELL.--May-Bee was a pretty piece of goods though. I saw the poor thing break her back last spring, under Jack Fisher of the carabineers: Jack nearly went out at the same time. Devilish sharply contested thing, till poor May-Bee's accident. Jack was picked up,--dreadful fall, as the papers said--gallant captain--small hopes of recovery--be universally regretted through the regiment--popular qualities--and that sort of thing; but somehow he marched to Nottingham at the head of his troop, a fortnight after, worth fifty dead men.

PIPECLAY.--What do you value a dead man at, Lovell?

O'SHEEVO.--If a thing's worth what it'll _fetch_, a dead man's value wouldn't burst the Exchequer.

LOVELL.--Thank you, Major, for getting me out of that; the Adjutant was going to bring me up rather straitly.

O'SHEEVO.--He's the very boy to do that. A bigoted ram's horn under his hands, would be forced to relinquish its prejudices. Nobody stoops to conquer in his academy. Send for another jug, and we'll go on with our discussion. Smart letter that of the old Duke's.

OLDHAM.--Who'll be commander-in-chief when the old Briton dies?

PIPECLAY.--It'll depend upon the ministry of the day, which I hope will be a distant one. If he could only anticipate his posthumous fame now, how complete would be his glory.

O'SHEEVO.--Sure, he's got his posthumous fame already: he's not obliged, like the ancients, to immortalise himself by committing suicide.

LOVELL.--Certainly not, Major. Well, you know the Duke sees the necessity of defending our coasts--

PIPECLAY.--And of increasing the army. I have a plan of my own for raising men, which I shall propose, some day or other, to the Horse Guards.

OLDHAM.--There's no difficulty in getting men; any quantity may be raised in Ireland.

O'SHEEVO.--That's true, because any quantity are knocked over every day there; but they, poor men! are beyond the skill of even an adjutant.

PIPECLAY.--At any rate I should like to give my system a fair trial.

O'SHEEVO.--I have no opinion of systems; I've known many men entirely ruined by them.

PIPECLAY.--How so, Major?

O'SHEEVO.--Why, I knew a man who used to get a little jolly two or three times a-week, as occasion invited. Some well-meaning friends reproached him with the irregularity of his life, and pestered him to adopt a system, which, for the sake of peace and quietness, he at last did, and got blazing drunk every night; his own spirit didn't like the foreign invasion, and evacuated the place--that was system!

LOVELL.--We don't much relish the idea of foreign invasion ourselves.

PIPECLAY.--Let 'em come. If they intend to get a regular footing here, they would probably make a dash at Portland island.

OLDHAM.--Now my idea is this. Suppose them embarked in steamers, and starting for a point on our coast,--a few old fellows, who know what Frenchmen are made of, are stationed at all the landing-places, while a railway communication enables them to be quickly collected in one point.

PIPECLAY.--I should object to old fellows as unfit for such sharp duties: active, intelligent young men would be better.

OLDHAM.--Pshaw! what's theory against Frenchmen? give me the old second battalion of the 107th before all the boys in the service.

PIPECLAY.--And give me smart youngsters, who would move.

OLDHAM.--I'd like to see such Johnny Raws oppose a landing.

PIPECLAY.--It stands to reason they must be better than a parcel of old worn-out sinners.

O'SHEEVO.--Bravo! I'd like to hear this question fairly handled. You see, Lovell, that's the advantage of military breeding; we can discuss these topics without the rudenesses that you observe in civil life. Every man, young or old, may give his opinion, and be patiently listened to at a mess table.

LOVELL.--It is certainly a great advantage.

OLDHAM.--I must maintain the superiority of veteran troops for all important duties;--you see a parcel of recruits would play the devil,--it's all stuff!

LOVELL.--But, if I may be allowed to remark--

OLDHAM.--You, sir! damme! what should you know about it? What are you, eh? A stripling, a mere stripling. By Jove, sir, if you had been in the 107th, you would have seen what they thought of such forwardness.

LOVELL.--You really mistake me,--I had no intention--

O'SHEEVO.--Well, well; but you mustn't be obstinate you know, my boy, in matters that you can't possibly know much about; you can never learn any thing that way.

PIPECLAY.--You should have a little modesty, Lovell.

O'SHEEVO.--We're a liberal set of fellows here; but, by Jove, Lovell, I've known many a man that would have asked you to a leaden breakfast. Young Spanker of the 18th was called out by old Mullins for only asking him to repeat the number of oysters he said he ate in his great bet with M'Gobble. They fired six shots without effect, and Mullins was thought very lenient in not asking for an apology or the seventh.

OLDHAM.--Oh! the service would go to the devil if youngsters were allowed to lay down the law.

PIPECLAY.--That would never do.

OLDHAM.--A strange file was that old Mullins you were talking of. Our second battalion was quartered with the 18th once, in Chatham barracks, when there were some memorable sittings.

PIPECLAY.--I saw old Mullins once only, and then I could form little opinion of him, as he was half screwed.

O'SHEEVO.--Half screwed! you must be mistaken.

PIPECLAY.--I assure you I am rather under the mark in saying half screwed.

O'SHEEVO.--Ah! I knew he never made so near an approach to sobriety as to be half screwed.

OLDHAM.--_He_ would have been the fellow to receive the French! Come, now, Lovell, I'll show you, if you won't be obstinate and contradictory.

LOVELL.--Upon my word, Oldham--

OLDHAM.--There you, fly out again now; it's impossible to do any thing with a youngster unless he has a tractable disposition. Here now, as I said, is Cherbourg,--here Portsmouth,--this little streak that I draw with my finger, the Channel. Jersey is somewhere there by the devilled biscuits; dy'e understand, Lovell?

LOVELL.--Thank you, I do.

OLDHAM.--Good. Then this is our coast well manned, throughout its length, with troops: steady tried troops, mind, none of your gaping, staring boys:--well protected.

PIPECLAY.--How protected?

OLDHAM.--How should I know? The engineers do that; of course they'd protect 'em with glacis, or ravelins or tenailles, or some of those damned jawbreaking named things;--well protected by works and cannon.

O'SHEEVO.--Did you see that extraordinary cannon that West made in the mess-room this morning?

PIPECLAY.--Ah! yes,--not bad, but I've seen finer strokes than that. You should have seen Legge of the 32d play.

LOVELL.--Or Chowse of the artillery; by Jove! how he knocks about the balls! like an Indian juggler.

O'SHEEVO.--Both good hands; ye're not a bad fist at billiards yourself, Oldham.

OLDHAM.--I seldom play now;--getting old;--played many a good match in the 107th's mess-room; but I think I could astonish Master West.

PIPECLAY.--Well, if he'll play a match, I don't mind backing him against you even.

O'SHEEVO.--And I'll go five to four on the youngster to make the thing worth your while.

OLDHAM.--Oh! no, no; 'twouldn't do for me to be playing matches with a raw recruit like that: 'twouldn't be dignified.

O'SHEEVO.--Would it be more dignified if I said three to two?

OLDHAM.--Say two to one and I don't mind a rubber;--one rubber, remember.

O'SHEEVO.--Done then. Let's have it to-morrow, if we can. West comes off guard in the morning, so there's the more chance of his being steady and willing to play; when they get hold of him overnight, he's always shaky and sulky next day till four or five o'clock. A bad constitution is a sad tell-tale under a red coat; a bishop chokes, or an anti-corn-law leaguer is attacked with pleurisy from his exertions in the cause of humanity; a lawyer's nose gets red from having his mind continually on the stretch; but if an ensign's colours only tremble a little in a strong gale, he's set down for a hard goer.

PIPECLAY.--It's a great thing to be able to carry one's liquor well.

O'SHEEVO.--Rather it's a dreadful misfortune when you can't. I always fancy that when a man can't show a bold face the morning after, he's been a great sinner.

OLDHAM.--Or that his forefathers have been so; I believe that posterity have to expiate the sins of their ancestors.

O'SHEEVO.--But, as a man can neither be his ancestors nor his posterity, I don't see that he need mind that.

PIPECLAY.--His ancestors' posterity is surely his affair.

O'SHEEVO.--It's quite enough for a man to think of his own posterity without minding that of his ancestors.

PIPECLAY.--He can't well help minding his ancestors when he daily and hourly feels the effects of their indiscretions.

O'SHEEVO.--But d'ye mean to say that if all his ancestors were fast men, the whole of their diseases would be accumulated on his shoulders?

PIPECLAY.--Not exactly. These things wear out in time, or are got rid of by crossing the breed; the nearer in time a man is to his rollicking ancestor, the more plainly he shows the hereditary taint.

O'SHEEVO.--Then if he's his contemporary he's as bad as himself. I don't think, though, that my father showed the want of the Ballyswig estate a bit more than I do. Bad luck to my old aunt who forgot her successors though her ancestors remembered her.

OLDHAM.--Buzza that jug, Lovell, and touch the bell for another; these discussions make one thirsty.

O'SHEEVO.--Thirst is nothing here to what it is in the tropics. By Jove! how I used to suffer at Jamaica.

LOVELL.--Nature is said to have there provided for the craving by a bountiful supply of water. The name Jamaica signifies, I believe, the "Isle of Springs." You had excellent water there, Major, had you not?

O'SHEEVO.--I always understood the water was very good, but I can't exactly remember that I ever tasted it. Nature is an affectionate mother, but there's no nourishment in her milk, so I put myself out to nurse upon sangree and portercup.

PIPECLAY.--Nasty, unwholesome stuff; there's a yellow fever in every glass of it.

O'SHEEVO.--It may be one of the ingredients; but that's no matter, if it's well mixed, because the other things correct it.

OLDHAM.--Our old second battalion buried I don't know how many in the seven years they spent out there. They always took the more intricate mixtures in the day time;--madeira and champagne at dinner, claret after, and topped up with brandy and water; after which they adjourned to settle, in the morning light, any little affairs of honour that had turned up in the evening.

LOVELL.--Were these of so regular occurrence?

OLDHAM.--Seldom missed a night. The old cotton tree outside the mess-room, at Stoney Hill, was always one of the stations; and as full of bullets as a pudding is of plums. It was settling every thing before the meeting separated that made us such a united jolly set of fellows.

PIPECLAY.--How much better we do things in the present day!

OLDHAM.--Another of your modern prejudices. How can any man of spirit think the investigations, explanations, and newspaper correspondence as creditable as settling the matter off-hand and like gentlemen?

PIPECLAY.--But a duel does not always settle the right and wrong of an affair; and surely the party in the wrong ought to be the sufferer. Human life has a higher value than in old times; and, therefore, to avoid the casualties caused by duels, the laws punish the duellist.

O'SHEEVO.--That's just it. In old times, if a man was killed there was an end; but now, to show the value of human life, the law hangs the survivor. The fact is, they find it necessary to thin the population, and so they take two for one, as we do with the glasses.

OLDHAM.--I'm afraid, Pipeclay, you and I will never agree in these matters. It's a pity you never had the advantage of seeing a little active service, which would have enlightened you far more than all my preaching. We'll hope better things for these youngsters before they become irretrievably bigoted to these milk-and-water prejudices. Well now, Lovell, d'ye think you understand all I said about the French invasion? If you don't, ask, and I'll give you any explanation my experience supplies, with pleasure.

LOVELL.--I don't exactly understand how you would proceed after guarding your coast, and the enemy being off and on the shore.

OLDHAM.--Why, man, you never will understand if you don't attend. Here have I been talking this hour and a half exactly on that point, and you know no more about it than if I had not said a word. You must see, Lovell, that if you are thinking about horses, and women, and all sorts of nonsense, while I'm talking to you, you never can make a soldier. You should have seen our boys in the 107th. They would sit for hours and hold their breaths, while some old fire-eater told 'em his adventures and gave 'em advice.

O'SHEEVO.--Then they must have been as long-winded as he was.

OLDHAM.--Pshaw! Nothing of that sort ever seemed long-winded: the interest was thrilling, and every body was unhappy when a story was ended.

O'SHEEVO.--Except the man that was going to tell the next.

OLDHAM.--But really I wish we could get these youngsters to think a little more on professional subjects. I'm sure I'm always willing to give 'em any instruction in my power; and I think, Major, you'd not be behindhand in teaching the young idea how to shoot.

O'SHEEVO.--No, no, Oldham; every one to his trade,--that's the adjutant's business.

OLDHAM.--I don't mean literally that you'd show them how to let off a musket, but that you'd mould their dispositions, and guide their ardour to the best advantage.

O'SHEEVO.--My maxims are all summed up in a short sentence which I learnt from old Mullins himself, who found it carry him and his pupils through with honour--"Fear God and keep your powder dry." It's pithy, you see, and doesn't burden the memory.

PIPECLAY.--A liberal education for ingenuous youth.

O'SHEEVO.--I gave it for nothing, and so did old Mullins; so it's liberal enough, and the youth will be devilish ingenious if they find out any thing better.

OLDHAM.--I never, myself, see any good come of the hair-splitting and lawyering of the new school; indeed, I don't know what could be better than our second battalion was. Nowadays, by Jove! any whipper-snapper jackanapes, with a pocket full of money and the grimaces of a dancing-master, walks easily to the top of the tree, while an old soldier's services go for nothing. What did the Duke himself say to me thirty-five years ago? Never mind, damme!

LOVELL.--Indeed! what did he say?

OLDHAM.--Never you mind what he said; he'll never say it to you. An infernal system when fellows sit at a desk and think they're soldiers. I'm no office man, damme! leading on is my forte; let them promote quill-drivers and milksops if they like, what does Dick Oldham care? I've been bred among the right sort, and I'll go to my grave a real soldier, if not a fortunate one.

O'SHEEVO.--That's true, Oldham; when they fire over you, old boy, 'twont be the first time you smelt powder.

LOVELL.--I hope Oldham will have another meeting or two with his old friends over the water before that.

OLDHAM.--Oh! confound it! don't say a word about it; they'll soon forget what a soldier used to be. It's sickening--by Jove! sickening. I'd have been a colonel of infantry before now, if there'd been any thing like justice. Never mind.

O'SHEEVO.--It's not too late yet. They must have soldiers where there's danger; they'll restore the old second battalion of the 107th, when the French come, and you'll command it yet.

OLDHAM.--Ugh! bother! (_Sleeps._)

PIPECLAY.--I thought so. The detail of his grievances, and a lamentation over modern degeneracy, are generally the prelude to a nap; fine old fellow, if he wasn't so sadly bigoted.

O'SHEEVO.--Yes, but when means are scarce, men are driven into extremes; we sometimes overrate our capacities; if our friend here were to be put into a colonel of infantry's shoes to-morrow, he'd not find his position a bed of roses.

LOVELL.--I wish he'd gone on about the coast defences, that's what I wanted to hear.

O'SHEEVO.--Sure, that's very ungrateful of you, when we've all been talking for your edification.

PIPECLAY.--Patience, Lovell, patience; you can't learn all the art of war in a minute; follow the thing up, and you'll know all about it by-and-by. A death vacancy'll be giving me my step, some of these days, and I should like to throw my mantle over you, I confess.

O'SHEEVO.--D'ye, mean that seedy old cloak that you've used these last fifteen years? if any one was to throw such a thing over me, I should consider it a personal affront.

PIPECLAY.--You're so literal, Major.

O'SHEEVO.--Ye're wrong there; I never composed any thing in my life, more to be blushed for than punch or sangree, and there's nothing literal in them except their being liquids.

PIPECLAY.--But I meant if Lovell could be eligible to succeed me in the adjutancy.

O'SHEEVO.--Oh! Lovell'll do very well by-and-by; those duties of yours are a little unpalatable at first; but by working at them they become easier, and an effort beyond that will make you do them quite involuntarily.

PIPECLAY.--There's encouragement for you, Lovell; the Major thinks you'll do, and I've great hopes of you myself.

LOVELL.--You're very good, I'm sure. Military discussions interest me much; I'm only anxious to hear you go on.

PIPECLAY.--It's getting late now; another time we'll resume the subject.

O'SHEEVO.--Yes, in a day or two. It's very good to rub up a little military stuff occasionally, but it is bad taste to be always talking shop. We've had a good dose for to-night, and to-morrow we must have a little light, easy conversation. Touch Oldham's arm, will you, Pipeclay, and let's jog. (_Pipeclay shakes Oldham._)

OLDHAM.--Damned forward young humbugs! what the devil do they know about it? eh? what, going to mizzle?

O'SHEEVO.--Yes, the jug's empty, and I'm telling Lovell he must come again, and he'll like it better, and we'll make a soldier of him at last.

OLDHAM.--Ah! I'm afraid you'll do no good with any of them nowadays; he should have been in the 107th. Well, good-night, Lovell; we'll do what we can.

O'SHEEVO--PIPECLAY.--Good-night, Lovell; sleep upon it.

(_Exeunt Pipeclay, O'Sheevo, and Oldham. Lovell remains to light a cigar._)

LOVELL.--Good-night. Well, I don't know but I might have spent the evening just as profitably if I'd gone to Jones's room, as he asked me. These old fellows are devilish close. However, patience, as the adjutant says. (_Exit._)

HUDSON'S BAY.[S]

[S] _Hudson's Bay; or, Snow-Shoe Journeys, Boat and Canoe Travelling Excursions, and Every-day Life in the Wilds of North America, during Six Years' Residence in the Territories of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company._ With Illustrations. By ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE. Edinburgh, 1847. Printed for Private Circulation.

How few school-boys, newly emancipated from the manual remonstrances of their respective Cleishbothams, but would welcome with overflowing delight the prospect of a distant and adventurous voyage, no matter whither or on what errand! How few but would prefer a cruise in the far Pacific, a broil amidst Arabian sands, or a freeze in the Laplander's icy regions, to the scholastic toga, the gainful paths of commerce, or even to the gaudy scarlet, so ardently aspired to by many youthful imaginations! But to how very few, in this iron age of toil, is it given to roam at the time of life when roaming is most delightful--when the heart is light and the body strong, when the spirits are high, and thoughts unclogged by care, and when novelty and locomotion constitute keen and real enjoyment! A book by one of the fortunate minority is now before us, and a very pleasant book it is, but as yet unknown to the public; since, for some unexplained reason, whose goodness we incline to doubt, it has been printed for the perusal of friends, instead of being boldly entered to run for the prize of popular approval. If timidity was the cause, the feeling was groundless; the colt had more than a fair chance of the stakes. We would have wagered odds upon him against nags of far greater pretensions. To drop the equine metaphor, we daily see books less meritorious, and infinitely less entertaining, than Mr Ballantyne's "Hudson's Bay," confidently paraded before a public, whose suffrages do not always justify the authors' presumption. Our readers shall judge for themselves in this matter. Favoured with a copy of the privately circulated volume, we propose giving some account of it, and making a few extracts from its varied pages.

First, as regards the author. It is manifest, from various indications in his book, that he is still a very young man; and although he does not explicitly state his age, we conjecture him to have been about fifteen or sixteen years old when, in the month of May 1841, he was thrown into a state of ecstatic joy by the receipt of a letter, appointing him apprentice-clerk in the service of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. At first sight there certainly does not appear any thing especially exhilarating in such an appointment, which to most ears is suggestive of a gloomy office in the city of London, of tall stools, canvass sleeves, and steel pens. A most erroneous notion! There is not more difference between the duties of an African Spahi and a member of the city police, than between those of a Hudson's Bay Company's clerk and of the painstaking individual who accomplishes two journeys _per diem_ between his lodging at Islington and his counting-house in Cornhill. Whilst the latter draws an invoice, effects an insurance, or closes an account-current, the Hudson's Bay man shoots bears and rapids, barters peltry with painted Indians, and traverses upon his snow-shoes hundreds of miles of frozen desert. We might protract the comparison, and show innumerable points of contrast, but these will appear as we proceed. Before we draw on our blanket coats, and the various wrappers rendered necessary by the awful severity of the climate, and plunge with Mr Ballantyne into the chill and dreary wilds to which he introduces us, we will give, for the benefit of any of our readers who may chance to have few definite ideas of the Hudson's Bay Company, beyond stuffed carnivora and cheap fur-shops, his brief account of the origin of that association.

"In the year 1669, a company was formed in London, under the direction of Prince Rupert, for the purpose of prosecuting the fur trade in the regions surrounding Hudson's Bay. This company obtained a charter from Charles II., granting to them and their successors, under the name of 'The Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay,' the sole right of trading in all the country watered by rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay. The charter also authorised them to build and fit out men-of-war, establish forts, prevent any other company from carrying on trade with the natives in their territories; and required that they should do all in their power to promote discovery. Armed with these powers, then, the Hudson's Bay Company established a fort near the head of James's Bay. Soon afterwards, several others were built in different parts of the country; and before long, the company spread and grew wealthy, and extended their trade far beyond the chartered limits."

Of what the present limits are, as well as of the state, aspect, arrangements, and population of the Hudson's Bay territory, a very clear and distinct notion is given by the following paragraph.