THE PURSER'S CABIN.

YARN III.

PATCHES. I RECEIVE SOME TIDINGS OF MY

PHELIM.

The Kelpie must flit

From the dark bog pit,

And the Brownie dare not tarry!

A GOSSIPING QUILT, made up of ShREDS AND So intolerable was the state of matters," contnued the irate McWhirter, "that I could stand UNCLE CUTHBERT LYNCH, AND MY COUSIN it no longer, and accordingly I determined to keep up my stock of romance by paying a visit to the new world. From my boyhood I had reSince my last communing with the readers of garded the Falls of Niagara as one of the stock the Anglo-American Magazine, I have extended wonders of the world, and I opined that a sight the hospitalities of my Cabin to various sorts of their unsophisticated grandeur would brush and conditions of men. Unfortunately, howup the flame of my fast-expiring ideality!", ever, my guests were of a consumedly commonplace order, and furnished scanty material for the replenishment of my log-book.

Urging the McWhirter to mend his draught, I expressed a hope that he had not been disappointed in his pilgrimage.

One of the exceptions above alluded to was an "Disappointed!" exclaimed the pro tempore elderly Scottish gentleman, named Mungo Mc-tenant of my cabin; "Disappointed! Thou Whirter, or "the McWhirter,' as he chose to speakest it but half,' as Norna in the Pirate be denominated, on the strength of his being says! Why, sir, it was like pouring oil and the head of that ancient and illustrious clan. gunpowder upon a conflagration with the view Inheriting from his ancestors a competent of extinguishing the same! If I was bad before, estate he had been brought up to no profession, my visit to the Falls has made me a thousand but had spent the spring, summer, and a large times worse! Fully do I grant that there is an per-centage of the autumn of his existence in inkling of the sublime in that river leap (as Galt otium cum dignitate. Being somewhat of a hu- called it), but how effectually do the trimmings mourist, and tinctured with a love of letters and and accessories of the scene destroy the epic the fine arts, Mr. Mungo had extensively culti-effect thereof! Surrounded as the Falls are by vated the society of authors, artists, and cha- a mob of monster tippling-houses, and being racters in general, and consequently had gar-bearded, so to speak, by a snug, prim, pragmanered up a bountiful stock of anecdotes and tical Yankee steamer, which, sailing right up to ana, which he retailed with no niggard hand. "The McWhirter" had come out to Canada in a fit of virtuous disgust, at the calamitous changes which railroads and steamboats had wrought in the land o' cakes. "Why, sir," said he, "if the fellow in the play were now to put the question,

'Stands Scotland where it dld?'

their teeth, seems to say, "I guess and calculate that in this land of liberty and niggers I have as much right to be here as you !'-who, in such circumstances could look upon them with feelings of ordinary respect, to say nothing of admiration or awe? Most assuredly not the McWhirter for one! Accordingly here am I on my road home, a sadder and a wiser man than when the answer of every candid, honest man would, I left the same! I return carrying with me this beyond all dubitation, be in the negative! Who blighting truth that the picturesque and romancould realize the fact, for instance, that Loch tic have emigrated, once and for ever, to fairyLomond had been one of the aquatic fastnesses land and Utopia! Being the last of my race, of Rob Roy, when its most secluded bays are and consequently having no responsibilities to rendered vocal by the vile snort of the iron provide for, I seriously contemplate leaving the horse, or the equally detestable hiss of the va- bulk of my means and estate to any religious pour-boat? Just fancy, if you can, the rage corporation who will become bound to utter an and disgust of the Gregarach at beholding such annual commination against the originators of mechanical intruders upon his native domains! steam conveyances whether plying upon land, People speak of the decay of poetry at home, lake, or sea!"

and wonder at the undeniable fact, but with no How far my hospes was serious in this exjust cause. The utilitarian clash and clang of pressed determination, it is impossible for me your labour-saving locomotives are amply sufficient to scare away the gentle muse from the land of Shakspeare and Scott! At the roar of King Hudson's metallic phalanx

to say. There was a costive inflexibility about the muscles of his countenance which prevented them from giving any contradiction to the words he might utter. If ever he indulged in laugh

ter, the operation was performed internally. than would say) in the aforesaid county, and With him physiognomy was no tell tale! my father, as a matter of course, was a partici

In the course of our sederunt the conversa-pator in many of the high jinks which then so tion chanced to turn upon the Maine liquor law rifely prevailed. From his own mouth I derived question, of which the McWhirter proved to be the particulars which I am now about to comno special advocate. He was of opinion that municate. At the period of which I am speaking there the present generation, with all their multiform faults and shortcomings, were models and mi- dwelt in the neighbourhood of the ancient village racles of temperance when compared with their of Kilpatrick, on the banks of the Clyde, a laird predecessors. In illustration of this averment or landowner named and designated George my guest favored me with sundry cases in point, Mills of Caldercruicks. The aforesaid village, of which the following is a specimen. The I may mention in passing, was famed as being clients of the Anglo-American will have the the reputed birthplace of the Saint to whose goodness to suppose that, instead of the Purser, tutelage Ireland is by popular voice consigned. they are addressed by Mungo McWhirter of that ilk.

WARMING A TOMB.

Mills took it into his head to erect in the churchyard of Kilpatrick a mausoleum or family tomb of ambitious dimensions, and indeed no mortuary hotel in the United Kingdom could

About ten years prior to the commencement stand any comparison with it, so far at least as of the present century, the drinking or convivial extent was concerned. It more resembled a usages of Scotland had assumed a peculiarly small villa than a refuge for the departed, and aggravated and reckless character. Intoxica- the fame theroof spread far and wide even betion, so far at least as the upper classes were fore the completion of the same. concerned, instead of being regarded as a vice, The Thane of Caldercruicks belonged to the was looked upon as mark of aristocratic viri-thirsty brotherhood of whom mention has been lity and good fellowship. Almost any gentle- made above, and the progress of the tomb formed man would as soon have been called a liar or a frequent subject of conversation at the vinous coward as a milk-sop, and he who, with the re-unions at which he assisted. Thus it came greatest impunity, could put the greatest num- to pass that when the structure was on the eve ber of bottles under his belt was regarded, de of being finished, a waggish member of the fra facto, as a "cock of the walk" and " Prince of ternity gravely proposed that Mills should give good fellows." The dinner hour, at that time a tomb warming to his numerous friends and being early, it was no uncommon thing to wit-associates. The intellects of honest George ness well-dressed men staggering along the were none of the brightest, owing to the liquistreets during broad daylight, in a state of in-factions which they were constantly receiving, toxication. And the only remark elicited by and accordingly the suggestion appeared to him such phenomena, was that Sir John this, or the perfectly orthodox and reasonable. Without laird of that had been at a party! As for the delay he issued invitations to as many of his police or the ecclesiastical authorities taking convivial confreres as the sepulchre would accognizance of such escapades, the thing was too commodate, and set about preparing for their preposterous even to dream of! So long as the entertainment in this novel hospitium. topers gave a wide berth to murder or manslaughter, the propriety of their conduct was never called in question!

At the time appointed, some half-dozen of the most devoted and enthusiastic cup crushers which the west of Scotland could boast of, made their appearance in the burial ground of Kilpatrick, and were received by the hospitable Caldercruicks at the door of his hospitable monster tomb.

No where was Bacchus worshipped more religiously at the period of which I am speaking, than in Dunbartonshire, in the west of Scotland. Indeed, the convivial prowess of the landowners of that district of Scotland had long been a mat- This sombre Plutonic caravansery had been ter of proverbial notoriety, and people used to rendered as comfortable as circumstances would talk of Dunbartonshire lairds as types of every-permit. Not being furnished with windows a lamp thing that was commendable and chivalrous, so was suspended from the roof, which was intended far as devotion to the wine-cup was concerned. to burn night and day during the continuance of The McWhirter property is located (as Jona- the revel. Within a species of hall or porch

was hung the carcase of a choice ox, slain The charnel-house feast took place in midfor the occasion, and in the same locality was winter, and passing strange was the effect of erected a pro tempore cooking apparatus, the the uproarious chants which uprose from that management of which was entrusted to the major tomb, chorussed as they were by the sleetdomo and factotum of the host. charged winds! Many a midnight wayfarer, travelling along the Glasgow and Dunbarton road, felt his hair stand erect, and the cold perspiration rain in torrents from his brow, as he listened to the unearthly and untimeous cantations which came floating from that ancient and wierd churchyard! Not a few sceptics in the

Instead of carpets the floor of the tomb was spread with matresses, and the compartments in the walls designed for the reception of coffins were plentifully garnished with liquor-replenished vessels. A cask of claret did duty at a sideboard at one end of the chamber, and was kept in countenance at the other by a similar creed of popular superstition were converted from ark filled with venerable brandy. Of chairs the room did not boast, but substitutes were found for them in the shape of kegs of whisky, the virtue whereof had never been sullied by the profane touch of excisemen!

their infidelity by the sounds which issued from

the Caldercruick's tomb!

There was one incident connected with the prandialism of that extraordinary party, which deserves to be detailed.

Το

[At this point of his narration, the McWhirter The capacious appetites of some of the guests took occasion to assure me that in nothing did having craved for a mess of oatmeal porridge, he invent or exaggerate, in this strange relation. the cook proceeded to concoct the same. He told the tale as it had been communicated to all appearance the hasty pudding was canonihim by his father, who formed one of the guests cally prepared, but when placed upon the board at the ghastly and most unique entertainment.] not one of the revellers could swallow a mouthThe lamp being lighted. and the company ful of the same, There was something peculiar having assumed their seats, or rather, I should in the flavour of the gritty viands which they say, their kegs, the door of the sepulchre was could not away with, and by common consent shut, and the proceedings commenced in right the manufacture was ordained to be cast out of good earnest. In our degenerate days no one the door, a sentence which was carried into imwould credit the amount of stimulants which mediate effect. were consumed with comparative impunity by these devoted sons of the wine-crowned god. Where puny glasses would be employed now, traordinary combination of sounds, proceeding cups, capacious enough to contain pints, were quaffed to the health of the Caldereruick's tomb. Father Matthew, in his most imaginative moments never pictured such a purgatory of antiteetotalism!

Some hours after this, the inmates of the tomb had their attention arrested by a most ex

from the exterior of the building. On going out
to investigate the nature of the concert, a strange
sight was presented to the view of the expisca-
tors. Several pigs, and geese without number
were discovered, some lying and some stagger-
ing around the building, exhibiting all the phe-
nomena of intoxication! The cries which they
emitted were of the most unearthly description,
and the most casual observer could not fail to
notice that they were as drunk as their betters!
What could be the meaning of all this?
Some of the more chicken-hearted of the com-

For three long days and nights did these wild orgies continue without break or intermission. Sometimes, it is true, one of the party would drop from his seat upon the ready-spread couch, but a very brief interval of repose enabled such a one to resume his part in the outre festivities. If his slumbers were overly long protracted, in the opinion of his associates, a copious libation pany (in which category my paternal parent of cold water speedily recalled him from the fell to be ranked), concluded that Providence land of Nod! had, pro re nata, made the bestialities tipsy, in During this period the office of the major-order to read the rational bipeds a practical domo was far from being of a sinecure nature. lesson. This conjecture was probably suggested Hardly an hour elapsed in which he was not by the practice of the ancient Greeks, who occacalled upon to put his culinary faculties in re-sionally corned their slaves, so that their insenquisition, and brief were the intervals during sate antics might impress the rising generation which the echoes of the mausoleum were not with a salutary disgust at intoxication. awakened by cries for steaks and devils!

On enquiry, a more material key was found

wherewith to unlock the apparent mystery. his final account! The catastrophe had been In manufacturing the porridge, the cook had patent only to the host, and he had not deemed moistened the meal with whisky instead of the beverage of our primary ancestors !

It is hardly necessary to add that when the mystery evaporated, so did the moral, and that the incongruous vivas proceeded as before from the messuage of death!

the event sufficiently important to break up the conviviality of the synod by its promulgation!*

Just as the McWhirter had concluded his narration, a thin, pipe-clay complexioned youth from Dollardom, craved permission to join our There was something dismally apposite in the sederunt. As I am not too proud to consort conclusion of this grim saturnalian convocation. occasionally even with the natives of a republic One of the party, named Bankier of Glen which makes chattels of God's images, I adTumphy, was a peculiarly stolid looking permitted the postulant into the sanctuary of my sonage. In obesity he might have measured cabin, and ere many seconds had elapsed he swords with Shakspeare's "fat knight," and was engaged in the conflagration of a cigar. there was a dreamy stupidity about the general Before long the stripling developed himself expression of his countenance, which closely as a heart and soul devotee of the German verged upon the sublime! Whenever his inti- School of Literature. He was a transcendentmates beheld the slighest inkling of intelligence alist from sconce to claw, and spoke as if all in his countenance they at once concluded that genius, so far at least as modern times were something extraordinary was in the wind, and concerned, had been confined to the land of looked out for squalls accordingly! sausages and saur-kraut!

During the sederunt in the tomb Bankier had For a season the McWhirter listened in silence hardly ever left his seat. He appeared to con- to the flatulencies of this whipper-snapper, but sider it a solemn religious obligation to put the his patience got exhausted in the long run. He greatest possible amount of liquour under his protested that the German literati had not a belt; and so absorbed was he in this duty that he single original idea in their heads which was seldom permitted himself to join in the secularity worthy to be touched except with a pair of of conversation. Bacchus seemed constantly tongs! Being conscious of their lack of comlooming before his mind's eye, and he apparently mon sense, they disguised the swarms of crazy looked upon every moment as lost, which was fancies which they were constantly evacuating, not devoted to the worship of the humid divinity! in unmeaning but high-sounding expressions! At the fag end of the third day's sederunt in After the same fashion, continued McWhirter, the mausoleum, my ancestor pulled his host do French cooks smother snails and such like emphatically by the sleeve, and directed his at- abominations, in a plethora of sauces, in order tention to the appearance which Bankier pre- to conceal their original shapes and qualities!

sented.

Very wroth, as might have been anticipated, was the sentimental Yankee at this tirade. He

"Caldercruicks," said he, "do you not think that Glen Tumphy is looking confounded gash?" looked as if he could have masticated the I may explain for your benefit, presuming that McWhirter without salt, and once or twice you have the misfortune not to be a Scotsman, hinted at the propriety of referring the matter that gash and intelligent are, as nearly as possi- in dispute to the arbitration of a bowie knife! ble, synonymous terms.

For a season George Mills essayed to silence his interrogator, by winks, elbowings, punches in the side, and treadings upon the toes. At length when all these pantomimics failed to produce the desired effect, he exclaimed in half whisper

a

"Mahoun thank him for looking gash! The idiot has been with his Maker for better than twa hours!!"

Such was the literal fact! In the midst of "quip and crank," and joke and song, the hapless Laird of Glen Tumphy had been called to

On my suggesting, however, that a cat-o-ninetails might perchance answer the purpose as well, he speedily abandoned the idea-or idee as my gentleman pronounced the word!

Amongst other things, the republican transcendentalist alluded to Burger's ballad of LEONORA as being unique both in conception and execution.