Part 1 (1/2)
The Attache.
by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.
London, July 3rd, 1843.
MY DEAR HOPKINSON,
I have spent so many agreeable hours at Edgeworth heretofore, that my first visit on leaving London, will be to your hospitable mansion. In the meantime, I beg leave to introduce to you my ”Attache,” who will precede me several days. His politics are similar to your own; I wish I could say as much in favour of his humour. His eccentricities will stand in need of your indulgence; but if you can overlook these, I am not without hopes that his originality, quaint sayings, and queer views of things in England, will afford you some amus.e.m.e.nt. At all events, I feel a.s.sured you will receive him kindly; if not for his own merits, at least for the sake of
Yours always,
THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I. UNCORKING A BOTTLE.
We left New York in the afternoon of -- day of May, 184-, and embarked on board of the good Packet s.h.i.+p ”Tyler” for England. Our party consisted of the Reverend Mr. Hopewell, Samuel Slick, Esq., myself, and Jube j.a.pan, a black servant of the Attache.
I love brevity--I am a man of few words, and, therefore, const.i.tutionally economical of them; but brevity is apt to degenerate into obscurity. Writing a book, however, and book-making, are two very different things: ”spinning a yarn” is mechanical, and book-making savours of trade, and is the employment of a manufacturer. The author by profession, weaves his web by the piece, and as there is much compet.i.tion in this branch of trade, extends it over the greatest possible surface, so as to make the most of his raw material. Hence every work of fancy is made to reach to three volumes, otherwise it will not pay, and a manufacture that does not requite the cost of production, invariably and inevitably terminates in bankruptcy. A thought, therefore, like a pound of cotton, must be well spun out to be valuable.
It is very contemptuous to say of a man, that he has but one idea, but it is the highest meed of praise that can be bestowed on a book. A man, who writes thus, can write for ever.
Now, it is not only not my intention to write for ever, or as Mr. Slick would say ”for everlastinly;” but to make my bow and retire very soon from the press altogether. I might a.s.sign many reasons for this modest course, all of them plausible, and some of them indeed quite dignified.
I like dignity: any man who has lived the greater part of his life in a colony is so accustomed to it, that he becomes quite enamoured of it, and wrapping himself up in it as a cloak, stalks abroad the ”observed of all observers.” I could undervalue this species of writing if I thought proper, affect a contempt for idiomatic humour, or hint at the employment being inconsistent with the grave discharge of important official duties, which are so distressingly onerous, as not to leave me a moment for recreation; but these airs, though dignified, will unfortunately not avail me. I shall put my dignity into my pocket, therefore, and disclose the real cause of this diffidence.
In the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, I embarked at Halifax on board the Buffalo store-s.h.i.+p for England. She was a n.o.ble teak built s.h.i.+p of twelve or thirteen hundred tons burden, had excellent accommodation, and carried over to merry old England, a very merry party of pa.s.sengers, _quorum parva pars fui_, a youngster just emerged from college.
On the banks of Newfoundland we were becalmed, and the pa.s.sengers amused themselves by throwing overboard a bottle, and shooting at it with ball.
The guns used for this occasion, were the King's muskets, taken from the arm-chest on the quarter-deck. The shooting was execrable. It was hard to say which were worse marksmen, the officers of the s.h.i.+p, or the pa.s.sengers. Not a bottle was. .h.i.t: many reasons were offered for this failure, but the two princ.i.p.al ones were, that the muskets were bad, and that it required great skill to overcome the difficulty occasioned by both, the vessel and the bottle being in motion at the same time, and that motion dissimilar.
I lost my patience. I had never practised shooting with ball; I had frightened a few snipe, and wounded a few partridges, but that was the extent of my experience. I knew, however, that I could not by any possibility shoot worse than every body else had done, and might by accident shoot better.
”Give me a gun, Captain,” said I, ”and I will shew you how to uncork that bottle.”
I took the musket, but its weight was beyond my strength of arm. I was afraid that I could not hold it out steadily, even for a moment, it was so very heavy--I threw it up with a desperate effort and fired. The neck of the bottle flew up in the air a full yard, and then disappeared. I was amazed myself at my success. Every body was surprised, but as every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster.
”Ah,” said I coolly, ”you must be born with a rifle in your hand, Captain, to shoot well. Every body shoots well in America. I do not call myself a good shot. I have not had the requisite experience; but there are those who can take out the eye of a squirrel at a hundred yards.”
”Can you see the eye of a squirrel at that distance?” said the Captain, with a knowing wink of his own little ferret eye.
That question, which raised a general laugh at my expense, was a puzzler. The absurdity of the story, which I had heard a thousand times, never struck me so forcibly. But I was not to be pat down so easily.
”See it!” said I, ”why not? Try it and you will find your sight improve with your shooting. Now, I can't boast of being a good marksman myself; my studies” (and here I looked big, for I doubted if he could even read, much less construe a chapter in the Greek Testament) ”did not leave me much time. A squirrel is too small an object for all but an experienced man, but a ”_large_” mark like a quart bottle can easily be hit at a hundred yards--that is nothing.”
”I will take you a bet,” said he, ”of a doubloon, you do not do it again?”
”Thank you,” I replied with great indifference: ”I never bet, and besides, that gun has so injured my shoulder, that I could not, if I would.”
By that accidental shot, I obtained a great name as a marksman, and by prudence I retained it all the voyage. This is precisely my case now, gentle reader. I made an accidental hit with the Clockmaker: when he ceases to speak, I shall cease to write. The little reputation I then acquired, I do not intend to jeopardize by trying too many experiments.