Читать книгу Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives - George S. McWatters - Страница 9
Where he was born and reared.
ОглавлениеIt matters not in what country a man may have been born, whatever the institutions under which one is reared may have to do with the formation of his character; and as to Officer McWatters' place of birth, we are not absolutely certain, but believe he was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, and was taken thence by his parents, at an early age, to the north of Ireland, where he was reared.
It is easy to conjecture that a man like Mr. McWatters must have had a more or less ambitious boyhood; and his friends have sometimes heard him recite the wakeful dreams he as a youth indulged in, of "the beautiful land beyond the western waters." Officer McWatters was evidently born out of place, for he is intensely democratic in his sentiments, more so than most native-born Americans, and manifests an appreciation of free institutions, which not unfrequently rises to the sublime, or intensifies to the pathetic. It is doubtful, for example, that during the late civil war there could have been found in all the land a man who took a deeper, soul-felt interest in the integrity of the republic than he. But of this farther on.
Mr. McWatters after receiving a very respectable education in the schools of the north of Ireland, became a mechanic; but the monotonous life of a working-man there, was ill suited to an ardent nature like his; and while yet a young man, full of the spirit of adventure, he left his Irish home, and proceeded to London, where he pursued his trade, and eventually married a most estimable lady, who has ever been to him a helpmeet indeed. By this lady Mr. McWatters is the father of a very interesting family of some six children, who have been carefully reared, and have enjoyed excellent opportunities of education. Miss Charlotte, the eldest daughter of Mr. McWatters, a lady of refined culture, as well as extreme personal graces and attractions, was married in October, 1860, to Signor Errani, then the distinguished tenor of the Academy of Music, and who not only occupies a first class position in his profession, but is a gentleman of marked intellectuality and extensive literary acquirements.
