Читать книгу Red O'shaughnessy - J H M Abbott - Страница 8

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CONSTABLE MICHAEL RIORDAN was eloquent in his introduction of Red O'Shaughnessy to Mr. Thaddeus Driscoll, landlord of "The Sheer Hulk" tavern. Mr. Driscoll was as unprepossessing in appearance as his house, but the enthusiasm of Constable Riordan could find nothing but perfection in either.

"Well, thin, Misther O'Shaughnessy," he said, as they approached the low doorway of the disreputable-looking shanty, from which boisterous noises drifted out discordantly, "this is the snuggest little cosy-corner in all Sydney Town, so it is. Ye'd not foind betther in Cork or Dublin, so ye wuddn't. An' Thady's one o' th' best lads iver breathed, begorra, 'tis so. Oho," he shouted through the open doorway of the inn, "come outside wid ye, Misther Driscoll. 'Tis th' polis."

A sudden silence overpowered the babel within—until a tousled head poked itself out of the glassless window beside the entrance, and a thick voice cried out:

"Oh, 'tis on'y Micky th' Goat!" Whereupon the sounds of unrighteous revelry recommenced. The two of them stood waiting by the door, listening to the uncouth noises incidental to the proceedings inside.

The din was a strange blend of all manner of discordant riot. A score of voices were singing twenty different songs, some identical in words, but all of them varying in tune and time. A bellow of male voices would be succeeded by the screeching of shrill-toned females. The banging of drinking vessels upon tables, the loud yelling of thirsty customers for more grog, the frenzied shouting of drunken men and women who bordered on delirium—it seemed as though a little corner of Hell was shut in beneath that thatched roof, and behind the weather-stained walls of the old and dilapidated building. Hardly any name could have suited the inn better than the one it bore. It was, indeed, a "sheer hulk" of a house—frowsy, decayed, and infinitely degraded.

The unkempt head thrust itself out of the window again. "Come inside, Mick Riordan, th' boss says. He'm too busy for to come out to ye."

Constable Riordan led the way into the evil den. Over beyond the blue waters of Cockle Bay, which was the name of Darling Harbor in those days, and for many years after, the sun was setting behind the green, scrub-covered ridges stretching away towards the distant cobalt ranges of the Blue Mountains. Red O'Shaughnessy followed in the wake of his guide, and came into the queerest company he had ever encountered.

Inside "The Sheer Hulk" Mr. Thaddeus Driscoll, a villainous personage with a broken nose, a squint, and black whiskers growing beneath his chin presided in an overbearing and muscular fashion over the revels that were taking place in the large low-ceiled, shabby room that was the main apartment of the house. The approaching darkness was dimly illuminated by three horn lanterns depending from the rafters. There were benches fixed up all round the walls, and in front of them were long, narrow, greasy, wooden tables covered with pewter pots, glasses, and clay pipes of the churchwarden sort. A thick, rank haze of tobacco smoke, and the dancing shadows made by the swinging lanterns, gave to the place an aspect of disreputable and ghostly unreality.

All round the den men and women were seated at the tables—drinking, bawling, quarrelling, gambling, and making shameless and indecent love. All except a few drunken sailors from the ships in port, whom Mr. Driscoll and his regular clients regarded as their legitimate prey—were of the convict and ticket-of-leave class. The men were bad, but the women were obviously worse. Hogarth might have done justice to the scene as a typical thieves' kitchen—it is not easy to picture it in printed words.

Driscoll was a convict "free by servitude," and his establishment was ostensibly a lodging-house for sailors. His partner, who does not come into this veracious chronicle, exhibited a barber's pole outside the door as "a blind," but did no hairdressing, except of the sort that has been described as "shearing lambs." The place was a boozing-den, a brothel, a crimping establishment, and a resort of the worst characters in Sydney. Rum was all it sold in the way of drink—but it did so well out of that that Thaddeus Driscoll had hopes before long of getting back to the banks of the Liffey, there to conduct a similar enterprise that would have greater opportunities.

He was surveying the dim but entrancing scene before him—standing beside two small barrels of Bengal rum to serve it out as fresh supplies were ordered by his customers, and thinking pleasant thoughts over the prospect of a retirement from business in Sydney and a change of address to Dublin when Mr. Riordan led Red O'Shaughnessy up to him to be introduced. He hailed the constable with saturine geniality.

"Good ev'nin' to ye, Micky, me bhoy," he exclaimed with false enthusiasm. "An' what've I been doin' now, that th' polis has to visit me so arly in th' avenin'?"

"'Tis but a friendly call, Thady, me bucko. Here's a young man's but new to Sydney Town, an' I wanted to make a firrum frind for him, so I brung him to 'The Hulk.' Sure, he'll find it out for himself, I mek no doubt of it at all, that there's warse an' more discomfortable places in these parts than your snug little retrate."

"Right you are, Micky—ye niver said a truer worrud," gratefully responded Host Driscoll to this flattering enconium upon his establishment. Others present, however, held divergent views.

"Aw, my God!" exclaimed a red-haired, pudding-bosomed, red-faced female seated within hearing. "'Ark to 'em,' ladies an' gents—'ark to 'em! Th' bloodiest spongin' 'ouse in th' Sou' Seas. Lord, it mikes me sick! Th' ——- liars!"

Mr. Driscoll met this hostile opinion with characteristic promptitude. Picking up a bucket of rum-sodden, dirty water, in which the drinking vessels were rinsed, that stood on the floor between the barrels, he emptied it over the lady's unkempt auburn locks. She screamed curses at him and he roared like a bull to her male companion—a little man of somewhat timid aspect—to take her away.

"Outside wid her, Jawn Toovey," he bawled above th' din. "Outside wid her, now—elst I'll break both y'r heads. I mane it, so I do. Be off, th' both of ye, quick an' lively, now!"

He picked up a huge blackthorn stick and whirled it above his head threateningly. With a squeal of terror, Mr. Toovey laid hands upon his innamorata and dragged her, protesting obscenely, to the door. Here the tousled one who had welcomed our two visitors pushed her out into the darkness, bestowed a kick behind upon her male escort, and closed the door upon the pair.

"Good for you, thin, Thady," admiringly exclaimed Constable Riordan. "'Tis no disord'ly house you'd be afther permittin', I know it well, so I do. Ye seed that, Mister O'Shaughnessy. 'Tis th' model publican is Thady Driscoll. If there was more like him in Sydney Town, there'd be no nade for us. Give us two noggins, thin, me bould Thady, an' join wid us. Faith, we'll drink hear-rty to such a wan as y'silf. Come now, 'tis th' dry t'roat a man gets listenin' to such a trollop as that Sally th' Hin. Bad luck to such a bad-mouthed bitch!"

So Red O'Shaughnessy sat down at one of the greasy tables with mine host of "The Sheer Hulk," whilst the latter's tousle-headed factotum—he rejoiced in the name of Jerry the Rat—served him and Constable Riordan with copious libations of rum, the only doubtful virtue of which was its strength and potency. They "drank hearty" to the prowess of Mr. Thaddeus Driscoll, the efficiency of Mr. D'Arcy Wentworth's new police, as exemplified in that doughty guardian of law and order, Mr. Michael Riordan, and to the future colonial career of Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy—and Mr. O'Shaughnessy was graciously permitted to pay for all the drinks.

Meanwhile, as the night grew older, "The Sheer Hulk" developed its charming characteristics in a fashion that, whilst he retained his senses, was fascinatingly interesting to the young "new chum" Irish colonist. People went and people came, and steadily the hullabaloo and disorder increased in volume. By midnight the smoke-laden taproom was a roaring volcano of ribaldry, noise, and general pandemonium. Long before midnight, Red O'Shaughnessy had succumbed to the soporific influences of Mr. Driscoll's rum, and by the time the new day was in its first hour was sleeping stertorously at the table, his carroty head pillowed on his arms and his snores competing with the general din in trumpet-like fashion. Long abstinence from alcohol, during the time he had been in Newgate and aboard the Retribution and Admiral Gambier, contributed to this weakness in the face of Mr. Driscoll's fiery liquor—but also it was due to the fact that he had had no food since early morning, having missed the midday meal on the transport by reason of the excitement and preoccupation of preparing for disembarkation. So, to the shame of Michael Riordan, Red O'Shaughnessy was quite incapable of paying for the ceaseless rounds of drinks that were set before the trio by that indefatigable tapster, Jerry the Rat. However, with great consideration, Constable Riordan searched the stupefied man's pockets and generously shared the proceeds of his investigations with Mr. Driscoll.

"Sure," said the policeman, "'tis—hic—no condition th' young fellie's in for to look afther his cash, an' I'm thinkin' that some o' y'r guests, Thady, me bucko, are not to be thrusted at all, at all. So we'll put timptation out o' their way an' purtect th' young lad from such thayves. He's—hic—quite safe now, for 'tis me own expayrance that no man can be robbed of what he ain't got. Hullo, thin, an' who'll this be, now?"

The door had been pushed open and a huge and not unhandsome man of seafaring aspect completely filled the aperture, as he stood on the threshold with bent head and surveyed the singular scene in the interior of the house.

"Begorra," whispered Constable Riordan to Host Driscoll, "'tis Cap'n Grimmett, o' th' whaler Brotherly Love, an' I know he's lukkin' for to complate his crew. Good avenin' to ye, Cap'n. Here's th' landlord, Thady Driscoll. He's asked me to come an' kape or-rder for 'um—th' bhoys an' th' colleens bein' a little frisky, so to shpake. An' phwhat can we do for ye, Cap'n?"

"See hyar, Mister Policeman, I'm awanting one more man to complete me crew and must get him to-night. Who's that red-headed fellow asleep there? He's got a good pair o' shoulders, for to pull an oar, anyway. What about him—d'ye think he'd like for to go to sea? Guess he'd do me, if he would. Come now, I'm in a hurry. We sail at daylight."

Mr. Riordan looked meaningly at Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Driscoll looked meaningly at Mr. Riordan.

"Cap'n," said the landlord of 'The Sheer Hulk,' "he's yours for five guineas."

And so, carried by shoulders and heels by two of Mr. Driscoll's soberer—or less drunk—clients, did the unfortunate Red O'Shaughnessy go aboard in the American whaler, Brotherly Love.