Recollections of a runaway boy, 1827-1903.

Introduction

This is the life story of a man who, in the seventysix years he has traveled about the world, has proven the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. Unlike the novelist, who draws upon a vivid imagination for his tales of adventure, the hero of this story has but to draw upon his memory of events he has seen — in most of which he has been an actor. The events herein recorded are mostly incidents jotted down in leisure moments the past few years for the amusement of children and grandchildren, and they may also find much to instruct them in the ways of the world fifty, and even seventy years ago.

Ireland was my birthplace, and the date was April lo, 1827. That was in County Derry, near Curran. My father's people were of Welsh stock, and my mother Scotch, though both were born in Ireland. Shortly after my arrival in the family my parents moved to Entrem, where father took charge of John McChesney's Blichgreen. I was my father's namesake and he was very fond of me. The first incident I can remember was one day I was sitting on his knee. He was smoking, and ashes fell from his pipe and burned my little body. He was sorely grieved, and threw away his pipe, declaring he would never smoke again. And he never did.

6 Introduction.

That was an incident that showed the strength of his character. When he took a line of action he kept to it to the end, and I believe that that strength of character was my chief inheritance, and in fact it was my only inheritance, except life and health, for almost from the first I made my own way in the world.

A little incident, wrong though it was, or would be for one who had reached years of discretion, occurred when I was about four years old, and it shows that, like my father, I went through with whatever I undertook. I took a fancy to a pigeon belonging to a neighbor named Brown, and I caught it and took it home. Mother did not know whose it was, and allowed me to keep it, thinking it was only a stray bird. But one day a little later, Mr. Brown was passing and saw the bird. He told my mother, who compelled me tO' carry the pigeon back, liberally using a willow switch on my back and legs until we met a neighbor woman, Mrs. McChesney, whose pleading in my behalf saved me further punishment.

The following Sunday, while my father and mother and the Browns were at church, I went to the Brown home, got the pigeon again, brought it home, killed it and hid it under a stone pile. It was missed of course, and they blamed me for having taken it. Mother often questioned me, but I never would admit that I knew anything about its disappearance.

Whenever I saw Mr. Brown, I would imagine that he was thinking about that pigeon, but I was too stubborn to ever admit the crime and ask forgiveness. I felt that the whipping I got for taking the bird was

Introduction. 7

punishment enough for both offenses, and really the whipping was the motive for the second crime, and I am not a believer in the old adage, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," for many a boy has bden spoiled by too liberal application of the rod.

Seventy years ago there were curious remedies for the small ills of childhood, and for the ills of our elders as well. Shortly after the incident of the pigeon — I almost said the tragedy of the pigeon — I was taken with whooping cough. It is not a very serious malady, but it is annoying, especially so for people living in the house when a whooping spell comes on the patient in the night. I must have been very noisy, for they took extreme measures to cure me. They brought a donkey into the front yard and carried me out of the house. Three times I was put around and under the donkey, then I was made to eat bread that had been first put into the mouth of the donkey. I soon got well, and the donkey got credit for being a great medicial agent, but I have never been thoroughly convinced that he was any more of a doctor than some of the donkeys who in this day put an M. D. at the end of their names and promise to cure everything from measles to consumption with some combination of drugs that promises to do everything, instead of helping nature to make you well and keep you strong by obeying her laws.

It was not long after the aflfair of the donkey that the family moved to Belfast, where father took charge of Craig's weaving factory, on the Falls Road. We were only there a short while when father died.

8 Introduction.

I can remember little of the occurrences of the next two years. Mother kept her little family together and we were all happy and contented. Those two years were spent so pleasantly, and with so little to disturb the even tenor of our ways that there is little to record. One cannot make a story of happy domestic life, but must needs get out into the world, where there is less of happiness and content, and more of turmoil and strife.

This I soon learned, for mother married about two years after my father's death. Her second husband was a retired naval officer, Capt. Hughey Drain, and his man-of-war ways did not suit me or my brothers and sisters. Capt. Drain was a valiant officer, and had been retired on pension, which he had undoubtedly earned in the service of his country, but I was too young then to look only at the glory his name brought the family, and I did not consider that his bluff and burly manner towards his step-children was excusable on the ground that he had fought in *'the King's navee." He was overbearing, and roug'h, and if there had been any such thing as a marlin spike around the house, I guess he would have used it on some of us, but that and the "cat o' nine tails" being out of his reach, he made things as unpleasant as possible with his tongue, and soon drove my sister and older brothers away from home.

One day the captain asked if I had not taken a half crown from his pocket. With indignation, I told him I had not. He said nothing more then, but when I went to bed he searched my clothes. He found nothing in my pockets but cherry stones, but that did not save me from a beating, and that was the beginning of the end of my life at home.

All that day I nursed my wrath. In the evening I went to a blacksmith shop and secured a staple. This I drove into the side of the wall at the head of the stairs, and about six inches from the floor. Then I secured a rope and tied it from the staple to the balustrade. I expected my step-father to trip over it when he went down stairs to lock the door for the night, and break his neck, which I considered but light punishment for the trashing he gave me, but my mother had gone to the store, and on her return she tripped and fell upstairs, instead of the captain falling down.

I was not blamed with this attempt to murder the man whom I thought had committed the greatest possible wrong against me, but a neighbor boy was suspected of having placed the rope there.

That was the last night I ever spent under the roof oif my home in Ireland. I feared the Captain would find out who it was tried to trip him and I would be punished, so I got out of bed and left the house. O

CHAPTER II. The Runaway Boy

In the darkness, of the night I crept out of the house. I did not know what time it was^ but with the fear of coming punishment in me, I fled as fast as my little legs could carry me. Mother had said that past the graveyard where my father was laid to rest was the road to grandfather's home. I felt that if I could only go there I would find a haven of rest. I sped on down the road, and as I reached the Shinkle graveyard I was tired out. I tried to get through the gate to sleep on my father's grave. But the gate was locked. I rattled at the gate, then tried to get through the hedge, but at last I lay down on the grass beside the fence and went to sleep. No thought of the gruesome surroundings entered my mind. I was too tired for even the small fears of childhood, burdened by a heavier fear of the punishment that would be my portion if I returned home.

The gray of dawn was just creeping over the trees when I awoke. I looked around, puzzled for a moment at my surroundings, then the whole injustice of my position came upon me once more, and I started up and ran as though I had seen the Captain coming after me. I sped on, over Davis mountain and down into the little green valley. For hours I walked and when I carne to the toll gate at Ben Water I could not pass, as I had no money and feared the questions of the toll keeper. I stood in the road, ready to weep from fatigue and hunger and fear. Suddenly the toll keeper came out.

"Where are you going, laddie?" he asked.

"I don't know," I told him.

He soon had the whole story out of me. Taking me into his house he ordered something for me to eat. Fearing that he would take me back home, as soon as he disappeared to return to the toll house I ran out the door and down the road. Fear was stronger than hunger. All that afternoon and far into the night I sped on. At last, weary and hungry, I again lay down on the soft, cool grass and slept.

I was awakened by the sun shining in my eyes. I did not know how long I had slept. My legs were stiif from the long journey, and I could scarce bear the terrible pangs of hunger that were knawing at my stomach. Still I walked on, though more slowly than on the day before, more often stopping for a rest at the roadside. But at last my spirit broke. I crept up beside a thorne hedge and cried for my mother.

As I was sitting there, with the tears running down my cheeks, a man came riding by on a pony.

"So small, and in trouble already?" he said riding up close to the hedge and looking at me with a smile in which even I, young as I was, could see sympathy and friendliness.

In answer tO' his questions, I told my little tragedy, holding back nothing. I was too thoroughly worn out to try to deceive him, willing even to accept return home to the bullying of Captain Drain, rather than, to pass further torture in an attempt to escape him. But I had found a friend.

"It hardly seems possible for a lad so small to walk so far," he said. "But you need walk no further. Come home with me, and we will see what we can do for you."

Then he lifted me up on the back of the pony, and in a little while he sat me down at his door, as meek a little run away as ever was caught up. While I was satisfying a ravenous hunger, he told me his name was Samuel Stormy. He was the owner of a marble quarry and a plaster-of-paris works. After my dinner he laid me out a good suit of clothes, and soon after 1 was escorted to the attic, to sleep in the bed with the serving man.

Tired as I was, I was soon asleep, and not until morning did I awake. Even the fierce storm which broke upon the place during the night failed to awaken me, and I knew nothing of it till I opened my eyes to discover the sun shining above me, the roof gone, all the bedclothes gone, and the room stripped of everything but the bed with me lying upon it I looked out, and could see Mr. Stormy and a cr j vd of people in the meadow searching for something.

I went down and stood in the doorway for a moment, then started towards them, and I made up my mind they must be crazy. Some of them started to run away, while Mr. Stormy came running toward me.

*'We thought you were killed," he said, "and were looking for your dead body in the meadow, where the roof of the house was dropped by the wind."

And naked as I was, he picked me up and carried me out among the superstitious ones to prove that I was flesh and blood and no ghost.

That was the beginning of a happy life of two years at the home of Mr. Stormy. Little work did I do, scarcely enough to pay my friend for the clothes he bought me and the food I ate. Everything that a

The Rtinaway Boy. 13

son could expect was done for me, and the thought of my brothers and sisters and mother began to seem like a dream of the distant past. Mr. Stormy had accepted my story of the terrible Captain who beat me, and did not even attempt to send me back. His heart was too kind to allow me to return to a home of cruelty, and he preferred to have me remain with him.

Scarcely a cross word he gave me in two years. At the end of that time I had grown to be quite a large lad of nearly eight years. I thought I was then large enough to ride the horses and occasionally when Mr. Stormy was not around the stableman would put me on a quiet horse and give free rein to gallop up and down the road or across the fields.

One day Mr. Stormy came into the barn as I was trying to get on one of the colts tied in the stall. He caught me by the scruff of the coat and dragged me out into the shed, where he began to whip me with a bunch of straw. I began to laugh and he became angry. He got a willow switch and gave me a genuine thrashing, though not severe, and when I began to cry he threw the switch away, talked to me awhile about the danger I was running in trying to ride the colts, and left me in the shed.

I did not realize then how kind he was. He had not really hurt me, but had wounded my spirit. All that day I brooded over what I considered his injustice. In a moment I forgot all he had done for me in the two years from the time he had picked me up by the roadside, and although I had come to look upon him as a second father, always kind and considerate, all was blotted out in one real blow from his hand.

That night, after all had gone to bed, I put on my best clothes, slipped out of the house and down the road, my only thought to get away and to get still further from the place where I still felt the terrible Captain was waiting for me with a strap in his hand, a grim and forbidding picture of vengeance.

O

CHAPTER III. I Find a New Home

My seond runaway was under less trying circumstances. My friends at the Stormys had given me an occasional shilling or sixpence, and I was fairly wealthy, and also as well clothed, when I got up in the night and stole away. After walking all through the balance of the night, and just as the light of day began to appear in the east, I began to realize what I had left behind. But my pride would not allow me to go back and ask to be taken in again. So I kept walking on, until I came to a house where there were people stirring about. I went in and asked if I could get breakfast. I ate with the family, and proffered the good woman a shilling, but she declared I was too small to be paying for my meals. I insisted that I was no beggar, and we finally compromised on a sixpence, and I started on my way.

I j<^.ers^€d long pleasantly enough all that day, occasionally being given a lift by a man with a cart, and when night came I asked for lodging at the first cottage that took my fancy. I was given a warm welcome, a good supper, bed and breakfast, and this time I could not force my money on my host, but was sent on my way with as cheery a God-speed as could be accorded the most honored of guests.

Now I thought I was far enough away to begin hunting a place to work. Everywhere I went, I asked for work, but there was little for a lad of eight to do, and time after time I was turned away. Late in the afternoon, I told my story to a man who had given me a lift in his cart.

"Jimrnie McClatchy's is just the place for you," he said. "He's an old bachelor, and there's not a lad on the place. Go to him and tell him I sent you."

I was given minute directions, and was set down on the road as near the McClatchy place as possible. Then bidding my new friend good-bye, I trudged on to the McClatchy farm, where I found just such a welcome as he had promised. Tlie McClatchy family consisted of two men, James and his younger brother. Tommy, both old bachelors, and their mother. I had landed on my feet again, found as good a home as the one I had just deserted.

While I had plenty of work at McClatchy's to earn my board and clothes and a little beside, I also had plenty of leisure time, and I soon became acquainted with all the boys in the neighborhood. We were all Irish lads to the core, full of the old nick, and to this day I have to laugh when I think of some of the pranks we used to play, though some of them were more boyish than humorous.

Paddy McMullen was for a time the butt of our fun. He had a fat pig- which I had trained as a saddler, and I was wont to ride him every time I got an opportunity — when Paddy was not looking. But one day when I was having my ride, the pig showed he had a mind of his own by running into Paddy's house, with me on him. Paddy was sitting by the fire, and the sight of his favorite pig being used as a saddle horse was too much for him.

"Git out o' this, ye dirty thafe," he shouted, as he reached for the poker.

I did my 'best to escape, but dodged in the wrong direction, and got the poker squarely on my head. Luckily it did me little harm, but it taught me that it would be best not to fool with Paddy, especially not take liberties with his pig. Thereafter when I wanted to take a ride, I was very careful to see that Paddy's door was closed so that I could not be rushed into trouble again.

Next door to McClatchy's lived Adam Duncan, a wealthy man who bought port and flax in the country round and sent it to Belfast. He handled large sums of money, and all of his returns from Belfast had to be carried by a man, as there were no banks to handle such financial matters as there are now. Hughie Henderson was his messenger, and always when he returned in his cart from Belfast he had large sums with him. One day, as Hughie was driving out of Antrim, an old crippled man asked to be given a lift.

"The boss doesn't allow me to take anybody in the cart," said Hughie.

"Sure, an' ye wouldn't refuse an ole cripple?" the poor fellow pleaded.

Finally Hughie agreed to give him a ride if he would get into the back of the cart and cover himself tip with the bags so no one would see him. So the cripple clambered in and did as Hughie told him.

About five miles out, five policemen came out of Lord O' Neil's demesne, and one of them pointing a pistol at Hughie, they demanded his money.

"You can't have it," said Hughie.

The cripple peeking from under the bags saw one of them knock out Hughie's brains with a club, and another take the bills from his inside pocket. Then all five disappeared again within the shrubbery on the O'Neil estate.

Just as the cripple had crawled from under the bags, Duncan came along, and seeing Hughie lying dead in the road, he accused the cripple of the murder.

" 'Tis a sorry day," wailed the cripple, "I never touched him, but if ye drive back to town I can show you the men as did it."

Back to town they hurried as fast as the horses could go, leaving poor Hughie's bleeding corpse lying in the grass by the road. They drove directly to the office of the Mayor, and the cripple told his story. The Mayor rang his bell and ordered that all the policemen be called in. A number of men appeared, but the murderers were not among them.

"Are these all ye have?" asked the cripple.

''No," said the Mayor, ''there are a few more," and he ordered that the others be brought in.

The cripple stood beside the Mayor, and as the culprits came through the door he pointed them out, one at a time.

"There is the one that knocked out Hughie's brains," he said, "and there is the one that held the horses, and there is the one that took the money and put it in his coat pocket. The other two were with them."

The Mayor immediately started an investigation. The money was found in their pockets, and all that the cripple said was found to be true. The trial was brief, and the men were promptly sentenced to be hanged. Justice traveled with rapid strides in those days, and the next day the murderers were hanged to five trees in Lord O'Neil's wood, where they had hidden till Hughie drove up.

The bodies were left hanging in the wood for ten days as a warning to evil-doers. With a party from the neighborhood I went to see the bodies hanging among the trees. It took us a whole day to go there and back. The sight was terrible, and for weeks I could hardly think of anything else, and the sight of the four bodies dangling in the breeze would come before me at all sorts of times, and make me shiver with dread.

Jimmie MeMullin's Ghost. 19

CHAPTER IV. Jimmie McMullin's Ghost

Jimmie McMuUin and his wife, Nancy, were the butt of many of the pranks of the lads of the neighborhood. Jimmie was a little inclined to drink and when drinking would fight with his wife. One night, when Jimmie was ripe ior sport, we boys hollowed out a turnip and filled it with flax. Then w€ lighted it and by holding it to the keyhole and blowing through it we soon had the house full of smoke. As soon as the smoke got thick, Jimmie and his wife began to fight. I was behind the jamb wall, and I carried Paddy McMullin's old rooster from which we had plucked all the feathers and which we had singed with straw. When the smoke got so thick they could not see me I put the rooster into the house, the boys stopped blowing in smoke, and we waited for developments.

Pretty soon the smoke began to rise to the ceiling, and Jimmie saw the rooster strutting across the floor.

"It's the divil," he yelled, and ran for the door.

I was in his way, and he fell over me.

"There's another one of 'em," he shouted, and he jumped up and down the road as if pursued by a hundred devils.

Nancy, left by herself, was scared almost to death. She fell on her knees and screamed at the top of her voice :

20 Jimmie MioMuUin's Ghost.

"Oh, Good Lord, don't take me. It's not me that wants to be taken."

A little way down the street Jimmie came upon a crowd of men, and thus reinforced, he started back to put the devils to route. We boys had started home, and when we saw the crowd coming we hid in the road to let them pass. They were telling what they would do to the ghosts that were in Jimmie's house, and one of the boys laughed. Jimmie let out a yell you could have heard for a mile, and started back the way he had come, and all the other ghost fighters followed him as fast as their legs would carry them.

The next night we boys went to call on Jimmie, and we were all sitting around listening to Jimmie's story of the ghosts, when Paddy, his brother, came in.

"Jimmie, there's something going to happen around here," he said. "Last night when the ghosts were up to your place, one of them visited mine. He took all the feathers oflf my old rooster as clean as a whistle, and didn't leave a feather in the hen house."

That upset the whole crowd of us, and we burst out laughing. Paddy thought we were laughing at him, and he ran us out of the house and down the street.

I got my scare the following night. I was walking down the lane, when I heard an awful rattle and clatter, and decided the devil was around this time for certain. With a scream of terror I started to run for the nearest house. It was Paddy McMullin's place. I never stopped to open the door, but burst it in and fell on the floor, white and faint with terror. I was

Jimmie M<;Mullin's Ghost. 21

just recovering enough to tell Jimmie, who happened to be there, what I had heard and what I thought I had seen, when Paddy came in dragging a huge log chain behind him. And that was my ghost. It was Jimmie's turn now to have fun with me.

There was a Spa woman in the neighborhood, and a night or two after the log chain event, Andy Ewing and I went to see her. She told Andy's fortune, and his was so good I wanted mine told, also. I had no money, so I pawned my cap to get it. When I had "crossed her palm with silver," she told me I would get a wife worth her weight in gold. And that was once she told the truth, but it was many years later, and many thousands of miles away from Ireland that I found her.

The lads in the McClatchy neighborhood seemed to run to the ghost idea for a time, and all our fun was making the superstitious people think they had seen the devil or some of his satelites. One night when William Johnson came home he saw a pumpkin head, which his son and I had made, setting on his fence post. When he saw the flaming eyes and blood red teeth and the terrible face staring at him he jumped on his horse and rode into town. He never came home till the next morning.

The next night, Johnson was sitting in front of the fire place with a number of others at McClatchy's. His son and I climbed up on the roof and dropped horse-chestnuts down the chimney. Soon they got hot and exploded, throwing sparks in every direction. The people paid no attention to the first explosion, but soon

22 Jimmie M<cMullin's Ghost.

half a dozen came, one right after the other, and the crowd fled from the room in consternation, sure there were ghosts in the fireplace.

Hugh Dempsey was another queer old character living near the McClatchy place. I would often go to visit him and listen to his queer talk. One afternoon when I was there a little pig was running through the house. As it went under the clock one of the weights fell on it and made it squeal. I told Hugh he ought to knock the devil out of the clock, and he did. He picked up the weight and threw it at the clock with all his force. When the weight hit the clock it began to strike.

"You will strike back/' shouted Hugh, and he kept on stoning the clock till it quit striking because it was completely ruined.

Old Dave McClatchy, an uncle of the McClatchys with whom I lived, resided on the farm. He died shortly after I came to live there, and of course they had a wake. Old Davy was so crooked physically that when they laid him out they had to put weights on his chest and knees to make him lie straight. All the people in the neighborhood came to the wake and the folks at home got supper for them.