CHAPTER XXVIII. "You know your own degrees; sit down: THERE is an ingenuousness in youth which seldom fails to disarm resentment, and atone for error. This young fellow of Herculean mould seemed to feel ashamed of his suspicions, as he viewed the stripling whom he suspected to have supplanted him; for during the few minutes devoted to ablution, brushing, and combing, he appeared all kindness and confidence towards me. But on entering the room where the assembled guests were formally seated, awaiting the welcome summons to the diningroom, the cloud once more overcast his fine features, as the lady of the house took me by the hand, which, as a total stranger, she was only bound to do, and introduced me individually to all her female guests, some half dozen, not one of whom was old or formal. There were the wives of two militia captains from the depths of Connaught, chanting, rather than speaking, out their words in all the richness of their native brogue; the eldest daughter of a reverend magistrate of the adjacent town, a beauty, a blue-stocking, and an authoress! Her sister, a shrewd, sensible, but affectedly taciturn girl, who aimed at eccentricity, gained the name, but lost the chance of a husband. The fifth was a buxom widow of five or six-andthirty; abounding in local anecdote, and in which her deceased husband-"my poor Mick," as she was pleased to term the defunct-generally figured as the chief object of ridiculous recollections. She was wealthy, and displayed her wealth as far as costly trinkets could indicate it. With a fine face and person, attired in the last month's Dublin, and last year's London, fashions, she appeared dressed up for a bidding, and impatient to be knocked down; the broom was evidently at the mast-head. After my fair friend presented me to her, the sunny-faced smiling widow whispered something to her neighbour, the authoress, not, I imagined, quite to my advantage; and I, subsequently, heard their whispering comparisons between the broad shoulders, the handsome face, the portly height, the femoral rotundity and muscular symmetry of limb, of the six-foot lieutenant, and my slender form and taper shanks; with some suppressed titters at Miss Temple's taste. The sixth lady, Mrs. Granby Hamilton, was the wife of a major in the army, and brother to a certain proud baronet, whose lady some years afterwards was created peeress in her own right. The parents of this very unaffected and amiable woman kept an inn at Clareville, in Munster. Captain Granby Hamilton, having been quartered in that town for some months, became deeply enamoured of her charms; and having left no art untried to gain her favour as a mistress, be paid that homage to her virtue which, after his insulting proposal, was but an honourable reparation. He demanded her in marriage-was accepted-became happy in a wife, but wretched in his profession and his family! The match offended the proud baronet; who, having raised money by mortgage to pay off his brother's patrimonial portion, forbade him his mansion and society for ever. He then purchased a majority in another regiment; but the story of his marriage followed him there, too; and the contumely of his new associates, inferior to him in every good and honourable feeling, at length drove him from a profession, from that society, to which he had ever been an honour, and ultimately from life. He died in 1795. From what I could perceive of the lady, she fully justified his choice. Handsome as the mother of six children could be, when I saw her she was cheerful, yet mild and unassuming in manners; pleasing in conversation, in which the gentlewoman shone in every thought and expression. She had been for years her husband's pride, his solace—and, alas! his sorrow: but for the adventitious circumstance of birth, she would have been courted as an ornament to the highest rank of society. Her eldest boy, whom she lived to see a post-captain and a C. B., was then, at the age of twelve, a pupil of the reverend gentleman whose daughters I have described, and to her visit to whom my friend was indebted for the pleasure of her company. After my round of presentations, Maria kept me close to her side; whilst the widow took an opportunity to direct an inquiry to the gallant lieutenant respecting some person she either did, or pretended to, know in his regiment, or his corpse, as she pronounced it; to which he, with all the attention due to the fair applicant, approached her to reply. This was exactly what she wanted; for one inquiry led on to another, during which she hemmed him in beyond all chance of retreat, until the servant announced dinner; when Mr. Temple leading the way with Mrs. Major Hamilton, he was followed by the lovely widow and her robust recruit. The parson led out one of the militia ladies, while the two captains, with due esprit du corps, returned the compliment to his daughters. A briefless barrister, whose voice was known every where but in court, and who, as a vocalist, was ever a welcome guest, preceded me in charge of the other militia-woman; while I, with Miss Temple on my arm, brought up the rear. In vain my eye, for some moments, wandered in search of the angelic Maria. She was absent! Yet her chair was placed, and we had already discussed the soup ere she appeared gliding into the vacant chair. Never did human form look more divine: her morning ride, her hurried toilet, and, perhaps, certain recollections, threw an unusual tinge of colour over her soft cheek. She was rallied by the widow on her coquetry in making such an elaborate toilet, though nothing could be more exquisitely delicate and simple than her dress and coiffure; and the lady even ventured one of her vulgar jokes in allusion to the absent Mr. Tom, ill-suited to the delicate ears and sensitive heart of the unhappy wife," whose sorrows deep within her heart were buried." But her soul was one of gentleness, and she "replied not." The philharmonic counsellor was her next neighbour; and to do him justice, he was equally attentive to her as to the good things that liberally loaded the festive board. The dinner was beyond verbal praise: more substantial homage was rendered to its merits; it was at once plentiful and elegant. All seemed happy, save the agonized lieutenant, who, in spite of the widow's wily caresses, never withdrew his eyes from the lower part of the table, where Miss Temple had fixed herself and me: when he made the signal to drink wine with her, a look of despair, blended with tender recollections, shot from his flashing eye. I burned to know the whole history of this love affair, which I felt so little inclination to frustrate; but that knowledge was only to come to me after an ordeal, which, to say the least of it, was very unenviable. The cloth removed, Pomona displayed her richest stores. Nothing could be more exquisite than the dessert; nothing on earth half so good as the first specimen of Sneyd's claret, to which the "health of the ladies" gave an additional zest. 66 To think of withdrawing before they had a song from the counsellor was a penance the ladies would never have submitted to; so, after doing homage to “King,” “Lord Howe," then the lion of the day, "The Duke of York, and success to him," our host issued his mandate, ex cathedra, for " SILENCE! a song from the Counseller!" One lady cried out, “Ah! Counsellor, All in the Downs;' another, Sally in our Alley.' The authoress, before whom the bag-man seemed to quail, authoritatively demanded the Streamlet that flowed round her'" SILENCE, my dear ladies," mildly interrupted the host, and all was hushed. 6 The 'Streamlet' accordingly did flow in pleasing measure from the harmonious throat of the vocalist; who, with a falsetto of wonderful powers and extent, did ample justice to Incledon's well-remembered cadences. A burst of thanks and applause, with a general bumper to "Counsellor Earwig's health and song," in which the ladies joined, rewarded the elated barrister for his rich treat; who, in his turn, repaid the compliment by volunteering one more song for the ladies. "Ah!" cried the widow, "let it be a long one, Counsellor, as I used to say to my poor Mick." Black-eyed Susan' followed; long enough, heaven knows, but not too long for such a sweet and tuneful voice. This performed, the ladies retired. བས CHAPTER XXIX. "Though Bacchus may boast of his care-killing bowl, THE pleasures of the table were, at all periods of my life, those possessing the least attractions for me, particularly after the ladies had withdrawn; so after a few rounds of grape-shot, and long before the sporting toasts* began to circulate, I escaped from the banquet, and repaired to the grand parlour. I entered abruptly, for, in truth, I was but a novice, and found only four of the females of the party assembled. These were the two Marias, and the two young ladies, daughters of the reverend and worshipful sovereign of Navan: they, it seems, had been trying on my cap. Now a more ridiculous, feminine, and altogether unsoldier-like head-piece can hardly be imagined. It was of beaver; what is termed a hat-cap, without brims, having a regimental, or, at that period, a fanciful device in the front, which was almost overshadowed by a plume of half a dozen black ostrich feathers: thus making an approach to the full-dress bonnet of the Highland regiments, without its martial appearance. Above the many-coloured gaudy recruiting cockade, a light-blue hackle feather kept the plume within bounds. On a manly personage it would cut a ludicrous figure: on me it was perfectly in character. It having gone the rounds of the company, I was lucky *My Irish fox-hunting readers will know what I mean. enough (query?) to enter in time to claim the privilege of a salute from the present wearer, the younger Miss Allbright, the eccentric; and the united voices of the other three supported my claim. She assented to it without much hesitation; and a sweet pretty-faced girl she was, if her affected, precise, and pedantic airs did not undo so much of Nature's kind handiwork. Her elder sister was next pronounced debtor to me in the same favour, which I solicited with as much assumed ardour as her pretensions looked for. The married Maria, was then pointed out as the first offender, and one from whom I should demand a double penalty. With a respectful delicacy, which she could not mistake, I approached her to enforce the forfeit, and felt a general tremor overpower my whole frame. The exquisite modesty with which she submitted, enhanced the delight I felt at the blissful salute. Next came my Dulcinea, who, with affected coyness, ran away to a dark corner, to bestow as well as receive with more intensity, the “kiss that scorned the eye of vulgar light." In the midst of this romping, the widow, followed by the three married ladies, entered; and the cause being explained, the widow, who, in her saunter in the garden, had decorated her head with dewy roses, seemed half inclined to try my mettle! Neither of the militia-women were very inviting; and Mrs. G. Hamilton's matronly quiet beauty, and perfect delicacy of manners, formed a barrier against any such familiarity, even from a boy. Determined, however, to have a fling at the widow, I induced her to incur the forfeit, to which she, nothing loath, submitted; and after a warm and lengthened homage to her laughing lips, she pronounced me a "wicked little devil," and I became quite a favourite, until the re-appearance of the lieutenant threw me once more in the shady side of the widow's favour. I was played with as a toy for nearly an hour, during which time, we danced three couple and a half, to Miss Maria's music. At length, the entrance of the gentlemen, not much the worse from the copious libations of the lawyer's claret, changed the scene. The chanting counsellor seemed even improved in voice by the lubricious virtues of "Nat Sneyd's best." Coffee and cards succeeded. But not all the uproarious jokes and warm attentions of the handsome widow, could dispel the discontent that hung on the brow of the lieutenant. He appeared to have made good all his lost ground in the old gentleman's favour, who, with a heart warmed by generous wine, and still more by the best feelings of our nature, now called him "James," then "Arabin," without the chilling “Mister.” No one appeared more delighted at this reconciliation than the truly amiable and excellent Maria, the married; none less |