HARRY MOWBRAY,

BY

CAPTAIN KNOX, B

AUTHOR OF

"HARDNESS," "DAY DREAMS," "THE RITTMEISTER'S BUDGET,"

ETC. ETC.

LONDON:

JOHN OLLIVIER, 59, PALL MALL.

1843.

FIRST EDITION.

CALIFORNIA

HARRY MOWBRAY.

CHAPTER I.

NERO fiddled while Rome was burning, at least he is said to have fiddled; and, as he has got no friends, (and never had any) any one may say what they please of him, and so he will probably have credit for having done so till doomsday. And it is a fact, that in modern times no very gigantic scene of wholesale devastation and butchery, not even a battle in China, is ever enacted without the accompaniment of military music. Nevertheless, military music is capable of better things (as the critics were so good as to say of Lord Byron) and the bugle, universally execrated at 11 A.M., when it clamoured of parade, was considered a very respectable instrument at 6 P.M., when it sounded the last dinner horn in the Barrack Square of Ballykilldaniel, one rainy evening in the December of 1830, and the personages to whom it was addressed, the well beloved and trusty to whom his most gracious Majesty, having full confidence in their valour and discretion, had been pleased to entrust the charge of disciplining and exercising his 100th regiment of foot, understood it perfectly, and obeyed it with true military alacrity.

The veteran major, who, as the young gentlemen were accustomed figuratively to say, "drove the coach," when the colonel was away, was leaning pensively against the mantelpiece, apparently measuring with his eyes the capacity of the little anteroom for holding the twelve officers then at head-quarters, and the six guests who were to honour them with their company to dinner that day, in case the whole party should arrive before dinner was ready. The question never arose, for the dinner was announced, and the diners adjourned to the messroom, minus, of course, the greater part of the guests, it being a remarkable feature in the history (or the perversity of the human mind, for they are pretty nearly convertible terms) of the human mind, that neither by word of mouth or by letter, by expostulation or by experience, by entreaty, by warning, or by cold soup, can it be driven into the head of a civilian that a mess sits down at the hour named, and no later;

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1843 MAIN

and that a dozen hungry men will by no means wait twenty minutes for their dinner (many of them having been thinking of nothing else for the last two hours) because Ensign Higginbotham's anonymous friend, whom none of them have ever seen before, and whom few of them are likely to see again, chooses to sham fashionable in a remote village, in Munster, or Connaught. The 100th, accordingly, sat down to dinner, and a young man, apparently about twenty-two or three years of age, the wings on whose shoulders announced that the light company was his especial charge, took the chair. He was rather above the middle height, very compactly made, and evidently possessing great personal strength in a small compass; his features were regular, his complexion always dark, was still farther bronzed by exposure to an Indian sun, and a coal black, penetrating, unshrinking eye, gave a character of decision and self-reliance to a countenance which, except when he spoke, would otherwise have seemed to be saddened by an habitual expression of hopeless melancholy.

"Harry, my boy," said Major Marsden, as they sat down, "let me introduce you to Mr. MacGallaher, Captain Mowbray,”—and Mr. MacGallaher and Captain Mowbray bowed to one another very courteously. Many thanks for the snipe, Harry," continued the Major; "they came in capitally at breakfast."

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"I brought home something more than snipe to-day, Sir," answered the Captain, with a slight, but significant smile.

"What! wild fowl ?"

"No."

"A hare?" "No."

"What then?"

"A man!"

"A what!" said Mr. MacGallaher, in a gurgling tone, through a throatful of soap.

"A man," repeated the Captain.

"You did not cut off his head, did you, as you did that Burmese scoundrel's in the jungle?" asked the Major, laughing at Mr. MacGallaher's evident mystification.

"No!" said Mowbray, with a bit of a blush, and a deprecating look: for a story went of the gallant officer, that upon his first joining the regiment, which was then engaged in operations on the banks of the Irawaddy against the Golden Feet; he being not yet sixteen years old, had strayed into the jungle, where he was attacked by a gigantic Burmese, who was prowling about, according to the custom of the country, to see whether he could not pick up a stray European head or two, in which researches after wandering English, those dingy hunters were occasionally a little too successful, and caught Tartars, as occurred in this case. It cannot be said that the Burman came for wool, and went home shorn, for he went home no more, our hero, after a short, but animated professional debate, in which the sabre proved an overmatch for spear and dagger, having probably by way of a compliment to the Burmese territory, disposed of the question upon Burmese principles, that is to say, he cut off the head of this Goliath of the jungle, and brought