. ,J#*%fiffi($&*$$ * fi7*7*f P |-W|* M >^*>itj*vj ';a '^.^.l^tfr'l-T* i " * " ^QiP^l^feit^^^wH ; lT $ r ? TfT i5 T ^"rirt frf i'i^rl T*T'-^V * ? ^^-T 1 7r*l*JI ft^nsti! *r* "sJfi*^^*^-: i^^^fc-*i*^*t ^}*T > *^S'^^P^r^' i ir3' w ^r*.r^:^ l^^^ii^l^^^lhftel:t r*r OF JOUNTRY QUARTERS BEING bome passages fn tfje Utfc 01- OMERSET CAVENDISH COBB, ESQ. Late Captain,in tJie 12Qfh foot (Cairibenocll Ranyers.) BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KNOX, #- ACTHOE OF " HARDNESS," " THE ASK AND THE DELUGK," ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. ' Oh, ladie, beware of a gay yonnjr knight, That love?, and then rides av. ay." LONDON SAUNDEES AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 1852. CONFESSIONS OF COUNTRY QUARTERS. CHAPTER I. THE SOLDIER'S FAREWELL, AFTER THE FASHION OF THE BRITISH ARMY LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JAMES HAWKINS CHARITABLE BEQUESTS GARRISON HACKS AND THEIR QUALIFICATIONS WIDOWS OF THE 1 IOTII FOOT FLASH MAN OF THE 120TH REGIMENT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CONFESSOR AND HIS PARENTS POETRY OF MESS TABLES. '' Ballyraaccrocodile, May 10, 18 . " DEAR COBB, I hear that you have sold your hunters and pulled in and taken to spooning instead, which pained me much, as I had supposed you were eminently suc- cessful on the Stock Exchange. I hope, however, that the smash is not very serious ; but in your new character I wish to recom- VOL. I. B 2203440 2 CONFESSIONS OF mend to your patronage a girl that has done me to flirt with all the time I have been here, and behaved very well, and I wish you would take her up. Ellen O'Reilly is her name; she is about twenty-two, with good teeth, and I have taught her to waltz properly, and have promised her that you shall teach her to galoppe after the fashion of the court of Saxe- Weimar, on which subject, or rather about old Goethe, she is somewhat enthusiastic ; her only.fault being that she is a bit of a blue, and consequently talks a d d deal of stuff about things that she don't understand; that, however, you know, most of them do without a tithe of her redeeming qualities, for she really is a very nice girl, as lady-like as could be hoped for here, and does not expect one to marry her. If you lend her that grey mare of yours, and put your smartest boy on the cab horse, you Avill win her heart slick away; COUNTRY QUARTERS. 3 " The garrison hacks here are pretty smart steppers; indeed, rather better than usual; there are not dragoons enough to inoculate them with stable slang and canteen man- ners. One girl, daughter of an old fellow (pork and provision trade), who is as rich as a Jew, and gives dinners twice a-week, devilish near caught Willy Jackson. I think she would have booked him dearly beloved if it had not been for a host of utterly unpresentable relations that Willy could not swallow. She was not a bad style of craft either, though she ate like a cormorant and drank like a fish. She waltzes well, but is too adhesive for my taste. Beauty Bill, with that spooney manner of his, had his usual luck; he seemed so soft, that they tried a brother on him, but it did not fit; two can play at barking irons, and all that the affectionate brother got was a ball through both thighs, and within half an inch of the left femoral B 2 4 CONFESSIONS OF artery into the bargain, devil mend him ! He missed Bill altogether. So beware of the Boyds; though perhaps you may say they have had their lesson. But, seriously, you cannot do better than take up with Ellen ; there are many worse ways of spend- ing an evening than a quiet game of ecarte with her. You understand; and though it is true that when she has too much cham- pagne on board she is apt to be troublesome from jealousy, that will not signify to you, whose fidelity (for three months) is pro- verbial through the whole British army and most of the Prussian. " Beware of a fat lump of a girl of the name of Hooper ; her governor gives pretty good dinners, and the girl herself is amus- ing for a time, but she lies like a trooper. Ellen's father is a clergyman, so I conclude you will speedily get to windward of him with that extensive biblical knowledge of yours, that so forcibly reminds one of the COUNTRY QUARTERS. 5 skill in quotation attributed to the devil. There is, however, no humbug about the girl herself. She confesses that church would bore her to death, if it were not for looking out for new bonnets. She is rather out of spirits, poor thing, as might be ex- pected, but I trust you will speedily console her. I have given her a lock of my hair, so you had better try some other souvenir when you go away. Our head quarters will get on pretty well at Cork, but I am booked for a diabolical hole called Durimanway, further to the south-west. I do not believe it is on any of the maps. I wish you good luck among the Ballymaccrocodile white muslin. Adieu. "JAMES HAWKINS. u P.S. Write and let me know how you like Ellen. " N.B. The best cigars are at O'Geogha- gan's." 6 CONFESSIONS OF Having deposited my last love affair in the hands of the first turnpike keeper as we marched out of Dublin, which is a way we have in the army, I of course began adoring Ellen O'Reilly in advance from the moment that I received the above docu- ment, or deed of transfer, vesting the pro- perty in her in me upon my arrival at Ballykillcronaghan, the village where we halted the night before we were to march into the flourishing market town of Bally- maccrocodile, where, as the reader will have conjectured, the gallant 120th, of which I was then one of the greatest ornaments, was about to be quartered. I was the flash man of the 120th, or Cam- berwell Rangers, a regiment too well known to need any farther description on my part ; indeed, an impertinent Quaker at Norwich once went so far as to say, that we were better known than trusted in that flourish- ing city, but that was a drab-coloured COUNTRY QUARTERS. 7 calumny; and as the reader is probably an ignorant civilian, and, very likely, a sen- sitive and inquisitive female, and the sub- ject is an interesting one, I shall give a slight sketch of the qualities which com- monly go to the composition of the flash man of a regiment, the " Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum," who are arrayed in scarlet and gold, as described in the Latin grammar, to encourage sucking CsBsars to aspire to that glorious distinction, an appointment the patronage of which is not in the Horse Guards. Indeed, I believe, the dignitary in ques- tion commonly elects himself, and then ap- points his subordinates, though I, of course, was raised to the pinnacle of 120th greatness two days after my joining the regiment, as a lieutenant, with a dog-cart and a couple of private grooms, " mighty nate young men," as Major OTlaherty's leedy called them, on the occasion of her borrowing one of them 8 CONFESSIONS OF to drive her jaunting-car one day, when the major's batman was in the guard-house and remarkably drunk, and she wanted to drive down to the town to purchase some tea and sugar, and senna. The flash man, then, is a something be- tween a foreign secretary and a turkey cock ; that is to say, he embodies in his own person all the pretensions of the corps, whilst he conducts much of its relations with the exte- rior world ; goes with the colonel to call upon the mayor when they march into a town, and does the light work pertaining to that dismal formality; sits next to non-military strangers when they dine at mess, and fur- nishes conversation suitable to their capa- cities and stations in life a duty which might possibly prove somewhat embarrassing to most of his brother officers. He generally contrives to get into society wherever they are quartered, and introduces a few of the most presentable and submissive of his ful- COUNTRY QUARTERS. 9 lowers to the 'nicest girls,' (with the amount of whose 'tin, 'as he calls it, he generally makes himself acquainted.) He dresses very well (or awfully badly if he goes for eccentric,) and rides a washy thorough-bred, price 30, with those nice thin long legs that young ladies admire so a sort of sketch of a horse, with the neck of an ostrich, and the tail of a comet, and no body worth mentioning, that will neither race, hunt, nor draw, but will eat out of the hand and carry a lady. He rides in remarkably long stirrups, and prefers a canter to a trot. He is indignant at the idea of getting a fall, is brilliant in his gloves, flashy in his neckcloth; he pinches in his waist, and shines in his boots. He is generally president of the mess committee, and considered a very tolerable judge of the full-bodied, high- flavoured, curious old military port, with which, when the glasses sparkle on the board, and the wine is ruby bright, the social spirit of the gayer B 3 10 CONFESSIONS OF of the officers is wound up to that pitch of delightful hilarity which emboldens them to perpetrate waltzes, polkas, and platitudes, at a later hour in the evening. He generally sits near the colonel at dinner, and can maintain a conversation with the inspecting- general without any manifest perturbation at the presence of that grim potentate, which frightens every one into fits ; he how- ever nourishes on, reciting recent articles out of the ' United Service JournaF with great originality of manner, and laying bare the recesses of the human head as embodied in the gossip of the neighbourhood, calling the attention of the illustrious guest to the mess plate, china, glass, linen, cutlery, and livery. Perhaps the regiment, like the 14th Light Dragoons, has an article of plate that was captured in the carriage of Napoleon ; or of china that belonged to the celebrated Hokypokywouskywah, who drowned himself at Tchongquoaintsiaoun to save himself from COUNTRY QUARTERS. 11 the slaughter inflicted upon that city of dog devourers by the warriors of the West. He ought to have a tolerable stock of miscellaneous information (though of course it need not be very great) ; a sufficient amount of assurance, not without that little dash of vanity that makes men work hard to please even fools; a certain tact and readiness; a Baker-street manner, and a Regent-street swagger (for it does not do for him to be too much of a gentleman) ; some proficiency in manly exercises and field sports, for the regiment carries a Miss Molly in its establishment besides, who, when dressed in the height of taste (Anglice, fooled to the top of his bent), much resem- bles Madame Vestris, as she appears in command of her 'Invincibles,' and, indeed, in point of mind is an indiifereut imitation of the character that commonly is enveloped in a petticoat; but nothing effeminate will do for "flash man;" he may be a dandy, 12 CONFESSIONS OF but be must be a man, and rather a smart one, for he commonly commands the light company, whose duty it may be, on active service and under circumstances of peculiar exposure, to protect the rear of the regiment from the chastisement inflicted by a too im- petuous enemy that hangs obstinately on its skirts. The grenadier captain being selected either as the senior of his rank, or for appear- ance and stature, is a patriarchal brevet- major, or a good-humoured giant, and, in either case, embodies the thunder of the regiment, of which the " flash man" is the lightning. Of course the reader will understand that this sketch applies merely to the general run of flash men, and by no means to the present writer. Nothing, I should hope, appertaining to Baker-street or Regent- street could, at that time at least, be de- tected in me, whose lady mother, the Lady Caroline Cobb, resident in Cavendish-square, COUNTRY QUARTERS. 13 an intimate friend of the Marchioness of Mesopotamia's, and an habitual frequenter of Almack's, was deeply impressed with that great cosmical truth, " manners make the man" a traditionary maxim which had been handed down in our family (by the mother side) from father to child since the creation (of the Earldom of Crabstock, to which noble family she belonged). She, in my early youth, took at least as good care of my manners as of my morals, which latter branch of cultivation she con- sidered as belonging to the domain of the church, and the catechism thereof, to which she piously left it ; but she took great pains to make me a gentleman, especially by point- ing out to me the various solecisms con- stantly in course of committal by my father, who was not so highly descended as she was. 1 - V and was much exposed to contamination, in matters pertaining to his personal de- meanour, from the force of daily example, 14 CONFESSIONS OF when employed in the earning of sufficient means to support us in affluence and com- fort he being engaged in extending the glory of England by mercantile adventure, in which I was fool enough, at the instance of Lady Caroline, to decline joining him, and am in consequence, or at least was recently, a houseless vagrant, earning an unpretending livelihood at a moderate rate per line and doing all my own work, a lamentable contrast to those, my brilliant and fortunate (elder) brother-authors, whose means enable them to keep what they modestly call an " amanu- ensis" to do their pen-and-ink work (brains thrown in). I indeed, in those days, had no reason to complain of him; he allowed me 300. a-year, which is as much as even an officer of light dragoons commonly has. With so liberal an allowance, I could not have looked him in the face if I had any debts, so I contracted none; but if I had, I have no COUNTRY QUARTERS. 15 doubt he would have paid anything in reason, for he let me have a latch-key when I was at home on leave, stood claret all the time, had a bad cold in his head whenever Lady Caroline fancied she smelt cigars in the house, and, in short, was everything that a son could desire. But I cannot describe the advantage that it is to a man to have a lady mother. I need not describe to the reader, whose accustomed penetration will have long since taken note of the in- teresting fact, how fully conscious those fortunate youths are of their exalted lot. I never in my life saw one of them that was not six times more impressed with the grandeur and glory of the peerage (espe- cially the three highest ranks, the thrones, dominations, princes) than the mere sons of the male nobility, Those connected with the order, through the better half, seem, with a touching devotion, to take after the mother, gleaming with a placid self-satisfaction that .16 CONFESSIONS OP is unruffled by any masculine roughness, and shining in society with a mild light, less fitted for the dinner-table than the tea- table, which is eminently their sphere, until some, that I have seen, become perfectly lady-like, if we may apply such an expres- sion to a true Briton. I know one thing, my Lady Caroline impressed me with such a respect and awe for the fair sex, that at eighteen a tremor blissful, indeed, yet not without devotion came over me at the very sight of white muslin ; and I had attained the rank of lieu- tenant before I could either address young ladies, or talk of them in the correct officer- like manner. But one grows out of these things, and by two or three-and-twenty, I had acquired the proper military way of pa- tronising garrison girls, or garrison hacks, as we called our most affectionate friends and purse-knitters in the 120th, and indeed, I believe, in every other regiment in the COUNTRY QUARTERS. 17 service a term of endearment more expres- sive perhaps than respectful, but universally recognised in the poetry of mess-tables. Perhaps I may venture to say, at the heroic sacrifice of all character for penetra- tion, that I never quite acquired that magical instinct into their views upon our hearts, hands, horses, homes, firesides, and domestic happiness in general which I found universal amongst the greater part of the British infantry and the whole of the cavalry ; but this, I suppose, arose from my earlier experience among my own sisters not having exhibited the softer sex in the character of desperate man-hunters, or ad- mirers of military men, of whom indeed they knew very little hardly knowing the dif- ference between heavy dragoons and fusi- liers, poor benighted creatures; and having been accustomed to consider men's claims to position in society as consisting of a mis- cellaneous jumble of birth, manners, habits, 18 CONFESSIONS OF station, and clean linen a most unintel- ligible hash of which is compounded what is called " a gentleman," a thing that nobody can understand or define; whereas the red coat or blue jacket is a plain, intel- ligible, extra-superfine, Saxony-wool fact, within the grasp of the humblest compre- hension. However, I cannot be responsible for the ignorance of these young ladies; that was my Lady Caroline's business, and indeed it was her doing. COUNTRY QUARTERS. 19 CHAPTER II. COMMUNISM IN THE BRITISH ARMY SOCIALIST SYSTEM OF ROTATION MILITARY READINGS INNOCENCE OF YOUTH MYSTERIES OF DUBLIN TROTTING OUT MARCHING IN. To return to our subject, for these are confessions of country quarters, not of Cavendish-square, though that dignified spot has its confessions to make too, which I hope to give to the public whenever Mrs. Park-lane entrusts me with notes of the unheard-of exertions she made (for the sake of her daughters) to get into society, and the frantic struggles that are made to get to her balls NOW. These out-pourings of an over-burdened heart relating to the market- 20 CONFESSIONS OF towns of the United Kingdom, must now return to the picturesque and exceedingly filthy borough of Ballykillcronaghau, where the left-wing of the 120th were billetted on the night of the llth of May, 18. We had just finished dinner, trout lovelier than Lady , and boiled- turkey with celery sauce, more charming than the strains of Jenny Lind ; and after a faint attempt at introducing an apocryphal fluid they called " illigant oiild port with a crust on it," and which I therefore suppose was intended to pass for wine, by young Simpkins, who liked being genteel, which was overruled altogether, pooh-poohed, by a choral under-growl of whiskey-punch, we hud commenced moistening our military clay, which had been somewhat roughly kneaded by the day's march and the Hibernian weather, with that liquor of life, when a disparaging remark about the accommodation afforded by Irish inns, made COUNTRY QUARTERS. 21 by Hamilton, roused the divine wrath of OTlaherty, a pure milesian and drinker of whiskey. " A Scotchman complaining of Ireland sounds mighty fine !" said the son of Brehons; "I'm thinking it's the pot and the kettle." " I wouldn't own to Scotland if it was such a beggarly place as this," retorted the Scot. "A Jew cannot as much as thrive in Ireland." " Listen to the heretic comparing the two," returned the champion of Erin. " Why, man alive, you have nothing to do but to look at their emblems, and see what they think of themselves. What are the arms of Scotland? A lion boxant. Those of Ire- land, the harp; the one a brute-baste in a blackguard attitude, the other the emblem of melody and the insthrument of the angels, Hyperion to a Satyr. How can any man in his sinses, or out of them, corn- pure the thistle to the shamrock; the one 22 CONFESSIONS OF the symbol of our blessed religion, the other an ill-conditioned weed, the food of a jackass. Fill your glass, man; and make yourself happy ;" and as he added example to precept, the discussion dropped. Almost immediately afterwards a mes- senger arrived with half-a-dozen letters for different officers of the detachment, con- taining the testamentary dispositions of the 110th, whom we were to relieve the next day at Ballymaccrocodile, and of which missives a specimen, and rather a favour- able one, has been given at the commence- ment of the last chapter ; indeed it was our practice to consider the fair ones of what- ever town might be so fortunate as to enjoy our protection in the light of a mild variety of harem. It is a great convenience to the British army, that socialist system of handing the garrison beauties, accurately marked and ticketed, from regiment to regiment; one COUNTRY QUARTERS. 23 never marches into a town without having a reversionary interest in a flirtation, and a preliminary knowledge of its object, her tastes, habits, and weaknesses, with a sketch of her prospects in case of accidents ; for instances have occurred of young gentlemen, who fancied they were playing at love, finding it become very serious earnest, and ultimately hearing themselves addressed by a reverend gentlemen, who ties knots that rearely slip, as " dearly beloved." Of course, every one of us knew per- fectly well of what a tender nature these missives were, and received them with great interest, so that a dead silence ensued while we bestowed what time we could spare from the whiskey-punch, in ascertaining what prospects of delicious pain we had in store for us at Ballymaccrocodile. My letter was perhaps the longest of all ; but whether it was that Hawkins wrote and spelt well, or that I read writing with 24 CONFESSIONS OF rather more ease to myself than my brothers- in-arms, I was the first that had completed the perusal of the deed of transfer ; and as I was folding it up to put it in my pocket, Popkins asked to see it. Popkins had refused to take my duty for me the night before we left Carrickaroghery, when I wanted to drink T. T. L. tea with Anna Maria Maloney; the consequence of which refusal was a valedictory letter from the young lady, which I have no doubt had for its object the involving me in a corres- pondence, with the view of submitting the gushing out-pourings of my heart to the consideration of twelve freeholders of the county of Mayo, and which exercised all my ingenuity in answering it, without com- promising myself, a task I effected in a very skilful and officer-like style. I do not believe any one else in the regiment could have done it half so well, though plenty of them had been trying their hands COUNTRY QUARTERS. 25 for years at that sort of thing, and some, indeed, had burned their fingers. l~ Now Popkins had no business to refuse, for he had nobody to drink tea with, nobody would have him at any price; and, in truth, he was not half fast enough for the 120th, so I determined to pursue him with an inextinguishable hatred, and would not let him see the letter, at which he set up a dismal howl, complaining of my being so unsociable. I knew that very well ; I was perfectly aware that whenever any particularly deli- cate and confidential communication, such as one's aunt having bolted with the butler, or one's sister having been jilted by that young lord they followed down to Cowes, as well as all reproachful or affectionate love letters from the last quarter, or maternal requisitions as to purity of life, water-gruel, and dry stockings, reached any of our fel- lows, it was laid on the mess-table for general consideration, which practice had a VOL. I. C 26 CONFESSIONS OF most beneficial effect upon the corps, for by giving us a lively interest in one another's affairs, it made us the band of brothers we were ; but I do honestly confess that I was of an odd, unsociable disposition, which, together with most others of my faults and imperfections, I first tried to cure, and then to hide, and finally made up my mind to indulge. However, Popkins was speedily consoled by Simpkins tossing him his to read, which that smart young subaltern was very anxious should be read out publicly, he being very proud of it, for it came from a dragoon, on being acquainted with whom he glorified himself hugely, who wanted to make some little change in his domestic arrangements, and who probably pitched upon Simpkins for a sacrifice, from some hazy idea, that that little man, whose father is an eminent saddler and accoutre- ment maker in the borough of Southwark, COUNTRY QUARTERS. 27 would probably worship a dragoon, and" do bis bidding. The letter was as follows, at least so Popkins read it out, for it was clear that if one read each letter aloud, it would save the remaining nine the trouble of reading, and that plan was adopted accord- ingly: "DEAR SIMMY, Mind you ride up and speak to me when I meet your regiment marching in to-morrow; I shall be riding with a charming creature with at least ten thousand pounds " " That will do for the marines," inter- rupted Jenkins; "every girl has ten thou- sand pounds, only it isn't payable till the day of judgment." " Perhaps she's a pawnbroker's daughter," suggested the Major; "they have all the money in this country, where there's more credit than capital." " Except what the distillers have," said c2 28 CONFESSIONS OF Tomkins. " I remember when I was quar- tered at Newtown Mount Mulligan " " Yes, yes, I remember that too," inter- rupted I; as, I well might, seeing that I had heard the story at least two hun- dred times, and in every description of key, from the stentorian tone necessary to overbear the clatter of the first onslaught upon the first course down to the maudlin jingle just before Tomkins dropped off his perch, as was his habit in the small hours. "We all remember that; let's have the letter. It's no use talking about the girls till we've seen them trotted out." This was considered a very sensible and practical remark, and the reading continued : "I have been doing centimental ;" here Popkins paused with a puzzled expression of countenance : " I always thbught senti- mental was spelt with an s" " Well, I think it is," said Tomkins, after a moment's hesitation. COUNTRY QUARTERS. 29 " What the deuce can it matter?" said Jenkins. " The letters are of the same family, only the c is the elder brother. Go on." " Doing sentimental for the last three months, and am dead sick of her, and am going to take up Willy Waddle's, of the 110th, flame, who, as soon as she has mopped her brinies, will suit me better; though I should think that Mary Anne O'Malley would be more in your line. She is not fast enough for me " " Well," said Simpkins, somewhat of- fended, " I do not know what makes him think I am to put up with such a slow filly." (It was the handwriting of the dragoon that inspired him with the eques- trian synonym; he generally called the fair objects of his affections heifers. ) " Keep moving," said Jenkins, and Pop- kins continued reading : " She is not fast enough for me; but I 30 CONFESSIONS OF am sure you will like her, for you may squeedge her hand as much as you please, and she will bear a deal of nudging. I shall take care she receives you well; indeed I have told her you have an old aunt as rich as Rothschild, who is very anxious you should marry, and will come down handsomely; so she will run open- mouthed at you." A faint smile illuminated Simpkins's sal- low face at this. " Haw !" said he ; " slap- up fellows those dragoons are." " Well, what next?" said Jenkins. " So take compassion on her ; c o m- p a s h o n," spelt Popkins. "He must have written in a hurry," said Simpkins, " the trumpet sounding for stables;"- though similar orthographical slips in an infantry man would have excited his most lively scorn. ' So take compassion on her, and say something incidentally " ( < Incidentally,' COUNTRY QUARTERS. 31 repented lie, ' that is a very good word incidentally ; I wonder how he came by it'), " say something incidentally about your aunt and your expectations, you know, and that sort of thing. Yours truly, "ROBERT HOLSTER." I missed the perusal of the remaining consignments, all of which, I have no doubt, were equally explicit and business-like, for it was time to visit the billets, and per- ceiving that my unfortunate ensign, Johnny Waldgrave, who was one of the most at- tractive boys I ever came across, but some- what delicate, was completely knocked up by the day's march, whereas I had the endur- ance of an armadillo on the road, I went out to go round them, and did not return until the sederunt had broken up, after, as I learned from Johnny, very nearly getting up half a dozen quarrels about the disposal of the unconscious beauties of Ballymaccro- codile among them. 32 CONFESSIONS OF I myself lost nothing by not hearing the somewhat unceremonious overhauling under- gone by the charmers in question, and, in- deed, I had no interest in it. I had no intention of interfering with anyone else's game, had not the slightest idea of tolerating any poaching upon my preserves, and being abundantly satisfied of my ability to protect my own property, was perfectly easy in my mind upon the subject, and speedily found myself, or lost myself, in the halls of sleep, where I dreamed that Ellen O'Keilly was embroidering a waistcoat for me. This was very pleasant, but it did not prevent the assembly sounding at the usual hour in the morning, which, to the minds of the gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, will appear little better than the middle of the night, and I had to turn out into the cold, with the customary resolution of leaving the service immediately, which, I believe, pervades all regiments on the march COUNTRY QUARTERS. 33 for the first half hour after starting. Of course, I was exceedingly savage, and strode along at the head of my company, for the first two miles, as if I really intended to exterminate the neighbourhood. Johnny walked silently by my side ; he had taken a look at me, and seen that it was expedient not to trouble me yet a while. Johnny used to humour me about half an hour in the day, and make me do whatever he pleased the remaining twenty-three hours and a half; he looked so like his sister Edith whenever he wanted anything, that I never had the heart to refuse him; but this morning, as it hap- pened, it did not rain ; a very unusual thing in Ireland. A fine May morning has a wonderful effect in producing a tranquil state of mind, almost as much so as a bad heart and a good digestion, and Johnny, upon a second inspection of my phsiogno- mical barometer, perceiving that the weather had moderated, ventured to ask me whether c 3 34 CONFESSIONS OF I knew anything about the place we were about to pass the next six months in. I told him that I knew nothing but what was contained in Hawkins's letter, which I gave him to read, for it was too much trouble for me picking out extracts from it. I find that when one attempts to read on a road, one is always kicking one's feet against stones, or tumbling over pigs, or children, or something of the sort. Johnny was hugely taken with the idea of Ellen's only fault being a bit of a blue. He ad- mitted that it was sometimes a fact, and always a pity, that charming women talk of things that they don't understand, but at the same time stoutly affirmed that intellect, in- telligence, and feeling, must elevate and purify the female character; by which I understood Johnny to mean, must make a girl admire his verses, of which he wrote a great deal, and very weN too, as I alone of the 120th can testify, as it was only to me that he ever ventured to show them. COUNTRY QUARTERS. 35 " Those romantic ideas, Johnny, niy boy," said I, "will be the ruin of you. Marriage, in the eye of the law, is a valu- able consideration. A woman, in the eyes of a sensible man, is a necessary appendage to a certain sum of twenty or twenty-five thou- sand pounds, which you are in want of, and which cannot be had without taking her with it. You may knock off a couple of thou- sands for blue eyes, and a couple more for good ancles, and perhaps six or eight hun- dred for a good temper or an easy disposi- tion; so that if she has a variety of good qualities you may not perhaps get more than fifteen or twenty thousand in money, taking the rest out in female perfections; while, on the other hand, if she squints or squabbles, you ought to get five-and-twenty or thirty thousand with her. That is the true practical view to take that works best in the long run, for all your personal and intel- lectual charms fade and decay. For, Johnny, 36 CONFESSIONS OF my boy, let me tell you there is a point in the life of an intellectual and feeling woman that is not dreamed of in your philosophy, and that is when she is forty- five, and d d positive, and takes snuff." " The mind being more mature," began Johnny, somewhat hesitatingly for his conscience was tripping him up by the heels; the young rogue knew very well that, excepting his inevitable female rela- tions, he never had spoken to a woman above five-and-twenty in his lifetime, and what was more, he was perfectly aware that I knew it too. What moral maxim he was about to hurl at my heretical head, is un- happily lost to posterity, for at this moment the head of the column approached a village, the word was passed to march at attention, and the alacrity with which Johnny drew his sword and took his place in the ranks of war savoured a good deal more of rejoicing at his escape from the COUNTRY QUARTERS. 37 mature mind than any very burning mili- tary ardour. When we cleared this singular assemblage of man-sties, which I afterwards learned was called Carrick-a-poguenadog- hery, Johnny returned to my side. " Did you hear Jenkins' riddle last night, Cobb," said he. " No." " When is a ship like a female thief ? Do you give it up?" " Don't bother me," said I. " What is it?" "When she's a brig-and in stays," re- turned he, exultingly ; " that's very good." " It'll do for Ballymaccrocodile," replied I. " You'll introduce me to Miss O'Eeilly, won't you, Cobb ?" said he. " To be sure I will," replied I; " I'll take you to tea there. It's good for one's opinion of human nature to associate every now and then with clergymen. They don't take such a hard view of character and motives 38 CONFESSIONS OF as we men of the world do, Johnny, my boy." "Why not?" asked Johnny, strutting, nevertheless, like a young turkey cock, at being called a man of the world ; " they see sin and crime." " They do, Johnny," said I, " but they also see sorrow and repentance. When the devil is at a premium in a man's mind, he goes to a lawyer; when the devil is at a discount in a man's mind, he goes to a parson; so I'll take you to the rectory; you'll most likely find the mother's mind more matured than the daughter's ; so you shall talk to her whilst I astonish Ellen's unripe intellect." "Who is Beauty Bill?" asked Johnny. " Upon my word," replied I, "unless that he is a man of the name of Wiggins, who I recollect is called Bill, and si good looking, and curls his hair; I believe he sleeps with it in papers; and screws in his waist, and COUNTRY QUARTERS. 39 takes care of his complexion, and keeps an Italian greyhound I do not know who Hawkins means ; and if it is him, I should not be able to give you any description of him, other than that he is a son of old Wiggins." " But you cannot defend his conduct, surely ?" said the conscientious young cub ; "make love to a girl, and then shoot her brother ! I do not call that love." " How do you know that he did make love to her?" retorted I. "How do you know that she did not make love to him? How do you know what nets and snares were not wove round him by that perfidious family? Have you never heard, you heavenly innocent, of anxious mothers that hunt you for six months, and then ask you your intentions? How do you know that the father did not try to fascinate him with tawney old port, like a true Briton, the father of a family ; or the mother with her 40 CONFESSIONS OF matronly arts, like a middle-aged turtle dove; or the brother with the terror of his barking-irons, like a young rattlesnake? Taking a shot at such people, is nothing but spring-guns against man-traps." "But he might have paid her some attention," persisted that young Protestant Joseph, Johnny, " or they would not have thought about him at all ; and even if they were not altogether right in what they did, to think of shooting at the brother of a girl that I was on friendly terms with, I could no more do it than I could fly. How could he ever look her in the face again, whether he hit him or not?" .- " He has not the slightest intention of ever looking her in the face again, Johnny," said I; " and after this he would be a most remarkable ass if he have. Take my word for it, she won't break her shins over her feelings. What should you think yourself of a girl who would submit to havintr a COUNTRY QUARTERS. 41 man pistolled into marrying her? Is that the delicacy of sentiment and the commu- nion of souls united by the holiest tie here and hereafter?" Johnny began to wince a bit, for he recognised the language. "Is that the pearl beyond price to be sought through life, and never abandoned but in death, that you talked so much about to Clementina Mullins in Merrion-square, and that she repeated every word of, and a great deal more, to me the next night, when she believed that you were to march away that day week with the regiment, and I was to remain as aide-de-camp to his pinchbeck majesty, the Lord Lieutenant, and be wor- shipped by the women accordingly; as in- deed I should have done, only that I found that his Excellency expected his aide-de- camps to hold his stirrup when he got off his horse, to answer the bell, and to carry three-cornered notes. "What a shame," said Johnny, indig- 42 CONFESSIONS OF nantly, cut to the quick by the atrocious breach of confidence of the faithless Mul- lins, who had quite won his heart by telling him she would give- the world to know his sister. " To think of her repeat- ing that that I told her in the strictest confidence, after her saying " " What did she say?" asked I, for Johnny stopped dead short. However, his sense of honour was too high to allow of his repeating what she said, so I continued. "Don't look so savage, you young cannibal ; if you want to pitch into a girl, never lose your temper, but simply accuse her of being 'missish.' It's too vague a charge for her to rebut, but it will drive her as mad as a sackful of cats. Everything that she says, answer her now I call that missish : you'll soon have the whip-hand, and then if you don't let in a dozen or two of stingers it's your own fault. Never mind about this little matter. I told her that I would not 4 COUNTRY QUARTERS. 43 have you abused ; and that if I ever heard of her repeating any of your sentimental tomfooleries, I'd wring her neck ; so it will go no further;" and, in truth, I do not believe it did, for I have no doubt that she forgot all about Johnny and his mother and sister, kith and kin, on the arrival of an exceedingly smart hussar regiment, that relieved a very dense, heavy dragoon one, about the time that we quitted the city of the brogue. I was sorry that I gave Johnny this little glimpse of real life, for I saw that it shook his confidence in human nature at least, the feminine variety. He trudged on without speaking all that live-long day, looked askance at Mary Anne O'Malley, as if she were an hyeena in a claret-coloured riding-habit, when Holster trotted her out as per appointment, for Simmy's consi- deration ; and certainly, we all thought her quite good enough for him, except Johnny, I 44 . CONFESSIONS OF who winked sardonically at me, made some very male, masculine, and manly remarks about field-sports, as indicating that he intended, for the future, to seek for enjoy- ment in those pursuits, and be no longer made a fool of by women, slouched along, as if he did not care three farthings whether any one was looking at him or not, and never as much as condescended to dust his boots as we marched into Ballymaccro- codile. COUNTRY QUARTERS. 45 CHAPTER III. NIGHT AND MORNING ! OPEN ARMS SINGULAR FEMALE EQUESTRIAN TRIBE JUDGES OF LADIES FAMILY ETHICS ENTER THE STREAM SYMP- TOMS OF CIVILIZATION. "LE Eoi EST MORT!" "VlYELE ROl!" In such terse and unmistakable language was it announced in the olden time, long ago, when there was a king in France, that another Capet slept with the ancestral St. Louis, and a fresh arm upheld the oriflamine ; and even so, in that same day of May, scarcely had the fluttering hearts of the Ballymaccrocodileans ceased to throb re- sponsively to the martial farewell of " the 46 CONFESSIONS OF girls Ave left behind us," wherewith, after the ancient manner, the 110th consoled their fair friends (and their noble selves) upon their departure, ere the same hearts palpitated to the notes of hope in the " British grenadiers," by which the 1 20th announced that they were come to reign in their stead. Of course everybody turned out to see us; and Johnny confessed to me privately, afterwards, Avhen he was a little better of Clementina Mullins, that his first impres- sion of Ballymaccrocodile was, that it was the colony of a female equestrian tribe; the young rogue, notwithstanding his misogynical conversion to the sports of the field, having counted the fair ladies on horseback whom we encountered in the last five miles, and whom he found amounted to thirteen. He then ascertained the number of roads that led into the town, which being five, he therefrom deduced that sixty-five, COUNTRY QUARTERS. 47 or thereabouts, of the damsels of that flourish- ing market-town kept horses, poor dear boy. I let him find his own way out of the monstrous delusion ; experience comes surely, and if one changes quarters rapidly, by no means slowly; it is much more instructive than preaching, which nobody ever attends to; and I think some considerable light had been let into his innocent mind, when about three weeks afterwards he told me that he had found out how many ladies possessed horses, or could borrow them, in the neighbourhood, and that they amounted to fourteen; adding, that probably one of them was ill the day we marched in. I doubted this last remark being his own composition, my opinion being that he had plagiarized it from Simpkins, or more likely Holster, who was an incurable, irre- trievable, hopeless snob, with a gigantic opinion of himself, and a maniacal self- idolatry of his character of a cavalry officer. 48 CONFESSIONS OF Now I had no objection to bringing up Johnny myself in the way he should go, because I knew the way; but I had not the slightest idea of suffering these gents to show him the way he should not go viz., into gentism; indeed, I had too great a regard for Edith, his sister, who was only a year older than him, and used to talk to me about his chest, which was weak, and the night air, and not letting him drink whiskey-punch of which deleterious fluid I almost thought she believed the Bann, the Boyne, the Barron, the Blackwater, the Liffey, the Suir, and the Shannon were composed so I considered it my duty to Edith to put a stopper upon any attempt to corrupt Johnny. " Johnny, my boy, perhaps the fourteenth was something of a lady ?" said I, as, in- deed, I knew it was; for Hawkins' horses being gone, and mine, of course, not come in, Ellen was dismounted. COUNTRY QUARTERS. 49 " Well, that was what I thought, to tell you the truth," replied Johnny, innocently, thereby convincing me that I was correct in setting down the remark as a piracy, and from a somewhat discreditable source. " Johnny," said I, " do you think that either Simpkins or Holster is much of a judge of a lady?'' " Well," replied Johnny, musing, with a thoughtful expression, that reminded me uncommonly of Edith when she got to the night air on his chest; " well, I do not see how either of them can ever have seen a lady ; at least, I mean, ever spoken or been friends with any ladylike women. Simp- kins and Co. is a very respectable firm in the saddlery line, and, I dare say, well suited to the mayor and sheriff line, but that does not make them judges of ladies, you know ; and Holster's people are hemp and tallow merchants, and good judges of grease, I daresay. I do not suppose either of them knows what a lady ought to be; VOL. I. D 50 CONFESSIONS OF I know neither knows what a gentleman ought to be." " Then, Johnny, my boy, don't you take their opinions about ladies. If Simpkins and Holster live to be a hundred, they will not see as much of ladylike women as you have seen already," said I, thinking of Edith, and wishing I was in Eaton-square at that very moment, with Lady Elizabeth Waldgrave on one side, scolding me for not having been at church last Sunday, us was her custom, and on the other, well, I was at Ballymaccrocodile, bearing my country's arms, and respected by my colonel and brother officers, alarmingly caressed in the fashionable circles of the neighbourhood, and what more could a good soldier require; so I began giving Johnny good advice, in a species of logic at which I was unequalled. " Johnny," snid I, " when you hear such r,s Simpkins and Holster talking COUNTRY QUARTERS. 51 scavenger slang about tits and gals, and fillies and heifers, and a young jackass like Bubbleby wondering when he will be able to muster pluck enough to copy them, just think what sort of mothers and sisters those heroes must have had. You know it is the mother makes the boy's manners and his way of thinking about manners and habits. Well, it does not take a conjurer to tell what sort of mothers such hounds as those must have had; and, you may rely upon it, vulgar mothers make vulgar daughters." " Precisely so," said Johnny, with the air of a Lord Chief Justice, though he knew nothing whatever about the matter, except what I pleased to tell him, and I never told him the ichole truth, for Edith's sake. " Well," continued I, " you know gent- esses and snobesses herd together precisely as gents and snobs do, and for the same two reasons : first, that thev suit one ano- ' D 2 52 CONFESSIONS OF ther ; and, secondly, that the thorough-bred ones won't have them at any price ; so that these fine young men's sisters' friends are as bad as themselves, and they have seen nothing but vulgar women till the time that they come into the army, by which time, therefore, their snobbishness has become chronic and incurable; and though they get into better society then than they ever heard of before because, in every place there are a number of otherwise respectable people who toady the troops, still, the vul- garization is complete and ineradicable. They are gents in their youth, and club grubs in mature age." "What do you mean by club grubs?" asked Johnny. " The club grub, Johnny, my boy, like the aphis vasfator, is an entomological de- velopment of the nineteenth century. He did not exist in his present form till that age, though the germ was maturing in re- COUNTRY QUARTERS. 5-3 mote villages," returned I, much entertained by Johnny's puzzled aspect. "In 1815, when powder ceased to demand its food, the fire-eaters found theirs hard to get, and the half-pay heroes found that their day's sub- sistence would not half pay for their day's consumption at a tavern, they laid their heads together, Johnny, my boy, and then they laid the heads of King George IV. of elegant memory together, and thence arose the club of the present day, to which the club of old was but a reed ; yet can a reed discourse sweet music, nought but a dull, a heavy sound, ever comes from a club." " Bosh!" said Johnny. " Be it so, Johnny, my boy," said I ; " nevertheless, when the rubicund warriors beat their swords into carving-knives a new combination produced new results, and be- hold the club grub; the dry rot spread to the establishments of the olden time and 54 CONFESSIONS OF style, till hardly a knot in any club is now unbored by the Teredo Twaddliensis, and these fellows are in training thereanent. 'Tis education forms the common mind, Johnny," said I, "and theirs are very common minds. Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined, Johnny," said I. "Very good Pope," said Johnny, ap- provingly. " Ask Holster or Simpkins where that couplet comes from," said I, " and I take it you'd puzzle him uncommonly. If either did make a shot he'd probably say, Elegant Extracts, or the Complete Guide to Elocution ; so remember, Johnny, that swine are no judges of pearls." " When will you introduce me to Ellen O'Reilly?" asked Johnny, who seemed some- how to connect her with pearls (he had a good deal of a quiet instinct). " She seems to me not to go out anywhere, so I cannot get introduced to her, and you promised to ake me there." t COUNTRY QUARTERS. 55 "So I did, and so I will," replied I; "but you must have a little patience; and now be off with you; there's Mary Ann O'Malley has been hanging out signals for you to close this ten minutes ;" the fact being that Mary Anne being a young lady who prided herself upon a strong will and de- cided character, had kicked at being handed over like barrack furniture to Simpkins, and the dear child of impulse that she was, had exhibited the most decided symptoms of taking kindly to Johnny instead, who re- turned her blandishments with a concilia- tory and deprecating shyness, as if he were scratching a parrot's head. I had good reasons, however, for not having sooner introduced Johnny into the family of the Rev. Mr. O'Reilly. That gen- tleman had called upon me immediately upon my arrival, evidently being moved to that overt act of attention by Hawkins, of whom he spoke as a sincere friend, whose unsettled principles on matters of belief (or anything , r )G CONFESSIONS OF else, I thought) he deeply deplored, more especially the utter levity with which he associated with Roman Catholics and others our natural enemies ; at the same time ex- pressing a fervent hope that he would speedily see the error of his ways, much of which was, in Christian charity, to be attri- buted to the vagabondage of a bachelor life, necessarily demoralizing. " The Romans had a deep significance in the divinity of their Lares and Penates, Captain Cobb," said my reverend friend, who fancied he could hoodwink me, good innocent man; "the rewards of Olympus for prayers and vows were afar off; Jupiter paid his debts at the death of his wor- shippers, but the Household Gods delighted in prompt payment; it was but to offer the the vow, and the prayer was already granted, the bill presented was honoured on the spot;" by which heathen paraphrase I un- derstood him to signify, that heaven smiles COUNTRY QUARTERS. 57 upon married men, which, as a beneficed clergyman, he very properly abstained from affirming in Christian language any more than its converse, that the smiles in which bachelors bask come from a very different part of the horizon. Of course I could not tell at the moment whether it was my friend or myself that he wanted for Ellen, but concluded that the bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, (as indeed I -may say without va- nity was the case), and that it was I that was to beware of the bird-lime. (I was wrong about this, but that happens so seldom that I can afford to confess it when it does.) However, he asked me to dine with him in a quiet way the next Wednesday; made some inquiries about the state of morals in the regiment, which I answered with a cer- tain promptitude of assertion I have often found serviceable when no very strict sub- sequent inquiries are likely to be madej D 3 58 CONFESSIONS OF asked my opinion, as a great authority, on German matters, as to how I thought the British and Prussian Governments would pull together (he used some canonical form of expression which I forget), about the Bishopric of Jerusalem, then in course of incubation ; and after a sly back-handed hit at rationalism aud materialism in the dear old Fatherland (may it have a safe deli- verance out of its present troubles), took his leave, leaving me in no doubt as to the character which Hawkins had given of me and in which I was of course expected to appear (under penalty of being cold- shouldered as a " professing Christian"), viz., of a serious military man, with a view to giving satisfaction in which character I employed two hours that very day with " Cruden's Concordance." It is a well known military maxim, that' one of the highest triumphs of tactics is to produce the greatest possible results with COUNTRY QUARTERS. 59 the smallest possible means. Indeed, the art of war is eminently a practical science; if the appearance answers the purpose of the reality, so much the better; to none more than to its professors applies the maxim, " possunt quid posse videntur." At 6 P.M. on the following Wednesday, I made my first appearance at the rectory, where I was to meet for the first time, my new acquisition, Ellen. I did not, how- ever, consider her entirely my own as yet; there is a wide difference between a proper confidence and a blundering rashness ; and as no one can overrate the effect of first impressions upon women, I took care that my gloves and boots and other means to that end should be unimpeachable, and in other respects rather u got myself up" for the occasion. Learning enough of the local history to enable me to ask intelligent questions, being well assured that those who replied to them would consider the 60 CONFESSIONS OF answers intelligent, I also learned the name of the bishop of the diocese, and some anec- dotes about that noble earl, his brother, and other little bits of artless art. My short interview with the worthy rector, as well as Hawkins' preference for the daughter, for he was a pretty good judge of the article, had prepared me to mid something very superior in the O'Keilly family, and as I approached the rectory, appearances confirmed me in that impres- sion. Near the gate several small gardens appeared in front of the simple dwelling- places of the burghers of Ballymaccroco- dile, not small potato fields in masquerade, as is customary in that country, but real gardens, with gooseberry and currant bushes, leeks and onions, and other unde- niable fruit and vegetable productions, and' some attempts at creepers on the houses, COUNTRY QUARTERS. 61 which flourished most luxuriantly, as they well might, considering the nutritive cha- racter of the walls that supported them (a rich, well tempered mud) ; divers puddles made practicable for infantry by boards and stepping stones, fewer panes of super- annuated small clothes than usual, and other tokens of advancing civilization of which the indigenous patriots would never have dreamed if left to their own devices, and which, as I by no means attributed them to the Roman-catholic priest, I, with great sagacity, set down to the credit of the rectory, my entry into which con- verted speculation into certainty. A plain, neat wooden gate, with every bar whole, led into a small court, one side of which seemed one entire mass of roses. Everywhere else, flowers and shrubs, well *chosen and well kept, filled the space between the neatly gravelled centre and 62 CONFESSIONS OF the wall, sensibly covered with fruit trees ; and finally, the door was opened by a very clean, smiling, plump, trim maid servant. This last circumstance convinced me that I was in a Christian home. Any one of the lesser nobility of the neighbourhood, of aboriginal descent and ideas, would have had his hospitable portal graced and dig- nified by a shock-headed cowboy disguised in plush, or an incarnated blast from the stables, sooner than suffer his Druidical dignity to be compromised by admitting that he could be served by Kitty, who was pretty enough to have been the pride of Coleraine if her lot had been cast in the province of Ulster. She, with her cheery smile, and the evidence of good sense on the part of my host that her appearance afforded, pleased me so much, that I asked her in an off- handed military manner if her mother had any more of her, which warlike pleasantry COUNTRY QUARTERS. 63 made her my friend from that moment for- wards, and she marshalled me into the drawing-room without the formality of asking my name, which, indeed, she did not require, as she simply announced me as u The Captain, ma'am." 64. CONFESSIONS OF CHAPTER IV. ENTER THE STREAM FIRST PLUNGE SYMPTOMS OF WILLOWS TRIAL OF SKILL BENEVOLENCE OF THE CONFESSOR ANGLING FOR TROUT CATCH- ING A PIKE. ELLEN O'REILLY was sitting in the window when I entered, and was performing some extraordinary feat of embroidery, which convinced me that my vision of the waist- coat was coming true. (Alas ! it never did.) She rose, and I thought at the moment that for two or three minutes she tried to keep between me and the light (when I found out why she did so, as I did soon afterwards, I could have cried for the poor COUNTRY QUARTERS. 65 girl, if crying had been conduct becoming an officer and a gentleman), and I thought she seemed somewhat agitated, which I naturally set down to the splendour of my appearance, or that tremblement de femme which I presume commonly accompanies the transfer from the old love to the new, a species of vibration natural to a state of transition, at least in a young girl; it wears out in due time. Mrs. O'Keilly, whom I at once perceived was an Englishwoman, received me very cordially; but being almost immediately afterwards called out of the room upon some affair of domestic economy of which the only word that reached me was " capers" left me at liberty to open a communica- tion Avith Ellen, which, acting on the word I heard, I effected forthwith by telling her that I was exceedingly fond of boiled mutton ; and the start of surprise she gave at my foreknowledge of the dinner, as well 66 CONFESSIONS OF us her curiosity as to how I acquired it, placed us on a confidential footing directly. Ellen certainly did Hawkins' taste great credit. She was tall; her figure, though slight, was rounded, and in her dark blue eye I thought I could discover more feeling than his description had given me to ex- pect; and long before that evening was over, a sort of lurking suspicion began to worm itself into my mind, that my friend James the lady killer had been indulging in a trifle of libel upon a girl to whom lie was behaving very badly, not that that was any business of mine, hawks do not pick out hawk's eyes I did not altogether like throwing the first stone, but I read his letter twice over that night before I went to bed, and weighed and considered it, text and context. She might be called a blue at the mess of the 110th, on the principle of the pro- verb, " Parmi les aveugles le borgne est COUNTRY QUARTERS. 67 roi;" but her conversation, though intelli- gent, was simple, unstilted, and immaculate of fine or foreign expressions. She talked a good deal upon a great many subjects connected with literature, but she certainly understood them, for she always read the books themselves, and never the reviews, and was perfectly free of the superficiality of magazine twaddle; in short, without pretension, affectation, or display, it was hard upon her to apply the title of blue to her. There was no cant, still less polemical bitterness about her; and I dare say she was a very good judge of a new bonnet: but if the tree be known by its fruit, Ellen certainly went to church for something better than new bonnets. Charity, humility, kindliness, gratitude, or forgiveness, each alike ready to repay good for evil, all these things speak a language that is very low, but very unmistakeable. I never heard her 68 CONFESSIONS OF say an unkind word of any one, though I have seen her tried pretty severely. I never observed in her the slightest disposi- tion to flirt; and, indeed, I thought her then, and think her still, a very amiable and superior young lady. However, the present subject was a dish of delicious trout, which preceded the fore- shadowed boiled mutton, which was excel- lent, and did not eat the worse for being handed round by Kitty. Indeed, it was a very agreeable dinner altogether, and, I thought, a colossal improvement on those ponderous conglomerates of masters and mistresses, with one lord for dignity and one young lady for grace, on which one occasionally does treadmill (of course, good reader, never at your hospitable board) ; here we had a great deal of very interest- ing and notwithstanding it was at Bally- maccrocodile rectory polished conversa- tion; for the Celt, when he will take a polish, takes it kindly. COUNTRY QUARTERS. 69 It is the Celtic blood in the French that makes French conversation so brilliant, and the language so spicily idiomatic. No one supposes that the mantle of wit descended on the Gauls from Chlodowick or Childeric, or any other of the unpronounceable Frankish anthropophagi that made the third century hideous; it came from the Gaelic Brennus, whose flinging his sword into the scale was nothing but a practical witticism, the steel and the sneer pre- eminently Celtic, as O'Flaherty of ours told me, though I did not think the transaction so praiseworthy as he did; but I suppose that was the Celtic blood in him. Saxon I thought the organ of acquisitiveness too much developed in it; that of conscien- tiousness too little influential. Of course I took a leading part in this conversation, but am deterred from giving it to the public, partly by native modesty, and partly because it so nearly resembled 70 CONFESSIONS OF the conversation that any well-bred civilian may encounter any day at any well-selected party, and wanting, the true military twang, does not come strictly under the category of Confessions of Country Quarters, and partly because no part of it bore very directly upon the future history of any of the parties concerned. When it was on the lighter topics of interest of the day, Ellen bore hor part meekly; and when we talked about poor-laws, and tithes, and the value of labour and land, Ellen did not join the conversation. But my vigilance, generally tolerably wide awake, had been stirred up to the highest pitch of watchfulness by Mr. O'Reilly's ready and active attention to me which tapped rather stingingly at my conscience, for I felt I did not deserve it by a certain confidential manner in Mrs. O'Reilly (which would have afforded a great deal of amusement to the mess, if bestowed upon most of the other of our COUNTRY QUARTERS. 71 fellows), by an occasional glance from Kitty, which that active young lady, whenever I caught her eye, shifted to the potatoes or the roly-poly pudding with a rapidity that showed that she had some particular reason for eying me, and for not being taken in the fact ; and finally, by Ellen's own proceedings, who, I soon perceived, having recovered from her first flurry, was holding me at arms' length to look through me. Not that there was anything to complain of in her reception of me, or in her manner to me; nothing could be more kindly or more cordial than her welcome; but I could plainly perceive that it was not so upon my account alone. When Ellen O'Reilly, to whom I shall always be a true and sincere friend, fancied that she could in actual fact and bona fide earnest hold me at arms' length and look through me, she undertook a task that would have baffled Talleyrand. She was a 72 CONFESSIONS OF simple-minded honest girl, a bright-eyed impersonation of home, trained by a home- education for the duties, the pursuits, and the pleasures of home, with about as much chance of taking my measure as of ascer- taining the distance of Sirius or the future of France. She had none of that delightful assurance and confidence in her own opinion, her own discernment, and her own astuteness, that used to charm me so much in young O'Leary's girl, Caroline de Courci, who, having had the advantages of a boarding- school education, at Mrs. Flanagan's esta- blishment for young ladies, at Cork, and having seen a good deal of the world in her walks with the rest of the pupils (of whom she probably was one of the smartest) in the Blackrock-road, fancied she was an overmatch for the whole universe united, upon any subject whatever, from cross-stitch to conic sections, taking Shakspeare by the COUNTRY QUARTERS. V3 way. She had a good deal of talent and perseverance, and very nearly made O'Leary marry her. Jenkins had an amazing quantity of difficulty in persuading him to administer the usual sedative to her, in the shape of an inexorable father, or an imprac- ticable grandmother, or capricious aunt. I forget which he employed on this occa- sion ; but I suppose the one is as good as the other. Ellen, however, in such a passage of arms as this with me was hopelessly over- matched ; all that her little plans of artless art did was to show her own hand with- out getting the slightest peep at mine; and perhaps it was fortunate for her that she did. The weather was fine, and I was in good health and spirits, and inclined to be good-natured. I did not want her for myself; and getting sometimes tired of carrying on these garrison flirtations on my own account, was not disinclined to VOL. l. E 74 CONFESSIONS OF the variety of carrying on one on the account of somebody else. It would be a novel excitement, at all events, and I offered no opposition to the project I saw she had formed from the first viz., of making me a go-between be- tween herself and Hawkins, the more so, as I was certain that gentleman would tolerate nothing of the sort, being probably deeply engaged in some fresh affair of the same nature at least, if the semi-barbarous vil- lage he occupied afforded anything that habitually wore shoes and stockings. Such, at the time, was really my view of the case, founded upon the experience of several years' service of my country in different parts of the United Kingdom ; and by all rules of reading the future from the past, it ought to have been a correct one; but recent events have shown us in a grim and portentous panorama, that even the most astute kings, ministers, newspaper COUNTRY QUARTERS. 75 editors, and free-traders cannot always spell the coming aright. I do not arrogate to myself the gift of prophecy, and though an officer, am but a man. Upon calling the next day, I found that Mr. O'Reilly was out visiting his parishion- ers, of whom he had not quite so many as could be desired, though, to those he had he was a real link between heaven and earth, and to the Roman Catholics of the district he was a sort of perainbulatory savings bank; for the same want of faith that prevented those good people trusting their souls to the rector, also prevented their trusting their money to the priest ; and all the remittances from America, and such like transactions of exchange, fell upon the shoulders of the Protestant ecclesiastic. Mrs. O'Reilly held mysterious confabulation with the house- keeper; so, finding no one in the drawing- room when I entered, and seeing Ellen in the garden, tying up some flowers, I walked E 2 76 CONFESSIONS OF out through the window which opened on it, and joined her. I then became aware that she had a younger sister of fifteen and another of five. I certainly thought her remarkably pretty when she came forward, her countenance beaming, and her hand stretched out to welcome me ; yet her manner was not without embarrassment either. " I am afraid you will find this a dull quarter, unless you are a fisherman, Cap- tain Cobb," said she; "Lord Mountararat is very shy of his shooting (shy, in Anglo-Irish, means stingy) and the Car- rick-a-Gullion hunt is stopped; the people used to pelt them with two-year-olds." " Not a bad reason for discontinuing the hunt," said I, laughing, for I was aware that a two-year-old is not, as an ignorant Saxon might suppose, a zoological term, but a geological one, signifying, in fact, a stone about the size of an orange, one of twice COUNTRY QUARTERS. 77 that size being a four-year-old, and both very inconvenient if liberally applied to the person. I felt convinced, however, that Ellen would not have used a term so nearly approaching slang, had she not learned it from the 110th, as well as learn to use it without scruple. I determined to cure her of that; indeed, I generally did a good deal towards making every girl 1 took in hand presentable. " You will find very good fishing," said she. " Papa fishes sometimes; he says that hunting and shooting are not clerical, but the parish need not grudge the rector a dish of trout every now and then. He caught those we had yesterday." " No doubt it is a purely orthodox, and, indeed, apostolical occupation," replied I; " and, if I recollect right, strongly com- mended in the proverbs of Solomon, in which there is not a word about double- barrelled guns ; and, no doubt, fish have been 78 CONFESSIONS OF peculiarly the property of the Church in all ages. The john-dory is the especial property of St. Peter. It is only a corrup- tion from the Italian, ' il Janitore' being said to be the fish from whose mouth the saint that sits at the gate of Heaven took the tribute-money." " Have you heard from Captain Hawkins lately ?" asked she, somewhat shyly. My heart smote me as I answered, " He wrote to inform me that I was to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, which, I trust, will soon ripen into a lasting friend- ship." I had learned this form of speech, since my arrival, from Holster, who called it " feeling a filly's mouth." " But I suppose you write to him some- times?" continued she, totally overlooking the lasting friendship; perhaps she had heard that before, and could estimate the duration and intensity. " He told me you were the dearest friend he had." COUNTRY QUARTERS. 70 "I do not know that men ever corre- spond much," replied I, " but I shall write to him in a few days." "Oh," said she, and then checked her- self suddenly, " we saw a great deal of him when he was here. (She pricked her finger with a thorn at this moment.) We were all so sorry when the 110th went away. It is one of the provoking things about you officers, that you come to a place, and by the time we begin to know you and like you, you are ordered away." It is the mercy of Providence, thought I; the last route was the salvation of at least seven of our fellows, who never could have backed out otherwise. " And then," continued the poor girl, " it leaves such a blank." I was astounded at the assurance with Avhich she said this to me, who was come to Ballymaccrocodile rectory, that blessed day in May, for the express purpose of filling 80 CONFESSIONS OF her blank; "but," she continued with a quiet earnestness, " it is hard when one has become accustomed to people, and received muck kindness and attention from them, and learned their ways, and how to please them, and found subjects in common, and * felt that they like one, and, in short, made friends of them, to have to part, and with so little chance of seeing them again. You have no idea how one misses them." These remarks, quiet and subdued as was the manner in which they were made, were accompanied by a gentle sigh or two, that smote me a good deal harder than I liked to admit to myself. "It is nothing to you," she continued; " you go on to fresh scenes, and make fresh friends, and have your occupations and your amusements to keep you from think- ing; but it is those that are left behind who " At this moment we were interrupted by COUNTRY QUARTEJ1S. 81 little Alice, who came, bounding like a young gazelle, to summon us to luncheon, and having secured one of my hands, led me, like a tiny princess with a captive giant, into the presence of her mamma, who speedily commenced an attempt to fatten me on cold corned beef a most savoury method of preparing the flesh of oxen, as practised in the Emerald Isle, but as yet but imperfectly revealed to the Saxou. My little princess now engaged her cap- tive giant in conversation, and the pretty behaviour sprightly yet unobtrusive of the child, together with her evident intelli- gence and the careful cultivation that had obviously been bestowed upon her, and, indeed, her sister Nanny, a large portion of which I set down to Ellen's account, pre- possessed me more and more in favour of the O'Reilly family. It also gave me a somewhat uncomfortable sensation ;il Ill-- idea that mischief might have been