Kitabı oku: «Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1», sayfa 17
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SUPPER
Power and I dined together tête-à-tête at the hotel, and sat chatting over my adventures with the Dalrymples till nearly nine o’clock.
“Come, Charley,” said he, at length, “I see your eye wandering very often towards the timepiece; another bumper, and I’ll let you off. What shall it be?”
“What you like,” said I, upon whom a share of three bottles of strong claret had already made a very satisfactory impression.
“Then champagne for the coup-de-grace. Nothing like your vin mousseux for a critical moment, – every bubble that rises sparkling to the surface prompts some bright thought, or elicits some brilliant idea, that would only have been drowned in your more sober fluids. Here’s to the girl you love, whoever she be.”
“To her bright eyes, then, be it,” said I, clearing off a brimming goblet of nearly half the bottle, while my friend Power seemed multiplied into any given number of gentlemen standing amidst something like a glass manufactory of decanters.
“I hope you feel steady enough for this business,” said my friend, examining me closely with the candle.
“I’m an archdeacon,” muttered I, with one eye involuntarily closing.
“You’ll not let them double on you!”
“Trust me, old boy,” said I, endeavoring to look knowing.
“I think you’ll do,” said he, “so now march. I’ll wait for you here, and we’ll go on board together; for old Bloater the skipper says he’ll certainly weigh by daybreak.”
“Till then,” said I, as opening the door, I proceeded very cautiously to descend the stairs, affecting all the time considerable nonchalance, and endeavoring, as well as my thickened utterance would permit, to hum: —
“Oh, love is the soul of an Irish dragoon.”
If I was not in the most perfect possession of my faculties in the house, the change to the open air certainly but little contributed to their restoration; and I scarcely felt myself in the street when my brain became absolutely one whirl of maddened and confused excitement. Time and space are nothing to a man thus enlightened, and so they appeared to me; scarcely a second had elapsed when I found myself standing in the Dalrymples’ drawing-room.
If a few hours had done much to metamorphose me, certes, they had done something for my fair friends also; anything more unlike what they appeared in the morning can scarcely be imagined. Matilda in black, with her hair in heavy madonna bands upon her fair cheek, now paler even than usual, never seemed so handsome; while Fanny, in a light-blue dress, with blue flowers in her hair, and a blue sash, looked the most lovely piece of coquetry ever man set his eyes upon. The old major, too, was smartened up, and put into an old regimental coat that he had worn during the siege of Gibraltar; and lastly, Mrs. Dalrymple herself was attired in a very imposing costume that made her, to my not over-accurate judgment, look very like an elderly bishop in a flame-colored cassock. Sparks was the only stranger, and wore upon his countenance, as I entered, a look of very considerable embarrassment that even my thick-sightedness could not fail of detecting.
Parlez-moi de l’amitié, my friends. Talk to me of the warm embrace of your earliest friend, after years of absence; the cordial and heartfelt shake hands of your old school companion, when in after years, a chance meeting has brought you together, and you have had time and opportunity for becoming distinguished and in repute, and are rather a good hit to be known to than otherwise; of the close grip you give your second when he comes up to say, that the gentleman with the loaded detonator opposite won’t fire, that he feels he’s in the wrong. Any or all of these together, very effective and powerful though they be, are light in the balance when compared with the two-handed compression you receive from the gentleman that expects you to marry one of his daughters.
“My dear O’Malley, how goes it? Thought you’d never come,” said he, still holding me fast and looking me full in the face, to calculate the extent to which my potations rendered his flattery feasible.
“Hurried to death with preparations, I suppose,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, smiling blandly. “Fanny dear, some tea for him.”
“Oh, Mamma, he does not like all that sugar; surely not,” said she, looking up with a most sweet expression, as though to say, “I at least know his tastes.”
“I believed you were going without seeing us,” whispered Matilda, with a very glassy look about the corner of her eyes.
Eloquence was not just then my forte, so that I contented myself with a very intelligible look at Fanny, and a tender squeeze of Matilda’s hand, as I seated myself at the table.
Scarcely had I placed myself at the tea-table, with Matilda beside and Fanny opposite me, each vying with the other in their delicate and kind attentions, when I totally forgot all my poor friend Power’s injunctions and directions for my management. It is true, I remembered that there was a scrape of some kind or other to be got out of, and one requiring some dexterity, too; but what or with whom I could not for the life of me determine. What the wine had begun, the bright eyes completed; and amidst the witchcraft of silky tresses and sweet looks, I lost all my reflection, till the impression of an impending difficulty remained fixed in my mind, and I tortured my poor, weak, and erring intellect to detect it. At last, and by a mere chance, my eyes fell upon Sparks; and by what mechanism I contrived it, I know not, but I immediately saddled him with the whole of my annoyances, and attributed to him and to his fault any embarrassment I labored under.
The physiological reason of the fact I’m very ignorant of, but for the truth and frequency I can well vouch, that there are certain people, certain faces, certain voices, certain whiskers, legs, waistcoats, and guard-chains, that inevitably produce the most striking effects upon the brain of a gentleman already excited by wine, and not exactly cognizant of his own peculiar fallacies.
These effects are not produced merely among those who are quarrelsome in their cups, for I call the whole 14th to witness that I am not such; but to any person so disguised, the inoffensiveness of the object is no security on the other hand, – for I once knew an eight-day clock kicked down a barrack stairs by an old Scotch major, because he thought it was laughing at him. To this source alone, whatever it be, can I attribute the feeling of rising indignation with which I contemplated the luckless cornet, who, seated at the fire, unnoticed and uncared for, seemed a very unworthy object to vent anger or ill-temper upon.
“Mr. Sparks, I fear,” said I, endeavoring at the time to call up a look of very sovereign contempt, – “Mr. Sparks, I fear, regards my visit here in the light of an intrusion.”
Had poor Mr. Sparks been told to proceed incontinently up the chimney before him, he could not have looked more aghast. Reply was quite out of his power. So sudden and unexpectedly was this charge of mine made that he could only stare vacantly from one to the other; while I, warming with my subject, and perhaps – but I’ll not swear it – stimulated by a gentle pressure from a soft hand near me, continued: —
“If he thinks for one moment that my attentions in this family are in any way to be questioned by him, I can only say – ”
“My dear O’Malley, my dear boy!” said the major, with the look of a father-in-law in his eye.
“The spirit of an officer and a gentleman spoke there,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, now carried beyond all prudence by the hope that my attack might arouse my dormant friend into a counter-declaration; nothing, however, was further from poor Sparks, who began to think he had been unconsciously drinking tea with five lunatics.
“If he supposes,” said I, rising from my chair, “that his silence will pass with me as any palliation – ”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! there will be a duel. Papa, dear, why don’t you speak to Mr. O’Malley?”
“There now, O’Malley, sit down. Don’t you see he is quite in error?”
“Then let him say so,” said I, fiercely.
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” said Fanny. “Do say it; say anything he likes, Mr. Sparks.”
“I must say,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, “however sorry I may feel in my own house to condemn any one, that Mr. Sparks is very much in the wrong.”
Poor Sparks looked like a man in a dream.
“If he will tell Charles, – Mr. O’Malley, I mean,” said Matilda, blushing scarlet, “that he meant nothing by what he said – ”
“But I never spoke, never opened my lips!” cried out the wretched man, at length sufficiently recovered to defend himself.
“Oh, Mr. Sparks!”
“Oh, Mr. Sparks!”
“Oh, Mr. Sparks!” chorussed the three ladies.
While the old major brought up the rear with an “Oh, Sparks, I must say – ”
“Then, by all the saints in the calendar, I must be mad,” said he; “but if I have said anything to offend you, O’Malley, I am sincerely sorry for it.”
“That will do, sir,” said I, with a look of royal condescension at the amende I considered as somewhat late in coming, and resumed my seat.
This little intermezzo, it might be supposed, was rather calculated to interrupt the harmony of our evening. Not so, however. I had apparently acquitted myself like a hero, and was evidently in a white heat, in which I could be fashioned into any shape. Sparks was humbled so far that he would probably feel it a relief to make any proposition; so that by our opposite courses we had both arrived at a point at which all the dexterity and address of the family had been long since aiming without success. Conversation then resumed its flow, and in a few minutes every trace of our late fracas had disappeared.
By degrees I felt myself more and more disposed to turn my attention towards Matilda, and dropping my voice into a lower tone, opened a flirtation of a most determined kind. Fanny had, meanwhile, assumed a place beside Sparks, and by the muttered tones that passed between them, I could plainly perceive they were similarly occupied. The major took up the “Southern Reporter,” of which he appeared deep in the contemplation, while Mrs. Dal herself buried her head in her embroidery and neither heard nor saw anything around her.
I know, unfortunately, but very little what passed between myself and my fair companion; I can only say that when supper was announced at twelve (an hour later than usual), I was sitting upon the sofa with my arm round her waist, my cheek so close that already her lovely tresses brushed my forehead, and her breath fanned my burning brow.
“Supper, at last,” said the major, with a loud voice, to arouse us from our trance of happiness without taking any mean opportunity of looking unobserved. “Supper, Sparks, O’Malley; come now, it will be some time before we all meet this way again.”
“Perhaps not so long, after all,” said I, knowingly.
“Very likely not,” echoed Sparks, in the same key.
“I’ve proposed for Fanny,” said he, whispering in my ear.
“Matilda’s mine,” replied I, with the look of an emperor.
“A word with you, Major,” said Sparks, his eye flashing with enthusiasm, and his cheek scarlet. “One word, – I’ll not detain you.”
They withdrew into a corner for a few seconds, during which Mrs. Dalrymple amused herself by wondering what the secret could be, why Mr. Sparks couldn’t tell her, and Fanny meanwhile pretended to look for something at a side table, and never turned her head round.
“Then give me your hand,” said the major, as he shook Sparks’s with a warmth of whose sincerity there could be no question. “Bess, my love,” said he, addressing his wife. The remainder was lost in a whisper; but whatever it was, it evidently redounded to Sparks’s credit, for the next moment a repetition of the hand-shaking took place, and Sparks looked the happiest of men.
“A mon tour,” thought I, “now,” as I touched the major’s arm, and led him towards the window. What I said may be one day matter for Major Dalrymple’s memoirs, if he ever writes them; but for my part I have not the least idea. I only know that while I was yet speaking he called over Mrs. Dal, who, in a frenzy of joy, seized me in her arms and embraced me. After which, I kissed her, shook hands with the major, kissed Matilda’s hand, and laughed prodigiously, as though I had done something confoundedly droll, – a sentiment evidently participated in by Sparks, who laughed too, as did the others; and a merrier, happier party never sat down to supper.
“Make your company pleased with themselves,” says Mr. Walker, in his Original work upon dinner-giving, “and everything goes on well.” Now, Major Dalrymple, without having read the authority in question, probably because it was not written at the time, understood the principle fully as well as the police-magistrate, and certainly was a proficient in the practice of it.
To be sure, he possessed one grand requisite for success, – he seemed most perfectly happy himself. There was that air dégagé about him which, when an old man puts it on among his juniors, is so very attractive. Then the ladies, too, were evidently well pleased; and the usually austere mamma had relaxed her “rigid front” into a smile in which any habitué of the house could have read our fate.
We ate, we drank, we ogled, smiled, squeezed hands beneath the table, and, in fact, so pleasant a party had rarely assembled round the major’s mahogany. As for me, I made a full disclosure of the most burning love, backed by a resolve to marry my fair neighbor, and settle upon her a considerably larger part of my native county than I had ever even rode over. Sparks, on the other side, had opened his fire more cautiously, but whether taking courage from my boldness, or perceiving with envy the greater estimation I was held in, was now going the pace fully as fast as myself, and had commenced explanations of his intentions with regard to Fanny that evidently satisfied her friends. Meanwhile the wine was passing very freely, and the hints half uttered an hour before began now to be more openly spoken and canvassed.
Sparks and I hob-nobbed across the table and looked unspeakable things at each other; the girls held down their heads; Mrs. Dal wiped her eyes; and the major pronounced himself the happiest father in Europe.
It was now wearing late, or rather early; some gray streaks of dubious light were faintly forcing their way through the half-closed curtains, and the dread thought of parting first presented itself. A cavalry trumpet, too, at this moment sounded a call that aroused us from our trance of pleasure, and warned us that our moments were few. A dead silence crept over all; the solemn feeling which leave-taking ever inspires was uppermost, and none spoke. The major was the first to break it.
“O’Malley, my friend, and you, Mr. Sparks; I must have a word with you, boys, before we part.”
“Here let it be, then, Major,” said I, holding his arm as he turned to leave the room, – “here, now; we are all so deeply interested, no place is so fit.”
“Well, then,” said the major, “as you desire it, now that I’m to regard you both in the light of my sons-in-law, – at least, as pledged to become so, – it is only fair as respects – ”
“I see, – I understand perfectly,” interrupted I, whose passion for conducting the whole affair myself was gradually gaining on me. “What you mean is, that we should make known our intentions before some mutual friends ere we part; eh, Sparks? eh, Major?”
“Right, my boy, – right on every point.”
“Well, then, I thought of all that; and if you’ll just send your servant over to my quarters for our captain, – he’s the fittest person, you know, at such a time – ”
“How considerate!” said Mrs. Dalrymple.
“How perfectly just his idea is!” said the major.
“We’ll then, in his presence, avow our present and unalterable determination as regards your fair daughters; and as the time is short – ”
Here I turned towards Matilda, who placed her arm within mine; Sparks possessed himself of Fanny’s hand, while the major and his wife consulted for a few seconds.
“Well, O’Malley, all you propose is perfect. Now, then, for the captain. Who shall he inquire for?”
“Oh, an old friend of yours,” said I, jocularly; “you’ll be glad to see him.”
“Indeed!” said all together.
“Oh, yes, quite a surprise, I’ll warrant it.”
“Who can it be? Who on earth is it?”
“You can’t guess,” added I, with a very knowing look. “Knew you at Corfu; a very intimate friend, indeed, if he tell the truth.”
A look of something like embarrassment passed around the circle at these words, while I, wishing to end the mystery, resumed: —
“Come, then, who can be so proper for all parties, at a moment like this, as our mutual friend Captain Power?”
Had a shell fallen into the cold grouse pie in the midst of us, scattering death and destruction on every side, the effect could scarcely have been more frightful than that my last words produced. Mrs. Dalrymple fell with a sough upon the floor, motionless as a corpse; Fanny threw herself, screaming, upon a sofa; Matilda went off into strong hysterics upon the hearth-rug; while the major, after giving me a look a maniac might have envied, rushed from the room in search of his pistols with a most terrific oath to shoot somebody, whether Sparks or myself, or both of us, on his return, I cannot say. Fanny’s sobs and Matilda’s cries, assisted by a drumming process by Mrs. Dal’s heels upon the floor, made a most infernal concert and effectually prevented anything like thought or reflection; and in all probability so overwhelmed was I at the sudden catastrophe I had so innocently caused, I should have waited in due patience for the major’s return, had not Sparks seized my arm, and cried out, —
“Run for it, O’Malley; cut like fun, my boy, or we’re done for.”
“Run; why? What for? Where?” said I, stupefied by the scene before me.
“Here he is!” called out Sparks, as throwing up the window, he sprang out upon the stone sill, and leaped into the street. I followed mechanically, and jumped after him, just as the major had reached the window. A ball whizzed by me, that soon determined my further movements; so, putting on all speed, I flew down the street, turned the corner, and regained the hotel breathless and without a hat, while Sparks arrived a moment later, pale as a ghost, and trembling like an aspen-leaf.
“Safe, by Jove!” said Sparks, throwing himself into a chair, and panting for breath.
“Safe, at last,” said I, without well knowing why or for what.
“You’ve had a sharp run of it, apparently,” said Power, coolly, and without any curiosity as to the cause; “and now, let us on board; there goes the trumpet again. The skipper is a surly old fellow, and we must not lose his tide for him.” So saying, he proceeded to collect his cloaks, cane, etc., and get ready for departure.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE VOYAGE
When I awoke from the long, sound sleep which succeeded my last adventure, I had some difficulty in remembering where I was or how I had come there. From my narrow berth I looked out upon the now empty cabin, and at length some misty and confused sense of my situation crept slowly over me. I opened the little shutter beside me and looked out. The bold headlands of the southern coast were frowning in sullen and dark masses about a couple of miles distant, and I perceived that we were going fast through the water, which was beautifully calm and still. I now looked at my watch; it was past eight o’clock; and as it must evidently be evening, from the appearance of the sky, I felt that I had slept soundly for above twelve hours.
In the hurry of departure the cabin had not been set to rights, and there lay every species of lumber and luggage in all imaginable confusion. Trunks, gun-cases, baskets of eggs, umbrellas, hampers of sea-store, cloaks, foraging-caps, maps, and sword-belts were scattered on every side, – while the débris of a dinner, not over-remarkable for its propriety in table equipage, added to the ludicrous effect. The heavy tramp of a foot overhead denoted the step of some one taking his short walk of exercise; while the rough voice of the skipper, as he gave the word to “Go about!” all convinced me that we were at last under way, and off to “the wars.”
The confusion our last evening on shore produced in my brain was such that every effort I made to remember anything about it only increased my difficulty, and I felt myself in a web so tangled and inextricable that all endeavor to escape free was impossible. Sometimes I thought that I had really married Matilda Dalrymple; then, I supposed that the father had called me out, and wounded me in a duel; and finally, I had some confused notion about a quarrel with Sparks, but what for, when, and how it ended, I knew not. How tremendously tipsy I must have been! was the only conclusion I could draw from all these conflicting doubts; and after all, it was the only thing like fact that beamed upon my mind. How I had come on board and reached my berth was a matter I reserved for future inquiry, resolving that about the real history of my last night on shore I would ask no questions, if others were equally disposed to let it pass in silence.
I next began to wonder if Mike had looked after all my luggage, trunks, etc., and whether he himself had been forgotten in our hasty departure. About this latter point I was not destined for much doubt; for a well-known voice, from the foot of the companion-ladder, at once proclaimed my faithful follower, and evidenced his feelings at his departure from his home and country.
Mr. Free was, at the time I mention, gathered up like a ball opposite a small, low window that looked upon the bluff headlands now fast becoming dim and misty as the night approached. He was apparently in low spirits, and hummed in a species of low, droning voice, the following ballad, at the end of each verse of which came an Irish chorus which, to the erudite in such matters, will suggest the air of Moddirederoo: —
MICKEY FREE’S LAMENT
Then fare ye well, ould Erin dear;
To part, my heart does ache well:
From Carrickfergus to Cape Clear,
I’ll never see your equal.
And though to foreign parts we’re bound,
Where cannibals may ate us,
We’ll ne’er forget the holy ground
Of potteen and potatoes.
Moddirederoo aroo, aroo, etc.
When good Saint Patrick banished frogs,
And shook them from his garment,
He never thought we’d go abroad,
To live upon such varmint;
Nor quit the land where whiskey grew
To wear King George’s button,
Take vinegar for mountain dew,
And toads for mountain mutton.
Moddirederoo aroo, aroo, etc.
“I say, Mike, stop that confounded keen, and tell me where are we?”
“Off the ould head of Kinsale, sir.”
“Where is Captain Power?”
“Smoking a cigar on deck, with the captain, sir.”
“And Mr. Sparks?”
“Mighty sick in his own state-room. Oh, but it’s himself has enough of glory – bad luck to it! – by this time. He’d make your heart break to look at him.”
“Who have you got on board besides?”
“The adjutant’s here, sir; and an old gentleman they call the major.”
“Not Major Dalrymple?” said I, starting up with terror at the thought, “eh, Mike?”
“No, sir, another major; his name is Mulroon, or Mundoon, or something like that.”
“Monsoon, you son of a lumper potato,” cried out a surly, gruff voice from a berth opposite. “Monsoon. Who’s at the other side?”
“Mr. O’Malley, 14th,” said I, by way of introduction.
“My service to you, then,” said the voice. “Going to join your regiment?”
“Yes; and you, are you bound on a similar errand?”
“No, Heaven be praised! I’m attached to the commissariat, and only going to Lisbon. Have you had any dinner?”
“Not a morsel; have you?”
“No more than yourself; but I always lie by for three or four days this way, till I get used to the confounded rocking and pitching, and with a little grog and some sleep, get over the time gayly enough. Steward, another tumbler like the last; there – very good – that will do. Your good health, Mr. – what was it you said?”
“O’Malley.”
“O’Malley – your good health! Good-night.” And so ended our brief colloquy, and in a few minutes more, a very decisive snore pronounced my friend to be fulfilling his precept for killing the hours.
I now made the effort to emancipate myself from my crib, and at last succeeded in getting on the floor, where, after one chassez at a small looking-glass opposite, followed by a very impetuous rush at a little brass stove, in which I was interrupted by a trunk and laid prostrate, I finally got my clothes on, and made my way to the deck. Little attuned as was my mind at the moment to admire anything like scenery, it was impossible to be unmoved by the magnificent prospect before me. It was a beautiful evening in summer; the sun had set above an hour before, leaving behind him in the west one vast arch of rich and burnished gold, stretching along the whole horizon, and tipping all the summits of the heavy rolling sea, as it rolled on, unbroken by foam or ripple, in vast moving mountains, from the far coast of Labrador. We were already in blue water, though the bold cliffs that were to form our departing point were but a few miles to leeward. There lay the lofty bluff of Old Kinsale, whose crest, overhanging, peered from a summit of some hundred feet into the deep water that swept its rocky base, many a tangled lichen and straggling bough trailing in the flood beneath. Here and there upon the coast a twinkling gleam proclaimed the hut of the fisherman, whose swift hookers had more than once shot by us and disappeared in a moment. The wind, which began to fall at sunset, freshened as the moon rose; and the good ship, bending to the breeze, lay gently over, and rushed through the waters with a sound of gladness. I was alone upon the deck. Power and the captain, whom I expected to have found, had disappeared somehow, and I was, after all, not sorry to be left to my own reflections uninterrupted.
My thoughts turned once more to my home, – to my first, my best, earliest friend, whose hearth I had rendered lonely and desolate, and my heart sank within me as I remembered it. How deeply I reproached myself for the selfish impetuosity with which I had ever followed any rising fancy, any new and sudden desire, and never thought of him whose every hope was in, whose every wish was for me. Alas! alas, my poor uncle! how gladly would I resign every prospect my soldier’s life may hold out, with all its glittering promise, and all the flattery of success, to be once more beside you; to feel your warm and manly grasp; to see your smile; to hear your voice; to be again where all our best feelings are born and nurtured, our cares assuaged, our joys more joyed in, and our griefs more wept, – at home! These very words have more music to my ears than all the softest strains that ever siren sung. They bring us back to all we have loved, by ties that are never felt but through such simple associations. And in the earlier memories called up, our childish feelings come back once more to visit us like better spirits, as we walk amidst the dreary desolation that years of care and uneasiness have spread around us.
Wretched must he be who ne’er has felt such bliss; and thrice happy he who, feeling it, knows that still there lives for him that same early home, with all its loved inmates, its every dear and devoted object waiting his coming and longing for his approach.
Such were my thoughts as I stood gazing at the bold line of coast now gradually growing more and more dim while evening fell, and we continued to stand farther out to sea. So absorbed was I all this time in my reflections, that I never heard the voices which now suddenly burst upon my ears quite close beside me. I turned, and saw for the first time that at the end of the quarter-deck stood what is called a roundhouse, a small cabin, from which the sounds in question proceeded. I walked gently forward and peeped in, and certainly anything more in contrast with my late revery need not be conceived. There sat the skipper, a bluff, round-faced, jolly-looking little tar, mixing a bowl of punch at a table, at which sat my friend Power, the adjutant, and a tall, meagre-looking Scotchman, whom I once met in Cork, and heard that he was the doctor of some infantry regiment. Two or three black bottles, a paper of cigars, and a tallow candle were all the table equipage; but certainly the party seemed not to want for spirits and fun, to judge from the hearty bursts of laughing that every moment pealed forth, and shook the little building that held them. Power, as usual with him, seemed to be taking the lead, and was evidently amusing himself with the peculiarities of his companions.
“Come, Adjutant, fill up; here’s to the campaign before us. We, at least, have nothing but pleasure in the anticipation; no lovely wife behind; no charming babes to fret and be fretted for, eh?”
“Vara true,” said the doctor, who was mated with a tartar, “ye maun have less regrets at leaving hame; but a married man is no’ entirely denied his ain consolations.”
“Good sense in that,” said the skipper; “a wide berth and plenty of sea room are not bad things now and then.”
“Is that your experience also?” said Power, with a knowing look. “Come, come, Adjutant, we’re not so ill off, you see; but, by Jove, I can’t imagine how it is a man ever comes to thirty without having at least one wife, – without counting his colonial possessions of course.”
“Yes,” said the adjutant, with a sigh, as he drained his glass to the bottom. “It is devilish strange, – woman, lovely woman!” Here he filled and drank again, as though he had been proposing a toast for his own peculiar drinking.
“I say, now,” resumed Power, catching at once that there was something working in his mind, – “I say, now, how happened it that you, a right good-looking, soldier-like fellow, that always made his way among the fair ones, with that confounded roguish eye and slippery tongue, – how the deuce did it come to pass that you never married?”
“I’ve been more than once on the verge of it,” said the adjutant, smiling blandly at the flattery.
“And nae bad notion yours just to stay there,” said the doctor, with a very peculiar contortion of countenance.
