Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 41

"'Any news from Batavia, young gentleman?' said the sallow old lady addressed. 'How is coffee!'

"The general pa.s.sed on, introducing me rapidly as he went.

"'Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Sparks.'

"'Ah, how do you do, old boy?' said Mr. Doolittle; 'sit down beside me. We have forty thousand acres of pickled cabbage spoiling for want of a little vinegar.'

"'Fie, fie, Mr. Doolittle,' said the general, and pa.s.sed on to another.

"'Mr. Sparks, Captain Crosstree.'

"'Ah, Sparks, Sparks! son of old Blazes! ha, ha, ha!' and the captain fell back into an immoderate fit of laughter.

"_'Le Rio est serci_,' said the thin meagre figure in nankeens, bowing, cap in hand, before the general; and accordingly, we all a.s.sumed our places upon the gra.s.s.

"'Say it again! Say it again, and I'll plunge this dagger in your heart!'

said a hollow voice, tremulous with agitation and rage, close beside me. I turned my head, and saw an old gentleman with a wart on his nose, sitting opposite a meat-pie, which he was contemplating with a look of fiery indignation. Before I could witness the sequel of the scene, I felt a soft hand pressed upon mine. I turned. It was Isabella herself, who, looking at me with an expression I shall never forget, said:--

"'Don't mind poor Faddy; he never hurts any one.'

"Meanwhile the business of dinner went on rapidly. The servants, of whom enormous numbers were now present, ran hither and thither; and duck, ham, pigeon-pie, cold veal, apple tarts, cheese, pickled salmon, melon, and rice pudding, flourished on every side. As for me, whatever I might have gleaned from the conversation around under other circ.u.mstances, I was too much occupied with Isabella to think of any one else. My suit--for such it was--progressed rapidly. There was evidently something favorable in the circ.u.mstances we last met under; for her manner had all the warmth and cordiality of old friendship. It is true that, more than once, I caught the general's eye fixed upon us with anything but an expression of pleasure, and I thought that Isabella blushed and seemed confused also. 'What care I?' however, was my reflection; 'my views are honorable; and the nephew and heir of Sir Toby Sparks--' Just in the very act of making this reflection, the old man in the shorts. .h.i.t me in the eye with a roasted apple, calling out at the moment:--

"'When did you join, thou child of the pale-faces?'

"'Mr. Murdocks!' cried the general, in a voice of thunder; and the little man hung down his head, and spoke not.

"'A word with you, young gentleman,' said a fat old lady, pinching my arm above the elbow.

"'Never mind her,' said Isabella, smiling; 'poor dear old Dorking, she thinks she's an hour-gla.s.s. How droll, isn't it?'

"'Young man, have you any feelings of humanity?' inquired the old lady, with tears in her eyes as she spoke; 'will you, dare you a.s.sist a fellow-creature under my sad circ.u.mstances?'

"'What can I do for you, Madam?' said I, really feeling for her distress.

"'Just like a good dear soul, just turn me up, for I'm nearly run out.'

"Isabella burst out a laughing at the strange request,--an excess which, I confess, I was unable myself to repress; upon which the old lady, putting on a frown of the most ominous blackness, said:--

"'You may laugh, Madam; but first before you ridicule the misfortunes of others, ask yourself are you, too, free from infirmity? When did you see the ace of spades, Madam? Answer me that.'

"Isabella became suddenly pale as death; her very lips blanched, and her voice, almost inaudible, muttered:--

"'Am I, then, deceived? Is not this he?' So saying, she placed her hand upon my shoulder.

"'That the ace of spades?' exclaimed the old lady, with a sneer,--'that the ace of spades!'

"'Are you, or are you not, sir?' said Isabella, fixing her deep and languid eyes upon me. 'Answer me, as you are honest; are you the ace of spades?'

"'He is the King of Tuscarora. Look at his war paint!' cried an elderly gentleman, putting a streak of mustard across my nose and cheek.

"'Then am I deceived,' said Isabella. And flying at me, she plucked a handful of hair out of my whiskers.

"'Cuckoo, cuckoo!' shouted one; 'Bow-wow-wow!' roared another; 'Phiz!' went a third; and in an instant, such a scene of commotion and riot ensued.

Plates, dishes, knives, forks, and decanters flew right and left; every one pitched into his neighbor with the most fearful cries, and h.e.l.l itself seemed broke loose. The hour-gla.s.s and the Moulah of Oude had got me down and were pummelling me to death, when a short, thickset man came on all fours slap down upon them shouting out, 'Way, make way for the royal Bengal tiger!' at which they both fled like lightning, leaving me to the encounter single-handed. Fortunately, however, this was not of very long duration, for some well-disposed Christians pulled him from off me; not, however, before he had seized me in his grasp, and bitten off a portion of my left ear, leaving me, as you see, thus mutilated for the rest of my days."

"What an extraordinary club," broke in the doctor.

"Club, sir, club! it was a lunatic asylum. The general was no other than the famous Dr. Andrew Moorville, that had the great madhouse at Bangor, and who was in the habit of giving his patients every now and then a kind of country party; it being one remarkable feature of their malady that when one takes to his peculiar flight, whatever it be, the others immediately take the hint and go off at score. Hence my agreeable adventure: the Bengal tiger being a Liverpool merchant, and the most vivacious madman in England; while the hour-gla.s.s and the Moulah were both on an experimental tour to see whether they should not be p.r.o.nounced totally incurable for life."

"And Isabella?" inquired Power.

"Ah, poor Isabella had been driven mad by a card-playing aunt at Bath, and was in fact the most hopeless case there. The last words I heard her speak confirmed my mournful impression of her case,--

"'Yes,' said she, as they removed her to her carriage, 'I must, indeed, have but a weak intellect, when I could have taken the nephew of a Manchester cotton-spinner, with a face like a printed calico, for a trump card, and the best in the pack!'"

Poor Sparks uttered these last words with a faltering accent, and finishing his gla.s.s at one draught withdrew without wishing us good-night.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

THE SKIPPER.

In such like gossipings pa.s.sed our days away, for our voyage itself had nothing of adventure or incident to break its dull monotony; save some few hours of calm, we had been steadily following our seaward track with a fair breeze, and the long pennant pointed ever to the land where our ardent expectations were hurrying before it.

The latest accounts which had reached us from the Peninsula told that our regiment was almost daily engaged; and we burned with impatience to share with the others the glory they were reaping. Power, who had seen service, felt less on this score than we who had not "fleshed our maiden swords;"

but even he sometimes gave way, and when the wind fell toward sunset, he would break out into some exclamation of discontent, half fearing we should be too late. "For," said he, "if we go on in this way the regiment will be relieved and ordered home before we reach it."

"Never fear, my boys, you'll have enough of it. Both sides like the work too well to give in; they've got a capital ground and plenty of spare time," said the major.

"Only to think," cried Power, "that we should be lounging away our idle hours when these gallant fellows are in the saddle late and early. It is too bad; eh, O'Malley? You'll not be pleased to go back with the polish on your sabre? What will Lucy Dashwood say?"

This was the first allusion Power had ever made to her, and I became red to the very forehead.

"By-the-bye," added he, "I have a letter for Hammersley, which should rather have been entrusted to your keeping."

At these words I felt cold as death, while he continued:--

"Poor fellow! certainly he is most desperately smitten; for, mark me, when a man at his age takes the malady, it is forty times as severe as with a younger fellow, like you. But then, to be sure, he began at the wrong end in the matter; why commence with papa? When a man has his own consent for liking a girl, he must be a contemptible fellow if he can't get her; and as to anything else being wanting, I don't understand it. But the moment you begin by influencing the heads of the house, good-by to your chances with the dear thing herself, if she have any spirit whatever. It is, in fact, calling on her to surrender without the honors of war; and what girl would stand that?"

"It's vara true," said the doctor; "there's a strong speerit of opposition in the s.e.x, from physiological causes."

"Curse your physiology, old Galen; what you call opposition, is that piquant resistance to oppression that makes half the charm of the s.e.x.

It is with them--with reverence be it spoken--as with horses: the dull, heavy-shouldered ones, that bore away with the bit in their teeth, never caring whether you are pulling to the right or to the left, are worth nothing; the real luxury is in the management of your arching-necked curvetter, springing from side to side with every motion of your wrist, madly bounding at restraint, yet, to the practised hand, held in check with a silk tread. Eh, Skipper, am I not right?"

"Well, I can't say I've had much to do with horse-beasts, but I believe you're not far wrong. The lively craft that answers the helm quick, goes round well in stays, luffs up close within a point or two, when you want her, is always a good sea-boat, even though she pitches and rolls a bit; but the heavy lugger that never knows whether your helm is up or down, whether she's off the wind or on it, is only fit for firewood,--you can do nothing with a ship or a woman if she hasn't got steerage way on her."