Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 54

"Why, do you know, these hurried movements put me out confoundedly. I found Lisbon very interesting,--the little I could see of it last night."

"Ah, my dear fellow, think of the lovely Andalusian la.s.ses with their brown transparent skins and liquid eyes. Why, you'd have been over head and ears in love in twenty-four hours more, had we stayed."

"Are they really so pretty?"

"Pretty! downright lovely, man. Why, they have a way of looking at you, over their fans,--just one glance, short and fleeting, but so melting, by Jove--Then their walk,--if it be not profane to call that springing, elastic gesture by such a name,--why, it's regular witchcraft. Sparks, my man, I tremble for you. Do you know, by-the-bye, that same pace of theirs is a devilish hard thing to learn. I never could come it; and yet, somehow, I was formerly rather a crack fellow at a ballet. Old Alberto used to select me for a _pas de zephyr_ among a host; but there's a kind of a hop and a slide and a spring,--in fact you must have been wearing petticoats for eighteen years, and have an Andalusian instep and an india-rubber sole to your foot, or it's no use trying it. How I used to make them laugh at the old San Josef convent, formerly, by my efforts in the cause!"

"Why, how did it ever occur to you to practise it?"

"Many a man's legs have saved his head, Charley, and I put it to mine to do a similar office for me."

"True; but I never heard of a man that performed a _pas seul_ before the enemy."

"Not exactly; but still you're not very wide of the mark. If you'll only wait till we reach Pontalegue, I'll tell you the story; not that it's worth the delay, but talking at this brisk pace I don't admire."

"You leave a detachment here, Captain Power," said an aide-de-camp, riding hastily up; "and General Cotton requests you will send a subaltern and two sergeants forward towards Berar to reconnoitre the pa.s.s. Franchesca's cavalry are reported in that quarter." So speaking, he dashed spurs to his horse, and was out of sight in an instant.

Power, at the same moment, wheeled to the rear, from which he returned in an instant, accompanied by three well-mounted light dragoons. "Sparks,"

said he, "now for an occasion of distinguishing yourself. You heard the order, lose no time; and as your horse is an able one, and fresh, lose not a second, but forward."

No sooner was Sparks despatched on what it was evident he felt to be anything but a pleasant duty, than I turned towards Power, and said, with some tinge of disappointment in the tone, "Well, if you really felt there was anything worth doing there, I flattered myself that--"

"Speak out man. That I should have sent you, eh? Is it not so?"

"Yes, you've hit it."

"Well, Charley, my peace is easily made on this head. Why, I selected Sparks simply to spare you one of the most unpleasant duties that can be imposed upon a man; a duty which, let him discharge it to the uttermost, will never be acknowledged, and the slightest failure in which will be remembered for many a day against him, besides the pleasant and very probable prospect of being selected as a bull's eye for a French rifle, or carried off a prisoner; eh, Charley? There's no glory in that, devil a ray of it! Come, come, old fellow, Fred Power's not the man to keep his friend out of the _melee_, if only anything can be made by being in it. Poor Sparks, I'd swear, is as little satisfied with the arrangement as yourself, if one knew but all."

"I say, Power," said a tall, dashing-looking man of about five-and-forty, with a Portuguese order on his breast,--"I say, Power, dine with us at the halt."

"With pleasure, if I may bring my young friend here."

"Of course; pray introduce us."

"Major Hixley, Mr. O'Malley,--a 14th man, Hixley."

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. O'Malley. Knew a famous fellow in Ireland of your name, a certain G.o.dfrey O'Malley, member for some county or other."

"My uncle," said I, blushing deeply, with a pleasurable feeling at even this slight praise of my oldest friend.

"Your uncle! give me your hand. By Jove, his nephew has a right to good treatment at my hands; he saved my life in the year '98. And how is old G.o.dfrey?"

"Quite well, when I left him some months ago; a little gout, now and then."

"To be sure he has, no man deserves it better; but it's a gentlemanlike gout that merely jogs his memory in the morning of the good wine he has drank over night. By-the-bye, what became of a friend of his, a devilish eccentric fellow who held a command in the Austrian service?"

"Oh, Considine, the count?"

"The same."

"As eccentric as ever; I left him on a visit with my uncle. And Boyle,--did you know Sir Harry Boyle?"

"To be sure I did; shall I ever forget him, and his capital blunders, that kept me laughing the whole time I spent in Ireland? I was in the house when he concluded a panegyric upon a friend, by calling him, 'the father to the poor, and uncle to Lord Donoughmore.'"

"He was the only man who could render by a bull what it was impossible to convey more correctly," said Power.

"You've heard of his duel with d.i.c.k Toler?"

"Never; let's hear it."

"It was a bull from beginning to end. Boyle took it into his head that d.i.c.k was a person with whom he had a serious row in Cork. d.i.c.k, on the other hand, mistook Boyle for old Caples, whom he had been pursuing with horse-whipping intentions for some months. They met in Kildare Street Club, and very little colloquy satisfied them that they were right in their conjectures, each party being so eagerly ready to meet the views of the other. It never was a difficult matter to find a friend in Dublin; and to do them justice, Irish seconds, generally speaking, are perfectly free from any imputation upon the score of mere delay. No men have less impertinent curiosity as to the cause of the quarrel; wisely supposing that the princ.i.p.als know their own affairs best, they cautiously abstain from indulging any prying spirit, but proceed to discharge their functions as best they may. Accordingly, Sir Harry and d.i.c.k were 'set up,' as the phrase is, at twelve paces, and to use Boyle's own words, for I have heard him relate the story,--

"We blazed away, sir, for three rounds. I put two in his hat and one in his neckcloth; his shots went all through the skirt of my coat.

"'We'll spend the day here,' says Considine, 'at this rate. Couldn't you put them closer?'

"'And give us a little more time in the word,' says I.

"'Exactly,' said d.i.c.k.

"Well, they moved us forward two paces, and set to loading the pistols again.

"By this time we were so near that we had full opportunity to scan each other's faces. Well, sir, I stared at him, and he at me.

"'What!' said I.

"'Eh!' said he.

"'How's this?' said I.

"'You're not Billy Caples?' said he.

"'Devil a bit!' said I, 'nor I don't think you are Archy Devine;' and faith, sir, so it appeared, we were fighting away all the morning for nothing; for, somehow, it turned out _it was neither of us!_"

What amused me most in this anecdote was the hearing it at such a time and place. That poor Sir Harry's eccentricities should turn up for discussion on a march in Portugal was singular enough; but after all, life is full of such incongruous accidents. I remember once supping with King Calzoo on the Blue Mountains, in Jamaica. By way of entertaining his guests, some English officers, he ordered one of his suite to sing. We were of course pleased at the opportunity of hearing an Indian war-chant, with a skull and thigh-bone accompaniment; but what was our astonishment to hear the Indian,--a ferocious-looking dog, with an awful scalp-lock, and two streaks of red paint across his chest,--clear his voice well for a few seconds, and then begin, without discomposing a muscle of his gravity, "The Laird of c.o.c.kpen!" I need not say that the "Great Racc.o.o.n" was a Dumfries man who had quitted Scotland forty years before, and with characteristic prosperity had attained his present rank in a foreign service.

"Halt! halt!" cried a deep-toned, manly voice in the leading column, and the word was repeated from mouth to mouth to the rear.

We dismounted, and picketing our horses beneath the broad-leaved foliage of the cork-trees, stretched ourselves out at full length upon the gra.s.s, while our messmen prepared the dinner. Our party at first consisted of Hixley, Power, the adjutant, and myself; but our number was soon increased by three officers of the 6th Foot, about to join their regiment.

"Barring the ladies, G.o.d bless them!" said Power, "there are no such picnics as campaigning presents. The charms of scenery are greatly enhanced by their coming unexpectedly on you. Your chance good fortune in the prog has an interest that no ham-and-cold-chicken affair, prepared by your servants beforehand, and got ready with a degree of fuss and worry that converts the whole party into an a.s.sembly of cooks, can ever afford; and lastly, the excitement that this same life of ours is never without, gives a zest--"

"There you've hit it," cried Hixley; "it's that same feeling of uncertainty that those who meet now may ever do so again, full as it is of sorrowful reflection, that still teaches us, as we become inured to war, to economize our pleasures, and be happy when we may. Your health, O'Malley, and your uncle G.o.dfrey's too."

"A little more of the pastry."

"What a capital guinea fowl this is!"

"That's some of old Monsoon's particular port."