Inn at Bethgelert—Delectable Company—Lieutenant P—.
The inn, or hotel, at Bethgelert, was a large and commodious building,
and was anything but thronged with company; what company, however, there
was, was disagreeable enough, perhaps more so than that in which I had
been the preceding evening, which was composed of the scum of Manchester
and Liverpool; the company amongst which I now was consisted of some
seven or eight individuals, two of them were military puppies, one a
tallish fellow, who, though evidently upwards of thirty, affected the
airs of a languishing girl, and would fain have made people believe that
he was dying of ennui and lassitude. The other was a short spuddy
fellow, with a broad, ugly face, and with spectacles on his nose, who
talked very consequentially about “the service” and all that, but whose
tone of voice was coarse, and his manner that of an under-bred person;
then there was an old fellow about sixty-five, a civilian, with a red,
carbuncled face; he was father of the spuddy military puppy, on whom he
occasionally cast eyes of pride and almost adoration, and whose sayings
he much applauded, especially certain double entendres, to call them by
no harsher term, directed to a fat girl, weighing some fifteen stone, who
officiated in the coffee-room as waiter. Then there was a creature to do
justice to whose appearance would require the pencil of a Hogarth. He
was about five feet three inches and a quarter high, and might have
weighed, always provided a stone weight had been attached to him, about
half as much as the fat girl. His countenance was cadaverous, and was
eternally agitated, by something between a grin and a simper. He was
dressed in a style of superfine gentility, and his skeleton fingers were
bedizened with tawdry rings. His conversation was chiefly about his bile
and his secretions, the efficacy of licorice in producing a certain
effect, and the expediency of changing one’s linen at least three times a
day; though had he changed his six I should have said that the
purification of the last shirt would have been no sinecure to the
laundress. His accent was decidedly Scotch: he spoke familiarly of
Scott, and one or two other Scotch worthies, and more than once
insinuated that he was a member of Parliament. With respect to the rest
of the company I say nothing, and for the very sufficient reason that,
unlike the above described batch, they did not seem disposed to be
impertinent towards me.
Eager to get out of such society, I retired early to bed. As I left the
room the diminutive Scotch individual was describing to the old
simpleton, who, on the ground of the other’s being a “member,” was
listening to him with extreme attention, how he was labouring under an
excess of bile, owing to his having left his licorice somewhere or other.
I passed a quiet night, and in the morning breakfasted, paid my bill, and
departed. As I went out of the coffee-room, the spuddy, broad-faced
military puppy with spectacles was vociferating to the languishing
military puppy, and to his old simpleton of a father, who was listening
to him with his usual look of undisguised admiration, about the absolute
necessity of kicking Lieutenant P— out of the army for having disgraced
“the service.” Poor P—, whose only crime was trying to defend himself
with fist and candlestick from the manual attacks of his brutal
messmates.