MAURICE.
It seemed a conceded matter between Power and myself that we should never
recur to the conversation we held in the garden; and so, although we dined
_tête-à-tête_ that day, neither of us ventured, by any allusion the most
distant, to advert to what it was equally evident was uppermost in the
minds of both.
All our endeavors, therefore, to seem easy and unconcerned were in vain;
a restless anxiety to seem interested about things and persons we were
totally indifferent to, pervaded all our essays at conversation. By
degrees, we grew weary of the parts we were acting, and each relapsed
into a moody silence, thinking over his plans and projects, and totally
forgetting the existence of the other.
The decanter was passed across the table without speaking, a half nod
intimated the bottle was standing; and except an occasional malediction
upon an intractable cigar, nothing was heard.
Such was the agreeable occupation we were engaged in, when, towards nine
o’clock, the door opened, and the great Maurice himself stood before us.
“Pleasant fellows, upon my conscience, and jovial over their liquor!
Confound your smoking! That may do very well in a bivouac. Let us have
something warm!”
Quill’s interruption was a most welcome one to both parties, and we
rejoiced with a sincere pleasure at his coming.
“What shall it be, Maurice? Port or sherry mulled, and an anchovy?”
“Or what say you to a bowl of bishop?” said I.
“Hurrah for the Church, Charley! Let us have the bishop; and not to
disparage Fred’s taste, we’ll be eating the anchovy while the liquor’s
concocting.”
“Well, Maurice, and now for the news. How are matters at Torres Vedras?
Anything like movement in that quarter?”
“Nothing very remarkable. Massena made a reconnoissance some days since,
and one of our batteries threw a shower of grape among the staff, which
spoiled the procession, and sent them back in very disorderly time. Then
we’ve had a few skirmishes to the front with no great results,--a few
courts-martial, bad grub, and plenty of grumbling.”
“Why, what would they have? It’s a great thing to hold the French army in
check within a few marches of Lisbon.”
“Charley, my man, who cares twopence for the French army or Lisbon or the
Portuguese or the Junta or anything about it?--every man is pondering over
his own affairs. One fellow wants to get home again, and be sent upon some
recruiting station. Another wishes to get a step or two in promotion, to
come to Torres Vedras, where even the _grande armée_ can’t. Then some of us
are in love, and some of us are in debt. Their is neither glory nor profit
to be had. But here’s the bishop, smoking and steaming with an odor of
nectar!”
“And our fellows, have you seen them lately?”
“I dined with yours on Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Yes. I dined with them.
By-the-bye, Sparks was taken prisoner that morning.”
“Sparks taken prisoner! Poor fellow. I am sincerely sorry. How did it
happen, Maurice?”
“Very simply. Sparks had a forage patrol towards Vieda, and set out early
in the morning with his party. It seemed that they succeeded perfectly, and
were returning to the lines, when poor Sparks, always susceptible where the
sex are concerned, saw, or thought he saw, a lattice gently open as he rode
from the village, and a very taper finger make a signal to him. Dropping a
little behind the rest, he waited till his men had debouched upon the road,
when riding quietly up, he coughed a couple of times to attract the fair
unknown; a handkerchief waved from the lattice in reply, which was speedily
closed, and our valiant cornet accordingly dismounted and entered the
house.
“The remainder of the adventure is soon told; for in a few seconds after,
two men mounted on one horse were seen galloping at top speed towards the
French lines,--the foremost being a French officer of the 4th Cuirassiers,
the gentleman with his face to the tail, our friend Sparks; the lovely
unknown being a _vieille moustache_ of Loison’s corps, who had been
wounded in a skirmish some days before, and lay waiting an opportunity of
rejoining his party. One of our prisoners knew this fellow well; he had
been promoted from the ranks, and was a Hercules for feats of strength; so
that, after all, Sparks could not help himself.”
“Well, I’m really sorry; but as you say, Sparks’s tender nature is always
the ruin of him.”
“Of him! ay, and of you; and of Power; and of myself; of all of us. Isn’t
it the sweet creatures that make fools of us from Father Adam down to
Maurice Quill, neither sparing age nor rank in the service, half-pay nor
the veteran battalion--it’s all one? Pass the jug, there. O’Shaughnessy--”
“Ah, by-the-bye, how’s the major?”
“Charmingly; only a little bit in a scrape just now. Sir Arthur--Lord
Wellington, I mean--had him up for his fellows being caught pillaging, and
gave him a devil of a rowing a few days ago.
“‘Very disorderly corps yours, Major O’Shaughnessy,’ said the general;
‘more men up for punishment than any regiment in the service.’
“Shaugh muttered something; but his voice was lost in a loud
cock-a-doo-do-doo, that some bold chanticleer set up at the moment.
“‘If the officers do their duty, Major O’Shaughnessy, these acts of
insubordination do not occur.’
“‘Cock-a-doo-do-doo,’ was the reply. Some of the staff found it hard not to
laugh; but the general went on,--
“‘If, therefore, the practice does not cease, I’ll draft the men into West
India regiments.’
“‘Cock-a-doo-do-doo.’
“‘And if any articles pillaged from the inhabitants are detected in the
quarters, or about the person of the troops--’
“‘Cock-a-doo-do-_doo_,’ screamed louder here than ever.
“‘Damn that cock! Where is it?’
“There was a general look around on all sides, which seemed in vain; when
a tremendous repetition of the cry resounded from O’Shaughnessy’s coat
pocket,--thus detecting the valiant major himself in the very practice of
his corps. There was no standing this: every one burst out into a peal of
laughing; and Lord Wellington himself could not resist, but turned away,
muttering to himself as he went, ‘Damned robbers--every man of them!’ while
a final war-note from the major’s pocket closed the interview.”
“Confound you, Maurice, you’ve always some villanous narrative or other.
You never crossed a street for shelter without making something out of it.”
“True this time, as sure as my name’s Maurice; but the bowl is empty.”
“Never mind, here comes its successor. How long can you stay among us?”
“A few days at most. Just took a run off to see the sights. I was all over
Lisbon this morning; saw the Inquisition and the cells and the place where
they tried the fellows,--the kind of grand jury room with the great picture
of Adam and Eve at the end of it. What a beautiful creature she is; hair
down to her waist, and such eyes! ‘Ah, ye darling!’ said I to myself,
‘small blame to him for what he did. Wouldn’t I ate every crab in the
garden, if ye asked me!’”
“I must certainly go to see her, Maurice. Is she very Portuguese in her
style?”
“Devil a bit of it! She might be a Limerick-woman with elegant brown hair
and blue eyes and a skin like snow.”
“Come, come, they’ve pretty girls in Lisbon too, Doctor.”
“Yes, faith,” said Power, “that they have.”
“Nothing like Ireland, boys; not a bit of it; they’re the girls for my
money; and where’s the man can resist them? From Saint Patrick, that had to
go and live in the Wicklow mountains--”
“Saint Kevin, you mean, Doctor.”
“Sure it’s all the same, they were twins. I made a little song about them
one evening last week,--the women I mean.”
“Let us have it, Maurice; let us have it, old fellow. What’s the measure?”
“Short measure; four little verses, devil a more!”
“But the time, I mean?”
“Whenever you like to sing it; here it is,”--
THE GIRLS OF THE WEST.
Air,--“_Teddy, ye Gander_.”
(_With feeling: but not too slow_.)
You may talk, if you please,
Of the brown Portuguese,
But wherever you roam, wherever you roam,
You nothing will meet,
Half so lovely or sweet,
As the girls at home, the girls at home.
Their eyes are not sloes,
Nor so long is their nose,
But between me and you, between me and you,
They are just as alarming,
And ten times more charming,
With hazel and blue, with hazel and blue.
They don’t ogle a man,
O’er the top of their fan
Till his heart’s in a flame, till his heart’s in a flame
But though bashful and shy,
They’ve a look in their eye
That just comes to the same, just comes to the same.
No mantillas they sport,
But a petticoat short
Shows an ankle the best, an ankle the best,
And a leg--but, O murther!
I dare not go further;
So here’s to the west, so here’s to the west.
“Now that really is a sweet little thing. Moore’s isn’t it?”
“Not a bit of it; my own muse, every word of it.”
“And the music?” said I.
“My own, too. Too much spice in that bowl; that’s an invariable error in
your devisers of drink, to suppose that the tipple you start with can
please your palate to the last; they forget that as we advance, either in
years or lush, our tastes simplify.”
“_Nous revenons à nos premières amours_. Isn’t that it?”
“No, not exactly, for we go even further; for if you mark the progression
of a sensible man’s fluids, you’ll find what an emblem of life it presents
to you. What is his initiatory glass of ‘Chablis’ that he throws down with
his oysters but the budding expectancy of boyhood,--the appetizing sense of
pleasure to come; then follows the sherry with his soup, that warming glow
which strength and vigor in all their consciousness impart, as a glimpse of
life is opening before him. Then youth succeeds--buoyant, wild, tempestuous
youth--foaming and sparkling like the bright champagne whose stormy surface
subsides into a myriad of bright stars.”
“_Oeil de perdrix_.”
“Not a bit of it; woman’s own eye, brilliant, sparkling, life-giving--”
“Devil take the fellow, he’s getting poetical!”
“Ah, Fred! if that could only last; but one must come to the burgundies
with his maturer years. Your first glass of hermitage is the algebraic sign
for five-and-thirty,--the glorious burst is over; the pace is still good,
to be sure, but the great enthusiasm is past. You can afford to look
forward, but confound it, you’ve along way to look back also.”
“I say, Charley, our friend has contrived to finish the bishop during his
disquisition; the bowl’s quite empty.”
“You don’t say so, Fred. To be sure, how a man does forget himself in
abstract speculations; but let us have a little more, I’ve not concluded my
homily.”
“Not a glass, Maurice; it’s already past nine. We are all pledged to
the masquerade, and before we’ve dressed and got there, ‘t will be late
enough.”
“But I’m not disguised yet, my boy, nor half.”
“Well, they must take you _au naturel_, as our countrymen do their
potatoes.”
“Yes, Doctor, Fred’s right; we had better start.”
“Well, I can’t help it; I’ve recorded my opposition to the motion, but I
must submit; and now that I’m on my legs, explain to me what’s that very
dull-looking old lamp up there?”
“That’s the moon, man; the full moon.”
“Well, I’ve no objection; I’m full too: so come along, lads.”