A RECOGNITION.
The most pleasing part about retrospect is the memory of our bygone hopes.
The past, however happy, however blissful, few would wish to live over
again; but who is there that does not long for, does not pine after the
day-dream which gilded the future, which looked ever forward to the time to
come as to a realization of all that was dear to us, lightening our present
cares, soothing our passing sorrows by that one thought?
Life is marked out in periods in which, like stages in a journey, we rest
and repose ourselves, casting a look, now back upon the road we have been
travelling, now throwing a keener glance towards the path left us. It is at
such spots as these remembrance comes full upon us, and that we feel how
little our intentions have swayed our career or influenced our actions;
the aspirations, the resolves of youth, are either looked upon as puerile
follies, or a most distant day settled on for their realization. The
principles we fondly looked to, like our guide-stars, are dimly visible,
not seen; the friends we cherished are changed and gone; the scenes
themselves seem no longer the sunshine and the shade we loved; and, in
fact, we are living in a new world, where our own altered condition gives
the type to all around us; the only link that binds us to the past being
that same memory that like a sad curfew tolls the twilight of our fairest
dreams and most cherished wishes.
That these glimpses of the bygone season of our youth should be but fitful
and passing--tinging, not coloring the landscape of our life--we should be
engaged in all the active bustle and turmoil of the world, surrounded by
objects of hope, love, and ambition, stemming the strong tide in whose
fountain is fortune.
He, however, who lives apart, a dreary and a passionless existence, will
find that in the past, more than in the future, his thoughts have found
their resting-place; memory usurps the place of hope, and he travels
through life like one walking onward; his eyes still turning towards some
loved forsaken spot, teeming with all the associations of his happiest
hours, and preserving, even in distance, the outline that he loved.
Distance in time, as in space, smooths down all the inequalities of
surface; and as the cragged and rugged mountain, darkened by cliff and
precipice, shows to the far-off traveller but some blue and misty mass,
so the long-lost-sight-of hours lose all the cares and griefs that tinged
them, and to our mental eye, are but objects of uniform loveliness and
beauty; and if we do not think of
“The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood’s years,”
it is because, like April showers, they but checker the spring of our
existence.
For myself, baffled in hope at a period when most men but begin to feel it,
I thought myself much older than I really was; the disappointments of the
world, like the storms of the ocean, impart a false sense of experience to
the young heart, as he sails forth upon his voyage; and it is an easy error
to mistake trials for time.
The goods of fortune by which I was surrounded, took nothing from the
bitterness of my retrospect; on the contrary, I could not help feeling that
every luxury of my life was bought by my surrender of that career which had
elated me in my own esteem, and which, setting a high and noble ambition
before me, taught me to be a man.
To be happy, one must not only fulfil the duties and exactions of his
station, but the station itself must answer to his views and aspirations
in life. Now, mine did not sustain this condition: all that my life had
of promise was connected with the memory of her who never could share my
fortunes; of her for whom I had earned praise and honor; becoming ambitious
as the road to her affection, only to learn after, that my hopes were but a
dream, and my paradise a wilderness.
While thus the inglorious current of my life ran on, I was not indifferent
to the mighty events the great continent of Europe was witnessing. The
successes of the Peninsular campaign; the triumphant entry of the
British into France; the downfall of Napoleon; the restoration of the
Bourbons,--followed each other with the rapidity of the most common-place
occurrences; and in the few short years in which I had sprung from boyhood
to man’s estate, the whole condition of the world was altered. Kings
deposed; great armies disbanded; rightful sovereigns restored to their
dominions; banished and exiled men returned to their country, invested with
rank and riches; and peace, in the fullest tide of its blessings, poured
down upon the earth devastated and blood-stained.
Years passed on; and between the careless abandonment to the mere amusement
of the hour, and the darker meditation upon the past, time slipped away.
From my old friends and brother officers I heard but rarely. Power, who at
first wrote frequently, grew gradually less and less communicative. Webber,
who had gone to Paris at the peace, had written but one letter; while, from
the rest, a few straggling lines were all I received. In truth be it told,
my own negligence and inability to reply cost me this apparent neglect.
It was a fine evening in May, when, rigging up a sprit-sail, I jumped into
my yawl, and dropped easily down the river. The light wind gently curled
the crested water, the trees waved gently and shook their branches in the
breeze, and my little barque, bending slightly beneath, rustled on her
foamy track with that joyous bounding motion so inspiriting to one’s
heart. The clouds were flying swiftly past, tinging with their shadows the
mountains beneath; the Munster shore, glowing with a rich sunlight, showed
every sheep-cot and every hedge-row clearly out, while the deep shadow of
tall Scariff darkened the silent river where Holy Island, with its ruined
churches and melancholy tower, was reflected in the still water.
It was a thoroughly Irish landscape: the changeful sky; the fast-flitting
shadows; the brilliant sunlight; the plenteous fields; the broad and
swelling stream; the dark mountain, from whose brown crest a wreath of thin
blue smoke was rising,--were all there smiling yet sadly, like her own
sons, across whose lowering brow some fitful flash of fancy ever playing
dallies like sunbeams on a darkening stream, nor marks the depth that lies
below.
I sat musing over the strange harmony of Nature with the temperament of
man, every phase of his passionate existence seeming to have its type in
things inanimate, when a loud cheer from the land aroused me, and the
words, “Charley! Cousin Charley!” came wafted over the water to where
I lay. For some time I could but distinguish the faint outline of some
figures on the shore; but as I came nearer, I recognized my fair cousin
Baby, who, with a younger brother of some eight or nine years old, was
taking an evening walk.
“Do you know, Charley,” said she, “the boys have gone over to the castle to
look for you; we want you particularly this evening.”
“Indeed, Cousin Baby! Well, I fear you must make my excuses.”
“Then, once for all, I will not. I know this is one of your sulky moods,
and I tell you frankly I’ll not put up with them any more.”
“No, no, Baby, not so; out of spirits if you will, but not out of temper.”
“The distinction is much too fine for me, if there be any. But there now,
do be a good fellow; come up with us--come up with me!”
As she said this she placed her arm within mine. I thought, too,--perhaps
it was but a thought,--she pressed me gently. I know she blushed and turned
away her head to hide it.
“I don’t pretend to be proof to your entreaty, Cousin Baby,” said I, with
half-affected gallantry, putting her fingers to my lips.
“There, how can you be so foolish; look at William yonder; I am sure he
must have seen you!” But William, God bless him! was bird’s-nesting or
butterfly-hunting or daisy-picking or something of that kind.
O ye young brothers, who, sufficiently old to be deemed companions and
_chaperons_, but yet young enough to be regarded as having neither eyes nor
ears, what mischief have ye to answer for; what a long reckoning of tender
speeches, of soft looks, of pressed hands, lies at your door! What an
incentive to flirtation is the wily imp who turns ever and anon from his
careless gambols to throw his laughter-loving eyes upon you, calling up the
mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your
dalliance, making your secrets known unto each other. We have gone through
our share of flirtation in this life: match-making mothers, prying aunts,
choleric uncles, benevolent and open-hearted fathers, we understand to the
life, and care no more for such man-traps than a Melton man, well mounted
on his strong-boned thorough-bred, does for a four-barred ox-fence that
lies before him. Like him, we take them flying; never relaxing the slapping
stride of our loose gallop, we go straight ahead, never turning aside,
except for a laugh at those who flounder in the swamps we sneer at. But we
confess honestly, we fear the little, brother, the small urchin who, with
nankeen trousers and three rows of buttons, performs the part of Cupid. He
strikes real terror into our heart; he it is who, with a cunning wink or
sly smile, seems to confirm the soft nonsense we are weaving; by some
slight gesture he seems to check off the long reckoning of our attentions,
bringing us every moment nearer to the time when the score must be settled
and the debt paid. He it is who, by a memory delightfully oblivious of
his task and his table-book, is tenacious to the life of what you said
to Fanny; how you put your head under Lucy’s bonnet; he can imitate to
perfection the way you kneeled upon the grass; and the wretch has learned
to smack his lips like a _gourmand_, that he, may convey another stage of
your proceeding.
Oh, for infant schools for everything under the age of ten! Oh, for
factories for the children of the rich! The age of prying curiosity is from
four-and-a-half to nine, and Fonché himself might get a lesson in _police_
from an urchin in his alphabet.
I contrived soon, however, to forget the presence of even the little
brother. The night was falling; Baby appeared getting fatigued with her
walk, for she leaned somewhat more heavily upon my arm, and I--I cannot
tell wherefore--fell into that train of thinking aloud, which somehow, upon
a summer’s eve, with a fair girl beside one, is the very nearest thing to
love-making.
“There, Charley, don’t now--ah, don’t! Do let go my hand; they are coming
down the avenue.”
I had scarcely time to obey the injunction, when Mr. Blake called out:--
“Well, indeed! Charley, this is really fortunate; we have got a friend to
take tea with us, and wanted you to meet him.”
Muttering an internal prayer for something not exactly the welfare of the
aforesaid friend, whom I judged to be some Galway squire, I professed aloud
the pleasure I felt in having come in so opportunely.
“He wishes particularly to make your acquaintance.”
“So much the worse,” thought I to myself; “it rarely happens that this
feeling is mutual.”
Evidently provoked at the little curiosity I exhibited, Blake added,--
“He’s on his way to Fermoy with a detachment.”
“Indeed! what regiment, pray?”
“The 28th Foot.”
“Ah, I don’t know them.”
By this time we reached the steps of the hall-door, and just as we did so,
the door opened suddenly, and a tall figure in uniform presented himself.
With one spring he seized my hand and nearly wrung it off.
“Why what,” said I, “can this be? Is it really--”
“Sparks,” said he,--“your old friend Sparks, my boy; I’ve changed into the
infantry, and here I am. Heard by chance you were in the neighborhood; met
Mr. Blake, your friend here, at the inn, and accepted his invitation to
meet you.”
Poor Sparks, albeit the difference in his costume, was the same as ever.
Having left the Fourteenth soon after I quitted them, he knew but little of
their fortunes; and he himself had been on recruiting stations nearly the
whole time since we had met before.
While we each continued to extol the good fortune of the other,--he mine as
being no longer in the service, and I his for still being so,--we learned
the various changes which had happened to each of us during our separation.
Although his destination was ultimately Fermoy, Portumua was ordered to
be his present quarter; and I felt delighted to have once more an old
companion within reach, to chat over former days of campaigning and nights
of merriment in the Peninsula.
Sparks soon became a constant visitor and guest at Gurt-na-Morra; his good
temper, his easy habits, his simplicity of character, rapidly enabled him
to fall into all their ways; and although evidently not what Baby would
call “the man for Galway,” he endeavored with all his might to please every
one, and certainly succeeded to a considerable extent.
Baby alone seemed to take pleasure in tormenting the poor sub. Long before
she met with him having heard much from me of his exploits abroad, she was
continually bringing up some anecdote of his unhappy loves or mis-placed
passions; which he evidently smarted under the more, from the circumstance
that he appeared rather inclined to like my fair cousin.
As she continued this for some time, I remarked that Sparks, who at
first was all gayety and high spirits, grew gradually more depressed and
dispirited. I became convinced that the poor fellow was in love; very
little management on my part was necessary to obtain his confession; and
accordingly, the same evening the thought first struck me, as we were
riding slowly home towards O’Malley Castle, I touched at first generally
upon the merits of the Blakes, their hospitality, etc., then diverged to
the accomplishments and perfections of the girls, and lastly, Baby herself,
in all form, came up for sentence.
“Ah, yes!” said Sparks, with a deep sigh, “it is quite as you say; she is a
lovely girl; and that liveliness in her character, that elasticity in her
temperament, chastened down as it might be, by the feeling of respect for
the man she loved! I say, Charley, is it a very long attachment of yours?”
“A long attachment of mine! Why, my dear Sparks, you can’t suppose that
there is anything between us! I pledge you my word most faithfully.”
“Oh, no, don’t tell me that; what good can there be in mystifying me?”
“I have no such intention, believe me. My cousin Baby, however I like and
admire her, has no other place in my affection than a very charming girl
who has lightened a great many dreary and tiresome hours, and made my
banishment from the world less irksome than I should have found it without
her.”
“And you are really not in love?”
“Not a bit of it!”
“Nor going to marry her either?”
“Not the least notion of it!--a fact. Baby and I are excellent friends, for
the very reason that we were never lovers; we have had no _petits jeux_
of fallings out and makings up; no hide-and-seek trials of affected
indifference and real disappointments; no secrets, no griefs, nor grudges;
neither quarrels nor keepsakes. In fact, we are capital cousins; quizzing
every one for our own amusement; riding, walking, boating together; in
fact, doing and thinking of everything save sighs and declarations; always
happy to meet, and never broken-hearted when we parted. And I can only add,
as a proof of my sincerity, that if you feel as I suspect you do from your
questions, I’ll be your ambassador to the court of Gurt-na-Morra with
sincere pleasure.”
“Will you really? Will you, indeed, Charley, do this for me? Will you
strengthen my wishes by your aid, and give me all your influence with the
family?”
I could scarcely help smiling at poor Sparks’s eagerness, or the
unwarrantable value he put upon my alliance, in a case where his own
unassisted efforts did not threaten much failure.
“I repeat it, Sparks, I’ll make a proposal for you in all form, aided and
abetted by everything recommendatory and laudatory I can think of; I’ll
talk of you as a Peninsular of no small note and promise; and observe rigid
silence about your Welsh flirtation and your Spanish elopement.”
“You’ll not blab about the Dalrymples, I hope?”
“Trust me; I only hope you will be always equally discreet: but now--when
shall it be? Should you like to consider the matter more?”
“Oh, no, nothing of the kind; let it be to-morrow, at once, if I am to
fail; even that--anything’s better than suspense.”
“Well, then, to-morrow be it,” said I.
So I wished him a good-night, and a stout heart to hear his fortune withal.