Hôtel Des Bains, Ostend.
Dear Tom,--Here we are at last,--as tired and seasick a party as
ever landed on the same shore! Twenty-eight hours of it, from the St.
Katharine Docks, six of them bobbing opposite Margate in a fog,--ringing
a big bell all the time, and firing minute-guns, lest some thumping
India-man or a homeward-bound Peninsular should run into us,--and five
more sailing up and down before Ostend, till it was safe to cross the
bar, and enter the blackguard little harbor. The "Phoenix"--that was our
boat--started the night before the "Paul Jones" mail-packet, and we
only beat her by a neck, after all! And this was a piece of Mrs. Dodd's
economy: the "Phoenix" only charges "ten-and-six" for the first cabin;
but, what with the board for a day and night, boats to fetch you out,
and boats to fetch you in, brandy-and-water against the sickness,--much
good it was!--soda-water, stewards, and the devil knows what of broken
crockery,--James fell into the "cuddy," I think they call it,
and smashed two dozen and three wine-glasses, the most of a blue
tea-service, and a big tureen,--the economy turned out a "delusion and a
snare," as they say in the House. It 's over now, thank God! and, except
some bruises against the bulkheads and a touch of a jaundice, I 'm
nothing the worse. We landed at night, and were marched off in a gang to
the Custom House. Such a time I never spent before! for when they upset
all our things on the floor, there was no getting them into the trunks
again; and so we made our way through the streets, with shawls and muffs
and silk dresses all round us, like a set of play-actors. As for me, I
carried a turban in one hand, and a tray of artificial flowers in the
other, with a toque on my head and a bird-of-paradise feather in my
mouth. James fell, crossing the plank, with three bran-new frocks and a
bonnet of the girls', and a thing Mrs. D. calls a "visite,"--egad,
they made a visite of it, sure enough, and are likely to stay some time
there, for they are under some five feet of black mud, that has lain
there since before the memory of man. This was n't the worst of it;
for Mrs. D., not seeing very well in the dark, gave one of the passport
people a box on the ear that she meant for poor Paddy, and we were
hauled up before the police, and made pay thirty francs for "insulting
the authorities," with something written on our passport, besides,
describing my wife as a dangerous kind of woman, that ought to be looked
after. Poor Mathews had a funny song, that ran,--
"If ever you travel, it must n't seem queer
That you sometimes get rubs that you never get here."
But, faith, it appears to me that we have fallen in with a most uncommon
allowance of friction. Perhaps it's all for the best; and by a little
roughing at first, we'll the sooner accustom ourselves to our new
position.
You know that I never thought much of this notion of coming abroad,
but Mrs. D. was full of it, and gave me neither peace nor ease till I
consented. To be sure, if it only realizes the half of what she says,
it's a good speculation,--great economy, tip-top education for Tom and
the girls, elegant society without expense, fine climate, and wine for
the price of the bottles. I 'm sorry to leave Dodsborough.
I got into a way of living there that suited me; and even in the few
days I spent in London I was missing my morning's walk round the big
turnip-field, and my little gossip with Joe Moone. Poor Joe! don't let
him want while I 'm away, and be sure to give him his turf off our own
bog. We won't be able to drain the Lough meadows this year, for we 'll
want every sixpence we can lay our hands on for the start. Mrs. D. says,
"'T is the way you begin abroad decides everything;" and, faith, our
opening, up to this, has not been too prosperous.
I thought we 'd have got plenty of letters of recommendation for the
Continent while we were in London; but it is downright impossible to
see people there. Vickars, our member, was never at home, and Lord
Pummistone--I might besiege Downing Street from morning till night, and
never get a sight of him! I wrote as many as twenty letters, and it was
only when I bethought me of saying that the Whigs never did anything
except for people of the Grey, Elliott, or Dundas family, that he sent
me five lines, with a kind of introduction to any of the envoys or
plenipotentiaries I might meet abroad,--a roving commission after a
dinner,--sorrow more or less! I believe, however, that this is of no
consequence; at least, a most agreeable man, one Krauth, the sub-consul
at Moelendrach, somewhere in Holland, and who came over in the same
packet with us, tells me that people of condition, like us, find
their place in the genteel society abroad as naturally as a man with
moustaches goes to Leicester Square. That seems a comfort; for, between
me and you, the fighting and scrambling that goes on at home about
_who_ we 'll have, and who 'll have us, makes life little better than
an election shindy! K. is a mighty nice man, and full of information. He
appears to be rich, too, for Tom saw as many as thirteen gold watches
in his room; and he has chains and pins and brooches without end. He was
trying to persuade us to spend the winter at Moelendrach, where, besides
a heavenly climate, there are such beautiful walks on the dikes, and
elegant society! Mrs. D. does n't like it, however, for, though we 've
been looking all the morning, we can't find the place on the map;
but that does n't signify much, since even our post town of
Kellynnaignabacklish is put down in the "Gazetteer" "a small village on
the road to Bruff," and no mention whatever of the police-station, nor
Hannagin's school, nor the Pound. That's the way the blackguards make
books nowadays!
Mary Anne is all for Brussels, and, afterwards, Germany and the
Rhine; but we can fix upon nothing yet. Send me the letter of credit on
Brussels, in any case, for we 'll stay there, to look about us, a
few weeks. If the two townlands cannot be kept out of the "Encumbered
Estates," there 's no help for it; but sure any of our friends would
bid a trifle, and not see them knocked down at seven or eight years'
purchase. If Tullylicknaslatterley was drained, and the stones off it,
and a good top dressing of lime for two years, you 'd see as fine a crop
of oats there as ever you 'd wish; and there hasn't been an "outrage,"
as they call it, on the same land since they shot M'Shea, last
September; and when you consider the times, and the way winter set in
early, this year, 't is saying a good deal. I wish Prince Albert would
take some of these farms, as they said he would. Never mind enclosing
the town parks, we can't afford it just now; but mind that you look
after the preserves. If there 's a cock shot in the boundary-wood, I 'll
turn out every mother's son of the barony.
I was going to tell you about Nick Mahon's holding, but it's gone clean
out of my head, for I was called away to the police-office to bail out
Paddy Byrne, the dirty little spalpeen; I wish I never took him from
home. He saw a man running off with a yellow valise,--this is his
story,--and thinking it was mine, he gave him chase; he doubled and
turned,--now under an omnibus, now through a dark passage,--till Paddy
overtook him at last, and gave him a clippeen on the left ear, and
a neat touch of the foot that sent him sprawling. This done, Paddy
shouldered the spoil, and made for the inn; but what d' ye think? It
turned out to be another man's trunk, and Paddy was taken up for the
robbery; and what with the swearing of the police, Pat's yells, and
Mrs. D.'s French, I have passed such a half-hour as I hope never to
see again. Two "Naps." settled it all, however, and five francs to the
Brigadier, as well-dressed a chap as the Commander of the Forces at
home; but foreigners, it seems, are the devil for bribery. When I told
Pat I 'd stop it out of his wages, he was for rushing out, and taking
what he called the worth of his money out of the blackguard; so that I
had to lock him into my room, and there he is now, crying and screeching
like mad. This will be my excuse for anything I may make in way of
mistakes; for, to say truth, my head is fairly moidered! As it is,
we 've lost a trunk; and when Mrs. D. discovers that it was the one
containing all her new silk dresses, and a famous red velvet that was to
take the shine out of the Tuileries, we'll have the devil to pay! She's
in a blessed humor, besides, for she says she saw the Brigadier wink
at Mary Anne, and that it was a good kicking he deserved, instead of
a five-franc piece; and now she's turning on me in the vernacular,
in which, I regret to say, her fluency has no impediment. I must now
conclude, my dear Tom, for it 's quite beyond me to remember more than
that I am, as ever,
Your sincere friend,
Kenny I. Dodd.
Betty Cobb insists upon being sent home; this is more of it! The journey
will cost a ten-pound note, if Mrs. D. can't succeed in turning her off
of it. I 'm afraid the economy, at least, begins badly.