My grandfather was a bold dragoon, for it’s a profession, d’ye
see, that has run in the family. All my forefathers have been
dragoons and died upon the field of honor except myself, and I
hope my posterity may be able to say the same; however, I don’t
mean to be vainglorious. Well, my grandfather, as I said, was a
bold dragoon, and had served in the Low Countries. In fact, he
was one of that very army, which, according to my uncle Toby,
“swore so terribly in Flanders.” He could swear a good stick
himself; and, moreover, was the very man that introduced the
doctrine Corporal Trim mentions, of radical heat and radical
moisture; or, in other words, the mode of keeping out the damps
of ditch water by burnt brandy. Be that as it may, it’s nothing
to the purport of my story. I only tell it to show you that my
grandfather was a man not easily to be humbugged. He had seen
service; or, according to his own phrase, “he had seen the
devil”—and that’s saying everything.
Well, gentlemen, my grandfather was on his way to England, for
which he intended to embark at Ostend;—bad luck to the place for
one where I was kept by storms and head winds for three long
days, and the divil of a jolly companion or pretty face to
comfort me. Well, as I was saying, my grandfather was on his way
to England, or rather to Ostend—no matter which, it’s all the
same. So one evening, towards nightfall, he rode jollily into
Bruges. Very like you all know Bruges, gentlemen, a queer,
old-fashioned Flemish town, once they say a great place for trade
and money-making, in old times, when the Mynheers were in their
glory; but almost as large and as empty as an Irishman’s pocket
at the present day.
Well, gentlemen, it was the time of the annual fair. All Bruges
was crowded; and the canals swarmed with Dutch boats, and the
streets swarmed with Dutch merchants; and there was hardly any
getting along for goods, wares, and merchandises, and peasants in
big breeches, and women in half a score of petticoats.
My grandfather rode jollily along in his easy, slashing way, for
he was a saucy, sunshiny fellow—staring about him at the motley
crowd, and the old houses with gable ends to the street and
storks’ nests on the chimneys; winking at the ya vrouws who
showed their faces at the windows, and joking the women right and
left in the street; all of whom laughed and took it in amazing
good part; for though he did not know a word of their language,
yet he always had a knack of making himself understood among the
women.
Well, gentlemen, it being the time of the annual fair, all the
town was crowded; every inn and tavern full, and my grandfather
applied in vain from one to the other for admittance. At length
he rode up to an old rackety inn that looked ready to fall to
pieces, and which all the rats would have run away from, if they
could have found room in any other house to put their heads. It
was just such a queer building as you see in Dutch pictures, with
a tall roof that reached up into the clouds; and as many garrets,
one over the other, as the seven heavens of Mahomet. Nothing had
saved it from tumbling down but a stork’s nest on the chimney,
which always brings good luck to a house in the Low Countries;
and at the very time of my grandfather’s arrival, there were two
of these long-legged birds of grace, standing like ghosts on the
chimney top. Faith, but they’ve kept the house on its legs to
this very day; for you may see it any time you pass through
Bruges, as it stands there yet; only it is turned into a
brewery—a brewery of strong Flemish beer; at least it was so when
I came that way after the battle of Waterloo.
My grandfather eyed the house curiously as he approached. It
might Not altogether have struck his fancy, had he not seen in
large letters over the door,