To this I made no answer. She would have drawn me into a conversation
about my feet in half a minute, and the slightest allusion to the
subject threw me into a fit of perspiration.
“Are you fond of hunting, Miss O’Conor?” asked I, blindly hurrying into
any other subject of conversation.
Miss O’Conor owned that she was fond of hunting--just a little; only
papa would not allow it. When the hounds met anywhere within reach of
Castle Conor, she and Kate would ride out to look at them; and if papa
was not there that day,--an omission of rare occurrence,--they would
ride a few fields with the hounds.
“But he lets Tizzy keep with them the whole day,” said she, whispering.
“And has Tizzy a pony of her own?”
“Oh yes, Tizzy has everything. She’s papa’s pet, you know.”
“And whose pet are you?” I asked.
“Oh--I am nobody’s pet, unless sometimes Jack makes a pet of me when
he’s in a good humour. Do you make pets of your sisters, Mr. Green?”
“I have none. But if I had I should not make pets of them.”
“Not of your own sisters?”
“No. As for myself, I’d sooner make a pet of my friend’s sister; a great
deal.”
“How very unnatural,” said Miss O’Conor, with the prettiest look of
surprise imaginable.
“Not at all unnatural I think,” said I, looking tenderly and lovingly
into her face. Where does one find girls so pretty, so easy, so sweet,
so talkative as the Irish girls? And then with all their talking and all
their ease who ever hears of their misbehaving? They certainly love
flirting as they also love dancing. But they flirt without mischief and
without malice.
I had now quite forgotten my misfortune, and was beginning to think how
well I should like to have Fanny O’Conor for my wife. In this frame of
mind I was bending over towards her as a servant took away a plate from
the other side, when a sepulchral note sounded in my ear. It was like
the memento mori of the old Roman;--as though some one pointed in the
midst of my bliss to the sword hung over my head by a thread. It was the
voice of Larry, whispering in his agony just above, my head--
“They’s disthroying my poor feet intirely, intirely; so they is! I can’t
bear it much longer, yer honer.” I had committed murder like Macbeth;
and now my Banquo had come to disturb me at my feast.
“What is it he says to you?” asked Fanny.
“Oh nothing,” I answered, once more in my misery.
“There seems to be some point of confidence between you and our Larry,”
she remarked.
“Oh no,” said I, quite confused; “not at all.”
“You need not be ashamed of it. Half the gentlemen in the county have
their confidences with Larry;--and some of the ladies too, I can tell
you. He was born in this house, and never lived anywhere else; and I am
sure he has a larger circle of acquaintance than any one else in it.”
I could not recover my self-possession for the next ten minutes.
Whenever Larry was on our side of the table I was afraid he was coming
to me with another agonised whisper. When he was opposite, I could not
but watch him as he hobbled in his misery. It was evident that the boots
were too tight for him, and had they been made throughout of iron they
could not have been less capable of yielding to the feet. I pitied him
from the bottom of my heart. And I pitied myself also, wishing that I
was well in bed upstairs with some feigned malady, so that Larry might
have had his own again.
And then for a moment I missed him from the room. He had doubtless gone
to relieve his tortured feet in the servants’ hall, and as he did so was
cursing my cruelty. But what mattered it? Let him curse. If he would
only stay away and do that, I would appease his wrath when we were alone
together with pecuniary satisfaction.
But there was no such rest in store for me. “Larry, Larry,” shouted Mr.
O’Conor, “where on earth has the fellow gone to?” They were all cousins
at the table except myself, and Mr. O’Conor was not therefore restrained
by any feeling of ceremony. “There is something wrong with that fellow
to-day; what is it, Jack?”
“Upon my word, sir, I don’t know,” said Jack.
“I think he must be tipsy,” whispered Miss O’Conor, the maiden sister,
who always sat at her brother’s left hand. But a whisper though it was,
it was audible all down the table.
“No, ma’am; it aint dhrink at all,” said the coachman. “It is his feet
as does it.”
“His feet!” shouted Tom O’Conor.
“Yes; I know it’s his feet,” said that horrid Tizzy. “He’s got on great
thick nailed shoes. It was that that made him tumble down in the hall.”
I glanced at each side of me, and could see that there was a certain
consciousness expressed in the face of each of my two neighbours;--on
Kate’s mouth there was decidedly a smile, or rather, perhaps, the
slightest possible inclination that way; whereas on Fanny’s part I
thought I saw something like a rising sorrow at my distress. So at least
I flattered myself.
“Send him back into the room immediately,” said Tom, who looked at me as
though he had some consciousness that I had introduced all this
confusion into his household. What should I do? Would it not be best for
me to make a clean breast of it before them all? But alas! I lacked the
courage.
The coachman went out, and we were left for five minutes without any
servant, and Mr. O’Conor the while became more and more savage. I
attempted to say a word to Fanny, but failed. Vox faucibus hæsit.
“I don’t think he has got any others,” said Tizzy--“at least none others
left.”
On the whole I am glad I did not marry into the family, as I could not
have endured that girl to stay in my house as a sister-in-law.
“Where the d---- has that other fellow gone to?” said Tom. “Jack, do go
out and see what is the matter. If anybody is drunk send for me.”
“Oh, there is nobody drunk,” said Tizzy.
Jack went out, and the coachman returned; but what was done and said I
hardly remember. The whole room seemed to swim round and round, and as
far as I can recollect the company sat mute, neither eating nor
drinking. Presently Jack returned.
“It’s all right,” said he. I always liked Jack. At the present moment he
just looked towards me and laughed slightly.
“All right?” said Tom. “But is the fellow coming?”
“We can do with Richard, I suppose,” said Jack.
“No--I can’t do with Richard,” said the father. “And I will know what it
all means. Where is that fellow Larry?”
Larry had been standing just outside the door, and now he entered gently
as a mouse. No sound came from his footfall, nor was there in his face
that look of pain which it had worn for the last fifteen minutes. But he
was not the less abashed, frightened, and unhappy.
“What is all this about, Larry?” said his master, turning to him. “I
insist upon knowing.”
“Och thin, Mr. Green, yer honer, I wouldn’t be afther telling agin yer
honer; indeed I wouldn’t thin, av’ the masther would only let me hould
my tongue.” And he looked across at me, deprecating my anger.
“Mr. Green!” said Mr. O’Conor.
“Yes, yer honer. It’s all along of his honor’s thick shoes;” and Larry,
stepping backwards towards the door, lifted them up from some corner,
and coming well forward, exposed them with the soles uppermost to the
whole table.
“And that’s not all, yer honer; but they’ve squoze the very toes of me
into a jelly.”
There was now a loud laugh, in which Jack and Peter and Fanny and Kate
and Tizzy all joined; as too did Mr. O’Conor--and I also myself after a
while.
“Whose boots are they?” demanded Miss O’Conor senior, with her severest
tone and grimmest accent.
“’Deed then and the divil may have them for me, Miss,” answered Larry.
“They war Mr. Green’s, but the likes of him won’t wear them agin afther
the likes of me--barring he wanted them very particular,” added he,
remembering his own pumps.
I began muttering something, feeling that the time had come when I must
tell the tale. But Jack with great good nature, took up the story and
told it so well, that I hardly suffered in the telling.
“And that’s it,” said Tom O’Conor, laughing till I thought he would have
fallen from his chair. “So you’ve got Larry’s shoes on--”
“And very well he fills them,” said Jack.
“And it’s his honer that’s welcome to ’em,” said Larry, grinning from
ear to ear now that he saw that “the masther” was once more in a good
humour.
“I hope they’ll be nice shoes for dancing,” said Kate.
“Only there’s one down at the heel I know,” said Tizzy.
“The servant’s shoes!” This was an exclamation made by the maiden lady,
and intended apparently only for her brother’s ear. But it was clearly
audible by all the party.
“Better that than no dinner,” said Peter.
“But what are you to do about the dancing?” said Fanny, with an air of
dismay on her face which flattered me with an idea that she did care
whether I danced or no.
In the mean time Larry, now as happy as an emperor, was tripping round
the room without any shoes to encumber him as he withdrew the plates
from the table.
“And it’s his honer that’s welcome to ’em,” said he again, as he pulled
off the table-cloth with a flourish. “And why wouldn’t he, and he able
to folly the hounds betther nor any Englishman that iver war in these
parts before,--anyways so Mick says!”
Now Mick was the huntsman, and this little tale of eulogy from Larry
went far towards easing my grief. I had ridden well to the hounds that
day, and I knew it.
There was nothing more said about the shoes, and I was soon again at my
ease, although Miss O’Conor did say something about the impropriety of
Larry walking about in his stocking feet. The ladies however soon
withdrew,--to my sorrow, for I was getting on swimmingly with Fanny; and
then we gentlemen gathered round the fire and filled our glasses.
In about ten minutes a very light tap was heard, the door was opened to
the extent of three inches, and a female voice which I readily
recognised called to Jack.
Jack went out, and in a second or two put his head back into the room
and called to me--“Green,” he said, “just step here a moment, there’s a
good fellow.” I went out, and there I found Fanny standing with her
brother.
“Here are the girls at their wits’ ends,” said he, “about your dancing.
So Fanny has put a boy upon one of the horses, and proposes that you
should send another line to Mrs. Meehan at Ballyglass. It’s only ten
miles, and he’ll be back in two hours.”
I need hardly say that I acted in conformity with this advice. I went
into Mr. O’Conor’s book room, with Jack and his sister, and there
scribbled a note. It was delightful to feel how intimate I was with
them, and how anxious they were to make me happy.
“And we won’t begin till they come,” said Fanny.
“Oh, Miss O’Conor, pray don’t wait,” said I.
“Oh, but we will,” she answered. “You have your wine to drink, and then
there’s the tea; and then we’ll have a song or two. I’ll spin it out;
see if I don’t.” And so we went to the front door where the boy was
already on his horse--her own nag as I afterwards found.
“And Patsey,” said she, “ride for your life; and Patsey, whatever you
do, don’t come back without Mr. Green’s pumps--his dancing-shoes you
know.”
And in about two hours the pumps did arrive; and I don’t think I ever
spent a pleasanter evening or got more satisfaction out of a pair of
shoes. They had not been two minutes on my feet before Larry was
carrying a tray of negus across the room in those which I had worn at
dinner.
“The Dillon girls are going to stay here,” said Fanny as I wished her
good night at two o’clock. “And we’ll have dancing every evening as long
as you remain.”
“But I shall leave to-morrow,” said I.
“Indeed you won’t. Papa will take care of that.”
And so he did. “You had better go over to Ballyglass yourself
to-morrow,” said he, “and collect your own things. There’s no knowing
else what you may have to borrow of Larry.”
I stayed there three weeks, and in the middle of the third I thought
that everything would be arranged between me and Fanny. But the aunt
interfered; and in about a twelvemonth after my adventures she consented
to make a more fortunate man happy for his life.
JOHN BULL ON THE GUADALQUIVIR.
I am an Englishman, living, as all Englishman should do, in England, and
my wife would not, I think, be well pleased were any one to insinuate
that she were other than an Englishwoman; but in the circumstances of my
marriage I became connected with the south of Spain, and the narrative
which I am to tell requires that I should refer to some of those
details.
The Pomfrets and Daguilars have long been in trade together in this
country, and one of the partners has usually resided at Seville for the
sake of the works which the firm there possesses. My father, James
Pomfret, lived there for ten years before his marriage; and since that
and up to the present period, old Mr. Daguilar has always been on the
spot. He was, I believe, born in Spain, but he came very early to
England; he married an English wife, and his sons had been educated
exclusively in England. His only daughter, Maria Daguilar, did not pass
so large a proportion of her early life in this country, but she came to
us for a visit at the age of seventeen, and when she returned I made up
my mind that I most assuredly would go after her. So I did, and she is
now sitting on the other side of the fireplace with a legion of small
linen habiliments in a huge basket by her side.
I felt, at the first, that there was something lacking to make my cup of
love perfectly delightful. It was very sweet, but there was wanting that
flower of romance which is generally added to the heavenly draught by a
slight admixture of opposition. I feared that the path of my true love
would run too smooth. When Maria came to our house, my mother and elder
sister seemed to be quite willing that I should be continually alone
with her; and she had not been there ten days before my father, by
chance, remarked that there was nothing old Mr. Daguilar valued so
highly as a thorough feeling of intimate alliance between the two
families which had been so long connected in trade. I was never told
that Maria was to be my wife, but I felt that the same thing was done
without words; and when, after six weeks of somewhat elaborate
attendance upon her, I asked her to be Mrs. John Pomfret, I had no more
fear of a refusal, or even of hesitation on her part, than I now have
when I suggest to my partner some commercial transaction of undoubted
advantage.
But Maria, even, at that age, had about her a quiet sustained decision
of character quite unlike anything I had seen in English girls. I used
to hear, and do still hear, how much more flippant is the education of
girls in France and Spain than in England; and I know that this is shown
to be the result of many causes--the Roman Catholic religion being,
perhaps, the chief offender; but, nevertheless, I rarely see in one of
our own young women the same power of a self-sustained demeanour as I
meet on the Continent. It goes no deeper than the demeanour, people say.
I can only answer that I have not found that shallowness in my own wife.
Miss Daguilar replied to me that she was not prepared with an answer;
she had only known me six weeks, and wanted more time to think about it;
besides, there was one in her own country with whom she would wish to
consult. I knew she had no mother; and as for consulting old Mr.
Daguilar on such a subject, that idea, I knew, could not have troubled
her. Besides, as I afterwards learned, Mr. Daguilar had already proposed
the marriage to his partner exactly as he would have proposed a division
of assets. My mother declared that Maria was a foolish chit--in which,
by-the-bye, she showed her entire ignorance of Miss Daguilar’s
character; my eldest sister begged that no constraint might be put on
the young lady’s inclinations--which provoked me to assert that the
young lady’s inclinations were by no means opposed to my own; and my
father, in the coolest manner, suggested that the matter might stand
over for twelve months, and that I might then go to Seville, and see
about it! Stand over for twelve months! Would not Maria, long before
that time, have been snapped up and carried off by one of those
inordinately rich Spanish grandees who are still to be met with
occasionally in Andalucia?
My father’s dictum, however, had gone forth; and Maria, in the calmest
voice, protested that she thought it very wise. I should be less of a
boy by that time, she said, smiling on me, but driving wedges between
every fibre of my body as she spoke. “Be it so,” I said, proudly. “At
any rate, I am not so much of a boy that I shall forget you.” “And,
John, you still have the trade to learn,” she added, with her
deliciously foreign intonation--speaking very slowly, but with perfect
pronunciation. The trade to learn! However, I said not a word, but
stalked out of the room, meaning to see her no more before she went. But
I could not resist attending on her in the hall as she started; and,
when she took leave of us, she put her face up to be kissed by me, as
she did by my father, and seemed to receive as much emotion from one
embrace as from the other. “He’ll go out by the packet of the 1st
April,” said my father, speaking of me as though I were a bale of goods.
“Ah! that will be so nice,” said Maria, settling her dress in the
carriage; “the oranges will be ripe for him then!”
On the 17th April I did sail, and felt still very like a bale of goods.
I had received one letter from her, in which she merely stated that her
papa would have a room ready for me on my arrival; and, in answer to
that, I had sent an epistle somewhat longer, and, as I then thought, a
little more to the purpose. Her turn of mind was more practical than
mine, and I must confess my belief that she did not appreciate my
poetry.
I landed at Cadiz, and was there joined by an old family friend, one of
the very best fellows that ever lived. He was to accompany me up as far
as Seville; and, as he had lived for a year or two at Xeres, was
supposed to be more Spanish almost than a Spaniard. His name was
Johnson, and he was in the wine trade; and whether for travelling or
whether for staying at home--whether for paying you a visit in your own
house, or whether for entertaining you in his--there never was (and I am
prepared to maintain there never will be) a stancher friend, a choicer
companion, or a safer guide than Thomas Johnson. Words cannot produce a
eulogium sufficient for his merits. But, as I have since learned, he was
not quite so Spanish as I had imagined. Three years among the bodegas of
Xeres had taught him, no doubt, to appreciate the exact twang of a good,
dry sherry; but not, as I now conceive, the exactest flavour of the true
Spanish character. I was very lucky, however, in meeting such a friend,
and now reckon him as one of the stanchest allies of the house of
Pomfret, Daguilar, and Pomfret.
He met me at Cadiz, took me about the town, which appeared to me to be
of no very great interest;--though the young ladies were all very well.
But, in this respect, I was then a Stoic, till such time as I might be
able to throw myself at the feet of her whom I was ready to proclaim
the most lovely of all the Dulcineas of Andalucia. He carried me up by
boat and railway to Xeres; gave me a most terrific headache, by dragging
me out into the glare of the sun, after I had tasted some half a dozen
different wines, and went through all the ordinary hospitalities. On the
next day we returned to Puerto, and from thence getting across to St.
Lucar and Bonanza, found ourselves on the banks of the Guadalquivir, and
took our places in the boat for Seville. I need say but little to my
readers respecting that far-famed river. Thirty years ago we in England
generally believed that on its banks was to be found a pure elysium of
pastoral beauty; that picturesque shepherds and lovely maidens here fed
their flocks in fields of asphodel; that the limpid stream ran cool and
crystal over bright stones and beneath perennial shade; and that
everything on the Guadalquivir was as lovely and as poetical as its
name. Now, it is pretty widely known that no uglier river oozes down to
its bourn in the sea through unwholesome banks of low mud. It is brown
and dirty; ungifted by any scenic advantage; margined for miles upon
miles by huge, flat, expansive fields, in which cattle are reared,--the
bulls wanted for the bull-fights among other; and birds of prey sit
constant on the shore, watching for the carcases of such as die. Such
are the charms of the golden Guadalquivir.
At first we were very dull on board that steamer. I never found myself
in a position in which there was less to do. There was a nasty smell
about the little boat which made me almost ill; every turn in the river
was so exactly like the last, that we might have been standing still;
there was no amusement except eating, and that, when once done, was not
of a kind to make an early repetition desirable. Even Johnson was
becoming dull, and I began to doubt whether I was so desirous as I once
had been to travel the length and breadth of all Spain. But about noon a
little incident occurred which did for a time remove some of our tedium.
The boat had stopped to take in passengers on the river; and, among
others, a man had come on board dressed in a fashion that, to my eyes,
was equally strange and picturesque. Indeed, his appearance was so
singular, that I could not but regard him with care, though I felt at
first averse to stare at a fellow-passenger on account of his clothes.
He was a man of about fifty, but as active apparently as though not more
than twenty-five; he was of low stature, but of admirable make; his hair
was just becoming grizzled, but was short and crisp and well cared for;
his face was prepossessing, having a look of good humour added to
courtesy, and there was a pleasant, soft smile round his mouth which
ingratiated one at the first sight. But it was his dress rather than his
person which attracted attention. He wore the ordinary Andalucian
cap--of which such hideous parodies are now making themselves common in
England--but was not contented with the usual ornament of the double
tuft. The cap was small, and jaunty; trimmed with silk velvet--as is
common here with men careful to adorn their persons; but this man’s cap
was finished off with a jewelled button and golden filigree work. He was
dressed in a short jacket with a stand-up collar; and that also was
covered with golden buttons and with golden button-holes. It was all
gilt down the front, and all lace down the back. The rows of buttons
were double; and those of the more backward row hung down in heavy
pendules. His waistcoat was of coloured silk--very pretty to look at;
and ornamented with a small sash, through which gold threads were
worked. All the buttons of his breeches also were of gold; and there
were gold tags to all the button-holes. His stockings were of the finest
silk, and clocked with gold from the knee to the ankle.
Dress any Englishman in such a garb and he will at once give you the
idea of a hog in armour. In the first place he will lack the proper
spirit to carry it off, and in the next place the motion of his limbs
will disgrace the ornaments they bear. “And so best,” most Englishmen
will say. Very likely; and, therefore, let no Englishman try it. But my
Spaniard did not look at all like a hog in armour. He walked slowly down
the plank into the boat, whistling lowly but very clearly a few bars
from an opera tune. It was plain to see that he was master of himself,
of his ornaments, and of his limbs. He had no appearance of thinking
that men were looking at him, or of feeling that he was beauteous in his
attire;--nothing could be more natural than his foot-fall, or the quiet
glance of his cheery gray eye. He walked up to the captain, who held the
helm, and lightly raised his hand to his cap. The captain, taking one
hand from the wheel, did the same, and then the stranger, turning his
back to the stern of the vessel, and fronting down the river with his
face, continued to whistle slowly, clearly, and in excellent time. Grand
as were his clothes they were no burden on his mind.
“What is he?” said I, going up to my friend Johnson, with a whisper.
“Well, I’ve been looking at him,” said Johnson--which was true enough;
“he’s a----an uncommonly good-looking fellow, isn’t he?”
“Particularly so,” said I; “and got up quite irrespective of expense. Is
he a--a--a gentleman, now, do you think?”
“Well, those things are so different in Spain, that it’s almost
impossible to make an Englishman understand them. One learns to know all
this sort of people by being with them in the country, but one can’t
explain.”