CHAPTER I.

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TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD"

Contents of this Volume

_Lazaro's Legacy. By Colonel E. B. Hamley_

_A Story without a Tail. By Dr Maginn_

_Faustus and Queen Elizabeth_

_How I became a Yeoman. By Professor Aytoun_

_Devereux Hall. By Mrs Southey_

_The Metempsychosis. By Dr Robert Macnish_

_College Theatricals_

William Blackwood and Sons

Edinburgh and London

TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD."

LAZARO'S LEGACY.

A TALE OF THE SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR.

BY COLONEL E. B. HAMLEY.

[_MAGA._ DECEMBER 1851.]

CHAPTER I.

The note-book of my grandfather, Major Flinders, contains much matter

relative to the famous siege of Gibraltar, and he seems to have kept an

accurate and minute journal of such of its incidents as came under his

own observation. Indeed, I suspect the historian Drinkwater must have

had access to it, as I frequently find the same notabilia chronicled in

pretty much the same terms by both these learned Thebans. But while

Drinkwater confines himself mostly to professional matters--the state

of the fortifications, nature of the enemy's fire, casualties to the

soldiery, and the like--and seldom introduces an anecdote interesting to

the generality of readers without apologising for such levity, my

grandfather's sympathies seem to have been engrossed by the sufferings

of the inhabitants deprived of shelter, as well as of sufficient

food, and helplessly witnessing the destruction of their property.

Consequently, his journal, though quite below the dignity of history,

affords, now and then, a tolerably graphic glimpse of the beleaguered

town.

From the discursive and desultory nature of the old gentleman's style,

as before hinted, it would be vain to look for a continuous narrative in

his journal, even if it contained materials for such. But here and there

a literary Jack Horner might extract a plum or two from the vast

quantity of dough--of reflections, quotations, and all manner of

irrelevant observations, surrounding them. The following incidents,

which occurred at the most interesting period of the long and tedious

siege, appear to me to give a fair idea of some of the characteristics

of the time, and of the personages who figured in it; and accordingly,

after subjecting them to a process analogous to gold-washing, I present

them to the reader.

After a strict blockade of six months, reducing the garrison to great

extremity for want of provisions, Gibraltar was relieved by Sir George

Rodney, who landed a large quantity of stores. But about a year after

his departure, no further relief having reached them except casual

supplies from trading vessels that came at a great risk to the Rock,

their exigencies were even worse than before. The issue of provisions

was limited in quantity, and their price so high, that the families,

even of officers, were frequently in dismal straits. This has given rise

to a wooden joke of my grandfather's, who although he seldom ventures on

any deliberate facetiousness, has entitled the volume of his journal

relating to this period of the siege, _The Straits of Gibraltar_. He

seems to have estimated the worth of his wit by its rarity, for the

words appear at the top of every page.

The 11th of April 1781 being Carlota's birthday, the Major had invited

Owen (now Lieutenant Owen) to dine with them in honour of the occasion.

Owen was once more, for the time, a single man; for Juana, having gone

to visit her friends in Tarifa just before the commencement of the

siege, had been unable to rejoin her husband. In vain had Carlota

requested that the celebration might be postponed till the arrival of

supplies from England should afford them a banquet worthy of the

anniversary--the Major, a great stickler for ancient customs, insisted

on its taking place forthwith. Luckily, a merchant-man from Minorca had

succeeded in landing a cargo of sheep, poultry, vegetables, and fruit

the day before, so that the provision for the feast, though by no means

sumptuous, was far better than any they had been accustomed to for many

months past. The Major's note-book enables me to set the materials for

the dinner, and also its cost, before the reader--viz. a sheep's head,

price sixteen shillings (my grandfather was too late to secure any of

the body, which was rent in pieces, and the fragments carried off as if

by wolves, ere the breath was well out of it)--a couple of fowls, twenty

shillings (scraggy creatures, says my ancestor in a parenthesis)--a ham,

two guineas--raisins and flour for a pudding, five shillings--eggs (how

many, the deponent sayeth not), sixpence each--vegetables, nine and

sixpence--and fruit for dessert, seven and tenpence. Then, for wine, a

Spanish merchant, a friend of Carlota's, had sent them two bottles of

champagne and one of amontillado, a present as generous then as a

hogshead would have been in ordinary times; and there was, moreover,

some old rum, and two lemons for punch. Altogether, there was probably

no dinner half so good that day in Gibraltar.

At the appointed hour, the Major was reading in his quarters (a

tolerably commodious house near the South Barracks, and at some distance

outside the town) when Owen appeared.

"You're punctual, my boy; and punctuality's a cardinal virtue about

dinner-time," said my grandfather, looking at his watch; "three o'clock

exactly. And now we'll have dinner. I only hope the new cook is a

tolerable proficient."

"What's become of Mrs Grigson?" asked Owen. "You haven't parted with

that disciple of Apicius, I should hope?"

"She's confined again," said my grandfather, sighing; "a most prolific

woman that! It certainly can't be above half-a-year since her last child

was born, and she's just going to have another. 'Tis certainly not

longer ago than last autumn," he added, musingly.

"A wonderful woman," said Owen; "she ought to be purchased by the

Government, and sent out to some of our thinly-populated colonies. And

who fills her place?"

"Why, I'll tell you," responded the Major. "Joe Trigg, my old servant,

is confined too--in the guardroom, I mean, for getting drunk--and I've

taken a man of the regiment, one Private Bags, for a day or two, who

recommended his wife as an excellent cook. She says the same of herself;

but this is her first trial, and I'm a little nervous about it."

"Shocking rascal that Bags," said Owen.

"Indeed!" said my grandfather; "I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't inquire

about his character. He offered his services, saying he came from the

same part of England as myself, though I don't recollect him."

"Terrible work this blockade," said the Major after a pause. "Do you

know, if I was a general in command of a besieging army, I don't think I

could find it in my heart to starve out the garrison. Consider now, my

dear boy" (laying his forefinger on Owen's arm)--"consider now, several

thousand men with strong appetites, never having a full meal for months

together. And just, too, as my digestion was getting all right--for I

never get a nightmare now, though I frequently have the most delicious

dreams of banquets that I try to eat, but wake before I get a mouthful.

'Tis enough to provoke a saint. And as if this was not enough, the

supply of books is cut off. The _Weekly Entertainer_ isn't even an

annual entertainer to me. The last number I got was in '79, and I've

been a regular subscriber these twelve years. There's the _Gentleman's

Magazine_, too. The last one reached me a year since, with a capital

story in it, only half-finished, that I'm anxious to know the end of;

and also a rebus that I've been longing to see the answer to. 'The

answer in our next,' says the tantalising editor. It's a capital

rebus--just listen now. 'Two-thirds of the name of an old novelist,

one-sixth of what we all do in the morning, and a heathen deity, make

together a morsel fit for a king.' I've been working at it for upwards

of a year, and I can't guess it. Can you?"

"Roast pig with stuffing answers the general description," said Owen.

"That, you'll admit, is a morsel fit for a king."

"Pooh!" said my grandfather. "But you must really try now. I've run

through the mythology, all that I know of it, and tried all the old

novelists' names, even Boccaccio and Cervantes. Never were such

combinations as I have made--but can't compound anything edible out of

them. Again, as to what we do in the morning: we all shave (that is, all

who have beards)--and we yawn, too; at least I do, on waking; but it

must be a word of six letters. Then, who can the heathen deity be?"

"Pan is the only heathen deity that has anything to do with cookery,"

said Owen. "Frying-pan, you know, and stew-pan."

My grandfather caught at the idea, but had not succeeded in making

anything of it, or in approximating to the solution of the riddle, when

Carlota entered from an inner room.

"I wish, my dear, you would see about the dinner," said the Major; "'tis

a quarter past three."

"_Si, mi vida_" (yes, my life), said Carlota, who was in the habit

of bestowing lavishly on my grandfather the most endearing epithets

in the Spanish language, some of them, perhaps, not particularly

applicable--_nino de mi alma_ (child of my soul), _luz de mis ojos_

(light of my eyes), and the like; none of which appeared to have any

more effect on the object of them than if they had been addressed to

somebody else.

Carlota rung the bell, which nobody answered. "Nurse is busy with de

_nina_," she said, when nobody answered it; "I go myself to de

_cocina_" (kitchen)--she spoke English as yet but imperfectly.

"There's one comfort in delay," said the Major; "'tis better to boil a

ham too much than too little--and yet I shouldn't like it overdone

either."

Here they were alarmed by an exclamation from Carlota. "_Ah Dios!

Caramba! Ven, ven, mi nino!_" cried she from the kitchen.

The Major and Owen hastened to the kitchen, which was so close at hand

that the smell of the dinner sometimes anticipated its appearance in the

dining-room. Mrs Bags, the new cook, was seated before the fire. On the

table beside her was an empty champagne bottle, the fellow to which

protruded its neck from a pail in one corner, where the Major had put it

to cool; and another bottle of more robust build, about half-full, was

also beside her. The countenance of Mrs Bags wore a pleasant and

satisfied, though not very intelligent smile, as she gazed steadfastly

on the ham that was roasting on a spit before the fire--at least one

side of it was done quite black, while the other oozed with warm grease;

for the machinery which should have turned it was not in motion.

"_Caramba!_" exclaimed Carlota, with uplifted hands. "_Que

picarilla!_"--(What a knave of a woman!)

"Gracious heavens!" said my grandfather, "she's roasting it! Who ever

heard of a roast ham?"

"A many years," remarked Mrs Bags, without turning her head, and still

smiling pleasantly, "have I lived in gentlemen's families--" Here this

fragment of autobiography was terminated by a hiccup.

"And the champagne bottle is empty," said Owen, handling it. "A nice

sort of cook this of yours, Major. She seems to have constituted herself

butler, too."

My grandfather advanced and lifted the other bottle to his nose. "'Tis

the old rum," he ejaculated with a groan. "But if the woman has drunk

all this 'twill be the death of her. Bags," he called, "come here."

The spouse of Mrs Bags emerged from a sort of scullery behind the

kitchen--a tall bony man, of an ugliness quite remarkable, and with a

very red face. He was better known by his comrades as Tongs, in allusion

probably to personal peculiarities; for the length of his legs, the

width of his bony hips, and the smallness of his head, gave him some

distant resemblance to that article of domestic iron-mongery; but as his

wife called herself Mrs Bags, and he was entered in the regimental books

by that name, it was probably his real appellation.

"Run directly to Dr Fagan," said the Major, "and request him to come

here. Your wife has poisoned herself with rum."

"'Tisn't rum," said Bags, somewhat thickly--"'tis fits."

"Fits!" said my grandfather.

"Fits," doggedly replied Mr Bags, who seemed by no means disturbed at

the alleged indisposition of his wife--"she often gets them."

"Don't alarm yourself, Major," said Owen, "I'll answer for it she hasn't

drunk _all_ the rum. The scoundrel is half-drunk himself, and smells

like a spirit-vault. You'd better take your wife away," he said to Bags.

"She can leave if she ain't wanted," said Private Bags, with dignity:

"we never comes where we ain't wanted." And he advanced to remove the

lady. Mrs Bags at first resisted this measure, proceeding to deliver a

eulogium on her own excellent qualities, moral and culinary. She had,

she said, the best of characters, in proof of which she made reference

to several persons in various parts of the United Kingdom, and, as she

spoke, she smiled more affably than ever.

"_La picarilla no tiene verguenza_" (the wretch is perfectly shameless),

cried Carlota, who, having hastily removed the ham from the fire, was

now looking after the rest of the dinner. The fowls, cut up in small

pieces, were boiling along with the sheep's head, and, probably to save

time, the estimable Mrs Bags had put the rice and raisins destined for a

pudding into the pot along with them--certainly, as Owen remarked, a

bold innovation in cookery.

Still continuing to afford them glimpses of her personal history, Mrs

Bags was at length persuaded to retire along with her helpmate.

"What astonishing impudence," said the Major, shutting the door upon

her, "to pretend to be a cook, and yet know no better than to roast a

ham!"

Carlota, meanwhile, was busy in remedying the disaster as far as she

could; cutting the ham into slices and frying it, making a fricassee of

the fowls, and fishing the raisins out of the pot, exclaiming bitterly

all the while, in English and Spanish, against the _tunanta_ (equivalent

to female scoundrel or scamp) who had spoilt the only nice dinner her

_pobrecito_, her _nino_, her _querido_ (meaning my grandfather), had

been likely to enjoy for a long time, stopping occasionally in her

occupations to give him a consolatory kiss. However, my grandfather did

not keep up the character of a martyr at all well: he took the matter

really very patiently; and when the excellent Carlota had set the dinner

on the table, and he tasted the fine flavour of the maltreated ham, he

speedily regained his accustomed good-humour.

"It is very strange," he said presently, while searching with a fork in

the dish before him, "that a pair of fowls should have only three wings,

two legs, and one breast between them."

It certainly was not according to the order of nature; nevertheless the

fact was so, all my grandfather's researches in the dish failing to

bring to light the missing members. This, however, was subsequently

explained by the discovery of the remains of these portions of the birds

in the scullery, where they appeared to have been eaten after being

grilled; and Mrs Bags' reason for adopting this mode of cooking them was

also rendered apparent--viz. that she might secure a share for herself

without immediate detection.

However, all this did not prevent them from making the best of what was

left, and the Major's face beamed as he drank Carlota's health in a

glass of the remaining bottle of champagne, as brightly as if the dinner

had been completely successful.

"It is partly my fault, Owen," said the Major, "that you haven't a joint

of mutton instead of this sheep's head. I ought to have been sharper.

The animal was actually sold in parts before he was killed. Old

Clutterbuck had secured a haunch, and he a single man, you know--'tis

thrown away upon him. I offered him something handsome for his bargain,

but he wouldn't part with it."

"We're lucky to get any," returned Owen. "Never was such a scramble. Old

Fiskin, the commissary, and Mrs O'Regan, the Major's wife, both swore

the left leg was knocked down to them; neither would give in, and it was

put up again, when the staff doctor, Pursum, who had just arrived in a

great hurry, carried it off by bidding eightpence more than either. Not

one of the three has spoken to either of the others since; and people

say," added Owen, "Mrs O'Regan avers openly that Fiskin didn't behave

like a gentleman."

"God knows!" said my grandfather, "'tis a difficult thing in such a case

to decide between politeness and a consciousness of being in the right.

Fiskin likes a good dinner."

The dinner having been done justice to, Carlota removed the remains to a

side-table, and the Major was in the act of compounding a bowl of punch,

when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," cried Carlota.

A light and timid step crossed the narrow passage separating the outer

door from that of the room they sat in, and there was another hesitating

tap at this latter. "Come in," again cried Carlota, and a young girl

entered with a basket on her arm.

"'Tis Esther Lazaro," said Carlota in Spanish. "Come in, child; sit here

and tell me what you want."

Esther Lazaro was the daughter of a Jew in the town, whose occupations

were multifarious, and connected him closely with the garrison. He

discounted officers' bills, furnished their rooms, sold them everything

they wanted--all at most exorbitant rates. Still, as is customary with

military men, while perfectly aware that they could have procured what

he supplied them with elsewhere at less expense, they continued to

patronise and abuse him rather than take the trouble of looking out for

a more liberal dealer. As the difficulties of the garrison increased, he

had not failed to take advantage of them, and it was even said he was

keeping back large stores of provisions and necessaries till the

increasing scarcity should enable him to demand his own terms for them.

His daughter was about fifteen years old--a pretty girl, with hair of

the unusual colour of chestnut, plaited into thick masses on the crown

of her head. Her skin was fairer than is customary with her race--her

eyes brown and soft in expression, her face oval, and her figure, even

at this early age, very graceful, being somewhat more precocious than an

English girl's at those years. She was a favourite with the ladies of

the garrison, who often employed her to procure feminine matters for

them. Carlota, particularly, had always treated her with great

kindness--and hence the present visit. She had come, she said timidly,

to ask a favour--a great favour. She had a little dog that she loved.

(Here a great commotion in the basket seemed to say she had brought her

_protege_ with her.) He had been given to her by a young school friend

who was dead, and her father would no longer let her keep it, because,

he said, these were no times to keep such creatures, when provisions,

even those fit for a dog, were so dear. He was a very good little

dog--would the Senora take him?

"Let us look at him, Esther," said Owen--"I see you have brought him

with you."

"He is not pretty," said Esther, blushing as she produced him from the

basket. He certainly was not, being a small cur, marked with black and

white, like a magpie, with a tail curling over his back. He did not

appear at all at his ease in society, for he tried to shrink back again

into the basket.

"He was frightened," she said, "for he had been shut up for more than a

month. She had tried to keep him in her bedroom, unknown to her father,

feeding him with part of her own meals; but he had found it out, and had

beaten her, and threatened to kill the dog if ever he saw it again."

"_Pobrecito!_" (poor little thing) said the good Carlota--"we shall take

good care of it. _Toma_" (take this), offering him a bit of meat. But he

crept under her chair, with his tail so depressed, in his extreme

bashfulness, that the point of it came out between his forelegs.

Carlota would have made the young Jewess dine there forthwith, at the

side-table still spread with the remains of the dinner, for social

differences of position were lost in the general misery; but she refused

to take anything, only sipping once from a glass of wine that Carlota

insisted on making her drink of. Then she rose, and, having tied the end

of a string that was fastened to the dog's collar to the leg of the

table, to prevent his following her, took her leave, thanking Carlota

very prettily.

"_A Dios, Sancho!_" she said to the little dog, who wagged his tail and

gave her a piteous look as she turned to go away--"_A Dios, Sancho_,"

she repeated, taking him up and kissing him very affectionately. The

poor child was ready to cry.

"Come and see him every day, my child," said Carlota, "and when better

times come you shall have him again."

CHAPTER II.

Lazaro the Jew was seated towards dusk that evening in a sort of

office partitioned off by an open railing from a great store filled

with a most motley collection of articles. Sofas, looking-glasses,

washing-stands--bales of goods in corded canvass--rows of old boots

purchased from officers' servants--window curtains lying on heaps of

carpeting and matting--bedsteads of wood and iron--crockery and

glass--were all piled indiscriminately. Similar articles had also

overflowed along the passage down the wooden steps leading to the square

stone court below, which was lumbered with barrels, packing-cases, and

pieces of old iron. This court was entered from the street, and an

arched door on one side of it, barred and padlocked, opened on a large

warehouse, which nobody except the Jew had set foot in for many months.

The Jew himself was a spare, rather small man, with a thin eager face,

small sharp features, and a scanty beard. Being by descent a Barbary

Jew, he wore the costume peculiar to that branch of his race--a black

skull-cap; a long-skirted, collarless, cloth coat, buttoned close, the

waist fastened with a belt; loose light-coloured trousers and yellow

slippers--altogether he looked somewhat like an overgrown Blue-coat Boy.

He was busied in turning over old parchment-covered ledgers, when an

officer entered.

Von Dessel was a captain in Hardenberg's Hanoverian regiment. He was a

square, strong-built man, about forty, with very light hair, as was

apparent since the governor's order had forbidden the use of powder to

the troops, in consequence of the scarcity of flour. His thick, white,

overhanging eyebrows, close lips, and projecting under jaw, gave

sternness to his countenance.

"Good afternoon, captain," said the Jew; "what I do for you to-day,

sare?"

"Do for me! By Gott, you have done for me already, with your cursed

Hebrew tricks," said the captain. The German and the Jew met on a

neutral ground of broken English.

"I always treat every gentleman fair, sare," said the Jew. "I tell you,

captain, I lose by that last bill of yours."

"_Der teufel!_ who gains, then?" said Von Dessel, "for you cut me off

thirty per cent."

The Jew shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't make it so, sare; the siege makes it so. When the port is open,

you shall have more better exchange."

"Well, money must be had," said the German. "What will you give now for

my bill for twenty pounds?"

The Jew consulted a book of figures--then made some calculations on

paper--then appeared to consider intently.

"Curse you, speak!" said the choleric captain. "You have made up your

mind about how much roguery long ago."

"Captain, sare, I give you feefty dollars," said the Jew.

The captain burst forth with a volley of German execrations.

"Captain," said the Jew presently, "I like to please a gentleman if I

can. I give you one box of cigars besides--real Cubans--one hundred and

feefty in a box."

The captain at this broke forth again, but checked himself presently on

the entrance of the Jew's daughter, who now returned from the Major's.

She advanced quietly into the room, made a little bow to the captain,

took off and laid aside her shawl, and, taking up some work, sat down

and began to sew.

Von Dessel resumed his expostulation in a milder tone. The Jew, however,

knew the money was necessary to him, and only yielded so far as to

increase his box of cigars to two hundred; and the captain, finding he

could get no better terms from him, was forced to agree. While the Jew

was drawing out the bills, the German gazed attentively at Esther, with

a good deal of admiration expressed in his countenance.

"I can't take the money now," said he, after signing the bills. "I am

going on duty. Bring it to me to-morrow morning, at nine o'clock."

"I'm afraid I can't, sare," said Lazaro; "too much business. Couldn't

you send for it, captain?"

"Not possible," said the German; "but you must surely have somebody that

might bring it--some trustworthy person you know." And his eye rested on

Esther.

"There's my dater, sare," said the Jew--"I shall send her, if that will

do."

"Good," said the captain, "do not forget," and quitted the room

forthwith.

He was scarcely gone when a pair with whom the reader is already

slightly acquainted, Mr and Mrs Bags, presented themselves. The effects

of their morning conviviality had in a great measure disappeared.

"Your servant, sir," said Bags. The Jew nodded.

"We've got a few articles to dispose of," pursued Mr Bags, looking round

the room cautiously. "They was left us," he added in a low tone, "by a

deceased friend."

"Ah!" said the Jew, "never mind where you got 'em. Be quick--show them."

Mrs Bags produced from under her cloak, first a tin tea-kettle, then a

brass saucepan; and Mr Bags, unbuttoning his coat, laid on the table

three knives and a silver fork. Esther, passing near the table at the

time, glanced accidentally at the fork, and recognised the Flinders

crest--a talbot, or old English bloodhound.

"Father," said she hastily, in Spanish, "don't have anything to do with

that--it must be stolen." But the Jew turned so sharply on her, telling

her to mind her work, that she retreated.

The Jew took up the tea-kettle, and examined the bottom to see that it

was sound--did the same with the saucepan--looked at the knives

narrowly, and still closer at the fork--then ranged them before him on

the table.

"For dis," said he, laying his hand on the tea-kettle, "we will say one

pound of rice; for dis (the saucepan) two pounds of corned beef; for de

knives, a bottle of rum; and for de fork, six ounces of the best tea."

"Curse your tea!" said Mr Bags.

"Yes!" said Mrs Bags, who had with difficulty restrained herself during

the process of valuation, "we doesn't want no tea. And the things is

worth a much more than what you say: the saucepan's as good as new, and

the fork's silver--"

"Plated," said the Jew, weighing it across his finger.

"A many years," said Mrs Bags, "have I lived in gentlemen's families,

and well do I know plate from silver. I've lived with Mrs Milson of

Pidding Hill, where everything was silver, and nothing plated, even to

the handles of the doors; and a dear good lady she was to me; many's the

gown she give me. And I've lived with--"

Here the Jew unceremoniously interrupted the train of her recollections

by pushing the things from before him. "Take what I offer, or else take

your things away," said he, shortly.

Mr and Mrs Bags grumbled considerably. The tea they positively refused

at any price: Mr Bags didn't like it, and Mrs Bags said it disagreed

with her. So the Jew agreed to give them instead another bottle of rum,

a pound of onions, and two pounds of beef; and with these terms they at

length closed, and departed with the results of their barter.

During the altercation, a soldier of another regiment had entered, and

stood silently awaiting his turn to be attended to. He was a gaunt man,

with want written legibly in the hollows of his face and the dismal

eagerness of his eye. He now came forward, and with trembling hands

unfolded an old gown, and handed it to the Jew.

"'Tis no good to me," said the latter, giving it back, after holding it

against the light; "nothing but holes."

"But my wife has no other," said the man: "'tis her last stitch of

clothes, except her petticoat and a blanket. I've brought everything

else to you."

The Jew shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands, in token that

he could not help it.

"I swear 'tis her last!" reiterated the man, as if he really fancied

this fact must give the garment as much value in the Jew's eyes as in

his own.

"I tell you I won't have it!" said the Jew, testily.

"Give me only a loaf for it, or but one pound of potatoes," said the

soldier: "'tis more than my wife and four children have had among them

for two days. Half-rations for one, among six of us, is too hard to

live."

"A pound of potatoes," said the Jew, "is worth four reals and a

half--eighteenpence; your wife's gown is worth--nothing!"

"Then take this," said the man, beginning frantically to pull off his

uniform coat; "anything is better than starving."

The Jew laughed. "What!" said he, "you think I don't know better than to

buy a soldier's necessaries, eh? Ah, ah! no such a fool, I think, my

friend. What your captain say?--eh?"

The man struck his hand violently on the table. "Then give me--or lend

me," said he, "some food, much or little, and I'll work for you every

hour I'm off duty till you're satisfied. I will, Mr Lazaro, so help me

God!"

"I got plenty of men to work for me," said Lazaro; "don't want any more.

Come again, when you've got something to sell, my friend."

The man rolled up the gown without speaking, then lifted it over his

head, and dashed it into the furthest corner of the store. He was

hurrying from the place, when, as if unwilling to throw away his last

chance, he turned back, gathered it up, and, thrusting it under his arm,

quitted the store with lingering steps, as if he even yet hoped to be

called back. No such summons reached him, however; but, immediately

after he was gone, Esther rose and stole softly down the stairs. She

overtook him at the street-door opening from the court before mentioned,

and laid her hand on his arm. The man turned and glared on her.

"What!--he'll buy it, will he?" said he.

"Hush!" said Esther--"keep it for your poor wife. Look; I have no

money, but take these," and she placed in his hand two earrings hastily

detached from her ears.

The man stood looking at her for a space, as if stupified, without

closing his hand on the trinkets that lay on the palm; then, suddenly

rousing himself, he swore, with tears in his eyes, that for this service

he would do for her anything on earth she should require from him; but

she only begged him to go away at once, and say nothing, lest her father

should overhear the transaction, who would certainly be angry with her

for it.

Bags and his wife had stopt in a corner of the court to pack up their

property in a commodious form for conveyance, and had witnessed this

scene in silence. As soon as the soldier had, in compliance with

Esther's entreaties, disappeared, Bags came forward.

"And your father would be angry, would he, my dear?" said he.

"Oh, very--oh, so angry! Please don't stop me," she said, trying to pass

him.

"And what'll ye give me not to tell him, now?" asked Mr Bags. "Ain't ye

got nothing for me?"

"No--oh, no--indeed, nothing. Do let me pass."

"Yes, you have; you've got this, I think," said Bags, snatching at a

silver-mounted comb glistening in her hair, which, thus loosened, all

fell down on her shoulders as she darted past him. "And now," said Mr

Bags, inspecting his prize, "I think me and that 'ere cheating Jew is

quits for the silver fork. I'll allow it's plated now."

CHAPTER III.

Early the next morning (the 12th of April) a rumour went through the

town that an English fleet was signalled as in sight. The news roused

the starving people like electricity. The pale spectres of men that, on

the previous day, had stalked so gauntly through the dreary streets--the

wretched, sinking women, and children careworn as grandfathers--poured

forth, with something like a natural light in their hollow eyes, to

witness the joyful spectacle. The sea-wall of the city was like the

margin of a vast pool of Bethesda, thronged with hopeful wretches

awaiting the coming of the angel.

The streets were instantly deserted. Those who could not leave their

homes got on the housetops, but the great mass of the population spread

itself along the line-wall, the Grand Parade and Alameda, and the

heights skirting the chief slopes of the Rock. Moors and Jews, Spaniards

and English, citizens and soldiers, men, women, and children, of all

ages, grades, and nations, ranged themselves indiscriminately wherever

they could obtain a view of the sea.

For some time the wished-for sight was delayed by a thick fog that

spread itself across the Straits and the entrance of the bay. A murmur

rose from each successive rank of people that forced itself into a front

place on the line-wall. Terrible doubts flew about, originating no one

knew where, but gaining strength and confirmation as they passed from

mouth to mouth. On the summit of the Rock behind them the signal for a

fleet flew steadily from the mast at Middle Hill; but still in this, as

in all crowds, were some of little faith, who were full of misgivings.

Many rushed up to the signal-station, unable to bear the pain of the

delay. My grandfather noticed the Jew Lazaro among the throng, watching

the event with an anxious eye, though his anxiety was from the opposite

cause to that of most of the spectators. The arrival of supplies would

at once bring down the price of provisions, and rob him, for the

present, of his expected profits; and as each successive rumour obtained

credence with the crowd, his countenance brightened as their hopes fell,

and sank as they again emerged from despondency.

Not far from him was an old Genoese woman, wearing the quaint red cloak,

trimmed with black velvet, that old Genoese women usually wear in

Gibraltar. She hovered round the skirts of the crowd, occasionally

peering beneath an uplifted arm, or thrusting it between two obstructing

figures to catch a glimpse, though it was evident that her dim eyes

would fail to discern the fleet when it should come in view. Her thin

shrivelled features, relieved against her black hood, were positively

wolfish from starvation. She frequently drew one hand from beneath her

cloak, and gazed at something she held in it--then, muttering, she would

again conceal it. My grandfather's curiosity was roused. He drew near

and watched for the reappearance of the object that so engrossed her. It

was a blue mouldy crust of bread.

The wished-for spectacle was at length revealed. "As the sun became more

powerful," says Drinkwater, rising into positive poetry with the

occasion, "the fog gradually rose, _like the curtain of a vast theatre_,

discovering to the anxious garrison one of the most beautiful and

pleasing scenes it is possible to conceive. The convoy, consisting of

near a hundred vessels, were in a compact body, led by several

men-of-war--their sails just filled enough for steerage, while the

majority of the line-of-battle ships lay to under the Barbary shore,

having orders not to enter the bay, lest the enemy should molest them

with their fireships."

Then rose a great shout--at once the casting-off of long-pressing

anxiety and the utterance of delight. Happy tears streamed down haggard

faces overgrown with hair, and presently men turned to one another,

smiling in the face of a stranger neighbour as in that of an old

friend, while a joyful murmur, distilled from many languages, rose

upward. Assuredly, if blessings are of any avail, the soul of Admiral

Darby, who commanded the relieving fleet, is at this moment in Paradise.

Friends and relations now began to search for one another in the crowd,

which broke quickly into knots, each contriving how to enjoy together

the plenty that was to descend upon them. My grandfather's eye at this

juncture was again attracted by the old Genoese woman. When the crowd

shouted, she screened her eyes with her withered hand, and, with her

nostril spread, her chin fallen, in her eagerness gazed towards the

sea--but presently shook her head, discerning nothing. Then she plucked

by the arm a joyful Spaniard.

"_Es verdad? Por Dios, es verdad?_" she cried; "_jura! jura!_"--(Is it

true? Swear by Heaven it is true.)

"_Si, si_," said the Spaniard, pointing; "_es verdad_" ('tis true). "You

may see them yourself."

Instantly the old woman, for the last time, drew forth her treasured

crust, and began to devour it, muttering, as she tore away each

mouthful, "_Mas manana! mas manana!_" (I shall have more to-morrow--more

to-morrow!)

After the crowd had partially dispersed, Owen was returning to his

quarters to breakfast, when, as he paused to open the door, he heard a

voice he thought he knew crying out in affright in the rooms opposite,

where Von Dessel resided. Presently the door of the quarters was opened,

and the flushed and frightened face of Esther Lazaro appeared, as she

struggled to escape from Von Dessel, who held her arm.

"Senor, senor, speak to the gentleman!" she cried to Owen.

"Leetle foolish girl," said Von Dessel, grinning a smile on seeing him;

"she frightens at nothing. Come in, child"--trying to shut the door.

"Why don't you let her alone?" said Owen; "don't you see she doesn't

like you?"

"Pouf!" said the captain. "We all have trouble with them sometimes--you

must know that well."

"No, by Jupiter!" cried Frank Owen. "If I couldn't gain them willingly,

they might go to the devil for me. But you hurt her--pray let her

go--you must indeed."

"Do you mind your own affair," said the captain, "and don't meddle;"

and, exerting his strength, he drew Esther in, and partially succeeded

in shutting the door--she calling the while again on Owen to help her.

Frank stepped forward, and, putting his foot against the door, sent it

into the room, causing Captain Von Dessel, who was behind it, to stagger

back with some violence, and to quit his hold of Esther, who ran down

stairs.

"Very good, sir," said the captain, stalking grimly out of his room,

pale with rage. "You have thought right to interfere with me, and to

insult me. By Gott! I will teach you better, young man. Shall we say in

one hour, sir, in the Fives' Court?"

Owen nodded. "At your pleasure," said he, and, entering his own

quarters, shut the door.

Meanwhile my grandfather walked about with the telescope he had brought

with him to look after the fleet under his arm, enjoying the unusual

sight of happy faces around him. And he has remarked it as a singular

feature of humanity, that this prospect of relief from physical want

inspired a far more deep and universal joy than he had witnessed in any

public rejoicings arising from such causes as loyalty or patriotism

evinced at a coronation or the news of a great victory, or the election

of a popular candidate; and hence my grandfather takes occasion to

express a fear that human nature is, except among the rarer class of

souls, more powerfully and generally influenced by its animal

propensities than by more refined causes.

He was so engrossed with the philanthropic pursuit of enjoying the joy

of the multitude, and the philosophic one of extracting moral

reflections therefrom, that he quite forgot he had not breakfasted. He

was just beginning to be reminded of the circumstance by a feeling of

hollowness in the region of the stomach, and to turn his steps

homeward, when a light hand was laid on his arm. My grandfather turned,

and beheld the face of the young Jewess looking wistfully in his.

She began at first to address him in Spanish--the language she spoke

most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the

extraordinary jargon in which he replied (for it is a singular fact that

nobody but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my grandfather's

Spanish), she exchanged it for his own tongue. She told him in a few

hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on her account with Von

Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard given by the latter,

beseeching the Major to hasten to prevent the result.

"In the Fives' Court! in an hour!" said my grandfather. "When did this

happen?"

Esther thought nearly an hour ago--she had been almost so long seeking

my grandfather.

"I'll go, child--I'll go at once," said the Major. "With Von Dessel,

too, as if he could find nobody else to quarrel with but the best

swordsman in the garrison. 'Souls and bodies,' quoted my grandfather,

'hath he divorced three.'"

With every stride he took, the Major's uneasiness was augmented. At any

time his anxiety would have been extreme while peril threatened Frank;

but now, when he was calculating on him as a companion at many a

well-spread table, when they might forget their past miseries, it

peculiarly affected him.

"To think," muttered my grandfather, "that these two madmen should

choose a time when everybody is going to be made so happy, by getting

plenty to eat, to show their gratitude to Providence by cutting one

another's throats!"

The danger to Owen was really formidable; for, though a respectable

swordsman, he was no unusual proficient in the graceful art, while his

opponent was not only, as my grandfather had said, the best swordsman in

the garrison, but perhaps the best at that time in the army. As a

student in Germany he had distinguished himself in some sanguinary

duels; and since his arrival in Gibraltar, a Spanish gentleman, a very

able fencer, had fallen beneath his arm.

"God grant," said my grandfather to himself, as he neared the Fives'

Court, "that we may settle this without the perdition of souls. Frank,

my dear boy, we could better spare a better man!"

On attempting to enter the Fives' Court he was stopped by the marker,

posted at the door. "It was engaged," he said, "for a private match."

"Ay, ay," said my grandfather, pushing past him; "a pretty match,

indeed! Ay, ay--pray God we can stop it!"

Finding the inner door locked, the Major, who was well acquainted with

the locality--for, when he had nothing else particular to do, he would

sometimes mark for the players for a rubber or two--ascended the stairs

to the gallery.

About the centre of the court stood the combatants. All preliminaries

had been gone through--for they were stripped to their shirts--and the

seconds (one a German, the adjutant of Hardenberg's regiment--the other,

one Lieutenant Rushton, an old hand at these affairs, and himself a

fire-eater) stood by, each with a spare sword in his hand. In a corner

was the German regimental surgeon, his apparatus displayed on the floor,

ready for an emergency. Rushton fully expected Owen to fall, and only

hoped he might escape without a mortal wound. Von Dessel himself seemed

of the same opinion, standing square and firm as a tower, scarcely

troubling himself to assume an attitude, but easy and masterly withal.

Both contempt and malice were expressed for his antagonist in his

half-shut eyes and the sardonic twist of the corners of his mouth.

"Owen, Owen, my boy!" shouted my grandfather, rushing to the front of

the gallery, and leaning over, as the swords crossed--"stop, for God's

sake. You mustn't fight that swash-buckler! They say he hath been fencer

to the Sophy," roared the Major, in the words of Sir Toby Belch.

The combatants just turned their heads for a moment, to look at the

interrupter, and again crossed swords.

Immediately on finding his remonstrance disregarded, the Major descended

personally into the arena--not by the ordinary route of the stairs, but

the shorter one of a perpendicular drop from the gallery, not effected

with the lightness of a feathered Mercury. But the clatter of his

descent was lost in the concussion of a discharge of artillery that

shook the walls. Instantly the air was alive with shot and hissing

shells; and before the echoes of the first discharge had ceased, the

successive explosion of the shells in the air, and the crashing of

chimneys, shattered doors, and falling masonry, increased the uproar.

One shell burst in the court, filling it with smoke. My grandfather

felt, for a minute, rather dizzy with the shock. When the smoke cleared,

by which time he had partially recovered himself, the first object that

caught his eye was Von Dessel lying on the pavement, and the doctor

stooping over him. The only other person hurt was Rushton, a great piece

of the skin of whose forehead, detached by a splinter, was hanging over

his right eye. Von Dessel had sustained a compound fracture of the

thigh, while the loss of two fingers from his right hand had spoiled his

thrust in tierce for ever.

"What can be the matter?" said my grandfather, looking upward, as a

second flight of missiles hurtled overhead.

"Matter enough," quoth Rushton, mopping the blood from his eye with his

handkerchief; "those cursed devils of Spaniards are bombarding the

town."

The Major went up to Owen, and squeezed his hand. "We won't abuse the

Spaniards for all that," said he--"they've saved your life, my boy."

CHAPTER IV.

Enraged at seeing their blockade evaded by the arrival of Darby's fleet,

the Spaniards revenged themselves by directing such a fire upon

Gibraltar, from their batteries in the Neutral Ground, as in a short

time reduced the town to a mass of ruins. This misfortune was rendered

the more intolerable to the besieged, as it came in the moment of

exultation and general thanksgiving. While words of congratulation were

passing from mouth to mouth, the blow descended, and "turned to groans

their roundelay."

The contrast between the elation of the inhabitants when my grandfather

entered the Fives' Court, and their universal consternation and despair

when he quitted it, was terrible. The crowd that had a few minutes

before so smilingly and hopefully entered their homes, now fled from

them in terror. Again the streets were thronged by the unhappy people,

who began to believe themselves the sport of some powerful and

malevolent demon. Whole families, parents, children, and servants,

rushed together into the streets, making their way to the south to

escape the missiles that pursued them. Some bore pieces of furniture

snatched up in haste, and apparently seized because they came first to

hand; some took the chairs they had been sitting on; one man my

grandfather noticed bearing away with difficulty the leaf of a mahogany

table, leaving behind the legs which should have supported it; and a

woman had a crying child in one hand, and in the other a gridiron, still

reeking with the fat of some meat she had been cooking. Rubbish from the

houses began to strew the streets; and here and there a ragged breach in

a wall rent by the cannon afforded a strange incongruous glimpse of the

room inside, with its mirrors, tables, and drapery, just as the

inhabitants left them. Armed soldiers were hastening to their different

points of assembly, summoned by bugles that resounded shrilly amid the

din, and thrusting their way unceremoniously through the impeding masses

of fugitives.

The house of the Jew Lazaro was one of the first that was seriously

injured. The blank wall of the great warehouse before mentioned, that

faced the street, had, either from age or bad masonry, long before

exhibited several cracks. A large segment, bounded by two of these

cracks, had been knocked away by a shot, and the superincumbent mass

falling in consequence, the great store, and all its hoarded treasures,

appeared through the chasm.

The Jew's instincts had, at first, led him to save himself by flight.

But, on returning timorously to look after his property, the sight of

the ruined wall, and the unprotected hoards on which he had so securely

reckoned as the source of wealth, obliterated in his mind, for the time,

all sense of personal danger. Seeing a party of soldiers issuing from a

wine-house near, he eagerly besought them to assist him in removing his

property to a place of safety, promising to reward them largely for

their risk and trouble.

One of the soldiers thus appealed to was Mr Bags.

"Ho, ho!" said Mr Bags; "here's a chance--here's a pleasure,

comrades. We can help Mr Lazaro, who is always so good to us--this

here Jewish gentleman, that gives such liberal prices for our

things. Certainly--we'll remove 'em all, and not charge him nothing.

Oh--oh--ah!" And, to give point to his irony, Mr Bags distorted his

face hideously, and winked upon his friends.

The idea of giving Lazaro any assistance was considered a capital joke,

and caused a great deal of mirth as they walked towards the store, to

which the Jew eagerly led the way.

"If there's anything good to eat or drink in the store, we may remove

some of it, though it won't be on our backs--eh, boys?" said Bags, as he

stept in advance, over a heap of rubbish, into the store.

"These first--these, my friends," cried the Jew, going up to a row of

barrels, standing a little apart from the crowded masses of articles.

"Oh, these first, eh?" said Bags; "they're the best, be they? Thank you,

Mr Lazaro; we'll see what's in 'em;" and, taking up a gimlet that lay

near, he proceeded to bore a hole in one of the barrels, desiring a

friend, whom he addressed as Tim, to tap the next one.

"Thieves!" screamed the Jew, on witnessing this proceeding, seizing

Bags' arm; "leave my store--go out--let my goods alone!" Bags lent him a

shove that sent him into a corner, and perceiving liquor flowing from

the hole he had drilled, applied his mouth to the orifice.

"Brandy," said he, as he paused for breath; "real Cognac. Comrades,

here's luck to that 'ere shot that showed us the way in;" and he took

another diligent pull at the hole.

Meantime his comrades had not been idle; other barrels were opened, and

their contents submitted to a critical inspection.

The Jew tried various modes to induce them to relinquish their booty;

first threats--then offers of reward--then cajolery; and, at last,

attempted to interpose and thrust them from their spoil. He would

probably have experienced rough treatment in addition to the spoliation

of his goods, but for other interruption too potent to be disregarded. A

shot from the enemy entering the store, enfiladed a long line of

barrels, scattering the staves and their contents. The place was

instantly flooded with liquor--wine, molasses, spirits, and oil, ran in

a mingled stream, soaking the _debris_ of biscuit and salt provisions

that strewed the floor. One soldier was struck dead, and Mr Bags only

escaped destruction by the lucky accident of having his head at that

moment apart from the barrel which had engrossed his attention, and

which was knocked to pieces.

The Jew, partly stunned by a wound in the forehead from the splinter of

a barrel, and partly in despair at the destruction of his property, came

to the entrance of the store, seating himself among the rubbish. Other

plunderers speedily followed the example of the marauding soldiers, but

he made no attempt to stop them as they walked past him. My grandfather,

passing at the time on his way home, was horrified at the sight of him.

Flour from a splintered barrel had been scattered over his face, and

blood from the wound in his forehead, trickling down, had clotted it on

his cheeks and scanty beard, giving him an aspect at once appalling and

disgusting. His daughter had waited at the door of the Fives' Court till

she saw Owen come forth in safety, and had then availed herself of the

protection of the Major as far as her own home. Shrieking at the dismal

sight, she sprang forward and threw herself before the Jew, casting her

arms around him. This seemed to rouse him. He arose--looked back into

the store; and then, as if goaded by the sight of the wreck into

intolerable anguish, he lifted his clenched hands above his head,

uttering a sentence of such fearful blasphemy, that a devout Spaniard,

who was emerging from the store with some plunder, struck him on the

mouth. He never heeded the blow, but continued to rave, till, suddenly

overcome by loss of blood and impotent rage, he dropt senseless on the

ground.

My grandfather, calling some soldiers of his regiment who were passing,

desired them to convey him to the hospital at the South Barracks, and,

again taking the terrified and weeping Esther under his protection,

followed to see the unfortunate Jew cared for.

At the various parades that day Mr Bags was reported absent, being in

fact engaged in pursuits of a much more interesting nature than his

military duties. A vast field of enterprise was opened to him and other

adventurous spirits, of which they did not fail to avail themselves, in

the quantity of property of all kinds abandoned by the owners, in houses

and shops where locks and bolts were no longer a protection; and

although the firing, which ceased for an hour or two in the middle of

the day, was renewed towards evening, and continued with great fury, the

ardour of acquisition by no means abated.

About midnight a sentry on the heights of Rosia (the name given to a

portion of the rugged cliffs towards the south and near the hospital)

observed, in the gloom, a figure lurking about one of the batteries, and

challenged it. Receiving no answer, he threatened to fire, when Bags

came forward reluctantly, with a bundle in his hand.

"Hush, Bill," said Bags, on finding the sentry was a personal

friend--"don't make a row: it's only me, Bags--Tongs, you know," he

added, to insure his recognition.

"What the devil are you doing there, you fool?" asked his friend in a

surly tone--"don't you know the picket's after you?"

"I've got some little things here that I want to lay by, where nobody

won't see 'em, in case I'm catched," returned Bags. "Don't you take no

notice of me, Bill, and I'll be off directly."

"What have ye got?" asked Bill, whose curiosity was awakened by the

proceedings of his friend.

"Some little matters that I picked up in the town," returned Bags. "Pity

you should be on guard to-day, Bill--there was some pretty pickings.

I'll save something for you, Bill," added Bags, in an unaccountable

access of generosity.

The sentry, however, who was a person in every way worthy of the

friendship of Mr Bags, expressed no gratitude for the considerate offer,

but began poking at the bundle with his bayonet.

"Hands off, Bill," said Bags; "they won't abear touching."

"Let's see 'em," said Bill.

"Not a bit on it," said Bags; "they ain't aworth looking at."

"Suppose I was to call the sergeant of the guard," said Bill.

"You wouldn't do such a action?" said Bags, in a tone strongly

expressive of disgust at such baseness. "No, no, Bill, you ain't that

sort of fellow, _I'm_ sure."

"It's my dooty," said the sentry, placing the butt of his musket on the

ground, and leaning his elbow on the muzzle. "You see that what you

said, Tongs, was very true, about its being hard upon me to be carrying

about this here damnable weppin" (slapping the barrel of the musket)

"all day for fourpence ha'penny, while you are making your fortin. It

is, Tongs, d----d hard."

"Never mind; there'll be plenty left to-morrow," said Bags in a

consolatory tone.

"What shall we say, now, if I lets ye hide it?" said Bill, pointing to

the bundle. "Half-shares?"

"This ain't like a friend, Bill," returned Tongs, highly disgusted with

this ungenerous proposal. "Nobody ever knowed me interfere with a

comrade when I was on sentry. How long ago is it since I let ye stay in

my box an hour, till ye was sober enough to walk into barracks, when I

was sentry at the gate? Why, the whole bundle ain't worth

eighteenpence--and I've worked hard for it."

"Half-shares?" reiterated Bill, not melted in the least by the memory of

ancient benefits.

"No, by G----!" said Bags in great wrath.

"Serg----," began Bill in an elevated voice, porting his arms at the

same time.

"Stop!" said Bags; "don't call the sergeant. Half is better nor nothing,

if ye're going to behave like that. We'll say half, then."

"Ah," said Bill, returning to his former position--"I thought we should

agree. And now let's see 'em, Tongs."

Muttering still his disapprobation of this unworthy treatment, Bags put

his bundle on the stone embrasure of the battery, and began to unfold

it.

Eighteenpence was certainly a low valuation. Bags appeared to have

visited a jeweller's shop. Watches, rings, bracelets, gold chains, and

brooches glittered on the dingy surface of the handkerchief.

"My eye!" said Bill, unable to repress a low laugh of delight--"why,

we'll turn bankers when we've sold 'em. Tongs and Co.--eh?" said Bill

with considerable humour.

Bags, however, told him he was altogether mistaken in his

estimate--most of the things were pinchbeck, he said, and the stones all

glass; and, to save Bill any trouble, he offered to dispose of them

himself to the best possible advantage, and bring his partner his share

of the proceeds, which would certainly be at least ninepence, and might

perhaps be half-a-dollar. This arrangement did not, however, meet the

approbation of the astute William, who insisted on dividing the spoils

by lot. But here, again, there was a slight misunderstanding, for both

fixed their affections on a gigantic watch, which never could have been

got into any modern pocket, and whose face was ornamented with paintings

from the heathen mythology. Both of them supposed, from the size and the

brilliancy of the colours, that this must be of immense value. Finding

they were not likely to come to a speedy arrangement on this point, they

agreed to postpone the division of the spoils till morning.

"I'll tell ye where to put it, Bags," said Bill. "These here guns in

this battery haven't been fired for years, nor ain't likely to be,

though they loaded 'em the other day. Take out the wad of this one, and

put in the bundle."

Bags approved of the idea, withdrew the wad from the muzzle of the gun,

put in the bundle as far as his arm would reach, and then replaced the

wad.

"Honour bright?" said Bags, preparing to depart.

"Honour bright," returned Bill; and Bags disappeared.

Nevertheless he did not feel sufficient confidence in the brightness of

his confederate's integrity to justify his quitting the place and

leaving him to his own devices. He thought Bill might perhaps avail

himself of his absence to remove the treasure, or be guilty of some

other treachery. He therefore crept back again softly, till he got

behind a crag from whence he had a full view of the battery.

For some time Bill walked sternly to and fro on his post. Bags observed,

however, that he always included the gun where the deposit lay in his

perambulations, which became shorter and shorter. At last he halted

close to it, laid down his musket against the parapet, and, approaching

the muzzle of the gun, took out the wad.

At this moment a neighbouring sentry gave an alarm. The guard turned

out, and Bill, hastily replacing the wad, resumed his arms and looked

about for the cause of the alarm. About a mile out in the bay several

red sparks were visible. As he looked there were a corresponding number

of flashes, and then a whistling of shot high overhead told that the

guns from which they had been discharged had been laid too high. The

Spanish gunboats were attacking the south.

The drums beat to arms, and in a few minutes the battery was manned with

artillerymen. To the inconceivable horror of Bags and Bill, the whole

of the guns in the battery were altered in position, and a gunner took

post at the rear of each with a lighted portfire. Then a flushed face

might be seen, by the blue light of the portfires, rising from behind a

neighbouring piece of rock, the eyes staring, the mouth open in agonised

expectation.

"Number one--fire!" said the officer in command, to the gunner in rear

of the gun in which Mr Bags had invested his capital.

"No, no!" shouted Bags, rising wildly from behind the rock.

The portfire touched the vent--there was a discharge that seemed to rend

Mr Bags' heartstrings and blow off the roof of his skull--and the clever

speculation on which he had counted for making his fortune ended, like

many others, in smoke. He gazed for a moment out in the direction of the

flash, as if he expected to see the watches and rings gleaming in the

air; then he turned and disappeared in the darkness.

After a few ineffectual discharges, the Spaniards seemed to become aware

of the badness of their aim, and to take measures to amend it. Several

shot struck the hospital; and some shells falling through the roof,

exploded in the very wards where the sick lay. The unhappy Jew, Lazaro,

lying in a feverish and semi-delirious state from his former hurt and

agitation, was again struck by a splinter of a shell which burst in the

ward where the Major's care had seen him deposited, blowing up the

ceiling and part of the wall. In the midst of the confusion, the Jew,

frantic with terror, rushed unrestrained from the building, followed

only by his daughter, who was watching by his bed. He was not missed

for some time, and the attempts to discover him, made after his

disappearance became known, were of no avail. A neighbouring sentry had

seen a white figure, followed by another crying after it, dash across

the road and disappear in the bushes; but the search made about the

vicinity of the spot failed in detecting any traces of them, and those

who troubled themselves to think of the matter at all, surmised that

they had fallen into the sea.

CHAPTER V.

For some pages, my grandfather's note-book is filled with memoranda of

singular casualties from the enemy's shot, wonderful escapes, and hasty

moments of quietude and attempted comfort snatched "even in the cannon's

mouth." The fire from the Spanish batteries shortly reduced the town to

ruins, and the gunboats at night precluded all hope of peace and

oblivion after the horrors of the day. Dreams, in which these horrors

were reproduced, were interrupted by still more frightful nocturnal

realities. One of the curious minor evils that my grandfather notices,

as resulting from an incessant cannonade, to those not engaged in it

actively enough to withdraw their attention from the noise, is the

extreme irritation produced by its long continuance, amounting, in

persons of nervous and excitable temperament, to positive exasperation.

Some of the numerous incidents he chronicles are also recorded by

Drinkwater, especially that of a man who recovered after being almost

knocked to pieces by the bursting of a shell. "His head was terribly

fractured, his left arm broken in two places, one of his legs shattered,

the skin and muscles torn off his right hand, the middle finger broken

to pieces, and his whole body most severely bruised and marked with

gunpowder. He presented so horrid an object to the surgeons, that they

had not the smallest hopes of saving his life, and were at a loss what

part to attend to first. He was that evening trepanned; a few days

afterwards his leg was amputated, and other wounds and fractures

dressed. Being possessed of a most excellent constitution, nature

performed wonders in his favour, and in eleven weeks the cure was

completely effected. His name," continues Mr. Drinkwater, with what

might be deemed irony--if the worthy historian ever indulged in that

figure of rhetoric--"is Donald Ross, and he" (_i.e._ the remaining

fragment of the said Donald Ross) "now enjoys his sovereign's bounty in

a pension of ninepence a-day for life." One might almost suppose that Mr

Hume had some hand in affixing the gratuity; but in those days there was

a king who knew not Joseph.

My grandfather appears to have had also an adventure of his own. During

a cessation of the cannonade, he was sitting one morning on a fragment

of rock, in the garden behind his quarters, reading his favourite

author. The firing suddenly recommenced, and a long-ranged shell,

striking the ground at some distance, rolled towards him. He glanced

half-absently at the hissing missile; and whether he actually did not

for a moment recollect its character, or whether, as was often the case

on such occasions, the imminence of the danger paralysed him, he sat

immovably watching it as it fizzed within a couple of yards of him.

Unquestionably in another three seconds my grandfather's earthly

tabernacle would have been resolved into its original atoms, had not the

intrepid Carlota (who was standing near gathering flowers to stick in

her hair) darted on him, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him behind

a wall. They were scarce under shelter when the shell exploded--the

shock laying them both prostrate, though unhurt but for a few

bruises--while the stone on which the Major had been sitting was

shivered to atoms. To the description of this incident in the Major's

journal are appended a pious reflection and a short thanksgiving,

which, being entirely of a personal nature, I omit.

The stores landed from the fleet were in a very precarious position.

Owing to the destruction of the buildings, there were no means of

placing them where they might be sheltered at once from the fire of the

enemy and from rain. Some were piled under sails spread out as a sort of

roof to protect them, and some, that were not likely to sustain

immediate injury from the damp air of such a depository, were ordered to

be conveyed to St Michael's Cave.

This cave is one of the most curious features of the Rock. Its mouth--an

inconsiderable opening in the slope of the mountain--is situated many

hundred feet above the sea. Within, it expands into a spacious hall, the

roof, invisible in the gloom, supported by thick pillars formed by the

petrified droppings of the rock. From this principal cavern numerous

smaller ones branch off, leading, by dark, broken, and precipitous

passages, to unknown depths. Along one of these, according to tradition,

Governor O'Hara advanced farther than ever man had gone before, and left

his sword in the inmost recess to be recovered by the next explorer who

should be equally adventurous. But whether it is that the tradition is

unfounded, or that the weapon has been carried off by some gnome, or

that the governor's exploit is as yet unrivalled, the sword has never

been brought to light.

For the duty of placing the stores here, the name of Lieutenant Owen

appeared in the garrison orders. My grandfather having nothing

particular to do, and being anxious to escape as much as possible for a

short time from the din of the bombardment, offered to accompany Frank

in the execution of this duty.

The day was dark and gloomy, and the steep path slippery from rain, so

that the mules bearing the stores toiled with difficulty up the ascent.

At first, my grandfather and Owen indulged in cheerful conversation; but

shortness of breath soon reduced the Major to monosyllables, and the

latter part of the journey was accomplished in silence. Frequently the

Major paused and faced about, at once to look at the prospect and to

take breath. Far below, on his right, was seen the southern end of the

town, consisting partly of a heap of ruins, with here and there a rafter

sticking out of the mass, partly of roofless walls, among which was

occasionally heard the crashing of shot; but the guns that discharged

them, as well as those that replied from the town, were invisible from

this point. Directly beneath him the ground afforded a curious

spectacle, being covered with tents, huts, and sheds, of all sorts and

sizes, where the outcast population of the ruined town obtained a

precarious and insufficient shelter. The only building visible which

still retained its former appearance was the convent--the governor's

residence--which was protected by bomb-proofs, and where working-parties

were constantly engaged in repairing the injuries. The bay, once thickly

wooded with masts and dotted with sails, was now blank and cheerless;

only the enemy's cruisers were visible, lying under the opposite shore

of Spain.

Owen and my grandfather arrived at the mouth of the cave somewhat in

advance of the convoy. To their surprise a smoke was issuing from it;

and, as they approached nearer, their nostrils were greeted by an odour

at once savoury and spicy. Going softly up they looked in.

Mr Bags and a couple of friends were seated round a fire, over which was

roasting a small pig, scientifically butchered and deprived of his hair,

and hung up by the heels. The fire, in the absence of other fuel (of

which there was an extreme scarcity in Gibraltar), was supplied by

bundles of cinnamon plundered from the store of some grocer, and, as the

flame waxed low, Mr Bags took a fresh bundle from a heap of that

fragrant spice by his side, and laid it on the embers. Mrs Bags was

occupied in basting the pig with lard, which she administered from time

to time with an iron ladle.

Presently Mr Bags tapped on the pig's back with his knife. It sent

forth a crisp crackling sound, that made my grandfather's mouth water,

and caused Mr Bags to become impatient.

"Polly," said he, "it's my opinion it's been done these three minutes. I

can't wait much longer."

And he cast a glance at the other two soldiers (in whom, as well as in

Bags, Owen recognised men of his company who had been reported absent

for some days, and were supposed to have gone over to the enemy), to

ascertain if their opinions tallied with his own on this point.

"It can't be no better," said one, taking hold of the pig's neck between

his finger and thumb, which he afterwards applied to his mouth.

"I can't abear my meat overdone," said the third. "What I say is, let

them that likes to wait, wait, and let them that wants to begin, begin."

So saying, he rose, and was about to attack the ribs of the porker with

his knife.

"Do stop a minute--that's a dear," said Mrs Bags; "another bundle of

cinnament will make it parfect. I'll give ye something to stay your

stomach;" and stepping to a nook in the wall of the cavern, where stood

a large barrel, she filled a pewter measure, and handed it to the

impatient advocate for underdone pork, who took a considerable dram, and

passed it to his companions.

"Cinnament's better with pork nor with most things," said Bags. "It

spoils goose, because it don't agree with the inions, and it makes

fowls wishy-washy; but it goes excellent with pig."

"What's left in the larder?" asked one of the party.

"There's a week's good eating yet," said Mrs Bags, "and we _might_ make

it do ten days or a fortnight."

"Well!" said the other, "they may say what they like about sieges, but

this is the jolliest time ever _I_ had."

"It's very well by day," said Bags, "but the nights is cold, and the

company of that ghost ain't agreeable--I see'd it again last night."

"Ah!" said his friend, "what was it like, Tongs?"

"Something white," returned Bags in an awful whisper, "with a ghost's

eyes. You may allays know a ghost by the eyes. I was just rising up, and

thinking about getting a drink, for my coppers was hot, when it comes

gliding up from that end of the cave. I spoke to you, and then I

couldn't see it no more, because it was varnished."

"Ghosts always varnishes if you speak," said Mrs Bags. "But never mind

the spirit now--let's look after the flesh," added the lady, who

possessed a fund of native pleasantry: "the pig's done to a turn."

At this interesting juncture, and just as they were about to fall to,

the footsteps of the approaching mules struck on their ears. Owen went

to meet the party, and hastily selecting six men from it, advanced, and

desired them to secure the astounded convivialists.

On recovering from their first astonishment, Bags begged Owen would

overlook the offence; they were only, he pleaded, having a little

spree--times had been hard lately. Mrs Bags, as usual, displayed great

eloquence, though not much to the purpose. She seemed to have some idea

that an enumeration of the gentlemen's families she had lived in, and

the high estimation in which she had been held in all, would really tell

powerfully in favour of the delinquents, and persevered accordingly,

till they were marched off in custody of the escort, when she made a

final appeal to my grandfather, as the last gentleman whose family she

had lived in--with what advantage to the household the reader knows. The

Major, who could not forgive the roasting of his ham, called her, in

reply, a "horrible woman," but, at the same time, whispered to Owen that

he hoped the fellows would not be severely punished. "If we had caught

them after dinner," said he, "I shouldn't have pitied them so much."

"Never mind them," said Owen; "let us proceed to business. We must

select the driest spot we can find to put the stores in."

[Here, by way of taking leave of Mr Bags, I may remark, that he

narrowly escaped being hanged as a plunderer--failing which, he was

sentenced by a court-martial to receive a number of lashes, which I

refrain from specifying, because it would certainly make the hair of a

modern humanitarian turn white with horror.]

"Come along, Major," said Owen; "perhaps we may find more of these

scoundrels in the course of our researches."

The Major did not move; he was earnestly regarding the carcass of the

pig, that steamed hissing above the embers.

"Queer idea that of the cinnamon fire," said he. "I wonder how the meat

tastes."

Owen did not hear him, having walked forward.

"Have you got a knife about you, Frank?" said the Major. "Do you know I

have a curious desire to ascertain the flavour. It may be a feature in

cookery worth knowing."

Owen had not a knife, nor had any of the men, but one of them suggested

that the Major's sword would answer the purpose.

"To be sure," said the Major. "A good idea! I don't see why swords

shouldn't be turned into carving-knives as well as into pruning-hooks."

So saying he drew it from the sheath, and, straddling across the fire,

detached a crisp brown mouthful from the pig's ribs, and putting a

little salt on it, he conveyed it to his mouth.

"Excellent!" cried the Major. "I give you my word of honour, Owen, 'tis

excellent! The cinnamon gives it a sort of a----"

Here a second and larger mouthful interrupted the criticism.

"It must be very near lunch-time," said the Major, pausing, sword in

hand, when he had swallowed it; then, pretending to look at his

watch--"Bless me, it only wants half-an-hour of it. Do you think this

business will take you long, Owen?"

"About a couple of hours," said Owen.

"Ah, why, there you see," returned the Major, "we shan't get home till

long past lunch-time. I really don't see why we shouldn't take a snack

now. Nothing can be better than that pig. I only wish the woman had

dressed my dinner half as well. Corporal Hodson, would you oblige me

with a piece of that biscuit near you?" And, detaching a large fragment

of pork, he placed it on the biscuit, and sprinkling it with pepper and

salt, which condiments had not been forgotten in the gastronomic

arrangements of Mr Bags, he proceeded to follow Owen into the interior

of the cave, taking huge bites as he went.

The path slopes at first steeply downward from the mouth to the interior

of the cavern, where it becomes more level. Light being admitted only at

the entrance, the gloom of the interior is almost impenetrable to the

eye. The men had brought torches to assist them in their work, and, a

suitable spot having been selected, these were stuck on different points

and abutments of the rocky wall, when the party proceeded to unload the

mules at the entrance, conveying their burdens into the cave.

In the midst of the bustle and noise attending the operation, the little

dog given by Esther to Carlota, which had that morning followed the

Major, to whom it had speedily attached itself, began barking and

howling dismally in a dark recess behind one of the great natural

pillars before spoken of. As the noise continued, intermixed with

piteous whinings, one of the men took a torch from the wall, and stepped

forward into the darkness, to see what ailed the animal. Presently he

cried out that "there was a man there."

My grandfather, who was next him, immediately followed, and five paces

brought him to the spot. The soldier who held the torch was stooping,

and holding it over a figure that lay on the ground on its back. In the

unshaven, blood-stained countenance, my grandfather, at first, had some

difficulty in recognising Lazaro the Jew. Some fiery splashes of pitch

from the torch dropping at the moment on his bare throat, produced no

movement, though, had he been living, they must have scorched him to the

quick.

On the body was nothing but the shirt he wore the night of his flight

from the hospital, but his legs were wrapt in a woman's dress. Across

his breast, on her face, lay Esther, in her white undergarments--for the

gown that wrapt the Jew's legs was hers. The glare of the torch was

bright and red on the two prostrate figures, and on the staring appalled

countenance of the man who held it--the group forming a glowing spot in

the vast, sombre, vaulted space, where dim gleams of light were caught

and repeated on projecting masses of rock, more and more faintly, till

all was bounded by darkness.

Years afterwards my grandfather would sometimes complain of having been

revisited, in dreams of the night, by that ghastly piece of Rembrandt

painting.

The rest quickly flocked to the spot, and Esther was lifted and found to

breathe, though the Jew was stiff and cold. Some diluted spirit, from

the cellar of Bags, being poured down her throat, she revived a little,

when my grandfather caused two of the men to bear her carefully to his

house; and the body of the Jew, being wrapt in a piece of canvass, was

placed on a mule and conveyed to the hospital for interment.

Medical aid restored Esther to consciousness, and she told how they came

to be found in the cave.

Her father, on leaving the hospital, had fled by chance, as she thought,

to this cave, for he did not reach it by the usual path, but climbed,

in his delirious fear, up the face of the rock, and she had followed him

as well as she could, keeping his white figure in sight. They had both

lain exhausted in the cave till morning, when, finding that her father

slept, she was on the point of leaving him to seek assistance. But,

unhappily, before she could quit the place, Bags and his associates

entered from their plundering expedition into the town, and, frightened

at their drunken language, and recognising in Bags the man who had

robbed her of her comb, she had crept back to her concealment. The party

of marauders never quitted the cavern from the moment of establishing

themselves in it. They spent the day in eating, drinking, singing songs,

and sometimes quarrelling. Twice, at night, she ventured forth; but she

always found one of them asleep across the entrance, so that she could

not pass without waking him, and once one of them started up, and seemed

about to pursue her--doubtless Bags, on the occasion when he thought he

saw a ghost. Nevertheless, she had mustered courage twice to take some

fragments of food that were lying near the fire, leaving each time a

piece of money in payment; and she had also taken a lighted candle, the

better to ascertain her father's situation. He had never spoken to her

since the first night of their coming, and, during all these dark and

weary hours (for they were three nights and two days in the cavern),

she had remained by him listening to his incoherent mutterings and

moans. The candle had showed her that he had lost much blood, from the

wound in his forehead breaking out afresh, as well as from the other

received in the hospital, though the latter was but a flesh wound. These

she had bandaged with shreds of her dress, and had tried to give him

some of the nourishment she had procured, but could force nothing on him

except some water. Some hours, however--how long she did not know, but

it was during the night--before Owen's party found her, the Jew had

become sensible. He told her he was dying; and, unconscious of where he

was, desired her to fetch a light. This she had procured in the same way

as before, lighting the candle at the embers of the fire round which

Bags and his friends reposed. Then the Jew, who seemed to imagine

himself still in the hospital, bid her say whom, among those she knew in

Gibraltar, she would wish to have charge of her when he was no more;

and, on her mentioning Carlota, had desired her to take pen and paper

and write his will as he should dictate it. Pen she had none, but she

had a pencil and a scrap of paper in her pocket, and with these she

wrote, leaning over to catch the whispered syllables that he with

difficulty articulated.

From this paper it would appear that the Jew had some fatherly feelings

for Esther concealed beneath his harsh deportment towards her. I can

describe the will, for I have often seen it. It is written on a piece of

crumpled writing-paper, about the size of a bank-note, very stained and

dirty. It is written in Spanish; and in it the Jew entreats "the Senora,

the wife of Sr. Don Flinder, English officer, to take charge of his

orphan child, in requital whereof he leaves her the half of whatsoever

property he dies possessed of, the other half to be disposed of for the

benefit of his daughter." Then follows a second paragraph, inserted at

Esther's own desire, to the effect that, should she not survive, the

whole was to be inherited by the aforesaid Senora. It is dated "Abril

1781," and signed in a faint, straggling hand, quite different from the

clear writing of the rest--"JOSE LAZARO."

Esther would now have gone, at all hazards, to obtain assistance, but

the Jew clutched her arm, and would not permit her to quit him. He

breathed his last shortly after, and Esther remembered nothing more till

she came to herself in the Major's house. The paper was found in her

bosom.

Some days after this event, my grandfather went with Owen into the town,

during a temporary lull in the enemy's firing, to visit the house of

Lazaro, in order to ascertain whether anything valuable was left that

might be converted to Esther's benefit. They had some difficulty in

finding the exact locality, owing to the utter destruction of all the

landmarks. The place was a mass of ruins. Some provisions and goods had

been left by the plunderers, but so mixed with rubbish, and overflowed

with the contents of the casks of liquor and molasses, as to be of no

value even in these times of dearth.

Owen, poking about among the wreck, observed an open space in the middle

of one of the shattered walls, as if something had been built into it.

With the assistance of my grandfather's cane, he succeeded in dislodging

the surrounding masonry, already loosened by shot, and they discovered

it to be a recess made in the thickness of the wall, and closed by a

small iron door. At the bottom was lying a small box, also of iron,

which they raised, not without difficulty, for its weight was

extraordinary in proportion to its dimensions. This being conveyed to my

grandfather's, and opened, was found to contain more than six hundred

doubloons (a sum in value about two thousand pounds), and many bills of

exchange and promissory notes, mostly those of officers. The latest was

that of Von Dessel. These the Major, by Esther's desire, returned to the

persons whose signatures they bore.

Esther never completely recovered from the effects of her sojourn in the

cave, but remained always pale and of weak health. My grandfather took

good care of her inheritance for her, and on leaving Gibraltar, at the

conclusion of the siege, invested the whole of it safely for her

benefit, placing her, at the same time, in the family of some

respectable persons of her own religion. She afterwards married a

wealthy Hebrew; and, in whatever part of the world the Major chanced to

be serving, so long as she lived, valuable presents would constantly

arrive from Gibraltar--mantillas and ornaments of jewellery for Carlota,

and butts of delicious sherry for my grandfather. These, however, ceased

with her death, about twenty years afterwards.

This is, I believe, the most connected and interesting episode to be

found in the Major's note-book; and it is, I think, the last specimen I

shall offer of these new "Tales of my Grandfather."

As a child I used to listen, with interest ever new, to the tale of the

young Jewess, which the narrator had often heard from the lips of

Carlota and her husband. St Michael's cave took rank in my mind with

those other subterranean abodes where Cassim, the brother of Ali Baba,

who forgot the words "_Open Sesame_," was murdered by the Forty Thieves;

where Aladdin was shut by the magician in the enchanted garden; and

where Robinson Crusoe discovered the dying he-goat. And when, at the

conclusion of the tale, the scrap of paper containing the Jew's will was

produced from a certain desk, and carefully unfolded, I seemed to be

connected by some awful and mysterious link with these departed actors

in the scenes I had so breathlessly listened to.

A STORY WITHOUT A TAIL.

BY WILLIAM MAGINN, LL.D.

[_MAGA._ APRIL 1834.]

CHAPTER I.

HOW WE WENT TO DINE AT JACK GINGER'S.

So it was finally agreed upon that we should dine at Jack Ginger's

chambers in the Temple, seated in a lofty story in Essex Court. There

was, besides our host, Tom Meggot, Joe Macgillicuddy, Humpy Harlow, Bob

Burke, Antony Harrison, and myself. As Jack Ginger had little coin and

no credit, we contributed each our share to the dinner. He himself

provided room, fire, candle, tables, chairs, tablecloth, napkins--no,

not napkins; on second thoughts we did not bother ourselves with

napkins--plates, dishes, knives, forks, spoons (which he borrowed

from the wig-maker), tumblers, lemons, sugar, water, glasses,

decanters--by the by, I am not sure that there were decanters--salt,

pepper, vinegar, mustard, bread, butter (plain and melted), cheese,

radishes, potatoes, and cookery. Tom Meggot was a cod's head and

shoulders, and oysters to match--Joe Macgillicuddy, a boiled leg of

pork, with pease-pudding--Humpy Harlow, a sirloin of beef roast, with

horse-radish--Bob Burke, a gallon of half-and-half, and four bottles of

whisky, of prime quality ("Potteen," wrote the Whiskyman, "I say, by

Jupiter, but of which _many_-facture _He_ alone knows")--Antony

Harrison, half-a-dozen of port, he having tick to that extent at some

unfortunate wine-merchant's--and I supplied cigars _a discretion_, and a

bottle of rum, which I borrowed from a West Indian friend of mine as I

passed by. So that, on the whole, we were in no danger of suffering from

any of the extremes of hunger and thirst for the course of that evening.

We met at five o'clock--_sharp_--and very sharp. Not a man was missing

when the clock of the Inner Temple struck the last stroke. Jack Ginger

had done everything to admiration. Nothing could be more splendid than

his turn-out. He had superintended the cooking himself of every

individual dish with his own eyes--or rather eye--he having but one, the

other having been lost in a skirmish when he was midshipman on board a

pirate in the Brazilian service. "Ah!" said Jack, often and often,

"these were my honest days. Gad! did I ever think when I was a pirate

that I was at the end to turn rogue, and study the law!"--All was

accurate to the utmost degree. The tablecloth, to be sure, was not

exactly white, but it had been washed last week, and the collection of

the plates was miscellaneous, exhibiting several of the choicest

patterns of delf. We were not of the silver-fork school of poetry, but

steel is not to be despised. If the table was somewhat rickety, the

inequality in the legs was supplied by clapping a volume of Vesey under

the short one. As for the chairs--but why weary about details? Chairs

being made to be sat upon, it is sufficient to say that they answered

their purposes; and whether they had backs or not--whether they were

cane-bottomed, or hair-bottomed, or rush-bottomed, is nothing to the

present inquiry.

Jack's habits of discipline made him punctual, and dinner was on the

table in less than three minutes after five. Down we sate, hungry as

hunters and eager for the prey.

"Is there a parson in company?" said Jack Ginger, from the head of the

table.

"No," responded I, from the foot.

"Then, thank God," said Jack, and proceeded, after this pious grace, to

distribute the cod's head and shoulders to the hungry multitude.

CHAPTER II.

HOW WE DINED AT JACK GINGER'S.

The history of that cod's head and shoulders would occupy but little

space to write. Its flakes, like the snow-flakes on a river, were for

one moment bright, then gone for ever; it perished unpitiably. "Bring

hither," said Jack, with a firm voice, "the leg of pork." It appeared,

but soon to disappear again. Not a man of the company but showed his

abhorrence of the Judaical practice of abstaining from the flesh of

swine. Equally clear in a few moments was it that we were truly British

in our devotion to beef. The sirloin was impartially destroyed on both

sides, upper and under. Dire was the clatter of the knives, but deep the

silence of the guests. Jerry Gallagher, Jack's valet-de-chambre,

footman, cook, clerk, shoeblack, aide-de-camp, scout, confidant,

dun-chaser, bum-defyer, and many other offices _in commendam_,

toiled like a hero. He covered himself with glory and gravy every

moment. In a short time a vociferation arose for fluid, and the

half-and-half--Whitbread quartered upon Chamyton--beautiful

heraldry!--was inhaled with the most savage satisfaction.

"The pleasure of a glass of wine with you, Bob Burke," said Joe

Macgillicuddy, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"With pleasure, Joe," replied Bob. "What wine do you choose? You may as

well say port, for there is no other; but attention to manners always

becomes a gentleman."

"Port, then, if you please," cried Joe, "as the ladies of Limerick say,

when a man looks at them across the table."

"Hobnobbing wastes time," said Jack Ginger, laying down the pot out of

which he had been drinking for the last few minutes; "and, besides, it

is not customary now in genteel society--so pass the bottle about."

[I here pause in my narrative to state, on more accurate recollection,

that we had not decanters; we drank from the black bottle, which Jack

declared was according to the fashion of the Continent.]

So the port was passed round, and declared to be superb. Antony Harrison

received the unanimous applause of the company; and, if he did not blush

at all the fine things that were said in his favour, it was because his

countenance was of that peculiar hue that no addition of red could be

visible upon it. A blush on Antony's face would be like gilding refined

gold.

Whether cheese is prohibited or not in the higher circles of the West

End, I cannot tell; but I know it was not prohibited in the very highest

chambers of the Temple.

"It's double Gloucester," said Jack Ginger; "prime, bought at the

corner--Heaven pay the cheesemonger, for I shan't--but, as he is a

gentleman, I give you his health."

"I don't think," said Joe Macgillicuddy, "that I ought to demean myself

to drink the health of a cheesemonger; but I'll not stop the bottle."

And, to do Joe justice, he did not. Then we attacked the cheese, and in

an incredibly short period we battered in a breach of an angle of 45

degrees, in a manner that would have done honour to any engineer that

directed the guns at San Sebastian. The cheese, which on its first entry

on the table presented the appearance of a plain circle, was soon made

to exhibit a very different shape, as may be understood by the subjoined

diagram:--

[Illustration]

[A, original cheese; EBD, cheese after five minutes standing on the

table; EBC, angle of 45 deg.]

With cheese came, and with cheese went, celery. It is unnecessary to

repeat what a number of puns were made on that most pun-provoking of

plants.

"Clear the decks," said Jack Ginger to Jerry Gallagher. "Gentlemen, I

did not think of getting pastry, or puddings, or dessert, or ices, or

jellies, or blancmange, or anything of the sort, for men of sense like

you."

We all unanimously expressed our indignation at being supposed even for

a moment guilty of any such weakness; but a general suspicion seemed to

arise among us that a dram might not be rejected with the same marked

scorn. Jack Ginger accordingly uncorked one of Bob Burke's bottles.

Whop! went the cork, and the potteen soon was seen meandering round the

table.

"For my part," said Antony Harrison, "I take this dram because I ate

pork, and fear it might disagree with me."

"I take it," said Bob Burke, "chiefly by reason of the fish."

"I take it," said Joe Macgillicuddy, "because the day was warm, and it

is very close in these chambers."

"I take it," said Tom Meggot, "because I have been very chilly all the

day."

"I take it," said Humpy Harlow, "because it is such strange weather that

one does not know what to do."

"I take it," said Jack Ginger, "because the rest of the company takes

it."

"And I take it," said I, winding up the conversation, "because I like a

dram."

So we all took it for one reason or another--and there was an end of

that.

"Be off, Jerry Gallagher," said Jack--"I give to you, your heirs

and assigns, all that and those which remains in the pots of

half-and-half--item for your own dinners what is left of the solids--and

when you have pared the bones clean, you may give them to the poor.

Charity covers a multitude of sins. Brush away like a shoeblack--and

levant."

"Why, thin, God bless your honour," said Jerry Gallagher, "it's a small

liggacy he would have that would dippind for his daily bread for what is

left behind any of ye in the way of the drink--and this blessed hour

there's not as much as would blind the left eye of a midge in one of

them pots--and may it do you all good, if it ain't the blessing of

heaven to see you eating. By my sowl, he that has to pick a bone after

you, won't be much troubled with the mate. Howsomever--"

"No more prate," said Jack Ginger. "Here's twopence for you to buy

some beer--but, no," he continued, drawing his empty hand from that

breeches-pocket into which he had most needlessly put it--"no," said he,

"Jerry--get it on credit wherever you can, and bid them score it to me."

"If they will--" said Jerry.

"Shut the door," said Jack Ginger, in a peremptory tone, and Jerry

retreated.

"That Jerry," said Jack, "is an uncommonly honest fellow, only he is the

d----dest rogue in London. But all this is wasting time--and time is

life. Dinner is over, and the business of the evening is about to

begin. So, bumpers, gentlemen, and get rid of this wine as fast as we

can. Mr Vice, look to your bottles."

And on this, Jack Ginger gave a bumper toast.

CHAPTER III.

HOW WE CONVERSED AT JACK GINGER'S.

This being done, every man pulled in his chair close to the table, and

prepared for serious action. It was plain that we all, like Nelson's

sailors at Trafalgar, felt called upon to do our duty. The wine

circulated with considerable rapidity; and there was no flinching on the

part of any individual of the company. It was quite needless for our

president to remind us of the necessity of bumpers, or the impropriety

of leaving heel-taps. We were all too well trained to require the

admonition, or to fall into the error. On the other hand, the chance of

any man obtaining more than his share in the round was infinitesimally

small. The Sergeant himself, celebrated as he is, could not have

succeeded in obtaining a glass more than his neighbours. Just to our

friends, we were also just to ourselves; and a more rigid circle of

philosophers never surrounded a board.

The wine was really good, and its merits did not appear the less

striking from the fact that we were not habitually winebibbers, our

devotion generally being paid to fluids more potent or more heavy than

the juice of the grape, and it soon excited our powers of conversation.

Heavens! what a flow of soul! More good things were said in Jack

Ginger's chambers that evening, than in the Houses of Lords and Commons

in a month. We talked of everything--politics, literature, the fine

arts, drama, high life, low life, the opera, the cockpit--everything

from the heavens above to the hells in St James's Street. There was not

an article in a morning, evening, or weekly paper for the week before,

which we did not repeat. It was clear that our knowledge of things in

general was drawn in a vast degree from these recondite sources. In

politics, we were harmonious--we were Tories to a man, and defied the

Radicals of all classes, ranks, and conditions. We deplored the ruin of

our country, and breathed a sigh over the depression of the agricultural

interest. We gave it as our opinion that Don Miguel should be King of

Portugal--and that Don Carlos, if he had the pluck of the most nameless

of insects, could ascend the throne of Spain. We pitched Louis Philippe

to that place which is never mentioned to ears polite, and drank the

health of the Duchess of Berri. Opinions differed somewhat about the

Emperor of Russia--some thinking that he was too hard on the

Poles--others gently blaming him for not squeezing them much tighter.

Antony Harrison, who had seen the Grand Duke Constantine, when he was

campaigning, spoke with tears in his eyes of that illustrious

prince--declaring him, with an oath, to have been a d----d good fellow.

As for Leopold, we unanimously voted him to be a scurvy hound; and Joe

Macgillicuddy was pleased to say something complimentary of the Prince

of Orange, which would have, no doubt, much gratified his Royal

Highness, if it had been communicated to him, but I fear it never

reached his ears.

Turning to domestic policy--we gave it to the Whigs in high style. If

Lord Grey had been within hearing, he must have instantly resigned--he

never could have resisted the thunders of our eloquence. All the hundred

and one Greys would have been forgotten--he must have sunk before us.

Had Brougham been there, he would have been converted to Toryism long

before he could have got to the state of tipsyfication in which he

sometimes addresses the House of Lords. There was not a topic left

undiscussed. With one hand we arranged Ireland--with another put the

Colonies in order. Catholic Emancipation was severely condemned, and

Bob Burke gave the glorious, pious, and immortal memory. The vote of

L20,000,000 to the greasy blacks was much reprobated, and the opening

of the China trade declared a humbug. We spoke, in fact, articles that

would have made the fortunes of half a hundred magazines, if the editors

of those works would have had the perspicacity to insert them; and this

we did with such ease to ourselves, that we never for a moment stopped

the circulation of the bottle, which kept running on its round

rejoicing, while we settled the affairs of the nation.

Then Antony Harrison told us all his campaigns in the Peninsula, and

that capital story how he bilked the tavern-keeper in Portsmouth. Jack

Ginger entertained us with an account of his transactions in the

Brazils; and as Jack's imagination far outruns his attention to matters

of fact, we had them considerably improved. Bob Burke gave us all the

particulars of his duel with Ensign Brady of the 48th, and how he hit

him on the waistcoat pocket, which, fortunately for the Ensign,

contained a five-shilling piece (how he got it was never accounted for),

which saved him from grim death. From Joe Macgillicuddy we heard

multifarious narrations of steeple-chases in Tipperary, and of his

hunting with the Blazers in Galway. Tom Meggot expatiated on his college

adventures in Edinburgh, which he maintained to be a far superior city

to London, and repeated sundry witty sayings of the advocates in the

Parliament House, who seem to be gentlemen of great facetiousness. As

for me, I emptied out all Joe Miller on the company; and if old Joe

could have burst his cerements in the neighbouring churchyard of St

Clement Danes, he would have been infinitely delighted with the

reception which the contents of his agreeable miscellany met with. To

tell the truth, my jokes were not more known to my companions than their

stories were to me. Harrison's campaigns, Ginger's cruises, Burke's

duel, Macgillicuddy's steeple-chases, and Tom Meggot's rows in the High

Street, had been told over and over--so often indeed, that the several

relaters begin to believe that there is some foundation in fact for the

wonders which they are continually repeating.

"I perceive this is the last bottle of port," said Jack Ginger; "so I

suppose that there cannot be any harm in drinking bad luck to Antony

Harrison's wine-merchant, who did not make it the dozen."

"Yes," said Harrison, "the skinflint thief would not stand more than the

half, for which he merits the most infinite certainty of non-payment."

(You may depend upon it that Harrison was as good as his word, and

treated the man of bottles according to his deserts.)

The port was gathered to its fathers, and potteen reigned in its stead.

A most interesting discussion took place as to what was to be done with

it. No doubt, indeed, existed as to its final destination; but various

opinions were broached as to the manner in which it was to make its way

to its appointed end. Some wished that every man should make for

himself; but that Jack Ginger strenuously opposed, because he said it

would render the drinking unsteady. The company divided into two parties

on the great questions of bowl or jug. The Irishmen maintained the cause

of the latter. Tom Meggot, who had been reared in Glasgow, and Jack

Ginger, who did not forget his sailor propensities, were in favour of

the former. Much erudition was displayed on both sides, and I believe I

may safely say, that every topic that either learning or experience

could suggest, was exhausted. At length we called for a division, when

there appeared--

FOR THE JUG. FOR THE BOWL.

Bob Burke, Jack Ginger,

Joe Macgillicuddy, Humpy Harlow,

Antony Harrison, Tom Meggot,

Myself.

Majority 1, in favour of the jug.

I was principally moved to vote as I did, because I deferred to the

Irishmen, as persons who were best acquainted with the nature of

potteen; and Antony Harrison was on the same side from former

recollections of his quarterings in Ireland. Humpy Harlow said that

he made it a point always to side with the man of the house.

"It is settled," said Jack Ginger, "and, as we said of Parliamentary

Reform, though we opposed it, it is now law, and must be obeyed. I'll

clear away these marines, and do you, Bob Burke, make the punch. I think

you will find the lemons good--the sugar superb--and the water of the

Temple has been famous for centuries."

"And I'll back the potteen against any that ever came from the Island of

Saints," said Bob, proceeding to his duty, which all who have the honour

of his acquaintance will admit him to be well qualified to perform. He

made it in a couple of big blue water-jugs, observing that making punch

in small jugs was nearly as great a bother as ladling from a bowl; and

as he tossed the steamy fluid from jug to jug to mix it kindly, he sang

the pathetic ballad of Hugger-mo-fane--

"I wish I had a red herring's tail," &c.

It was an agreeable picture of continued use and ornament, and reminded

us strongly of the Abyssinian maid of the Platonic poetry of Coleridge.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW HUMPY HARLOW BROKE SILENCE AT JACK GINGER'S.

The punch being made, and the jug revolving, the conversation continued

as before. But it may have been observed that I have not taken any

notice of the share which one of the party, Humpy Harlow, took in it.

The fact is, that he had been silent for almost all the evening, being

outblazed and overborne by the brilliancy of the conversation of his

companions. We were all acknowledged wits in our respective lines,

whereas he had not been endowed with the same talents. How he came among

us I forget; nor did any of us know well who or what he was. Some

maintained he was a drysalter in the City; others surmised that he might

be a pawnbroker at the West End. Certain it is that he had some money,

which perhaps might have recommended him to us, for there was not a man

in the company who had not occasionally borrowed from him a sum, too

trifling, in general, to permit any of us to think of repaying it. He

was a broken-backed little fellow, as vain of his person as a peacock,

and accordingly we always called him Humpy Harlow, with the spirit of

gentlemanlike candour which characterised all our conversation. With a

kind feeling towards him, we in general permitted him to pay our bills

for us whenever we dined together at tavern or chop-house, merely to

gratify the little fellow's vanity, which I have already hinted to be

excessive.

He had this evening made many ineffectual attempts to shine, but was at

last obliged to content himself with opening his mouth for the

admission, not for the utterance, of good things. He was evidently

unhappy, and a rightly constituted mind could not avoid pitying his

condition. As jug, however, succeeded jug, he began to recover his

self-possession; and it was clear, about eleven o'clock, when the fourth

bottle of potteen was converting into punch, that he had a desire to

speak. We had been for some time busily employed in smoking cigars,

when, all on a sudden, a shrill and sharp voice was heard from the midst

of a cloud, exclaiming, in a high treble key--

"_Humphries told me_"----

We all puffed our Havannahs with the utmost silence, as if we were so

many Sachems at a palaver, listening to the narration which issued from

the misty tabernacle in which Humpy Harlow was enveloped. He unfolded a

tale of wondrous length, which we never interrupted. No sound was heard

save that of the voice of Harlow, narrating the story which had to him

been confided by the unknown Humphries, or the gentle gliding of the

jug, an occasional tingle of a glass, and the soft suspiration of the

cigar. On moved the story in its length, breadth, and thickness, for

Harlow gave it to us in its full dimensions. He abated it not a jot. The

firmness which we displayed was unequalled since the battle of Waterloo.

We sat with determined countenances, exhaling smoke and inhaling punch,

while the voice still rolled onward. At last Harlow came to an end; and

a Babel of conversation burst from lips in which it had been so long

imprisoned. Harlow looked proud of his feat, and obtained the thanks of

the company, grateful that he had come to a conclusion. How we finished

the potteen--converted my bottle of rum into a bowl--(for here Jack

Ginger prevailed)--how Jerry Gallagher, by superhuman exertions,

succeeded in raising a couple of hundred of oysters for supper--how the

company separated, each to get to his domicile as he could--how I found,

in the morning, my personal liberty outraged by the hands of that

unconstitutional band of gens-d'armes created for the direct purposes of

tyranny, and held up to the indignation of all England by the weekly

eloquence of the _Despatch_--how I was introduced to the attention of a

magistrate, and recorded in the diurnal page of the newspaper--all this

must be left to other historians to narrate.

CHAPTER V.

WHAT STORY IT WAS THAT HUMPY HARLOW TOLD

AT JACK GINGER'S.

At three o'clock on the day after the dinner, Antony Harrison and I

found ourselves eating bread and cheese--part of _the_ cheese--at Jack

Ginger's. We recapitulated the events of the preceding evening, and

expressed ourselves highly gratified with the entertainment. Most of the

good things we had said were revived, served up again, and laughed at

once more. We were perfectly satisfied with the parts which we had

respectively played, and talked ourselves into excessive good-humour.

All on a sudden Jack Ginger's countenance clouded. He was evidently

puzzled; and sat for a moment in thoughtful silence. We asked him, with

Oriental simplicity of sense, "Why art thou troubled?" and till a moment

he answered--

"What _was_ the story which Humpy Harlow told us about eleven o'clock

last night, just as Bob Burke was teeming the last jug?"

"It began," said I, "with '_Humphries told me._'"

"It did," said Antony Harrison, cutting a deep incision into the cheese.

"I know it did," said Jack Ginger; "but what was it that Humphries had

told him? I cannot recollect it if I was to be made Lord Chancellor."

Antony Harrison and I mused in silence, and racked our brains, but to no

purpose. On the tablet of our memories no trace had been engraved, and

the tale of Humphries, as reported by Harlow, was as if it were not, so

far as we were concerned.

While we were in this perplexity, Joe Macgillicuddy and Bob Burke

entered the room.

"We have been just taking a hair of the same dog," said Joe. "It was a

pleasant party we had last night. Do you know what Bob and I have been

talking of for the last half-hour?"

We professed our inability to conjecture.

"Why, then," continued Joe, "it was about the story that Harlow told

last night."

"The story begins with '_Humphries told me_,'" said Bob.

"And," proceeded Joe, "for our lives we cannot recollect what it was."

"Wonderful!" we all exclaimed. "How inscrutable are the movements of the

human mind."

And we proceeded to reflect on the frailty of our memories, moralising

in a strain that would have done honour to Dr Johnson.

"Perhaps," said I, "Tom Meggot may recollect it."

Idle hope! dispersed to the winds almost as soon as it was formed. For

the words had scarcely passed "the bulwark of my teeth," when Tom

appeared, looking excessively bloodshot in the eye. On inquiry, it

turned out that he, like the rest of us, remembered only the cabalistic

words which introduced the tale, but of the tale itself, nothing.

Tom had been educated at Edinburgh, and was strongly attached to what he

calls _metapheesicks_; and, accordingly, after rubbing his forehead, he

exclaimed--

"This is a psychological curiosity, which deserves to be developed. I

happen to have half a sovereign about me" (an assertion which, I may

remark in passing, excited considerable surprise in his audience), "and

I'll ask Harlow to dine with me at the Rainbow. I'll get the story out

of the Humpy rascal--and no mistake."

We acquiesced in the propriety of this proceeding; and Antony Harrison,

observing that he happened by chance to be disengaged, hooked himself on

Tom, who seemed to have a sort of national antipathy to such a ceremony,

with a talent and alacrity that proved him to be a veteran warrior, or

what, in common parlance, is called an old soldier.

Tom succeeded in getting Harlow to dinner, and Harrison succeeded in

making him pay the bill, to the great relief of Meggot's half sovereign,

and they parted at an early hour in the morning. The two Irishmen and

myself were at Ginger's shortly after breakfast; we had been part

occupied in tossing halfpence to decide which of us was to send out for

ale, when--Harrison and Meggot appeared. There was conscious confusion

written in their countenances. "Did Humpy Harlow tell you _that_ story?"

we all exclaimed at once.

"It cannot be denied that he did," said Meggot. "Precisely as the clock

struck eleven, he commenced with '_Humphries told me._'"

"Well--and what then?"

"Why, there it is," said Antony Harrison, "may I be drummed out if I can

recollect another word."

"Nor I," said Meggot.

The strangeness of this singular adventure made a deep impression on us

all. We were sunk in silence for some minutes, during which Jerry

Gallagher made his appearance with the ale, which I omitted to mention

had been lost by Joe Macgillicuddy. We sipped that British beverage,

much abstracted in deep thought. The thing appeared to us perfectly

inscrutable. At last I said, "This never will do--we cannot exist much

longer in this atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty. We must have it out

of Harlow to-night, or there is an end of all the grounds and degrees of

belief, opinion, and assent. I have credit," said I, "at the widow's, in

St Martin's Lane. Suppose we all meet there to-night, and get Harlow

there if we can?"

"That I can do," said Antony Harrison, "for I quartered myself to dine

with him to-day, as I saw him home, poor little fellow, last night. I

promise that he figures at the widow's to-night at nine o'clock."

So we separated. At nine every man of the party was in St Martin's Lane,

seated in the little back parlour; and Harrison was as good as his word,

for he brought Harlow with him. He ordered a sumptuous supper of mutton

kidneys, interspersed with sausages, and set to. At eleven o'clock

precisely, the eye of Harlow brightened, and putting his pipe down, he

commenced with a shrill voice--

"_Humphries told me_----"

"Ay," said we all, with one accord, "here it is--now we shall have

it--take care of it this time."

"What do you mean?" said Humpy Harlow, performing that feat which by the

illustrious Mr John Keeve is called "flaring up."

"Nothing," we replied, "nothing, but we are anxious to hear that story."

"I understand you," said our broken-backed friend. "I now recollect that

I did tell it once or so before in your company, but I shall not be a

butt any longer for you or anybody else."

"Don't be in a passion, Humpy," said Jack Ginger.

"Sir," replied Harlow, "I hate nicknames--it is a mark of a low mind to

use them--and as I see I am brought here only to be insulted, I shall

not trouble you any longer with my company."

Saying this, the little man seized his hat and umbrella, and strode out

of the room.

"His back is up," said Joe Macgillicuddy, "and there's no use of trying

to get it down. I am sorry he is gone, because I should have made him

pay for another round."

But he was gone, not to return again--and the story remains unknown.

Yea, as undiscoverable as the hieroglyphical writings of the ancient

Egyptians. It exists, to be sure, in the breast of Harlow; but there it

is buried, never to emerge into the light of day. It is lost to the

world--and means of recovering it, there, in my opinion, exist none.

The world must go on without it, and states and empires must continue to

flourish and to fade without the knowledge of what it was that Humphries

told Harlow. Such is the inevitable course of events.

For my part, I shall be satisfied with what I have done in drawing up

this accurate and authentic narrative, if I can seriously impress on the

minds of my readers the perishable nature of mundane affairs--if I can

make them reflect that memory itself, the noblest, perhaps the

characteristic, quality of the human mind, will decay, even while other

faculties exist--and that, in the words of a celebrated Lord of Trade

and Plantations, of the name of John Locke, "we may be like the tombs to

which we are hastening, where, though the brass and marble remain, yet

the imagery is defaced, and the inscription is blotted out for ever!"

THE ENCHANTER FAUSTUS AND QUEEN

ELIZABETH.

ANECDOTE EXTRACTED PROM THE DOCTOR'S UNPUBLISHED

MEMOIRS.

"I do not say it is possible--I only say it is true."

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1822.]

Elizabeth was a wonderful princess for wisdom, learning, magnificence,

and grandeur of soul. All this was fine,--but she was as envious as a

decayed beauty--jealous and cruel--and that spoiled all. However, be her

defects what they may, her fame had pierced even to the depths of

Germany, whence the Enchanter Faustus set off for her court, that great

magician wishing to ascertain by his own wits, whether Elizabeth was as

gifted with good qualities as she was with bad. No one could judge this

for him so well as himself, who read the stars like his A B C, and whom

Satan obeyed like his dog--yet, withal, who was not above a thousand

pleasant tricks, that make people laugh, and hurt no one: such, for

instance, as turning an old lord into an old lady, to elope with his

cook-maid--exchanging a handsome wife for an ugly one, &c. &c.

The Queen, charmed with the pretty things which she heard of him, wished

much to see him--and from the moment that she did, became quite

fascinated. On his side, he found her better than he had expected;

not but that he perceived she thought a great deal too much of her

wit--though she had a tolerable share of it; and still more of her

beauty--of which she had rather less.

One day that she was dressed with extraordinary splendour, to give

audience to some ambassadors, she retired into her cabinet at the close

of the ceremony, and sent for the Doctor. After having gazed at herself

in all the mirrors in the room, and seeming very well pleased with their

reflection,--for her roses and lilies were as good as gold could buy,

her petticoat high enough to show her ankle, and her frill low to expose

her bosom,--she sat down _en attitude_, in her great chair. It was thus

the Enchanter Faustus found her. He was the most adroit courtier that

you could find, though you searched the world over. For though there are

good reasons why a courtier may not be a conjuror, there are none why a

conjuror may not be a courtier; and Faustus, both in one--knowing the

Queen's foible as to her imaginary beauty--took care not to let slip

so fine an opportunity of paying his court. He was wonderstruck,

thunderstruck, at such a blaze of perfection. Elizabeth knew how to

appreciate the moment of surprise. She drew a magnificent ruby from

her finger, which the Doctor, without making difficulties about it,

drew on his.

"You find me then passable for a Queen?" said she, smiling. On this he

wished himself at the devil (his old resting-place), if, not alone that

he had ever seen, but if anybody else had ever seen, either queen or

subject to equal her.

"Oh, Faustus, my friend," replied she, "could the beauties of antiquity

return, we should soon see what a flatterer you are!"

"I dare the proof," returned the Doctor. "If your Majesty will it--but

speak, and they are here."

Faustus, of course, never expected to be taken at his word; but whether

Elizabeth wished to see if magic could perform the miracle, or to

satisfy a curiosity that had often tormented her, she expressed herself

amazingly pleased at the idea, and begged it might be immediately

realised.

Faustus then requested her Majesty to pass into a little gallery near

the apartment, while he went for his book, his ring, and his large black

mantle.

All this was done nearly as soon as said. There was a door at each end

of the gallery, and it was decided that the beauties should come in at

one, and go out at the other, so that the Queen might have a fair view

of them. Only two of the courtiers were admitted to this exhibition;

these were the Earl of Essex and Sir Philip Sydney.

Her Majesty was seated in the middle of the gallery, with the Earl and

the Knight standing to the right and left of her chair. The enchanter

did not forget to trace round them and their mistress certain mysterious

circles, with all the grimaces and contortions of the time. He then drew

another opposite to it, within which he took his own station, leaving a

space between for the actors.

When this was finished, he begged the Queen not to speak a word while

they should be on the stage; and, above all, not to appear frightened,

let her see what she might.

The latter precaution was needless, for the good Queen feared neither

angel nor devil. And now the Doctor inquired what _belle_ of antiquity

she would first see.

"To follow the order of time," she answered, "they should commence with

HELEN."

The magician, with a changing countenance, now exclaimed, "Sit still!"

Sydney's heart beat quick. The brave Essex turned pale. As to the Queen,

not the slightest emotion was perceptible.

Faustus soon commenced some muttered incantations and strange

evolutions, such as were the fashion of the day for conjurors. Anon the

gallery shook, so did the two courtiers, and the Doctor, in a voice of

anger, called out,

"Daughter of fair Leda, hear!

From thy far Elysian sphere;

Lovely as when, for his fee,

To Paris Venus promised thee--

Appear--appear--appear!"

Accustomed to command, rather than to be commanded, the fair Helen

lingered to the last possible moment; but when the last moment came, so

did she, and so suddenly, that no one knew how she got there. She was

habited _a la Grecque_,--her hair ornamented with pearls and a superb

aigrette. The figure passed slowly onwards--stopped for an instant

directly opposite the Queen, as if to gratify her curiosity, took leave

of her with a malicious smile, and vanished. She had scarcely

disappeared when her Majesty exclaimed--"What! that the fair Helen! I

don't pique myself on beauty, but may I die if I would change faces with

her!"

"I told your Majesty how it would be," remarked the enchanter; "and yet

there she is, as she was in her best days."

"She has, however, very fine eyes," observed Essex.

"Yes," said Sydney, "they are large, dark, and brilliant--but after all,

what do they say?" added he, correcting himself.

"Nothing," replied the favourite.

The Queen, who was this day extravagantly rouged, asked if they did not

think Helen's tint too _China-white_.

"China!" cried the Earl; "Delf rather."

"Perhaps," continued the Queen, "it was the fashion of her time; but you

must confess that such turned-in toes would have been endured in no

other woman. I don't dislike her style of dress, however, and probably I

may bring it round again, in place of these troublesome hoops, which

have their inconveniences."

"O, as to the dress," chimed in the favourite--"let it pass; it is well

enough, which is more than can be said for the wearer."

A conclusion, in which Sydney heartily joined, rhapsodying--

"O Paris, fatal was the hour,

When, victim to the blind god's power,

Within your native walks you bore

That firebrand from a foreign shore;

Who--ah, so little worth the strife!--

Was fit for nothing, but a wife."

"'Od's my life now," said her Majesty, "but I think she looks fitter for

anything else, Sydney!--My Lord of Essex, how think you?"

"As your Majesty does," returned he; "there is a meaning in that eye."

"And a minute past they said there was none," thought Faustus.

This liberal critique on the fair Helen being concluded, the Queen

desired to see the beautiful and hopeless Mariamne.

The enchanter did not wait to be twice asked; but he did not choose to

invoke a Princess who had worshipped at holy altars in the same manner

as he had summoned the fair Pagan. It was then, by way of ceremony,

that, turning four times to the east, three to the south, two to the

west, and only once to the north, he uttered, with great suavity, in

Hebrew--

"Lovely Mariamne, come!

Though thou sleepest far away,

Regal spirit! leave thy tomb!

Let the splendours round thee play,

Silken robe and diamond stone,

Such as, on thy bridal-day,

Flash'd from proud Judea's throne."

Scarcely had he concluded, when the spouse of Herod made her appearance,

and gravely advanced into the centre of the gallery, where she halted,

as her predecessor had done. She was robed nearly like the high-priest

of the Jews, except that instead of the Tiara, a veil, descending from

the crown of the head, and slightly attached to the cincture, fell far

behind her. Those graceful and flowing draperies threw over the whole

figure of the lovely Hebrew an air of indescribable dignity. After

having stopped for several minutes before the company, she pursued her

way,--but without paying the slightest parting compliment to the

haughty Elizabeth.

"Is it possible," said the Queen, before she had well disappeared--"is

it possible that Mariamne was such a figure as that?--such a tall, pale,

meagre, melancholy-looking affair, to have passed for a beauty through

so many centuries!"

"By my honour," quoth Essex, "had I been in Herod's place, I should

never have been angry at her keeping her distance."

"Yet I perceived," said Sydney, "a certain touching languor in the

countenance,--an air of dignified simplicity."

Her Majesty looked grave.

"Fye, fye," returned Essex, "it was haughtiness; her manner is full of

presumption,--ay, and even her height."

The Queen having approved of Essex's decision, on her own part condemned

the Princess for her aversion to her spouse, which, though the world

alleged to have been caused by his being the cut-throat of her family,

she saw nothing to justify, whatever a husband might be. A wife was a

wife; and Herod had done quite right in cutting off the heads of the

offenders.

Faustus, who affected universal knowledge, assured her Majesty that all

the historians were in error on that point; for he had had it himself

from a living witness, that the true cause of Herod's vengeance was his

spiteful old-maid of a sister--Salome's overhearing Mariamne, one day at

prayers, beg of Heaven to rid her of her worthless husband.

After a moment of thought, the Queen, with the same indifference with

which she would have called for her waiting-maid, desired to see

Cleopatra; for the Egyptian queen not having been quite as _comme il

faut_ as the British, the latter treated her accordingly. The beautiful

Cleopatra quickly made her appearance at the extremity of the

gallery,--and Elizabeth expected that this apparition would fully make

up for the disappointment which the others had occasioned. Scarcely had

she entered, when the air was loaded with the rich perfumes of Arabia.

Her bosom (that had been melting as charity) was open as day; a loop of

diamonds and rubies gathered the drapery as much above the left knee as

it might as well have been below it; and a woven wind of transparent

gauze softened the figure which it did not conceal.

In this gay and gallant costume, the mistress of Antony glided through

the gallery, making a similar pause as the others. No sooner was her

back turned, than the courtiers began to tear her person and frippery to

pieces,--the Queen calling out, like one possessed, for paper to burn

under her nose, to drive away the vapours occasioned by the gums with

which the mummy was filled,--declared her insupportable in every sense,

and far beneath even the wife of Herod or the daughter of Leda,--shocked

at her Diana drapery, to exhibit the most villanous leg in the

world,--and protested that a thicker robe would have much better become

her.

Whatever the two courtiers might have thought, they were forced to join

in these sarcasms, which the frail Egyptian excited in peculiar

severity.

"Such a cocked nose!" said the Queen.

"Such impertinent eyes!" said Essex.

Sydney, in addition to her other defects, found out that she had too

much stomach and too little back.

"Say of her as you please," returned Faustus--"one she is, however, who

led the Master of the World in her chains. But, madam," added he,

turning to the Queen, "as these far-famed foreign beauties are not to

your taste, why go beyond your own kingdom? England, which has always

produced the models of female perfection--as we may even at this moment

perceive--will furnish an object perhaps worthy of your attention in the

Fair Rosamond." Now Faustus had heard that the Queen fancied herself to

resemble the Fair Rosamond; and no sooner was the name mentioned, than

she was all impatience to see her.

"There is a secret instinct in this impatience," observed the Doctor,

craftily; "for, according to tradition, the Fair Rosamond had much

resemblance to your Majesty, though, of course, in an inferior style."

"Let us judge--let us judge," replied the Queen, hastily; "but from the

moment she appears, Sir Sydney, I request of you to observe her

minutely, that we may have her description, if she is worth it." This

order being given, and some little conjuration made, as Rosamond was

only a short distance from London, she made her appearance in a second.

Even at the door, her beauty charmed every one, but as she advanced she

enchanted them; and when she stopped to be gazed at, the admiration of

the company, with difficulty restrained to signs and looks, exhibited

their high approbation of the taste of Henry II. Nothing could exceed

the simplicity of her dress--and yet in that simplicity she effaced the

splendours of day--at least to the spectators. She waited before them a

long time--much longer than the others had done; and as if aware of the

command the Queen had given, she turned especially towards Sydney,

looking at him with an expressive smile. But she must go at last; and

when she was gone,--"My lord," said the Queen, "what a pretty creature!

I never saw anything so charming in my life. What a figure! what dignity

without affectation! what brilliancy without artifice!--and it is said

that I resemble her. My lord of Essex, what think you?" My lord thought,

would to Heaven you did; I would give the best steed in my stable that

you had even an ugly likeness to her. But he said, "Your majesty has

but to make the tour of the gallery in her green robe and primrose

petticoat, and if our magician himself would not mistake you for her,

count me the greatest ---- of your three kingdoms."

During all this flattery with which the favourite charmed the ears of

the good Queen, the poet Sydney, pencil in hand, was sketching the

vision of the Fair Rosamond.

Her Majesty then commanded it should be read, and when she heard it,

pronounced it very clever: but as it was a real impromptu, not one of

those born long before, and was written for a particular audience, as a

picture is painted for a particular light--we think it but justice to

the celebrated author not to draw his lines from the venerable antiquity

in which they rest, even if we had the MSS. copy; but we have not--which

at once finishes the business.

After the reading, they deliberated on the next that should succeed

Rosamond. The enchanter, still of opinion that they need not leave

England when beauty was the object in question, proposed the famous

Countess of Salisbury, who gave rise to the institution of the Garter.

The idea was approved of by the Queen, and particularly agreeable to

the courtiers, as they wished to see if the _cause_ were worthy of the

effect,--_i.e._, the leg of the garter; but her Majesty declared that

she should particularly like a second sight of her lovely resemblance,

the Fair Rosamond. The Doctor vowed that the affair was next to

impracticable in the order of conjuration,--the recall of a phantom not

depending on the powers submitted to the first enchantments. But the

more he declared against it, the more the Queen insisted, until he was

obliged at last to submit, but with the information that, if Rosamond

should return, it would not be by the way in which she had entered or

retired already, and that they had best take care of themselves, as he

could answer for no one.

The Queen, as we have elsewhere observed, knew not what fear was--and

the two courtiers were now a little reassured on the subject of

apparitions. The Doctor then set about accomplishing the Queen's wishes.

Never had conjuration cost him so much trouble; and after a thousand

grimaces and contortions, neither pretty nor polite, he flung his book

into the middle of the gallery, went three times round it on his hands

and feet, then made the tree against the wall, head down and heels up;

but nothing appearing, he had recourse to the last and most powerful of

his spells. What that was must remain for ever a mystery, for certain

reasons; but he wound it up by three times summoning with a sonorous

voice--"Rosamond! Rosamond! Rosamond!" At the last of these magic cries,

the grand window burst open with the sudden crash of a tempest, and

through it descended the lovely Rosamond into the middle of the room.

The Doctor was in a cold sweat, and while he dried himself, the Queen,

who thought her fair visitant a thousand times the fairer for the

additional difficulty in procuring this second sight, for once let her

prudence sleep, and, in a transport of enthusiasm, stepping out of her

circle with open arms, cried out, "My dear likeness!" No sooner was the

word out, than a violent clap of thunder shook the whole palace; a black

vapour filled the gallery, and a train of little fantastic lightnings

serpentined to the right and left in the dazzled eyes of the company.

When the obscurity was a little dissipated, they saw the magician, with

his four limbs in air, foaming like a wild boar, his cap here, his

wig there--in short, by no means an object of either the sublime or

beautiful. But though he came off the worst, yet no one in the adventure

escaped _quite clear_, except Rosamond. The lightning burned away my

Lord of Essex's right brow; Sir Sidney lost the left mustachio; her

majesty's head-dress smelt villanously of the sulphur, and her

hoop-petticoat was so puckered up with the scorching, that it was

ordered to be preserved among the royal draperies, as a warning, to all

maids of honour to come, against curiosity.

HOW I BECAME A YEOMAN.

BY PROFESSOR AYTOUN.

[_MAGA._ SEPTEMBER 1846.]

CHAPTER I.

Had the royal army of Israel been accoutred after the colour and fashion

of the British battalions, I am quite satisfied that another enigma

would have been added by King Solomon to his special list of

incomprehensibilities. The extraordinary fascination which a red coat

exercises over the minds and optics of the fair sex, appears to me a

greater phenomenon than any which has been noticed by Goethe in his

Theory of the Development of Colours. The same fragment of ensanguined

cloth will irritate a bull, charm a viper, and bewitch the heart of a

woman. No civilian, however good-looking or clean-limbed--and I rather

pique myself upon my pins--has the ghost of a chance when opposed in the

lists of love to an officer, a mail-guard, a whipper-in, or a postman.

You may be as clever a fellow as ever coopered up an article for the

Magazine, as great a poet as Byron, in beauty an Antinous, in wit a

Selwyn, in oratory a Canning--you may dance like Vestris, draw like

Grant, ride like Alexander; and yet, with all these accomplishments, it

is a hundred chances to one that your black coat, although fashioned by

the shears and polished by the goose of Stultz, will be extinguished by

the gaudy scarlet habiliments of a raw-boned ensign, emancipated six

months ago, for the first time in his life, from the wilderness of a

Highland glen, and even now as awkward a cub as ever presumed to plunge

into the perils of a polka.

Let no man, nor woman either, consider these observations flummery or

verbiage. They are my calm deliberate opinions, written, it is true,

under circumstances of considerable irritation, but nevertheless

deliberate. I have no love to the army, for I have been sacrificed for a

dragoon. My affections have been slighted, my person vilified, my

professional prospects damaged, and my constitution fearfully shaken in

consequence of this military mania. I have made an idiot of myself in

the eyes of my friends and relatives. I have absolutely gone upon the

turf. I have lost some valuable inches of epidermis, and every bone of

my body feels at the present moment as sore as though I were the sole

survivor of a terrific railway collision. A more injured individual than

myself never mounted upon a three-legged stool, and from that high

altitude I now hurl down defiance and anathemas upon the regulars, be

they horse or foot, sappers or miners, artillery, pioneers, or marines!

It was my accursed fate to love, and love in vain. I do not know whether

it was the eye or the instep, the form or the voice, of Edith Bogle,

which first drew my attention, and finally fascinated my regards, as I

beheld her swimming swan-like down the Assembly Rooms at the last

Waverley Ball. A more beautiful representative of Die Vernon could not

have been found within the boundary of the three kingdoms. Her rich

auburn hair flowed out from beneath the crimson network which strove in

vain to confine within its folds that bright luxuriant sea--on her brow

there lay one pearl, pure as an angel's tear--and oh! sweet even to

bewilderment was the smile that she cast around her, as, resting upon

the arm of the moody Master of Ravenswood, she floated away--a thing of

light--in the mazy current of the waltz! I shall not dwell now upon the

circumstances of the subsequent introduction; on the delicious hour of

converse at the supper-table; or on the whispered, and--as I flattered

myself--conscious adieux, when, with palpitating heart, I veiled her

fair shoulders with the shawl, and felt the soft pressure of her fingers

as I tenderly assisted her to her chair. I went home that night a

love-sick Writer to the Signet. One fairy form was the sole subject of

my dreams, and next morning I woke to the conviction, that without Edith

Bogle earth would be a wilderness, and even the bowers of Paradise damp,

chilly, and uncomfortable.

There is no comfort in looking back upon a period when hope was high and

unchecked. I have met with men who, in their maudlin moments--usually

towards the close of the evening--were actuated by an impulse similar to

that which compelled the Ancient Mariner to renew his wondrous tale: and

I have heard them on such occasions recount the whole circumstances of

their unfortunate wooing, with voices choked by grief, and with tears of

tender imbecility. I have observed, however, that, on the morrow

succeeding such disclosures, these gentlemen have invariably a shy and

sheepish appearance, as though inwardly conscious that they had extended

their confidence too far, and rather dubious as to the sincerity of

their apparent sympathisers. Warned by their example, I hold it neither

profitable nor wise to push my own confessions too far. If Edith gave me

at the outset more encouragement than she ought to have done--if she

systematically led me to believe that I had made an impression upon her

heart--if she honoured me with a preference so marked, that it deceived

not only myself, but others--let the blame be hers. But why should

I go minutely into the courtship of half a year? As difficult, indeed,

and as futile, would it be to describe the alternations of an April

day, made up of sunshine and of shower, of cloud and rainbow and

storm--sometimes mild and hopeful, then ominous of an eve of tempest.

For a long time, I had not the slightest suspicion that I had a rival. I

remarked, indeed, with somewhat of dissatisfaction, that Edith appeared

to listen too complacently to the commonplace flatteries of the officers

who are the habitual haunters of private ball and of public assembly.

She danced too often with Ensign Corkingham, flirted rather openly with

Major Chawser, and certainly had no business whatever to be present at a

military fete and champagne luncheon given at the Castle by these brave

defenders of their country. I was not invited to that fete, and the

circumstance, as I well remember, was the cause of a week's coolness

between us. But it was not until Lieutenant Roper of the dragoons

appeared in the field that I felt any particular cause for uneasiness.

To give the devil his due, Roper was a handsome fellow. He stood upwards

of six feet in his boots, had a splendid head of curling black hair, and

a mustachio and whiskers to match. His nose was beautifully aquiline,

his eyes of the darkest hazel, and a perpetual smile, which the puppy

had cultivated from infancy, disclosed a box of brilliant dominoes. I

knew Roper well, for I had twice bailed him out of the police-office,

and, in return, he invited me to mess. Our obligations, therefore, to

each other might be considered as nearly equal--in fact, the balance, if

any, lay upon his side, as upon one occasion he had won from me rather

more than fifty pounds at ecarte. He was not a bad fellow either, though

a little slap-dash in his manner, and somewhat supercilious in his cups;

on which occasions--and they were not unfrequent--he was by far too

general in his denunciation of all classes of civilians. He was, I

believe, the younger son of a Staffordshire baronet, of good

connections, but no money--in fact, his patrimony was his commission,

and he was notoriously on the outlook for an heiress. Now, Edith Bogle

was rumoured to have twenty thousand pounds.

Judge then of my disgust, when, on my return from a rent-gathering

expedition to Argyllshire, I found Lieutenant Roper absolutely domiciled

with the Bogles. I could not call there of a forenoon on my way from the

Parliament-House, without finding the confounded dragoon seated on the

sofa beside Edith, gabbling away with infinite fluency about the last

ball, or the next review, or worsted-work, or some similar abomination.

I question whether he had ever read a single book since he was at

school, and yet there he sat, misquoting Byron to Edith--who was rather

of a romantic turn--at no allowance, and making wild work with passages

out of Tom Moore's Loves of the Angels. How the deuce he got hold of

them, I am unable up to this day to fathom. I suspect he had somehow or

other possessed himself of a copy of the "Beauties," and dedicated an

hour each morning to committing extracts to memory. Certainly he never

opened his mouth without enunciating some rubbish about bulbuls,

gazelles, and chibouques; he designated Edith his Phingari, and swore

roundly by the Koran and Kiebaubs. It was to me perfectly inconceivable

how any woman of common intellect could listen to such egregious

nonsense, and yet I could not disguise from myself the consciousness of

the fact, that Miss Bogle rather liked it than otherwise.

Roper had another prodigious advantage over me. Edith was fond of

riding, an exercise to which, from my earliest years, I have had the

utmost abhorrence. I am not, I believe, constitutionally timid, and yet

I do not know almost any ordeal which I would not cheerfully undergo, to

save me from the necessity of passing along a stable behind the heels of

half-a-dozen stationary horses. Who knows at what moment the concealed

demon may be awaked within them? They are always either neighing, or

pulling at their halters, or stamping, or whisking their tails, in a

manner which is absolutely frightful; and it is impossible to predict

the exact moment they may select for lashing out, and, it may be,

scattering your brains by the force of a hoof most murderously shod

with half a hundredweight of iron. The descent of Hercules to Hades

seems to me a feat of mere insignificance compared with the cleaning out

of the Augean stables, if, as I presume, the inmates were not previously

removed.

Roper, on the contrary, rode like a Centaur, or the late Ducrow. He had

several brutes, on one or other of which you might see him every

afternoon prancing along Princes Street, and he presently contrived to

make himself the constant companion of Edith in his daily rides. What

took place on these occasions, of course I do not know. It was, however,

quite clear to me, that the sooner this sort of thing was put an end to

the better; nor should I have cared one farthing had a civil war broke

out, if that event could have insured to me the everlasting absence of

the pert and pestilential dragoon.

In this dilemma I resolved to make a confidante of my cousin Mary

Muggerland. Mary and I were the best possible friends, having flirted

together for five successive seasons, with intermissions, on a sort of

general understanding that nothing serious was meant, and that either

party was at liberty at any time to cry off in case of an extraneous

attachment. She listened to the history of my sorrows with infinite

complacency.

"I am afraid, George," she said, "that you have no chance whatever; I

know Edith well, and have heard her say, twenty times over, that she

never will marry any man unless he belongs to the army."

"Then I have been exceedingly ill-used!"

"O fie, George--I wonder at you! Do you think that nobody besides

yourself has a right to change their mind? How often, I should like to

know, have you varied your attachments during the last three years?"

"That is a very different matter, Mary."

"Will you have the kindness to explain the difference?"

"Pshaw! is there no distinction between a mere passing flirtation and

a deep-rooted passion like mine?"

"I understand--this is the first time there has been a rival in the

case. Well--I am sorry I cannot help you. Rely upon it that Roper is

the man; and, to be plain with you, I am not at all surprised at it."

"Mary!--what do you mean?"

"Do you really know so little of the sex as to flatter yourself that a

lively girl like Edith, with more imagination than wit, would prefer

you, who--pardon me, dear cousin--are rather a commonplace sort of

personage, to a gay young officer of dragoons? Why, don't you see that

he talks more to her in one hour than you do in four-and-twenty? Are

not his manners more fascinating--his attentions more pointed--his

looks"--

"Upon my word, Miss Mary!" I exclaimed, "this _is_ going rather too

far. Do you mean to say that in point of personal appearance"--

"I do, indeed, George. You know I promised you to be candid."

"Say no more. I see that you women are all alike. These confounded

scarlet coats"--

"Are remarkably becoming; and really I am not sure that in one of

them--if it were particularly well made--you might not look almost

as well as Roper."

"I have half a mind to turn postman."

"Not a bad idea for a man of letters. But why don't you hunt?"

"I dislike riding."

"You stupid creature! Edith never will marry you: so you may just as

well abandon the idea at once."

So ended my conference with my cousin. I had made it a rule, however,

never to believe above one half of what Miss Mary Muggerland said; and,

upon the whole, I am inclined to think that was a most liberal allowance

of credulity. A young lady is not always the safest depositary of such

secrets, or the wisest and most sound adviser. A little spice of spite

is usually intermingled with her counsels; and I doubt whether in one

case out of ten they sincerely wish success to their simple and

confiding clients. On one point, however, I was inclined to think her

right. Edith certainly had a decided military bias.

I begin to hold the doctrine that there is more in judicial astrology

than most people are inclined to admit. To what other mysterious fount

than the stars can we trace that extraordinary principle which regulates

men in the choice of their different professions? Take half-a-dozen lads

of the same standing and calibre; give them the same education;

inculcate them with the same doctrines; teach them the identical

catechism; and yet you will find that in this matter of profession there

is not the slightest cohesion among them. Had I been born under the

influence of Mars, I too might have been a dragoon--as it was, Saturn,

my planetary godfather, had devoted me to the law, and here I stood a

discomfited concocter of processes, and a botcher of deeds and titles.

Pondering these things deeply, I made my way to the Parliament-House,

then in the full hum attendant upon the close of the Session. The usual

groups of the briefless were gathered around the stoves. As I happened

to have a paper in my hand, I was instantly assailed by half-a-dozen

unemployed advocates.

"Hallo, M'Whirter, my fine fellow--d'ye want a counsel? Set you down

cheap at a condescendence," cried Mr Anthony Whaup, a tall barrister of

considerable facetiousness.

"I say, M'Whirter, is it a _semiplena_? Hand it over to Randolph; he has

lots of experience in that line."

"Get out, you heretical humbug! Never mind these fellows, George. Tip,

and I'm your man," said Randolph.

"Can anybody tell me who is pleading before the Second Division just

now?" asked a youth, looking rather white in the gills.

"Old Windlass. He's good for three quarters of an hour at least, and

then the judges have to give their opinions."

"I'm devilish glad to hear it. I think I shall bolt. This seems a fine

afternoon. Who's for Musselburgh?"

"I can't go to-day," said Whaup. "I was tempted yesterday with a

shilling, and sold myself."

"Who is the unfortunate purchaser?"

"Tom Hargate, crimp-general to the yeomanry."

"I'm delighted to hear it, old fellow! We have been wanting you for two

years back in the corps. 'Gad! won't we have fun when we go into

quarters. I say, M'Whirter--why don't you become a yeoman?"

I started at the suggestion, which, strange to say, had never crossed

my mind before. There was a way then open to me--a method left by which

I might satisfy, without compromising my professional character, the

scruples of Edith, and become a member of the military service without

abandoning the pen. The man that hesitates is lost.

"I don't know," I replied. "I think I should rather like it. It seems a

pretty uniform."

"Pretty!" said Randolph. "By the Lord Harry, it's the splashest affair

possible! I'll tell you what, M'Whirter, I'll back you in the yeoman's

jacket and pantaloons against the Apollo Belvidere."

"It is regular Queen's service, isn't it?"

"Of course it is. Only we have no flogging."

"That's no great disadvantage. Well, upon my word, I have a great

mind"----

"Then, by Jove, there goes the very man! Hallo--Hargate, I say--Tom

Hargate!"

"What's the row?"

"Here's a new recruit for you. George M'Whirter, W.S. Book him down, and

credit me with the bounty money."

"The Edinburgh squadron, of course," said Hargate, presenting me with a

shilling.

"Don't be in a hurry," said one of my friends. "There are better lancers

than the Templars. The Dalmahoy die, but they never surrender!"

"Barnton _a la rescousse_!" cried another.

"No douking in the Dalkeith!" observed a third.

"Nonsense, boys! you are confounding him. M'Whirter and Anthony Whaup

shall charge side by side, and woe betide the insurgent who crosses

their path!" said Randolph. "So the sooner you look after your

equipments the better."

In this identical manner was I enrolled as a full private in the

Edinburgh squadron of the Mid-Lothian Yeomanry Cavalry.