“Il y a encore une autre espÈce de larmes qui n'ont que de petites sources, qui coulent et se tarissent facilement: on pleure pour avoir la rÉputation d'Être tendre; on pleure pour Être plaint; on pleure pour Être pleurÉ; enfin, on pleure pour Éviter la honte de ne pleurer pas.”—De la Rochefoucauld.

Who treads upon the field of death? Who sighs upon the winds of the night, like the mourning ghost of the warrior, mingling its melancholy tones with the shrieks of the passing owl, that lonely flaps his pinions in the moonlight? Who walks amongst the slain? See, where the figure glides with heedless step, its white robe streaming like a mist of morning when the sun first glances on the mountain; now gazing on the pale moon, now turning to the paler faces of the dead. Who walks upon the bed of sleeping carnage? Who wakes the frighted night from her horrid trance, and thus tempts her terrors? Is it the restless spirit of a departed hero, or the ghost of the love-lorn maid? Is it light, or is it air? Ah no! it is not light, it is not air; it is not the ghost of the love-lorn maid; it is not the spirit of the departed hero. No, no, no, no!—'tis Mrs. Jenkins of the 48th!!!

And it was Mrs. Jenkins of the 48th. She, poor soul! was the victim of early impressions. She was cradled in romance, and nursed in air-built castles; she read of Ossian, and she became his adopted daughter; she read of Sir Walter, and she became his adopted niece; she was Lady Morgan's “sylph-like form,” and her voice was one of Tom Moore's “Irish Melodies;” she could delight the eyes of the rude with tambour-work and velvet-painting; she could ravish their ears with a tune on the piano; she could finish a landscape in Indian ink, and play the “Battle of Prague” without a stop. The admiration of her doating parents, the envy of her female acquaintances, angelic, charming Charlotte Clarke (now Mrs. Jenkins of the 48th) was all you could desire.

Charlotte was bred at Portarlington boarding-school; there did she form her mind—there did she learn that she had “a soul above buttons,” and that love and glory were the “be all and the end all” of existence. Trade! fie,—contaminate not the ethereal soul—dim not the halo that surrounds such excellence, by the approach of such coarse and vulgar matter! Charlotte despised it, even as her father loved it and gave to it all his days.

Dublin is a martial city; the view of the royal barracks is a royal sight. There did she love to go and gaze, and listen to the band, until the tears stole down her lovely cheeks. She would then walk home, and weep, and sleep, and dream of epaulettes both gold and silver, of scarlet coats, of feathers and long swords. Her days (until after tea-time) were passed in reading Newman's novels, and practising the “run” of Braham. “He was famed for deeds of arms; She a maid of envied charms.” “Young Henry was as brave a youth.” “Hark where martial music sounding far.” These were her songs; she practised them in the morning with her hair in papers, and she sung them after supper, (whenever she was at a “party”) with her interesting curls upon her forehead, shading her blushes and the soft light of her languid eyes. She loved the Rotunda-gardens in the summer evenings, and she gloried in the ball, when winter hung upon the night; for both in gardens of Rotunda, and in light of ball-room, the red coats ever in her hopes, cut a figure in her eye, and a deeper in her heart. She went to the Dargle and the Waterfall, to Pool Avoca,7 and Killyny (when ever she was invited), and among the Summer Sunday beauties of the scene, full well she did enact her part. Her life was one bright dream, beaming with sun-bright smiles and brighter tears. Her heart was tender, and her will was strong. Need it be said, that such a maid fell deeply in love? Alas! she did. The gentle Charlotte loved;—ah! deeply loved—but who she could not tell! It was a form and yet it was not matter, (no matter, indeed, whether it was or not); it was a hero, all epaulettes and scarlet, white feathers, and still whiter pantaloons, set out with sword and belt and sash and gorget; a hero at all points, whose name, nevertheless, was not to be found in the army list: in short the being was a lovely paradox—a thing and yet a nothing, she saw it in her dreams, as well as in her wakeful hours; it never left her side waking or asleep; there was the form of her darling lover, like Moore's “Knight of Killarney,” O'Donohue and his white horse on a May-day morning,

dancing and prancing on the winds; there he was in a splendid uniform, (some say with buff facings, some say green,) and she woo'd it, and she woo'd it, till her cheek grew pale, and her eye lost half its brightness. Every officer she met on the Mall was likened to her lover in her “mind's eye;” but they were not her lovers. Captains Thompson, Jones, and Pentilton; Lieutenants Jacobs, Raulins, and Flagherty; Ensigns Gibbs, Mullins, and Mortimer; all resembled the object of her love, but she refused to acknowledge their identity with it. At length young Jenkins, an Ensign of Militia, realized the aerial form she so long had loved. Yes, he did actually embody it; and at the holy altar, even in spite of crusty fathers

“Who make a jest of sweet affection,”

the amiable and adorable Charlotte Clarke became the gentle Mrs. Jenkins.

“War's clarion blew!” Napoleon and Wellington struggled like two giants for ascendancy. Ensign Jenkins volunteered into the line, and proceeded to the fields of Lusitania. Could Charlotte stay behind? No! the briny waters soon bore her, with her husband and seven other officers (all members of the mess), to Portugal. Ensign Jenkins was ordered to the front. Could Mrs. Jenkins stay behind? No! she braved the fatigues of the march and the horrors of the battle, like a true heroine: she loved the 48th, and she would go along with it, through thick and thin. The parching sun, the drenching storm, the unmoistened biscuit, and the chill damp bivouac alike she would endure.—“Love and Glory” carried her through all. It was a sight worth all the jewels of romance to see—a thought worth all heaven to contemplate—the sight of Mrs. Charlotte Jenkins, like a “ministering angel,” standing amidst the terrors of the field!

The battle raged; the slain were many; the regiment covered themselves with glory—but poor Jenkins fell! The moon arose upon the field of battle, and shone upon the dead—the fight was over. Could Mrs. Jenkins rest without her husband? Oh, no! Forth she hied to search out the body of her Jenkins, dead as he was, at the dead hour of night. She gazed at the moon—she gazed upon the slain—and she thought upon the days of her teens, of Newman's novels, and Portarlington.

A tender-hearted sympathetic soul, by name Captain Rogers of the Grenadiers, watched the fair Charlotte's steps (for she had told him she would go and seek her Jenkins) and gently led her from the sickening scene.

Poor Jenkins was not found; but dead, no doubt he was, for there were several witnesses of his fall. He had fallen upon his face—the Sergeant lifted him from the earth, but he did not speak—life was no longer there; so the Sergeant left him lying on the field, for he had yet to knock some others down.

The truth struck strong upon fair Charlotte's heart; her bursting bosom was saved from rending by a well-timed flood of tears, which the Captain politely wiped away. “Cease, lady, cease this useless, unavailing grief,” sighed the sympathetic Rogers; “if thou hast lost a husband, still are a thousand left for thy choice;—and though one Jenkins may be gone, another Jenkins may supply his place.”

Oh! to be thus addressed amidst romantic war! and by a Captain, too, of Grenadiers!—I cannot, will not further—

Draw, draw the veil upon her weakness! But stay, I must—I must reveal it—she was comforted; and not many nights passed o'er her widowed bed, till ... married was Charlotte to her Rogers—as well as in the field they could be married, where parsons are but rare as all who know allow.

In joyous honeymoon the pair repaired to Lisbon (for Rogers was detached upon a special duty), mayhap because the blushing bride wished for retirement from a scene which must have ever reminded her of Ensign Jenkins. But be that as it may, a month had scarcely told its thirty days (or thirty-one, I know not which), when one dark night, such as the wolf delights in, a solemn knock was heard at the outer door of the house where rested Rogers and his lady, “Who comes?” The door is opened—a figure stands at the threshold.—It is Ensign Jenkins!!! O appalling sight! “A ghost, a ghost! my husband's ghost!” the frighted Mrs. Rogers cries; “Oh, take him from my sight!”

“No, thank you, Ma'am,” replies the visitor; “I am no ghost, but Ensign Jenkins of the 48th!!!”

No more; I'll say no more, and wherefore should I? Family affairs I leave as I find them; but this I must relate. The Ensign was not dead, but speechless when the Sergeant lifted him from off the turf; he had received a knock-down blow, but soon recovered and was taken prisoner on the field. From French captivity he then escaped; but ah! not time enough to save his lady love.

Oh cursed chance! that Sergeant's false and deadly report should thus put virtuous woman's love to proof!

REMARK.

If there be any romantic lady attached to the army, who sees in herself a close resemblance to the Ephesian matron, or my heroine, the Author beseeches she will not make it known; but let the tale and its allusions, and its moral, sink into “the tomb of all the Jenkinses.”

When the 48th regiment was selected for the purpose of giving a local habitation to the Author's imaginary hero and his love, it was only because that number came first to hand. Nothing could be further from his ideas, than to make the slightest disrespectful allusion to that corps, which, as is well known, was and is one of the finest in the service.