BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.

PART I.—CHAPTER I.

On the evening of the 13th of February last, I was sitting in my library, at my residence in —— Square, when a double knock at the door announced the postman. Betty presently entered, bringing, not as I anticipated, a letter or two, but a small packet, which evidently excited her curiosity, as it did mine.

The first thing upon the said packet that caught my eye was a large seal of red wax—the royal arms!—then, above the direction, "On Her Majesty's service!"—just beneath, the word, "Medal!" Yes, the medal that I had earned five-and-thirty years before, in the hard-fought fight on the hill of Toulouse—long expected, it was come at last! And, let me tell you, a very handsome medal, too; well designed, well executed; and accompanied with a very civil letter, from that old soldier, and true soldier's friend, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the military secretary. This letter being, no doubt, precisely the same as hundreds of "Old Peninsulars" have by this time received, I presume I am guilty of no breach of confidence in here transcribing it for the benefit of my readers:—

"Horse-Guards, 31st January 1849.

"Sir,—I am directed by the Commander-in-Chief to transmit to you the Medal and Clasps graciously awarded to you by her Majesty under the general order of the first of June 1847. I have the honour to be, &c.

"Fitzroy Somerset."

As I never attempt to describe my own feelings, except such as are describable, I shall not relate what I now felt on the receipt of this much desired, anxiously expected medal. But this I will say;—long live the Queen! long live Queen Victoria! God bless her! Oh, it was a kind thought: it was a gracious act. It comes to cheer the heart of many an old soldier, and of many a middle-aged gentleman like myself, who got nothing but honour and aching bones for his share in the Peninsular glories; and now has something that he can add to the archives of his family, and leave to those who come after him. "Graciously awarded to you by her Majesty:" Yes; and I feel it as much so, as if her Majesty's own gracious hands had placed it in mine. And, if ever she wants defenders, so long as this arm can wield—but enough: romance would be out of place.

After the delivery of the medals had been proceeding for some time, I was coming, one morning, out of the Horse-Guards, when I met old Major Snaffle, who had just got his. The major belongs to that class who are known in the army by the name of "grumblers;" and, having been knocked down by the wind of a shot at the Trocadero, having been brought away in the last boat but nineteen from Corunna, having seen the battle of Salamanca from the top of a tree, having been seized with the ague but an hour before the storming of Badajoz, having again been very ill in the south of France from eating unripe grapes, having regularly drawn his pay and allowances, and never having been absent from his regiment on sick leave when he could not get it, now justly deems himself a very ill-used man, because more has not been done for him. "Well, major," said I, "I wish you joy. So you have got your medal at last." "Yes," growled the major, or rather grunted, "at last I have got it. Long time, though, six-and-thirty years—long time to wait for half-a-crown."

My own profession, at present, is very different from that of arms. Nor can I presume, having been in but one general action, to rank with those brave old fire-eaters of the Peninsular army, whose medals with many clasps—bar above bar—tell of six, seven, eight, critical combats or more, in which they took a part under the illustrious Wellington, in Portugal, in Spain, in the south of France. By the bye, how I should like to see the Duke's own medal! What a lot of bars HE must have!—what a glorious ladder, step rising above step in regular succession, when he sits down to soup in his field-marshal's coat! But I was going to say—to return from great things to small—so far from being able to claim high military honours for myself, though serving under his Grace's orders in the Peninsular war, I was not there at all in a strictly military capacity. Yet as, from this very circumstance, I had opportunities of seeing scenes, characters, and incidents, connected with the British army, of a different kind from those described by other writers on the subject, I am induced, by the arrival of my medal, to place on record a short narrative of my personal adventures in the Peninsula and south of France.

Yet, ere I commence the yarn, a word, one word, for the honoured dead. Many, who came home safe from the Peninsula, fell at Waterloo. Others were borne from the western ports of Europe across the Atlantic, to be marks for Kentucky riflemen and New England bushfighters. Of the survivors, multitudes upon multitudes have gradually dropped off; and those who now remain, of the legions that conquered at Vimeira, at Vittoria, and at Orthes, to receive her Majesty's gracious gift, are probably fewer in number than those who are gone. One "Old Peninsular" I have heard of, in whose own family and connexions, had all lived, there would have been fourteen or fifteen claimants of the medal. He is now, if he still survives, the only one left. In my own connexions we should have made seven; and now, besides myself, there remains only one venerable uncle, who is comfortably located in a snug berth in Canada. There was my honoured father, who received the thanks of parliament for his services at Corunna, and pounded the French batteries at Cadiz. There was my cousin, Tom Impett, of the 53d, whom I found with a musket-ball in his leg two days after the battle of Toulouse, in a house full of wounded men and officers. He died in Canada. There was another venerable uncle, as kind an uncle as ever breathed, and as honest a man as ever lived. He died, to his honour, far from rich, after having been personally responsible for millions upon millions of public money, the sinews of war, all paid away in hard cash for our Peninsular expenses. He was generally known at headquarters by a comical modification of his two Christian names. There was Captain, afterwards Colonel B——, of the Royal Engineers, a quiet, mild-tempered man, with military ardour glowing in his breast—the man of education and the gentleman. We met near the platform of St Cyprien; and he had the kindness to entertain me with a calm disquisition on the fight, while we were both in the thick of it. He had his share of professional employment in the Peninsular sieges, and got a bad wound or two; but lived to fortify Spike Island, and was at length lost at sea. And then there was colonel H——, who commanded a Portuguese brigade with the rank of brigadier-general—an extraordinary composition of waggery, shrewdness, chivalry, and professional talent. He came down to Lisbon while I was there, on his way to England, quite worn out with hard service and the effect of his wounds, or, as he told us himself, "unripped at every seam." He died not many days after, on his passage to England.

Now for myself. I commenced keeping my terms at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the year 1809, the seventeenth of my age. A college life was not altogether my own choice; for nearly all the males of my family, for three generations, had served or were serving their country either in the army, navy, or marines, to the number of some ten or twelve; and I myself had always looked forward to wearing the king's uniform. Moreover, as the Peninsular war had already commenced when I went to college, and I had learned at school the use of the broadsword and small sword, had been drilled, and could handle a musket, my thoughts often turned to military scenes, especially when I read in the daily journals of victories won, first by Sir Arthur Wellesley, then by Lord Wellington. But, once at Cambridge, I caught the fever of academic emulation. My cousin B—— (brother of the Captain B—— above mentioned,) had been senior wrangler, and had given me some useful hints as to the mode of reading with effect; I read hard, obtained a Trinity scholarship in my first year, first class the same year, ditto the second year, and stood fair for a place among the wranglers. But now my health broke; not, however, from hard living, but from hard study. I was compelled to give up; and, not choosing to read for a middling degree after having been booked for a high one, determined to go out among the hoys. Now my penchant for military adventure returned with full force. I was miserably out of health, with an excellent constitution—in proof of which I always found that I lost ground by nursing, but gained by a rough open-air life. A campaign or two would be just the thing for me. And I beg to offer this suggestion to growing young gentlemen who are sickly, and consequently hipped, as I was. If, with rough living—that is, with much moving about, and constant exposure to the atmosphere—you grow worse, I can give you no comfort; you are a poor creature, take all the care of yourself you can. But if, with the same kind of life, you grow better, stronger, stouter, heartier, saucier, depend upon it, you have some stamina. This was my case. I saw that a sedentary life was not the life I was made for; an active life was the life for me; and my thoughts dwelt more and more on the Peninsula. I rubbed up my French, procured a Gil Blas in Spanish, ditto in Portuguese, a Portuguese and a Spanish grammar, and, for a sick man, made wonderful progress in all the three languages.

But, alas! there was a hitch. I was an only son, and an only child—intended for the law! My dear father had already made me a present, while at school, of Fortescue De Laudibus; and I had already gobbled up a portion of that excellent work—for I was always an omnivorous reader—and had digested it too. And then what would my dear mother say, if I talked to her about going to be shot at for the benefit of my health? It was a delicate point to manage, and how to manage it I knew not.

In the long vacation of 1812, which closed my third year at Trinity College, Cambridge, I brought matters to an explanation. My father's ship, the——, 74, was then in the Downs, and we had lodgings on Walmer beach. I stated my desire to enter the army, and my firm conviction that nothing else would restore my shattered constitution. But my father was inflexible, my mother answered all my arguments, and I saw that I had no chance.

But when one way of gaining an object fails, another sometimes presents itself. My two uncles, of whom I have spoken, were already in the Peninsula, both of them in the same department, the senior at the head of it, with the privilege of occasionally nominating his own clerks. Their friends in England heard from them now and then; and I saw a letter from my senior uncle to a particular old crony of his own, who had influential connexions, asking him why he did not come out to the army with the rank of A. D. P. M. G.,[16] instead of staying at home, and eating roast pig for supper.

Like all the hipped, a miserable race, I was constantly thinking about myself; and now a happy thought struck me. As to parliamentary interest, to be sure I had none. Besides, being under one-and-twenty, I was not of an age to aspire to an officer's rank, in a department of so much responsibility as the paymaster-general's; therefore, the above standing of assistant-deputy, which put an epaulet on the shoulder at once, was not to be thought of. But then, if Buonaparte would only have the kindness to keep us in hot water two or three years longer, I might rise to the said rank by previous good conduct in the office of clerk, and that my uncle could get me at once.

I again broke ground with my honoured parents. My father assured me that, if I went to Lisbon, where he had been stationed with his ship, I should find it a hell upon earth: though I afterwards learned that he had contrived to spend a tolerably happy life there. "And as to your being attached to headquarters, and following the movements of the army, I," said he, "have seen quite enough of service ashore to be able to tell you that you will be soon sick of that." But, to cut the story short, my dear mother now began to incline to my view of the subject. To be sure a clerkship was not exactly what they had thought of for me—but it might lead to something better—no man's education was complete without a tour on the Continent—the usual tour through France, Italy, and the south of Germany, was rendered impossible by the war—and where, in all Europe, could a young man travel, except in Spain and Portugal? Fighting, and paying those who fought, were different things—I might keep out of the way of bullets, and yet contrive to see the world. In short, these arguments prevailed. A letter was written out to my uncle, begging him to write a letter to the head office in London, nominating me as one of his clerks for Peninsular service. I went back to Cambridge, attacked Spanish and Portuguese with renewed ferocity, took my degree of A. B., and returned home in the early part of 1813, just in time to meet a letter from the best of uncles, stating that he had written to the home authorities, and was anxiously expecting my valuable assistance in the Peninsula.

Nothing was now wanting but the nomination from London. That anxious month! Morning after morning I watched for the postman's knock; and, at every such summons, it was myself that opened the door to him. But great bodies move slowly, and official dignity delights to announce itself by tardiness of action. At length the wished-for communication arrived; a letter, "On His Majesty's Service," of no common magnitude; a seal of correspondent amplitude; and an intimation, in terms of stately brevity, that I was appointed a clerk of the military chest attached to the Peninsular army, and was to attend at the office in London to receive my instructions.

During that month the bustle of preparation, in our usually quiet domicile, had been immense. Stockings sufficient to set up a Cheapside hosier, shirts enough for a voyage to India, flannel commensurate with a visit to the North Pole—everything, in short, that could be thought of, was prepared for the occasion with kind and provident care. I said farewell, reached London, reported myself, got my orders and an advance, booked my place for Falmouth, and found myself the same evening a passenger to Exeter by the fast coach.

In those times, the journey from London to Falmouth by the fast coach was a light off-hand affair of two nights and two days. We reached Exeter on the second night, and there I was allowed the indulgence of three hours' bed, till the Falmouth coach was ready to start. As part of the said three hours was occupied in undressing and dressing, and part also in saying my prayers, I entered the new vehicle far more disposed for sleep than for conversation. But there I found, to my consternation, a very chatty passenger, perfectly fresh! He was a man of universal information—in short, a talented individual, and an intellectual character; had his own ideas upon morals, politics, theology, physics, metaphysics, and general literature; was particularly anxious to impart them; and was travelling to obtain orders in the rum and hollands line. Ah, what a night was that! Oh the dismal suffering which a prosy talker inflicts on a weary head! Of all nuisances, the most unconscious is the bore. I do think the Speaker of the House of Commons is the most ill-used man in the three kingdoms. Reflect: he must not only hear—he must listen! And then think what a time!—hour after hour, and day after day! For a period amounting, in the aggregate, to no small portion of the life of man, must that unfortunate victim of British institutions sit and hearken to

Some portion of such suffering I myself was now compelled to endure, by my communicative friend in the Falmouth coach. To be sure, it was only a single proser; but then there was variety in one. He commenced by a few remarks on the weather, by which he introduced a disquisition on meteorology. He then passed, by an easy transition, to the question of secondary punishments; glanced at the theory of gravitation; dwelt for some time on heraldry; touched on hydrostatics; was large on logarithms; then digressed on the American war; proposed emendations of our authorised version; discussed the Neptunian theory; and at length suspended his course, to inform me that I was decidedly the most agreeable fellow-traveller he had ever met with. The fact is, I was sitting up all this time in the corner of the coach, in a state of agony and indignation indescribable, meditating some mode of putting a stop to the annoyance, and mentally seeking a solution to the question—What right has a very stupid person to make your brain a thoroughfare for his stupid ideas, especially when you would particularly like to go to sleep? He mistook my silence for attention, and thought he was appreciated. This went on till daylight—continued to breakfast-time—proceeded during breakfast—ceased not when we had re-entered the coach-talk, talk, talk, de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis—still the same stream of stuff. That long, that dreary journey from Exeter to Falmouth! The soft lull of somnolency came at length to my relief; and I began to nod my assent, much to my tormentor's gratification. But presently I was dead asleep; and, most unfortunately, my head dropped forward into the pit of his stomach. The breath, knocked out of his body, escaped with a gasp, like an Indian's "ugh!" In a moment I was broad awake, and made a thousand apologies, which he politely accepted, and renewed the thread of his discourse. Again, I dropped off; and again my head dropped forward. Another "ugh!" another ocean of apologies, another resumption of the endless yarn. The other passengers, two sedate and remarkably silent gentlemen of Falmouth, in broad-brimmed hats and drab coats of a peculiar cut, had each his weather-eye open, and began to enjoy the joke amazingly. Gradually, once more, the incessant clack subsided in my ears to a pleasing hum; I was off; the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar muscles once more lost their tension beneath the narcotic influence of incessant sound; and my drowsy head gave a pitch as before, with the same results—"ugh!"—apologies unlimited—ditto accepted—and more yarn. The Quakers—I beg their pardon, the "Friends"—are, you must know, eminently humourists. This, please to take notice, arises from their superior intelligence, and high degree of mental culture; the result of which is high susceptibility. You might now have seen, in our two fellow-travellers in the Falmouth coach, what you would see nowhere but in their "connexion"—two men ready to die of laughing, and each looking as grave as a judge. For a few miles it went on. Talk—sleep—head pitched into bread-basket—"ugh!"—pungent and profound regrets—regrets accepted—talk recommenced—and so on with a perpetual da capo. At length the most gifted of gratuitous lecturers began to perceive that he was contributing to the amusement of the party in a way that he had not intended, and grew indignant. But I pacified him, as we drove into Falmouth, by politely soliciting a card of his house; stepped out of the coach into the coffee-room of the hotel, out of the coffee-room into bed as soon as it was ready, and made up for two sleepless nights by not coming down to breakfast till two o'clock the next day.

The Lisbon packet was not to sail for a week. My extra baggage arrived in due time by the heavy; and I occupied the interval, as best I could, in a pedestrian survey of the environs of Falmouth, walks to Truro, Pendennis Castle, &c. I was much delighted with clouted cream, and gave the landlady an unlimited order always to let me have a john dory for dinner, when there was one in the market. N.B.—No place like Falmouth for john dories. Clouted cream always ask for, when you go into the West—very good with tea, not bad with coffee; and mem., unimpeachable with apple-pie.

The packet, that was to have the honour of conveying me from Falmouth to Lisbon, was a little tub of a gun-brig, yclept the Princess Wilhelmina. Judging from her entire want of all the qualities requisite for the service on which she was employed, I presume she must have obtained the situation through some member of parliament. Her captain was laid up with the gout; and we were to be commanded by the mate, who turned out to be a Yankee, and an ugly customer; but more of him anon. At the same hotel where I had established my habitat, was a military party, three in number, waiting, like myself, for the sailing of the packet; yet not, like myself, men fresh in the service, but all three regular "Peninsulars"—men who had returned on leave from the British army, and were now about to join, in time for the opening of the campaign. They had established themselves in a front drawing-room on the first floor, seemed very fond of music, and had good voices. But as they always sang together, and each sang his own song, it was not easy to determine the vocal powers of each. The coffee-room was quite good enough for me; and there I had the honour of forming the acquaintance of another fellow-voyager that was to be—a partner in a large London house in the Manchester line, whom, to avoid personality, I beg leave to distinguish by the name of Gingham. He had many of the peculiarities of Cockneyism, and some that were entirely his own; but I found him a very pleasant companion, and we perambulated the town and neighbourhood in company.

CHAPTER II.

My first chapter brought me, on my way to Portugal, as far as the Royal Hotel, Falmouth. At this stage of my travels, I must beg to detain the reader for a short space; for here it is that I may be said to have had my seasoning; here, in fact, I obtained my first introduction to military society, and to military life, as it prevailed at the British headquarters in the Peninsula. This advantage I gained by falling in with the party of "Peninsulars" already mentioned, who were on their way out, like myself. I must also make my readers better acquainted with my friend Gingham, whom I hope they will not dislike on further knowledge. Gingham and I afterwards campaigned in company. I must premise that he had a touch of romance; and, as I afterwards discovered, had not been brought up as a merchant.

It was the early spring of 1813: a year big with events of import to Spain, to France, to England, and, in fact, to the whole of Europe. On leaving London by the fast coach, we had bowled away over frozen roads. But at Falmouth, the trees were budding in the hedgerows, the sun was shining, the birds were singing; while the soft air stole gently by, and, whispering, sportively saluted us as it passed, like some coy nymph invisible—that idea was Gingham's—the sky was clear, and the haze danced in the sunshine on the distant hills—Gingham again. Towards the afternoon, it generally fell calm. The capacious harbour, smooth as glass, though gently undulating at its entrance, with the swell of the Atlantic that rolled lazily in, bore on its bosom not only the tub-like Princess Wilhelmina and her Yankee mate, but many a noble vessel of ampler tonnage, that showed no water-line in the transparent and silent mirror on which it floated, and seemed to hang suspended between earth and heaven, motionless in the sun-lit and misty ether.

A very odd fish was that Gingham. We enjoyed our walks amazingly. He was going out to Lisbon in a large way, on a mission of mercantile speculation, with full authority from his firm to do anything and everything, whether in the way of contracts for the army, buying up commissariat bills, engaging in monetary transactions, or, above all—for that was his chief object—forming a Peninsular connexion, and opening a new market for British goods. His was, indeed, a voyage of enterprise and of discovery; not, however, his first. His manners were precise. He was a higgler in little things, but had large ideas, and lots of gentlemanly feeling. Like many other Cockneys of those days, he was always dressed, and always conscious of being dressed. His hat was white, with the exception of the interior green of the brim, which matched with his spectacles. His gloves were white, his unmentionables were white, and so was his waistcoat. His white cravat was tied before in a sort of pilot-balloon, or white rosicrucian puff. His hair also was pomatum'd, and powdered white. His very pigtail, all but the narrow silk ribbon that held it together, was white. His coat was not white, but a light pepper-and-salt, approaching to white. On the whole, there was so much white in his general appearance, that on board the packet he at once received the name of "the white man." He was generally well-informed, but particularly so in matters of commerce. Our intimacy increased rapidly, and I afterwards, indeed very soon, found the advantage of it. He was naturally of a communicative disposition, while he had much to communicate that was worth knowing. In me he found a willing hearer; for I was glad to receive any kind of useful information. With the prospect before us of a campaign in common, we soon knocked up a sort of friendship.

Gingham could do the handsome thing. Two days before our embarkation he insisted on my dining with him—taking my chop with him, he called it—in return for half a beefsteak, which he had accepted from me at breakfast, his own being delayed. I entered the coffee-room at the appointed hour; but was ushered up stairs into a private room with some degree of ceremony by the waiter, who, I observed, had on gloves, knees, silk stockings, and pumps.

Gingham was there. He had ordered a regular spread. We sat down. The landlord, who had not hitherto made himself visible, emerged on this festive occasion, brought in the soup, bowed, and retired. Gingham said grace. The soup excellent: it was turtle! "Capital turtle!" said I; "had no idea that anything half so good was to be had in all Falmouth." "Always take a small stock when I travel," said Gingham; "got a dozen three-quart cases from Cornhill. Just found room for it in my travelling store-closet." "Travelling store-closet!" thought I: "what a capital fellow to campaign with!"

Soup removed. Re-enter landlord, attended by waiter. John dory, in compliment to me, splendid. Large soles, fried. "I despise the man that boils a sole," said Gingham. It was despicable, I admitted. "My dear sir," said he, "allow me to lay down a principle, which you will find useful as long as you live. With boiled fish—turbot, for instance, or john dory—always take sauce. You did quite right, in allowing me to help you to sauce just now. But with fried fish, at least with fried sole—this, for instance—never, never permit sauce or melted butter to be put upon your plate." It was a manoeuvre to get me to try the sole, after the john dory. "Fried sole without butter?" said I. "Try it my way," said Gingham, helping me: "take some salt—that's right—now put to that a modicum of cayenne—there—a little more—don't be afraid of putting enough—cayenne, though hot, is not heating, like common pepper—now mix them well together with the point of your knife." I obeyed implicitly. "Now then," said Gingham, with a look of exultation, "TRY THAT." I tried it; and owned that I had never known, till then, the right way of eating fried sole. It was excellent, even after the john dory. Try it, only try it, the first time a fried sole appears on the dinner table, under which are your legs.

A peculiar sound at the side-table now announced that he of the pumps was opening a bottle of champagne. Up to that moment we had managed to put up with Madeira, which was the fashionable dinner wine in those days. N.B.—Good wine to be got at Falmouth. It comes direct from abroad, not vi London.

Fish removed. Door opens. Though rejoicing in those days in a very fair appetite, I was rather alarmed, after such a commencement of our humble meal, at the thought of what might be coming. But Gingham had a delicacy of taste, which never overdid things. Enter once more the landlord, bearing an elegant little saddle of Dartmoor mutton, and audibly whispering to the waiter, "Boiled fowls and tongue to follow." I commenced this history with a resolution to conceal nothing; therefore, away with reserve: both mutton, fowls, and tongue were excellent. "A little more Madeira, Mr Y—," said Gingham. The currant jelly had distasted my mouth. I merely put the glass to my lips, and set it down again. Gingham observed, and at once discovered the reason. "Take a mouthful of potato," said Gingham, "the hottest you can find in the dish." My taste was restored. Table cleared again. I hoped the next entrÉe would be the cheese and celery.

During the short armistice, Gingham, who delighted to communicate useful knowledge, resumed the subject of the potato. Like all merchants who pay frequent visits to the Peninsula—and Gingham had been there often—he was knowing in wines, and in everything vinous. "Yes," said he, "nothing like a mouthful of hot potato to make you taste wine. There are lots of things besides, but none equal to that. The invention is my own."

"Then," replied I, "I presume you use it at Oporto and Xeres, when you make purchases?"

"Why, not exactly that neither," said he. "The worst of it is, it makes all wine relish alike, bad as well as good. Now, in buying wine, you want something to distinguish the good wine from the bad. And for this purpose—" The landlord and waiter reappeared.

"Sorry, Mr Y—, there is no game," said Gingham. "Fine jack hare in the larder this morning, but rather late in the season. Wouldn't have it. Can you finish off with one or two light things in the French way?"

"My dear sir, my dear sir!"

The table was this time covered with such a display of pÂtisserie, macaroni, and made dishes, as would have formed of itself a very handsome petit souper for half-a-dozen people. Gingham wanted me to try everything, and set me an example.

The whole concluded, and the cloth about to be removed, "Mr Gingham," said I, "you said grace before dinner, and I think I ought to say grace now." The waiter drew up reverently with his back to the sideboard, adjusted his neckcloth, and tightened with his right hand the glove upon his left.

We sat sipping our wine, and nibbling at a very handsome dessert. I wanted to know more about distinguishing good wine from bad.

"I have made large purchases of wine on commission," said Gingham, "for private friends; and that, you know, is a delicate business, and sometimes a thankless one. But I never bought a bad lot yet; and if they found fault with it, I wouldn't let them have it—kept it myself, or sold it for more in the market."

"You were just on the point," said I, "of mentioning a method of distinguishing good wine from bad."

"Well," replied he, "those fellows there, on the other side of the Bay of Biscay, have methods innumerable. After all, taste, judgment, and experience must decide. The Oporto wine-merchants, who know what they are about, use a sort of silver saucer, with its centre bulging upwards. In this saucer they make the wine spin round. My plan is different."

"I should like to know it," said I.

"Well, sir," said he, "mix with water—two-thirds water to one-third wine. Then try it."

"Well?"

"If there is any bad taste in the wine, the mixing brings it out. Did you never notice in London, even if the port or sherry seems passable alone, when you water it the compound is truly horrid, too nauseous to drink?"

"The fact is, though a moderate man, I am not very fond of watering wine."

"The fact is," continued Gingham, "there is very little good wine to be got in London, always excepting such places, for instance, as the Chapter. When you return, after having tasted wine in the wine countries, you will be of my opinion. Much that you get is merely poor wine of the inferior growths, coloured, flavoured, and dressed up with bad brandy for the London market. That sort comes from abroad. And much that you get is not wine at all, but a decoction; a vile decoction, sir; not a drop of wine in its composition. That sort is the London particular." I felt that I was receiving ideas.

"Now, sir," said Gingham, "my cold-water test detects this. If what you get for wine is a decoction, a compound, and nothing but a compound, no wine in it, then the water—about two-thirds to one-third—detects the filthy reality. Add a lump or two of sugar, and you get as beastly a dose of physic as was ever made up in a doctor's shop."

"Just such a dose," I replied, "as I remember getting, now you mention it, as I came down here by the fast coach, at an inn where I asked, by way of a change, for a glass of cold white-wine negus. The slice of lemon was an improvement, having done duty before in a glass of gin punch."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Gingham. "And if what you buy for port or sherry be not absolutely a decoction, but only inferior wine made up, then the water equally acts as a detective. For the dilution has the effect of separating, so to speak, the respective tastes of the component parts—brings them out, sir; and you get each distinct. You get, on the one hand, the taste of the bad brandy, harsh, raw, and empyreumatic: and you get, on the other hand, the taste of the poor, paltry wine, wretched stuff, the true vinho ordinario flavour, that makes you think at once of some dirty roadside Portuguese posada, swarming with fleas."

"But what if you water really good wine?"

"Why, then," said Gingham, "the flavour, though diluted, is still the flavour of good wine."

"I should like," said I, "to be knowing in wines."

Seeing in me a willing learner, he was about to open. But at this moment the mail drove into the yard of the hotel; and, knowing that Gingham was always ravenous for the London journals on their first arrival, I insisted on our going down into the public room, taking a cup of coffee, and reading the papers. We had talked about wines; but, being neither of us topers, had taken only a moderate quantum suff., though all of the best kind. Gingham, out of compliment to me, wished to prolong the sitting. But, knowing his penchant for a wet newspaper, I was inflexible. We rose from the table.

I felt that I had been handsomely entertained, and that something handsome ought to be said. The pleasing consciousness, however, of having eaten a good dinner, though it excited my finest feelings, did not confer the faculty of expressing them. I began:

"Sir, Mr Gingham; I feel we ought not to leave this room, till I have expressed the emotions—" Then, taking a new departure, "Really, sir, your kind hospitality to a comparative stranger—"

"Well, sir," said Gingham, laughing, "I will tell you how it was. Do you remember your first breakfast in the coffee-room, the day after your arrival by the mail? I was present, and enjoyed it amazingly."

"Oh, sir! oh, sir!" said I, a leetle taken aback; "really I was enormously hungry. In fact I had eaten nothing during my two days' previous journey; and was so sleepy on my arrival, that I got to bed as fast as I could, without thinking of ordering supper. And when I came down next morning, or rather afternoon, why, to tell you the truth, I made it breakfast and dinner in one; and perhaps I did seem a little savage in my first onset on the Falmouth—"

"No, NO, NO!" exclaimed Gingham, interrupting me. "That was not it. No, NO, NO! far from it. My dear sir, you merely disposed of two or three plates of ham and eggs; then a few muffins, with about half-a-dozen basins of tea. After that—let me see—after that, to the best of my recollection—after that, you took nothing, no, nothing, but the mutton chops. No, sir, it was not the quantity. I have often made as hearty a meal myself; and, if we campaign together, I trust we shall often make as hearty a meal together. Nothing like campaigning for an appetite. No, sir; that was not it. It was your manner of taking it."

"My manner of taking it? Really! And pray what did you see in my manner of taking it?"

"Sir," said Gingham, with emotion, "I know this house. I have long used this house. Everything in this house is good. The accommodation is good. The attendance is good. The wine is good. The dinners are good. The breakfasts are good. Now, sir, I have seen some persons conduct themselves in this house in a manner that filled me with scorn, disgust, and indignation. They arrive by the London mail, sir, as you did, and go to bed. In the morning they come down into the public room, and order breakfast. They breakfast, not like you, my dear sir, very moderately, but enormously. That I could forgive; after a long journey it is excusable. But, sir, what I cannot tolerate is this: They find fault with everything. The tea is bad; the coffee is bad. They take up the silver cream-jug; examine the clouted cream; smell to it—yes, sir; they actually smell to it—and smelling to anything, I need not say, is as great a bÊtise as a man can commit at table—ask the waiter what he means by bringing them such stuff as that; and, before they have done, gobble up the whole, and perhaps call for more."

"Call for more? Why, that, I think, is exactly what I did."

"Yes, my dear sir," said Gingham, "you enjoyed it; and you took a pretty good lot of it; but you did not find fault with it. Not so the people I am talking of. The fact is, sir, we Londoners have a great idea of keeping up our dignity. These persons wish to pass for people of importance; and they think importance is announced by finding fault. Item, they are enormously, indecently hungry, and fully intend to make a breakfast for two, but wish to do it surreptitiously. On the arrival of the beefsteak, they turn round the dish, and look at it contemptuously, longing, all the while, to fall to. Yes, sir, they turn round the dish two or three times; then stick their fork into the steak, and turn it over and over; perhaps hold it up, suspended by a single prong, and examine it critically; and end all by pushing away their plate, drawing the dish into its place, and bolting the whole beefsteak, without taking time to masticate. Sir, there was a man in that coffee-room this morning, who grumbled at everything, and ate like a dog. In short, they clear the table of eatables and drinkables; then call the waiter, and reproach him, with a savage look, for bringing them a tough beefsteak; and, in a plaintive voice, like ill-used men, inquire if there is any cold meat-pie."

I owned, from personal observation in the public room, to the general correctness of this sketch.

"Now you, sir," continued Gingham, "enjoyed your breakfast, and made a good one; but found fault with nothing; because, I presume, there was nothing to find fault with. I like to see a man enjoy his meals. And if he does, I like to see him show it. It is one of the tokens by which I judge of character. Your conduct, my dear sir, commanded my respect. Shall I say more? It won my esteem. Then and there my resolution was formed, to invite you, at the first convenient opportunity, to partake of my humble hospitality."

It was too much. I extended my fist. A shaking of hands, of some continuance—cordial on my part, and evidently so on Gingham's, by the pain I felt in my shoulder.

"Well, sir," said Gingham, "I had already learned that you were a passenger for the Peninsula. I was a passenger for the Peninsula; and, as we were to sail together, and probably to campaign together, I resolved to introduce myself. I said, this lad—I beg your pardon, this youth—excuse me, this gentleman, this young gentleman—for I guess you have some ten years the advantage of me in that respect—this gentleman is, like myself, bound for the headquarters of the Peninsular army. I know something of campaigning; he knows nothing. We campaign together."

"Well now," said I, "that is just what I should like amazingly."

Gingham now took the initiative, and put forth his paw. Again we tackled, and, in the true pump-handle style, so dear to Englishmen, expressed mutual cordiality: only that this time, being better prepared, I reversed the electric stream, and brought tears into Gingham's eyes. He sung out, "Oh!" and rubbed his arm.

"The rest," said Gingham, "is easily told. After breakfast you walked out into the court-yard, lit a cigar, and stood on the steps. I lit another, followed, and had the pleasure of making your acquaintance."

I gave audible expression to my profound self-congratulations.

"Allow me, however, to add," said Gingham, "you raised yourself greatly in my esteem by asking the waiter for a red herring. The request evinced a superiority to vulgar prejudices. Your way of putting it, too, was in perfect good keeping: for you did not commit yourself by ordering a red herring; but asked whether you could have one in the coffee-room. Believe me, I was pained, when he stated that red herrings were not permitted; and could but admire your self-denial, in accepting, as a substitute, the mutton-chops."

We adjourned to the public room.

Gingham had entertained me hospitably and handsomely. Yet this was the same Gingham who, when I made him take part of my beefsteak at breakfast, because his own was delayed, proposed that we should desire the waiter to tell the landlady to charge only half a beefsteak to me, and half a beefsteak to him, Gingham. My rejection of this proposal was the immediate occasion of the dinner, at which the reader has just been present.

While we were eviscerating the papers, fresh from London, Gingham leaned over the table, with the air of a man who had something important to communicate. He looked me earnestly in the face.

"Mr Y——," said he, "what do you say—to a red herring—this evening—for supper?"

"Thank you. You must excuse me. Nothing more to-night, but one cup of coffee, and perhaps a cigar. Not even an anchovy toast. I really couldn't."

"Well, then," said Gingham, "to-morrow at breakfast. We will engage a room up stairs, and ask leave of nobody. I have brought down a small barrel from London—always take some when I visit the Peninsula—get them in Lower Thames Street. You will pronounce them excellent."

The offer was too good to be declined.

Next morning we ordered breakfast up stairs. Indeed, a fire had been lit in one of the parlours, by Gingham's directions; and there I found him, with the table laid, and the herrings ready for cooking. Gingham had secured a small Dutch oven; not with the design of baking the herrings—no, no, he knew better than that—but to keep them hot when done. The doing he reserved to himself, on the plea of experience. I was not to assist, except in eating them.

"Do you understand cookery, Mr Y—?" said Gingham.

I ingenuously owned my deficiency in that branch of education, which is no part of the Cambridge curriculum.

"Three months at headquarters," said he, "will make you an excellent cook."

It so happened that the parlour, in which we had located ourselves for the purpose of cooking our herrings, was not that in which we had dined the day before, but one adjoining the larger apartment occupied by the three military gentlemen, with whom we were to cross the Bay of Biscay. A boarding, removable at pleasure, was the only separation between the two rooms. We had not yet become acquainted.

Shortly after I joined Gingham, two of the three entered their parlour; presently the third followed. They rang the bell, and ordered breakfast, all in high good humour, and talking incessantly. We were not listeners, but could not help hearing every word that was said.

"Good blow-out that, yesterday."—"Pity we didn't know of it sooner; might as well have dined with them."—"Turtle, too."—"'Pon your honour?"—"Turtle, and lots of champagne. Caught the waiter swigging off the end of a bottle in the passage."—"Who are they?"—"Don't know; can't make them out. Both going out with us in the packet, though."—"Think I remember seeing the white fellow at Cadiz; almost sure I did; and afterwards again at Madrid. Always wore his hair in that way, well floured and larded, except when it was too hot, and combed down straight on each side of his ugly face."—"What a nose! Prodigious! A regular proboscis."—"Yes, and all on one side, like the rudder of a barge."—"Let me tell you, a very good thing; for if it was straight, it would be always in his way."—"Always in his way? Why it would trip him up when he walked."—Omnes, "Ha, ha, ha."—"Going with us, do you say? Hope he don't snore. Why, such a tromba as that would keep a whole line-of-battle ship awake."—"Bet you a dollar he's blind of one eye."—"Done." "Done. Book it, major."—"I'll trouble you for a dollar. He does walk a little sideways, but it isn't his eye."—"What is it, then? One-eyed people always walk sideways."—"Why, I'll tell you, now. It's a principle which most people observe through life."—"What principle?"—"Guess."—"Come, tell us, old fellow. None of your nonsense."—"D'ye give it up?"—"Yes, I give it up. Come, tell us."—"Follow your nose."—Omnes, "Ha, ha, ha."—"Capital! capital! That's the best we've had for some time. Follow your nose! Capital! Ha, ha, ha."—"Well, that's it, depend upon it. Other people follow their noses by walking straight forward. That white fellow walks sideways, but still follows his nose."—"No, no, major. Your theory is fallacious. When he walks his nose points backwards. His nose points over his left shoulder, and he walks right shoulders forward." I looked at Gingham, and laughed. Gingham was looking rather grave, and feeling his nose. "No, no. I tell you he walks left shoulders forward."—"Bet you a dollar."—"Done."—"Done. Book it, major."—"I'll trouble you for a dollar. Saw him this morning, all in a bustle. Took particular notice of his nose."—"Who is the young chap?"—"Oh, he's a regular Johnny Newcome, that's evident."—"Johnny Newcome? Yes; but I wish he wasn't such a chap for john dories. Price in the market is doubled." Gingham laughed and looked at me. "Suppose he's a sub going out to join his regiment."—"No, no. Got such lots of baggage. No regimental officer would be ass enough to take such a heap of trunks. Load for three mules."—"He'll soon knock up. Those long fellows always knock up."—"Shouldn't wonder if he gets the fever next autumn. Then what will his mammy say?"—"Well, but what did they dine about? Thousand pities we did not join them."—"Oh, I suppose it was something of a parting feed; taking leave of Old England, you know: toasting Miss Ann Chovy, Miss Mary Gold, Miss Polly Anthus, and all that kind of thing."—"Hang it all; a good dinner for eight people; thousand pities we missed it."

By this time, our cookery was proceeding in due course. Two splendid bloaters, whole, lay extended where chestnuts are roasted; while two more, split open, hung suspended from a large toasting-fork, held by Gingham, who told me to look and learn, but not to meddle. With a clear bright fire, they soon began to spit. Nor was there wanting another token of our operations. For now the savoury odour of four red herrings, simultaneously under a brisk process of culinary preparation, diffused itself through the apartment, and no doubt through the whole hotel, from the cellar to the attics. The effect on our friends in the next room was instantaneous. Conversation ceased. Then there was a deal of sniffing—then audible whispering and suppressed laughter—then again, a dead silence. Gingham and I exchanged looks. "We must be acquainted," said Gingham, quietly; "and the sooner the better." I saw he had made up his mind, and was prepared for what was about to take place. Then the conversation was heard a little louder, but not distinguishable. There was evidently a council of war. Much laughter. Then, audibly spoken, "Are you fond of herrings?"—"Very; capital for breakfast."—"So am I, very; that is, of red herrings. Fresh, can't endure them."—"Nor I; they have such a horrid SMELL. But a bloater,—often dined off them up the country; didn't we, major?"—"Oh yes, lots of times. But you were moderate. Never could manage above half-a-dozen at a sitting."—"Ring for the waiter."—"No, no; nonsense. Major M—, YOU." After a moment's pause, one of the party left the room; walked, apparently to the end of the passage; then walked back again; opened our door; entered, and politely apologised for the mistake. He was a middle-aged, well-built, gentlemanly-looking man, with bonhomie beaming in his countenance, and came at once to business. His eye dropped upon the herrings.

"Beg ten thousand pardons. Oh! I see it's here. We perceived that bloaters were frying somewhere in the house, and thought we should like to try a few. Will you have the kindness to inform me where they can be procured? Didn't know there was a single bloater in all Falmouth."

I, in my simplicity, thought the major was really asking for information, and was going to tell him of several shops where I had seen bloaters; but Gingham was too quick for me.

"Here is a barrel-full," said Gingham, pointing to the corner of the room. "Shall be most happy to supply you and your friends with any quantity. Do me the favour to accept of two or three dozen."

"Oh no, sir," said Major M—, drawing up, as if he had been misunderstood. The major was playing a higher game. "Couldn't think of such a thing. Thought you had procured them in the town."

"Indeed, sir," said Gingham, "I don't think the town contains their equals. They are from London direct. Always take a small barrel with me when I visit the Peninsula. Get them in Lower Thames Street."

"Really, a most excellent idea," said Major M—. "I wish I had done the same. Well, I think I never will return to headquarters again without taking a barrel of red herrings." The Major cast a sort of domesticated look about the room, as if he felt quite at home with us.

"Go it, Major!" said an opening in the partition, sotto voce.

"Come, Major," said Gingham, "I see you and the gentlemen your companions are old campaigners. So am I. Suppose we waive ceremony. You see we have got our cooking apparatus all ready. Suppose—do us the favour—excuse the shortness of the invitation—I shall be delighted, and so will my friend here, if you and your party will oblige us with your company to breakfast."

"Yes, yes, Major," said the crevice, as before. "Yes, Major, yes," said another crevice.

"Really, sir," said the Major, with an admirably assumed look of polite embarrassment, and turning a deaf ear to his two prompters behind the scenes—"really, sir, I hardly know how to thank you sufficiently for your obliging invitation. But—shall we not intrude? You meant to breakfast in private. You have, perhaps, business? Matters to arrange, preparatory to the voyage?"

"None in the world, sir," said Gingham, "till after breakfast. Our only business here is to cook our bloaters and eat them, which we could not do in the public room below. Do, pray, oblige us by negotiating this little affair, Major, and persuade your friends to favour us with their company."

The Major, in fact, was negotiating already; and a capital negotiator he made. He might, had he pleased, have walked off, at an earlier stage of the proceedings, with a whole pile of herrings; and even that, at college, we should have thought a capital coup. But the Major was not so green.

"Well, sir, since you are so very pressing, I shall have the pleasure of communicating to my comrades your kind invitation; and I presume," he added, bowing politely to me, "I may also have the honour of saying, the invitation of your friend, Captain Y—."

I bowed in return, too much taken by surprise to disclaim the rank so unexpectedly conferred; and a little sore at being saluted "captain," by the same voice which I had heard, just before, proclaiming aloud, that if I was a regimental officer I was an ass. The Major bowed again; backed out of the room, still bowing, and closed the door.

The remaining negotiation was not of long continuance. His two friends were already in the passage, hard by the entrance of our apartment. A dead silence—one irrepressible burst of laughter, instantly hushed—again dead silence—a tap at the door—door opened by Gingham—and enter the three Peninsulars.

I really could not help admiring the perfectly free and easy, but at the same time quiet, self-possessed, and gentlemanly style of their entrÉe, and of their bearing during the first few moments of our interview. Gingham expressed his gratification; was happy to see them. Advancing on their right flank, taking up a central position, and then facing to the left, "Allow me," said the major, "to avail myself of my brief priority of acquaintance, and to introduce—Captain Gabion, of the Royal Engineers," (bowing, on both sides)—"and Mr Commissary Capsicum," (more bowing,)—"half-brothers, I need not say—the family likeness is so striking." Gingham presented Mr Y—. Mr Y—(booby!) presented Gingham.

"Not very striking that family likeness, though," thought I, of course taking seriously what the wag of a major spoke with perfect seriousness. The captain of the Engineers was a pale-looking man, buttoned up to the chin in his regulation frock-coat, rather above the common height, air military and symmetrical. Education had traced on his countenance the lines of thought; and, in short, his whole appearance was a little aristocratic, and what we now call distinguÉ. His "half-brother," the commissary, on the contrary, who appeared at least twelve years his senior, was a short, pursy, puffy man; with a full, rubicund, oleaginous, and pimpled visage; a large, spongy, purple blob of a nose, its broad lower extremity pendulous, and slightly oscillatory when he moved; a humorous twinkle in his eye, which was constantly on the range in search of fun; two black, bushy tufts for eyebrows; his hair distributed over his ample pericranium in large detached flocks, each flock growing a way of its own, and no two alike; coat flying open; waistcoat open, all but the two bottom buttons; a bull neck, with very little cravat; and a profuse display of shirt and frill. His shirt and frill, imperfectly closed, revealed his grizzly chest; while his nether extremities were set off to great advantage by a pair of tight blue kerseymere pantaloons with a scarlet stripe; and something—I suppose, as bustles were not then the fashion, it must have been his tailors' clumsiness—imparted a peculiar breadth and bulge to the tail of his coat. He wore splendid gaiters of bright nankeen, with mother-of-pearl buttons. No ceremony when gentlemen meet. We were all quite at home in a moment.

There was a little hitch. All the party were quite of one mind and will, in the project and purpose of cooking and eating bloaters. But how were five cooks to cook at one fire?

We all saw it together. I looked at the partition. "Better unship that," said the commissary. The commissary, I soon saw, was, by common consent, the commanding officer of the party. We went to work; and in no time the partition was cleverly removed, and stowed away on one side. We thus made our small parlour a large one, with the additional advantage of two fires instead of one for our culinary operations. Gingham, meanwhile, had slipped out of the room; but returned in a few minutes, looking quite innocent. He had been absent to some purpose, as the result shortly proved. We now found full employment with the herrings, roasting and toasting. Gingham, the captain, and the major, at the larger fire; I and Mr Commissary Capsicum at the other.

Gingham, when he left the room, had given his order; a carte blanche to the whole establishment to extemporise as handsome a breakfast as circumstances would permit, with a special caveat against delay.

Enter the waiter, with a tray, and a large tablecloth.—Previous set-out transferred from the table to the tray, and placed on the sideboard.—Two tables run into one—fresh tablecloth laid.—Exit waiter.

Enter waiter again, with plates, cups and saucers, knives, forks, and spoons, basin, two sugar-basins—in short, all the apparatus of a breakfast-table.—The whole laid, in the twinkling of an eye.—Exit waiter.

Enter waiter a third time, with a large tray—bread, (varieties,) butter, water-cresses, ham, tongue, cold fillet of veal, cold chicken, cold pigeon-pie, all the cold eatables.—Boots handed in from the door a large block of quince marmalade, on a silver salver.—Boots handed in small jars: potted shrimps, pickled oysters, pot of Scotch honey, strawberry jam, other jams.—Boots handed in one larger jar, a Portuguese conserve, quartos de marmelas. (N. B. quinces cut up into lumps, and boiled in Brazilian sugar. Portuguese beat all the world in sweetmeats, and quartos de marmelas beat all the rest.) I guessed Gingham had given the landlady the key of his travelling store-chest.—Boots handed in milk, cream, clouted cream. Boots handed in two splendid brass kettles of boiling water, one of which waiter placed on each fire.—Exit waiter.

A temporary pause. During this lull, the utmost energies of the house were in exercise below, to provide with despatch the remaining matÉriel of our humble meal. I observed, from time to time, that he of the commissariat eyed the preparations with peculiar benignity. It was all in his way, as I subsequently had the pleasure of experiencing, among the sources of the Adour and the Garonne. "Ever been with the army?" said he.—"Never," said I; "but hope to be soon."—"Hope you'll often dine with me. But don't spoil that fine bloater. There, hold it a little further from the fire. Red herring should be toasted, not burnt to death. Done, when the backbone is crisp; not before. But should not be done quickly, like murder in Shakspeare. Do it slowly, my dear sir; do it slowly. If you do it fast, you burn all the flavour out of it." I saw he was a connoisseur.

Yet—stupid, conceited, arrogant young coxcomb—so inexperienced was I then, so indignant at the shadow of interference, so unaccustomed to anything that bore the least semblance of control, I inwardly curled at even these valuable and truly philanthropic suggestions—thought it all exceedingly odd, and took it for dictation.

Lots of bloaters were now toasted or roasted, and prepared for eating. Just as we were ready, for the fourth time enter waiter, bringing eggs, coffee-pot, two tea-pots, (tea and coffee ready,) muffins, hot buttered rolls, &c., &c., &c. But among the etceteras I really must pause, to specify a certain delicate sort of round west-country breakfast cake—piles of which were also brought in, buttered and smoking hot. Gingham whispered the waiter, "Keep on bringing them."

Gingham, with his usual judgment, had prohibited anything hot in the shape of chops, steaks, cutlets, grills, rashers, or even kidneys. It was a herring breakfast; and he excluded what would only have divided the appetite, and interfered with the bloaters.

We made a capital breakfast. Everything was excellent. The pile of breakfast cakes received perpetual accessions, but never gained in height. The bloaters, however, were the staple of our meal; and Gingham's barrel suffered a considerable reduction. As we were all sensible people, or wished to appear so, there was very little talk; and what there was referred to the important business in hand. At length it was clear that we had breakfasted. Gingham was beginning to recommend the knick-knackeries—jams, pickled oysters, marmalade. Each seemed disposed to pause, yet none had quite left off. Our guests were evidently telegraphing, and exchanging looks of approval, when—

Enter the waiter once more, bringing, upon a silver tray, two curiously shaped bottles cased in a sort of wicker-work, with glasses. A splendid Italian liqueur! It was sipped, approved, tossed off with wonderful despatch. One by one we gradually leaned back in our chairs, and the bottles began to move round, as if spontaneously. That is, I cannot exactly say I saw any one pass them; but from time to time, first here, first there, I noticed a little finger pointing to the ceiling; a movement which certainly had something to do with the progress of the bottles. We sat, sipped, and chatted. Our breakfast was an accomplished fact.

"Hear, hear, hear!" Mr Commissary Capsicum was on his legs. Knuckles rapped; glasses jingled; "Hear, hear, hear!"—The telegraphic communications of his two friends had intimated to him their wishes: the unexpected bonus of the liqueur, coming in at the last, had awakened, in his own bosom, its most benevolent emotions: he rose to acknowledge our hospitality; and in his friends' name, as well as in his own, to invite us that day to dinner.

His address I shall not attempt to report. It was brief, well-bred, and well-expressed; had several good points, and was heard with immense applause. He invited us to dinner; gave Gingham's health and mine; and concluded by observing that, "conscious that he had not made a neat and appropriate speech, he begged leave," (filling, and suiting the action to the word,) "to drink long life and prosperity to us, in a neat and appropriate bumper." Considering it was our first meeting, I did think that was a little broad.

Gingham returned thanks, and gave the health of Major M—, R.A. Major M— returned thanks.

I returned thanks, and gave the health of Captain Gabion, R.E.

Captain Gabion returned thanks, sat down, and rose a second time, but was anticipated by Gingham again, who gave the health of Mr Commissary Capsicum.

Mr Commissary Capsicum returned thanks.

With respect to the dinner, it would not do. It was our last day before sailing; Gingham had whole reams of letters to write; I also had matters to attend to; we pleaded the circumstances, and begged to be excused. Our friends saw the difficulty, and reluctantly accepted our apologies.

There was a moment's pause. Then all three rose from the table at once, again thanked us politely for our hospitality, and withdrew to their private apartments. Shortly after, looking out of the window, I saw them walking down the street, all arm in arm, and each puffing a cigar.

Gingham stood pensive by the fire, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his head leaning on his hand.

"I fear," said I, "your exertions to entertain your guests have wearied you."

He made no reply. I went up to him. He seemed to awake as from a reverie.

"Hang it!" said Gingham, in a plaintive tone, "there should have been some mashed potatoes."

"Never mind, my dear sir—excellent breakfast; everything went off capitally. I, for one, enjoyed it amazingly."

"Yes," said Gingham, mournfully; "but, to make the thing complete, there should have been some mashed potatoes with the bloaters. Had I only known of it in time! By the bye," added he, "I thought once or twice, you did not seem entirely at your ease. Nothing more gentlemanly, my dear sir, than your general manner. But at times, it struck me, you did appear a little—a little—stiffish. You must get rid of that before we reach headquarters."

"Well," said I, "I'll tell you. That 'captain' stuck in my gizzard. There's the truth. Coupled with what we heard previously, and Major M— must have known that we heard it, it was just the same as calling me a donkey to my face."

"Oh, that's nothing," said Gingham. "Don't distress yourself about such trifles as that."

"To tell you the truth," said I, "the whole thing appeared to me a little too free and easy. Here were you and I preparing to take a quiet breakfast, when those three guerilla fellows, with their off-hand Peninsular manners, actually took us by storm, made a most ferocious attack on your barrel of herrings, sunk it one-third, drank up your two bottles of liqueurs, and civilly wished us good morning. Now, when I was at college, to be sure we were merry enough, no etiquette, no ceremony there. But then there was a certain gentlemanly feeling, which forbade vulgar familiarity in any shape. And as to people that assumed, or made free, I always kept them at arm's length."

"Well, Mr Y—," said Gingham, "I see plainly how it is. Follow my advice. If you can't take a joke, resign your appointment, forfeit your money, and return to London. You'll find it awkward enough living among military men on actual service."

"I trust," said I, "by adhering to my invariable rule, never to offer a deliberate insult, but at the same time never to brook one, go where I will, I shall be fortunate enough to escape disagreeable rencontres."

"Nonsense!" said Gingham, looking very serious, and speaking quite in a sharp and peremptory tone—"nonsense!" Then softening a little, "Rencontres, my dear sir? Rencontres? Nothing of the kind. Rencontres? You talk like a militia officer. Rencontres? You'll soon dismiss all that kind of thing from your thoughts, after you have seen two or three rencontres with the French. Rencontres? No, no; no field of forty footsteps at headquarters. Rencontres? It would be a perfect absurdity, where men have the chance of being shot gratis every day of their lives, without going out of the way for it. Rencontres? No; I did not mean that. What I meant to say was this: you would infallibly be made a general butt. Rencontres? Why, Mr Y—, if you show any nonsense of that sort, you'll be tormented to death. Rencontres? Oh, what lots of fun they'll take out of you! Meanwhile, think yourself fortunate that you are now getting a seasoning. I am truly glad, for your sake, that you have had the opportunity here at Falmouth, and will have the opportunity on your passage out, of seeing something of military men and modes before you join. You may, and probably will, be dubbed, on your arrival, a Johnny Newcome. But, at any rate, you will not be a Johnny Raw."

Gingham closed the conference by walking to the other end of the room, and steadfastly contemplating his own beautiful physiognomy in the glass. During our conversation, his hand had frequently visited his nose. He now stood opposite the mirror, slewing his head first this way, then that, and at length broke silence:—

"Well, I was not aware of it; but I do think that my nose is a little crooked."

"I presume," said I, "you have no sisters?"

"I have none," replied Gingham.

"Nor are you, I apprehend, a married man?"

"There, alas, you are right again," said Gingham; "but what has that to do with it?"

"Your wife, or your sisters, if you had any, would have told you that you have a very crooked nose."

"Well, but," said Gingham, "there's my mother. My dear mother never told me that my nose was crooked."

"Your mother, probably, is totally unconscious of the fact; and, should she hear any one else assert such a thing, would deny it most strenuously."

"Nay, but," said Gingham, "though I have neither sister nor wife, and supposing my dear mother to be blind to my personal defects, I have—in short, Mr Y—, before I left London, I took a tender leave of her whom I hope to persuade, on my next return from the Peninsula, to accept the hand and the heart of a Gingham. She did not tell me that my nose was crooked. She mentioned various obstacles to our union; but she never mentioned that."

"Then," said I, "depend upon it, she means to have you. And depend upon this, too; she will tell you your nose is crooked when you have made her Mrs Gingham, if she does not tell you so before."

"As to my walking sideways," said Gingham, "that's a palpable fiction."

"Here," said I, "come to this extremity of the room, and place yourself opposite the glass." He came, and placed himself accordingly.

"Now walk straight down upon, the glass, keeping your eye fixed upon your reflected nose."

"What nose? Which nose?" said Gingham, in a state of obvious alarm. "Do you mean the nose in my face?"

"I mean your nose in the glass." He walked as I had directed.

"Well, really," said Gingham, it's extraordinary; it's very curious. When I walk and look at my nose in the glass, it appears quite straight again—just as it ought to be, in the middle of my face."

"That's just it," said I. "Then you walk sideways. Depend upon it, if you walked straight, your nose would appear crooked."

He repeated the experiment again, and again, muttering to himself, "Very remarkable, very curious; quite a natural phenomenon."

"Don't distress yourself about your nose," said I; "it is a good enough nose, in magnitude respectable, though not strictly rectilinear. Make yourself easy; and say, with Erasmus, 'Nihil me poenitet hugeous nasi.'"

CHAPTER III.

Where Gingham got his classical knowledge, I had not at this time ascertained. Certain it is, he was a very fair classic. But there was one dreadful drawback to his character, and, in a man of his gravity, a strange one: I mean his offensive, horrid practice of making most atrocious Latin puns. A pun in English he viewed with utter contempt. It stirred his bile. No English pun escaped his lips. But for a Latin pun, he scrupled not to lay under contribution even the first-rate Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid—nay, his favourite author, Horace; and if I, influenced by bad example, was weak enough, in an unguarded moment, to commit the same offence, he stole my puns, and made them again as his own.

On the eve of our embarkation we strolled forth, after an early dinner, for a parting view of the sunset from the castle. Walking up town, we met the man of rum, the sleep-murdering Macbeth of the mail-coach. Still he was talking—for want of company, talking to himself. But his eyes were set, half-closed, and dim; his aspect was peculiarly meditative, and his course curvilinear. He had taken on board plus Æquo of his own samples. Perceiving our approach, he gave a lurch to clear us. But his legs, being not altogether under management, brought him exactly in the direction which he sought to shun; his stomach, which had already suffered so many assaults in the coach, most unfortunately impinged upon my elbow; and again it was "ugh!" His gummy eyes expanded, and gleamed on us like two fresh-opened oysters. Awhile he gazed with drunken gravity; then, turning round, bent over the roadside gutter, as if about to tumble in, and jocosely imitated the operation of drawing a cork. His organs of vision then assumed a slow movement of horizontal oscillation, and gradually settled on a pastry-cook's shop over the way. Towards this point he directed his zigzag approaches, recommencing his agreeable conference with himself, in terms of which we could catch only the words—"Archimedes—screw—pneumatic chemistry—soda water—pop!" He left with us the odour of a very bad cigar, which led Gingham to remark that he was "backy plenus" in more senses than one.

The influence of bad example is dreadful. Emerging from the town in our way to the castle, we met a merry party, male and female, all equestrians save some six or eight, who occupied the interior and exterior of a post-chaise. Gingham, who saw into a thing at once, pronounced them a wedding party; and a buxom dame, who was mounted on a lively little west country galloway, the bride. "Pony subit conjux," said I. "Yes," said Gingham; "but if that dear lady rides so near the carriage, oh! oh! oh! she will infallibly be capsized! 'Pony sub curru nimium propinqui!'" We reached the hill in time, saw a glorious sunset, and returned to letter-writing, and a light supper on hashed duck.

As Gingham appears more than once upon the stage in the course of my Peninsular adventures, and I should really be sorry to annoy the reader, as much as I was annoyed myself, with his perpetual and abominable perversions of classic latinity, I beg leave to dispose of this part of the subject at once, before we get to sea. Suffice it to say, then, that in the spring of the year 1838, just a quarter of a century after the period of which I am now writing, I once more left London for Falmouth, en route to Lisbon, though with an object far different from that of my voyage now to be recorded, and in a far different capacity. Science, in these five-and-twenty years, had done wonders; and I had secured my passage in London, not by a miserable tub of a sailing packet, but by a well-found and fast Peninsular steamer. The day before the steamer was to start from Falmouth, I walked down to the water's side to take a view of her. On the quay stood Gingham. By one of those strange coincidences which sometimes happen in life, we had again met at Falmouth, and were again to cross the Bay of Biscay in company. I recognised him: he did not recognise me. Time had somewhat changed his look, his dress very little. Its predominant aspect was still white. His nose, too, was unmistakeable. Perceiving at once that he was, like myself, a passenger to the Peninsula, I availed myself of the freedom conceded in such cases, and commenced a conversation by some remark on the steamer.

"I presume, sir," said he, "you are a passenger?"

"Yes, Mr Gingham, and so are you. Glad to meet you." He stared, but admitted the fact.

"But, sir," said he, "you have the advantage of me."

"Well, well," said I, "you'll find me out to-morrow on board the Guadalquivir. Fine ship that. To-morrow, you know, as Horace said, when he was off by the steamer:-'Cras, ingins! iterabimus Æquor!"

The effect was instantaneous. Gingham did not speak, he shouted:—"Dine with me: I have got a john dory."

We walked off to the town—I rubbing my shoulder, which Gingham shook, when he shook my hand—he, for a few paces, thoughtful and silent. I expected a burst of sentiment.

"By the bye," said Gingham, "while your hand was in, you might just as well have quoted the other line, for that, also, refers to our voyage."

"The other line?"

"Yes, the other line. Don't you see that pair of rooks flying over the harbour?"

"Rooks fly in droves. I see no rooks."

"Right," said he; "they are a couple of crows."

"But the line from Horace, referring to our voyage?"

"Not only referring to it," said Gingham, "but highly encouraging. 'Nil desperandum two crow duce, et auspice two crow."

"Gingham, you are incorrigible."

To reach the street from the water's side we had to pass through a narrow passage, and there met the stewardess of the steamer, who was going on board. She stalked along in clogs on tiptoe, her left hand gathering up, behind, her cloak, gown, petticoat, &c., while her right hand bore an umbrella one size larger than a parasol, and a reticule one size less than a pannier; emerging from which pannier appeared the ugly mug of an enormous Portuguese red ram cat, the pet of the stewardess, and the constant companion of her Peninsular voyages.

"My cat inter omnes," said Gingham.

But I have rambled, and am a quarter of a century wide of the mark. The period of which I have now to write, the important period to which my present narrative refers, is not the more recent year, 1838, but the remoter year, 1813, glorious in the annals of England; the year that saw the commencement of Napoleon's downfall; the year of triumph and rout beneath the walls of Vittoria; the year of a still sterner and equally successful conflict at St Sebastian; the year, too, that furnished a name for a princess of a royal line, that Queen Victoria who, in her high estate and royal clemency, remembered and rewarded the long-forgotten and long unrecompensed heroes of those bygone times. In the early spring of that year, 1813, I was there at Falmouth, a raw youth, launched on the wide world in search of adventure, burning to reach the headquarters of the Peninsular army, fully capable of making a fool of myself when I got there, and anxiously waiting for the sailing of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig, which, for want of a better, performed the office of Lisbon packet. It was well for me that, at Falmouth, I had already fallen into friendly hands.

On the morning of our embarkation, March the—th, 1813, Gingham went early on board the packet, for his personal baggage was bulky and various, to see to its stowage—part in his berth, part in the hold. It was settled between us that he was to return ashore, that we were to breakfast together at the hotel, and afterwards go off together to the packet, which was still lying in the harbour, and was to sail about noon.

I waited breakfast for Gingham, but no Gingham came. At length I received a long note from him, dated on board the packet. It began by stating that an attempt had been made to impose upon him, and that he was determined not to stand it. The attempted imposition, as I learned from him afterwards, was this:—

Gingham walked down from the hotel to the water's side, and engaged a boat, which was to take him on board the packet for eighteen-pence; he, Gingham, understanding thereby, according to the tenor of many previous bargains at the same rate of payment, that he was to be taken on board, and put on shore again. On this, however, the last day of our abode at Falmouth, the two boatmen, thinking they might safely try it on, and conjecturing also that Gingham's time might possibly be too valuable to be wasted in discussion, determined to take a different view of the subject, and exact a second fare for landing him. The boat reached the packet, Gingham went on board, the boatmen made fast to a harbour-buoy, and waited the result. Gingham went below, made his arrangements, came on deck, and hailed his boat to take him ashore. The elder boatman civilly touched his hat, and remarked, with a winning smile, that they hadn't been paid "nuffin" for bringing him on board. Gingham replied, that he should pay as usual when they had got back to the quay. The boatman, courteous as before, again touched his hat, and answered, simpering, "Beg your pardon, sir, but this ear last day, when the peckit's hoff, jeddlemen hol-ways pays bode ways, cumin aboard, and goon back again." "Oh, do they?" said Gingham, and walked down into the cabin, where he quietly wrote his note to me, in a hand that beat copperplate; and breakfasted upon sea biscuit, junk, and ship's cocoa, the steward not having yet got off his stock of groceries for the voyage. Everybody on board knew Gingham, and he had no difficulty in getting his note brought ashore in the ship's boat, without the knowledge of the two 'longshore fellows, who were riding at the buoy, and who still thought they had the best of the bargain—as it is a rule in harbour, or at any rate was in those days, that no private passenger by a packet passed or repassed except by 'longshore boats. Gingham was now all right, and did not care one farthing for the boatmen; for he already had the bulk of his things on board, he was on board himself, and his note advised me respecting his remaining matters ashore. He continued below, having resolved, as he told me afterwards, to keep the boatmen waiting alongside till the packet was off, and then give them ninepence. Meanwhile he sent up, by the steward, an injunction to the people on deck, who enjoyed not a little the false position of the two boatmen, not on any account to let them come on board.

Gingham's note to me, which was, as I have already intimated, a beautiful specimen of commercial penmanship, was to the following effect:—That he was detained on board by his determination to resist a gross imposition; that the laundress had still in her keeping a small quantity of his linen, which she was to bring to the hotel about breakfast-time; that he had settled with the servants that morning; and that the landlady was indebted to him in the sum of two shillings, he having paid his bill the night before, in which bill was included the charge of two shillings for a cold-meat breakfast, which he should not take; that he requested me to get back the two shillings from the landlady; that he would also thank me to receive the linen from the laundress, see that it was correct per invoice, (washing-bill, I presume,) check her account, liquidate it, and bring the linen on board with me.

Meanwhile a circumstance arose, which was of great moment in itself, and gave Gingham a further advantage in his affair with the two Falmouth lads. An extra mail for Lisbon had arrived from London, sent off by despatch to catch the packet before she sailed; and, by management of Gingham's partners, who were influential people, brought Gingham letters on a matter of some importance. These letters were taken off to Gingham by a trusty drab-coated Falmouth "Friend," in another 'longshore boat, and rendered it absolutely requisite that he should go ashore, and perhaps defer his voyage. The packet at this time was surrounded with boats and bustle, the two boatmen still fast to the buoy; and Gingham had no difficulty in returning ashore by the boat which brought off his mercantile friend, without being observed by them. In fact, they were half asleep, still secure, as they thought, of their victim, and affording no small sport to the crew of the packet, who saw how things were going. I shall only mention here, that the communication, received by Gingham from London, related to a grand financial speculation, an idea of his own, having reference to the monetary transactions at headquarters, which were very large, and as well conducted as circumstances permitted, but attended with great difficulties, and considerable loss to the British government. Gingham's plan would have been backed by private capital to any amount. It was knocked on the head by the peace of 1814: but I have more to say about it hereafter.

True to her time, the laundress arrived at the hotel; not bringing, as Gingham had described it, a small quantity of linen, but attended by a man with a barrow, wheeling two large buck-baskets, each piled with an immense heap of shirts, white inexpressibles, white double-breasted dimity waistcoats,—in short every thing white,—a stock for a voyage to China. On the interior of the collar of one of the said white double-breasted dimity waistcoats, I noticed the cypher

G G
37!—No. 1 of the fourth dozen! So profuse was Gingham in his provision for the habiliment of his own elegant exterior. I settled with the laundress, engaged the barrow-man to go off with me in charge of the linen, and take back the baskets, finished my breakfast, paid my bill, and went on board. Such was my first embarkation for the Peninsula. Little dreaming that there was a spoke in my wheel, and that some time was still to elapse between my departure from Falmouth and my arrival at the British headquarters, I had longed for the day of the packet's sailing. But now, when the wished-for moment had arrived, a lot of little things, coming upon me at the last, quite put it out of my head that I was quitting my native land, and about to enter on new scenes, mingle with strangers, embark in active life, and master—where alone they could be mastered, on their vernacular soil—two ancient, expressive, and kindred languages, which I had conned rudimentally on the banks of Cam. Nor did I dream that I went to earn a prospective claim to a Peninsular Medal; and jot down mental memoranda, still vividly legible, of all I heard and saw, for the information and amusement of readers then unborn. "Gooin' off to the peckit, sir? Here, Bill, hand the jeddleman's boxes." Then, when we were half way to the brig,—"Wherry 'ot on the worter, sir. Ope you'll be ginnerous a little hextry for the luggidge, sir. Wherry dry work pullin', sir."

Gingham, when I reached the packet, was not on board. The cause of his absence was explained to me by the steward, who assisted in stowing away the contents of the two buck-baskets in Gingham's berth. During this operation, the steward, who fully participated in the antipathy to 'longshore boatmen common to his class, communicated to me, with no small glee, the occurrences of the morning; and begged me to take a sight, when I went on deck, of the two expectant gentlemen at the buoy. There they were, sure enough, very much at their ease—quite satisfied that Gingham would want to be taken ashore again before the packet sailed, that theirs was the boat that must take him, and that they had the game in their own hands.

On deck I met our three breakfast guests of the day before. They greeted me cordially, made many inquiries after Gingham, and introduced me, as a particular old crony of theirs, to Staff-Surgeon Pledget, who had arrived by the mail overnight, and was also a passenger to Lisbon, on his return to the British army. I soon began to perceive that it was a standing rule with my three new acquaintances, regular "Peninsulars," to extract fun from even the most common incidents—in fact, from everybody and everything. Staff-Surgeon Pledget, as able a man in his profession as any staff-surgeon attached to the Peninsular army, was matter-of-fact personified; and the dignified cordiality with which he received an old crony of theirs, evidently afforded the three hoaxers extraordinary sport. Major M—— did the presentation with perfect coolness and amenity. Gammon was his element. Mr Commissary Capsicum winked his eye in the richest style of comedy, and nearly made me spoil all by laughing. Captain Gabion looked gravely on, and laughed internally. His sides shook, his elbows twitched, and his countenance wore its usual expression of melancholy.

Presently after was seen approaching a man-of-war's boat, pulling at the steady rate, which indicated that it conveyed an officer of rank. The boat came alongside with a graceful sweep; twelve oars stood upright, as if by magic; and a tall, military-looking man, who had lost an arm, rose, politely took leave of the lieutenant in charge of the boat, ascended the ship's side, with the aid of his single hand, faster than some people perform the same difficult operation with two, and stood on deck. This was the brave Colonel —— of the cavalry, who was going out with us to rejoin his regiment. He had lost his arm at Oporto, on that memorable occasion when the French, to their astonishment, found the British army on their side of the Douro; and when the British army, too, quite surprised at finding itself, as if by magic, on the opposite bank of a broad, deep, and rapid river, and struck with admiration at the bold conception and skilful execution which had effected the transition under the enemy's nose, with one consent dubbed its illustrious leader "Old Douro." By that title, from that time forward, he was commonly known at headquarters: and is it not a glorious one, so won, and so conferred, and truly worthy of descending in his family? On that occasion, I was told, Colonel ---- charged through the enemy at the head of his regiment, and, as one good turn deserves another, thought he might as well charge back again. It was in this second charge that he lost his arm.

Arrived on deck, the colonel made a somewhat semicircular bow to all of us, and immediately recognised Major M——. His valet followed him, and presently went below. The next moment, the colonel began to take a first view of the vessel, and turned from us for that purpose. Captain Gabion, first nudging Mr Commissary Capsicum, whispered Major M——, "Come, major, give us the colonel." The major, having an arm too many, in a twinkling whipped one behind him, stepped to the gangway, and did the colonel's first appearance to the life. To execute the colonel's recognition of himself, for want of a better substitute, he advanced, with the colonel's three military strides, to me. I, carried away by the drollery of the scene, so far forgot myself that I did the major. This caused a general laugh; the colonel turned round, and caught me and the major bowing, grimacing, and shaking hands. He saw at once what had been going on, and laughed too. But the major wished to shift the responsibility. "That Pledget," said he, "keeps us in a constant roar." Mr Staff-Surgeon Pledget looked a little surprised. When the major gave us the colonel's horizontal salutation to the company assembled, Pledget took it all in earnest, and bowed in return.

One other arrival followed. A shore boat came off, having four more passengers—a lady, two gentlemen, and a female attendant. One of the said gentlemen, an Irishman, was the lady's brother: she, in face and form, a perfect specimen of Irish beauty; he, both in person and in feature, all that might be expected in the brother of such a sister. In this respect he presented a remarkable contrast to their fellow-passenger, who was a young Irish officer of the East India Company's navy, and, what made it more remarkable, the accepted swain, as we afterwards had every reason to conclude, of his fair countrywoman. How shall I describe this lovely youth? His head was large; his face prodigiously large and flat; his features were ludicrously diminutive. Fancy a full moon seen broad and white through a Shetland mist—in short, a full moon of putty; then fancy, stuck exactly in the centre of this moon, the little screwed-up pug face of a little ugly monkey, and you have him to a T. His two little twinkling eyes, deep sunk beneath the beetling brow of his prominent and massive forehead, and in such close proximity that nothing separated them but the bridge of his nose, were constantly and inquisitively on the move. The nose itself was too insignificant to merit a description. Yet it was not exactly what is called a squashed nose, but a nose without a nib. It conveyed to you, indeed, the painful impression that some unfeeling barber had sliced off its extremity, and left the two unprotected nostrils staring you full in the face, like the open ports of a ship. His ears were like an elephant's,—large, loose, thin, flat, and un-hemmed. His mouth, like that described by a distinguished authoress, "had a physiognomy of its own." Not very observable when quiescent, in speaking it became curiously expressive, and, at times, enormously elongated or strangely curvilinear. It had also, under the same circumstances, another peculiarity. It was a travelling mouth: yes, it travelled. When it talked, it was constantly shifting its position, not only up and down, but sideways and obliquely. In the utterance of a single sentence, it would traverse the whole extent of his face. It was now high, now low; now on this side, now on that. It ranged, at will, the whole breadth of his countenance from ear to ear; so that at times he was all mouth on one side of his face, and no mouth on the other. This gave him the additional advantage, that his profile could maintain a dialogue with you, as well as another man's full face. When conversing with his lady-love, side by side at the dinner-table, he never turned to look at her—he had no need. Viewing her with one eye, like a duck, in tones of deferential tenderness he addressed her from the cheek that was nearest hers. His perfectly well-bred deportment, nay, elegance of manner, his inexhaustible fund of good humour, and amusing waggery, did not, I am sorry to say, prevent his acquiring, and bearing during the voyage, the name of Joey: allusive, I presume, to the feats of mouth performed in those days by the far-famed Grimaldi. The malevolent suspicion, that a title so derogatory was any suggestion of mine, I scorn to notice. To this, however, I do confess, that, ere we had been four-and-twenty hours at sea, as a slight token of my profound veneration for the stateliest and the loveliest of Erin's daughters, I proposed, and it was carried unanimously, that she should bear the name of Juno. And, the colonel having pronounced her brother a perfect Apollo, I also proposed, and it was also carried unanimously, that we should call him Mr Belvidere. But I am anticipating. On the practice of giving sobriquets, so common at headquarters, much remains to be said hereafter. As to the maid-servant, she was a quiet little Irishwoman of about five-and-thirty, in a duffle cloak with pink bows, snug straw bonnet neatly tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and snow-white cotton stockings, exhibiting a rather broad instep, which led me to conjecture that she had not always worn shoes. Her mistress called her Kitty, and that name she was allowed to keep, as no one on board thought he could improve it.

It is time to get to sea. Gingham, where are you? what are you about? We shall be off, and leave you behind. Noon, our hour of sailing, was now near at hand. The anchor was hove short; the sails were shaking in the wind; the skipper came on board; the foresail was then set; still there was no Gingham. Those talented individuals, the two boatmen, still supposing Gingham was on board, were getting a little uneasy. They were now wide awake, and anxiously peering at the ship with their hands over their eyes, watching every one that came on deck, but watching in vain. Their uneasiness evidently increased, as our remaining time diminished; till at length, as the town clock struck twelve, the capstan was manned. The anchor was then hove to the tune of "Off she goes," performed on a single fife in admirable time, marked by the tread of many feet. The flood-tide was beginning to make; but we didn't care for that, as we had wind enough from the north-east, and to spare. Other sails were now set, and we were beginning to get way; while I was intently eyeing the shore, expecting to see Gingham shove off, and perfectly sure he would come, because he had taken no steps for the re-landing of his baggage.

But I did not look in the right direction. Gingham, detained to the last moment, and then, having settled all things to his satisfaction, at liberty to prosecute his voyage, had made his arrangements with his usual judgment. It was a near thing though. He put off from a part of the town lower down than the quay from which he usually embarked, so as to cut in upon us as we glided down the harbour; and was within a few fathoms of the ship before I saw him. He was then standing upright in his boat, completely absorbed in a London paper, but with one hand waving his umbrella, without looking up, to stop the ship. Stopping the ship was out of the question. Indeed, I fancied the skipper would have been glad to go without him. The boat, coming end on, and not very cleverly handled by the Falmouth fellows, bumped against the side of the ship, which, as she was now under way, they were afraid of missing altogether; and the shock almost pitched Gingham and his umbrella into the water. He came on board amidst general laughter, and the hearty greetings of such of the passengers as knew him—none heartier than mine. "How his green spectacles would have frightened the fishes!" said Mr Commissary Capsicum to Captain Gabion. "Don't joke on such a serious subject," replied the captain; "had he gone over, we should have quitted England without getting a sight of the last London newspaper."

The two worthies, who, still expecting to see Gingham emerge from the cabin, had so long waited for him in vain, were by this time in an awkward predicament. When the ship first began to move, they had no resource but to unmoor from the buoy, out oars, and pull away in company. But this, it was soon clear, would not do. The ship was getting more and more way, and, had they pulled their hearts out, would soon have left them astern; when, as their only chance, they pulled close alongside, and made free with a rope's end that was dragging through the water. This one of them held, after giving it a turn round a bench; while the other kept off the boat from the ship's side by means of the boat-hook. While they were being thus dragged through the water, each, as he could, from time to time touching his hat, each beseechingly simpering, each saying something that nobody could hear, and both anxiously looking for Gingham on deck, to their great surprise they saw him come alongside in another boat, as I have already related; and, before they could say Jack Robinson, he was on board.

After our first greetings, I called Gingham's attention to the disagreeable position of our two friends, who were still holding on alongside, and dragging through the water. Indeed, I was disposed to hold an argument with him on the subject, and thought a different view might be taken of their case. "No, no," said Gingham; "this is the first time any Falmouth man has ever attempted to impose upon me, and I mean it to be the last."

The breeze, no unusual circumstance in such localities, stiffened as we approached the entrance of the harbour, where the high land closes in, and the sea-way is comparatively narrow; and, meeting the swell which came tumbling in from the ocean with the flood-tide, knocked up a little bit of an ugly ripple. The situation of the two boatmen was becoming every moment more awkward. We were now going six knots, (through the water, mind you, not making six knots—that, against such a current, was quite beyond our tubby little Wilhelmina's capabilities;) the ripple was gradually becoming nastier; the boatmen, still touching their hats from time to time, still blandly smiling, and still making unheard but pathetic appeals to Gingham's generosity, did not like to let go till they had got something; and I really thought the end must be, that their boat would be swamped alongside. At length, Gingham put an end to the farce, by screwing up ninepence in a bit of paper, and throwing it into the boat, telling them it was threepence more than they deserved. They then let go; and we left them poppling up and down, like a cork, in the broken water, and scuffling about in the bottom of the boat for the scattered coin.