storm had lasted for above an hour, without evincing any show of abatement;
"but what's to become of _me?_"

Now that was the very question I had been asking myself for the last twenty
minutes without ever being able to find the answer.

"Eh, Charley, what's to become of me?"

"Oh, never fear; one thing's quite certain, you cannot leave this in such
weather. The river is certainly impassable by this time at the ford, and to
go by the road is out of the question; it is fully twelve miles. I have it,
Baby; you, as I've said before, can't leave this, but I can. Now, I'll go
over to Gurt-na-Morra, and return in the morning to bring you back; it will
be fine by that time."

"Well, I like your notion. You'll leave me all alone here to drink tea, I
suppose, with your friend Mrs. Magra. A pleasant evening I'd have of it;
not a bit--"

"Well, Baby, don't be cross; I only meant this arrangement really for your
sake. I needn't tell you how very much I'd prefer doing the honors of my
poor house in person."

"Oh, I see what you mean,--more propers. Well, well, I've a great deal to
learn; but look, I think its growing lighter."

"No, far from it; it's only that gray mass along the horizon that always
bodes continual rain."

As the prospect without had little cheering to look upon, we sat down
beside the fire and chatted away, forgetting very soon in a hundred mutual
recollections and inquiries, the rain and the wind, the thunder and the
hurricane. Now and then, as some louder crash would resound above our
heads, for a moment we would turn to the window, and comment upon the
dreadful weather; but the next, we had forgotten all about it, and were
deep in our confabulations.

As for my fair cousin, who at first was full of contrivances to pass
the time,--such as the piano, a game at backgammon, chicken hazard,
battledoor,--she at last became mightily interested in some of my
soldiering adventures, and it was six o'clock ere we again thought that
some final measure must be adopted for restoring Baby to her friends, or at
least, guarding against the consequences her simple and guileless nature
might have involved her in.

Mike was called into the conference, and at his suggestion, it was decided
that we should have out the phaeton, and that I should myself drive
Miss Blake home; a plan which offered no other difficulties than this
one,--namely, that of above thirty horses in my stables, I had not a single
pair which had ever been harnessed.

This, so far from proving the obstacle I deemed it, seemed, on the
contrary, to overwhelm Baby with delight.

"Let's have them. Come, Charley, this will be rare fun; we couldn't have a
team of four, could we?"

"Six, if you like it, my dear coz--only who's to hold them? They're young
thorough-breds,--most of them never backed; some not bitted. In fact, I
know nothing of my stable. I say, Mike, is there anything fit to take out?"

"Yes, sir; there's Miss Wildespin, she's in training, to be sure; but we
can't help that; and the brown colt they call, 'Billy the Bolter,'--they're
the likeliest we have; without your honor would take the two chestnuts we
took up last week; they're raal devils to go; and if the tackle will hold
them, they'll bring you to Mr. Blake's door in forty minutes."

"I vote for the chestnuts," said Baby, slapping her boot with her
horsewhip.

"I move an amendment in favor of Miss Wildespin," said I, doubtfully.

"He'll never do for Galway," sang Baby, laying her whip on my shoulder with
no tender hand; "yet you used to cross the country in good style when you
were here before."

"And might do so again, Baby."

"Ah, no; that vile dragoon seat, with your long stirrup, and your heel
dropped, and your elbow this way, and your head that! How could you ever
screw your horse up to his fence, lifting him along as you came up through
the heavy ground, and with a stroke of your hand sending him pop over, with
his hind-legs well under him?" Here she burst into a fit of laughter at my
look of amazement, as with voice, gesture, and look she actually dramatized
the scene she described.

By the time that I had costumed my fair friend in my dragoon cloak and a
foraging cap, with a gold band around it, which was the extent of muffling
my establishment could muster, a distant noise without apprised us that the
phaeton was approaching. Certainly, the mode in which that equipage came
up to the door might have inspired sentiments of fear in any heart less
steeled against danger than my fair cousin's. The two blood chestnuts (for
it was those Mike harnessed, having a groom's dislike to take a racer out
of training) were surrounded by about twenty people: some at their heads;
some patting them on the flanks; some spoking the wheels; and a few, the
more cautious of the party, standing at a respectable distance and offering
advice. The mode of progression was simply a spring, a plunge, a rear,
a lounge, and a kick; and considering it was the first time they ever
performed together, nothing could be more uniform than their display.
Sometimes the pole would be seen to point straight upward, like a lightning
conductor, while the infuriated animals appeared sparring with their
fore-legs at an imaginary enemy. Sometimes, like the pictures in a
school-book on mythology, they would seem in the act of diving, while
with their hind-legs they dashed the splash-board into fragments behind
them,--their eyes flashing fire, their nostrils distended, their flanks
heaving, and every limb trembling with passion and excitement.

"That's what I call a rare turn-out," said Baby, who enjoyed the proceeding
amazingly.

"Yes; but remember," said I, "we're not to have all these running footmen
the whole way."

"I like that near-sider with the white fetlock."

"You're right, Miss," said Mike, who entered at the moment, and felt quite
gratified at the criticism,--"you're right, Miss; it's himself can do it."

"Come, Baby, are you ready?"

"All right, sir," said she, touching her cap knowingly with her forefinger.

"Will the tackle hold, Mike?" said I.

"We'll take this with us, at any rate," pointing, as he spoke, to a
considerable coil of rope, a hammer, and a basket of nails, he carried on
his arm. "It's the break harness we have, and it ought to be strong enough;
but sure if the thunder comes on again, they'd smash a chain cable."

"Now, Charley," cried Baby, "keep their heads straight; for when they go
that way, they mean going."

"Well, Baby, let's start; but pray remember one thing,--if I'm not as
agreeable on the journey as I ought to be, if I don't say as many pretty
things to my pretty coz, it's because these confounded beasts will give me
as much as I can do."

"Oh, yes, look after the cattle, and take another time for squeezing my
hand. I say, Charley, you'd like to smoke, now, wouldn't you? If so, don't
mind me."

"A thousand thanks for thinking of it; but I'll not commit such a trespass
on good breeding."

When we reached the door, the prospect looked dark and dismal enough. The
rain had almost ceased, but masses of black clouds were hurrying across
the sky, and the low rumbling noise of a gathering storm crept along the
ground. Our panting equipage, with its two mounted grooms behind,--for to
provide against all accident, Mike ordered two such to follow us,--stood
in waiting. Miss Blake's horse, held by the smallest imaginable bit of
boyhood, bringing up the rear.

"Look at Paddy Byrne's face," said Baby, directing my attention to the
little individual in question.

Now, small as the aforesaid face was, it contrived, within its limits, to
exhibit an expression of unqualified fear. I had no time, however, to give
a second look, when I jumped into the phaeton and seized the reins. Mike
sprang up behind at a look from me, and without speaking a word, the
stablemen and helpers flew right and left. The chestnuts, seeing all free
before them, made one tremendous plunge, carrying the fore-carriage clear
off the ground, and straining every nut, bolt, screw, and strap about us
with the effort.

"They're off now," cried Mickey.

"Yes, they are off now," said Baby. "Keep them going."

Nothing could be easier to follow than this advice; and in fact so little
merit had I in obeying it, that I never spoke a word. Down the avenue we
went, at the speed of lightning, the stones and the water from the late
rain flying and splashing about us. In one series of plunges, agreeably
diversified by a strong bang upon the splash-board, we reached the gate.
Before I had time to utter a prayer for our safety, we were through and
fairly upon the high road.

"Musha, but the master's mad!" cried the old dame of the gate-lodge; "he
wasn't out of this gate for a year and a half, and look now--"

The rest was lost in the clear ringing laugh of Baby, who clapped her hands
in ecstasy and delight.

"What a spanking pair they are! I suppose you wouldn't let me get my hand
on them?" said she, making a gesture as if to take the reins.

"Heaven forbid, my dear!" said I; "they've nearly pulled my wrists off
already."

Our road, like many in the west of Ireland, lay through a level tract of
bog; deep ditches, half filled with water, on either side of us, but,
fortunately, neither hill nor valley for several miles.

"There's the mail," said Baby, pointing to a dark speck at a long distance
off.

Ere many minutes elapsed, our stretching gallop, for such had our pace
sobered into, brought us up with it, and as we flew by, at top speed, Baby
jumped to her feet, and turning a waggish look at our beaten rivals, burst
out into a fit of triumphant laughter.

Mike was correct as to time; in some few seconds less than forty minutes we
turned into the avenue of Gurt-na-Morra. Tearing along like the very moment
of their starting, the hot and fiery animals galloped up the approach, and
at length came to a stop in a deep ploughed field, into which, fortunately
for us, Mr. Blake, animated less by the picturesque than the profitable,
had converted his green lawn. This check, however, was less owing to my
agency than to that of my servants; for dismounting in haste, they flew to
the horses' heads, and with ready tact, and before I had helped my cousin
to the ground, succeeded in unharnessing them from the carriage, and led
them, blown and panting, covered with foam, and splashed with mud, into the
space before the door.

By this time we were joined by the whole Blake family, who poured forth in
astonishment at our strange and sudden appearance. Explanation on my part
was unnecessary, for Baby, with a volubility quite her own, gave the whole
recital in less than three minutes. From the moment of her advent to her
departure, they had it all; and while she mingled her ridicule at my
surprise, her praise of my luncheon, her jests at my prudence, the whole
family joined heartily in her mirth, while they welcomed, with most
unequivocal warmth, my first visit to Gurt-na-Morra.

I confess it was with no slight gratification I remarked that Baby's visit
was as much a matter of surprise to them as to me. Believing her to have
gone to visit at Portumna Castle, they felt no uneasiness at her absence;
so that, in her descent upon me, she was really only guided by her own
wilful fancy, and that total absence of all consciousness of wrong which
makes a truly innocent girl the hardiest of all God's creatures. I was
reassured by this feeling, and satisfied that, whatever the intentions of
the elder members of the Blake family, Baby was, at least, no participator
in their plots or sharer in their intrigues.




CHAPTER XLVI.


NEW VIEWS.

When I found myself the next morning at home, I could not help ruminating
over the strange adventures of the preceding day, and felt a kind of
self-reproach at the frigid manner in which I had hitherto treated all the
Blake advances, contrasting so ill for me with the unaffected warmth and
kind good-nature of their reception. Never alluding, even by accident, to
my late estrangement; never, by a chance speech, indicating that they
felt any soreness for the past,--they talked away about the gossip of
the country: its feuds, its dinners, its assizes, its balls, its
garrisons,--all the varied subjects of country life were gayly and
laughingly discussed; and when, as I entered my own silent and deserted
home, and contrasted its look of melancholy and gloom with the gay and
merry scene I so lately parted from, when my echoing steps reverberated
along the flagged hall,--I thought of the happy family picture I left
behind me, and could not help avowing to myself that the goods of fortune
I possessed were but ill dispensed, when, in the midst of every means and
appliance for comfort and happiness, I lived a solitary man, companionless
and alone.

I arose from breakfast a hundred times,--now walking impatiently towards
the window, now strolling into the drawing-room. Around, on every side, lay
scattered the prints and drawings, as Baby had thrown them carelessly
upon the floor; her handkerchief was also there. I took it up; I know not
why,--some lurking leaven of old romance perhaps suggested it,--but I hoped
it might prove of delicate texture, and bespeaking that lady-like coquetry
which so pleasantly associates with the sex in our minds. Alas, no! Nothing
could be more palpably the opposite: torn, and with a knot--some hint to
memory--upon one corner, it was no aid to my careering fancy. And yet--and
yet, what a handsome girl she is; how finely, how delicately formed that
Greek outline of forehead and brow; how transparently soft that downy pink
upon her cheek! With what varied expression those eyes can beam!--ay, that
they can: but, confound it, there's this fault, their very archness, their
sly malice, will be interpreted by the ill-judging world to any but the
real motive. "How like a flirt!" will one say. "How impertinent! How
ill-bred!" The conventional stare of cold, patched, and painted beauty,
upon whose unblushing cheek no stray tinge of modesty has wandered, will be
tolerated, even admired; while the artless beamings of the soul upon the
face of rural loveliness will be condemned without appeal.

Such a girl may a man marry who destines his days to the wild west; but woe
unto him!--woe unto him, should he migrate among the more civilized and
less charitable _coteries_ of our neighbors!

"Ah, here are the papers, and I was forgetting. Let me see--'Bayonne'--ay,
'march of the troops--Sixth Corps.' What can that be without? I say, Mike,
who is cantering along the avenue?"

"It's me, sir. I'm training the brown filly for Miss Mary, as your honor
bid me last night."

"Ah, very true. Does she go quietly?"

"Like a lamb, sir; barrin' she does give a kick now and then at the sheet,
when it bangs against her legs."

"Am I to go over with the books now, sir?" said a wild-looking shockhead
appearing within the door.

"Yes, take them over, with my compliments; and say I hope Miss Mary Blake
has caught no cold."

"You were speaking about a habit and hat, sir?" said Mrs. Magra, curtsying
as she entered.

"Yes, Mrs. Magra; I want your advice. Oh, tell Barnes I really cannot be
bored about those eternal turnips every day of my life. And, Mike, I wish
you'd make them look over the four-horse harness. I want to try those
grays; they tell me they'll run well together. Well, Freney, more
complaints, I hope? Nothing but trespasses! I don't care, so you'd not
worry me, if they eat up every blade of clover in the grounds; I'm sick
of being bored this way. Did you say that we'd eight couple of good
dogs?--quite enough to begin with. Tell Jones to ride into Banagher and
look after that box; Buckmaster sent it from London two months ago, and it
has been lying there ever since. And, Mrs. Magra, pray let the windows be
opened, and the house well aired; that drawing-room would be all the better
for new papering."

These few and broken directions may serve to show my readers--what
certainly they failed to convince myself of--that a new chapter of my life
had opened before me; and that, in proportion to the length of time
my feelings had found neither vent nor outlet, they now rushed madly,
tempestuously into their new channels, suffering no impediment to arrest,
no obstacle to oppose their current.

Nothing can be conceived more opposite to my late, than my present habits
now became. The house, the grounds, the gardens, all seemed to participate
in the new influence which beamed upon myself; the stir and bustle of
active life was everywhere perceptible; and amidst numerous preparations
for the moors and the hunting-field, for pleasure parties upon the river,
and fishing excursions up the mountains, my days were spent. The Blakes,
without even for a moment pressing their attentions upon me, permitted me
to go and come among them unquestioned and unasked. When, nearly every
morning, I appeared in the breakfast-room, I felt exactly like a member of
the family; the hundred little discrepancies of thought and habit which
struck me forcibly at first, looked daily less apparent; the careless
inattentions of my fair cousins as to dress, their free-and-easy boisterous
manner, their very accents, which fell so harshly on my ear, gradually made
less and less impression, until at last, when a raw English Ensign, just
arrived in the neighborhood, remarked to me in confidence, "What devilish
fine girls they were, if they were not so confoundedly Irish!" I could not
help wondering what the fellow meant, and attributed the observation more
to his ignorance than to its truth.

Papa and Mamma Blake, like prudent generals, so long as they saw the forces
of the enemy daily wasting before them; so long as they could with impunity
carry on the war at his expense,--resolved to risk nothing by a pitched
battle. Unlike the Dalrymples, they could leave all to time.

Oh, tell me not of dark eyes swimming in their own ethereal essence;
tell me not of pouting lips, of glossy ringlets, of taper fingers, and
well-rounded insteps; speak not to me of soft voices, whose seductive
sounds ring sweetly in our hearts; preach not of those thousand womanly
graces so dear to every man, and doubly to him who lives apart from all
their influences and their fascinations; neither dwell upon congenial
temperament, similarity of taste, of disposition, and of thought; these are
not the great risks a man runs in life. Of all the temptations, strong as
these may be, there is one greater than them all, and that is, propinquity!

Show me the man who has ever stood this test; show me the man, deserving
the name of such, who has become daily and hourly exposed to the breaching
artillery of flashing eyes, of soft voices, of winning smiles, and kind
speeches, and who hasn't felt, and that too soon too, a breach within
the rampart of his heart. He may, it is true,--nay, he will, in many
cases,--make a bold and vigorous defence; sometimes will he re-intrench
himself within the stockades of his prudence; but, alas! it is only to
defer the moment when he must lay down his arms. He may, like a wise man
who sees his fate inevitable, make a virtue of necessity, and surrender at
discretion; or, like a crafty foe, seeing his doom before him, under the
cover of the night he may make a sortie from the garrison, and run for his
life. Ignominious as such a course must be, it is often the only one left.

But to come back. Love, like the small-pox, is most dangerous when you take
it in the natural way. Those made matches, which Heaven is supposed to
have a hand in, when placing an unmarried gentleman's property in the
neighborhood of an unmarried lady's, which destine two people for each
other in life, because their well-judging friends have agreed, "They'll do
very well; they were made for each other,"--these are the mild cases of the
malady. This process of friendly vaccination takes out the poison of the
disease, substituting a more harmless and less exciting affection; but the
really dangerous instances are those from contact, that same propinquity,
that confounded tendency every man yields to, to fall into a railroad of
habit; that is the risk, that is the danger. What a bore it is to find that
the absence of one person, with whom you're in no wise in love, will spoil
your morning's canter, or your rowing party upon the river! How much put
out are you, when she, to whom you always gave your arm in to dinner,
does not make her appearance in the drawing-room; and your tea, too, some
careless one, indifferent to your taste, puts a lump of sugar too little,
or cream too much, while she--But no matter; habit has done for you what
no direct influence of beauty could do, and a slave to your own selfish
indulgences, and the cultivation of that ease you prize so highly, you fall
over head and ears in love.

Now, you are not, my good reader, by any means to suppose that this was my
case. No, no; I was too much what the world terms the "old soldier" for
that. To continue my illustration: like the fortress that has been often
besieged, the sentry upon the walls keeps more vigilant watch; his ear
detects the far-off clank of the dread artillery; he marks each parallel;
he notes down every breaching battery; and if he be captured, at least it
is in fair fight.

Such were some of my reflections as I rode slowly home one evening from
Gurt-na-Morra. Many a time, latterly, had I contrasted my own lonely and
deserted hearth with the smiling looks, the happy faces, and the merry
voices I had left behind me; and many a time did I ask myself, "Am I never
to partake of a happiness like this?" How many a man is seduced into
matrimony from this very feeling! How many a man whose hours have passed
fleetingly at the pleasant tea-table, or by the warm hearth of some old
country-house, going forth into the cold and cheerless night, reaches his
far-off home only to find it dark and gloomy, joyless and companionless?
How often has the hard-visaged look of his old butler, as, with sleepy eyes
and yawning face, he hands a bed-room candle, suggested thoughts of married
happiness? Of the perils of propinquity I have already spoken; the risks of
contrast are also great. Have you never, in strolling through some fragrant
and rich conservatory, fixed your eye upon a fair and lovely flower, whose
blossoming beauty seems to give all the lustre and all the incense of
the scene around? And how have you thought it would adorn and grace the
precincts of your home, diffusing fragrance on every side. Alas, the
experiment is not always successful. Much of the charm and many of the
fascinations which delight you are the result of association of time and of
place. The lovely voice, whose tones have spoken to your heart, may, like
some instrument, be delightful in the harmony of the orchestra, but, after
all, prove a very middling performer in a duet.

I say not this to deter men from matrimony, but to warn them from a
miscalculation which may mar their happiness. Flirtation is a very fine
thing, but it's only a state of transition after all. The tadpole existence
of the lover would be great fun, if one was never to become a frog under
the hands of the parson. I say all this dispassionately and advisedly. Like
the poet of my country, for many years of my life,--

"My only books were woman's looks,"

and certainly I subscribe to a circulating library.

All this long digression may perhaps bring the reader to where it brought
me,--the very palpable conviction, that, though not in love with my cousin
Baby, I could not tell when I might eventually become so.




CHAPTER XLVII.


A RECOGNITION.

The most pleasing part about retrospect is the memory of our bygone hopes.
The past, however happy, however blissful, few would wish to live over
again; but who is there that does not long for, does not pine after the
day-dream which gilded the future, which looked ever forward to the time to
come as to a realization of all that was dear to us, lightening our present
cares, soothing our passing sorrows by that one thought?

Life is marked out in periods in which, like stages in a journey, we rest
and repose ourselves, casting a look, now back upon the road we have been
travelling, now throwing a keener glance towards the path left us. It is at
such spots as these remembrance comes full upon us, and that we feel how
little our intentions have swayed our career or influenced our actions;
the aspirations, the resolves of youth, are either looked upon as puerile
follies, or a most distant day settled on for their realization. The
principles we fondly looked to, like our guide-stars, are dimly visible,
not seen; the friends we cherished are changed and gone; the scenes
themselves seem no longer the sunshine and the shade we loved; and, in
fact, we are living in a new world, where our own altered condition gives
the type to all around us; the only link that binds us to the past being
that same memory that like a sad curfew tolls the twilight of our fairest
dreams and most cherished wishes.

That these glimpses of the bygone season of our youth should be but fitful
and passing--tinging, not coloring the landscape of our life--we should be
engaged in all the active bustle and turmoil of the world, surrounded by
objects of hope, love, and ambition, stemming the strong tide in whose
fountain is fortune.

He, however, who lives apart, a dreary and a passionless existence, will
find that in the past, more than in the future, his thoughts have found
their resting-place; memory usurps the place of hope, and he travels
through life like one walking onward; his eyes still turning towards some
loved forsaken spot, teeming with all the associations of his happiest
hours, and preserving, even in distance, the outline that he loved.

Distance in time, as in space, smooths down all the inequalities of
surface; and as the cragged and rugged mountain, darkened by cliff and
precipice, shows to the far-off traveller but some blue and misty mass,
so the long-lost-sight-of hours lose all the cares and griefs that tinged
them, and to our mental eye, are but objects of uniform loveliness and
beauty; and if we do not think of

"The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,"

it is because, like April showers, they but checker the spring of our
existence.

For myself, baffled in hope at a period when most men but begin to feel it,
I thought myself much older than I really was; the disappointments of the
world, like the storms of the ocean, impart a false sense of experience to
the young heart, as he sails forth upon his voyage; and it is an easy error
to mistake trials for time.

The goods of fortune by which I was surrounded, took nothing from the
bitterness of my retrospect; on the contrary, I could not help feeling that
every luxury of my life was bought by my surrender of that career which had
elated me in my own esteem, and which, setting a high and noble ambition
before me, taught me to be a man.

To be happy, one must not only fulfil the duties and exactions of his
station, but the station itself must answer to his views and aspirations
in life. Now, mine did not sustain this condition: all that my life had
of promise was connected with the memory of her who never could share my
fortunes; of her for whom I had earned praise and honor; becoming ambitious
as the road to her affection, only to learn after, that my hopes were but a
dream, and my paradise a wilderness.

While thus the inglorious current of my life ran on, I was not indifferent
to the mighty events the great continent of Europe was witnessing. The
successes of the Peninsular campaign; the triumphant entry of the
British into France; the downfall of Napoleon; the restoration of the
Bourbons,--followed each other with the rapidity of the most common-place
occurrences; and in the few short years in which I had sprung from boyhood
to man's estate, the whole condition of the world was altered. Kings
deposed; great armies disbanded; rightful sovereigns restored to their
dominions; banished and exiled men returned to their country, invested with
rank and riches; and peace, in the fullest tide of its blessings, poured
down upon the earth devastated and blood-stained.

Years passed on; and between the careless abandonment to the mere amusement
of the hour, and the darker meditation upon the past, time slipped away.
From my old friends and brother officers I heard but rarely. Power, who at
first wrote frequently, grew gradually less and less communicative. Webber,
who had gone to Paris at the peace, had written but one letter; while, from
the rest, a few straggling lines were all I received. In truth be it told,
my own negligence and inability to reply cost me this apparent neglect.

It was a fine evening in May, when, rigging up a sprit-sail, I jumped into
my yawl, and dropped easily down the river. The light wind gently curled
the crested water, the trees waved gently and shook their branches in the
breeze, and my little barque, bending slightly beneath, rustled on her
foamy track with that joyous bounding motion so inspiriting to one's
heart. The clouds were flying swiftly past, tinging with their shadows the
mountains beneath; the Munster shore, glowing with a rich sunlight, showed
every sheep-cot and every hedge-row clearly out, while the deep shadow of
tall Scariff darkened the silent river where Holy Island, with its ruined
churches and melancholy tower, was reflected in the still water.

It was a thoroughly Irish landscape: the changeful sky; the fast-flitting
shadows; the brilliant sunlight; the plenteous fields; the broad and
swelling stream; the dark mountain, from whose brown crest a wreath of thin
blue smoke was rising,--were all there smiling yet sadly, like her own
sons, across whose lowering brow some fitful flash of fancy ever playing
dallies like sunbeams on a darkening stream, nor marks the depth that lies
below.

I sat musing over the strange harmony of Nature with the temperament of
man, every phase of his passionate existence seeming to have its type in
things inanimate, when a loud cheer from the land aroused me, and the
words, "Charley! Cousin Charley!" came wafted over the water to where
I lay. For some time I could but distinguish the faint outline of some
figures on the shore; but as I came nearer, I recognized my fair cousin
Baby, who, with a younger brother of some eight or nine years old, was
taking an evening walk.

"Do you know, Charley," said she, "the boys have gone over to the castle to
look for you; we want you particularly this evening."

"Indeed, Cousin Baby! Well, I fear you must make my excuses."

"Then, once for all, I will not. I know this is one of your sulky moods,
and I tell you frankly I'll not put up with them any more."

"No, no, Baby, not so; out of spirits if you will, but not out of temper."

"The distinction is much too fine for me, if there be any. But there now,
do be a good fellow; come up with us--come up with me!"

As she said this she placed her arm within mine. I thought, too,--perhaps
it was but a thought,--she pressed me gently. I know she blushed and turned
away her head to hide it.

"I don't pretend to be proof to your entreaty, Cousin Baby," said I, with
half-affected gallantry, putting her fingers to my lips.

"There, how can you be so foolish; look at William yonder; I am sure he
must have seen you!" But William, God bless him! was bird's-nesting or
butterfly-hunting or daisy-picking or something of that kind.

O ye young brothers, who, sufficiently old to be deemed companions and
_chaperons_, but yet young enough to be regarded as having neither eyes nor
ears, what mischief have ye to answer for; what a long reckoning of tender
speeches, of soft looks, of pressed hands, lies at your door! What an
incentive to flirtation is the wily imp who turns ever and anon from his
careless gambols to throw his laughter-loving eyes upon you, calling up the
mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your
dalliance, making your secrets known unto each other. We have gone through
our share of flirtation in this life: match-making mothers, prying aunts,
choleric uncles, benevolent and open-hearted fathers, we understand to the
life, and care no more for such man-traps than a Melton man, well mounted
on his strong-boned thorough-bred, does for a four-barred ox-fence that
lies before him. Like him, we take them flying; never relaxing the slapping
stride of our loose gallop, we go straight ahead, never turning aside,
except for a laugh at those who flounder in the swamps we sneer at. But we
confess honestly, we fear the little, brother, the small urchin who, with
nankeen trousers and three rows of buttons, performs the part of Cupid. He
strikes real terror into our heart; he it is who, with a cunning wink or
sly smile, seems to confirm the soft nonsense we are weaving; by some
slight gesture he seems to check off the long reckoning of our attentions,
bringing us every moment nearer to the time when the score must be settled
and the debt paid. He it is who, by a memory delightfully oblivious of
his task and his table-book, is tenacious to the life of what you said
to Fanny; how you put your head under Lucy's bonnet; he can imitate to
perfection the way you kneeled upon the grass; and the wretch has learned
to smack his lips like a _gourmand_, that he, may convey another stage of
your proceeding.

Oh, for infant schools for everything under the age of ten! Oh, for
factories for the children of the rich! The age of prying curiosity is from
four-and-a-half to nine, and Fonche himself might get a lesson in _police_
from an urchin in his alphabet.

I contrived soon, however, to forget the presence of even the little
brother. The night was falling; Baby appeared getting fatigued with her
walk, for she leaned somewhat more heavily upon my arm, and I--I cannot
tell wherefore--fell into that train of thinking aloud, which somehow, upon
a summer's eve, with a fair girl beside one, is the very nearest thing to
love-making.

"There, Charley, don't now--ah, don't! Do let go my hand; they are coming
down the avenue."

I had scarcely time to obey the injunction, when Mr. Blake called out:--

"Well, indeed! Charley, this is really fortunate; we have got a friend to
take tea with us, and wanted you to meet him."

Muttering an internal prayer for something not exactly the welfare of the
aforesaid friend, whom I judged to be some Galway squire, I professed aloud
the pleasure I felt in having come in so opportunely.

"He wishes particularly to make your acquaintance."

"So much the worse," thought I to myself; "it rarely happens that this
feeling is mutual."

Evidently provoked at the little curiosity I exhibited, Blake added,--

"He's on his way to Fermoy with a detachment."

"Indeed! what regiment, pray?"

"The 28th Foot."

"Ah, I don't know them."

By this time we reached the steps of the hall-door, and just as we did so,
the door opened suddenly, and a tall figure in uniform presented himself.
With one spring he seized my hand and nearly wrung it off.

"Why what," said I, "can this be? Is it really--"

"Sparks," said he,--"your old friend Sparks, my boy; I've changed into the
infantry, and here I am. Heard by chance you were in the neighborhood; met
Mr. Blake, your friend here, at the inn, and accepted his invitation to
meet you."

Poor Sparks, albeit the difference in his costume, was the same as ever.
Having left the Fourteenth soon after I quitted them, he knew but little of
their fortunes; and he himself had been on recruiting stations nearly the
whole time since we had met before.

While we each continued to extol the good fortune of the other,--he mine as
being no longer in the service, and I his for still being so,--we learned
the various changes which had happened to each of us during our separation.
Although his destination was ultimately Fermoy, Portumua was ordered to
be his present quarter; and I felt delighted to have once more an old
companion within reach, to chat over former days of campaigning and nights
of merriment in the Peninsula.