The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I. Lynde Francis
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the General were in advance of us, I did n't see what happened first; but when we came up, we found Vanderdelft in a flaring passion, and crying out, "These scullions don't know me; this canaille never heard of my name?"
"We're in a mess, Mrs. D.," said K. I. to me, in a whisper.
"How can that be?" said I.
"We 're in a mess," says he, again, "and a pretty mess, too, or I 'm mistaken;" but he had n't time for more, for just then the General kicked up the bar with his foot, and passed in with Mary Anne, flourishing his drawn sword in the air, and crying out, "Take them in flank – sabre them, every man – no prisoners! – no quarter!" Oh, Molly, I can't continue, though I 'll never forget the scene that followed. Two big men in gray coats burst through the crowd and laid hands on the General, who, it seems, had made his escape out of a madhouse at Ghent a week before, and was, as they said, the most dangerous lunatic in all Belgium. It appeared that he had gone down to his own country-house near Brussels, and stolen his uniform and his orders, for he was once on a time aide-de-camp to the Prince of Orange, and went mad after the Revolution.
Just think of our situation as we stood there, among all the nobles and grandees, suffocated with laughter; for, as they tore the poor General away, he cried out "to take care of the Queen-Mother, and to be sure and get something to eat for the Aga of the Janissaries," meaning K. I.!
The mob at this time began screeching and hooting, and there's no knowing how it might have ended, if it was n't for the little Captain – Morris is his name – that was once quartered at Bruff, and who happened to be there, and knew us, and he came up and explained who we were, and got us away to a coach, more dead than alive, Molly.
And so we got back to Brussels that night, in a state of mind and body I leave you to imagine, K. I. abusing us all the way about the milliner's bill, the expense of the trip, and the exposure! "It's clear," says he, "we may leave this city now, for you 'll never recover what you call your 'position' here, after this day's exploit!" You may conceive how humbled and broken I was when he dared to say that to me, Molly, and I did n't so much as give him a word back!
You 'll see from this that life is n't all roses with us; and indeed, for the last two days I 've done nothing but cry, and Mary Anne the same; for how we're ever to go to court and be presented now, nobody can tell! Morris advises K. I. to go into Germany for the summer, and maybe he is right; but, to tell you the truth, Molly, I can't bear that little man, – he has a dry, sneering kind of way with him that is odious to me. Mary Anne, too, hates him.
So Father Maher won't buy "Judy," because she's not in calf. It's just like him, – he must have everything in this life his own way! Send me the price of the wool by Purcell; he can get a post-bill for it; and be sure to dispose of the fruit to the best advantage. Don't make any jam this year, for I 'd rather have the money than be spending it on sugar. You 'd not believe the straits I 'm put to for a pound or two. It was only last week I sold four pair of K. I.'s drab shorts and gaiters, and a brown surtout, to a hawker for a trifle of fifteen francs, and persuaded him they were stolen out of his drawers! and I believe he has spent nearly double the money in handbills, offering a reward for the thief! That's the fruits of his want of confidence, and the secret and mysterious way he behaves to me! Many 's the time I told him that his underhand tricks cost him half his income!
I tell him every day it's "no use to be here if we don't live in a certain style;" and then he says, "I'm quite ready to go back, Mrs. D. It was never my will that we came here at all." And there he is right, for it's just Ireland he's fit for! Father Maher and Tom Purcell and Sam Davis are exactly the company to suit him; but it's very hard that me and the girls are to suffer for his low tastes!
The "Evening Mail," I see, puts Dodsborough down at the bottom of a column, as if it was Holloway's Ointment. That's what we get by having dealings with an Orange newspaper. They could murder us, – that's their feeling. They know in their hearts that they 're heretics, and they hate the True Church. There is nothing I detest so much as bigotry. Go to heaven your own way, and let the Protestants go to the other place theirs. Them's my sentiments, Molly, and I believe they're the sentiments of a good Christian!
I 'm sorry for Peter Belton, but what business has he to think of a girl like Mary Anne? If Dr. Cavanagh was dead himself, the whole practice of the country would n't be three hundred a year. Try and get an opportunity to tell him what I think, and say that he ought to look out for one of the Davises; though what a dispensary doctor wants with a wife the Lord only knows! K. I. civilly says he ought to be content making blisters for the neighbors, without wanting one on his own back! That's the way he talks of women. Father Maher never sent me the lines for Betty Cobb, and maybe I 'll be driven to have her cursed by a foreign priest after all. She and Paddy are the torment of our lives. I saved up five pounds to send them both back by a sailing-ship, but by good luck I discovered the vessel was going to Cuba instead of Cork, and so here they are still; maybe it would have been better if I had sent them off, though the way was something of a roundabout. There's no use in my speaking to K. I. about Christy, for he can get nothing for James. We may write to Vickars every week, but he never answers; he knows Parliament won't be dissolved soon, and he does n't mind us. If I 'd my will, there would be a general election every year, at least, and then we'd have a chance of getting something. I don't know which is worst, the Whigs or the Tories, nor is there much difference between them. K. I. supported each of them in turn, and never got bit nor sup from one or other, yet!
I was sounding K. I. about Christy last night, and he thinks you ought to send him to the gold diggings; he wants nothing but a pickaxe and a tin cullender and a pair of waterproof boots, to make a fortune there; and that's more than we can say of the County Limerick. There's nothing so hard to provide for as a boy in these times, except a girl!
The trunks have not arrived yet: I hope you despatched them.
Your attached and sincere friend,
LETTER VIII. BETTY COBB TO MRS. SHUSAN O'SHEA, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF
Dear Misses Shusan, – This comes with my heart's sorrow that I'm not at home where I was bred and born, but livin' abroad like a pelican on a dissolute island, more by token that I never wanted to come, but was persuaded by them that knew nothin' about what they wor talking; but thought it was all figs and lemons and raisins, with green pays and the sun in season all the year round; but, on the contrahery, sich rain and wind I never seen afore; and as for the eating, the saints forgive me if it's not true, but I b'leve I ate more rats since I 've come, than ever ould Tib did since she was kittened. The drinkin' 's as bad or worse. What they call wine is spoilt vinegar; and the vegables has no bone nor eatin' in them at all, but melts away in the mouth like butter in July. But 't is the wickedness is the worst of all. O Shusan! but the men is bad, and the women worse. Of all the devils ever I heerd of, they bate them: 'T is n't a quiet walk to mass on Sunday, with maybe a decent boy beside you, discoorsin' or the like, and then sitting under a hedge for the evening, with your apron afore you, talkin' about the praties, or the price of pigs, or maybe the polis; but here 'tis dancin' and rompin' and eatin', with merry-go-rounds, swing-swongs, and skittles all the day long. The dancin' 's dreadful! they don't stand up fornent other, like a jig, where anything of a dacent partner would n't so much as look hard at you, but keep minding his steps and humorin' the tune; but they catch each other round the waist – 'tis true I am saying – and go huggin' and tearin' about like mad, till they can't breathe nor spake; and then, the noise! for 'tis n't one fiddle they have, but maybe twenty, with horns and flutes and a murderin' big brown tube, that a man blows into at one side, that makes a sound like the sea among the rocks at Kelper; and that's dancin', my dear! I got lave from the mistress last Sunday to go out in the evening with Mr. Francis, the currier, as they call him, – a mighty nice man, but a little free in his manners; and we went to the Moelenbeck Gardens, an iligant place, no doubt, with a hundred little tables under the trees, and a flure for dancin' and fireworks and a boat on a lake, with an island in it, where there was a hermit, – a fine-looking ould man, with a beard down to his waist, but, for all that, no better than he ought to be, for he made an offer to kiss me when I was going into the boat, and Mr. Francis laughed at me bekase I was angry. No matter, we went off to a place they call the Temple of Bakis, where there was a fat man, as I thought, stark nakit; but it was flesh-colored web he had on, and he was settin' on a beer-barrel,