"My aunt," said the narrator, "was a woman of spirit, and apt to take
the law into her own hands. She had her own notions of cleanliness
also. She ordered the fellow to be drawn through the horsepond to
cleanse away all offences, and then to be well rubbed down with an
oaken towel."
"And what became of him afterwards?" said the inquisitive gentleman.
"I do not exactly know - I believe he was sent on a voyage of
improvement to Botany Bay."
"And your aunt - " said the inquisitive gentleman - "I'll warrant she
took care to make her maid sleep in the room with her after that."
"No, sir, she did better - she gave her hand shortly after to the
roystering squire; for she used to observe it was a dismal thing for a
woman to sleep alone in the country."
"She was right," observed the inquisitive gentleman, nodding his head
sagaciously - "but I am sorry they did not hang that fellow."
It was agreed on all hands that the last narrator had brought his tale
to the most satisfactory conclusion; though a country clergyman present
regretted that the uncle and aunt, who figured in the different
stories, had not been married together. They certainly would have been
well matched.
"But I don't see, after all," said the inquisitive gentleman, "that
there was any ghost in this last story."
"Oh, if it's ghosts you want, honey," cried the Irish captain of
dragoons, "if it's ghosts you want, you shall have a whole regiment of
them. And since these gentlemen have been giving the adventures of
their uncles and aunts, faith and I'll e'en give you a chapter too, out
of my own family history."
THE BOLD DRAGOON;
OR THE ADVENTURE OF MY GRANDFATHER.
My grandfather was a bold dragoon, for it's a profession, d'ye see,
that has run in the family. All my forefathers have been dragoons and
died upon the field of honor except myself, and I hope my posterity may
be able to say the same; however, I don't mean to be vainglorious.
Well, my grandfather, as I said, was a bold dragoon, and had served in
the Low Countries. In fact, he was one of that very army, which,
according to my uncle Toby, "swore so terribly in Flanders." He could
swear a good stick himself; and, moreover, was the very man that
introduced the doctrine Corporal Trim mentions, of radical heat and
radical moisture; or, in other words, the mode of keeping out the damps
of ditch water by burnt brandy. Be that as it may, it's nothing to the
purport of my story. I only tell it to show you that my grandfather was
a man not easily to be humbugged. He had seen service; or, according to
his own phrase, "he had seen the devil" - and that's saying everything.
Well, gentlemen, my grandfather was on his way to England, for which he
intended to embark at Ostend; - bad luck to the place for one where I
was kept by storms and head winds for three long days, and the divil of
a jolly companion or pretty face to comfort me. Well, as I was saying,
my grandfather was on his way to England, or rather to Ostend - no
matter which, it's all the same. So one evening, towards nightfall, he
rode jollily into Bruges. Very like you all know Bruges, gentlemen, a
queer, old-fashioned Flemish town, once they say a great place for
trade and money-making, in old times, when the Mynheers were in their
glory; but almost as large and as empty as an Irishman's pocket at the
present day.
Well, gentlemen, it was the time of the annual fair. All Bruges was
crowded; and the canals swarmed with Dutch boats, and the streets
swarmed with Dutch merchants; and there was hardly any getting along
for goods, wares, and merchandises, and peasants in big breeches, and
women in half a score of petticoats.
My grandfather rode jollily along in his easy, slashing way, for he was
a saucy, sunshiny fellow - staring about him at the motley crowd, and
the old houses with gable ends to the street and storks' nests on the
chimneys; winking at the ya vrouws who showed their faces at the
windows, and joking the women right and left in the street; all of whom
laughed and took it in amazing good part; for though he did not know a
word of their language, yet he always had a knack of making himself
understood among the women.
Well, gentlemen, it being the time of the annual fair, all the town was
crowded; every inn and tavern full, and my grandfather applied in vain
from one to the other for admittance. At length he rode up to an old
rackety inn that looked ready to fall to pieces, and which all the rats
would have run away from, if they could have found room in any other
house to put their heads. It was just such a queer building as you see
in Dutch pictures, with a tall roof that reached up into the clouds;
and as many garrets, one over the other, as the seven heavens of
Mahomet. Nothing had saved it from tumbling down but a stork's nest on
the chimney, which always brings good luck to a house in the Low
Countries; and at the very time of my grandfather's arrival, there were
two of these long-legged birds of grace, standing like ghosts on the
chimney top. Faith, but they've kept the house on its legs to this very
day; for you may see it any time you pass through Bruges, as it stands
there yet; only it is turned into a brewery - a brewery of strong
Flemish beer; at least it was so when I came that way after the battle
of Waterloo.
