ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

Well, of course then they all wanted to know, and I--I told 'em-ha, ha! my anther was good, wasn't it? O, I forgot I haven't told you,-well,--here it is,-I said,——

"Miss Charlotte is like a London cabman, because she's a Lotty Chaffingham," (of course I meant, lot o' chaff in him). D'ye see? Doosid good I call it,-but would you believe? all the party began woarwing with laughter all wound. At first I thought they were laughing at the widdle, and I laughed too, but at last Captain Wagsby said (by the way, I hate Wagsby, he's so doosid familiar)-Captain Wagsby said, "Mulled it again, my Lord." From this low expwession,-which I weckollect at Oxford,-I thought that they thought I had made a mithtake, and asked them what they meant by woarwing in that absurd manner.

[ocr errors]

Why, don't you see, Dundreary," some one said,—“it won't do, you've forgotten the lady's sex,-Miss Charlotte· can't be said to have any chaff in him. It ought to be chaff n her," and then they began to woar again. Upon my word now, it hadn't occurred to me certainly before, but I don't see now that it was such a mithtake. What's the use of being so doosid particular about the sense of a widdle as long as it's a good one? Abthurd!

Well, after bweakfast we went out for a stroll upon the lawn, and somehow or other Miss Chaffingham paired off with me. She was a doosid stunning girl, you know. A fellah often talks about stunning girls, and when you see them they're not so stunning after all; but Lotty weally was a doosid stunning girl,—fair eyes and beautifully blue, ha―no! blue hair and fair—I (confound it, I always make that mistake when there's more than one adjective in a thentence)I mean fair hair and beautifully blue eyes, and she had a way of looking at one that-that weally almost took one's bweath away. I've often heard about a fellah's falling in love. I never did tho mythelf, you know,-at least not that I weckomember, I mean weckollect,-before that morning. But weally she did look so jolly bweaking her egg at bweakfast, -so bewitching when she smashed the shell all wound with her thpoon before she began to eat it,-I, I weally began to feel almost thpooney mythelf. Ha, ha! there I am at it again; I weally must bweak mythelf of this habit of jok

WWW*

ing: it's vewy low, you know,-like a beathly clown in a b-beathly pantomime,-I oughtn't to have said beathly twice, I know. A fellah once told me, that if-if a man says the same adjective twice in one thentence he's taught ological. But he's wrong you know,-for I often do, and I'm sure I never was taught anything of the kind.

However, Lotty was a stunning girl, and we walked all about the lawn,-down into the shwubbery to look into some bush after a wobbin wedbweast that she said had built a nest there,—and, sure enough, when we got to it, there was this weddin-wob-1 mean wobbin-wed-beast looking out of a gweat lump of moss. I thought Lotty would be pleased if I caught it, and so I thwust my hand in as quick as I could, but you know those little wedding-wobbin-wed-beasts are so doosid sharp,—and I'm dashed if it didn't fly out on the other side.

"You stupid man," Lotty thaid. "Why-you-you've fwightened the poor little thing away."

I was wather wild at first at being called stupid,-that's a sort of thing-no fellah likes, but-dash it! I'd have stood anything from Lotty,-I-I'd have carried her pwayer-book to church, I'd have parted my hair on one side,—or—no— yes—I think I'd have thaved off my whiskers for her thake. Poor, dear little wobbin," she said,-“it will never come back any more; I'm afraid you've made it desert." What did she mean by that? I thought she meant the eggs, tho, taking one up, I said, “You—you don't mean to thay they eat these specky things after dinner?" I said.

[ocr errors]

"Of course not," she weplied,—and I think I had hit the wite nail on the head, for she began to laugh twemendously, and told me to put the egg quietly in its place, and then pwaps the little wobbin would come back. Which I hope the little beggar did.

At the top of the long walk at Wockingham there is a summer-house,-a jolly sort of place, with a lot of ferns and things about, and behind there are a lot of shrubs and bushes and pwickly plants, which give a sort of rural or wurwal-which is it? blest if I know-look to the place, and as it was vewy warm, I thought if I'm ever to make an ath of mythelf by pwoposing to this girl,-I won't do it out in the eye of

the cun,-it's so pwecious hot. So I pwoposed we should walk in and sit down, and so we did, and then I began : :

66

"Miss Chaffingham, now, don't you think it doosid cool?" Cool, Lord D.," she said; "why, I thought you were complaining of the heat."

[ocr errors]

I beg your pardon," I said, " I-I-can't speak vewy fast" (the fact is, that a beathly wasp was buthhing about me at the moment), " and I hadn't quite finished my thentence. I was going to say, don't you think its doosid cool of Wagsby to go on laughing-at-at a fellah as he does?"

66

Well, my Lord,” she said, “I think so too; and I wonder you stand it. You-you have your remedy, you know." "What remedy?" I said. You-you don't mean to say I ought to thwash him, Miss Charlotte?"

[ocr errors]

Here she-she somehow began to laugh, but in such a peculiar way that I-I couldn't think what she meant.

“A vewy good idea,” I said. "I've a vewy good mind to twy it. I had on the gloves once with a lay figure in a painter's studio, and gave it an awful licking. It's twue it-it didn't hit back, you know--I-I did all-all the hitting then. And pwaps-pwaps Wagsby would hit back. But if-if he did anything so ungentlemanlike as that, I could alwaysalways-"

"Always what, my Lord?" said Lotty, who was going on laughing in a most hysterical manner.

[ocr errors]

"Why I could always say it was a mithtake, and--and it shouldn't happen again, you know."

"Admirable policy, upon my word," she thaid, and began tittering again. But what the dooth amused her so I never could make out. Just then we heard a sort of rustling in the leaves behind, and I confess I felt wather nervouth.

"It's only a bird," Lotty said; and then we began talking of that little wobbin-wedbreast, and what a wonderful thing nature is, and how doosid pwetty it was to see her laws obeyed. And I said, "O Miss Chaffingham !" I said,“if I was a wobbin-"

"Yes, Dundreary," she anthered,-vewy soft and sweet. And I thought to mythelf,-Now's the time to ask her,—now's the time to-I-I was beginning to wuminate again, but she bwought me to my thenses by saying,

"Yes? "interwoggatively.

"If I was a wobbin, Lotty,-and-and you were a wobbin -" I exclaimed,-with a voice full of emothun.

"Well, my Lord?"

"Wouldn't it be-jolly to have thpeckled eggs evewy morning for bweakfast?"

That wasn't quite what I was going to say; but just then there was another rustling behind the summer-house, and in wushed that bwute, Wagsby.

"What's the wow, Dundreary?" said he, grinning in a dweadfully idiotic sort of way. "Come, old fellah” (I—I hate a man who calls me old fellah,-it's so beathly familiar). And then he said he had come on purpose to fetch us back, (confound him!) as they had just awanged to start on one of those cold-meat excursions,-no, that's not the word, I know, but it has something to do with cold meat,-picpickles, is it?-no, pickwick? pic-I have it-they wanted us to go picklicking,-I mean picknicking with them.

Here was a dithappointment. .Just as I thought to have a nice little flirtathun with Lotty,-to be interwupted in this manner! Was ever anything so pwovoking? And all for a picnic, a thort of early dinner without chairs or tables, and a lot of flies in the muthtard! I was in such a wage! Of course I didn't get another chance to say all I wanted. I had lost my opportunity, and, I fear, made an ath of mythelf.

A DEATH-BED.-JAMES ALDRICH.

Her suffering ended with the day;
Yet lived she at its close,

And breathed the long, long night away
In statue-like repose.

But when the sun, in all his state,
Illumed the eastern skies,

She passed through glory's morning-gate,
And walked in Paradise.

THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.*-ROBERT Lowell.

Oh, that last day in Lucknow fort!

We knew that it was the last,

That the enemy's lines crept surely on,
And the end was coming fast.

To yield to that foe was worse than death,
And the men and we all worked on;
It was one day more of smoke and roar,
And then it would all be done.

There was one of us, a corporal's wife,
A fair, young, gentle thing,

Wasted with fever in the siege,

And her mind was wandering.

She lay on the ground, in her Scottish plaid,

And I took her head on my knee:

"When my father comes hame frae the pleugh," she said, "Oh! then please waken me."

She slept like a child on her father's floor

In the flecking of woodbine-shade,

When the house-dog sprawls by the open door,
And the mother's wheel is staid.

It was smoke and roar and powder-stench,
And hopeless waiting for death;

And the soldier's wife, like a full-tired child,
Seemed scarce to draw her breath.

I sank to sleep; and I had my dream
Of an English village-lane,

And wall and garden ;-but one wild scream
Brought me back to the roar again.

There Jessie Brown stood listening
Till a sudden gladness broke

All over her face, and she caught my hand
And drew me near, as she spoke :-

*In the summer of 1857 the British garrison in Lucknow were reduced to per Dous straits. They were besieged by the native rebels in a largely outnumbering force. Cruel, vindictive, and remorseless, these mutineers, could they enter the city, would put all the men, women, and children to a fearful death. They had advanced their batteries and mines so far that in less than an hour the city must fall, unless relief should be at hard. And relief was at hand, though no one was aware of it. Havelock with 2500 men was approaching, but amid the din and smoke of the cannonade nothing could be heard or seen.

On came Havelock and his me; they hewed a passage through the rebel masses up to the very walls of Lucknow, and snatched their countrymen from the horrors of their impending fate.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »