rural belles, and the envy and jealousy of their beaux and spouses. All acknowledged that he was a brave-looking man, a beautiful elegant man, ay, and a fine-spoken man to boot, as evinced in his numerous harangues to the public; but when he entered a tavern, and invited all to partake of his hospitality, there were no bounds to rustic enthusiasm, and all joined uproariously in the burthen of his well-known song

THE RECRUITING SERGEANT.

I.

"Come, take these ribbons, then," said he,
"And give me no denial:

You may rise to the rank of a great grandee,
Or a prince of the blood royal; *

And have an empress for your wife,

With a coach and six, and a very merry life!"
Chorus.-Huzza! huzza! huzza!

II.

"A wooden leg, or a golden chain,

Is the maxim of the brave;

And if you are king of France and Spain,
What more would you wish to have?

Unless for India you'd like to pull,

And there you may be the Great Mogul!"

Chorus.-Huzza! huzza! huzza!

In short, nothing could exceed the popularity of Sergeant Flaherty, especially amongst the fair sex; and though he picked up more recruits than all his predecessors put together, he might have carried off a wife for every one of them, if the regulations had allowed him to beat up for petticoats.

It could not be expected that so fascinating a man should be free from enemies; for, as the poet truly sings, Envy doth merit as its shade pursue," and some snarling critic is always at hand to tarnish the fairest fame. Some of this class contented themselves with shrugs and shakes of the head, as the safest mode of expressing their sentiments and opinions: others hinted that "talk's cheap, and that many a bowld word comes off a weak stomach.' The sergeant, no doubt, spoke very slightingly of battle, murder, and sudden death, which the prayer-book taught all sober people to look upon with becoming reverence; but, for all that, when the hour of trial came, he might not be a whit better than other men who held their tongues and minded their own affairs." Of this a proof was very soon afforded.

One market-day, when the main street of Tipperary was more than usually crowded, and the recruiting party was parading up and down, with ribbons flying, and drums and fifes playing "Rory O'More," the most inspiring quick-step that ever was composed;

*This is not so purely imaginative as may, at first sight, appear; for by a recent decree of the emperor of Austria, that soldier of fortune, Radetzky, has been (very properly, we think) created a prince of the blood.

ED.

while hundreds, I may say thousands, of the admiring rabblement surrounded and accompanied their glorious march, Sergeant O'Flaherty (for he had recently tagged the great O to his otherwise vulgar patronymic), thinking it a good opportunity to display his eloquence, gracefully waved his flashing sword, and cried out with stentorian lungs: Recruiting party, halt!" Then, hemming significantly thrice to clear his manly voice, he was about to address the smiling multitudes of males and females who crowded around him, with his customary eloquence.

Suddenly a terrific shout arose at the top of the main street, which increased rapidly in volume, intermingled with shrieks and yells of terror; till at length the words "Mad bull! mad bull!" were distinguished in the gathering tumult. All fled in horror and confusion; men, women, and children, tumbling headlong over each other, in their heedless hurry to escape the fury of the savage monster; soldiers, drummers, fifers, all, in short, fled, except the bold O'Flaherty, who, to the general amazement, stood there alone in his glory. The bull, raging mad with the noise and confusion he himself had caused, was now seen tearing down the street, goring some, and tossing others head over heels on the rough pavement; till the tall motionless figure of the recruiting-sergeant met his sight, glowing in all the colours of the rainbow.

With a bellow of intense and concentrated rage, he made directly at him, while hundreds of pitying voices cried out: "Run, sergeant! Run, for the love of God, and save yourself!"

Firm as a rock, however, stood the bold O'Flaherty, as if determined to take the bull by the horns, literally, and in downright earnest; while the crowd, forgetting their own terror, gazed in stupid wonder at the inevitable destruction of their universal favourite.

My uncle, however, had witnessed a few bull-fights, while he was a prisoner of war in Spain (for he was captured in Whitelock's unhappy expedition to Buenos Ayres), and had seen with delight the perfect sang froid with which the matador awaits the onset of the savage monster, and the dexterity with which he gives him the coup de grace. With equal coolness he now stood erect, alert, and ready for action.

Just as the bull, with a furious bound and a savage bellow, lowered his head to toss him in the air, O'Flaherty stepped aside; and, as the animal passed him in headlong haste, he seized him by the tail with his left hand, holding on firmly, in spite of the violent lunges of his enraged enemy; then, with two rapid and well-directed blows of his sabre, he cut the tendons of both hind legs; and the ham-strung animal, in a vain attempt to rush forward, fell helpless and exhausted upon the pavement, while a shout of joy and triumph rang through the air from the astonished and delighted multitude.

Before the close of that eventful day, fifty young fellows, in the ardour of their enthusiasm, took the king's shilling from Sergeant O'Flaherty; and I made a secret but a solemn vow that I would never adopt any other profession than that of my gallant uncle.

CHAPTER III.

THE GAGE D'AMOUR.

FOR a long time the whole country rang with the exploit of the brave O'Flaherty: he was deified by the mob, courted by the middleclasses, and even visited by the gentry, and feasted at their houses; being himself of gentle blood, though a wild scion of an ancient race. It was actually proposed to get up a subscription to purchase him an ensigncy; but he disdained the idea of acquiring the silver epaulette through the medium of filthy lucre, exclaiming that "he'd win it on the breach, or not at all." For my part, I became wild to "follow to the field," so renowned a leader; and day and night worried my poor brains to accomplish this first and only wish of my heart.

Fortune at length, whether for good or evil, seemed disposed to favour my juvenile aspirations; and an opportunity was afforded me, when I least expected it, of escaping from the loathed drudgery of civil life. My brother, who was in business, and evidently on the high road to fortune, having occasion to go to London, offered to take me with him, and procure me a commission; while I was so delighted with the idea, that I never gave my father a moment's peace till he consented to let me go with the proviso, however, that I should limit my ambition to the militia; and thus, as the phrase is, he abandoned the last prop of his declining age, to gratify my boyish propensity.

Behold me, then, scarcely in my fifteenth year, about to launch on the great unknown world, in a profession the difficulties of which I had no possible means of ascertaining, and whose splendour alone occupied my thoughts. Great, indeed, was the envy of my schoolfellows at the fame and fortune that awaited me, in that everglorious career which first enlists the sympathies of the youthful heart; and greater still was their admiration at the pictures I drew from reading and imagination, alas! how unlike the reality of a soldier's life. I became to them an object of intense interest; many vowed they would embrace no other profession than the military, while several made me promise to correspond with them, and give them a regular account of all the battles, sieges, and single combats in which I might be engaged. Thrice happy age! when the banquet of life is enjoyed in advance, and the writing on the wall is lost in the splendour of imagination and the dreams of a heated fancy!

I shall never forget the day I rode out of Tipperary on this my first start in life, at a period when other boys were immersed in the drudgery of school, and possessing no other knowledge of the world than what I had gleaned from books of imagination; which, like the flimsy novels of our penny periodicals, contained anything but faithful pictures of real life and manners. My brother had preceded me

to Clonmel, about twenty miles distant, where he had some business to transact, and where I was to join him. For this purpose, I was mounted on a large, powerful horse, which, though I had frequently ridden him after the stag-hounds, was big enough for a general's charger. My holsters contained a very tidy brace of brass-barrelled pistols, the last gift of my poor father, and my clothes were packed in a large valise fixed upon the crupper; on the top of which was also strapped an old silver-hilted sword, of formidable length, which had decorated my father's thigh at the battle of Minden. This deadly weapon, protruding at either end far beyond the dimensions of the valise, seemed to indicate that its owner was a sort of person that was never to be taken alive.

Having bade my parents a last farewell, very affecting on their part, and very light-hearted on mine, I rode, thus accoutred, through the main street of Tipperary, accompanied by my most attached playfellows, to the admiration and amusement of the townsfolk. Some of these affected to be frightened at my martial aspect, some offered me friendly advice and scraps of proverbial wisdom for my future guidance, while others laughed heartily at my curious equipage, and one graceless varlet exclaimed:

66

I'll roast on my finger all that you'll kill in the wars."

Too happy, however, in my own thoughts to regard their idle bantering, I proceeded onward at an easy pace, till I finally bade adieu to my school-companions, with renewed protestations and promises of mutual correspondence.

But my greatest trial was yet to come. Amongst my young relatives, I had a little cousin, Honoria Blake, a child of extraordinary sensibility and intellect; who, though several years younger than myself, had formed such a singular attachment to me that she could scarcely be said to exist out of my presence. She was singularly precocious, and had contracted at a very early age such a fondness for reading, that a book was in reality the only rival I had in her affections, though even that always yielded to my superior claims.

My great delight was in ministering to this early passion of my little cousin for literature, and all my pocket-money went in purchasing food for its gratification. To this, and the facility with which I invented fairy tales for her amusement, may be attributed, I suppose, her excessive partiality for me; but, whatever may have been the cause, the poor little soul was never happy unless walking, running, or riding her little pony by the side of her cousin Percy; or lying in his arms, while he recounted to her the marvellous legends of Fion McCoul, Mouldewarp, and the Headless Coach.

The trial I had now to undergo was the parting with this dear little cousin of mine. Gladly would I have avoided the scene altogether, but it was impossible to evade her vigilance. Ever since she had heard of my expected departure, she had never ceased weeping. Like Niobe, all tears, she hung upon my footsteps, followed me like my shadow, and on the morning of my departure, was up at daybreak, planted herself at her parlour window, which Í must necessarily pass, and for whole hours kept watch and ward for

her cousin Percy, who was going to the wars to be killed by the naughty Frenchmen.

But I must spare the gentle reader the misery I myself experienced in this harrowing interview. Poor little Honoria absolutely wept herself into convulsions, which threw us all into a terrible fright, and nothing could pacify her but my solemn promise to return from the wars in a week, and not to allow myself to be killed by any naughty Frenchman whatever. She then clasped upon my left wrist a bracelet of her own hair, which she had woven for the occasion, our united cipher being engraved upon the gold clasp. She exacted from me a vow that this gage d'amour should never be lost, stolen, or given away; and, singular to relate, this gift of a child, only six or seven years old, was so sacred in my eyes, that in all my vicissitudes by sea or land, it never left the spot on which she had placed it.

To the dreadful renewal of her sorrow, I at length tore myself away from my poor little cousin, and setting spurs to my horse, I galloped off to Clonmel, where my brother and I took the coach for Dublin, and proceeded to London, viá Holyhead, every inch of the way producing to my enraptured eyes fresh objects of wonder and delight.

Yes! let the world-weary traveller boast of the miracles of art and nature he has seen; let him discourse eloquently to admiring auditors of the various lands he has traversed, and the many strange sights and startling events with which his memory is fraught, I very much question if the enjoyment he finds in descanting for the hundredth time on "the Alps, the Apennines, and river Po," can at all equal the ecstasy with which the unsophisticated mind of youth sees the veil of ignorance and inexperience first rent asunder, and the world, in all its wonders, opening in endless succession to his enraptured vision.

At length we reached the "never-ending, still-beginning" metropolis; and were hurried, as night fell, through innumerable streets, where the lights of shops and street-lamps flashed incessantly into the windows of our stage-coach; while the interminable crowds hurrying on, as it were, for life and death, in opposing tides, and the steady and incessant roar of the "Great Babel," more than realized the image I had formed in my own mind of Pandemonium. At length we were driven under a gloomy and narrow gateway, into a still more gloomy court-yard, when the carriage suddenly stopped, the door was opened, the step let down, and two or three smartlooking waiters, with napkins tucked under their arms, ushered us into that well-known hostelry of ancient times, "The Bull and Mouth."

After an early breakfast the following morning, I quitted this singular old dungeon of an hotel, so fearfully enveloped amidst narrow lanes and lofty buildings that I verily believe the sun had never once fairly shone upon it, and fought my way manfully through the crowded and bustling streets to the Park. But I shall never forget the delight I experienced when the glories of the Horse Guards burst upon my view, and Life Guards and Foot Guards, in