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 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 AT URBANA-CHA^PAIGN 
 
 BOOKSTACKS
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVEHSllVtf/LUNWS
 
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 the 
 DODD FAMILY ABROAD
 
 THE 
 
 DODD FAMILY 
 
 ABROAD 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES LEVER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CHARLES O'MALLEY " 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 The Broadway, Ludgate 
 NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET 
 
 isy
 
 LONDON t 
 
 WOODFALL AND KINDER, PRINTERS, 
 
 MiLFOED LANE, BTRAND, W.C.
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mistress Mary Gallagher, Dodsborough . 172 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 Mary Anne Dodd to Miss Doolan, of Ballydoolan . .182 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 Betty Cobb to Mrs. Shusan O'Shea, Priest's House, Bruff . 195 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin 199 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mistress Mary Gallagher .... 215 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 Kenny Dodd to Thomas Purcell, Esq., of the Grange, Brdff 232 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mistress Mary Gallagher, Dodsborough . . 257 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin 267 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 Kenny Dodd to Thomas Purcell, Esq., of the Grange, Bruff 270 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mr. Purcell, of the Grange, Bruff , . 293
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mrs. Mary Gallagher, Housekeeper, Dods- 
 
 296 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin 307 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 Caroline Dodd to Miss Cox, at Miss Mincing's Academy, 
 
 Black Rock, Ireland 331 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 Miss Mary Anne Dodd to Miss Doolan, op Ballydoolan . 338 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 Mary Anne Dodd to Miss Doolan, of Ballydoolan . . 346 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin 355
 
 
 <x<U 
 
 \ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Although the faulty judgment of authors on their own 
 productions has assumed something like the force of a 
 proverb, I am ready to incur the hazard of avowing that 
 the present volume is, to my own thinking, better than 
 anything else I have done. I am not about to defend its 
 numerous shortcomings and great faults. I will not say 
 one word in extenuation of a plan which, to many readers, 
 forms an insuperable objection — that of a story in letters. 
 I wish simply to record the fact that the book afforded me 
 much pleasure in the writing, and that I felt an amount 
 of interest in the character of Kenny Dodd such as I have 
 never before nor since experienced for any personage of 
 my own creation. 
 
 The reader who is at all acquainted with the incidents 
 of foreign travel, and the strange individuals to be met 
 with on every European highway, will readily acquit me 
 of exaggeration either in describing the mistaken impres- 
 sions conceived of continental life, or the difficulties of 
 forming anything like a correct estimate of national habits 
 by those whose own sphere of observation was so limited 
 w in their own country. In Kenny Dodd, I attempted to 
 portray a man naturally acute and intelligent, sensible 
 and well judging where his prejudices did not pervert his 
 
 76077
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 reason, and singularly quick to appreciate the ridicule of 
 any absurd situation in which he did not figure himself. 
 To all the pretentious ambitions of his family — to their 
 exaggerated sense of themselves and their station — to 
 their inordinate desire to figure in a rank above their own, 
 and appear to be something they had never hitherto 
 attempted — I have made him keenly and sensitively alive. 
 He sees Mrs. Dodd's perils — there is not a sunk rock nor 
 a shoal before her that he has not noted, and yet for the 
 life of him he can't help booking himself for the voyage. 
 There is an Irishman's love of drollery — that passion for 
 what gives him a hearty laugh, even though he come in 
 for his share of the ridicule, which repays him for every 
 misadventure. If he is momentarily elated by the high 
 and distinguished company in which he finds himself, so 
 far from being shocked when he discovers them to be 
 swindlers and blacklegs, he chuckles over the blunders of 
 Mrs. D. and Mary Anne, and writes off to his friend 
 Purcell a letter over which he laughs till his eyes run. 
 
 Of those broad matters to which a man of good common 
 sense can apply his faculties fairly, his opinions are usually 
 just and true ; he likes truth, he wants to see things as 
 they are. Of everything conventional he is almost inva- 
 riably in error, and it is this struggle that in a manner 
 reflects the light and shade of his nature, showing him at 
 one moment clear-headed and observant, and at the next 
 absurdly mistaken and ignorant. 
 
 It was in no spirit of sarcasm on my countrymen that I 
 took an Irishman to represent these incongruities; nay, 
 more, I will say, that in the very liability to be so strongly 
 impressed from without, lies much of that unselfishness
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 which forms that staple of the national character which 
 so greatly recommends them to strangers. 
 
 If I do not speak of the other characters of the book, it 
 is because I feel that whatever hnmble merit the volume 
 may possess, is ascribable to the truthfulness of this prin- 
 3ipal personage. It is less the Dodd family for which I 
 would bespeak the reader's interest, than for the trials of 
 Kenny Dodd himself, his thoughts and opinions. 
 
 Finally, let me observe that this story has had the 
 fortune to be better liked by my friends, and less valued 
 by the public, than any other of my books. 
 
 I wrote it, as I have said, with pleasure ; well satisfied 
 should I be that any of my readers might peruse it with 
 as much. It was planned and executed in a quiet little 
 cottage in the Gulf of Spezia, something more than six 
 years ago. I am again in the same happy spot ; and, as I 
 turn over the pages, not altogether lost to some of the 
 enjoyment they once afforded me in the writing, and even 
 more than before anxious that I should not be alone in 
 that sentiment. 
 
 It is in vain, however, for an author to bespeak favour 
 for that which comes not recommended by merits of its 
 own ; and if Kenny Dodd finds no acceptance with you 
 on his own account, it is hopeless to expect that he will 
 be served by the introduction of so partial a friend as 
 
 Your devoted servant, 
 
 CHARLES LEVER. 
 
 Marola, Gulf of Spezia, 
 October 1, 1859.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 TAGE 
 
 To Mr. Thomas Purcell, of the Grange, Bruff ... 1 
 
 LETTER II. 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mistress Mary Gallagher, at Dodsborough . 6 
 
 LETTER III. 
 Miss Dodd to Miss Doolan, op Ballydoolan .... 10 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin 17 
 
 LETTER V. 
 Kenny Dodd to Thomas Pcjrcell, Esq .27 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 Miss Mary Anne Dodd to Miss Doolan, op Ballydoolan . 41 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mistress Mary Gallagher, Dodsborough. . 51 
 
 »
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Betty Cobb to Mrs. Shusan O'Shea, Priest's House, Bruff . 59 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 Kenny Dodd to Thomas Pcjrcell, Esq 62 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Caroline Bold to Miss Cox, at Miss Mikcikg's Academy, 
 
 Black Rock, Ireland 80 
 
 LETTER XL 
 Mr. Dodd to Thomas Purcell, Esq., of the Grange, Bruff . 87 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 Mrs. Dodd to Mistress Mary Gallagher, Dodsborough . 106 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 From K. I. Dodd to Thomas Purcell, Esq., of the Grange, 
 
 Bruff 119 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 James Dodd to Robert Doolan, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin 131 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 Miss Dodd to Miss Doolan, of Ballydoolan . . . .145. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 Kenny I. Dodd to Thomas Purcell, Esq., of the Grange, 
 
 Bruff 156
 
 THE 
 
 DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 TO MR. THOJIAS PURCELL, OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF. 
 
 Hotel des Bains, Ostend. 
 
 Dear Tom, — Here we are at last — as tired and sea-sick a 
 party as ever landed on the fame shore ! Twenty-eight 
 hours of it, from the St. Katharine Docks, six of them 
 bobbing opposite Margate in a fog — ringing a big bell all 
 the time, and firing minute-guns, lest some thumping India- 
 man or a homeward-bound Peninsular should run into us 
 — and five more sailing up and down before Ostend, till 
 it was safe to cross the bar, and enter the blackguard 
 little harbour. The Phoenix — that was our boat — started 
 the night before the Paul Jones mail-packet, and we only 
 beat her by a neck after all! And this was a piece of 
 Mrs. Dodd's economy: the Phoenix only charges "ten-and- 
 six " for the first cabin; but, what with the board for a 
 day and night, boats to fetch you out, and boats to fetch 
 you in, brandy-and-water against the sickness — much 
 good it was ! — soda-water, stewards, and the devil knows 
 what of broken crockery — James fell into the " cuddy," I 
 think they call it, and smashed two dozen and three wine- 
 glasses, the most of a blue tea-service, and a big tureen — ■ 
 the economy turned out a " delusion and a snare," as they 
 Bay in the House. It's over now, thank God ! and except 
 VOL. i. B
 
 2 THE DODD FAMILY abroad. 
 
 some bruises against the bulkheads and a touch of a 
 jaundice, I'm nothing the worse. We landed at night, 
 and were marched off in a gang to the Custom House. 
 Such a time I never spent before ! for when they upset all 
 our things on the floor, there was no getting them into 
 the trunks again : and so we made our way through the 
 streets, with shawls, and muffs, and silk dresses all round 
 us, like a set of play-actors. As for me, I carried a turban 
 in one hand, and a tray of artificial flowers in the other, 
 with a toque on my head and a bird-of-paradise feather in 
 my mouth. James fell, crossing the plank, with three 
 bran-new frocks and a bonnet of the girls', and a thing 
 Mrs. D. calls a " visite" — egad, they made a visite of it, 
 sure enough, and are likely to stay some time there, for 
 they are under some five feet of black mud, that has lain 
 there since before the memory of man. This wasn't the 
 worst of it ; for Mrs. D., not seeing very well in the dark, 
 gave one of the passport people a box on the ear that she 
 meant for poor Paddy, and we were hauled up before the 
 police, and made pay thirty francs for "insulting the 
 authorities," with something written on our passport 
 besides, describing my wife as a dangerous kind of 
 woman, that ought to be looked after. Poor Mathews 
 had a funny song, that ran, — 
 
 " If ever you travel, it mustn't seem queer 
 That you sometimes get rubs that you never get here." 
 
 But, faith, it appears to me that we have fallen in with a 
 most uncommon allowance of friction. Perhaps it's all 
 for the best, and by a little roughing at first, we'll the 
 sooner accustom ourselves to our new position. 
 
 You know that I never thought much of this notion of 
 coming abroad, but Mrs. D. was full cf it, and gave me 
 neither peace nor ease till I consented. To be sure, if it 
 only realizes the half of what she says, it's a good specu- 
 lation — great economy — tip-top education for Tom and 
 the girls — elegant society without expense — fine climate — 
 and wine for the price of the bottles. I'm sorry to leave 
 Dodsborough. I got into a way of living there that suited 
 me ; and even in the few days I spent in London, I was 
 missing my morning's walk round the big turnip-field,
 
 LETTERS OP INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 and my little gossip with Joe Moone. Poor Joe ! don't 
 let him want while I'm away, and be sure to give him his 
 turf off our own bog. We won't be able to drain the 
 Lough meadows this year, for we'll want every sixpence 
 we can lay our hands on for the start. Mrs. D. says, 
 " 'Tis the way you begin abroad decides everything ;" 
 and, faith, our opening, up to this, has not been too pros- 
 perous. 
 
 I thought we'd have got plenty of letters of recommen- 
 dation for the Continent while we were in London; but 
 it is downright impossible to see people there. Vickers, 
 our member, was never at home, and Lord Pummistone — 
 I might besiege Downing Street from morning till night, 
 and never get a sight of him ! I wrote as many as twenty 
 letters, and it was only when I bethought me of saying 
 that the Whigs never did anything except.for people of 
 the Grey, Elliott, or Dundas family, that he sent me five 
 lines, with a kind of introduction to any of the envoys or 
 plenipotentiaries I might meet abroad — a roving commis- 
 sion after a dinner — sorrow more or less ! I believe, how- 
 ever, that this is of no consequence : at least, a most 
 agreeable man, one Krauth, the sub-consul at Mcelendrach, 
 somewhere in Holland, and who came over in the same 
 packet with us, tells me that people of condition, like us, 
 find their place in the genteel society abroad as naturally 
 as a man with moustaches goes to Leicester Square. That 
 seems a comfort, for, between me and you, the fighting 
 and scrambling that goes on at home about who we'll have, 
 and who'll have us, makes life little better than an elec- 
 tion shindy ! K. is a mighty nice man, and full of infor- 
 mation. He appears to be rich, too, for Tom saw as many 
 as thirteen gold watches in his room ; and he has chains, 
 and pins, and brooches, without end. He was trying to per- 
 suade us to spend the w r inter at Mcelendrach, where, besides 
 a heavenly climate, there are such beautiful walks on the 
 dykes, and elegant society! Mrs. D. doesn't like it, how- 
 ever, for though we've been looking all the morning, we 
 can't find the place on the map ; but that doesn't signify 
 much, since even our post town of Kellyunaignabacklish is 
 put down in the " Gazetteer" " a small village on the road 
 to Bruif," and no mention whatever of the police station, 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 nor Hannagin's school, nor the Pound. That's the way 
 the blackguards make books now-a-days! Mary Anne is 
 all for Brussels, and, afterwards, Germany and the Rhine, 
 but we can fix upon nothing yet. Send me the letter of 
 credit on Brussels in any case, for we'll stay there, to look 
 about us, a few weeks. If the two townlands cannot be kept 
 out of the "Encumbered Estates," there's no help for it; 
 but sure any of our friends would bid a trifle, and not see 
 them knocked down at seven or eight years' purchase. If 
 Tullylicknaslatterley was drained, and the stones off it, 
 and a good top dressing of lime for two years, you'd see 
 as fine a crop of oats there as ever you'd wish ; and there 
 hasn't been an " outrage," as they call it, on the same land 
 since they shot M'Shea, last September ; and when you 
 consider the times, and the way winter set in early, this 
 year, 'tis saying a good deal. I wish Prince Albert would 
 take some of these farms, as they said he would. Never 
 mind enclosing the town parks, we can't afford it just now ; 
 but mind that you look after the preserves. If there's 
 a cock shot in the boundary-wood, I'll turn out every 
 mother's son of the barony. 
 
 I was going to tell you about Nick Mahon's holding, 
 but it's gone clean out of my head, for I was called away 
 to the police-office to bail out Paddy Byrne, the dirty little 
 spalpeen ; I wish I never took him from home. He saw a 
 man running off with a yellow valise — this is bis story — 
 and thinking it was mine, he gave him chase ; he doubled 
 and turned — now, under an omnibus, now, through a dark 
 passage — till Paddy overtook him at last, and gave him a 
 clippeen on the left ear, and a neat touch of the foot that 
 sent him sprawling. This done, Paddy shouldered the 
 spoil, and made for the inn ; but what d'ye think ? It 
 turned out to be another man's trunk, and Paddy was 
 taken up for the robbery ; and what with the swearing of 
 the police, Pat's yells, and Mrs. D.'s French, I have passed 
 such a half-hour as I hope never to see again. Two 
 " Naps." settled it all, however, and five francs to the 
 brigadier, as well-dressed a chap as the Commander of 
 the Forces at home ; but foreigners, it seems, are the devil 
 for bribery. When I told Pat I'd stop it out of his wages, 
 he was for rushing out, and taking what he called the
 
 Paddy and the portmanteau. 5 
 
 worth of his money out of the blackguard ; so that I had 
 to lock him into my room, and there he is now, crying and 
 screeching like mad. This will be my excuse for anything 
 I may make in way of mistakes ; for, to say truth, my head 
 is fairly moidered! As it is, we've lost a trunk; and 
 when Mrs. D. discovers that it was the one containing all 
 her new silk dresses, and a famous red velvet that was to 
 take the shine out of the Tuileries, we'll have the devil to 
 pay ! She's in a blessed humour besides, for she says she 
 saw the brigadier wink at Mary Anne, and that it was 
 a good kicking he deserved, instead of a five-franc piece ; 
 and now she's turning on me in the vernacular, in which, 
 I regret to say, her fluency has no impediment. I must 
 now conclude, my dear Tom, for it's quite beyond me to 
 remember more than that I am, as ever, 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 Kenny I. Dodd. 
 
 Betty Cobb insists upon being sent home ; this is more 
 of it ! The journey will cost a ten-pound note, if Mrs. D. 
 can't succeed in turning her off of it. I'm afraid the 
 economy, at least, begins badly.
 
 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD, 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 MRS. DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, AT DODSBOROUGIL 
 
 Hotel of the Baths, Ostend. 
 
 Dear Molly, — This is the first blessed moment of quiet 
 I've had since I quitted home ; and even now there's the 
 table d'hote of sixty-two in the next room, and a brass 
 band in the lobby, with, to be sure, the noisiest set of 
 wretches as waiters ever I heard, shouting, screaming, 
 knife-jingling, plate-crashing, and cork-drawing — till my 
 head is fairly turned with the turmoil. The expense is 
 cruel besides — eighteen francs a day for the rooms, 
 although James sleeps in the "salon;" and if you saw 
 the bed — his father swears it was a mignonette-box in 
 one of the windows ! The eating is beautiful ; that must 
 be allowed. Two soups, three fishes, five roast chickens, 
 and a piece of veal, stewed with cherries ; a dish of chops 
 with chicory, and a meat-pie garnished with cockscombs 
 — you may be sure I didn't touch them ; after them there 
 was a carp, with treacle, and a big plate of larks and 
 robins, with eggs of the same, all round. Then came the 
 heavy eating : a roast joint of beef, with a batter-pudding, 
 and a turkey stuffed with chestnuts, ducks ditto with 
 olives and onions, and a mushroom tart, made of grated 
 chickens and other condiments. As for the sweets, I 
 don't remember the half of them, nor do I like to try ; 
 for poor dear James got a kind of surfeit, and was obliged 
 to go to bed and have a doctor — a complaint, they tell me, 
 mighty common among the English on first coming abroad. 
 He was a nice man, and only charged five francs. I wish 
 you'd tell Peter Belton that ; for though we subscribe a 
 pound a year to the dispensary, Mr. Peter thinks to get 
 six shillings a visit every time he comes over to Dods- 
 borough — a pleasant ride of eleven miles — and sure of 
 something to eat besides ; and, now that I think of it,
 
 A "DINER PARTICULIER. 7 
 
 Molly, 'tis what's called the learned professions in Ire- 
 land is eating us all up — the attorneys, the doctors, the 
 parsons. Look at them abroad : Mr. Krauth, a remark- 
 ably nice man, and a consul, told me last night, that for 
 two-and-sixpence of our money you'd have the best advice, 
 law or medical, the Continent affords, and even that same 
 is a comfort ! 
 
 The table d'hote is not without some drawbacks, how- 
 ever, my dear Molly, for only yesterday I caught an officer, 
 the Brigadier of the Gendarmerie they call him, throwing 
 sly glances at Mary Anne across the table. I mentioned 
 it to K. I., but like all fathers that were a little free and 
 easy when young, he said, " Pooh ! nonsense, dear. "lis 
 the way of foreigners ; you'll get used to it at last." We 
 dined to-day in our own room ; and just to punish us, as 
 I suppose, they gave us a scrag of mutton, and two blue- 
 legged chickens ; and by the bill before me — for I have it 
 made up every day — I see "diner particulier " put down 
 five francs a head, and the table d'hote is for two ! 
 
 K. I. was in a blessed passion, and cursed my infernal 
 prudery, as he called it. To be sure, I didn't know it 
 was to cost us a matter of fifteen francs. And now he's 
 gone off to the cafe, and Mary Anne is crying in her own 
 room, while Caroline is nursing James ; for, to tell you 
 the truth, Betty Cobb is no earthly use to us ; and as for 
 Paddy Byrne, 'tis bailing him out of the police-office and 
 paying fines for him we are, all day. 
 
 We'll scarcely save much this first quarter, for what 
 with travelling expenses and the loss of my trunk — I 
 believe I told you that some villain carried away the yellow 
 valise, with the black satin trimmed with blonde, and the 
 peach-coloured " gros de Naples," and my two elegant 
 ball-dresses, one covered with real Limerick lace — these 
 losses, and the little contingencies of the road, will run 
 away with most of our economies ; but if we live we learn, 
 and we'll do better afterwards. 
 
 I never expected it would be all pure gain, Molly ; but 
 isn't it worth something to see life — to get one's children 
 the polish and refinement of the Continent — to teach them 
 foreign tongues with the real accent — to mix in the very 
 highest circles, and learn all the ways of people of fashion ?
 
 8 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Besides, Dodsborough was dreadful ; K. I. was settling 
 down to a common farmer, and, in a year or two more, 
 would never have asked any higher company than Purcell 
 and Father Maher ; as for James, he was always out with 
 the greyhounds, or shooting, or something of the kind ; and 
 lastly, you saw yourself what was going on between Peter 
 Belton and Mary Anne ! . . . She might have had the 
 pride and decency to look higher than a Dispensary doctor. 
 I told her that her mother's family was McCarthys, and, 
 indeed, it was nothing but the bad times ever made me 
 think of Kenny Dodd. Not that I don't think well of 
 poor Peter, but sure it's hard to dress well, and keep three 
 horses, and make a decent appearance on less than eighty 
 pounds a year — not to talk of a wife at all ! 
 
 I hope you'll get Christy into the Police — they are just 
 the same as the Hussars, and not so costly. Be sure that 
 you Send off the two trunks to Ostend with the first sailing- 
 vessel from Limerick ; they'll only cost one-and-fourpence 
 a cubic foot, whatever that is, and I believe they'll come 
 just as speedy as by steam. I'm sorry for poor Nancy 
 Doran ; she'll be a loss to us in the dairy ; but maybe she'll 
 recover yet. How can you explain Brindled Judy not 
 being in calf? I can scarce believe it yet. If it be true, 
 however, you must sell her at the spring fair. Father 
 Maher had a conceit out of her. Try if he is disposed to 
 give ten pounds, or guineas — guineas if you can, Molly. 
 
 There's no curing that rash in Caroline's face, and it's 
 making her miserable. I've lost Peter's receipt ; and it 
 was the only thing stopped the itching. Try and get a 
 copy of it from him ; but say it's for Betty Cobb. 
 
 I was interrupted, my dear Molly, by a visit from a 
 young gentleman whose visiting card bears the name of 
 Victor de Lancy, come to ask after James — a very nice 
 piece of attention, considering that he only met us once 
 at the table d'hote. He and Mary Anne talked a great 
 deal together : for, as he doesn't speak English, I could 
 only smile and say, " We-we," occasionally. He's as 
 anxious about James as if he was his brother, and wanted 
 to sit up the night with him ; though what use would it 
 be? for poor J. doesn't know a word of French, yet. Mary 
 Anne tells me that he's a count, and that his family was
 
 Foreign manners. 9 
 
 very high under the late King; but it's dreadful to hear 
 him talk of Louis Philippe and the Orleans branch. He 
 mentioned, too, that they set spies after him wherever he 
 goes ; and, indeed, Mary Anne saw a gendarme looking 
 up at the window all the time he was with us. 
 
 He spent two hours and a half here ; and I must say, 
 Molly, foreigners have a wonderful way of ingratiating 
 themselves with one : we felt, when he was gone away, as 
 if we knew him all our life. Don't pay any attention to 
 Mat, but sell the fruit, and send me the money ; and as for 
 Bandy Bob, what's the use of feeding him now we're away ? 
 Take care that the advertisement about Dodsborough is in 
 the Mail and the Packet every week : " A Residence fit 
 for a nobleman or gentleman's family — most extensive 
 out-offices, and two hundred acres of land, more if re- 
 quired," ought to let easy ! To be sure, it's in Ireland, 
 Molly, that's the worst of it. There isn't a little bit of a 
 lodging here on the sands, with rush-bottom chairs and a 
 painted table, doesn't bring fifty francs a week ! 
 
 I must conclude now, for it's nigh post-hour. Be sure 
 you look after the trunks and the pony. Never mind 
 sending the Limerick paper ; it costs three sous, and has 
 never anything new. K. I. sees the Times at the rooms, 
 and they give all the outrages just as well as the Irish 
 papers. By the way, who was the Judkin Delaney that 
 was killed at Bruff? Sure it isn't the little creature that 
 collected the county-cess : it would be a disgrace if it was ; 
 he wasn't five foot high ! 
 
 Tell Father Maher to send me a few threatening lines 
 for Betty Cobb ; 'tis nothing but the priest's word will 
 keep her down. 
 
 Your most affectionate friend, 
 
 Jemima Dodd.
 
 10 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 MISS DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN. 
 
 Hotel de Bellevue, Brussels. 
 
 Dearest Kitty, — If anything could divert the mind from 
 sorrow — from the " grief that sears and scalds " — it would 
 be the delightful existence of this charming city, where 
 associations of the past and present pleasure divide atten- 
 tion between them. We are stopping at the Bellevue, the 
 great hotel of the upper town ; but my delight, my ecstasy, 
 is the old city — the Grande Place, especially, with its 
 curious architecture of mediaeval taste, its high polished 
 roofs, and carved architraves. I stood yesterday at the 
 window where Count Egmont marched forth to the scaffold 
 — I touched the chair where poor Horn sat for the last 
 time, whilst his fainting wife fell powerless at his knees, 
 and I thought — yes, dearest Kitty, I own it — I thought of 
 that last dreadful parting in the summer-house with poor 
 Peter. My tears are blotting out the words as I write 
 them. Why — why, I ask, must we be wretched ? Why 
 are we not free to face the humble destiny which more 
 sordid spirits would shrink from ? What is there in nar- 
 row fortune, if the heart soars above it ? Papa is, how- 
 ever, more inexorable than ever ; and as for mamma, she 
 looks at me as though I were the disgrace of our name and 
 lineage. Cary never did — never could understand me, 
 poor child ! — may she never know what it is to suffer as I 
 do ! But why do I distress you with my sorrows ? — " let 
 me tune my harp to lighter lays," as that sweet poet, 
 Haynes Bailey, says. We were yesterday at the great 
 ball of Count Haegenstroem, the Danish Ambassador here. 
 Papa received a large packet of letters of introduction on 
 Monday last, from the Foreign Office. It would seem that 
 Lord P. thought pa was a member, for he addressed him 
 as M.P. ; but the mistake has been so far fortunate, that 
 we are invited on Tuesday to dine at Lord Gledworth's,
 
 MISS DODD ON SOCIETY IN BRUSSELS. H 
 
 our ambassador .here, and we have his box for to-night at 
 the Opera — not to speak of last night's invitation, which 
 came from him. I wore my amber gauze over the satin 
 slip, with the "jonquilles " and white roses, two camellias 
 in my hair, with mamma's coral chain twined through the 
 roll at the back. Count Ambrose de Roncy called me a 
 " rose-cameo," and I believe I did look my best. I danced 
 with "Prince Sierra d'Aguila Nero," a Sicilian that ought 
 to be King of Sicily, and will, they say, if the King of 
 Naples dies without leaving seven sons. What a splendid 
 man, Kitty ! not tall, rather the reverse ; but such eyes, 
 and such a beard, and so perfumed! the very air around him 
 was like the garden of Attarghul ! He spoke very little 
 English, and could not bear to talk French ; he said the 
 French betrayed " la sua carissima patria ;" and so, my 
 dear Kitty, I did my best in the syllables of the sweet 
 south. He, at least, called my accent " divina," and said 
 that he would come and read Petrarch with me to-morrow. 
 Don't let Peter be a fool when he hears this. The Prince 
 is in a very different sphere from poor Mary Anne ! he 
 always dances with Queen Victoria when he's at Windsor, 
 and called our Prince Consort "II suo diletto Alberto; " 
 and, more than all, he's married, but separated from the 
 Princess. He told me this himself, and with what terrible 
 emotion, Kitty ! I thought of Charles Kean in Claude 
 Melnotte, as he spoke in a low guttural voice, with his 
 hand on his bosom. It was very dreadful, but these tem- 
 peraments, moulded alike by southern climes and ancient 
 descent, are awful in their passionate vehemence. I assure 
 you, it was a relief to me when he stopped one of the trays 
 and took a pine-apple ice. I felt that it wa3 a moment of 
 peril passed in safety. You can form no notion, dearest, 
 of the fascination of foreign manners — something there is 
 so gently insinuating, so captivating, so bewitching, and 
 withal so natural, Kitty — that's the very strangest thing 
 of all. There is absolutely nothing a foreigner cannot say 
 to you. I almost blush as I think of what, I now know, 
 must have been the veriest commonplace of society, but 
 which to my ears, in all their untutored ignorance, sounded 
 very odd. 
 
 Mamma — and you know her prudery — is actually in
 
 12 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 ecstasy with them. The Prince said to me last night, 
 "Savez-vous, Mademoiselle! Madame votre mere est 
 d'une beaute classique ?" and I assure you ma was delighted 
 with the compliment when she heard it. Papa is not so 
 tractable : he calls them the most atrocious names, and has 
 all the old prejudices about the Continent that we see in 
 the old farces. Cary is, however, worse again, and thinks 
 their easy elegance is impertinence, and all the graceful 
 charm of their manner nothing but — her own words — 
 " egregious vanity." Shall I whisper you a bit of a secret H 
 Well then, Kitty, the reason of this repugnance may be, 
 that she makes no impression whatever, notwithstanding 
 her beauty ; and there is no denying that she does not 
 possess the gift — whatever it be — of fascination. She has, 
 besides, a species of antipathy to everything foreign, that 
 she makes no effort to disguise. A rather unfortunate 
 acquaintance ma made, on board the steam-packet, with a 
 certain Mr. Krauth, who called himself sub-consul of 
 somewhere in Holland, but who turned out to be a Jew 
 pedlar, has given Cary such an opportunity of inveighing 
 against all foreigners, that she is positively unendurable. 
 This Krauth, 1 must say, was atrociously vulgar, and 
 shockingly ugly ; but, as he could talk some broken 
 English, ma rather liked him, and we had him to tea; 
 after which, he took James home to his lodgings, to show 
 him some wonderful stuffed birds that he was bringing to 
 the Royal Princesses. I have not patience to tell you all 
 the narrative, but the end of it was, that poor dear James, 
 having given all his pocket-money and his silver pencil- 
 case for a tin musical snuff-box, that won't play Weber's 
 last waltz, except in jerks like a hiccough, actually ex- 
 changed two dozen of his new shirts for a box of Havannah 
 cigars and a cigar-case with a picture of Fanny Elssler on 
 it ! Papa was in a towering passion when he heard of it, 
 and hastened off to K.'s lodgings ; but he had already 
 decamped. This unhappy incident threw a shade over 
 our last few days at Ostend ; for James never came down 
 to dine, but sat in his own room smoking the atrocious 
 cigars, and contemplating the portrait of the charming 
 Fanny — pursuits which, 1 must say, seemed to have con- 
 duced to a most melancholy and despondent frame of mind.
 
 AN ACCOMPLISHED COUNT. 13 
 
 There was another mesaventure, my dearest Kitty. My 
 thanks to that sweet language for the word by which I 
 characterize it! A certain Count Victor de Lancy, who 
 made acquaintance with us at the table d'hote, and was 
 presuming enough to visit us afterwards, turned out to be 
 a common thief! and who, though under the surveillance 
 of the police, made away with ma's workbox, and her 
 gold spectacles, putting on pa's paletot, and a new plaid 
 belonging to James, as he passed out. It is very shocking; 
 but confess, dearest, what a land it must be, where the 
 pedlars are insinuating, and the very pickpockets have all 
 the ease and breeding of the best society. I assure you 
 that I could not credit the guilt of M. de L., until the 
 brigadier came yesterday to inquire about our losses, and 
 take what he called his zignalement. I thought, for a 
 moment or two, that he had made a mistake, Kitty, and 
 was come for mine ; for he looked into my eyes in such a 
 way, and spoke so softly, that I began to blush ; and 
 mamma, always on the watch, bridled up, and said, " Mary 
 Anne ! " in that voice you must so well remember ; and so 
 it is, my dear friend, the thief and the constable, and I 
 have no doubt, too, the judge, the jury, and the gaoler are 
 all on the same beat ! 
 
 I have just been called away to see such a love of a 
 rose tunic, all glace, to be worn over a dull slate-coloured 
 jupe, looped up at one side with white camellias and lilies 
 of the valley. Think of me, Kitty, with my hair drawn 
 back and slightly powdered, red heels to my shoes, and a 
 great fan hanging to my side, like grave Aunt Susan in 
 the picture, wanting nothing but the love-sick swain that 
 plays the flageoletat her feet! — Madame Adele, the modiste, 
 says, "not long to wait for a dozen such" — and this not 
 for a fancy ball, dearest, but for a simple evening party — 
 a " danceable tea," as papa will call it. I vow to you, 
 Kitty, that it greatly detracts from the pictorial effect of 
 this taste, to see how obstinately men will adhere to their 
 present ungainly and ungraceful style of dress — that 
 shocking solecism in costume, a narrow-tailed coat, and 
 those more fearful outrages on shape and symmetry for 
 which no name has been invented in any language. Now, 
 the levelling effect of this black-coat system is terrific ;
 
 14 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 and there is no distinguishing a man of real rank from his 
 tailor: amongst English at least, for the crosses and 
 decorations so frequent with foreigners are unknown to us. 
 Talking of these, Kitty, the Prince of Aguila Nero is 
 splendid. He wears nearly every bird and beast that 
 Noah had in the ark, and a few others quite unknown to 
 antediluvial zoology. These distinctions are sad reflections 
 on the want of a chivalric feeling in our country ; and 
 when we think of the heroic actions, the doughty deeds, 
 and high achievements of these Paladins, we are forced to 
 blush for the spirit that condemns us to be a nation of 
 shopkeepers. 
 
 How I run on, dearest, from one topic to another I just 
 as to my mind is presented the delightful succession of 
 objects about me — objects of whose very existence I did 
 not know till now ! And then to think of what a life of 
 obscurity and darkness we were condemned to, at home ! — 
 our neighbourhood, a priest, a miller, and those odious 
 Davises ; our gaieties, a detestable dinner at the Grange ; 
 our theatricals, " The Castle Spectre," performed in the 
 coach-house ; and instead of those gorgeous and splendid 
 ceremonials of our Church, so impressive, so soul-subduing, 
 Kitty, the little dirty chapel at BrufF, with Larry Behan, 
 the lame sacristan, hobbling about and thrashing the 
 urchins with the handle of the extinguisher ! his muttered 
 " If I was near yeez ! " breaking in on the '■ Oremus, 
 Domine." Shall I own it, Kitty, there is a dreadful vul- 
 garity about our dear little circle of Dodsborough ; and 
 " one demoralizes,*' as the French say, by the incessant 
 appeal of low and too familiar associations. 
 
 I have been again called away to interpret for papa, 
 with the police. That graceless little wretch, Paddy Byrne, 
 who was left behind by the train at Malines, went to eat 
 his dinner at one of the small restaurants in the town, 
 called the " Cheval Pie," and not finding the food to his 
 satisfaction, got into some kind of an altercation with the 
 waiter, when the name of the hostel coming up in the 
 dispute, suggested to Paddy the horrid thought that it was 
 the " Horse Pie-house" he had chanced upon — an idea so 
 revolting to his culinary prejudices that he smashed and 
 broke everything before him, and was only subdued at last
 
 CONSTANT IN LOVE. 15 
 
 by a corporal's party of the gendarmerie, who handcuffed 
 and conveyed him to Brussels ; and here he is, now, crying 
 and calling himself a " poor boy that was dragged from 
 home," and, in fact, trying to persuade himself and all 
 around him that he has been sold into slavery by a cruel 
 master. Betty Cobb, too, has just joined the chorus, and 
 is eloquently interweaving a little episode of Irish wrongs 
 and sorrows into the tissue of Paddy's woes ! 
 
 Betty is worse than him. There is nothing good enough 
 for her to eat ; no bed to sleep upon ; she even finds the 
 Belgians deficient in cleanliness. This, after B ruff, is a 
 little too bad ; mamma, however, stands by her in every- 
 thing, and in the end she will become intolerable. James 
 intends to send a few lines to your brother Robert ; but if 
 he should fail — not improbable, as writing, with him, 
 combines the double difficulties of orthography and manu- 
 script — pray remember us kindly to him, and believe me 
 ever, my dearest Kitty, 
 
 Tour heart- devoted 
 
 Mary Anne Dodd. 
 
 P. B. must not think of writing ; but you may tell him 
 that I'm unchanged, unchangeable. The cold maxims of 
 worldly prudence, the sordid calculations of worldly in- 
 terests, affect me not. As Metastasio says : 
 
 "0, se ragione intende 
 Subito amor, non e." 
 
 I know it — I feel it. There is what Balzac calls une 
 perversite divine in true affection, that teaches one to brave 
 father, and mother, and brother, and this glorious senti- 
 ment is the cradle of true martyrdom. May my heart 
 cherish this noble grief, and never forget that if there is 
 no struggle, there is no victory ! 
 
 Do you remember Captain Morris, of the 25th, the little 
 dark officer that came down to Bruff, after the burning of 
 the Sheas ? I saw him yesterday, but, Kitty, how differ- 
 ently he looked here in his passe blue frock, from his air 
 in " our village ! " He wanted to bow, but I cut him 
 dead. " No," thought I, il times are changed, and we with
 
 16 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 them ! " Caroline, who was walking behind me with 
 James, however, not only saluted, but spoke to him. Ho 
 said, "I see your sister forgets me; but I know how 
 altered ill-health has made me. I am going to leave the 
 service." He asked where we were stopping — a most un- 
 necessary piece of attention ; for after the altercation he 
 had with pa on the Bench at Bruff, I think common 
 delicacy might keep him from seeking us out. 
 
 Try and persuade your papa to take you abroad, Kitty, if 
 only for a summer ramble ; believe me, there is no other 
 refining process like it. If you only saw James already — 
 you remember what a sloven he was — you'd not know 
 him ; his hair so nicely divided and perfumed ; his gloves 
 so accurately fitting ; his boots perfection in shape and 
 polish ; and all the dearest little trinkets in the world — 
 pistols and steam-carriages, death's - heads, ships and 
 serpents — hanging from his watch-chain ; and as for the 
 top of his cane, Kitty, it is paved with turquoise, and has 
 a great opal in the middle. Where, how, and when, he 
 got all this " elegance," I can't even guess, and I see it 
 must be a secret, for neither pa nor ma have ever yet seen 
 him en gala. I wish your brother Robert was with him. 
 It would be such an advantage to him. I am certain 
 Trinity College is all that you say of it ; but confess, Kitty, 
 Dublin is terribly behind the world in all that regards 
 civilization and " ton."
 
 IT 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. 
 
 Hotel de Bellevue, Brussels. 
 
 Dear Bob, — Here we are, living another kind of life from 
 our old existence at Dodsborough ! We have capital 
 quarters at the "Bellevue " — a fine hotel, excellent dinners, 
 and, what I think not inferior to either, a most obliging 
 Jew money-changer hard by, who advances " moderate 
 loans to respectable parties, on personal security " — a 
 process in which I have already made some proficiency, 
 and with considerable advantage to my outward man. 
 The tailors are first-rate, and rig you out with gloves, 
 boots, hat, even to your cane — they forget nothing. The 
 hairdressers are also incomparable. I thought, at first, 
 that capillary attraction was beyond me; but, to my 
 agreeable surprise, I discover that I boast a very imposing 
 chevelure, and a bright promise of moustache which, as 
 yet, is onlv faintly depicted by a dusky line on my upper 
 
 up. 
 
 It's all nonsense to undervalue dress : I'm no more the 
 same man in my dark-green paletot, trimmed with Astracan, 
 thatl was a month ago in my fustian shooting-jacket, than a 
 well-plumed eagle is like a half-moulted turkey. There is an 
 inseparable connection between your coat and your charac- 
 ter ; and few things so react on the morality of a man as the 
 cut of his trousers. Nothing more certainly tells me this 
 than the feeling with which I enter any public place now, 
 compared to what I experienced a few weeks back. It was 
 then half shame, half swagger — a conflict between modesty 
 and defiance. Now, it is the easy assurance of being " all 
 right " — the conviction that my hat, my frock, my cravat, 
 my vest, can stand the most critical examination ; and that 
 if any one be impertinent enough to indulge in the inquiry 
 through his eye-glass, I have the equal privilege to return 
 stare for stare, with, mayhap, an initiatory sneer into the 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 bargain. By the way, the habit of looking nnntterably 
 fierce seems to be the first lesson abroad. The passport- 
 people, as you land — the officers of the Customs — the land- 
 lord of your inn — the waiters — the railroad clerks, all 
 "get up" a general air of sovereign contempt for 
 everybody and everything, rather puzzling at first, but 
 quite reassuring when you are trained to reciprocity. For 
 the time, I rather flatter myself to have learned the dodge 
 well ; not but, I must confess to you, Bob, that my educa- 
 tion is prosecuted under difficulties. During the whole of 
 the morning, I'm either with the governor or my mother, 
 sight-seeing and house-hunting — now, seeking out a 
 Rubens, now, making an excursion into the market, and 
 making exploratory researches into the prices of fish, 
 fowl, and vegetables ; cheapening articles that we don't 
 intend to buy — a process my mother looks upon as a 
 moral exercise ; and climbing up " two-pair," to see 
 lodgings we have no intention to take ; all because, as 
 she says, " we ought to know everything : " and really 
 the spirit of inquiry that moves her will have its reward — 
 not always, perhaps, without some drawbacks, as witness 
 what happened to us on Tuesday. In our rambles along 
 the Boulevard de Waterloo, we saw a smart-looking house, 
 with an offiche over the door — " A louer," and, of course, 
 mother and Mary Anne at once stopped the carriage for 
 an exploration. In we went, asked lor the proprietor, and 
 saw a small, rosy-cheeked little man, with a big wig, and 
 a very inquiet, restless look in his eyes. M Could we see 
 the house? Was it furnished ?" " Yes," to both ques- 
 tions. " Were there stables ? " " Capital room for four 
 horses ; good water — two kinds, and both excellent." 
 Upstairs we toiled, through one salon into another — 
 now losing ourselves in dark passages, now, coming 
 abruptly to unlockable doors — everlastingly coming 
 back to the spot we had just left, and conceiving the 
 grandest notions of the number of rooms, from the man- 
 ner of our own perambulations. Of course you know the 
 invariable incidents of this tiresome process, where the 
 owner is always trying to open impracticable windows, 
 and the visitors will rush into inscrutable places, in 
 despite of all advice and admonition. Our voyage of
 
 A HOUSE-INSPECTING MANIA. 19 
 
 discovery was like all preceding ones ; and we looked 
 down well-staircases and up into skylights — snuffed for 
 possible smells, and suggested imaginary smoke, in every 
 room we saw. While we were thus busily criticizing the 
 domicile, its owner, it would seem, wa3 as actively engaged 
 in an examination of us, and apparently with a less satis- 
 factory result, for he broke in upon one of our consulta- 
 tions by a friendly " No, no, ladies ; it won't do — it won't 
 do at all. This house would never suit;" and while my 
 mother stared, and Mary Anne opened wide her eyes 
 in astonishment, he went on, " We're only losing time, 
 ladies ; both your time and mine will be wasted. This is 
 not the house for youV " I beg to observe, sir, that I think 
 it is," interposed my mother, who, with a very womanly 
 feeling, took a prodigious fancy to the place the moment 
 she discovered there was a difficulty about it. The owner, 
 however, was to the full as decided; and, in fact, hurried 
 us out of the rooms, downstairs, and into the street, with 
 a degree of haste savouring far more of impatience than 
 politeness. I rather was disposed to laugh at the little 
 man's energetic rejection of us ; but my mother's rage 
 rendered any " mirthful demonstration inopportune," as 
 the French would say ; and so I only exchanged glances 
 with Mary Anne, while our eloquent parent abused the 
 " little wretch" to her heart's content. Although the 
 circumstance was amply discussed by us that evening, we 
 had well-nigh forgotten it in the morning, when, to our 
 astonishment, our little friend of the Boulevard sent in 
 his name, " Mr. Cherry," with a request to see papa. 
 My mother was for seeing him herself ; but this amend- 
 ment was rejected, and the original motion carried. 
 
 After about five minutes' interview, we were alarmed by 
 a sudden noise and violent cries ; and on rushing from the 
 drawing-room, I just caught sight of Mr. Cherry making 
 a flying leap down the first half of the staircase, while my 
 father's up-lifted foot stood forth to evidence what had 
 proved the " vis a tergo." His performance of the next 
 flight was less artistic, for he rolled from top to bottom, 
 when, by an almost preternatural effort, he made his 
 escape into the street. The governor's passion made all 
 inquiries perilous for some minutes j in. fact, this attempt
 
 20 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 to make " Cherry-bounce," as Cary called it, seemed to 
 have got into his head, for he stormed like a madman. 
 At last the causa belli came out to be, that this unhappy 
 Mr. Cherry had come with an apology for his strange 
 conduct the day before — by what think you ? By his 
 having mistaken my mother and sister for what slang 
 people call "a case of perhaps" — a blunder which cer- 
 tainly was not to be remedied by the avowal of it. So at 
 least thought my father, for he cut short the apology and 
 the explanation at once, ejecting Mr. Cherry by a more 
 summary process than is recognized in the law-courts. 
 
 My mother had hardly dried up her tears in crying, and 
 I mine in laughing over this strange incident, when there 
 came an emissary of the gendarmerie to arrest the gover- 
 nor for a violent assault, with intent, &c. &c, and it is 
 only by the intervention of our Minister here that bail 
 has been accepted ; my father being bound to appear before 
 the " Court of Correctional Police " on Monday next. If 
 we remain much longer here, we are likely to learn some- 
 thing of the laws, at least in a way which people assure 
 you is always most indelible — practically. If we continue 
 as we have commenced, a little management on the part 
 of the lawyers, and a natural desire on the part of my 
 father to obtain justice, may prolong our legal affairs far 
 into the spring ; so that we may possibly not leave this 
 for some months to come, which, with the aid of my 
 friend, Lazarus Simrock, may be made pleasurable and 
 profitable. 
 
 It's all very well to talk about " learning French, 
 seeing galleries and studying works of art," my dear 
 Bob, but where's the time ? — that's the question. My 
 mother and the girls poach my entire morning. It's the 
 rarest thing in the world for me to get free of them 
 before five o'clock ; and then I have just time to dash 
 down to the club, and have a " shy " at the ecarte before 
 dinner. Smart play it is, sometimes seventy, ay, a hun- 
 dred Naps, on a game ; and such players, too ! — fellows 
 that sit for ten minutes with a card on their knee, study- 
 ing your face, watching every line and lineament of your 
 features, and reading you, by Jove — reading you like a 
 book. All the fake air of ease and indifference, all the
 
 THE HERO OP OSTROLENCA. 21 
 
 brag assurance you may get up to conceal a " bad hand," 
 isn't worth sixpence. They laugh at your puerile efforts, 
 and tell you, " you are voled " before you've played a 
 card. We hear so much about genius and talent, and all 
 that kind of thing, at home, and you, I have no doubt, are 
 full of the high abilities of some fellowship or medallist 
 man of Trinity; but give me the deep penetration, the 
 intense powers of calculation, the thorough insight into 
 human nature, of some of the fellows I see here ; and for 
 success in life, I'll back them against all your conic section 
 and x plus y geniuses, and all the double first classes that 
 ever breathed. There's a splendid fellow here, a Pole, 
 called Koratinsky; he commanded the cavalry at Ostro- 
 lenca, and, it is said, rode down the Russian Guard, and 
 sabred the Imperial Cuirassiers to a man. He's the first 
 ecarte and piquet player in Europe, and equal to Desha- 
 pelles at whist. Though he is very distant and cold in 
 his manner to strangers, he has been most kind and 
 good-natured to me ; has given me some capital advice, 
 too, and warned me against several of the fellows that 
 frequent the club. He tells me that he detests and abhors 
 play, but resorts to it as a distraction. " Que voulez- 
 vous ? " said he to me the other day ; '* when a man who 
 calls himself Ladislaus Koratinsky, who has the blood of 
 three monarchs in his veins, who has twice touched the 
 crown of his native land, sees himself an exile and a 
 ' proscrit,' it is only in the momentary excitement of the 
 gaming-table he can find a passing relief for crushing 
 and withering recollections." He could be in all the 
 highest circles here. The greatest among the nobles are 
 constantly begging and entreating him to come to their 
 houses, but he sternly refuses. " Let me know one 
 family," says he, " one domestic circle, where I can go 
 uninvited, when I will — where I can repose my confidence, 
 tell my sorrows, and speak of my poor country ; give me 
 one such, and I ask for no more ; but as for dukes and 
 grand seigneurs, princesses and duchesses, I've had but 
 too much of them." I assure you, Bob, it's like a page 
 out of some old story of chivalry to listen to him. The 
 splendid sentiments, the glorious conceptions, and the great 
 plans he has for the regeneration of Europe j and how he
 
 22 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 abhors the Emperor of Russia ! " It's a * duel a mort entre 
 Nicholas et moi,' " said he to me yesterday. " The terms 
 of the conflict were signed on the field of Ostrolenca ; for 
 the present the victory is his, but there is a time coming! " 
 I have been trying all manner of schemes to have him 
 invited to dine with us. Mother and Mary Anne are with 
 me, heart and hand ; but the governor's late mischances 
 have soured him against all foreigners, and I must bide 
 my time. I feel, however, when my father sees him, he'll 
 be delighted with him ; and then he could be invaluable 
 to us in the way of introductions, for he knows every 
 crowned head and prince on the Continent. 
 
 After dinner, pretending to take an evening lesson in 
 French, I'm off to the Opera. I belong to an omnibus- 
 box — all the fast fellows here — such splendid dressers, 
 Bob, and each coming in his brougham. I'm deucedly 
 ashamed that I've nothing but a cabriolet, which I hire 
 from my friend Lazarus at twelve pounds a month. They 
 quiz me tremendously about my " rococo" taste in equi- 
 page, but I turn off the joke by telling them that I'm 
 expecting my cattle and my " traps" from London next 
 week. Lazarus promises me that I shall have a splendid 
 " Malibran " from Hobson, and two greys over by the 
 Antwerp packet, if I give him a bill for the price, at three 
 months ; and that he'll keep them for me at his stables till 
 I'm quite ready to pay. Stickler, the other job-master 
 here, wanted the governor's name on the bills, and behaved 
 like a scoundrel, threatening to tell my father all about it. 
 It cost me a " ten-pounder " to stop him. 
 
 After the theatre we adjourn to Dubos's to supper, and 
 I can give you no idea, Bob, of what a thing that supper 
 is ! I remember when we used to fancy it was rather a 
 grand affair to finish our evening at Jude's or Hayes's, 
 with a vulgar set-out of mutton-chops, spatchcocks, and 
 devilled kidneys, washed down with that filthy potation 
 called punch. I shudder at the vile abomination of the 
 whole when I think of our delicate lobster en mayonnaise, 
 or crouton aux trufles, red partridges in Bhine wine, and 
 maraschino jelly, with Moet frappe to perfection. We 
 generally invite some of the " corps," who abound in 
 conversational ability, and are full of the pleasant gossip
 
 LIFE ON THE CONTINENT, 23 
 
 of the stage. There is Madlle. Leonine, too, in the 
 ballet, the loveliest creature ever was seen. They say 
 Count Maerlens, aide-de-camp of the King, is privately 
 married to her, but that she won't leave the boards till she 
 has saved a million — but whether of francs or pounds, I 
 don't remember. 
 
 When our supper is concluded it is generally about four 
 o'clock, and then we go to D'Arlaen's rooms, where we 
 play chicken-hazard till our various houses are accessible. 
 I'm not much up to this as yet ; my forte is ecarte, at 
 which I am the terror of these fellows ; and when the 
 races come on next month, I think my knowledge of 
 horseflesh will teach them a thing or two. I have already 
 a third share in a splendid horse called Number Nip, 
 bred out of Barnabas by a Middleton mare ; he's engaged 
 for the Lacken Cup and the Salle Sweepstakes, and I'm 
 backing him even against the field for everything I can 
 get. If you'd like to net a fifty without risk, say so 
 before the tenth, and I'll do it for you. 
 
 So that you see, Bob, without De Porquet's Grammar 
 and " Ollendorff's Method," my time is tolerably full. In 
 fact, if the day had forty-eight hours, I have something 
 to fill every one of them. 
 
 There would be nothing but pleasure in this life, but 
 for certain drawbacks, the worst of which is, that I am 
 not alone here. You have no idea, Bob, to what subter- 
 fuges I'm reduced, to keep my family out of sight of my 
 grand acquaintances. Sometimes I call the governor my 
 guardian ; sometimes an uncle, so rich that I am forced to 
 put up with all his whims and caprices. Egad ! it went so 
 far, t'other day, that I had to listen to a quizzing account 
 of my aunt's costume at a concert, and hear my mother 
 shown up as a precieuse ridicule of the first water. There's 
 no keeping them out of public places, too ; and how they 
 know of all the various processions, Te Deums, and the 
 like, I cannot even guess. My own metamorphosis is so 
 complete that I have cut them twice dead, in the Park ; 
 and no later than last night, I nearly ran over my father 
 in the Allee Verte with my tandem leader, and heard the 
 whole story this morning at breakfast, with the comfort- 
 ing assurance that " he'd know the puppy again, and will
 
 24 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 break every bone in his body if he catches him." In 
 consequence of which threat, I have given orders for a 
 new beard and moustache of the Royal Albert hue, instead 
 of black, which I have worn heretofore. I must own, 
 though, it is rather a bore to stand quietly by and see 
 fellows larking your sister ; but Mary Anne is perfectly 
 incorrigible, notwithstanding all I have said to her. 
 Cary's safety lies in hating the Continent and all foreign- 
 ers, and that is just as absurd. 
 
 The governor, it seems, is perpetually writing to 
 Vickers, our member, about something for me. Now, I 
 sincerely hope that he may not succeed ; for I own to 
 you, that I do not anticipate as much pleasure and amuse- 
 ment from either a "snug berth in the Customs" or a 
 colonial situation ; and after all, Bob, why should I be 
 reduced to accept of either ? Our estate is a good one, 
 and if a little encumbered or so, why, we're not worse off 
 than our neighbours. If I must do something, I'd rather 
 go into a Light Cavalry Regiment — such as the Eleventh, 
 or the Seventeenth, than anything else. I say this to you, 
 because your Uncle Purcell is bent on his own plans for 
 me, which would be nothing short of utter degradation ; 
 and if there's anything low-bred and vulgar on earth, it's 
 what they call a u Profession." You know the old adage 
 about leading a horse to the water ; now I frankly declare 
 to you that twenty shall not make me drink any of the 
 springs of this knowledge, whether Law, Medicine, or 
 Divinity lie at the bottom of the well. 
 
 It does not require any great tact or foresight to per- 
 ceive that not a man of my " set" would ever know me 
 again under such circumstances. I have heard their 
 opinions often enough on these matters not to be mis- 
 taken ; and whatever we may think in Ireland about our 
 doctors and barristers, they are what Yankees call " mighty 
 small potatoes" abroad. 
 
 Lord George Tiverton said to me last night, " Why 
 doesn't your governor put you into * the House ?' You'd 
 make a devilish good figure there." And the notion has 
 never left me since. Lord George himself is Member for 
 Hornby, but he never attends the sittings, and only goes 
 into Parliament as a means of getting leave from his regi'
 
 A GBAND FINISH. 25 
 
 ment. They say he's the " fastest " fellow in the service ; 
 he has already run through seventeen thousand a year, 
 and one hundred and twenty thousand of his wife's for- 
 tune. They are separated now, and he has something like 
 twelve hundred a year to live on ; just enough for cigars 
 and brandy-and- water, he calls it. He's the best tempered 
 fellow I ever saw, and laughs and jokes about his own 
 misfortunes as freely as possible. He knows the world — 
 and he's not yet five-and-twenty — perhaps better than 
 any man I ever saw. There is not a bill-discounter, not 
 a betting-man, nor a ballet-dancer, he is not acquainted 
 with ; and such amusing stories as he tells of his London 
 life and experiences. When he found that he had run 
 through everything — when all his horses were seized at 
 Ascot, and his house taken in execution in London, he 
 gave a splendid fete at Hornby, and invited upwards of 
 sixty people down there, and half the county to meet 
 them. " I resolved," said he, " on a grand finish ; and I 
 assure you that the company did not enjoy themselves the 
 less heartily because every second fellow in my livery was 
 a sheriff's officer, and that all the forks and spoons on the 
 table were under seizure. There was a ' caption/ as they 
 term it, on everything, down to the footmen's bag-wigs 
 and knee-buckles. We went to supper at two o'clock; 
 and I took in the Duchess of Allington, who assuredly 
 never suspected that there was such a close alliance between 
 my drawing-room and the Queen's Bench. The supper 
 was exquisite ; poor Marriton had exhausted himself in the 
 devices of his art, and most ingeniously intimated his 
 appreciation of my situation by a plate of ortolans en 
 salmi, sautes a la Fonblanque — a delicate allusion to the 
 Bankrupt Commissioner. I nearly finished the dish myself, 
 drank off half a bottle of champagne, took out Lady 
 Emily de Maulin for the cotillon, and then slipping away, 
 threw myself into a post-chaise, arrived at Dover for the 
 morning mail-packet, and landed at Boulogne free as 
 William Tell, or that eagle which he is so enthusiastic in 
 describing as a most remarkable instance of constitu- 
 tional liberty." These are his own words, Bob ; but 
 without you saw his manner, and heard his voice, 
 you could form no notion whatever of the careless,
 
 26 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 happy self-satisfaction of one who calls himself irretriev- 
 ably ruined. 
 
 From all that I have been jotting down, you may fancy 
 the set I am moving in, and the class with whom I asso- 
 ciate. Then there is a German Graf von Blumenkohl, and 
 a Russian Prince Kubitzkoy, two tremendous swells ; a 
 young French Marquis de Tregues, whose mother was 
 grand- daughter, I believe, of Madame du Barri, and a 
 large margin of inferior dons, Spanish, Italian, and Bel- 
 gian. That your friend Jemmy Dodd should be a star, 
 even a little one, in such a galaxy, is no small boast ; and 
 such, my dear Bob, I am bound to feel it. Each of these 
 fellows has a princely fortune, as well as a princely name, 
 and it is not without many a clever dodge and cunning 
 artifice that, weighted as I am, I can keep pace with them. 
 I hope you'll succeed, with all my heart, for the scholar- 
 ship or fellowship. Which is it ? Don't blame me for 
 the blunder, for I have never, all my life through, been 
 able to distinguish between certain things which I suppose 
 other persons find no resemblance in. Thus I never knew 
 exactly whether the word " people " was spelled " eo," or 
 " oe." I never knew the Derby from the Oaks, nor shall 
 I ever, I'm certain, be able to separate in my mind Moore 
 O'Ferral from Carew O'Dwyer, though I am confidently 
 informed there is not a particle of similarity in the indi- 
 viduals, any more than in the names. 
 
 Write to me when your match is over — I mean your 
 examination — and say where you're placed. I'll take you 
 against the field, at the current odds, in " fives." 
 
 And believe me, ever your attached friend, 
 
 J. Dodd.
 
 27 
 
 LETTER Y. 
 
 KENNY DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ. 
 
 H6tel de Belle vue, Brussels. 
 
 Dear Tom, — Yours did not reach me till yesterday, owing 
 to some confusion at the Post-office. There is another 
 Dodcl here, who has been receiving my letters, and I his, 
 for the last week ; and I conclude that each of us has 
 learned more than was quite necessary of the other's 
 affairs ; for while lie was reading of all the moneyed dis- 
 tresses and embarrassments of your humble servant, / 
 opened a letter dated Doctors' Commons, beginning, 
 *' Dear sir, we have at last obtained the most satisfactory 
 proofs against Mrs. Dodd, and have no hesitation in now 
 submitting the case to a jury." We met yesterday, and 
 exchanged credentials, with an expression of face that I'm 
 sure " Phiz " would have given a five-pound note to look at. 
 Peachem and Lockit were nothing to it. We agreed that 
 either of us ought to leave this, to prevent similar mistakes 
 in future, although, in my heart, I believe that we now 
 know so much of each other's affairs, that we might depute 
 one of us to conduct both correspondences. In conse- 
 quence, we tossed up who was to go. He won ; so that 
 we take our departure on Wednesday next, if I can settle 
 matters in the meanwhile. I'm told Bonn, on tho Rhine, 
 is a cheap place, and good for education — a great matter 
 as regards James — so that you may direct your next to 
 me there. To tell you the truth, Tom, I'm scarcely sorry 
 to get away, although the process will be anything but a 
 cheap one. First of all, we have taken the rooms for three 
 months, and hired a job-coach for the same time. Moving 
 is also an expensive business, and not over-agreeable at 
 this season ; but against these there is the set-off that 
 Mrs. D. and the girls are going to the devil in expense for 
 dress. From breakfast-time till three or four o'clock every
 
 28 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 day, the house is like a fair with iniliners, male and female, 
 hairdressers, perfumers, shoemakers, and trinket-men. I 
 thought we'd done with all this when we left London ; but 
 it seems that everything we bought there is perfectly use- 
 less, and Mrs. D. comes sailing in every now and then, to 
 make me laugh, as she says, at a bit of English taste by 
 showing me where her waist is too short, or her sleeves 
 too long ; and Mary Anne comes down to breakfast in a 
 great stiff watered silk, which for economy she has con- 
 verted into a house-dress. Caroline, I must say, has not 
 followed the lead, and is quite satisfied to be dressed as 
 she used to be. James I see little of, for he's working 
 hard at the languages, and, from what the girls say, with 
 great success. Of course, this is all for the best ; but it's 
 little use French or even Chinese would be to him in the 
 Customs or the Board of Trade, and it's there I'm trying to 
 get him. Yickers told me last week that his name is down 
 on no less than four lists, and it will be bad luck but we'll 
 hit upon something. Between ourselves, I'm not over- 
 pleased with Yickers. Whenever I write to him about 
 James, his reply is always what he's doing about the poor 
 laws, or the Jews, or the grant to Maynooth ; so that I 
 had to tell him, at last, that I'd rather hear that my son 
 was in the Revenue, than that every patriarch in Palestine 
 was in Parliament, or every papist in Ireland eating veni- 
 son and guinea-hens. Patriotism is a fine thing, if you 
 have a fine fortune, and some men we could mention 
 haven't made badly out of it, without a sixpence; but for 
 one like myself, the wrong side of fifty, with an encum- 
 bered estate, and no talents for agitation, it's as expensive 
 as horse-racing, or yachting, or any other diversion of the 
 kind. So there's no chance of a tenant for Dodsborough ! 
 You ought to put it in the English papers, with a puff 
 about the shooting and the trout-fishing, and the excellent 
 neighbourhood, and all that kind of thing. There's not 
 a doubt but it's too good for any Manchaster blackguard 
 of them all ! What you say about Tully Brack is quite 
 true. The encumbrances are over eleven thousand ; and 
 if we bought in the estate at three or four, there would 
 be so much gain to us. The Times little knew the good it 
 was doing us when it was blackguarding the Irish land-
 
 CONTINENTAL MANNERS, 29 
 
 lords, and depreciating Irish property. There's many a 
 one has been able to bay in his own land for one-fifth of 
 the mortgages on it ; and if this isn't repudiation, it's not 
 so far off Pennsylvania, after all. 
 
 I don't quite approve of your plan for Ballyslevin. 
 Whenever a property's in Chancery, the best thing is, to 
 let it go to ruin entirely. The worse the land is, the more 
 miserable the tenants, the cheaper will be the terms you'll 
 get it on ; and if the boys shoot a receiver once or twice, 
 no great harm. As for the Government, I don't think 
 they'll do anything for Ireland, except set us by the ears 
 about education and church matters ; and we're getting 
 almost tired of quarrelling, Tom ; for so it is, the very 
 best of dispositions may be imposed on too far ! 
 
 Now, as to " education," how many amongst those 
 who insist on a particular course for the poor, ever 
 thought of stipulating for the same for their own 
 children ? or do they think that the Bible is only neces- 
 sary for such as have not an independent fortune ? And 
 as to Maynooth, is there any man such a fool as to believe 
 that £30,000 a year would make the priests loyal ? 
 You gave the money well knowing what for — to teach 
 Catholic theology, not to instil the oath of allegiance. 
 To expect more, would be like asking a market-gardener 
 to raise strawberries with fresh cream round them ! The 
 truth is, they don't wish to advance our interests in 
 England. They're afraid of us, Tom. If we ever were to 
 take a national turn, like the Scotch, for instance, we 
 might prove very dangerous rivals to them in many ways. 
 I'm sick of politics ; not, indeed, that I know too much of 
 what's doing, for the last Times I saw was cut up into a 
 new pattern for a polka, and they only kept me the 
 supplement, which, as you know, is more varied than 
 amusing. In reply to your question as to how I like 
 this kind of life, I own to you that it doesn't quite 
 suit me. Maybe I'm too old in years, maybe too old in 
 my notions, but it doesn't do, Tom. There is an ever- 
 lasting bowing and scraping, and introducing — a per- 
 petual prelude to acquaintanceship, that never seems to 
 begin. It appears to me like an orchestra that never got 
 further than the tuning of the instruments ! I'm sure
 
 30 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 that, at the least, I've exchanged bows, and grins, and 
 leers, with fifty gentlemen here, whom I shouldn't know 
 to-morrow, nor do they care whether I did or no. Their 
 intercourse is like their cookery, and you are always 
 asking, " Is there nothing substantial coming ? " Then 
 they're frivolous, Tom. I don't mean that they are fond 
 of pleasure, and given up to amusement, but that their 
 very pleasures and amusements are contemptible in 
 themselves. No such thing as field-sports ; at least, 
 nothing deserving the name; no manly pastimes, no 
 bodily exercises ; and lastly, they all, even the oldest of 
 them, think that they ought to make love to your wife 
 and daughters, just as you hand a lady a chair or a cup 
 of tea in our country — a mere matter of course. I need 
 not tell you that my observations on men and manners 
 are necessarily limited by my ignorance of the language ; 
 but I have acquired the deaf man's privilege, and if I 
 hear the less, I see the more. 
 
 I begin to think, my dear Tom, that we all make a 
 great mistake in this taste we've got into for foreign 
 travel, foreign languages, and foreign accomplishments. 
 We rear up our families with notions and habits quite 
 inapplicable to home purposes ; and we are like the 
 Parisian shopkeepers, that have nothing on sale but 
 articles of luxury ; and after all, we haven't a genius for 
 this trifling, and we make very ungraceful idlers in the 
 end. To train a man for the Continent, you must begin 
 early ; teach him French when a child ; let him learn 
 dominoes at four, and to smoke cigars at six, wear 
 lacquered boots at eight, and put his hair in paper at 
 nine ; eat sugar-plums for dinner, and barley-water for 
 tea ; make him a steady shot with the pistol, and a cool 
 hand with the rapier ; and there he is finished and fit for 
 the Boulevard — a nice man for the salons. 
 
 It is cheap, there is no doubt ; but it costs a great deal 
 of money to come at the economy. You'll perhaps say 
 that's my own fault. Maybe it is. We'll talk of it more 
 another time. 
 
 I ought to confess that Mrs. D. is delighted with every- 
 thing ; she vows that she is only beginning to live : and 
 to hear her talk, you'd think that Dodsborough was one
 
 CONTINENTAL MANNERS. 81 
 
 of the new model penitentiaries. Mary Anne's her own 
 daughter, and she raves about princes, and dukes, and 
 counts, all day long. What they'll say when I tell them 
 that we're to be off on Wednesday next, I can't imagine. 
 I intend to dine out that evening, for I know there will 
 be no standing the row ! 
 
 The ambassador has been mighty polite and attentive : 
 we dined there last week. A grand dinner, and fine 
 company : but, talking French, and nothing but French, 
 all the time — Mrs. D. and your humble servant were 
 rather at a nonplus. Then we had his box at the opera, 
 where, I must say, Tom, anything to equal the dancing I 
 never saw, — indecency is no name for it. Not but Mrs. 
 D. and Mary Anne are of a contrary opinion, and taunt- 
 ingly ask me if I prefer a " Tatter Jack Walsh," at the 
 cross-roads, to Taglioni. As for the singing, it's screech- 
 ing — that's the word for it, screeching. The composer is 
 one Verdi — a fellow they tell me, that cracks every voice 
 in Europe ; and I can believe it. The young woman that 
 played the first part grew purple in the face, and strained 
 till her neck looked like a half- unravelled cable ; her 
 mouth was dragged sideways ; and it was only when I 
 thought she was off in strong convulsions that the 
 audience began to applaud. There's no saying what their 
 enthusiasm might not have been had she burst a blood- 
 vessel. 
 
 I intended to have despatched this by to-day's post, but 
 it is Saint Somebody's day, and the office closes at two 
 o'clock, so that I'll have to keep it over, perhaps till 
 Saturday, for to-morrow, I find, we're to go to Waterloo, 
 to see the field of battle. There's a prince, whose name 
 I forget, and, indeed I couldn't spell, if I remembered it, 
 going to be our " Cicerone." I'm not sure if he says he 
 was there at the battle ; but Mrs. D. believes him as she 
 would the Duke of Wellington. Then there's a German 
 count, whose father did something wonderful, and two 
 Belgian barons, whose ancestors, I've no doubt, sustained 
 the national reputation for speed. The season is hardly 
 suitable for such an excursion ; but even a day in the 
 country — a few hours in the fields and the free air — will 
 be a great enjoyment. James is going to bring a Polish
 
 82 THE DODD FAMlLt ABEOAD. 
 
 friend of his — a great Don, he calls him — but I'm 80 
 overlaid with nobility, the Khan of Tartary would not 
 surprise me now. I'll keep this open to add a few lines, 
 and only say good bye for the present. 
 
 Saturday. 
 Waterloo's a humbug, Tom. I don't mean to say that 
 Bony found it so some thirty odd years back, but such it 
 now appears. I assure you they've cut away half the 
 field to commemorate the battle — a process mighty like 
 slicing off a man's nose to establish his identity. The 
 result is, that you might as well stand upon Hounslow 
 Heath, or Salisbury Plain, and listen to a narrative of 
 the action, as visit Waterloo for the sake of the localities. 
 La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont stand certainly in the 
 old places, but the deep gorge beside the one, and the 
 ridge from whence the cannonade shattered the other, 
 are totally obliterated. The guides tell you, indeed, 
 where Vivian's brigade stood — where Picton charged and 
 fell — where Ney's column halted, faltered, and broke ; 
 they speak of the ridge behind which the guard lay in 
 long expectancy ; they describe to you the undulating 
 swell over which our line advanced, cheering madly : but 
 it's like listening to a description of Killarney in a fog, 
 and being informed that Turk mountain is yonder, and 
 that the waterfall is down a glen to your right. One 
 thing is clear, Tom, however — we beat the French ; and 
 when I say " We," I mean what I say. England knows, 
 and all Europe knows, who won the battle, and more's 
 the disgrace for the way we're treated. But, after all, 
 its our own fault in a great measure, Tom ; we take 
 everything that comes from Parliament as a boon and a 
 favour, little guessing often how it will turn out. Our 
 conduct in this respect reminds me of poor Jack 
 Whalley's wife. You remember Jack, that was postboy 
 at the Clanbrazil Arms. Well, his wife one day chanced 
 to find an elegant piece of white leather on the road, and 
 she brought it home with her in great delight, to mend 
 Jack's small clothes, which she did very neatly. Jack 
 set off the next day, little suspecting what was in store 
 for him : but when he trotted about five miles — it was in
 
 WATERLOO. 33 
 
 the month of July — he began to feel mighty uneasy in 
 the saddle — a feeling that continued to increase at every 
 moment, till at last, as he said, " It was like taking a 
 canter on a beehive in swarming time;" and well it 
 might, for the piece of leather was no other than a 
 blister, that the apothecary's boy had dropped that 
 morning on the road ; and so it is, Tom. There's many 
 a thing we take to be a fine patch for our nakedness, 
 that's only a blister after all. Witness the Poor Law 
 and the " Cumbrous Estates Court - ," as Rooney calls it. 
 But I'm wandering away from Waterloo all this time. 
 You know the grand controversy is about what time the 
 Prussians came up ; because that mainly decides who 
 won the battle. I believe it's nearly impossible to get at 
 the truth of the matter ; for though it seems clear enough 
 they were in the wood early in the day, it appears equally 
 plain they stayed there — and small blame to them — till 
 they saw the Inniskillings cutting down the Cuirassiers 
 and sabring all before them. They waited, as you and I 
 often waited in a row, till the enemy began to run, and 
 then, they were down on them. Even that same was no 
 small help ; for by the best accounts, the French require 
 a deal of beating, and we were dreadfully tired giving it 
 to them ! Sergeant Cotton, the guide, tells me it was a 
 grand sight just about seven o'clock, when the whole 
 line began cheering ; first, Adam's brigade, then Cooke's 
 battalion, all taking it up and cheering madly ; the 
 general officers waving their hats, and shouting like the 
 rest. I was never able to satisfy myself whether we gained 
 or lost most by that same victory of Waterloo ; for you 
 see, Tom, after all our fighting in Spain and Portugal — 
 after all Nelson's great battles — all our triumphs and 
 votes of thanks — Europe is going back to the old system 
 again : kings bullying their people, setting spies on them, 
 opening their letters, transporting the writers, and 
 hanging the readers. If they'd have let Bony alone 
 when he came back from Elba, the chances were that 
 he'd not have disturbed the peace of the world. He had 
 already got his bellyful of fighting ; he was getting old, 
 falling into flesh, and rather disposed to tbink more of 
 his personal ease than he used to do. Are you aware 
 VOL. i. D
 
 34 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 that the first thing he said on entering the Tuileries from 
 Elba was " Avant tout un hon diner." One of the marshals, 
 ■who heard the speech, whispered to a friend, " He is greatly 
 changed ; you'll see no more campaigns." I know you'll 
 reply to me with your old argument about legitimacy and 
 divine right, and all that kind of thing. But, my dear 
 Tom, for the matter of that, haven't I a divine right to 
 my ancestral estate of Tullylicknaslatterley ; and look 
 what they're going to do with it, to-morrow or next day ! 
 'Tis much Commissioner Longfield would mind, if I 
 begged to defer the sale, on the ground of " my divine 
 right." Kings are exactly like landlords; they can't do 
 what they like with their own, hard as it may seem to 
 say so. They have their obligations and their duties ; 
 and if they fail in them, they come into the Encumbered 
 Estates Court, just like us — ay, and, just like us, they, 
 "take very little by their motion." 
 
 I know it's very hard to be turned out of your " hold- 
 ing." I can imagine the feelings with which a man would 
 quit such a comfortable quarter as the Tuileries, and such 
 a nice place for summer as Versailles ; Dodsborough is 
 too fresh in my mind to leave any doubt on this point ; 
 but there's another side of the question, Tom. What were 
 they there for ? You'll call out, " This is all Socialism 
 and Democracy," and the devil knows what else. Maybe 
 I'll agree with you. Maybe I'll say, I .don't like the 
 doctrine myself. Maybe I'll tell you that I think the old 
 time was pleasantest, when, if we pressed a little hard 
 to-day, why, we were all the kinder to-morrow, and both 
 ruler and ruled looked more leniently on each other's 
 faults. But say what we will — do what we will — these 
 days are gone by, and they'll not come back again. 
 There's a set of fellows at work, all over the world, 
 telling the people about their rights. Some of these are 
 very acute and clever chaps, that don't overstate the 
 case; they neither go off into any flights about universal 
 equality, or any balderdash about our being of the same 
 stock ; but they stick to two or three hard propositions, 
 and they say, " Don't pay more for anything than you 
 can get it for — that's free-trade ; don't pay for anything 
 you don't want — that's a blow at the Church Establish-
 
 A STORMY DISCUSSION. 35 
 
 ment ; don't pay for soldiers, if you don't want to fight — 
 that's at ' a standing army ; ' and above all, when you 
 haven't a pair of breeches to your back, don't be buying 
 embroidered small-clothes for lord s-in- waiting or gentle- 
 men of the bedchamber." But here I am again, running 
 away from Waterloo just as if I was a Belgian. 
 
 When we got to Hougoumont, a dreadful storm of rain 
 came on — such rain as I thought never fell out of Ireland. 
 It came swooping along the ground, and wetting you 
 through and through in live minutes. The thunder, too, 
 rolled awfully, crashing and cannonading around these 
 old walls, as if to wake up the dead by a memory of the 
 great artillery. Mrs. D. took to her prayers in the little 
 chapel, with Mary Anne and the Pole, James's friend. 
 Caroline stood with me at a little window, watching the 
 lightning ; and James, by way of airing his French, got 
 into a conversation, or rather a discussion, about the 
 battle with a small foreigner with a large beard, that had 
 just come in, drenched to the skin. The louder it thun- 
 dered, the louder they spoke, or rather screamed at each 
 other ; and though I don't fancy James was very fluent 
 in the French, it's clear the other was getting the worst 
 of the argument, for he grew terribly angry, and jumped 
 about and flourished a stick, and, in fact, seemed very 
 anxious to try conclusions once more on the old field of 
 conflict. 
 
 James carried the day, at last; for the other was 
 obliged, as Uncle Toby says, " to evacuate Flanders ; " 
 meaning, thereby, to issue forth into the thickest of the 
 storm, rather than sustain the combat any longer. When 
 the storm passed over, we made our way back to the little 
 inn at the village of Waterloo, kept in the house where 
 Lord Anglesey suffered amputation, and there we dined. 
 It was neither a very good dinner nor a very social party. 
 Mrs. D's black velvet bonnet and blue ribbons had got a 
 tremendous drenching; Mary Anne contrived to tear a 
 new satin dress all down the back, with a nail in the old 
 chapel ; James was unusually grave and silent ; and as for 
 the Pole, all his efforts at conversation were so marred 
 by his bad English, that he was a downright bore. It is 
 a mistake to bring one of these foreigners out with a 
 
 D 2
 
 Sfi THE DOPD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 small family party ! they neither understand you nor you 
 them. Cary was the only one that enjoyed herself; but 
 she went about the inn picking up little curiosities of the 
 battle — old buttons, bullets, and the like ; and it was a 
 comfort to see that one, at least, amongst us derived 
 pleasure from the excursion. 
 
 I have often heard descriptions of that night march 
 from Brussels to the field ; and truly, what with the 
 gloomy pine-wood, the deep and miry roads, and the 
 falling rain, it must have been a very piteous affair ; but 
 for downright ill-humour and discontent, I'd back our 
 own journey over the same ground against all. The 
 horses, probably worn out with toiling over the field all 
 day, were dead beat, and came gradually down from a 
 trot to a jog, and theu to a shamble, and at last to a stop. 
 James got down from the box, and helped to belabour 
 them ; it was raining torrents all .this time. I got out, 
 too, to help ; for one of the beasts, although too tired to 
 go, contrived to kick his leg over the pole, and couldn't 
 get it back again ; but the count contented himself with 
 uttering most unintelligible counsels from the window, 
 which, when he saw totally unheeded, he threw himself 
 back in the coach, lighted his meerschaum, and began to 
 smoke. 
 
 Imagine the scene at that moment, Tom. The driver 
 was undressing himself coolly on the roadside, to examine 
 a kick he had just received from one of the horses ; 
 James was holding the beasts by the head, lashing, as 
 they were, all the time ; I was running frantically to and 
 fro, to seek for a stone to drive in the linch-pin, which 
 was all but out ; while Mrs. D. and the girls, half suffo- 
 cated between smoke and passion, were screaming and 
 coughing in chorus. By dint of violent bounding and 
 jerking, the wheel was wrenched clean off the axle at 
 last, and down went the whole conveniency on one side, 
 our Polish friend assisting himself out of the window by 
 stepping over Mrs. D.'s head, as she lay fainting within. 
 I had, however, enough to do without thinking of him, 
 for the door being jammed tight, would not open, and I 
 was obliged to pull Mrs. D. and the girls out by the 
 window. The beasts, by the same time, had kicked
 
 A PLEASANT DILEMMA. 37 
 
 themselves free of everything but the pole, with which 
 appendage they scampered gaily away towards Brussels, 
 James shouting with laughter as if it was the best joke 
 he had ever known. When we began to look about us 
 and think what was best to be done, we discovered that 
 the count had taken a French leave of us — or rather a 
 Polish one — for he had carried off James's cloak and 
 umbrella along with him. 
 
 We were now all wet through, our shoes soaked, not a 
 dry stitch on us, all except the coachee, who, having 
 taken off a considerable portion of his wearables, depo- 
 sited them in the coach, while he ran up and down the, 
 road, wringing his hands, and crying over his misfortune 
 in a condition that I am bound to say was far more 
 pictorial than decent. It was in vain that Mrs. D. opened 
 her parasol as the last refuge of offended modesty. The 
 wind soon converted it into something like a convolvulus, 
 so that she was fain once more to seek shelter inside the 
 conveyance, which now lay pensively over on one side, 
 against a muddy bank. 
 
 Such little accidents as these are not uncommon in our 
 own country, but when they do occur, you are usually 
 within reach of either succour or shelter. There is at 
 least a house or a cabin within hail of you. Nothing of 
 the kind was there here. This " Bois de Cambre," as 
 they call it, is a dense wood of beech or pine-trees, inter- 
 sected here and there by certain straight roads, without 
 a single inhabitant along the line. A solitary diligence 
 may pass once in the twenty-four hours, to or from 
 Wavre. A Waterloo tourist party is occasionally seen in 
 spring or summer, but except these, scarcely a traveller 
 is ever to be met with along this dreary tract. These 
 reassuring facts were communicated to us by the coachee, 
 while he made his toilet beside the window. 
 
 By great persuasions, much eloquence, French and 
 English, and a Napoleon in gold, our driver at length 
 consented to start on foot for Brussels, whence he was to 
 send us a conveyance to return to the capital. This bar- 
 gain effected, we settled ourselves down to sleep, or to 
 grumble, as fancy or inclination prompted. 
 
 I will not weary you with any further narrative of our
 
 38 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 sufferings, nor tell of that miserable attempt I made to 
 doze, disturbed by Mrs. D.'s unceasing lamentations over 
 her ruined bonnet, her shocked feelings, and her shot-silk. 
 A little before daybreak, an empty furniture- van came 
 accidentally by, with the driver of which we contracted 
 for our return to Brussels, where we arrived at nine 
 o'clock this morning, almost as sad a party as ever fled 
 from "Waterloo ! 
 
 I thought I'd jot down these few details before I lay 
 down for a sleep and it is likely that I may still add a 
 line or two before post-hour. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 My Deae Tom, — "We've had our share of trouble since 
 I wrote the last postscript. Poor James has been " out," 
 and was wounded in the leg, above the knee. The 
 Frenchman with whom he had a dispute at Hougoumont 
 sent him a message on Saturday last ; but as these affairs 
 abroad are always greatly discussed and argued before 
 they come off, the meeting didn't take place till this 
 morning, when they met near Lacken. James's friend 
 was Lord George Tiverton, Member for Hornby, and son 
 to some Marquis — that you'll find out in the "Peerage," 
 for my head is too confused to remember. 
 
 He stood to James like a trump — drove him to the 
 ground in his own phaeton, lent him his own pistols — the 
 neatest tools ever I looked at — I wonder he could miss 
 with them — and then brought him back here, and is still 
 with him, sitting at the bedside like a brother. Of course 
 it's very distressing to us all, and poor James is in terrible 
 pain, for the leg is swelled up as thick as three, and all 
 blue, and the doctors don't well know whether they can 
 save it ; but it's a grand thing, Tom, to know that the 
 boy behaved beautifully. Lord G. says : " I've been out 
 something like six-and-twenty times, principal or second, 
 but I never saw anything cooler, quieter, or in better 
 taste than young Dodd's conduct." These are his own 
 words, and let me tell you, Tom, that's high praise from 
 such a quarter, for the English are great sticklers for a 
 grave, decorous, cold-blooded kind of fighting, that we 
 don't think so much about in Ireland. The Frenchman 
 is one Count Roger — not pronounced Roger, but Rogee
 
 JAMES GOES "OUT." 39 
 
 — and, they say, the surest shot in France. He left his 
 card to inquire after James, about half an hour ago — a 
 very pretty piece of attention, at all events. Mrs. D. and 
 the girls are not permitted to see James yet, nor would it 
 be quite safe, for the poor fellow is wandering in his 
 mind. When I came into the room, he told Lord George 
 that I was his uncle! and begged me not to alarm his 
 aunt on any account ! 
 
 I can't as yet say how far this unlucky event will inter- 
 fere with our plans about moving. Of course, for the 
 present, this is out of the question, for the surgeon says, 
 that, taking the most favourable view of his case, it will 
 be weeks before J. can leave his bed. To tell you my 
 mind frankly, I don't think they know much about gun- 
 shot wounds, abroad ; for I remember when I hit Giles 
 Eyre, the bullet went through his chest and came out 
 under the bladebone, and Doctor Purden just stopped up 
 the hole with a pitch-plaister, and gave him a tumbler of 
 weak punch, and he was about again, as fresh as ever, in 
 a week's time. To be sure, he used to have a hacking 
 kind of a short cough, and complained of a pain now and 
 then, but everybody has his infirmities ! 
 
 I mentioned what Purden did, to Baron Seutin, the 
 surgeon here ; but he called him a barbarian, and said he 
 deserved the galleys for it ! I thought to myself, " It's 
 lucky old Sam doesn't hear you, for he's just the boy 
 would give you an early morning for it ! " 
 
 I was called away by a message from the Commissary 
 of the Police, who has sent one of his sergeants to make 
 an inquiry about the duel. 
 
 If it was to Roger he went, it would be reasonable 
 enough; but why come and torment us that have our own 
 troubles ? I was obliged to sit quiet, and answer all his 
 questions, giving my Christian name, and my wife's — our 
 ages — what religion we were — if we were really married 
 — egad, it's lucky it wasn't Mrs. D. was under examina- 
 tion — what children we had — their ages and sex — I 
 thought at one time he was going to ask how many more 
 we meant to have. Then he took an excursion into our 
 grandfathers and grandmothers, and at last came back 
 to the present generation and the shindy.
 
 40 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 If it wasn't for Lord George, we'd never have got 
 through the business, but he translated for me, and 
 helped me greatly ; for what with the confusion I was in, 
 and the language, and the absurdity of the whole thing, 
 I lost my temper very often : and now I discover that 
 we're to have a kind of prosecution against us, though of 
 what kind, or at whose suit, or why, I can't find out. 
 This will be, therefore, number three in my list of law- 
 suits here — not bad, considering that I'm scarce as many 
 weeks in the country ! I haven't mentioned this to you 
 before, for I don't like dwelling on it ; but it's truth, 
 nevertheless. I must close this at last, for we have Lord 
 G. to dinner; and I must go and put Paddy Byrne 
 through his facings, or there'll be all kinds of blundering. 
 I wish I'd never brought him with us, nor the jaunting- 
 car. The young chaps — the dandies here — have a knack 
 of driving, as if, down on us, just to see Mary Anne 
 trying to save her legs ; but I'll come across them one 
 day with the whip, in a style they won't like. Betty 
 Cobb, too, was no bargain, and I wish she was back at 
 Dodsborough. We're always reading in the newspapers 
 how well the Irish get on out of Ireland — how industrious 
 they become — how thrifty, and so on ; don't believe a 
 word of it, Tom. There's Betty, the same lazy, good-for- 
 nothing, story-telling, complaining, discontented devil, 
 ever she was, and as for Paddy Byrne, his fists have 
 never been out of somebody's features, except when there 
 were handcuffs on them — semper eadem ! Tom, as we 
 used to say at Doctor Bell's. Whatever we may be at 
 home — and the Times won't say much for us there — it's 
 there we're best after all. The doctors are here again to 
 see James ; so that I must conclude with love to all 
 yours, and 
 
 Remain ever faithfully your friend, 
 
 Kenny I. Dodd,
 
 41 
 
 LETTER YL 
 
 MISS MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OP BALLrDOOLAN. 
 
 Dearest Kitty, — What a dreadful fortnight have we 
 passed through ; we thought that poor dear James must 
 have lost his leg ; the inflammation ran so high, and the 
 pain and the fever were so great, that one night the 
 Baron Seutin actually brought the horrid instruments 
 with him, and I believe it was Lord George alone 
 persuaded him to defer the operation. What a dear, 
 kind, affectionate creature he is ! He has scarcely ever 
 left the house since it happened ; and although he sits 
 up all night with James, he seems never tired nor sleepy, 
 but is so full of life all day long, playing on the piano, 
 and teaching us the mazurka ! I should rather say 
 teaching me, for Cary, bless the mark, has taken a prudish 
 turn, and says she has no fancy for being pulled about, 
 even by a lord ! I may as well mention here, that there 
 is nothing less like romping than the mazurka, when 
 danced properly ; and so Lord George as much as told 
 her. He scarcely touches your waist, Kitty ; he only 
 " gives you support," as he says himself, and he never by 
 any chance squeezes your hand, except when there's 
 something droll he wants you to remark. 
 
 I must say, Kitty, that in Ireland we conceive the most 
 absurd notions about the aristocracy. Now, here, we 
 have one of the first, the very first young nobleman of 
 the day actually domesticated with us. For the entire 
 fortnight he has never been away, and yet we are as 
 much at home with him, as easy in his presence, and as 
 unconstrained, as if it were your brother Robert, or any- 
 body else of no position. You can form no idea how 
 entertaining he is, for, as he says himself, " I've done 
 everything," and I'm certain so he has ; such a range of 
 knowledge on every subject — such a mass of acquain- 
 tances! And then he has been all over the world in his
 
 42 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 own yacht. It's like listening to the " Arabian Nights,*' 
 to hear him talk about the Bosphorus and the Golden 
 Horn ; and I'm sure I never knew how to relish Byron's 
 poetry till I heard Lord Gr.'s description of Patras and 
 Salamis. I must tell you, as a great secret though, that 
 he came, the other evening, in his cloak to the drawing- 
 room door, to say that James wanted to see me ; and 
 when I went out, there he was in full Albanian dress, the 
 most splendid thing you ever beheld — a dark violet velvet 
 jacket all braided with gold, white linen jupe, like the 
 Scotch kilt, but immensely full — he said, two hundred 
 ells wide— a fez on his head, embroidered sandals, and 
 such a scimitar ; it was a mass of turquoises and rubies. 
 Oh, Kitty ! I have no words to describe him ; for, besides 
 all this, he has such eyes, and the handsomest beard in 
 the world — not one of those foppish little tufts they call 
 imperials, nor that grizzly clothes-brush Young France 
 affects, but a regular " Titian," full, flowing, and squared 
 beneath. Now, don't let Peter fancy that he ought to 
 get up a " moycn age look," for, between ourselves, these 
 things which sit so gracefully on my lord, would be 
 downright ridiculous in the dispensary doctor; and 
 while I'm on the topic, let me say that nothing is so 
 thoroughly Irish as the habit of imitating, or rather of 
 mimicking, those of stations above our own. I'll never 
 forget Peter's putting the kicking-straps on his mare just 
 because he saw Sir Joseph Vickars drive with them ; the 
 consequence was, that the poor beast, who never kicked 
 before, no sooner felt the unaccustomed encumbrance than 
 she dashed out, and never stopped till she smashed the 
 gig to atoms. In the same w r ay, I'm certain that if he 
 only saw Lord George's dress, which is a kind of black 
 velvet paletot, braided, and very loose in the sleeves, 
 he'd just follow it, quite forgetting how inconvenient it 
 might be in what he calls " the surgery." At all events, 
 Kitty, do not say that I said so. I'm too conscious how 
 little power I have to serve him, to wish to hurt his feel- 
 ings. 
 
 You could not believe what interest has been felt about 
 James in the very highest circles here. We were at last 
 obliged to issue a species of bulletin every morning, and
 
 WE FIND OUBSELVES FAMOUS. 43 
 
 leave it with the porter at the hotel door. I own to you 
 I thought it did look a little pretentious at first to read 
 these documents, with the three signatures at the foot ; 
 but Lord George only laughed at my humility, and said 
 that it was " expected from us." From all this you may 
 gather that poor James's misfortune has not been un- 
 alloyed with benefit. The sympathy — I had almost said 
 the friendship — of Lord G. is indeed priceless, and I see, 
 from the names of the inquiries, that our social position 
 has been materially benefited by the accident. In the 
 little I have seen of the Continent, one thing strikes me 
 most forcibly. It is, that to have any social eminence 
 or success you must be notorious. I am free to own that 
 in many instances this is not obtained without consider- 
 able sacrifice, but it would seem imperative. You may 
 be very rich, or very highly connected, or very beautiful, 
 or very gifted. You may possess some wonderful talent 
 as a painter, or a musician, or as a dramatist. You may 
 be the great talker of dinner-parties — the wit who never 
 wanted his repartee. A splendid rider, particularly if a 
 lady, has always her share of admiration. But apart 
 from these qualities, Kitty, you have only to reckon 
 on eccentricities, and, I am almost ashamed to write it, 
 on follies. Chance — I never could call it good fortune, 
 when I think of poor James — has achieved for us what, 
 in all likelihood, we never could have accomplished for 
 ourselves, and by a turn of the wheel we wake and find 
 ourselves famous. I only wish you could see the list of 
 visitors, beginning with princes, and descending by a 
 sliding scale to barons and chevaliers ; such flourishing 
 of hats, too, as we receive whenever we drive out ! Papa 
 begins to complain that he might as well leave his at 
 home, as he is perpetually carrying it about in his hand. 
 But for Lord George, we should never know who one half 
 of these fine folk were ; but he is acquainted with them 
 all, and such droll histories as he has of them would con- 
 vulse you with laughter to listen to. 
 
 I need not say that so long as poor dear James con- 
 tinues to suffer, we do not accept of any invitation what- 
 ever; we just receive a few intimates — say fifteen or 
 twenty very dear friends — twice a week. Then it is
 
 44 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 merely a little music, tea and perhaps a polka, always 
 improvised, you understand, and got up without the 
 slightest forethought. Lord G. is perfect for that kind 
 of thing, and whatever he does seems to spring so 
 naturally from the impulse of the moment. Yesterday, 
 however, just as we were dressing for dinner, papa alone 
 was in the drawing-room, the servant announced Monsieur 
 le General Comte de Vanderdelft, aide-de-camp to the 
 king, and immediately there entered a very tall and 
 splendidly dressed man, with every order you can think 
 of on his breast. He saluted pa most courteously, who 
 bowed equally low in return, and then began something 
 which pa thought was a kind of set speech, for he spoke 
 so fluently and so long, and with such evident possession 
 of his subject, that papa felt it must have been all got 
 up beforehand. 
 
 At last he paused, and poor papa, whose French never 
 advanced beyond the second page of Cobbett's Grammar, 
 uttered his usual " Non comprong," with a gesture 
 happily more explanatory than the words. The General, 
 deeming, possibly, that he was called upon for a recapitu- 
 lation of his discourse, began it all over again, and was 
 drawing towards the conclusion when mamma entered. 
 He at once addressed himself to her, but she hastily rang 
 the bell, and sent for me. I, of course, did not lose a 
 moment, but, arranging my hair in plain bands, came 
 down at once. When I came into the drawing-room I 
 saw there was some mystification, for papa was sitting 
 with his spectacles on, busily hunting out something in 
 the little Dialogue Book of five languages, and mamma 
 was seated directly in front of the General, apparently 
 listening to him with the utmost attention, but as I well 
 knew, from her contracted eyebrows and pursed-up 
 mouth, only endeavouring to read his sentiments from 
 the expression of his features. He turned at once 
 towards me as I saluted him, showing how unmistakably 
 he rejoiced at the sound of his own language. " I come, 
 mademoiselle," said he, " on the part of the king " — and 
 he paused and bowed at the word as solemnly as if he 
 were in a church. " His Majesty having obtained from the 
 English Legation here the names of the most distinguished
 
 A MESSAGE FKOM ftOYALTYi 45 
 
 visitors of your countrymen, has graciously commanded 
 
 me to wait upon the Honourable Monsieur " Here 
 
 he paused again, and taking out a slip of paper from his 
 pocket, read the name — " Dodd. I am right, am I not, 
 Mademoiselle Dodd?" At the mention of his name, 
 papa bowed, and placed his hand on his waistcoat as if 
 to confirm his identity ; while mamma smiled a bland 
 assent to the partnership. " To wait upon Monsieur 
 Dodd," resumed the General, "and invite him and 
 Madame Dodd to be present at the grand ceremony of 
 the opening of the railroad to Mons." I could scarcely 
 believe my ears, Kitty, as I listened. The inauguration 
 ceremony has been the stock theme of the newspapers 
 for the last month. Archbishops and bishops — cardinals, 
 for aught I know — have been expected, regardless of 
 expense, to bless everything and everybody, from the 
 sovereign down to the stokers. The programme included 
 a High Mass, military bands, the presence of the whole 
 Court, and a grand dejeuner. To have been deemed 
 worthy of an invitation to such a festival was a very 
 legitimate reason for pride. " I have not his Majesty's 
 commands, mademoiselle," said the General, " to include 
 you in the invitation ; but as the King is always pleased 
 to see his Court distinguished by beauty, I may safely 
 promise that you will receive a card within the course of 
 this day or to-morrow." I suppose I must have looked 
 very grateful, for the General dropped his eyes, placed 
 his hand on his heart, and said, " Oh, mademoiselle ! " in 
 a tone of voice the most touching you can conceive. I 
 believe, from watching my emotion, and the General's 
 acknowledgment of it, mamma had arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the General had come to propose for me. 
 Indeed, I am convinced, Kitty, that such was the im- 
 pression on her mind, for she whispered in my ear, " Tell 
 him, Mary Anne, that he must speak to papa first." This 
 suggestion at once recalled me to myself, and I explained 
 what he had come for — apologizing, of course, to the 
 General for having to speak in a foreign language before 
 him. I am certain mamma's satisfaction at the royal 
 invitation totally obliterated any disappointment she 
 might have felt from baffled expectations, and she
 
 46 ^HE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 curtseyed and smiled, and papa bowed and simpered 
 so much, that I felt quite released when the General 
 withdrew — having previously kissed ma's hand and 
 mine, with an air of respectful homage only acquired in 
 Courts. 
 
 Perhaps this scene did not occupy more space than I 
 have taken to describe it, and yet, Kitty, it seems to me 
 as though we had been inhaling the atmosphere that sur- 
 rounds royalty for a length of time ! From my reverie on 
 this theme I was aroused by a lively controversy between 
 papa and mamma. 
 
 "Egad !" says papa, " Pummistone's blunder has done 
 us good service. They've surely taken us for something 
 very distinguished. Look out, Mary Anne, and see if 
 there's any Dodds in the peerage." 
 
 " Fudge ! " cried mamma ; " there's no blunder whatever 
 in the case ! We are beginning to be known, that's all ; 
 nor is there anything very astonishing in the fact, seeing 
 that King Leopold is the uncle to our own Queen. I should 
 like to know what is there more natural than that we 
 should receive attention from his Court?" 
 
 " Maybe it's James's accident," muttered papa. 
 
 " It's no such thing, I'm certain," replied mamma, 
 angrily, " and it's downright meanness to impute to a mere 
 casualty what is the legitimate consequence of our position." 
 
 Now, Kitty, whenever mamma uses the word " posi- 
 tion," she has generally come to the end of her ammuni- 
 tion, which is of the less consequence that she usually 
 contrives with this last shot to explode the enemy's maga- 
 zine, and blow him clean out of the water ! Papa knows 
 this so well, that the moment he hears it, he takes to the 
 long boat, or, to drop the use of metaphor, he seizes his 
 hat and decamps ; which he did on the present occasion, 
 leaving ma and myself in the field. 
 
 " A Dodd, indeed, in the peerage ! " said she, contemp- 
 tuously; "I'd like to know where you'd find it! If it 
 was a M'Carthy, there would be some difference ; McCarthy 
 More slew Shawn Bhuy na Tiernian in the year ten thou- 
 sand and six, and was hanged for it at his own gate, in a 
 rope of silk of the family colours, green and white ; and 
 I'd like to know where were the Dodds then? But it's
 
 ^REPARATIONS FOR COURT. 47 
 
 the way with your father always, Mary Anne ; he quite 
 forgets the family he married into." 
 
 Though this was somewhat of unjust reproach, Kitty, I 
 did not reply to it, but turned ma's attention to the king's 
 gracious message, and the approaching dejeuner. We 
 agreed that as Cary wouldn't, and indeed couldn't, go, 
 that ma and I should dress precisely alike, with our hair 
 in bands in front, with two long curls behind the ears, 
 white tarletan dresses, three jupes, looped up with mari- 
 golds. The only distinction being, that ma should wear 
 her carbuncles, and I nothing but moss-roses. It sounds 
 very simple costume, Kitty, but Mademoiselle Adele has 
 such taste, we felt we might rely upon its not being too 
 plain. Papa, of course, would wear his yeomanry uniform, 
 which is really very neat, the only ungraceful part being 
 the white shorts and black gaiters to the knee ; and these 
 he insists on adhering to, as well as the helmet, which 
 looks exactly like a gigantic caterpillar crawling over a 
 coal-box ! However, it's military ; and abroad, my clearest 
 Kitty, if not a soldier, you are nothing. The English are 
 so well aware of this, that not one of them would venture 
 to present himself at a foreign court in that absurd traves- 
 tie of footmen, called the " corbeau " coat. Even the 
 lawyers and doctors, the newspaper editors, the railroad 
 people, the civil engineers, and the solicitors, all come out 
 as Yorkshire Hussars, Gloucestershire Eencibles, Hants 
 Rifles, or Royal Archers ; these last, very picturesque, with 
 kilt, filibeg, and dirk, muchhandsomer than any other High- 
 land regiment ! We also discussed a little plot about mak- 
 ing pa wear a coronation-medal, which would pass admir- 
 ably as an " order," and procure him great respect and defer- 
 ence amongst the foreigners ; but this, I may as well men- 
 tion here, he most obstinately rejected, and swore at last, 
 that if we persisted, he'd have his commission as a justice 
 of the peace fixed on a pole, and carry it like a banner 
 before him. Of course, in presence of such a threat, we 
 gave up our project. You may smile, Kitty, at my record- 
 ing such trivial circumstances ; but of such is life. We 
 are ourselves but atoms, dearest, and all around us are no 
 more ! As eagerly as we strive upwards, so determinedly 
 does he drag us down to earth again, and ma's noblest
 
 48 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 ambitions are ever threatened by papa's inglorious tastes 
 and inclinations. 
 
 I'm so full of this delightful fete, my dear Kitty, that I 
 can think of nothing else ; nor, indeed, are my thoughts 
 very collected even on that ; for that wild creature, Lord 
 George, is thumping the piano, imitating all the Opera 
 people, and occasionally waltzing about the room in a 
 manner that would distract any human head to listen to ! 
 He has just been tormenting me to tell him what I'm say- 
 ing to you, and bade me tell you that he's dying to make 
 your acquaintance ; so you see, dearest, that he has heard 
 of those deep-blue eyes and long-fringed lids that have 
 done such marvels in our western latitudes ! It is really 
 no use trying to continue. He is performing what he calls 
 a " Grand March, with a full orchestral accompaniment," 
 and there is a crowd actually assembling in front of the 
 aouse. I had something to say, however, if I could only 
 remember it. 
 
 I have just recalled what I wanted to mention. It is 
 this. P. B. is most unjust, most ungenerous. Living, as 
 he does, remote from the world and its exciting cares, he 
 can form no conception of what is required from those 
 who mingle in its pleasures, and alas ! partake of its 
 trials ! To censure me for the sacrifices I am making to 
 that world, Kitty, is then great injustice. I feel that he 
 knows nothing of these things ! What knew I myself of 
 them till within a few weeks back ! Tell him so, dearest. 
 Tell him, besides, that I am ever the same — save in that 
 expansion of the soul which comes of enlarged views of 
 life — more exalted notions and more ennobling emotions ! 
 When I think of what I was, Kitty, and of what I am, 
 I may indeed shudder at the perils of the present, but I 
 blush deeply for the past ! Of course you will not permit 
 him to think of coming abroad ; " settling as a doctor," as 
 he calls it, " on the Continent," is too horrid to be thought 
 of ! Are you aware, Kitty, what place the lawyer and the 
 physician occupy socially here ? Something lower than 
 the courier, and a little higher than the cook ! Two or 
 three, perhaps, in every capital city are received in society, 
 wear decent clothes, and wash their hands occasionally, 
 but there it ends ! and even they are only admitted on
 
 AN EXTINGUISHER FOR P. B. 49 
 
 sufferance, and as it were by a tacit acknowledgment of 
 the uncertainty of human life, and that it is good to have 
 a " learned leech " within call. Shall I avow it, Kitty, I 
 think they are right! It is, unquestionably, a gross 
 anomaly to see everlastingly around one in the gay world 
 those terrible remembrancers of dark hours and gloomy 
 scenes. We do not scatter wills, and deeds, and settle- 
 ments amongst the prints, and drawings, and light litera- 
 ture of our drawing-room tables, nor do we permit physic- 
 bottles to elbow the odours and essences which deck our 
 " consoles " and chimney-pieces ; and why should we ad- 
 mit the incarnation of these odious objects to mar the 
 picturesque elegance of our salons ? No, Kitty ; they may 
 figure upon a darker canvas, but they would ill become 
 the gorgeous light that illumines the grand " tableau " of 
 high life ! Peter, too, would be quite unsuited to the habits 
 of the Continent. Wrapped up as he is in his profession, 
 he never could attain to that charming negligence of 
 manner, that graceful trifling, that most insinuating lan- 
 guor, which distinguish the well-bred^ abroad. If they 
 fail to captivate, Kitty, they at least never wound your 
 susceptibilities, nor hurt your prejudices. The delightful 
 maxim thafr pronounces " Tousles gouts sont respectables," 
 is the keystone of this system. No, no, Peter must not 
 come abroad ! 
 
 Let me not forget to congratulate you on Robert's suc- 
 cess. What is it he has gained ? for I could not explain 
 to Lord George whether he is a " double first," or a some- 
 thing else. 
 
 You are quite mistaken, my dear friend, about lace. It 
 is fully as dear here as with us. At the same time, I must 
 say we never do see real " Brussels point " in Ireland ; for 
 even the Castle folk are satisfied with showing you nothing 
 but their cast-off London finery ; and as to lace, it is all 
 what they call here " application " — that is, the flowers 
 and tracery are worked in upon common net, and are not 
 part of the fabric, as in real " point de Bruxelles." After 
 all, even this is as superior to " Limerick lace " as a foreign 
 ambassador is, in manner, to a Dublin alderman. 
 
 I should like to keep this over till the dejeuner at Mons ; 
 but as it goes by " the Messenger " — Lord Gledworth 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 having given pa the privilege of the " bag " — I cannot 
 longer defer writing myself my dearest Kitty's most at- 
 tached friend, 
 
 Mary Asne Dodd. 
 
 I open my letter to send you the last bulletin about 
 James : 
 
 "Monsieur James Dodd has passed a tranquil night, 
 and is proceeding favourably. The wound exhibits a good 
 appearance, and the general fever is slight. 
 
 (Signed) " Baron De Seutin. 
 
 " Eustache De Mornate, Med. du Roi. 
 " Samuel Mossin, M.R.C.S.L." 
 
 "We're in another mess with that wretch Paddy Byrne. 
 The gendarmes are now in the house to inquire after him. 
 It would seem that he has beaten a whole hackney-coach 
 stand, and set the vehicles and horses off full speed down 
 the " Montague de la Cour," one of the steepest streets in 
 Europe. When will papa see it would be cheaper to send 
 him home by a special steamer than to keep him here and 
 pay for all his " escapades "? 
 
 Paddy, who got on to the roof to escape the police, has 
 just fallen through a skylight, and has been conveyed to 
 hospital, terribly injured. He fell upon an old gentleman 
 of eighty-two, who says he will look to papa for compen- 
 sation. The tumult the affair has caused is dreadful, and 
 pa is like a madman. 
 
 The General Count Vanderdelft has come back to say 
 that I am invited.
 
 51 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 MRS. DOI)D TO MISTRESS MART GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH. 
 
 Dear Molly, — I scarcely have courage to take up my pen, 
 and, maybe, if it wasn't that I'm driven to the necessity of 
 writing, I couldn't bring myself to the effort. You have 
 already heard all about poor dear James's duel. It was in 
 the Post and Galignani, and got copied into the French 
 papers ; and indeed I must say, that so far as notoriety 
 goes, it was all very gratifying to our feelings, though the 
 poor boy has had to pay dearly for the honour. His 
 sufferings were very great, and for ten days he didn't 
 know one of us ; even to this time he constantly calls me 
 his aunt ! He's now out of danger at last, and able to sit 
 up for a few hours every day, and take a little sustenance, 
 and hear the papers read, and see the names of the people 
 that have called to ask after him ; and a proud list it is, 
 dukes, counts, and barons without end ! 
 
 This, of course, is all very pleasing, and no one is more 
 ready to confess it than myself ; but life is nothing but 
 trials, Molly ; you're up to-day, and you're down to- 
 morrow ; and maybe 'tis when you think the road is 
 smoothest and best, and that your load is lightest, 'tis 
 just at that very moment you see yourself harnessed be- 
 tween the " shafts of adversity." We never think of these 
 things when all goes well with us, but what a shock we 
 feel the hand of fate turns the tables on us, with maybe 
 the scarlatina or the sheep-rot, the smut in the wheat, or 
 a stain on your reputation ! When I wrote last, I men- 
 tioned to you the high station we were in, the elegant 
 acquaintances we made, and the fine prospect before us ; 
 but I'm not sure you got my letter, for the gentleman that 
 took charge of it thought of going home by Norway, so 
 that perhaps it has not reached you. It's little matter ; 
 maybe 'tis all the better, indeed, if it never does come to 
 hand ! The last three weeks has been nothing but troubles, 
 
 b 2
 
 52 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 and as for expense, Molly, the money goes in away I never 
 witnessed before, though if you knew all the shifts I'm 
 put to, you'd pity me, and the sacrifices I make to keep 
 our heads above water would drown you in tears. 
 
 I don't know where to begin with our misfortunes, 
 though I believe the first of them was Wednesday week 
 last. You must know, Molly, that we were invited by 
 the King, who sent his own aide-de-camp, in full fig, with 
 crosses and orders all over him, to ask us to a breakfast, 
 or, as they call it, a dejeuner, in honour of the opening of 
 a new railroad at Mons. It was, as you may believe, a very 
 great honour to pay us, nothing being invited but the very 
 first families — the embassies and the ministers, and we 
 certainly felt it well became us not to disgrace either the 
 country we came from or the proud distinction of his 
 Majesty ; and so Mary and I had two new dresses made 
 just the same, like sisters, very simple, but elegant, Molly — 
 a light stuff that cost only two-and-five a yard, thirty-two 
 yards of which would make the two, leaving me a breadth 
 more in the skirt than Mary Anne — the whole not coming 
 to quite four pounds, without the making. That was our 
 calculation, Molly, and we put it down on paper ; for K. I. 
 insists on our paying for everything when it comes home, 
 as he is always saying, " We never know how suddenly 
 we may have to leave this place yet." 
 
 Low as the price was, it took a day and a half before he 
 gave in. He stormed and swore about all the expenses of 
 the family — that there was no end of our extravagant 
 habits, and what with hairdressers, dancing-masters, and 
 doctors, it cost five-and-twenty pounds in a week. 
 
 "And if it did, K. I.," said I — "if it did, is four pounds 
 too much to spend on the dress of your wife and daughter, 
 when they're invited to court ? If you can squander in 
 handfuls on your pleasures, can you spare nothing for the 
 wants of your family ?" 
 
 I reminded him who he was and I was. I let him know 
 what was the stock I came from, and what we were used 
 to, Molly ; and indeed I believe he'd rather than double the 
 money not have provoked the discussion. 
 
 The end of it was, we carried the day ; and early on 
 Wednesday morning the two dresses came home ; Mdlle.
 
 !ia -rMrm?} 


 
 A CATALOGUE OF MISFORTUNES. 53 
 
 Adele herself coming with them to try them on. I haven't 
 words to tell you how mine fitted ; if it was made on me 
 it couldn't be better. I needn't say more of the general 
 effect, than that Betty — and you know she is no flatterer 
 — called me nothing but " miss " till I took it off. Con- 
 scious of how it became me, I too readily listened to her 
 suggestion to " go and show it to the master ;" and accord- 
 ingly walked into the room where he was seated reading 
 the newspaper. 
 
 "Ain't you afraid of catching cold?" says he, dryly. 
 
 " Why so ?" replied I. 
 
 " Hadn't you better put on your gown, going about the 
 passages ? " says he, in a cross kind of way. 
 
 " What do you mean, K. I. ? Is not this my gown ?" 
 
 u That ! " cried he, throwing down the newspaper on the 
 floor. "That!" 
 
 " And why not, pray, Mister Dodd ? " 
 
 "Why not?" exclaimed he; "because you're half- 
 naked, madam ; — because it wouldn't do for a bathing- 
 dress ; — because the Queen of the Tonga Islands wouldn't 
 go out in it." 
 
 " If my dress is not high enough for your taste, K. I., 
 maybe the bill is," says I, throwing down the paper on the 
 table, and sweeping out of the room. Oh ! Molly, little I 
 knew the words I was saying, for I never had opened the bill 
 at all, contenting myself with Mdlle. Adele's promise that 
 making would be a "bagatelle of some fifteen or twenty 
 francs !" What do you think it came to ? Eight hun- 
 dred and thirty-three francs five sous. Thirty-three pounds 
 six and tenpence-halfpenny ! as sure as I write these lines. 
 I was taken with the nerves — just as I used to be long 
 ago — screeching and laughing and crying altogether, when 
 I heard it ; and the attack lasted two hours, and left me 
 very weak and exhausted after it was over. Oh ! Molly 
 dear, what a morning it was ! for what with ether and 
 curacoa, strong sherry and aniseed cordial, my head was 
 splitting ; and Betty ran downstairs into the table-d'hote 
 room, and said that "the master was going to murder the 
 mistress," and brought up a crowd of gentlemen after her. 
 K. I. was holding my hands at the time ; for they say that 
 I wanted to make at Mdlle. Adeleto tear her eyes out j so
 
 54 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 that, naturally enough, perhaps, they believed Betty's 
 story ; however that might be, they rushed in a body at 
 K. I. who, quitting hold of me, seized the poker. I needn't 
 tell you what he is like when in a passion ! I'm told the 
 scene was awful ; for they all made for the stairs together 
 — K. I., after them ! The appearance of the place after- 
 wards may give you some notion of what it witnessed : all 
 the orange- trees in the tubs thrown down, two lamps 
 smashed, the bust of the King and Queen on the landing 
 in shivers, several of the banisters broken ; while tufts of 
 hair, buttons, and bits of cloth were strewn about on all 
 sides. The head-waiter is wearing a patch over his eye 
 still, and the Swiss porter, one of the biggest men I ever 
 saw, has cut his face fearfully by a fall into a glass globe 
 with gold fish. It was a costly morning's work, Molly ! 
 and if twenty pounds sees us through it, we're lucky! Mr. 
 Profiles, too, the landlord, came up to request we'd leave 
 the hotel ; that there was nothing but rows and disturb- 
 ances in the house since we entered it ; and much more of 
 the same sort. K. I. flared up at this, and they abused 
 each other for an hour. This is very unfortunate, for I 
 hear that P. is a baron, and a great friend of the King ; 
 for abroad, Molly dear, the nobles are not above anything, 
 and sell cigars, and show the town to strangers to turn a 
 penny, without any one thinking the worse of them ! All 
 this, as you may suppose, was a blessed preparation for 
 the court breakfast ; but yet, by two o'clock we got away, 
 and reached the Allee Yerte, when we heard that all the 
 special trains were already off, and had to take our places 
 in the common conveyances meant for the public, and, 
 worse again, to be separated from K. I., who had to go 
 into a third-class, while Mary Anne and I were in a second. 
 There we were, dressed up in full style in the noonday, 
 with bare necks and arms, in a crowd of bagmen, officers, 
 and clerks, who, you may be sure, had their own thoughts 
 about us ; and indeed there's no saying what they mightn't 
 have done as well as thought, if K. I. didn't come to the 
 window every time we stopped, with a big stick in his 
 hand, and by a very significant gesture gave the company 
 to comprehend that he'd make mince veal of the man that 
 molested us
 
 A GRAND PROCESSION. 55 
 
 You may think, Molly, of what a two hours we spent, 
 for the women in the train were worse than the men, and 
 although I did not understand what they said, their looks 
 were quite intelligible ; but I have not patience to tell you 
 more. We reached Mons at four o'clock ; a great part of 
 the ceremony was over. The High Mass and Benediction 
 pronounced by the Cardinal of Malines — the rail was 
 blessed — and the deputation had addressed the King, and 
 his Majesty had replied, and all kinds of congratulations 
 were exchanged, orders and crosses given to everybody, 
 from the surveyors to the stokers, and now the procession 
 was forming to the royal pavilion, where there were tables 
 laid out for eight hundred people. 
 
 K. I.'s scarlet uniform, though a little the worse for 
 wear, and so tight in the waist that the last three buttons 
 were left unfastened, procured him immediate respect, and 
 we passed through sentries and patrols as if we were 
 royalty itself; indeed, the military presented arms to K. I. 
 at every step, and such clinking of muskets and bayonets 
 I never heard before. 
 
 All this time, Molly, we were going straight on, without 
 knowing where to ; for K. I. said tome in a whisper, " Let 
 us put a bold face on it, or they'll ask us for tickets or 
 something of the kind ; " and so we went, hoping every 
 moment to see our friend the count, who would take us 
 under his protection. If it wasn't for our own anxieties, 
 the scene would have amused us greatly, for there was all 
 manner of elegant females, and men in fine uniforms, and 
 the greatest display of jewels I ever saw ; but for all that, 
 we were getting uneasy, for we saw that they each carried 
 cards in their hands, and that the official came and asked 
 for them as they passed on. 
 
 " We'll be in a nice way if Vanderdelft doesn't turn 
 up," says K. I., and as he said it, there was the General 
 himself beside us. He was greatly heated, as if he had 
 been running or walking fast, and although dressed in 
 full uniform, his stock was loose and his cocked-hat was 
 without the feather. " I was afraid I should have missed 
 you," said he, in a hurried voice to Mary Anne, " and I'm 
 half-killed running about after you. Where's the Queen- 
 Mother ? " This wasn't very ceremonious, my dear, but I
 
 5(5 THfi dodd Family abkOad, 
 
 didn't know what lie said at the time ; indeed, he spoke so 
 fast, it was all Mary Anne could do to follow him ! for he 
 talked of everything and everybody in a breath, " We've 
 not a minute to lose," cried he, drawing Mary Anne's arm 
 inside his own. " If Leopold once sits down to table, I 
 can't present you. Come along, and I'll get you a good 
 place." 
 
 How we pierced the crowd the saints alone can tell ! 
 but the General went at them in a way of his own, and 
 they fell back as they saw him coming, in a style that 
 made us think we had no common guide to conduct us. 
 At last, by dint of crushing, driving, and pushing every- 
 body out of our way, we reached a kind of barrier, where 
 two fine-looking men in blue and gold were taking the 
 tickets. As Mary Anne and the General were in advance 
 of us, I didn'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 hadn'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 grey 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 some-
 
 AN UNDIGNIFIED EETREAT. 57 
 
 tiling 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 wasn'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 ! " Yon may 
 conceive how humbled and broken I was when he dared to 
 say that to me, Molly, and I didn't so much as give trim a 
 word back ! 
 
 You'll see from this that life isn'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 !
 
 53 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 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 Doctor Cavanagh was 
 dead himself, the whole practice of the country wouldn'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 neighbours, 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 Yickers every week, but he never answers ; 
 he knows Parliament won't be dissolved soon, and he 
 doesn'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
 
 SLIPPERINESS OF POLITICAL PARTIES. 59 
 
 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. 
 
 Tour attached and sincere friend, 
 
 Jemima Dodd. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 BETTY COBB TO MRS. SHUSAN o'SHAY, PRIEST'S HOUSE, ERUFF. 
 
 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'l'eve 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 'tis the 
 wickedness is the worst of all. Shusan ! but the men 
 is bad, and the women worse. Of all the devils ever I
 
 60 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 heerd of, they bate them. 'Tisn'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, svving- 
 swongs, and skittles, all the day long. The dancin's 
 dreadful ! they don't stand up foment other, like a jig, 
 where anything of a dacent partner wouldn'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 'tisn'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-coloured web he had on, and he was settin' on 
 a beer- barrel, with a wreath of roses round his head, and 
 looking as drunk as ever I seen ; and for half a franc 
 apiece, Bakis pulled out the spiget, and gave you a glassful 
 of the nicest drink ever was tasted — warm wine, with 
 nutmeg in it, and cloves, and a taste of mint. I was 
 afeerd to do more nor sup, seem' the place and the croud ; 
 but indeed, Shusan, little as I took, it got into my head ; 
 and I sat down on the steps of the Temple, and begun to 
 cry about home and Dodsborough ; and something came 
 over me that Mr. Francis didn't mane well ; and so I told
 
 BETTY COBB'S TROUBLES. 61 
 
 everybody that I was a poor Irish girl, and that he was a 
 wicked blaguard ; and then the polis came, and there was 
 a shindy ! I don't know how far my head was wrong all 
 the time ; and they said that I sung the " Croniawn 
 Dbubh ;" maybe I did; but I know that I bate off the 
 polis ; and at last they took me away home, when every 
 stitch on me was in ribbins ; my iligant bonnet with the 
 green bows as flat as a halfpeny ; and the bombazine the 
 mistress gave me, all rags ; one of my shoes, too, was lost ; 
 and except a handful of hair I tore out of the corporal's 
 beard, 'twas all loss to me. This wasn't the worst ; for 
 little Paddy Byrne, that was in bed for a baiting he got 
 'mong the hackney-coachmen, jumped up and flew at 
 Mister Francis for the honour of ould Ireland ; and they 
 fit for twenty minutes in the pantry, and broke every bit 
 of glass and chaney in the house, forbye three lamps and 
 some alybastard figures that was put there for safety ; and 
 the end of it was, Mr. Francis was discharged, but wouldn't 
 take his wages, if the master didn't pay him half a year 
 in advance, with diet and washing, and his expenses home 
 to Swisserland, wherever that is ; and there it is now, and 
 master is in a law-shute, that everybody says will go agin 
 him ; for there's one good thing abroad, Shusan dear, the 
 coorts stands by poor sarvants, and won't see them wronged 
 by any cruel masters ; and maybe it would be taching ould 
 Mister Dodd something, if they made him smart for this ! 
 Ye may think, from all this, that I'd be glad to be back 
 again, and so it is. I cry all day and night, and sorrow 
 stich I do for either the mistress or the young ladies, and 
 maybe at last they'll see 'tis best to send me home. They 
 needn't begrudge me the thrifle 'twould cost, for they're 
 spending money like mad ; and even the mistress, that 
 would skin a flay in Ireland, thinks nothing of layin' out 
 ten or fifteen pounds here of a day. Miss Mary Anne is 
 as bad as the mother, and grown so proud and stand off 
 that I never spake to her. Miss Caroline is what she 
 used to be, barrin' the spirits ; to be sure, she has no 
 divarsion and no horse to ride, nor doesn't be out in the 
 fields as she used, but for all that she bears it better than 
 myself. Mister James is grown a young man in three 
 weeks, and never passes me on the stair without a wink
 
 02 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 or a look of the same kind ; that's the way the Continent 
 taches good manners ! Mrs. Shusan ! oh dear ! oh dear ! 
 but 'tis wishing it I am, the day I come on this incon- 
 tential tour. If I can't get back — though it's not my 
 fault if I don't — send me the pair of strong shoes you'll 
 find in my hair trunk, and the two petticoats in the 
 corner. If you could get a blade in the big scissors, send 
 it too, and the two bits of dimity I want for mendin'. 
 There was some Dandy Lion in a paper, I'd like; for 
 there's none here, they say, has strength in it. You'll be 
 able to send me these by somebody coming this way, for I 
 heerd mistress say everybody is travellin' these times. 
 "What was it Father Tom used to take for the redness in 
 his nose? mine is tormentin' me dreadful, and though 
 I'm poulticin' it every night with ash-bark, earth-worms, 
 and dragon's blood, I think it's only worse it's gettin'. 
 Mr. Francis said that I must larn to sleep with my nose 
 higher than my head, though how I'm to do it, the saints 
 alone can tell ! No time for more than to say your loving 
 friend, 
 
 Betty Cobb. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 EEXNY DODD TO THOMAS PUKCELL, ESQ. 
 
 Bcllevue, Brussels. 
 
 Dear Tom, — It's no use in talking ; I can't go over to 
 Ireland now, and you know that as well as myself. 
 Besides, what's the good of me taking a part in the elec- 
 tions ? Who can tell which side will be uppermost, after 
 all? And if one is "to enter, it's as well to ride the 
 winning horse." Vickers has behaved so badly, that I 
 don't think I'd support him ; but there's a fortnight yet 
 before the elections, and perhaps he may see the errors of 
 his ways before that ! 
 
 I've little heart or spirits for politics, for my life is
 
 SLOW PROGRESS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 03 
 
 fairly bothered out of rae with domestic troubles. James 
 is going on very slowly. There was a bit of glove-leather 
 round the ball — a most inexcusable negligence on the part 
 of his second — that has given much uneasiness ; and he 
 has a kind of night fever, that keeps him low and weak. 
 With that, too, he has too many doctors. Three of 
 them come every morning, and never go away without a 
 dispute. 
 
 It strikes me forcibly, Tom, that medical science is one 
 of the things that makes little progress, considering all 
 the advantages of our century. I don't mean to say that 
 they don't know better what's inside of you, what your 
 bones are made of, that they haven't more hard names 
 for everything than formerly ; but that when it comes to 
 cure you of a toothache, or a colic, or a fit of the gout, 
 my sure belief is they made just as good a hand of it two 
 hundred years ago. I won't deny that they'll whip off 
 your leg, tie one of your arteries, or take your hip out of 
 the socket quicker than they used long ago ; but how few 
 of us, thank God, have need of that kind of skill ! and if 
 we have, what signifies a quarter of a minute more or 
 less ? Tim Hackett, that was surgeon to our County 
 Infirmary forty years, never used any other tools than an 
 old razor and a pair of pincers, and I believe he was just 
 as successful as Astley Cooper ; and yet these fellows that 
 come to see James cover the table every day with instru- 
 ments that would puzzle the Royal Society — things like 
 patent corkscrews, scissors with teeth like a saw, and one 
 little crankum for all the world like a landing-net : James 
 is more afraid of that than all the rest. When I saw it 
 first, I thought it was a new contrivance for taking the 
 fees in. The Pharmacopoeia — I hope I spell it right — is 
 greater, to be sure, than long ago, but what's the advan- 
 tage of that ? We never discover a new kind of beast 
 for food, and I see little benefit in multiplying what only 
 disgusts you. 'Tis with medicine as with law, Tom ; the 
 more precedents we have, the more confused we get ; and 
 where our ignorant ancestors saw their way clearly, we, 
 with all our enlightenment, never can hit on the right 
 track at all. The mill-owner and the engineer, the tanner, 
 the dyer, the printer — ay, even the farmer, picks up some-
 
 64 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 thing every day that helps him in his craft. It's only 
 the learned professions that never learn anything : maybe 
 that's how they got the name " lucus a non," Tom, as 
 Doctor Bell would say. 
 
 You keep preaching to me about economy and making 
 "both ends meet," and all that kind of balderdash ; and 
 if you only saw the way we're living, you'd be surprised 
 at our cheapness. Whenever a five-pound note sees me 
 through our bill for the day, I give myself a bottle of 
 champagne at night out of gratitude ! You remember all 
 Mrs. D.'s promises about thrift and saving; and, faith, I 
 must say, that so far as cutting " down the estimates " for 
 the rest of the family, she's worthy of the Manchester 
 school, but whenever it touches herself, her liberality 
 becomes boundless. 
 
 I believe it would be cheaper to give the milliner a 
 room in the house than pay her coach-hire, for she's here 
 every morning, and generally in my room when I'm 
 shaving, sometimes before I'm up. Not that this trifling 
 circumstance ever disconcerted her. On my conscience, 
 I believe she'd have taken Eve's measure before Adam, 
 without a blush at the situation ! So far as I have seen 
 of foreign life, Tom, shamelessness is the grand charac- 
 teristic, and I grieve to say that one picks up the 
 indecency much easier than the irregular verbs. I wish, 
 however, I had nothing to complain of but this. 
 
 I told you in one of my late letters that I was getting 
 into law here ; the plot is thickening since that, and I 
 have now, I believe, four actions — I hope it is not five — 
 pending in four different courts ; in some I'm the plaintiff, 
 in some the defendant, and in another I'm something 
 between the two ; but what that may be, or what con- 
 sequences it entails, I know as much as I do about 
 calculating the next eclipse ! Indeed, to distinguish 
 between the several suits, and the advocates I have 
 engaged, is no small difficulty, and a considerable part of 
 every conference is occupied with purely introductory 
 matter. These foreign lawyers have a mysterious kind 
 of way with them too, that always gives you the impres- 
 sion that a lawsuit is something like the Gunpowder Plot ! 
 There's a fellow comes to me every morning for instruc-
 
 a 
 
 ■tv&mi &Me (yLJjmm/L^^airtZe-
 
 A DOMESTIC GUERILLA* 65 
 
 tions, as he calls it, muffled up in a great cloak, and using 
 as many precautions against being seen by the* servants 
 as if lie were going to blow up the Government. I'd 
 not be so sensitive on the subject, if it hadn't provoked a 
 species of annoyance, at which, perhaps, you'll be more 
 disposed to laugh than sympathize. 
 
 For the last week Mrs. D. has adopted a kind of war- 
 fare at which she, I'll be bound to say, has few equals and 
 no superior — a species of irregular attack, at all times 
 and on all subjects, by innuendo and insinuation, so 
 dexterously thrown out as to defy opposition ; for you 
 might as well take your musket to keep off the 
 mosquitoes! What she was driving at I never could 
 guess, for the assault came on every flank, and in all 
 manner of ways. If I was dressed a little more care- 
 fully than usual, she called attention to my " smartness ; " 
 if less so, she hinted that I was probably going out " on 
 the sly." If I stayed at home, I was " waiting for some- 
 body ; " if I went out, it was to " meet them." Bat all 
 this guerilla warfare gave way at last to a grand attack, 
 when I ventured to remonstrate about some extrava- 
 gance or other. "It came well from me" she burst 
 forth, with indignant anger — " it came well from me to 
 talk of the little necessary expenses of the family — the 
 bit they ate, and the clothes on their backs." She spoke 
 as if they were Mandans or Iraquois, and lived in a 
 wigwam! "It came well from me, living the life I did! 
 to grudge them the commonest requirements of decency!" 
 "Living the life I did!" I avow to you, Tom, the 
 words staggered me. Warren Hastings tells us, that 
 when Burke concluded his terrible invective, that he 
 actually sat for five minutes overwhelmed with a sense 
 of guilt ; and so stunning was this charge, that it took 
 me full double as long to rally ! for though Mrs. D.'s 
 eloquence may not possess all the splendour or sublimity 
 of the great Edmund, there is a homely significance — a 
 kind of natural impressiveness about it, not to be 
 despised. " Living the life I did," rang in my ears like 
 the words of a judge in a charge. It sounded like — 
 " Kenny Dodd, you have been fairly convicted by an 
 honest and impartial jury ! " and I confess I sat there 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 66 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 expecting, to hear " the last sentence of the law." It 
 was only after some interval I was able to ask myself, 
 " what was really the kind of life I had been leading ? " 
 My memory assured me it was a very stupid, tiresome 
 existence — very good-for-nothing and uninstructive. It 
 was by no means, however, one of flagrant vice or any 
 outrageous wickedness; and I couldn't help muttering 
 with honest Jack, — 
 
 11 If sack and sugar be a sin, 
 God help the wicked !" 
 
 The only things like personal amusements I had indulged 
 in being gin-and-water and dominoes — cheap pleasures, if 
 not very fascinating ones ! 
 
 " Living the life I did ! " Why, what does the woman 
 mean ? Is she throwing in my teeth the lazy, useless, 
 unprofitable course of my daily existence, without a 
 pursuit, except to hear the gossip of the town — without 
 an object, except to retail it ? " Mrs. D.," said I, at last, 
 "you are, generally speaking, comprehensible. What- 
 ever faults may attach to your parts of speech, it must 
 be owned they usually convey your meaning. Now, for 
 the better maintenance of this characteristic, will you 
 graciously be pleased to explain the words you have just 
 spoken ? What do you mean by the ' life I am lead- 
 ing?'" "Not before the girls, certainly, Mr. D.," said 
 she, in a Lady Macbeth whisper, that made my blood 
 curdle. The mischief was out at once, Tom — I know 
 you are laughing at it already — it's quite true, she was 
 jealous — mad jealous ! Ah, Tom, my boy, it's all very 
 good fun to laugh at Keeley, or Buckstone, or any other 
 of those diverting vagabonds who can convulse the house 
 with such a theme, but in real life the farce is downright 
 tragedy. There is not a single comfort or consolation of 
 your life that is not kicked clean from under you ! A 
 system of normal agitation is a fine thing, they tell us, 
 in politics, but it is a cruel adjunct of domestic life ! 
 Everything you say, every look you give, every letter 
 you seal, or every note you receive, are counts in a 
 mysterious indictment against you, till at last you are 
 faraid to blow your nose, lest it be taken for a signal to
 
 MARY JANE. 67 
 
 the fat widow lady that is caressing her poodle at the 
 window over the way ! 
 
 You may be sure, Tom, that I repelled the charge with 
 all the indignation of injured innocence. I invoked my 
 thirty years' good character, the gravity of my demeanour, 
 the grey of my whiskers; I confessed to twenty other 
 minor misdemeanors — a taste for practical jokes, a love 
 of cribbage and long whist ; I went farther — I expressed 
 a kind of St. Kevenism about women in general ; but 
 she cut me short with — " Pray, Mr. D., make one 
 exception ; do be gallant enough to say that there is one, 
 at least, not included in this category of horrors." 
 
 " What are you at now ? " cried I, almost losing all 
 patience. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said she, in a grand melodramatic tone, 
 that she always reserves for the peroration — as postilions 
 keep a trot for the town — " yes, sir, I am well accustomed 
 to your perfidy and dissimulation. I know perfectly for 
 what infamous purposes abroad your family are treated 
 so ignominiously at home ; I'm no stranger to your 
 doings." I tried to stop her by an appeal to common 
 sense — she despised it. I invoked my age — egad ! I 
 never put my foot in it till then. That was exactly what 
 made me the greatest villain of all ! "Whatever venera- 
 tion attaches to white hairs, it must be owned they get 
 mighty ill treated in discussions like the present — at 
 least, Mrs. D. assured me so, and gave me to understand 
 that one pays a higher premium for their morality, as they 
 do for their life-assurance, as they grow older. "Not," 
 added she, as her eyes glittered with anger, and she 
 sidled near the door for an exit — " not but, in the estima- 
 tion of others, you may be quite an Adonis — a young 
 gentleman of wit and fashion — a beau of the first water ; 
 I have no doubt Mary Jane thinks so — you old wretch! " 
 This, in alt, and a bang of the door that brought down 
 an oil picture that hung over it, closed the scene. 
 
 " Mary Jane thinks so ! " said I, with my hand to my 
 temples to collect myself. Ah, Tom ! it would havo 
 required a cooler head than mine was at that moment to 
 go hunting through the old archives of memory ! Nor 
 will I torment you with even a narrative of my struggles. 
 
 p 2
 
 68 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 I passed that evening and the night in a state of half 
 distraction ; and it was only when I was giving one of 
 our lawyers a cheque the next morning that I unravelled 
 the mystery, for, as I wrote down his name, I perceived 
 it was Marie Jean de Rastanac — a not uncommon 
 Christian name for men, though, considering the length 
 and breadth of the masculine calendar, a very needless 
 appropriation. 
 
 This was " Mary Jane," then, and this the origin of as 
 pretty a conjugal flare-up as I remember for the last 
 twelvemonth ! 
 
 Mrs. D. reminds me of the Opposition, and the Opposi- 
 tion of Vickers. I suppose he wants to be a Lord of the 
 Treasury. It's very like what old Frederick used to call 
 makiDg a " goat a gardener." What rogues the fellows 
 are ! You write to them about your son or your nephew, 
 and they answer you with some tawdry balderdash about 
 their principles, as if any one of us ever believed they 
 were troubled with principles ! I'm all for fair straight- 
 forward dealing. Put James in the Board of Trade, and 
 you may cut up the Caffres for ten years to come. Give 
 us something in the Customs, and I don't care if New 
 Zealand never has a constitution ! 'Tis only the fellows 
 that have no families ask questions at the hustings ! 
 Show me a man that wants pledges from his representa- 
 tive, and I'll show you one that has got none from his 
 wife ! 
 
 And there's Vickers writing to me, as if I was a fool, 
 about all the old clap-traps that we used to think were 
 kept for the election dinner ; and these chaps like him 
 always spoil a good argument when they get hold of it. 
 Now when a parson hasn't tact enough to write his 
 sermons, he buys a volume of Tillotson or Blair, or any 
 other, and reads one out as well as he can ; but your 
 member — God bless the mark ! — must invent his own 
 nonsense. How much better if he'd give you Peel, or 
 Russell, or Ben Disraeli in the original ! There are 
 skeleton sermons for drowsy curates ; I wish any one 
 would compose skeleton speeches for the county members. 
 Tou'll say that I'm unreasonably testy about these things 
 — but I've got a letter this instant from Vickers, express-
 
 FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR. 69 
 
 ing his hope that I'll be satisfied with the view he has 
 taken on the " question of free-labour sugar." Did I 
 ever dispute it, Tom ? I drink no tea — I hate sweet 
 things, and except a lump, and that a small one, that I 
 take in my tumbler of punch, I never use sugar ; and I 
 care no more what's the colour of the man that raises it 
 than I do for the name of the supercargo that brought it 
 over. Don't put cockroaches in it, and sell it cheap, and 
 I don't care a brass farthing whether it grew in Barbary 
 or Barbadoes ! Not, my dear Tom, but it's all gammon, 
 the way they discuss the question ; for the two parties 
 are always debating two different issues ; one crying out 
 cheap sugar, the other, no slavery ! and the consequence 
 is, they never meet in argument. As to the preference 
 Vickers insists should be given to free-labour sugar, 
 carry out the principle and see what it comes to. I ought 
 to receive eight or ten shillings a barrel more for my 
 wheat than old Joe M' Curdy, because I always gave my 
 labourers eightpence a day, and lie never went higher 
 than sixpence, more often fourpence. Is not that free 
 labour and slavery, just as well exemplified as if every 
 man in the barony was a black ? 
 
 They tell me the niggers won't work if you don't thrash 
 them, and I don't wonder, when I think of the heat of the 
 climate ; but sure if they've more idleness, they ought to get 
 less money ; and lastly, I take the Abolitionists — bother it 
 for a long word! — ontheir own ground, and are they pre- 
 pared to say, that if you impose a duty on slave sugar, 
 the Cubans and the rest of them won't only take more 
 out of the niggers to meet " the exigency of the market," 
 as the newspapers call it ? If they do so, they'll only be 
 imitating our own farmers since the repeal of the corn 
 law. " You must bestir yourselves," says Lord Stanley ; 
 "competition with the foreigner will demand all your 
 activity. It won't do to go on as you used. You must 
 buy guano — take to drainage — study Smith of Deans- 
 town, and mind the rotation of your crops." Don't you 
 think that some enlightened Cuban will hit upon the same 
 train of argument, and make a fresh investment in whip- 
 cord ? Ah, Tom ! these are only party squabbles after 
 all ; and so I told Yickers. I don't know why, but it
 
 70 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 always seemed to me that the blacks absorb a very 
 unfair amount of our loose sympathies ; whether it's the 
 colour of them, or that they're so far away, or because 
 they're naked, I never knew ; but certain it is, we pity 
 them far more than our own people, and I back myself to 
 get up a ladies' committee for a nigger question, before 
 you collect three people to hear you discuss a home 
 grievance. 
 
 I have just been interrupted to receive Mons. Jellicot, 
 my defender in action No. 3, a suit preferred by my late 
 courier, " Francois Tehetuer, born in the canton of Zug, 
 aged thirty-seven years, single, and a Protestant, against 
 Mons. Kenyidod, natif d'Irlande, pres de Dublin, dans le 
 Royaume de la Grande Bretagne," &c. &c. ; the demand 
 being for a year's wages, bed, board, and travelling 
 expenses to his native country. He, the aforesaid 
 Francois, having been sent away for a disgraceful 1 .ot in 
 my house, in which he beat Pat, the other servant, and 
 smashed about five-and- twenty pounds' worth of glass 
 and china. A very pretty claim, Tom — the preliminary 
 resistance to which has already cost me about one hundred 
 and fifty francs to remove the litigation into an upper court, 
 where the bribery is higher, and consequently deemed 
 more within the reach of my finances than those of honest 
 Francis ! 
 
 To tell you all that I think of the rascality of the 
 administration of justice here, would lead me into 
 a diffusiveness something like that of the pleasant 
 "Memoire " which my advocate has just left me to read, 
 and in which, as a measure of defence against an iniqui- 
 tous demand, I'm obliged to give a short history of my 
 life, with some account of my father and grandfather. 
 I made it as brief as I could, and said nothing about the 
 mortgages nor Hackett's bond ; but even with all my 
 conciseness, the thing is very voluminous. The greatest 
 difficulty of all is the examination of Paddy Byrne, who, 
 imagining that a law process cannot have any other 
 object than either to hang or transport Mm, has already 
 made two efforts at escape, and each time been brought 
 back by the police. His repugnance to the course of 
 justice has already damaged my case with my own
 
 § 
 
 
 
 I j gg fp 
 
 v >.::!- ft- 
 
 &7Z/<t£/
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ot VHE 
 vERSlTf of ILLINOIS
 
 LAW- fc, JITS. 71 
 
 defender, who, naturally enough, thinks if my own ' wit- 
 nesses are so little to my credit, what will be the opposite 
 evidence ? 
 
 Another of my "causes celebres," as Cary calls them 
 — she is the only one of us has a laugh left in her — is for 
 the assault and battery of a certain Mr. Cherry, a little 
 rascal that came one day to tell me that Mrs. D.'s 
 appearance struck him as being more fascinating than 
 respectable ! I kicked him downstairs into tho street, 
 and in return he has dragged me into the Court of the 
 Correctional Police, where I'm told they'll maul one far 
 worse than I did him ; berides this, I have a small inter- 
 lude suit for a breach of contract, in not taking a lodging 
 next an Anatomy School ; and lastly, James's duel ! I 
 have compromised fully double the number, and have 
 re ^ived vague threats from different quarters, that may 
 t -xtiv mean being waylaid or prosecuted, as the case 
 n ; be. 
 
 So far, therefore, as economy goes, this Continentalizing 
 has not succeeded up to this. Instead of living rent free 
 at Dodsborough, with our own mutton and turnips, the 
 ducks and peas, that cost us, I may say, nothing, here 
 we are, keeping up the price of foreign markets, and 
 feeding the foreigners at the expense of our own poor 
 people. If, instead of excluding British manufactures 
 from the Continent, Bony had only struck out the notion 
 of seducing over here John Bull himself and his family, 
 let me assure you, Tom, chat he'd have done us far more 
 lasting and irreparabk mischief. We can do without 
 their markets. What between their Zollvereins, their 
 hostile tariffs, and troublesome trade restrictions, they 
 have themselves taught us to do without them ; and 
 indeed, except when we get up a row at Barcelona, and 
 smuggle five or six hundred thousand pounds' worth of 
 goods into Spain, we care little for the old continent ; but 
 I'll tell you what we cannot do without — we cannot do 
 without their truffled turkeys, their tenors, their men- 
 cooks, and their dancing-women. French novels and 
 iHlian knavery have got a fast hold of us; and I doubt 
 m ich if the polite world of England wouldn't rather see 
 this country cut off from all the commerce of America
 
 72 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 than be themselves excluded from the wicked old cities of 
 Europe ! 
 
 When I think of myself holding these opinions, and 
 still living abroad, I almost fancy I was meant for a 
 Parliamentary life ; for assuredly my convictions and my 
 actions are about as contradictory as any honourable or 
 right honourable gentleman on either side of the House. 
 But so it is, Tom. Whatever's the reason of it I can't 
 tell, but I believe in my heart that every Irishman is 
 always doing something or other that he doesn't approve 
 of ; and that this is the real secret of that want of 
 conduct, deficient steadiness, uncertainty of purpose, and 
 all the other faults that our polite neighbours ascribe to 
 us, and what the Times has a word of its own for, and 
 sets shortly down as '• Celtic barbarism." And between 
 ourselves, the Times is too fond of blackguarding us. 
 What's the use of it ? What good does it ever do ? I 
 may throw mud at a man every day till the end of the 
 world, but I'll never make his face the cleaner for it ! 
 
 The same system we used to follow once with America ; 
 and at last, what with sneering and jibing, we got up a 
 worse feeling between the two countries than ever existed 
 in the heat of the war. No matter how stupid the writer, 
 how little he saw, or how ill he told it, let a fellow come 
 back from the United States with a good string of stories 
 about whittling, spitting, and chewing, interlard the 
 narrative with a full share of slang, show up Jonathan as 
 a vulgar, obtrusive, self-important animal, boastful and 
 ignorant, and I'll back the book to run through its two 
 or three editions with a devouring and delighted public. 
 But what would you think of a man that went down to 
 Leeds or Manchester, to look at some of our great fac- 
 tories at full work ; who saw the evidences of our enter- 
 prise and industry, that are felt at the uttermost ends of 
 the earth; who knew that every bang of that big piston 
 had its responsive answer in some far-away land over the 
 sea, where British skill and energy were diffusing comfort 
 and civilization; what, I say, would you think of him if, 
 instead of standing amazed at the future before such a 
 people, he sat down to chronicle how many fustian 
 jackets had holes in them, how many shaved but twice a
 
 WRITERS ON AMERICA. 73 
 
 week, whether the overseer made a polite bow, or the 
 timekeeper talked with a strong Yorkshire accent. 
 
 I tell you, Tom, our travellers in the States did little 
 other than this. I don't mean to say that it wouldn't be 
 pleasanter and prettier to look at, if all the factory-folk 
 were dressed like Young England, with white waistcoats 
 and cravats, and all the young ladies wore silk petticoats 
 and white satin shoes ; but I'm afraid that, considering 
 the work to do, that's scarcely practicable ; and so with 
 regard to America, considering the work to do — ay, Tom, 
 and the way they are doing it — I'm not over-disposed to 
 be critical about certain asperities that are sure to rub off 
 in time, particularly if we don't sharpen them into spikes 
 by our own awkward attempts to polish them. 
 
 If I was able, I'd like to write a book about America. 
 I'd like to inquire first, if, seeing the problem that the 
 Yankees are trying to solve, the way they have set about 
 it is the best and the shortest ? I'd like, too, to study 
 what secret machinery combines a weak government and 
 a strong people — the very reverse of what we see in the 
 Old World, where the governments are strong and the 
 people weak ? I'd like to find out, if I could, why people 
 that, for the most part, have formed the least subordinate 
 populations of the Old World, behave so remarkably well 
 in the New ? 
 
 In running off into these topics, Tom, I suppose I'm 
 like every one else, who, in proportion as his own affairs 
 become embarrassed, takes a wonderful interest in those 
 of his neighbours. Half the patriotism in the world 
 comes out of the bankruptcy courts. 
 
 And here's Monsieur Gabriel Dulong " for my instruc- 
 tions in re Cherry," as if to recall me from foreign affairs, 
 nnd once more bring back my wandering thoughts to the 
 Home Office. 
 
 Write to me, Tom, and send me money. You have no 
 idea how it goes here ; and as for the bankers, I never 
 met the like of them ! The exchange is always against 
 you, and if yx>u want a ten-pound English note, they'll 
 make you smart for it. 
 
 The more I see of this foreign life, the less I like it. 
 I know that we have been unfortunate in ono or two
 
 74 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 respects. I know that it is rash in me to speak on so 
 brief an acquaintance with it, but I already dread our 
 being more intimate. Mrs. D. is not the woman you 
 knew her. No more thrift, no more saving — none of that 
 looking after trifles, that however we may laugh at in our 
 wives, we are right glad to profit by. She has taken a 
 new turn, and fancies, God forgive her ! that we have an 
 elegant estate, and a fine, thriving, solvent tenantry. 
 Wherever the delusion came from, I cannot guess ; but 
 I'm certain that the little slip of sea between Dover and 
 Calais is the origin of more false notions and extravagant 
 fancies than the wide Atlantic. 
 
 I have been thinking for some days back that you 
 ought to write me a strong letter — you know what I 
 mean, Tom — a strong letter about matters at home. 
 There's no great difficulty, when a man lives in Ireland, 
 to make out a good list of grievances. 
 
 Give it to us, then, and let us have our fill of rotten 
 potatoes, blighted wheat, runaway tenants, and workhouse 
 riots. Throw in a murder if you like, and make it 
 "strong," Tom. Say that, considering the cheapness of 
 the Continent, we draw a terrible sight of money, and 
 add that you can't imagine what we do with the cash. 
 Put " Strictly private and confidential " on the outside, 
 and I'll take care to be out of the way when it comes. 
 You can guess that Mrs. D. will soon open it, and 
 perhaps it may give her a shock. Isn't it hard that I 
 have to go about the bush in this way ? but that's what 
 we're come to. If I hint a word about expense, they 
 look on me as if I was Shylock; and I believe they'd 
 rather hear me blaspheme than say the phrase "economy." 
 I think, from what I see in James, that he's fretting about 
 this very same thing. He didn't say exactly that, but he 
 dropped a remark the other day that showed me he was 
 grieved by the turn for dress and finery that Mrs. D. and 
 Mary Anne have taken up; and one of the nurses that 
 sat up with him told me that he used to sigh dread- 
 fully at times, and mutter broken expressions about 
 money. 
 
 To tell you the truth, Tom, I'd go back to-morrow, if 
 I could. "And why can't you? — what prevents you
 
 OF LADIES COMMITTEES, 75 
 
 Kenny ? " I hear you say. Just this, then, I haven't the 
 pluck ! I couldn't stand the attack of Mrs. D. and her 
 daughter. I'm not equal to it. My constitution isn't 
 what it used to be, and I'm afraid of the gout. At my 
 time of life, they say it always flies to the heart or to the 
 head — maybe because there's a vacancy in these places 
 after fifty-six or seven years of age ! I see, too, by the 
 looks Mrs. D. gives Mary Anne occasionally, that they 
 know this ; and she often gives me to understand that 
 she doesn't wish to dispute with me, for reasons of her 
 own. This is all very well, and kindly meant, Tom, but 
 it throws me into a depression that is dreadful. 
 
 I see by the papers that you've taken up all kinds of 
 " Sanitary Questions " at home. As for the health of 
 towns, Tom, the grand thing is not to suffer them to 
 grow too big. You're always crying out about twelve 
 people sleeping in one room somewhere, and you gave 
 the ages of each of them in the Times, and you grow 
 moral and modest, and I don't know what else, about 
 decency, destitution, and so forth ; but what's London 
 itself but the very same thing on an enlarged scale ? It's 
 nonsense to fret about a wart, when you have a wen in 
 the same neighbourhood. Not that I'm sorry to see fine 
 folk taking trouble about what concerns the poor, parti- 
 cularly when they go about it sensibly and quietly, 
 without any balderdash of little books, and, above all, 
 without a ladies' committee. If there's anything chokes 
 me it's a ladies' committee. Three married women on bad 
 terms with their husbands, four widows, and five old 
 maids, all prying, pedantic, and impertinent — going loose 
 about the world with little subscription-cards, decrying 
 innocent pleasures, and decoying your children's pocket- 
 money — turning benevolence into a house-tax, and making 
 charity like the " Pipe-water." You remark, too, that 
 the pretty women won't join these gangs at all. Now 
 and then you may see one take out a letter of marque, 
 and cruise for herself, but never in company. Seeing the 
 importunity of these old damsels, I often wondered why 
 the Government never thought of employing ladies as 
 tax-collectors. He'd be a hardy man who'd make one or 
 two I could mention call twice.
 
 76 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 I have been turning over in my mind what you said 
 about Dodsborough ; and though I don't like the notion 
 of giving a lease, still it's possible we might do it with- 
 out much danger. " He is an Englishman," you say, " that 
 has never lived in Ireland." Now, my notion is, Tom, 
 that if he be as old as you say, it's too late for him to try. 
 They're a mulish, obstinate, unbending kind of people, 
 these English; and wherever you see them, they never 
 conform to the habits of the people. After thirty years' 
 experience of Ireland, you'll hear them saying that they 
 cannot accustom themselves to the <l lies and the climate ! n 
 If I have heard that same remark once, I've heard it fifty 
 times. And what does it amount to but a confession 
 that they won't take the world as they find it. Ireland 
 is rainy, there's no doubt, and Paddy is fond of telling 
 you what he thinks is agreeable to you — a kind of native 
 courtesy, just like his offering you his potato when he 
 kuows in his heart that he can't spare it — but he gives it, 
 nevertheless. 
 
 I'd say, then, we might let him have Dodsborough, on 
 the chance that he'd never stay six months there, and 
 perhaps in the meanwhile we'd find out another Man- 
 chester gentleman to succeed him. I remember poor old 
 Dycer used to sell a little chestnut mare every Saturday 
 — nobody ever kept her a fortnight — and when she died, 
 by jumping over Bloody Bridge into the Liffey, and killed 
 herself and her rider, Dycer said, " There's four-and- 
 (wenty pounds a year lost to we"— and so it was, too! 
 Think over this, and tell me your mind on it. 
 
 I believe I told you of the Polish count that we 
 took with us to Waterloo. I met him yesterday with my 
 cloak on him ; but really the number of my legal embroil- 
 ments here is so great, that I was shy of arresting him. 
 We hear a great deal of talk about the partition of Poland, 
 and there is an English lord keeps the subject for his own 
 especial holdings forth; but I am convinced that the 
 greatest evil of that nefarious act lies in having thrown 
 all these Polish fellows broadcast over Europe. I wish 
 it was a kingdom to-morrow, if they'd only consent to 
 stay there. To be well rid of them and their sympa- 
 thizers, whom I own I like even less, would be a great
 
 MINDING OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS. 77 
 
 blessing just now. I wish the Times would stop black- 
 guarding Louis Napoleon. If the French like being 
 bullied, what is that to us ? My own notion is, that the 
 people and their ruler are well met ; besides, if we only 
 reflect a little on it, we'll see that anything is better for 
 us than a Bourbon — I don't care what branch ! They are 
 under too deep obligations to us, and have too often 
 accepted of English hospitality, not to hate us ; and hate 
 us they do. I belive the first Frenchman that cherishes 
 an undying animosity to England is your Legitimist ; next 
 to him comes the Orleanist. 
 
 It's a strange thing, but the more I have to think of 
 about my own affairs, and the worse they are going with 
 me, the more my thoughts run after politics and the 
 newspapers. I suppose that's all for the best, and that if 
 people dwelled too much on their own troubles, their 
 heads wouldn't stand it. You've seen a trick the horse 
 jockeys have when a horse goes lame of one foot — to 
 pinch him a little with the shoe of the opposite one ; and 
 it's not bad philosophy to practise mentally, and you may 
 preserve your equanimity, just by putting on the load 
 fairly. And so it is I try to divert my thoughts from 
 mortgages, creditors, and Chancery, by wondering how 
 the King of Naples will contrive to keep his throne, and 
 how the Austrian s will save themselves from bankruptcy ! 
 I know it would be more to the purpose if I turned my 
 thoughts to getting Mary Anne married, and James into 
 the Board of Trade ; at least, so Mrs. D. tells me, and 
 although she is always repeating the old saw about 
 " marriages being made in heaven," she evidently doesn't 
 wish to give too much trouble in that quarter, and would 
 like to lend a hand herself to the work. 
 
 Jellicot has sent his clerk here to tell me that I have 
 been pronounced " Contumacious," for not appearing 
 somewhere, and before somebody that I never heard of! 
 Egad ! these kind of proceedings are scarcely calculated 
 to develop the virtues of humanity ! They sent me some- 
 thing I thought was a demand for a tax, and it turns out 
 a judge's warrant ; for aught I know, there may be an 
 order to seize the body of Kenny James Dodd, and con- 
 sign him to the dungeons of the Inquisition ! Write to
 
 78 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 me at once, Tom, and, above all don't forget the 
 money. 
 
 Yours, most faithfully, 
 
 K. I. Dodd. 
 
 Why does Molly Gallagher keep pestering me about 
 Christy ? She wants me to get him into the " Grand 
 Canal." I wish they were both there, with all my heart. 
 
 I open this to say that Vickers has just sent me a copy 
 of his address to the " Independent Electors of Bruff." 
 I'd like to see one of them, for the curiosity of the thing. 
 He asks me to give him my opinion of the document, and 
 the " benefit of my advice and counsel," as if I had not been 
 reading the very same productions since I was a child. 
 The very phraseology is unaltered. Why can't they hit 
 on something new ? He " hopes that he restores to them, 
 unsullied, the high trust they had committed to his keep- 
 ing." Egad ! if he does so, he ought to get a patent for 
 taking out spots, stains, and discoloration s, for a dirtier 
 garment than our representative mantle has been, would be 
 hard to find. Like all our patriots that sit in Whig com- 
 pany, he is sorely puzzled between his love for Ireland and 
 his regard for himself, and has to limit his political line 
 to a number of vague threats about overgrown Church 
 Establishments and Landlord tyranny, not being quite 
 sure how far his friends in power are disposed to worry 
 the Protestants and grind the gentry. 
 
 Of course he butters up the pastors of the people ; but 
 he might as well leave that alone; the priests are too 
 cunning for all that balderdash now-a-days. They'll 
 insist on something real, tangible, and substantial. What 
 they say is this : " The landlords used to have it all their 
 own way at one time. Our day is come now." And 
 there they're right, Tom ; there's no doubt of it. O'Con- 
 nell said true, when he told the English " ye're always 
 abusing me — and call me the ' curse of Ireland ' and the 
 destroyer of the public peace — but wait a bit. I'll not 
 be five years in my grave till you'd wish me back again." 
 There never was anything more certain. So long as you 
 had Dan to deal with, you could make your bargain — it
 
 AN ELECTORAL ADDRESS. 79 
 
 might be, it often was, a very hard one — but, when it was 
 once made, he kept the terms fairly and honestly ! But 
 with whom will you treat now ? Is it with M'Hale, or 
 Paul Cullen, or Doctor Meyler ? Sure each of them will 
 demand separate and specific conditions, and you might 
 as well try to settle the Caffre war by a compact with 
 Sandilla, who, the moment he sells himself to you, enters 
 into secret correspondence with his successor. 
 
 I'm never so easy in my mind as when I see the English 
 in a row with the Catholics. I don't care a brass farthing 
 how much it may go against us at first — how enthusias- 
 tically they may yell " No Popery," burn cardinals in 
 effigy, and persecute the nuns. Give them rope enough, 
 Tom, and see if they don't hang themselves ! There 
 never came a fit of rampant Protestantism in England 
 that all the weak, rash, and ridiculous zealots didn't get to 
 the head of the movement. Off they go afc score, subsi- 
 dizing renegade vagabonds of our Church to abuse us, 
 raking up bad stories of conventual life, and attacking the 
 confessional. There never were gulls like them ! They 
 swallow all the cases of cruelty and persecution at once 
 — they foster every scoundrel, if he's only a deserter from 
 us — ay, and they even take to their fireplaces the filthiest 
 novels of Eugene Sue, if he only satisfies their rancorous 
 hate of a Jesuit. And where does it end, I'll tell you. 
 Their converts turn out to be scoundrels too infamous for 
 common contact — their prosecutions fail — why wouldn't 
 they, when we get them up ourselves ? — John Bull gets 
 ashamed of himself — round comes the Press, and that's 
 the moment when any young rising Catholic barrister in 
 the House can make his own terms, whether it be to 
 endow the true Church, or to smash the false one ! 
 
 As for John Bull, he never can do mischief enough 
 when he's in a passion, but he's always ready to pay 
 double the damage in the morning. And as for putting 
 " salt on our tails," let him try it with the " Dove of 
 Elphin," that all. 
 
 I was forgetting to tell you that I sent back Vickers's 
 address, only remarking that I was sorry not to know his 
 sentiments about the Board of Trade. Ver. sap.
 
 80 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 CAROLINE DODD TO MISS COX, AT MISS MINCINO's ACADEMY, BLACK ROCK, 
 IRELAND. 
 
 My dear Miss Cox, — I have long hesitated and delibe- 
 rated with myself whether it were not better to appear 
 ungrateful for my silence, than by writing inflict you with 
 a very tiresome, good-for-nothing epistle ; and if I have 
 now taken the worst counsel, it is because I prefer any- 
 thing rather than seem forgetful of one to whom I owe so 
 much as to my dear, kind governess. Were I only to tell 
 you of our adventures and mishaps since we came 
 abroad, there might, perhaps, be enough to fill half a 
 dozen letters ; but I greatly doubt if the theme would 
 amuse you. You were always too good-natured to laugh at 
 anything where there was even one single feature that 
 suggested sorrow ; and I grieve to say that, however 
 ludicrously many of our accidents might read, there is 
 yet mixed with them too much that is painful and dis- 
 tressing. You will say, this is a very gloomy opening, 
 and from one whom you had so often to chide for the wild 
 gaiety of her spirits ; but so it is ; I am sad enough now 
 — sadder than ever you wished to see me. It is not that 
 I am not in the very midst of objects full of deep interest 
 — it is not that I do not recognize around me scenes, 
 places, and names, all of which are imbued with great 
 and stirring associations. I am neither indifferent nor 
 callous, but I see everything through a false medium, and 
 I hear everything with a perverted judgment ; in a word, 
 we seem to have come abroad, not to derive the advan- 
 tages that might arise from new sources of knowledge in 
 language, literature, and art, but to scramble for a higher 
 social position — to impose ourselves on the world for 
 something that we have no pretension to, and to live in 
 a way that we cannot afford. You remember us at Dods- 
 borough — how happy we were, how satisfied with the
 
 HOME-LONGINGS. 81 
 
 world — that is, with our world, for it was a very little 
 one. We were not very great folk, but we had all the 
 consideration as if we were ; for there were none better 
 off than ourselves, and few had so many opportunities of 
 winning the attachment of all classes. Papa was always 
 known as the very best of landlords, mamma had not her 
 equal for charity and kindness, James was actually adored 
 by the people, and I hesitate not to say that Mary Anno 
 and myself were not friendless. There was a little daily 
 round of duties that brought us all together in our cares 
 and sympathies ; for, however different our ages or 
 tastes, we had but one class of subjects to discuss, and, 
 happily, we saw them always with the same light and 
 shadow, our life was, in short, what fashionable people 
 would have deemed a very vulgar, inglorious kind of 
 existence ; but it was full of pleasant little incidents, and 
 a thousand little cares and duties, that gave it abundant 
 variety and interest. I was never a quick scholar, as you 
 know too well. I have tried my dear Miss Cox's patience 
 sorely and often, but I loved my lessons ; I loved those 
 calm hours in the summer-house, with the perfume of the 
 rose and the sweetbriar around us, and the hum of the 
 bee mingling its song with my own not less drowsy 
 French. That sweet " Telcmachus," so easy and so softly- 
 sounding; that good Madame de Genlis, so simple- 
 minded when she thought herself most subtle. Not lesa 
 did I love the little old schoolroom of a winter's day, 
 when the pattering rain streamed down the windows, and 
 gave, by contrast, all the aspect of more comfort within. 
 How pleasant was it, as we gathered round the turf fire, 
 to think that we were surrounded with such appliances 
 against gloomy hours — the healthful exercise of happy 
 minds ! Ah, my dear Miss Cox, how often you told us to 
 study hard, since that, once launched upon the great sea 
 of life, the voyage would exact all our cares ; and yet 
 see, here am I upon that wide ocean, and already longing 
 to regain the quiet little creek — the little haven of rest 
 that I quitted ! 
 
 I promised to be very candid with you — to conceal 
 nothing whatever — but I did not remember that my con- 
 fessions, to be thus frank, must necessarily involve me in 
 
 vol. i. G
 
 82 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 remarks on others, in which I may be often unjust — in 
 which I am certain to be unwarranted — since nothing in 
 my position entitles me to be their censor. However, I 
 will keep my pledge this once, and you will tell me after- 
 wards, if I should continue to observe it. And now to 
 begin. "We are living here as though we were people of 
 vast fortune. We occupy the chief suite of apartments 
 at the first hotel, and we have a carriage, with showy 
 liveries, a courier, and are quite beset with masters of 
 every language and accomplishment you can fancy — expen- 
 sive kind of people, whose very dress and style bespeak 
 the terms on which their services are rendered. Our 
 visitors are all titled : dukes, princes, and princesses 
 shower amongst our cards. Our invitations are from the 
 same class, and yet, my dear Miss Cox, we feel all the 
 unreality of this high and stately existence. We look at 
 each other and think of Dodsborough ! We think of papa 
 in his old fustian shooting-jacket, paying the labourers, 
 and higgling about half a day to be stopped here, and a 
 sack of meal to be deducted there. We think of mamma's 
 injunctions to Darby Sloan about the price he is to get for 
 the " boneens " — have you forgotten our vernacular for 
 little pigs ? — and how much he must " be sure to ask " 
 for the turkeys. We think of Mary Anne and myself 
 taking our lesson from Mr. Delaney, and learning the 
 Quad — drilles, as he pronounced it, as the last new dis- 
 covery of the dancing art, and dear James hammering 
 away at the rule of three on an old slate, to try and qualify 
 himself for the Board of Trade. And we remember the 
 utter consternation of the household — the tumult dashed 
 with a certain sense of pride — when some subaltern of the 
 detachment at Bruff cantered up to the door and sent in 
 his name ! Dear me, how the little words 25th Regiment, 
 or 91st, used to make our hearts beat, suggestive as they 
 were of gay balls at the Town-hall with red-coated part- 
 ners, the regimental band, and the colours tastefully fes- 
 tooning the whitewashed walls. And now, my dear Miss 
 Sarah, we are actually ashamed of the contact with one of 
 those whom once it was our highest glory to be acquainted 
 with ! You may remember a certain Captain Morris, who 
 was stationed at Bruff— dark, with very black eyes, anc|
 
 CAPTAIN MORRIS. 83 
 
 most beautiful teeth ; he was very silent in company, and, 
 indeed, we knew him but slightly, for he chanced to have 
 some altercation with pa on the bench one day, and, as I 
 hear, he was all in the right, pa did not afterwards forgive 
 him. Well, here he is now, having left the army — I don't 
 know if on half-pay, or sold out altogether — but here he is, 
 travelling for the benefit of his mother's health — a very 
 old and infirm lady — to whom he is dotingly attached. 
 She fretted so much when she discovered that his regiment 
 was ordered abroad to the Cape, that he had no other 
 resource than to leave the service ! He told me so 
 himself. 
 
 "I had nobody else in the world," said he, "who felt 
 any interest in my fortunes : she had made a hundred 
 sacrifices for me. It was but fair I should make one for 
 her." 
 
 He knew he was surrendering position and prospect 
 for ever — that to him no career could ever open again ; 
 but he had placed a duty high above all considerations of 
 self, and so he parted with comrades and pursuit, with 
 everything that made up his hope and his object, and 
 descended to a little station of unobtrusive, undistinguished 
 humility, satisfied to be the companion of a poor, feeble 
 old lady ! He has as much as confessed to me that their 
 means are very small. It was an accidental admission 
 with reference to something he thought of doing, but 
 which he found to be too expensive, and the avowal was 
 made so easily, so frankly, so free from any false shame on 
 one side, or any unworthy desire to entrap sympathy on 
 the other! It was as if he spoke of something which 
 indeed concerned him, but in no wise gave the mainspring 
 to his thoughts or actions ! He came to visit us here ; but 
 his having left the service, coupled with our present taste 
 for grand acquaintance, were so little in his favour, that I 
 believed he would not have repeated his call. An acci- 
 dental service, however, that he was enabled to render 
 mamma and Mary Anne at a railroad station the other day, 
 and where but for him they might have been involved in 
 considerable difficulties, has opened a chance of further 
 intimacy, for he has already been here two mornings, and 
 is coming this evening to tea. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Yon will, perhaps, ask me how and by what chain of 
 circumstances Captain Morris is linked with the earlier 
 portion of this letter, and I "will tell you. It was from 
 him that I learned the history of those high and dis- 
 tinguished individuals by whom we are surrounded : from 
 him I heard that, supposing us to be people of immense 
 wealth, a whole web of intrigue has been spun around us, 
 and everything that the ingenuity and craft of the pro- 
 fessional adventurer could devise put in requisition to 
 trade upon our supposed affluence and inexperience ! He 
 has told me of the dangerous companions by whom James 
 is surrounded ; and if he has not spoken so freely about a 
 certain young nobleman — Lord George Tiverton — who is 
 now seldom or never out of the house, it is because that 
 they have had something of a personal difference — a 
 serious one, I suspect, and which Captain Morris seems to 
 reckon as a bar to anything beyond the merest mention of 
 his name. It is not impossible, too, that though he might 
 not make any revelations to me on such a theme, he would 
 be less guarded with papa or James. Whatever may be 
 the fact, he does not advance at all in the good graces of 
 the others. Mamma calls him a dry crust — a confirmed 
 old bachelor. Mary Anne and Lord George — for they are 
 always in partnership in matters of opinion — have set 
 him down as a " military prig ;" and papa, who is rarely 
 unjust in the long run, says that u there's no guessing at 
 the character of a fellow of small means, who never goes 
 in debt." This may or may not be true ; but it is certainly 
 hard to condemn him for an honourable trait, simply 
 because it does nob give the key to his nature. And now, 
 my last hope is what James may think of him, for as yefc 
 they have not met. I think I hear you echo my words, 
 "And why your ' last hope,' MissCary? What possible 
 right have you to express yourself in these terms?" 
 Simply because I feel that one man of true and honourable 
 sentiments — one right-judging, right-feeling gentleman, is 
 all-essential to us abroad ! and if we reject this chance, I'm 
 not so sure we shall meet with another. 
 
 How ashamed I am not to be able to tell you of all I 
 have seen. But so it is — description is a very tame per- 
 formance in good hands : it is a lamentable exhibition in
 
 DUTCH PICTURES. 85 
 
 weak ones ! As to painters, I prefer Vandyk to Rubens ; 
 not that I have even the pretence of a reason for my 
 criticism. I know nothing whatever of what constitutes 
 excellence in colour, drawing, or design. I understand in 
 a picture only what it suggests to my own mind, either as 
 a correct copy of nature, or as originating new trains of 
 thought, new sources of feeling; and by these tests 
 Vandyk pleases me more than his master. But, shall I 
 own it, there is a class of pictures of a far inferior order 
 that gives me greater enjoyment than either — I mean 
 those scenes of real life — those representations of some 
 little uneventful incident of the every-day world — an old 
 chemist at work in his dim old laboratory ; an old house 
 Vrow knitting in her red-tiled chamber, the sunlight 
 slanting in, and tipping with an azure tint the tortoise- 
 shell cat that purrs beside her; a lover teaching his mis- 
 tress the guitar; an old cavalier giving his horse a drink 
 at a fountain. These, in all the life-like power of Gerard 
 Dow, Teerburgh, or Mieris, have a charm for me I cannot 
 express. They are stories, and they are better than stories, 
 for oftentimes the writer conveys his meaning imperfectly, 
 and oftentimes he overlays you with his explanations, 
 stifling within you those expansive bursts of sentiment that 
 ought to have been his aim to evoke, and thus, by elaborat- 
 ing, he obliterates. Now, your artist — I mean, of course, 
 your great artist — is eminently suggestive. He gives you 
 but one scene, it is true, but how full is it of the past, and 
 the future too ! Can you gaze on that old alchemist, with 
 his wrinkled forehead, and dim, deep-set eyes, his thread- 
 bare doublet, and his fingers tremulous from age — can you 
 watch that countenance, calm, but careworn, where every 
 line exhibits the long struggle there has been between the 
 keen perceptions of science and the golden dreams of 
 enthusiasm — where the coldest passions of a worldly 
 nature have warred with the most glorious attributes of 
 a poetic temperament? Can you see him, as he sits 
 watching the alembic, wherein the toil of years is bub- 
 bling, and not weave within your own mind the life-long 
 conflict he has sustained ? Have you him not before you 
 in his humble home, secluded and forgotten of men ! yet 
 inhabiting a dream world of crowded images ? What
 
 86 THE DODD FAMILt ABROAD. 
 
 beautiful stories — what touching little episodes of domestic 
 life — lie in the quiet scenes of those quaint interiors ; and 
 how deep the charm that attaches one to these peaceful 
 spots of home happiness ! The calm intellectuality of the 
 old — the placid loveliness of the young — the air of culti- 
 vated enjoyment that pervades all — are in such perfect 
 keeping, that you feel as though they imparted to yourself 
 some share of that gentle, tranquil pleasure that forms 
 their own atmosphere ! 
 
 Oh, my dear Miss Cox ! if there be " sermons in stones,'* 
 there are romances in pictures — and romances far more 
 truthful than the circulating libraries supply us with. And, 
 to turn back to real life, shall I own to you that I am sadly 
 disappointed with the gay world. I am fully alive to all 
 the value of the confession. I appreciate perfectly how 
 double-edged is the weapon of this admission, and that I 
 am, in reality, but pleading guilty to my own unfitness for 
 its enjoyments ; but as I never tried to evade or deny that 
 fact, I may be suffered to give my testimony with so much 
 of qualification. When I compare the little gratification 
 that society confers on the very highest classes, with the 
 heartfelt delight intercourse imparts to the humble, I am 
 at a loss to see wherein lies the advantage of all the 
 exclusive regulations of fashionable life. Of one thing I 
 feel assured, and that is, that one must be born in a 
 certain class, habituated from the earliest years to its 
 ideas and habits, filled with its peculiar traditions, and 
 animated by its own special hopes, to conform gracefully 
 and easily to its laws. We go into society to perform a 
 part — just as artificial a one as any in a genteel comedy — 
 and, consequently, are too much occupied with " our 
 character " to derive that benefit from intercourse which 
 is so attainable by those less constrained by circum- 
 stances. If all this amounts to the simple confession that 
 I am by no means at home in the great world, and far 
 more at my ease with more humble associates, it is no 
 more than the fact, and comes pretty near to what you 
 often remarked to me : that, " in criticizing external 
 objects, one is very frequently but delineating little traits 
 and lineaments of one's own nature." 
 
 I am unable to answer your question about our future
 
 PLEASURES OP FASHIONABLE SOCIETY. 87 
 
 plans ; for, indeed, they appear anything but fixed. I 
 believe, if papa had his choice, he would go back at once. 
 This, however, mamma will not hear of ; and, indeed, the 
 word Ireland is now as much under ban amongst us, as 
 that name that is never " syllabled to ears polite." The 
 doctors say, James ought to pass a month or six weeks at 
 Schwalbach, to drink the waters and take the baths; and, 
 from what I can learn, the place is the perfection of rural 
 beauty and quietude. Captain Morris speaks of it as a 
 little paradise. He is going there himself; for I have 
 learned — though not from him — that he was badly 
 wounded in the Affghan war. I will write to you when- 
 ever our destination is decided on ; and, meanwhile, beg 
 you to believe me my dear Miss Cox's 
 
 Most attached and faithful pupil, 
 
 Caroline Dodd. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 MR. DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OP THE GRANGE, BRUPP. 
 
 Dear Tom, — I got the bills all safe, and cashed two of 
 them yesterday. They came at the right moment — when 
 does not money? — for we are going to leave this for 
 Germany, one of the watering-places there, the name Oj. 
 which I cannot trust myself to spell, being recommended 
 for James's wound. I suppose I'm not singular, but 
 somehow I never was able to compute what I owed in a 
 place till I was about to leave it. From that moment, 
 however, in come a shower of bills and accounts that one 
 never dreamed of. The cook you discharged three months 
 before has never paid for the poultry, and you have as 
 many hens to your score as if you were a fox. You've 
 lost the fishmonger's receipts, and have to pay him over 
 again for a whole Lent's consumption. Your courier has
 
 83 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 run up a bill in your name for cigars and curacoa, and 
 your wife's maid has been conducting the most liberal 
 operations in perfumery and cosmetics, under the title of 
 her mistress. Then comes the landlord, for repairs and 
 damages. Every creaky sofa and cracked saucer that 
 you have been treating for six months with the deference 
 due to their delicate condition, must be replaced by new 
 ones. Every window that wouldn't shut, and every door 
 that would not open, must be put in perfect order — keys 
 replaced, bells rehung. The saucepans, whose verdigris 
 has almost killed you with colic, must be all retinned or 
 coppered ; and, lastly, the pump is sure to be destroyed 
 by the housemaid, and vague threats about sinking a new 
 well are certain to draw you into a compromise. Nor is 
 the roguery the worst of it ; but all the sneaking scoun- 
 drels that wouldn't " trouble you with their little demands " 
 before, stand out now as sturdy creditors, that would not 
 abate a jot of their claims. Lucky are ye if they don't 
 rake up old balances, and begin the score with " Restant 
 du dernier compte." 
 
 The moralists say that a man should be enabled to visit 
 the world after his death, if he would really know the 
 opinion entertained of him by his fellows. Until this 
 desirable object be attainable, one ought to be satisfied 
 with the experience obtained by change of residence. 
 There is no disguise, no concealment then ! The little 
 blemishes of your temper, once borne with such Christian 
 charity, are remembered in a more chastening spirit ; and 
 it is half hinted that your custom was more than com- 
 pensated for by your complaining querulousness. Is not 
 the moral of all this, that one should live at home, in his 
 own place, where his father lived before him, and his son 
 will live after him — where the tradespeople have a vested 
 interest in your welfare, and are nearly as anxious about 
 your wheat and potatoes as you are yourself? Unlike 
 these foreign rascals, that think you have a manufactory 
 of " Herries and Farquhar's circular notes," and can coin 
 at will, your neighbours know when and at what times 
 it's no use to tease you — that asking for money at the 
 wrong season is like expecting new peas in December, or 
 grouse in the month of May.
 
 AN INVITATION TO THE PREFECTURE. 89 
 
 I make these remarks in all the spirit of recent suffer- 
 ing, for I have paid away two hundred pounds since 
 yesterday morning, of which I was not conscious that I 
 owed fifty. And besides, I have gone through more 
 actual fightiDg — in the way of bad language, I mean — 
 than double the money would repay me for. In these 
 wordy combats, I feel I always come off worst ; for as my 
 knowledge of the language is limited, I'm like the sailor, 
 that, for want of ammunition, crammed in whatever he 
 could lay hands on into his gun, and fired off his bag of 
 doubloons against the enemy instead of round shot. 
 Mrs. D., too, whom the sounds of conflict always " sum- 
 mon to the field," does not improve matters ; for if her 
 vocabulary be limited, it is strong, and even the most 
 roguish shopkeeper does not like to be called a thief and 
 a highwayman ! These diversions in our parts of speech 
 have cost me dearly, for I have had to compromise about 
 six cases of "defamation," and two of threatened assault 
 and battery, though these last went no further than 
 demonstrations on Mrs. D.'s part, which, however, were 
 quite sufficient to terrify our grocer, who is a colonel in 
 the National Guard, and a gigantic hairdresser, whose 
 beard is the glory of a " Sapeur company." I have dis- 
 covered, besides, that I have done something, but what 
 it is — in contravention to the laws — I do not know, and 
 for which I am fined eighty-two francs five centimes, plus 
 twenty-seven for contumacy; and I have paid it now, 
 lest it should grow into more by to-morrow, for so the 
 Brigadier has just hinted to me, for that formidable 
 functionary — with tags that would do credit to a general 
 — is just come to " invite me," as he calls it, to the Pre- 
 fecture. As these invitations are like royal ones, I must 
 break off now, abruptly. 
 
 Here I am again, Tom, after four hours of ante-chamber 
 and audience. I had been summoned to appear before the 
 authorities to purge myself of a contempt — for which, by 
 the way, they had already fined me — my offence being 
 that I had not exchanged some bit of paper for another 
 bit of paper given me in exchange for my passport, the 
 purport of which was to show that I, Kenny Dodd, was 
 living openly and flagrantly in the city of Brussels, and
 
 90 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 not following out any clandestine pursuit or object in- 
 jurious to the state, and subversive of the monarchy. 
 Well, I hope they're satisfied now : and if my eighty- two 
 francs five centimes gave any stability to their institutions, 
 much good may it do them ! This, however, seems but 
 the beginning of new troubles; for on my applying to 
 have the aforesaid passport vised for Germany, they told 
 me that there were two " detainers " on it, in the shape of 
 two actions at law yet undecided, although I 3-esterday 
 morning paid up what I understood to be the last instal- 
 ment for compromising all suits now pending against 
 said Kenny I. Dodd. On hearing this, I at once set out 
 for the tribunal to see Vanhoegen and Draek, my chief 
 lawyers. Such a place as the tribunal you never set eyes 
 on. Imagine a great quadrangle, with archways all round 
 crammed full of dirty advocates — black-gowned, black- 
 faced, and black-hearted ; peasants, thieves, gaolers, tip- 
 staffs, and the general public of fruit-sellers and lucifer- 
 matches all mixed up together, with a turmoil and odour 
 that would make you hope Justice was as little troubled 
 with nose as eyesight. Over the heads of this mob you 
 catch glimpses of the several courts, where three old 
 fellows, like the figures in a Holbein, sit behind a table 
 covered with black cloth, administering the law — a solemn 
 task that loses some of its imposing influence, when you 
 think that these reverend seigniors, if wanting in the 
 wisdom, are not free from one of the weaknesses of 
 Bacon ! By dint of great pressing, pushing, and perse- 
 verance, I forced my way forward into one t*f these till I 
 reached a strong wooden rail, or barrier, within which 
 was an open space, where the accused sat on a kind of 
 bench, the witness under examination being opposite to 
 him, and the procureur hard by in a little box like a dwarf 
 pulpit. I thought I saw Draek in the crowd, but I was 
 mistaken — an easy matter, they all look so much alike. 
 Once in, however, I thought I'd remain for a while and 
 see the proceedings. It was a trial for murder, as well 
 as I could ascertain the case. The prisoner, a gentleman- 
 like young fellow of six or seven-and-twenty, had stabbed 
 another in some fit of jealousy. I believe they were at 
 supper, or were going to sup together, when the alterca-
 
 A TRIAL FOR MURDER. 9l 
 
 tion occurred. There was a waiter in the witness-box 
 giving evidence when I came up, and really the tone of 
 deference he exhibited to the prisoner, and the prisoner's 
 own off-hand, easy way of interrogating him, were greatly 
 to be admired. It was easy to see that he had got many 
 a half-crown from the accused, and had not given up hope 
 of many more in future. His chief evidence was to the 
 effect that Monsieur de Verteuil, the accused, had ordered 
 a supper for two in a private room, the bill of fare offer- 
 ing a wide field for discussion, one of the points of the 
 case being whether the guest who should partake of the 
 repast was a lady or the deceased ; and this the advocates 
 on each side handled with wonderful dexterity, by infer- 
 ences drawn from the carte. You see, Verteuil's counsel 
 wanted- to show that Bretigny was an intruder, and had 
 forced himself into the company of the accused. The 
 opposite side were for implying that he came there on 
 invitation, and was murdered of malice aforethought. I 
 don't think the point would have been so very material 
 with us ; or, at all events, that we should have tried to 
 elicit it in this manner ; but they have their own way of 
 doing things, and I suppose they know what suits them. 
 After half an hour's very animated skirmishing, the presi- 
 dent, with a sudden flash of intelligence, bethought him 
 of asking the accused for whom he bespoke the entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 " You must excuse me, Monsieur le President," said 
 he, blandly ; " but I'm sure that your nice sense of honour 
 will show that I cannot answer your question." 
 
 " Tres bien, trh bien" rang through the crowded court, 
 in approbation of this chivalrous speech, and one young 
 lady from the gallery flung down her bouquet of moss- 
 roses to the prisoner, in token of her enthusiastic concur- 
 rence. The delicate reserve of the accused seemed to 
 touch every one. Husbands and wives, sons and daugh- 
 ters, all appeared to feel that they had a vested interest 
 in the propagation of such principles ; and the old judge 
 who had propounded the ungracious interrogatory, really 
 seemed ashamed of himself. 
 
 The waiter soon after this retired, and what the news- 
 papers next day called a " sensation prononcee " was caused
 
 92 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 by the entrance of a very handsome and showy-looking 
 young lady — no less a personage than Madlle. Catinka 
 Lovenfeld, the prima donna of the Opera, and the Dido 
 of this unhappy .zEneid. With us, the admiration of a 
 pretty vitness is always a very subdued homage; and 
 even the reporters do not like venturing beyond the 
 phrase, " here a person of prepossessing appearance took 
 her place on the table." They are very superior to us 
 here, however, for the buzz of admiration swelled from the 
 lowest benches till it rose to the very judicial seat itself, 
 and the old president, affecting to look at his notes, wiped 
 his glasses afresh, and took a sly peep at the beauty, like 
 the rest of us. 
 
 Though, as Macheath says, " Laws were made for every 
 degree," the mode of examining witnesses admits of con- 
 siderable variety. The interrogatories were now no longer 
 jerked out with abruptness ; the questions were not put 
 with the categorical sternness of that frowning aspect 
 which, be the lawyer Belgian, French, or Irish, seems an 
 instinct with him; on the contrary, the pretty witness 
 was invited to tell her name, she was wheedled out of her 
 birthplace, coaxed out of her peculiar religious profession, 
 and joked into saying something about her age. 
 
 I must say, if she had rehearsed the part as often as 
 she had that of Norma, she couldn't be more perfect. 
 Her manner was the triumph of ease and grace. There 
 was an almost filial deference for the bench, an air of 
 respectful attention for the bar, courtesy for the jury, and 
 a most touching shade of compassion for the prisoner, and 
 all this done without the slightest seeming effort. I do 
 not pretend to know what others felt, but as for me, I 
 paid very little attention to the matter, so much more did 
 the manner of the iLquiry engage me : still I heard that 
 she was a Saxon by birth, of noble parentage, born with 
 the highest expectations, but ruined by the attachment of 
 her father to the cause of the Emperor Napoleon. The 
 animation with which she alluded to this parental trait 
 elicited a most deafening burst of applause, and the tip- 
 staff, a veteran of the Imperial Guard, was carried out 
 senseless, overcome by his emotions. Ah, Tom ! we have 
 nothing like this in England, and strange enough that
 
 A TRIAL FOR MURDER. 93 
 
 they should have it here; but the fact is, these Belgians 
 are only " second-chop " Frenchmen — a kind of weak 
 " after grass," with only the weeds luxuriant ! It's pretty 
 much as with ourselves — the people that take a loan of 
 a language never take a lease of the traditions ! They 
 catch up just some popular clap-traps of the mother 
 country, but there ends the relationship ! 
 
 But to come back to Madlle. Catinka. She now had 
 got into a little narrative of her youth, in some old 
 chateau on the Elbe, which held the Court breathless ; to 
 be sure, it had not a great deal to do with the case in 
 hand ; but no matter for that, a more artless, gifted, lovely, 
 and loving creature than she appeared to have been never 
 existed. On this last attribute she laid considerable stress. 
 There was, I think, a little rhetorical art in the con- 
 fession; for certainly a young lady who loved birds, 
 flowers, trees, water, clouds, and mountains so devotedly, 
 might possibly have a spare corner for something else, 
 and even the old judge couldn't tell if he had not chanced 
 on the lucky ticket in that lottery. I wish I could have 
 heard the case out ; I'd have given a great deal to see 
 how they linked all that Paul and Virginia life with the 
 bloody drama they were there to investigate, and what 
 possible connection existed between Tieck's romances and 
 sticking a man with a table-knife. This gratification was, 
 however, denied me ; for just as I was listening with my 
 greediest ears, Vanhoegen placed his hand on my shoulder, 
 and whispered, " Come along — don't lose a minute — 
 your cause is on ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? havGn't I compro— " 
 
 11 Hush ! " said he, warningly ; " respect the majesty of 
 the law." 
 
 " With all my heart ; but what's my cause ? — what do 
 you mean by my cause ? " 
 
 " It's no time for explanation," said he, hurrying me 
 along ; " the judges are in chamber — you'll soon hear all 
 about it." 
 
 He said truly ; it was neither the fitting time nor place 
 for much converse, for we had to fight our way through a 
 crowd that was every moment increasing, and it took at 
 least twenty minutes of struggle and combat to get out,
 
 94 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 my coat being slit up to the collar, and my friend's gown 
 being reduced to something like bell-ropes. 
 
 He didn't seem to think much about his damaged 
 costume, but still dragged me along, across a court-yard, 
 up some very filthy stairs, down a dark corridor, then up 
 another flight, and, passing into a large ante-room, where 
 a messenger was seated in a kind of glass cage, he pushed 
 aside a heavy curtain of green baize, and we found our- 
 selves in a court, which, if not crowded like that below, 
 was still sufficiently filled, and by persons of respectable 
 exterior. There was a dead silence as we entered. The 
 three judges were examining their notes, and handing 
 papers back and forward to each other in dumb show. 
 The procureur was picking his teeth with a paper-knife, 
 and the clerk of the Court munching a sandwich, which 
 he held in his hat. Vanhoegen, however, brushed forward 
 to a prominent place, and beckoned me to a seat beside 
 him. I had but time to obey, when the clerk, seeing us 
 in our places, bolted down an enormous mouthful, and, 
 with an effort that nearly choked him, cried out, " L'affaire 
 de Dodd fils est en audience." My heart drooped as I 
 heard the words. The " affaire de Dodd fils " could mean 
 nothing but that confounded duel of which I have already 
 told you. All the misfortune and all the criminality 
 seemed to fall upon us. For at least four times a week I 
 was summoned somewhere or other, now, before a civil, 
 now, a military, auditor ; and though I swore repeatedly 
 that I knew nothing about the matter till it was all over, 
 they appeared to think that, if I was well tortured, I 
 might make great revelations. They were not quite 
 wrong in their calculations. I would have turned " ap- 
 prover" against my father, rather than gone on in 
 this fashion. But the difficulty was, I had really nothing 
 to tell. The little I knew had been obtained from 
 others. Lord George had told me so much as I was 
 acquainted with ; and, from my old habits of the bench 
 at home, I was well aware that such could not be admitted 
 as evidence. 
 
 Still it was their good pleasure to pursue me with 
 warrants and summonses, and there was nothing for it 
 but to appear when and wherever they wanted me.
 
 95 
 
 " Is this confounded affair the cause of my passport 
 being detained ? " whispered I to Van* 
 
 "Precisely," said he; "and if not very dexterously 
 handled, the expense may be enormous." 
 
 I almost lost all self-possession at these words. I had 
 been a mark for legal pillage and robbery from the first 
 moment of my arrival, and it seemed as if they would not 
 suffer me to leave the country while I had a Napoleon 
 remaining. Stung nearly to madness, I resolved to make 
 one desperate effort at rescue, and, like some of those 
 woe-begone creatures in our own country who insist on 
 personal appeals to a Chief Justice, I called, " Monsieur 
 
 le Presidnet " There, however, my French left me, 
 
 and, after a terrible struggle to get on, I had to continue 
 my address in the vernacular. 
 
 " Who is this man ? " asked he, sternly. 
 
 "Dodd pere, Monsieur le President," interposed my 
 lawyer, who seemed most eager to save me from the con- 
 sequences of my rashness. 
 
 " Ah ! he is Dodd pere," said the president, solemnly ; 
 and now he and his two colleagues adjusted their spec- 
 tacles, and gazed at me long and attentively ; in fact, with 
 such earnestness did they stare, that I began to feel my 
 character of Dodd pere was rather an imposing kind of 
 performance. " Enfin," said the president, with a faint 
 sigh, as though the reasoning process had been rather a 
 fatiguing one- — " enfin ! Dodd pere is the father of Dodd 
 fils, the respondent." 
 
 Vanhoegen bowed submissive assent, and muttered, as 
 I thought, some little flattery about the judicial acuteness 
 and perspicuity. 
 
 " Let him be sworn," said the president ; and accord- 
 ingly I held up my hand, while the clerk recited something 
 with a humndrum rapidity that I guessed must mean an oath. 
 
 "You are called Dodd pere?" said the Attorney- 
 General, addressing me. 
 
 " I find I am so called here, but I never was so before," 
 said I, tartly. 
 
 " He means that the appellation is not usual in his own 
 country," said one of the judges — a small, red-eyed man, 
 with pock-marks.
 
 96 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 " Put it down," observed the president, gravely. " The 
 witness informs ns that he is only called Dodd." 
 
 " Kenny James Dodd, Monsieur," cried I, interrupting. 
 
 " Dodd — dit Kenny James," dictated the small judge ; 
 and the amanuensis took it down. 
 
 "And you swear you are the father of Dodd fils?" 
 asked the president. 
 
 I suppose that the adage of a wise child knowing his 
 own father cuts both ways, but I answered boldly, that 
 I'd swear to the best of my belief — a reservation, how- 
 ever, that excited a discussion of three-quarters of an 
 hour, the point being at last ruled in my favour. 
 
 I am bound to say that there was a great deal of legal 
 learning displayed in the controversy — a vast variety of 
 authorities cited, from King David downwards ; and 
 although at one time matters seemed going against me, 
 the red-eyed man turned the balance in my favour, and it 
 was agreed that I was the father of my own son. If I 
 knew but all, it might have been better for me there had 
 been a hitch in the case. But I am anticipating. 
 
 There now arose another dispute, on a point of law I 
 believe, and which was, what degree of responsibility — 
 there were fourteen degrees, it seems, in the Pandects — I 
 stood in, as regarded the present suit. From the turn the 
 debate took, I began to suspect we might, all of us, have 
 to plead to our responsibilities in the other world ere it 
 could be finished ; but the red-eyed man, who seemed the 
 shrewdest of them all, cut the matter short by proposing 
 that I should be invited — that's the phrase— to say so 
 much as I pleased in the question before the Court. 
 
 " Yes, yes," assented the president. " Let him relate 
 the affair." And the whole bar and the audience seemed 
 to re-echo the words. 
 
 You know me well, Tom, and you can vouch for it that 
 I never had any objection to telling a story. It was, in 
 truth, a kind of weakness with me, and some used to say 
 that I was getting into the habit of telling the same ones 
 too often. Be that as it may, I never was accused of 
 relating a garbled, broken, and disjointed tale, and 
 for the honour of my anecdotic powers, I resolved not 
 to do so.
 
 STATEMENT OF DODD PERE. 97 
 
 11 My lord," said I, " I'm like the knife-grinder — I havo 
 no story ! " 
 
 Bad luck to my illustration, it took half-an-liour to show 
 that my identity was not, somehow, mixed np with a wheel 
 and a grinding-stone ! 
 
 " Let him relate the affair," said the president, once 
 more ; and this time his voice and manner both proclaimed 
 that his patience was not to be trifled with. 
 
 " Relate what ? " asked I, tartly. 
 
 " All that you know — anything you have heard," 
 whispered Van, who was trembling for my rashness. 
 
 " My lord," said I, " of myself I know nothing; I was 
 in bed all the time." 
 
 11 He was in bed all the time," said the president to the 
 others. 
 
 " In bed," said red eyes ; M let us see ; " and he turned 
 over a file of documents before him for several minutes. 
 " Dodd pere swears that he was in bed from the 7th of 
 February, which is the first entry here, to the 19th of May, 
 inclusive." 
 
 " I swear no such thing, my lord," cried I. 
 
 " What does he swear, then ? " asked the small judge. 
 
 " Let us hear his own version ; tell us unreservedly all 
 that you know," said the president, who really spoke as 
 if he compassionated my embarrassment. 
 
 "My lord," said I, "there is nothing would give me 
 more pleasure than to display the candour you require ; 
 but when I assure you that I actually know nothing " 
 
 " Know nothing, sir ! " interposed the president. " Do 
 you mean to tell this Court that you are, and were, in total 
 ignorance of every part of your son's conduct — that you 
 never heard of his difficulties, nor of his efforts to meet 
 them?" 
 
 " If hearsay be sufficient, then," said I, " you shall have 
 it ; " and so, taking a long breath, for I saw a weary road 
 before me, I began thus, the amanuensis occasionally beg- 
 ging of me a slight halt to keep up : 
 
 " It was about five or six weeks ago, my lord, we — that 
 is, Mrs. D., the girls, James, and myself — made an excur. 
 sion to the field of Waterloo, filled by the very natural 
 desire to see a spot so intimately associated with our 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 98 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 country's glory. I will not weary you with any detail of 
 disappointment, nor deplore the total absence of every- 
 thing that could revive recollections of that great day. 
 In fact, except the big lion with his tail between his legs, 
 there is nothing symbolic of the nations engaged." 
 
 I waited a moment here, Tom, to see how they took 
 this ; but they never winced, and so I perceived my shell 
 exploded harmlessly. 
 
 " We prowled about, my lord, for two or three hours, 
 and at last reached Hougoumont, in time to take shelter 
 against a tremendous storm which just then broke over 
 us ; and there it was that James accidentally came in 
 contact with the young gentleman whom I may not 
 wrongfully call the cause of all our misfortunes. It would 
 appear that they began discussing the battle, with all the 
 natural prejudices of the two conflicting sides. I will 
 not affirm that James was very well read on the subject ; 
 indeed, my impression is, that his stock of information 
 was principally derived from a representation he had wit- 
 nessed by an equestrian troop at home, and where Bony, 
 after galloping twice round the circus, throws himself on 
 his knees and begs for mercy ; a fact so strongly impressed 
 upon his memory, that he insisted the Frenchman should 
 receive it as historical. The dispute, it would seem, was 
 not conducted within the legitimate limits of debate ; they 
 waxed angry, and the Frenchman, after a fierce provoca- 
 tion, set off into the thickest of the storm, rather than 
 endure the further discussion." 
 
 " This seems to me, sir," interposed the president, " to 
 be perfectly irrelevant to the matter before us. The 
 Court accords the very widest latitude to explanations, 
 but if they really have no bearing on the case in hand — 
 if, as it appears to my learned brethren and myself, this 
 polemic on a battle has no actual connection with your 
 son's difficulties " 
 
 "It's the very source and origin of them, my lord," 
 broke I in. " He has no embarrassment which does not 
 date from that incident and that hour." 
 
 " In that case you may proceed, sir," said he, blandly; 
 and I went on. 
 
 *' I do not mean to say, my lord, that all that followed
 
 COMMITTED FOR CONTEMPT. 99 
 
 was inevitable ; nor that, with cooler heads and calmer 
 tempers, the whole affair could not have been arranged ; 
 but James is hot, mighty hot — the Celt is strong in him. 
 He really likes a ' shindy ' — not like some chaps for the 
 notoriety of it — not because it gets into the newspapers, 
 and makes a noise — but he likes it for itself, and for its 
 own intrinsic merits, as one might say. And I may 
 remark here, my lord, that the Irishman is, perhaps, the 
 only man in Europe that understands fighting in this 
 sense ; and this trait, if rightly considered, will give a 
 strong clue to our national character, and will explain the 
 general failure of all our attempts at revolution. We 
 take so much diversion in a row, that we quite forget it's 
 only the means to an end. "We have, so to say, so much 
 fun on the road, that we lose sight of the place we were 
 going to." 
 
 I don't know, Tom, how much further I might have 
 gone on in my analytical researches into our national 
 character, but the interpreter cut me short, by assuring 
 the Court that he was totally unable to follow me. In 
 the narrative parts of my discourse he was good enough ; 
 but it seemed that my reflections, and my general remarks 
 on men and manners, were a cut above him. I was, there- 
 fore, warned to " try back" to the line of my story, which 
 I did accordingly. 
 
 "As for the affair itself, my lord," resumed I, " I under- 
 stand from eye-witnesses that it was most respectably and 
 discreetly conducted. James was put up with his face to 
 the west, so that Roger had the sun on him. The tools 
 were beauties. It was a fine May morning, mellow, and 
 not too bright. There was nothing wanting to make the 
 scene impressive, and, I may add, instructive. Roger's 
 friend gave the word — one, two, three — bang went both 
 pistols together, and poor James received the other's fire 
 just here — between the bone and the artery, so Seutin 
 described it — a critical spot, I'm sure." 
 
 " Dodd pere," said the president, solemnly, "you are 
 trifling with the patience of the tribunal ! " A grave edict, 
 which the other judges responded to by a majestic inclina- 
 tion of the head. 
 
 f* Jf you are not/' resumed he ? slowly, and with great
 
 100 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 emphasis — "if you are not a man of weak intellects and 
 deficient reasoning powers, the conduct you have pursued 
 is inexcusable — it is a high contempt ! " 
 
 " And we shall teach you, sir," said the red-eyed, " that 
 no pretence of national eccentricity can weigh against the 
 claims of insulted justice." 
 
 " Ay, sir," chimed in number three, who had not 
 spoken before, " and we shall let you feel that the majesty 
 of the law in this country is neither to be assailed by covert 
 impertinence, nor cajoled by assumed ignorance." 
 
 " My lords," said I, " all this rebuke is a riddle to me. 
 You asked me to tell you a story, and if it be not a very 
 connected and consistent one, the fault is not mine." 
 
 " Let him stand committed for contempt," said the 
 president. " The Petits Carmes may teach him decorum." 
 
 Now, Tom, the Petits Carmes is Newgate, no less ! and 
 you may imagine my feelings at this announcement, par- 
 ticularly as I saw the clerk busily taking down, from dic- 
 tation, a little history of my offence and its penalty. I 
 turned to look for Van in my sore distress, and there he 
 was, searching the volumes, briefs, and records, to find, 
 as he afterwards said, " some clue to what I had been 
 saying." 
 
 "By Heaven!" cried I, losing all patience, " this is too 
 bad. You urge me into a long account of what I know 
 nothing, and then to rescue your own ignorance, you 
 declare me impertinent. There is not a lawyer's clerk in 
 Ireland — there is no pettifogging practitioner for half- 
 crown fees — there's not a brat that carries a blue bag 
 down the Bachelor's Walk, couldn't teach you all three. 
 You go through some of the forms, but you know nothing 
 of the facts of justice. You sit up there, like three stucco- 
 men in mourning — a perfect mockery of " 
 
 I was not suffered to finish, Tom, for, at a signal from 
 the president, two gendarmes seized me on either side, 
 and notwithstanding some demonstrations of resistance, 
 led me off to prison. Ay, I must write the word again — 
 to prison! Kenny I. Dodd, of Dodsborough, Justice of 
 the Peace, and chairman of the Union of Bruff, committed 
 to gaol like a common felon ! 
 
 T',., orv T y I suffered my feelings to get the better-^
 
 " SHOWING-UP " THE CONTINENT. 101 
 
 perhaps I ought to say the worse — of me. Now that it's 
 all over, it were better that I had not knocked down the 
 turnkey, and kicked Vanhoegen out of my cell. It would 
 have been both more discreet, and more decorous, to have 
 submitted patiently. I know it's what you would have done, 
 Tom, and trusted to your action for damages to indemnify 
 you ; but I'm hasty, that's the fact ; and if I wanted to 
 , deny it, the state of the gaoler's nose, and my own sprained 
 thumb, would give evidence against me. But are there no 
 allowances to be made for the provocation ? Perhaps not 
 for a simple assault ; but if I had killed the turnkey, I'm 
 certain the jury would discover the " circonstances attenu- 
 ates." 
 
 Partly out of respect to my own feelings, partly out of 
 regard to yours, I have not put the words " Petits Cannes" 
 at the top of this letter ; but truth will out, Tom, and the 
 real fact is, that I date the present from cell No. 65, in 
 the common prison of Brussels ! Is not that a pretty con- 
 fession ? Is not that a new episode in this Iliad of enjoy- 
 ment, cultivation, and Heaven knows what besides, that 
 Mrs. D. projected by our tour on the Continent ? But I 
 swear to you, solemnly, as I write this, that, if I live to 
 get back, I'll expose the whole system of foreign travel. 
 I don't think I could write a book, and it's hard now-a- 
 days to find a chap to put down one's own sentiments 
 fairly and honestly, neither overlaying them with bits of 
 poetry, nor explaining them away by any garbage of his 
 own ; so that, maybe, I'll not be able to come out hot- 
 pressed and lettered ; but if the worst comes to it, I'll go 
 about the country giving lectures. I'll hire an organ-man 
 to play at intervals, and I'll advertise, " Kenny Dodd on 
 Men and Manners abroad — Evenings with Frenchmen and 
 Nights with Distinguished Belgians." I'll show up their 
 cookery, their morals, their modesty, their sense of truth, 
 and their notions of justice. And though I well know 
 that I'll expose myself to the everlasting hate of a legion 
 of hairdressers, dancing-masters, and white-mice men, 
 I'll do it as sure as I live. I have heard you and Peter 
 Belton wax warm and eloquent about the disgrace to our 
 laws in permitting every kind of quackery to prevail un- 
 hindered ; but what quackery was ever the equal to this
 
 102 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 taste for the Continent? If people ale Morison's pills 
 like green peas, they wouldn't do themselves as much 
 moral injury as by a month abroad ! And if I were called 
 before a committee of the House to declare, on my con- 
 science, what I deemed the most pernicious reading of the 
 day, I'd say — Murray's Hand-books ! I give you this 
 under my hand and seal. That fellow — Murray, I mean 
 — has got up a kind of Pictorial Europe of his own, with 
 bits of antiquarianism, history, poetry, and architecture, 
 that serves to convince our vulgar, vagabondizing English 
 that they are doing a refined thing in coming abroad. He 
 half persuades them that it is not for cheap champagne 
 and red partridges they're come, but to see the Cathedral 
 of Cologne and the Dome of St. Peter's, till he breeds up 
 a race of conceited, ill-informed, prating coxcombs, that 
 disgrace us abroad and disgust us at home. 
 
 I think I see your face now, and I half hear you mutter, 
 " Kenny's in one of his fits of passion ;" and you'd be right, 
 too, for I have just upset my ink-bottle over the table, and 
 there's scarcely enough left to finish this scrawl, as I must 
 reserve a little for a few lines to Mrs. D. Apropos to that 
 same, Tom, I don't know how to break it to her that I'm 
 in a gaol, for her feelings will be terribly shocked at first ; 
 not but, between you and me, before a year's over, she'll 
 make it a bitter taunt to me whenever we have a flare-up, 
 and remind me that, for all my justiceship of the peace, I 
 was treated like a common felon in Brussels ! 
 
 I believe that the best thing I can do is to send for 
 Jellicot, since Yanhoegen and Draek have sent to say that 
 they retire from my cause, u reserving to themselves all 
 liberty of future action as regards the injury personally 
 sustained;" which means, that they require ten pounds 
 for the kicking. Be it so ! 
 
 "When I have seen Jellicot, I'll give you the result of 
 the interview, that is, if there be any result: but my friend 
 J. is a lawyer of the lawyers, and it is not only that he 
 keeps his right hand on terms of distance with his left, 
 but I don't believe that the thumb and the forefinger of 
 the same side are ever acquainted. He is very much that 
 stamp of man your English Protestants call a Jesuit. God 
 help them, little they know what a real Jesuit is !
 
 THE COSTS OF " GOING FAST." 108 
 
 It's now a quarter to two in the morning, and I sit 
 down to finish this with a heavy heart, and certainly no 
 inclination for sleep. I don't know where to begin, nor 
 how to tell you, what has happened ; but the short of it 
 is, Tom, I'm half ruined. Jellicot has been here for hours 
 and gone over the whole case ; he received the papers from 
 D. and V. ; and, indeed, everything considered, he has 
 done the thing kindly and feelingly. I'm sure my head 
 wouldn't stand the task of telling you all the circum- 
 stances ; the matter resolves itself simply into this : The 
 "affaire de Dodd fils," instead of being James's duel, as I 
 thought, is a series of actions against him for debt, amount- 
 ing to upwards of two thousand pounds sterling ! There 
 is not an extravagance, from the ballet to the betting- 
 book, that he has not tasted ; and - saddle-horses, suppers, 
 velvet waistcoats, jewellery, and gimcracks, are at this 
 moment dancing an infernal reel through my poor brain. 
 
 He has contrived, in less than three months, to con- 
 dense and concentrate wickedness enough for a lifetime ; 
 this is technically called "going fast." Egad, I should 
 say it's a pace far too quick to last with any man, much 
 less with the son of a broken-down Irish gentleman ! You 
 would not believe that the boy could know the very names 
 of the things that he appears to have reckoned as mere 
 necessaries of daily life ; and how he contrived to raise 
 money and contract loans — a thing that has been a dif- 
 ficulty to myself all my life long — is clean beyond me to 
 explain. I'll get a copy of the " claims" and send it over 
 to you, and I feel that your astonishment will equal my 
 own. It would appear that the young vagabond talked 
 as if the Barings were his next of kin, and actually took 
 delight in squandering money ! Only think ! all the time 
 I believed he was hard at work at his French lessons, it 
 was rattling a dice-box he was, and his education for the 
 Board of Trade was going on in the side-scenes of the 
 opera ! Vickars has been the cause of all this. If he'd 
 have kept his promise, the boy wouldn't have been ruined 
 with rascally companions and spendrift associates. 
 
 Where's the money to come from, Tom? Have you 
 any device in your head to get us out of this scrape? I 
 suppose some, at least, of the demands will admit of abate-
 
 104 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 ment, and Lazarus, they say, always takes a fourth of hi3 
 claim. You can estimate the pleasant game of cross- 
 purposes I was playing all yesterday with the Court of 
 Cassation, and what a chaotic mass of rubbish the field 
 of Waterloo and the duel must have appeared in an action 
 for debt ! But why didn't they apprize me of what I was 
 there for ? Why did they go on with their ridiculous 
 demand — " Racontez l'affaire?" Recount what ? What 
 should I know of the nefarious dealings of Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abed-nego? They torment me for six 
 weeks by a daily examination, till it would be nothing 
 singular if I became monomaniac, and could discuss no 
 other theme than a duel and a gunshot wound, and then, 
 without the slightest suggestion of a change, they launch 
 me into a thing like a Court of Bankruptcy ! 
 
 It appears that I have been committed for three days 
 for my " contempt," and before that time elapses, there is 
 no resource in Belgian law to compel them to bring up 
 the body of Kenny Dodd ; so that here I must stay, 
 " chewing," as the poet says, " the cud of sweet and bitter 
 fancy." Not that I have not a great deal of business to 
 transact in this interval. Jellicot's papers would fill a 
 cart ; besides which, I have in contemplation a letter for 
 Mrs. D. that will, I suspect, astonish her. I mean briefly, 
 but clearly, to place before her the state we are in, and 
 her own share in bringing us to it. I'll let her feel that 
 her own extravagance has given the key-note to the family, 
 and that she alone is to blame for this calamity. Among 
 the many fine things promised me for coming abroad, she 
 forgot to say that I was to be like Silvio Pellico; but i'll 
 not forget it, Tom ! 
 
 Then, I have an epistle special for James. He shall feel 
 that he has a share in the general ruin ; for I will write to 
 Vickars, and ask for a commission for him in a black 
 regiment, or an appointment in the Cape Mounted Rifles 
 — what old Burro wes used to call the Blessed Army of 
 Martyrs. I don't care a jot where he goes ! But he'll 
 find it hard to give suppers at four pound a head in the 
 Gambia, and ballet-dancers will scarcely be costly acquain- 
 tances on the banks of the Niger ! And lastly, I mean to 
 threaten a return to Ireland ! " Only threaten," you say :
 
 BRAVE RESOLUTIONS. 105 
 
 " why not do it in earnest?" As I told you before, I'm 
 not equal to it ! I've pluck for anything that can be done 
 by one effort, but I have not strength for a prolonged 
 conflict. I could better jump off the Tarpeian rock, than 
 I could descend a rugged mountain ! Mrs. D. knows this 
 so well, that whenever I show fight, she lays down her 
 parallels so quietly, and prepares for a siege with such 
 deliberation, that I always surrender before she brings up 
 her heavy guns. Don't prate to me of pusillanimity and 
 cowardice! Nobody is brave with his wife. From the 
 Queen of Sheba down to the Duchess of Marlborough, ay, 
 and to our own days, if I liked to quote instances, history 
 teaches the same lesson. What chance have you with one 
 that has been studying every weak point, and every frailty 
 of your disposition, for, maybe, twenty years ? Why, you 
 might as well box with your doctor, who knows where to 
 plant the blow that will be the death of you. 
 
 I have another " dodge," too, Tom — don't object to the 
 phrase, for its quite parliamentary ; see Bernal Osborne, 
 passim. I'll tell Mrs. D. that I'll put an advertisement 
 in Galignani, cautioning the public against giving credit 
 to her, or her son, or her daughters ; that the Dodd 
 family is come abroad especially for economy, and has 
 neither pretension to affluence, nor any claim to be 
 thought rich. If that won't frighten her, my name is not 
 Kenny ! The fact is, Tom, I intend to pursue a very 
 brave line of action for the three days I'm "in," since 
 she cannot have access to me without my own request. 
 You understand me. 
 
 I cannot bring my mind to answer your questions 
 about Dodsborough ; my poor head is too full of its own 
 troubles. They've just brought me my breakfast — prison 
 fare — for in my indignation I have refused all other. 
 Little I used to think, while tasting the gaol diet at 
 home, as one of the visitors, that I'd ever be reduced to 
 eating it on less experimental grounds ! 
 
 I must reserve all my directions about home affairs for 
 my next ; but bestir yourself to raise this money for us. 
 Without some sort of a compromise we cannot leave 
 this ; and I am as anxious to " evacuate Flanders " as 
 ever was Uncle Toby ! Captain Morris told me, tho
 
 106 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 other day, of a little town in Germany where there are 
 no English, and where everything can be had for a song. 
 The cheapness and the isolation would both be very 
 advisable just now. I'll get the name of it before I write 
 next. 
 
 By the way, Morris is a better fellow than I used to 
 think him : a little priggish or so, but good-hearted at 
 bottom, and honest as the sun. I think he has an eye on 
 Mary Anne. Not that at present he'd have much chance 
 in that quarter. These foreign counts and barons give a 
 false glitter to society that throws into the shade all 
 untitled gentility ; and your mere country gentleman 
 beside them is like your mother's old silver teapot on a 
 table with a show specimen of Elkington's new galvanic 
 plate. Not but if you wanted to raise a trifle of money 
 on either, the choice would be very difficult. 
 
 I'll keep anything more for another letter, and now 
 sign myself 
 
 Tour old and attached friend, 
 
 Kenny I. Dodd. 
 
 Petits Cannes, Brussels, Tuesday Morning. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 MRS. DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH. 
 
 Dear Molly, — The blessed Saints only can tell what 
 sufferings I have gone through the last two days, and it's 
 more than I'm equal to, to say how it happened ! The 
 whole family has been turned topsy and turvy, and there's 
 not one of us isn't upside down ; and for one like me, 
 that loves to live in peace and enmity with all mankind, 
 this is a sore trial ! 
 
 Many's the time you heard me remark that if it wasn't 
 for K. I.'s temper, and the violence of his passion, that
 
 a mother's point of view. 107 
 
 we'd be rich and well off this day. Time, they say, 
 cures many an evil ; but I'll tell yon one, Molly, that it 
 never improves, and that is, a man's wilful nature; on 
 the contrary, they only get more stubborn and cross- 
 grained, and I often think to myself, what a blessed. time 
 one of the young creatures must have had of it, married 
 to some patriarch in the Old Testament ; and then I 
 reflect on my own condition — not that Kenny Dodd is 
 like anything in the Bible ! And now to tell you, if I m 
 able, some of my distresses. 
 
 You have heard about poor dear James, and how he 
 was shot, but you don't know that these last six weeks he 
 has never been off his back, with three doctors, and 
 sometimes five-and -thirty leeches on him ; and what with 
 the torturing him with new-fashioned instruments, and 
 continued "repletion," as they call it — if it hadn't been 
 for strong wine-gruel that I gave him, at times, 
 " unknownst " — my sure belief is that he wouldn't have 
 been spared to us. This has been a terrible blow, Molly ; 
 but the ways of Providence is unscrupulous, and we must 
 submit. 
 
 Here it is, then. James, like every boy, spent a little 
 more money than he had, and knowing well his father's 
 temper, he went to the Jews to help him. They smarted 
 the poor dear child, who, in his innocent heart, knew 
 nothing of the world and its wicked ways. They made 
 him take all kinds of things instead of cash — Dutch 
 tiles, paving-stones, an altar-piece, and a set of surveying 
 tools, amongst the rest, and these he had to sell again to 
 raise a trifle of cash. Some of them he disposed of 
 mighty well — particularly the altar-piece — but on others 
 he lost a good deal, and, at the end, was a heavy balance 
 in debt. If it hadn't been for the duel, however, he says 
 he'd have no trouble at all in u carrying on " — that's his 
 own word, and I suppose alludes to the business. Be 
 that as it may, his wound was his ruin. Nobody knew 
 how to manage his affairs but himself. It was the very 
 same way with my grandfather, Maurice Lynch McCarthy, 
 for when he died there wasn't a soul left could make 
 anything of his papers. There was large sums in them 
 -—thousands and thousands of pounds mentioned — but
 
 108 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 where they were, and what's become of them, we never 
 discovered. 
 
 And so with James. There he was, stretched on his 
 bed, while villains and schemers were working his rnin ! 
 The business came into the courts, here, which, from all 
 I can learn, Molly, are not a bit better than at home with 
 ourselves. Indeed, I believe, wherever one goes, lawyers 
 is just the same for roguery and rampacity. To be sure, 
 it's comfort to think that you can have another, to the 
 full as bad as the one against you ; and if there is any 
 abuse or bad language going, you can give it as hot as 
 you get it; that's equal justice, Molly, and one of the 
 proudest boasts of the British constitution ! And you'd 
 suppose that K. L, sitting on the bench for nigh four-and- 
 twenty years, would know that as well as anybody. Yet 
 what does he do ? — you'll not believe me when I tell 
 you ! Instead of paying one of these creatures to go in 
 and torment the others — to pick holes in all he said, and 
 get fellows to swear against them — he must stand out, 
 forsooth, and be his own lawyer ! And a blessed business 
 he made of it ! A reasonable man would explain to the 
 judges how it all was — that James was a child — that it 
 was the other day only he was flying a kite on the lawn 
 at home — that he knew as much about wickedness as 
 K. I. did of Paradise — that the villains that led him on 
 ought to be publicly whipped ! Faith, I can fancy, 
 Molly, it was a beautiful field for any man to display 
 every commotion of the heart; — but what does he do? 
 He gets up on his legs— I didn't see, but I'm told it — 
 he gets up on his legs and begins to ballyrag and black- 
 guard all the courts of justice, and the judges, and the 
 attorneys, down to the criers — he spares nobody ! There 
 is nothing too dreadful for him to say, end no words too 
 bad to express it in ; till, their patience being all run out, 
 they stop him at last, and give orders to have him taken 
 from the spot, and thrown into a dungeon of the town 
 gaol — a terrible old place, Molly, that goes by the name 
 of the "Petit Careme ! " and where they say the diet is 
 only a thin sheet of paper above starving. 
 
 And there he is now, Molly : and you may picture to 
 yourself, as the poet says, " what frame he's in! " The
 
 KEEPING IT SNUG. 109 
 
 news reached me when we were going to the play. I 
 was under the hands of the hair-dresser, and I gave such 
 a screech that he jumped back, and burned himself over 
 the mouth with the curling-irons. Even that was a 
 relief to me, Molly ; for Mary Anne and myself laughed 
 till we cried again ! 
 
 I was for keeping the thing all snug and to ourselves 
 about K. I. ; but Mary Anne said we should consult Lord 
 George, that was then in the house, and going with us to 
 the theatre. They are a wonderful people, the great 
 English aristocracy ; and if it's anything more than 
 another distinguishes them, 'tis the indifference to every 
 kind and description of misfortune. I say this, because, 
 the moment Lord George heard the story, he lay down on 
 the sofa and laughed, and roared, till I thought he'd split 
 his sides. His only regret was that he hadn't been there, 
 in the courts, to see it all. As for James's share of the 
 trouble, he said it " didn't signify a rush ! " 
 
 He made the same remark I did myself — that James 
 was the same as an infant, and could, consequently, know 
 nothing of the world and its pompous vanities. 
 
 " I'll tell you how to manage it all," said he, " and how 
 you'll not only escape all gossip, but actually refute even 
 the slightest scandal that may get abroad. Say, first of 
 all, that Mr. Dodd is gone over to England — we'll put it 
 in the Galignani — to attend his parliamentary duties. 
 The Belgian papers will copy it at once. This being done, 
 issue invitations for an evening at home, ' tea and dance ' 
 — that's the way to do it. Say that the governor hates a 
 ball, and that you are just taking the occasion of his 
 absence to see your friends without disturbing him. The 
 people that will come to you won't be too critical about the 
 facts. Believe me, the gay company will be the very t last 
 to inquire where is the head of the house. I'll take care 
 that you'll have everybody worth having in Brussels, and 
 with Latour's band, and the supper by Dubos, I'd like to 
 see who'll have a spare thought for Mr. Dodd the absent." 
 
 I own to you, Molly, the counsel shocked my feelings 
 at first, and I asked my heart, " What will the world say, 
 if it ever comes out that we had our house full of com- 
 pany, and the height of gaiety going on, when the head
 
 110 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 of the family was, maybe, in chains in a dungeon ? " 
 " Don't you perceive," says Lord G., " that what I'm 
 advising will just prevent the possibility of all that? — 
 that you are actually rescuing your family, by a master- 
 stroke, from the evil consequences of Mr. D.'s rashness? 
 As to the boldness of the policy," added he, " that is the 
 only merit it possesses." And then he said something 
 about the firing at St. Sebastian above somebody's head, 
 that I didn't quite rightly understand. The upshot was, 
 Molly, I was convinced, not, you may be sure, that I felt 
 any pleasure or gratification in the prospect of a ball 
 under such trying circumstances, but just as Lord G. 
 said, I felt I was " rescuing the family." 
 
 When we came home from the play — for we went with 
 heavy hearts, I assure you, though we afterwards laughed 
 a great deal — we set about writing the invitations for 
 "Our Evening;" and although James and Mary Anne 
 assisted Lord Gr., it was nigh daybreak when we were 
 done. You'll ask, where was Caroline ? And you might 
 well ask ; but, as long as I live I'll never forget her un- 
 natural conduct! It isn't that she opposed everything 
 about the ball, but she had the impudence to say to my 
 face, " that hitherto we had been only ridiculous, but that 
 this act would be one of downright shame and disgrace." 
 Her language to Lord George was even worse, for she told 
 him that his " counsel was a very sorry requital for the 
 generous hospitality her father had always extended to 
 him." Where the hussey got the words so glibly, I can't 
 imagine ; but she, that rarely speaks at all, talked away 
 with the fluency of a lawyer. As to helping us to address 
 the notes, she vowed she'd rather cut her fingers off; and 
 what made this worse was, that she's the only one of them 
 knows the genders in French, and whether a soiree is a 
 man or a woman ! 
 
 You may imagine the trouble of the next day ; for, in 
 order to have the ball come off before K. I. was out, we 
 were only able to give two days' notice. Little the people 
 that come to your house to dance or to sup know or think 
 what a deal of trouble — not to say more— it costs to give 
 a ball. Lord George tells me, that even the queen herself 
 always gives it in another house, so she's not put out of
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR THE PARTY. Ill 
 
 her way with the preparations — and, to be sure, what is 
 more natural ? — and that she wouldn't like to be exposed 
 to the turmoil of taking down beds, hanging lustres, fixing 
 sconces, raising a platform for the music, and settling tables 
 for the supper. I'm sure and certain, if she only knew 
 what it was to pass such a day as yesterday was with me, 
 she'd never have a larger party than that lord that's always 
 in waiting, and the ladies of the bedroom ! As for regular 
 meals, Molly, we had none. There was a ham and cold 
 chickens in the lobby, and a veal pie and some sherry on the 
 back stairs ; and that's the way we breakfasted, dined, and 
 supped. To be sure, we laughed heartily all the time, and 
 I never saw Mary Anne in such spirits. Lord George 
 was greatly struck with her — I saw it by his manner — 
 and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if something came of it 
 yet! 
 
 I have little time to say more now, for I'm called down 
 to see the flowerpots and orange-trees that's to line the 
 hall and the stairs ; but I'll try and finish this by post 
 hour. 
 
 As I see that this cannot be despatched to-day, I'll keep 
 it over, to give you a " full and true " account of the ball, 
 which Lord George assures me will be the greatest fete 
 Brussels has seen this winter ; and, indeed, if I am to 
 judge from the preparations, I can well believe him ! There 
 are seven men cooks in the kitchen making paste and 
 drinking sherry in a way that's quite incredible, not to 
 speak of an elderly man in my own room that's doing the 
 McCarthy arms in spun-sugar for a temple, that is to repre- 
 sent Dodsborough in the middle of the table, with K. I. 
 on the top of it, holding a flag, and crying out something 
 in French that means welcome to the company. Poor 
 K. L, 'tis something else he's thinking of all the time ! 
 
 Then, the whole stairs and the landing is all one bower 
 of camellias, and roses, and lilies of the valley, brought all 
 the way from . Holland for another ball, but, by Lord 
 George's ingenuity, obtained by us. As for ice, Molly, 
 you'd think my dressing-room was a Panorama of the 
 North Pole ; and there's every beast v of that region done 
 in strawberries or lemon, with native creatures, the colour 
 of life, in coffee or chocojate. The music will be the great
 
 112 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 German Brass Band, fifty-eight performers, and two 
 Blacks with cymbals. They're practising now, and the 
 noise is dreadful ! Carts are coming in every moment with 
 various kinds of eatables, for I must tell you, Molly, they 
 don't do things here the way we used at Dodsborough. 
 Plenty of cold roast chickens, tongues, and sliced ham, 
 apple-pies, tarts, jelly, and Spanish flummery, with Naples 
 biscuits and a plum-cake, is a fine supper in Ireland ; and 
 if you begin with sherry, you can always finish with punch : 
 but here, there's nothing that ever was eaten they won't 
 have. Ice when they're hot, soup when they're chilly, 
 oyster patties and champagne continually during the 
 dancing, and every delicacy under the sun afterwards on 
 the supper-table. 
 
 There's nothing distresses me in it all but the Polka, 
 Molly. I can't learn it. I always slide when I ought to 
 hop, and where there's a hop, I duck down in spite of me 1 
 And whether it's the native purity of an Irishwoman, or 
 that I never was reared to it, I can't say, but the notion of 
 a man's arm round me keeps me in a flutter, and I'm always 
 looking about to see how K. I. bears it. I suppose, how- 
 ever, I'll get through it well enough, for Lord George is 
 to be my partner, and as I know K. I.'s " safe," my mind 
 is more easy. 
 
 Perhaps it's the shortness of the invitation, but there's 
 a great many apologies coming in. The English Ambas- 
 sador won't come. Lord G. says it's all the better, for the 
 Tories are going out, and it will be a great service to K. I. 
 with the Whigs if it's thought he didn't invite him ! This 
 may be true, but it's no reason in life for the Austrian, the 
 French, the Prussian, and the Spanish Ministers sending 
 excuses. Lord George, however, thinks it's the terrible 
 state of the Continent explains it all, and the Despotic 
 Powers are so angry with Lord Dudley Stuart and Roe- 
 buck, that they like to insult the English ! If it be so, 
 they haven't common sense. Kenny James has taken a 
 turn with all their parties, and much good it has done 
 him ! 
 
 Lord G. and Mary Anne are in high spirits, notwith- 
 standing these disappointments, for " the Margravine " is 
 coming — at least so he tells me ; but whether the Mar-
 
 CAPTAIN MORKIS'S MEANNESS. 113 
 
 graviue be a man or woman, Molly, or only something 
 to eat, I don't rightly know, and I'm ashamed to ask. 
 
 I have just been greatly provoked by a visit from Cap- 
 tain Morris, who called twice this morning, and at last 
 insisted on seeing me. He came to entreat me, he says, 
 " if not to abandon, at least to put off, our ball till Mr. 
 Dodd's return." I tried to browbeat him, Molly, for his 
 impertinent interference, but it wouldn't do ; and he 
 showed me that he knew perfectly well where K. I. was — 
 a piece of information that, of course, he obtained from 
 Caroline. Oh, Molly dear, when one's own flesh and 
 blood turns against them — when children forget all the 
 lessons you've been teaching them from infancy — it's a 
 sore, sore trial ! Not but I have reason to be thankful. 
 Mary Anne and James are like part of myself ; nothing 
 mean or little-minded about them, but fine, generous, con- 
 fiding creatures — happy for to-day, hopeful for to-morrow ! 
 
 When I mentioned to Lord G. what Morris came about, 
 he only laughed, and said, " It was a clever dodge of the 
 half-pay — he wanted an invitation ; " and I see now that 
 such must have been his object. The more one sees of 
 mankind, the greater appears their meanness ; and in my 
 heart I feel how unsuited guileless, simple-hearted crea- 
 tures like myself are to combat against the stratagems 
 and ambuscades of this wicked world. Not that little 
 Morris will gain much by his morning's work, for Mary 
 Anne says that Lord George will never suffer him to get on 
 full pay as long as he lives. " A friend in need is a friend 
 indeed," Molly, more particularly when he's a lord. 
 
 The Margravine is a princess, Molly. I've just found 
 it out ; for James is to receive her at the foot of the stairs, 
 Mary Anne and myself on the lobby. Lord G. says she 
 must have whist at half-" Nap." points, and always play 
 with her own " Gentleman-in- Waiting." She never goes 
 out on any other conditions. But he says, " She's cheap 
 even at that price, for an occasion like the present ; " and 
 maybe he's right. 
 
 No more now, for my gown is come to be tried on. 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 
 Dear Molly, I'll try and finish this, since, maybe, it's 
 VOL. i r
 
 114 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 the last lines you'll ever receive from your attached friend. 
 Three days have elapsed since I put ray hand to paper, 
 and three such days I'll be bound no human creature ever 
 passed. Out of one fit of hysterics into another, and tak- 
 ing the strongest stimulants, with no more effect than if 
 they were water ! My screeches, I am told, were dreadful, 
 and there's scarcely one of the family can't show the 
 mark of my nails ; and this is what K. I. has brought 
 me to. You know well what I used to suffer from him 
 at Dodsborough, and the terrible scenes we always had 
 when the Christmas bills came in ; but it's all nothing, 
 Molly, to what has happened here. But as my uncle Joe 
 said, no good ever came out of a " mess-alliance." 
 
 My moments are few, so I'll be brief. The ball was 
 beautiful, Molly ; there never was the like of it for ele- 
 gance and splendour ! For great names, rank, fashion, 
 beauty, and jewels, it was, they tell me, far beyond the 
 Court, because we had a great many people who, from 
 political reasons, refuse to go to Leopold, but who had 
 no prejudices against your humble servant ; for, strange 
 enough, they have Orangemen here as well as in Ireland ! 
 Princes, dukes, counts, and generals came pouring in, 
 all shining with stars and crosses, blue and red ribbons, 
 and keys worked on their coat-tails, till nearly twelve 
 o'clock. There were then nigh seven hundred souls in 
 the house, eating, dancing, drinking, and enjoying them- 
 selves ; and a beautiful sight it was : everybody happy, 
 and thinking only of pleasure. Mary Anne looked ele- 
 gant, and many remarked that we must be sisters. Oh 
 dear, if they only saw me now ! 
 
 There was a mazurka, that lasted till half-past one, for 
 it's a dance that everybody must take out each in turn, 
 and you'd fancy there was no end to it, for indeed they 
 never do seem tired of embracing and holding each other 
 round the waist ; but Lord George came to say that the 
 Margravine had finished her whist and wanted her supper, 
 so down we must go at once. 
 
 James was to take her Supreme Highness, and the 
 Prince of Dammiseisen — a name that always made me 
 laugh — was to take me ; but he is a great man in Ger- 
 many, and had a kingdom of his own till he was " modi-
 
 THE BALL- SUPPER. 115 
 
 fied" by Bonaparte, which means, as Lord George says, 
 that " he took it out in money." But why do I dwell on 
 these things ? Down we went, Molly — down the narrow 
 stairs — for the supper was laid out below — and a terrible 
 crush it was, for, strange as it may seem, your grand 
 people are just as anxious to get good places as any ; and 
 I saw a duke fighting his way in, just like old Ted Davis- 
 at Dodsborough ! 
 
 When we came to the last flight of stairs the crowd was 
 awful, and the banisters creaked, and the wood-work 
 groaned, so that I thought it was going to give way ; and, 
 instead of James moving on in front, he pressed back 
 upon us, and increased the confusion, for we were forced 
 forward by hundreds behind us. 
 
 "What's the matter, James? " said I. "Why don't 
 you go on? " 
 
 " I'd rather be excused," said he. " It's like Donny- 
 brook Fair, down there — a regular shindy ! " 
 
 It was no less, Molly ; for although the hall was filled 
 with servants, there were two men armed with sticks, 
 laying about them like mad, and fighting their way to- 
 wards the supper-room. 
 
 "Who are those wretches ? " cried I; " why don't they 
 turn them out? " 
 
 The words weren't well out, my dear Molly, when the 
 door gave way, and the two, trampling down all before 
 them, passed into the room. From that moment it was 
 crash after crash ! Lamps, lustres, china, glass, plates, 
 dishes, fruit, and confectionary, flying on all sides. In 
 less time than I'm writing it, the table was cleared, and of 
 the elegant temple there wasn't a bit standing. I just got 
 inside the door to see the M'Carthy arms in smithereens ! 
 and K. I. — for it was him ! — dancing over them, with that 
 little blackguard Paddy Byrne smashing everything round 
 him ! I went off into fits, Molly, and never saw more ; 
 and, indeed, I wish with all my heart that I never came 
 to again, if what they tell me be only true. K. L, it 
 seems, no sooner demolished the supper, than he set to 
 work on the company. He snatched off the Margravine's 
 wig, and beat her with it, kicking Dammiseisen and two 
 other princes into the street. They say that many of the 
 
 i 2
 
 116 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 nobility leaped out of the first-pair windows, and one fat 
 old gentleman, a chamberlain to the King of Bavaria, 
 was caught by a lamp iron, and hung there for twenty 
 minutes, with a mob shouting round him ! 
 
 This all came of the Belgians letting out K. I. at one 
 o'clock, which, according to their reckoning, was the end 
 of his three days. 
 
 I'm getting another attack, so I must conclude. We 
 left Brussels the next morning, and arrived here the 
 same night. I don't know where we are going, and I 
 don't care. K. I. has never had the face to come near me 
 since his infamous conduct, and I hope, for the little time 
 I may be spared on this side of the grave, not to see him 
 again. Mary Anne is in bed too, and nearly as bad as 
 myself; and as for Caroline, I wouldn't let her into the 
 room ! Lord George took James away to his own lodg- 
 ings till K. I. learns to behave more like a Christian ; but 
 when that may be is utterly beyond 
 
 Your afflicted and disgraced friend, 
 
 Jemima Dodd. 
 H6tel d'Angleterre, Liege. 
 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 
 Dear Molly, I open this to say that I have made my 
 will, for, if Divine Providence doesn't befriend me, your 
 poor Jemima will be in paradise before this reaches you ! 
 I have left you my black satin with the bugles, and my 
 brown bombazine, which, when it is dyed, will be very 
 nice mourning for common wear. I also bequeath to you 
 the things you'll find in the oak press in my own room, 
 and ten silver spoons, and a fish-knife marked with the 
 M'Carthy arms, which, not to be too particular, I have put 
 down in the will as "plate and linen." I leave you, 
 besides, my book of " Domestic Cookery," " The Com- 
 plete Housewife," and the " Way to Glory," by St. Francis 
 Xavier. There are marks all through them with my 
 own pen; and be particular to observe the receipt for 
 snow pancakes, and the prayers for a " Plenary " after 
 Candlemas.
 
 MR. DODD S GOOD-BYE TO LIFE. 117 
 
 It will be a comfort to your feelings to know that I am 
 departing from this life in peace and charity with every 
 one. Tell Mat I forgive him the fleece he stole out of 
 the hayloft ; and though he swears, still, he never laid 
 hand on it, who else was there, Molly ? You can give 
 Kitty Hogan the old shoes in the closet, for, though she 
 never wears any, she'd like to have them for keepsakes ! 
 K. I. cared too little for my peace, here, to suppose that 
 he will think of my repose hereafter, so that Father John 
 can take the yearling calf and the two ewes out in masses! 
 My feelings is overcoming me, Molly, and I can't go on ! 
 breathing my last, as I am, in a far-away land, and sink- 
 ing under the cruelty of a hard-hearted man ! 
 
 I think it would only be a decent mark of respect to 
 my family if the McCarthy arms was hung up over the 
 door, to show I wasn't a Dodd. The crest is an angel 
 sheltering a fox, or a beast like a fox, under his wing ; but 
 you'll see it on the spoons. When you sell the piggs — 
 maybe I oughtn't to put two g's in them, but my head is 
 wandering — pay old Judy Cobb two-and-sevenpence for 
 the yarn, and say that I won't stop the ninepence out of 
 Betty's wages. Maybe, when I'm gone, they'll begin to 
 see what they've lost, and maybe K. I. will feel it too, 
 when he finds no buttons on his shirts and the strings 
 out of his waistcoat ; and what's far worse, nobody to 
 contradict him, and control his wilful nature! That's 
 the very struggle that's killing me now ! Nobody knows, 
 nor would believe, the opposition I've given him for twenty 
 years. But he'll feel it, Molly, and that before I'm six 
 weeks in the grave. 
 
 I don't know my age to a day or a month, but you can 
 put me down at thirty-nine, and maybe the Blast of Free- 
 dom would say a word or two about my family. I'd like 
 that far better than to be " deeply regretted," or " to the 
 inexpressible grief of her bereaved relations." 
 
 I have made it a last request that my remains aro to be 
 sent home, and as I know K. I. won't go to the expense, 
 he'll have to bear all the disgrace of neglecting my dying 
 entreaty. That's my legacy to him, Molly ; and if it's not 
 a very profitable one, the " duty " will not be heavy. 
 
 Remember me affectionately to everybody, and say that
 
 118 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 to the last my heart was in my own country ; and indeed, 
 Molly, I never did hear so much good about Ireland as 
 since we left it ! 
 
 I have just taken a draught, that has restored me won- 
 derfully. It has a taste of curacoa, and evidently suits 
 my constitution. Maybe Providence, in his mercy, mean3 
 to reserve me for more trials and misfortunes ; for I feel 
 stronger already, and am going to taste a bit of roast 
 duck, with sage and onions. Betty has done it for me 
 herself. 
 
 If I do recover, Molly, I promise you K. I. won't find 
 me the poor submissive worm he has been trampling upon 
 these more than twenty years ! I feel more like myself 
 already ; the " mixture " is really doing me good. 
 
 You may write to me to this place, with directions t :> 
 be opened by Mary Anne, if I'm no more. The very 
 thought of it overwhelms me. The idea of one's own 
 death is the most terrible of all afflictions; and as for 
 me, I don't think I could ever survive it. 
 
 I mean to send for K. I., to take leave of him, and for- 
 give him, before I go. I'm not sure that I'd do so, Molly, 
 if it wasn't for the opportunity of telling him my mind 
 about all his cruelty to me, and that I know well what 
 he's at, and that he'll be married again before six months. 
 That's the treachery of men ; but there's one comfort — 
 they are well paid off for it when they marry — as they 
 always do — some young minx of nineteen or twenty. It's 
 exactly what K. I. is capable of; and I mean to show him 
 that I see it, and all the consequences besides. 
 
 The mixture is really of service to me, and I feel as if 
 I could take a sleep. Mary Anne will seal this if I'm not 
 awake before post hour.
 
 119 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 FROM K. I. DODD TO THOMAS PUROELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF. 
 
 Liege, Tuesday Evening. 
 
 My dear Tom, — Your reproaches are all just, but I really 
 have not had courage to wield a pen these last three 
 weeks, nor have I now patience to go back on the past. 
 Perhaps when we meet — if ever that good time is to 
 come round again — I may be able to tell you something 
 of my final exit from Brussels ; but now with the shame 
 yet fresh, and the disgrace recent, I cannot find pluck 
 for it. 
 
 Here we are at what they call the " Pavilion," having 
 changed from the Hotel d'Angleterre yesterday. You 
 must know, Tom, that this same city of Liege is the 
 noisiest, most dinning, hammering, hissing, clanking, 
 creaking, welding, smelting, and furnace-roaring town 
 in Europe. Something like a hundred thousand tinkers 
 are at work every day ; and from an egg saucepan to a 
 steam-boiler there is something to be hammered at by 
 every capacity ! 
 
 You would say that tumult like this might satisfy 
 the most craving appetite for uproar ; but not so : the 
 Liegeois are regular gluttons for noise, and they insist 
 upon having Verdi's new opera of " Nabuchodonosor " 
 performed at their great theatre. Now, this same theatre 
 is exactly in front of the Hotel d'Angleterre, so that 
 when, by dint of time, patience, and a partial dulness of 
 the acoustic nerves, we were getting used to steam- 
 factories and shot-foundries, down comes Verdi on us, 
 with a din and clangour to which even the works of 
 Seraing were like an -ZEolian harp ! Now, of all the 
 Pretenders of these days of especial humbug, with our 
 "Long ranges," Morison's pills, and Louis Napoleons, 
 I don't think you could show me a greater charlatan
 
 120 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 than this same Verdi. I don't pretend to know a bit 
 about music ; I only knew two tunes all my life, " God 
 save the King " and " Patrick's Day," and these only 
 because we used to stand up and take off our hats to 
 them in the Dublin theatre ; but modulated, soft sounds 
 have always had their effect on me, and I never heard a 
 country girl singing as she beetled her linen beside a 
 river's bank, or listened to the deep bay of an old fox- 
 hound of a clear winter's morning, without feeling that 
 there was something inside of me somewhere that re- 
 sponded to the note. But this fellow is all marrow-bones 
 and cleavers ! Trumpets, drums, big fiddles, and bassoons 
 are the softest things he knows. I take it as a providen- 
 tial thing that his music cracks every voice after one 
 season ; for before long there will be nobody left in 
 Europe to sing him, except it be the steam- whistle of an 
 express train ! 
 
 But we live in strange times, Tom, that's the fact. The 
 day was when our operas used to be taken from real life 
 — or what authors and poets thought was real life. We 
 had the "Maid of the Mill," and the "Duenna," and 
 " Love iu a Village," and a score more, pleasant and 
 amusing enough; and except that there was nothing 
 wrong or incomprehensible in them, perhaps they might 
 have stood their ground. There was the great failure, 
 Tom ; everybody could understand them, and nobody 
 need be shocked. Now, the taste is, puzzle a great many, 
 and shock every one ! 
 
 A grand opera now must be from the Old Testament. 
 Not even drums and kettle-drums would save you, if you 
 haven't Moses or Melchisedek to sit down in white 
 raiment, and see some twenty damsels, with petticoats 
 about as long as a lace ruffle, capering and attitudinizing 
 in a way that ought to make even a patriarch blush. 
 Now, this is all wrong, Tom. The public might be 
 amused without profanity, and even the most inveterate 
 lover of dancing needn't ask David and Uriah for a 
 pas de deuce. And now, let me remark to you, that a 
 great deal of that so-much- vaunted social liberty abroad 
 is neither more nor less that this same latitude with 
 respeet to any and everything. We at home were bred
 
 RETRENCHMENT. 121 
 
 up to believe that good breeding mainly consists in a 
 certain reserve — a cautious deference not alone for the 
 feelings, but even the prejudices of others; that you have 
 no right to offend your neighbour's sense of respect for 
 fifty things that you held cheaply yourself. They reverse 
 all this here. Everybody talks to you of yourself, ay, 
 and of your wife and your mother, as frankly as though 
 they were characters of the heathen mythology ; they treat 
 you like a third party in these discussions, and very 
 likely it was a practice of this kind originally suggested 
 the phrase of being " beside oneself." 
 
 You'll perhaps remark that my tone is very low and 
 depressed, Tom; and I own to you I feel so. For a man 
 that came abroad to enjoy himself, I am, to say the least, 
 going a mighty strange way about it. The most rigid 
 moralist couldn't accuse me of any epicurism, for I seem 
 to be husbanding my continental pleasures with a laud- 
 able degree of self-denial. Would you like a peep at us ? 
 "Well, Mrs. D. is over there in No. 19, in bed with four- 
 teen leeches on her temples, and a bottle as big as a black 
 jack of camphor and sal-volatile beside her as a kind of 
 table beverage ; Mary Anne and Caroline are somewhere 
 in the dim recesses of the same chamber, silent, if they're 
 not sobbing; James is under lock and key in No. 17, 
 with Ollendorff's Method, and the Gospel of St. John in 
 French ; and here am I, trying to indite a few lines, with 
 blast furnaces and brass instruments baying around me, 
 and Paddy Byrne cleaning knives outside the door ! 
 
 Mrs. D.'s attack is not serious, but it is very distress- 
 ing. She has got the notion into her head that foreign 
 apothecaries have a general pardon for poisoning, and so 
 she requires that some of us should always take part of 
 her physic before she touches it. The consequence is, 
 that I have been going through a course of treatment 
 that would have pushed an elephant rather hard. I can 
 stand some things pretty well ; but what they call refri- 
 gerants, Tom, play the devil with me ! and I am driven 
 to brandy and water to an extent that I can scarcely call 
 myself quite sober at any time of the day. Were we at 
 home in Dodsborough, there would be none of this ; so 
 that here, again, is another of the blessings of our foreign
 
 122 • THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 experiences ! Ah, Tom ! it's all a mistake from beginning 
 to end. You wouldn't know your old friend if you saw 
 him ; and although they've padded me out, and squeezed 
 me in, I'm not the man I used to be ! 
 
 You tell me that I'm not to expect any more money till 
 November ; but you forgot to tell me how I'm to live 
 without it. We compromised with the Jews for fifteen 
 hundred. Our " extraordinaries," as the officials would 
 call them, amounted to three more ; so that, taking all 
 things into account, we have been living since April last 
 at a trifle more than eleven thousand a year. It's a mercy 
 that when they sell a man out by the Encumbered Estates 
 Court, they ask no impertinent questions about how he 
 contracted his debts. I'd cut a sorry figure under such 
 an examination. 
 
 We have begun the economy, Tom, and I hope that 
 even you will be satisfied ; for although this place is 
 detestable to me, here I'll stay, if my hearing can stand 
 it, till winter. Mary Anne says we might as well be in 
 Birmingham, and my reply is, I'm quite ready to go 
 there ! I own to you I have a kind of diabolical delight 
 in seeing them all nonplussed. There are neither dukes 
 nor marquises here, neither princesses nor ballet dancers ! 
 The most reckless spendthrift could only ruin himself in 
 steam-boilers, gun-barrels, and kitchen-ranges ; — there's 
 nothing softer than cast-iron in the whole town. 
 
 Our rooms are in the third story. James and I dine at 
 the public table. Our only piece of extravagance is the 
 doctor that attends Mrs. D. ; and if you saw him, you'd 
 scarcely give him the name of a luxury ! I needn't say 
 that there is very little pleasure in all this ; indeed, for 
 anything I see, I think we might be leading the same 
 kind of life in Kilmainham Gaol ; and perhaps at last 
 they'll see this themselves, and consent to return home. 
 
 I go out for an hour's walk every day, but it does me 
 little good. My usual stroll is to a shot factory, and 
 back by a patent bolt and rivet establishment ; but this 
 avoids the theatre, for I own to you Nabucco, as they 
 call him for shortness, shouts in a manner that makes me 
 quite irritable. 
 
 James never leaves his room; he's studying hard at
 
 123 
 
 last ; and although his health would be the better for a 
 little exercise, I'll just leave him to himself. It's right ho 
 should pay some penalty for his late conduct. As for the 
 girls, Mary Anne is indignant with me, and only comes 
 to say good morning and good night ; and Cary, though 
 she tries to look cheerful and happy, is evidently fretting 
 in secret. Betty Cobb takes less trouble to repress her 
 feelings, and goes howling about the hotel like a dog run 
 over by the mail, and is always getting accompanied by 
 strange and inquisitive travellers, who insist upon hearing 
 her sorrows, and occasionally push their inquiries even as 
 far as my room ! 
 
 Paddy Byrne alone appears to have taken a philoso- 
 phical view of his position, for he has been drunk ever 
 since we arrived. He usually sleeps in the hall, on the 
 stairs, or the lobbies ; and although this saves the cost of a 
 bedroom, the economy is counterbalanced by occasiona 
 little reprisals he takes, as stray gentlemen stumble over him 
 with their bedroom candles. At such moments he smashes 
 lamps and china ornaments, for which his wages will re- 
 quire a long sequestration to clear off. And now a word 
 about home. Our English tenant, you tell me, is getting 
 tired of Dodsborough ; we guessed how it would be 
 already. "He thinks the people lazy ! " Ask him, did 
 he ever try to cut turf, with two meals of wet potatoes 
 per diem ? " They are bigoted and superstitious too." 
 How much better would they be if they knew all about 
 Lord Bosse's telescope ? " They won't give up their old 
 barbarous ways." Isn't that the very boast of the Con- 
 servative party ? Isn't that what Disraeli is preaching 
 every day and every hour ? — " Fall back upon this — fall 
 back upon that — think of the spirit of your ancestors." 
 Now they say, our ancestors yoked their horses by the 
 tails to save a harness. It's rather hard that all the 
 "progress," as they call it, must begin with the poor. It's 
 a dead puzzle to me, Tom, to explain one thing. All the 
 moralists, from the earliest ages, keep crying up humility, 
 and telling you that true nobility of soul consists in self- 
 denial and moderation, simple tastes, and so on ; and yet, 
 what is the great reproach they bring against Paddy ? 
 Isn't it that he is satisfied with the potato ? There's the
 
 124 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 head and front of his offence. That he doesn't want beef, 
 like the Englishman — nor soup and three courses, like 
 "Mounseer" — nor sauerkraut and roast veal, like a Ger- 
 man ; " cups and cold water " being the food of a fellow 
 that could thrash the whole three of them all round, and 
 think it mighty good fan besides. 
 
 Poor Dan used to say that he was the best abused man 
 in Europe : but I'll tell you that the potato is the best 
 abused vegetable in the universal globe. From the Times 
 down to the Scotch farmers, it's one hue-and-cry after it 
 — " The filthy root "— " The disgusting tuber "— " The 
 source of all Irish misery " — " The father of famine, and 
 mother of fever" — on they go, blackguarding the only 
 food of the people, till at last, as if it were a judgment 
 on their bad tongues, it took to rot in the ground, and 
 left us with nothing to eat. Now, Tom, you know as 
 well as myself, Ireland is not a wheat country ; it's one 
 year in three that we can raise a crop of it ; for our 
 climate is as treacherous as the English Government. I 
 hope you wouldn't have us live on oats, like the Scotch ; 
 nor on Indian corn, like the savages; so what is there 
 like the potato ? And then, how easy the culture, and 
 how simple the cookery ! It does well in every soil, and 
 agrees well with every constitution. It feeds the peasant, 
 it fattens the pig, it rears the children, and supports the 
 chickens. What can compare with that ? 
 
 Do you know that there's no cant of the day annoys 
 me more than that cry about model farming, and green 
 crops, and rotations, and subsoiling, and so on. The 
 whole ingenuity of mankind would seem devoted to 
 ascertaining how much a bullock can eat, and how little 
 will feed a labourer. Stuff one and starve the other, and 
 you may be the President of an Agricultural Society, and 
 Chairman of your Union. What treatises we have upon 
 stock, and improving the breed of boars ! Will you tell 
 me who ever thought of turning the same attention to the 
 condition of the people ? and I'm sure, if you go into the 
 county Galway, you'll soon acknowledge that they need 
 it. " Look at that lanky pig," calls out the Scotch 
 steward, in derision ; " his snout and his legs are fit for a 
 greyhound ! " But I say, " Look at Paddy, there. His
 
 "the test op prosperity." 125 
 
 neck is shrivelled and knotted, like an old vine-tree ; his 
 back rounded, and his legs crooked ; all for want of care 
 and nourishment. Is all your sympathy to be kept for 
 the sheep, and have you none for the shepherd ? " 
 
 I made some memorandums for you about Belgian 
 farming, but Mary Anne curled her hair with them. It's 
 no loss to you, however, for their system wouldn't do with 
 us. Small tenures and spade husbandry do mighty well 
 here, because there are great cities within a few miles of 
 each other, and agriculture takes somewhat the character 
 of market gardening ; but their success would be far 
 different were there long distances to be traversed with 
 the produce. 
 
 This country is certainly prospering; but I'm not so 
 certain that it can continue to do so. Their industry is 
 now stimulated to a high state of productiveness, because 
 they are daily extending their railroads ; but there must 
 come an end to that, and it strikes me that a country that 
 only deals with itself is pretty much what the adage says 
 of the "man that is his own doctor." They are now, 
 however, enjoying what your political economists all 
 agree in pronouncing to be the great test of prosperity. 
 Everything has nearly doubled in price : house rent, 
 meat, vegetables, wages, clothes, luxuries of all kind, 
 and, of course, taxation. I own to you I never clearly 
 understood this problem ; it always seemed to me as if a 
 whole population took to walk upon stilts, for the pleasure 
 of thinking themselves nine feet high. 
 
 These matters put me in mind of Vickars. I now see 
 that I was wrong in not going over to the election. His 
 tone is quite changed, and he writes to me as if I were a 
 deputation from the distressed hand-loom weavers. He 
 acknowledges mine of the 5th ult., and he deplores, and 
 regrets, and feels constrained to remind me, and so on, 
 ending with being "humble and obedient" — two things 
 that I believe his own mother never found him. The fact 
 is, Tom, he's in parliament, and he is a Lord of the 
 Treasury, and he doesn't care a brass farthing for one of 
 us. Do you remark how the Ministerial papers praise the 
 Government for promoting Irishmen ? It is not on the 
 ground of their superior capacity for office, their readi-
 
 126 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 ness and natural ability. Nothing of the kind ; it is 
 simply the unbounded generosity of the administration, 
 and perhaps as a proof of their humility ! They put an 
 Irishman in the Cabinet, just as the Roman Conqueror 
 took a slave in his chariot, to show that they don't intend 
 to forget themselves ! 
 
 I wish Punch would make a picture of it. Pat with 
 his pipe in his mouth beside the Premier ; the roguish 
 Jeer of the eye, the careless ease of his crossed legs, and 
 small-clothes open at the knee, would be a grand contrast 
 to the high-bred air of his companion. 
 
 Don't bother me any more about the salmon weirs ; 
 make the best bargain you can, and I'll be satisfied. It 
 appears to me, however, the more laws we have, the less 
 fish we catch. In my father's time there was no legisla- 
 tion, at all, and salmon was a penny a pound. The fish 
 seem to hate acts of parliament just as much as ourselves. 
 And, talking of that, I'm glad we're out of our scrape 
 with the Yankees. Depend upon it, all the cod that ever 
 was salted wouldn't pay for one collision. It wouldn't be 
 like any other war, Tom, for French and Russians, 
 Austrians and Italians, have each their separate peculiari- 
 ties — giving certain advantages in certain situations ; but 
 we — that is, English and Americans — fight exactly in the 
 same way. Each knows every dodge of the other — long 
 sixty-fives and thirty- twos, boarders, riflemen, riggers — 
 all alike. It's the old story of the Kilkenny cats, and 
 I'm greatly afraid our " tail " would be nearly as much 
 mauled as Jonathan's. 
 
 The longer I live, the nearer I find myself drawing to 
 these Yankees ; and I've some notion of going over there 
 to have a look at them. They tell me that the worst 
 thing about them is the air of gravity, even of depres- 
 sion, that prevails — a strange fault, considering how 
 many Irish there are amongst them ; but I suppose 
 Paddy is like the rest of the world, and he loses his fun 
 when he gets prosperous. There was Tom Martin, that 
 went our circuit, and there wasn't as pleasant a fellow 
 at the bar till he got into business. There was no good 
 asking him to dinner after that; as he owned himself, 
 " he kept his jokes for his clients." Now, there may be
 
 UNKIND COURTESY. 127 
 
 something like this the case in America ; at all events, 
 Tom, I'd have one advantage, there — I'd know the lan- 
 guage, what I'm never likely to do here ; not but I'm 
 doing my best every day at the table d'hote ; occasion- 
 ally, perhaps, with some sacrifice of the " propers ; " but 
 as a foreigner is too polite to laugh, the stranger has 
 little chance to learn. For my own part, I'd rather they'd 
 tell me when I was wrong, and give me some hope of 
 going right. I'd think it more friendly of a man to say, 
 "Kenny Dodd, you're going into a hole," than if he 
 smiled and simpered, and assured me that I was in the 
 middle of the path, and getting on beautifully. 
 
 And there isn't any good-nature in it ; not a bit. It's 
 not good-heartedness, nor kindness, nor amiability. I 
 don't believe a word of it ; because the chap that does it 
 isn't thinking of you at all — he's only minding himself; 
 he's fancying how he's delighting you, or captivating your 
 wife, or your sister-in-law ; or, if it's a woman, she wants 
 to fascinate or make a fool of you. 
 
 The real and essential difference between us and all 
 foreigners is, that they are always thinking of what 
 effect they are producing ; they never for a single moment 
 forget that there is an audience. Now we, on the con- 
 trary, never remember it. Life with them is a drama, in 
 all the blaze of wax-lights and a crowded house ; with us, 
 it's a day-rehearsal, and we slip about, mumbling our 
 parts, getting through the performance, unmindful of all 
 but our own share in it. 
 
 More than half of what is attributed to rudeness and 
 unsociality in us, springs out of the simple fact that we 
 do not care to obtrude even our politeness when there 
 seems no need of it. Our civilities are like a bill of 
 exchange, that must represent value one day or other. 
 Theirs are like the gilt markers on a card table : they 
 have a look of money about them, but are only counter- 
 feit. Perhaps this may explain why our women like the 
 Continent so much better than ourselves. All this mock 
 interchange of courtesy amuses and interests them; it 
 only worries us. 
 
 To come back to Vickars. He'll do nothing for James. 
 His "own list is quite full;" he "has mentioned his
 
 128 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 name," he says, " to the Secretary for the Colonies," and 
 will speak of him " at the Home Office." But I know 
 what that means. The party is safe for the present, and 
 don't need our dirty voices for many a day to come. It's 
 distressing me to find out what to do with him. Can 
 you get me any real information about the gold diggings? 
 Is it a thing that would suit him ? His mother, I know 
 well, would never consent to the notion of his working 
 with his hands ; but, upon my conscience, if it's his head 
 he's to depend on, he'll fare worse ! He is very good- 
 looking, six foot one and a half, strong as a young bull ; 
 and to ride an unbroken horse, drive a fresh team, to 
 shoot a snipe, or hook a salmon, I'll back him against the 
 field. I hear, besides, he's a beautiful cue at billiards. 
 But what's the use of all these at the Board of Trade, if 
 he had even the luck to get there ? Many's the time I've 
 heard poor old Lord Kilmahon say, than an Irish educa- 
 tion wasn't worth a groat for England ; and I now see 
 the force of the remark. 
 
 Not but he's working hard every day, with French, 
 and fortification, and military surveying, with a fine old 
 officer that served in the wars of the Empire — Captain de 
 la Bourdonaye — a regular old soldier of Bony's day, that 
 hates the English as much as any Irishman going. He 
 comes and sits with me now and then of an evening, but 
 there's not much society in it, since we can't understand 
 each other. We have a bottle of rum and some cigars 
 between us, and our conversation goes on somewhat in 
 this fashion : — 
 
 " Help yourself, mounseer." 
 
 A grin and bow, and something mumbled between his 
 teeth. 
 
 " Take a weed ? " 
 
 We smoke. 
 
 " James is getting on well, I hope ? Mon fils James 
 improving, eh ? Grand general one of these days, 
 eh ? " 
 
 " Oui, oui." Fills and drinks. 
 
 " Another Bonaparte, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Ah! le grand homme ! " Wipes his eyes, and looks 
 up to the ceiling.
 
 BAITING THE FRENCHMAN. 129 
 
 ''Well, we thrashed him for all that ! Faith, we made 
 him dance in Spain and Portugal. "What do you say to 
 Talavera and Vittoria ?" 
 
 Swears like a trooper, and rattles out whole volumes of 
 French, with gestures that are all but blows. I wait till 
 it's over, and just say " Waterloo ! " 
 
 This nearly drives him crazy, and he forgets to put 
 water in his glass ; and off he goes about Waterloo in a 
 way that's dreadful to look at. I suppose, if I understood 
 him, I'd break his neck ; but as I don't, I only go on 
 saying "Waterloo" at intervals ; but every time 1 utter 
 it, he has to blow off the steam again. When the rum is 
 finished, he usually rushes out of the room, gnashing his 
 teeth, and screaming something about St. Helena. But 
 it's all over the next day, and he's as polite as ever when 
 we meet — grins, and hands me his tin snuff-box with the 
 air of an emperor. They're a wonderful people, Tom ; and 
 though they'd murder you, they'd never forget to make a 
 bow to your corpse. 
 
 You may imagine, from what I tell you, that I am very 
 lonely here ; and so I am. I never meet anybody I can 
 speak to — I never see any newspaper I can read! I eat 
 things without knowing the names of them, or, what's 
 worse, what they are ; and all this I must do for economy, 
 while I could live for less than one-half the expense at 
 Dodsborough ! 
 
 Mary Anne has just come to say that the doctors are 
 agreed Mrs. D. must be removed — the noise of the town 
 will destroy her. My only surprise is that she didn't 
 discover it sooner. They speak of a place called Chaude 
 Fontaine, seven miles away, and of a little watering-place 
 called Spa. But I'll not budge an inch till I have all the 
 particulars, for I know well they're all dying to be at the 
 old work again — tea-parties, and hired horses, and polkas, 
 in the evening, and the rest of it. Lord George has 
 arrived at Liege, and I wouldn't be astonished if he was 
 at the bottom of it all ; not but he behaved well in James's 
 business. To deal with a Jew there's nothing in the world 
 like one of your young sprigs of nobility ! Moses doesn't 
 care a bulrush for you or me ; but when he hears of a 
 Lord Charles or Lord Augustus, he alters his tone. It is 
 
 TOL. I. K
 
 130 THE DCDD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 that class which supplies his customers, and he dares not 
 outrage them. 
 
 I wish you saw the way he managed our friend Lazarus ! 
 He wouldn't look into his statement, read one of his 
 accounts, or even bestow a glance at the bills. 
 
 " I'm up to all those dodges, Lazzy," said he ; "it's no 
 use coming that over me. Wkat'll you do it for ? " 
 
 " Ah, my good Lord Shorge, you know better as me, 
 that we cannot give away our moneys. Here are all the 
 bills " 
 
 " Don't care for that, Lazzy — won't look at 'em. AVhat'll 
 ycu do it for ? " 
 
 " If I lend my moneys at a fair per shent " 
 
 li "Well, what's the figure to be ? Say it at once ; or I'm 
 off." 
 
 " You'll shurely look at my claims " 
 
 " Not one of them.'' 
 
 « Nor the bills ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nor the vouchers?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Oil clear ! oh clear ! how hard you are grown, and you 
 so young, and so handsome, so little like " 
 
 " Never mind the resemblance, but answer me. How 
 much ? " 
 
 " It's impossible, my Lord Shorge ! " 
 
 " Will two hundred do ? Well, two fifty ? " 
 
 " No, nor twelve fifty, my lord. I will have my claim." 
 
 " That's what I want to come at, Lazzy. How much?" 
 
 This process goes on for half an hour, without any 
 apparent result on either side ; when at last Lord George, 
 taking out his pocket-book, proceeds to count various bank- 
 notes on the table. The effect is magical ; the sight of 
 the money melts Lazarus — he hesitates, and gives in. Of 
 course his compliance does not cost him much ; fifty per 
 cent, is the very lowest we escape for ! But even at this, 
 Tom, our bargain is a good one. 
 
 I see it all, Tom ; they are bent on getting to a watering- 
 place, and that's exactly the very thing I won't stand. 
 Our Irish notions on these subjects are all taken from 
 Bundoran, or Kilkee, or Dunmore, or some such localities;
 
 HOME WATERING-PLACES AND FOREIGN. 131 
 
 and where, to say the least, there is not a great deal to 
 find fault with. Tiresome they are enough ; and, after a 
 week, or so, one gets wearied of always walking over 
 ankles in deep sand, listening to the plash of the tide, or 
 the less musical squall of some half-drowned baby, or 
 sitting on a rock to watch some miraculous draught 
 of fishes, that is sure to be sent off some twenty miles 
 into the interior. These, and occasional pictorial studies 
 of your acquaintances, in all the fascinations of oil-skin 
 caps and wet drapery, tire at last. But they are cheap 
 pleasures, Tom ; and, as the world goes, that is something. 
 
 Now, from all I can learn, for I know nothing of them 
 myself, your foreign watering-place is just a big city 
 taking an airing. The self-same habits of dress, late hours, 
 play, dancing, debt, and dissipation ; the great difference 
 being, that wickedness is cultivated in straw hats and 
 Eussia-duck, instead of its more conventional costume of 
 black coat and trousers ! From my own brief experience 
 of life, I think a garden by moonlight is just as dangerous 
 as a conservatory with coloured lamps ; and a polka in 
 public is less perilous than a mountain excursion, even on 
 donkeys ! They'll not catch me at that game, Tom ! 
 
 I have just discovered in " Cochrane's Guide" — for I 
 have burned my " John Murray " — the very place to suit 
 me — Bonn on the Bhine. He says it has a pleasant 
 appearance, and contains 1,300 houses and 15,000 in- 
 habitants, and that the Star, kept by one Schmidt, is 
 reasonable, and that he speaks English, and takes in the 
 Galignani — two evidences of civilization not to be despised. 
 
 I think I see you smile ; but that's the fact — we come 
 abroad to hunt after somebody we can talk to, or find a 
 newspaper we can read — making actual luxuries of what 
 we had every day at home for nothing. 
 
 Besides these, Bonn h&u a university, and that will be a 
 great thing for James, and masters of various kinds for 
 the girls ; but, better than all this, there's no society, no 
 balls, no dinners, no theatre. The only places of public 
 amusement are the Cathedral and the Anatomy House ; 
 and even Mrs. D. will be puzzled to get up a jinketing 
 in them. 
 
 I'll write to Schmidt this evening about rooms, and I'll 
 
 k 2
 
 132 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 show him that we are not to be "done," like your newly- 
 arrived Bulls ; for I won't pay more than " four-and-six " 
 a head for dinner ; and plenty it is too. I wish we could 
 have remained here ; but now that the doctors have 
 decided against it, there's no help. It is not that I liked 
 the place — Heaven knows I have no right to be pleased 
 with it — but I'll tell you one great advantage about it : 
 it was actually " breaking them all in to hate the 
 Continent;" another month of this tinkering din, this 
 tiresome table d'hote, and wearisome existence, and I'd 
 wager a trifle they'd agree to any terms to get away. 
 You'd not believe your eyes if you saw how they are 
 altered. The girls so thin, and no colour in their cheeks; 
 James as lank as a greyhound, and always as if half 
 asleep; and myself, plnffy, and full, and short-winded, 
 irascible about everything, and always thirsty, without 
 anything wholesome to drink. But I'd bear it all, Tom, 
 for the result, or for what I at least expect the result 
 would be. I'd submit to it like a course of physic, look- 
 ing to the cure for my recompense. 
 
 Shall I now tell you, Tom, that I have my misgivings 
 about Mrs. D.'s illness. I was passing the lobby last 
 night, and I heard her laughing as heartily as ever she did 
 in her life, though ib was only two hours before she had 
 sent down for the man of the house to witness her will. 
 To be sure, she always does make a will whenever she 
 takes to bed ; but this time she went further, and had a 
 grand leave-taking of us all, which I only escaped by 
 being wrapped up in blankets, under the "influence," as 
 the doctors call it, of " tartarized antimony," of which I 
 partook, to satisfy her scruples, before she would taste it. 
 If I have to perform much longer as a pilot balloon, Tom, 
 I'm thinking I'm very likely to explode. 
 
 As for one word of truth from the doctors, I'm not 
 such a fool as to expect it. The priest or the physician 
 that attends your wife always seems to regard you as a 
 natural enemy. If he happen to be well bred, he con- 
 ducts himself with all the observance due to a dis- 
 tinguished opponent; but no confidence, Tom — nothirg 
 candid. He never forgets that he is engaged for the 
 " opposite party."
 
 FOREIGN DOCTOES. 133 
 
 Your foreign doctor, too, is a dreadful animal. He lias 
 not the bland look, the soft smile, the noiseless slide, the 
 snowy shirt-frill, and the tender squeeze of the hand, of 
 our own fellows, every syllable of whose honeyed lips 
 seems like a lenitive electuary made vocal. Ho is a 
 mean, scrubby, little, damp-looking chap, not unlike the 
 bit of dirty cotton in the bottom of an ink-bottle, the 
 incarnation of black draught and a bitter mixture. He 
 won't poison you, however, for his treatment ranges 
 between dill-water and syrup of gum ; in fact, to use the 
 expressive phrase of the French, he only comes to "assist" 
 at your death, and not to cause it. I have remarked that 
 homoeopathic fellows are more attentive to the outward 
 man than the others, whatever be the reason. Their 
 beards and whiskers are certainly not cut on the infini- 
 tesimal principle, and, assuredly, flattery is one of the 
 medicaments they never administer in small doses. By 
 the way, Tom, I wish this same theory could be applied 
 to the distresses of a man's estate as well as that of his 
 body. It would be a right comfortable thing to pay off 
 one's mortgagees with fractional parts of a halfpenny, 
 and get rid of one's creditors on the " decillionth " scale. 
 
 I have now finished my paper, and I have just dis- 
 covered that I have not answered one of your questions 
 about home affairs ; but, after all, does it matter much, 
 Tom ? Things in Ireland go their own way, however we 
 may strive to direct and control them. In fact, I am half 
 disposed to think we ought to manage our business on 
 the principle that our countryman drove his pig — turning 
 his head towards Cork because he wanted him to go to 
 Permoy ! Look at us at this moment. "We never were 
 so thoroughly divided as since we have enjoyed the 
 benefits of a united education ! 
 
 If Tullylicknaslatterley must be sold, see that it is soon 
 done ; for if we put it off till November, the boys will 
 be shooting somebody, or doing some infernal folly or 
 other, that will take five years off the purchase-money. 
 These Manchester fellows are always so terrified at what 
 is called an outrage ! Sure, if they had the least know- 
 ledge of the doctrine of chances, they'd see that the 
 estate where a man was shot was exactly the pbce tli.u-e
 
 134 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 would be no more mischief for many a year to come. 
 The only spot where accidents are always recurring is the 
 drop in front of a gaol. 
 
 Try and persuade the Englishman to take Dodsborough 
 for another year. Tell him Ireland is looking up, prices 
 are improving, &c. If he be Hibernian in his leanings, 
 show him how teachable Paddy is — how disposed to 
 learn, and how grateful for instruction. If he be bitten 
 by the Times, tell him that the Irish are all emigrating 
 and that in three years there will neither be a Pat, a 
 priest, nor a potato to be seen. As old Fitzgibbon 
 used to say on our circuit, " I wish I had a hundred 
 pounds to argue it either way ! " 
 
 I can manage to keep afloat for a couple of weeks, but 
 be sure to remit me something by that time. 
 
 Yours, ever sincerely, 
 
 Kenny I Dodd. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. 
 
 Liege, Tuesday Morning. 
 
 My dear Bob, — A thousand pardons for not answering 
 either of your two last letters. It was not, believe me, 
 that I have not felt the most sincere interest in all that 
 you tell me about yourself and your doings. Far from 
 it : I finished two bottles of Hock in honour of your 
 Science Premium, and I have called a short-tailed hack 
 Bob, after you, though unfortunately she happens to be a 
 mare. 
 
 Mine has been rather a varied kind of existence since I 
 wrote last. A little in the draught-board style, only that 
 the black chequers have rather predominated ! I got 
 " hit hard " at the Brussels races, lost twelve hundred at
 
 JAMES AT HIS STUDIES. 135 
 
 ecarte, and had some ugly misacl ventures arising out of a 
 too liberal use of my autograph. The governor, however, 
 has stumped up, and though the whole affair was serious 
 enough at one time, I fancy that we are at length over the 
 stiff country, and with nothing but grass fields and light 
 cantering land before us. 
 
 The greatest inconvenience of the whole has been, that 
 we've been laid up here, " dismasted and in ordinary," for 
 the last three weeks, during which my mother has made a 
 steeple-chase through the Pharmacopoeia, and the governor 
 finished all the Schiedam in the town. In fact, there has 
 been nothing very serious the matter with her, but as we 
 left the capital under rather unpleasant circumstances, we 
 came in here to " blow off our steam," and cool down to 
 a reasonable temperature. To reduce the budget and re- 
 trench expenditure, the choice was probably not a bad 
 one, since we are housed, fed, and done for on the most 
 reasonable terms ; but the place is a perfect disgust, and 
 there is actually nothing for a man to do, except to poke 
 into steam-engines and prove gun-barrels. 
 
 As for me, I never leave my room from breakfast till 
 table d'hote hour. My French master comes at eleven and 
 stays till four. This sounds all very diligent and studious, 
 and so thinks the governor, Bob. The real state of tho 
 case is, however, different. The distinguished officer of 
 the Old Guard engaged to instruct me in military science 
 and mathematics is an old hairdresser, who combines with 
 his functions of barber the honourable duties of laquais 
 de place and police spy, occasionally taking a turn at the 
 il scholastic" whenever he is lucky enough to find any 
 English illiterate enough to be his dupes. The governor 
 heard of him from the master of the hotel, and took him 
 especially for his cheapness. Such is the Captain de la 
 Bourdonaye, who swaggers upstairs every morning with 
 a red ribbon in his button-hole, and a curling-iron in his 
 pocket, for I take good care, Bob, that as he cannot furnish 
 the inside of my head, he shall at least decorate it with* 
 out. 
 
 I must say this is a most nefarious old rascal, and I have 
 heard of more villany from him than I ever knew before. 
 He knows all the scandal and^ gossip of the town, and
 
 186 TEE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 retails it with an almost diabolical raciness. As I have 
 already made use of him in various ways, we are bound 
 to each other in the very heaviest of recognizances. He 
 brought me yesterday a note from Lord George, who had 
 just arrived here, but judged better not to see me till he 
 had called on the governor. The captain was once Lord 
 G.'s courier, and I believe, the chief mentor of his earlier 
 continental experiences. 
 
 Lord George has behaved like a trump to me. He has 
 brought away from Brussels all my traps, which, in the 
 haste of my retreat, I had fancied fallen into the hands of 
 the enemy. The brown mare Bob, a neatish dennet, two 
 sets of single harness, a racing saddle, a lady's ditto, three 
 chests of toggery, all my pipes and canes, and a bull- 
 terrier — the whole of which would have to-day been the 
 chattels of Lazarus, had not Lord G. made out a bill of 
 sale of them to himself, and got two " respectable " advo- 
 cates to swear they were witnesses to it. The fun of this 
 is, Lazarus saw all the knavery, and Tiverton never denied 
 it ! The most rascally transactions are dashed with such 
 an air of frankness and candour, that, hang me ! if one 
 can regard them as transportable offences ! I know all 
 this would be infamous in England — it wouldn't be quite 
 right even in Ireland, Bob — but here we are abroad, and 
 the latitude warps morality just as the vicinity to the pole 
 affects the compass. 
 
 I have learned from Lord George that there are to be 
 races at a place called Spa, about twelve miles off, and 
 that if Bob were in training we might do a good thing 
 among "les gentlemen riders," who certainly ride like 
 neither gents nor jocks. George slipped his knee-cap at a 
 gate the other day, and cannot ride ; and how I am to 
 get away from this for an entire day without the gover- 
 nor's knowledge, is more than I can see. I have told the 
 captain, however, that he must manage it somehow, or I'll 
 turn king's evidence and betray him ; so that the case is 
 not yet hopeless. Bob is exactly the kind of thing to walk 
 into these fellows. She's very nearly thorough-bred, but 
 has a cock-tailed look about her, and, with a hogged mane 
 and a short dock, is only, to all appearance, a clever hack- 
 ney. I know well that these foreigners have got first-rate
 
 VALUABLE KNOWLEDGE. 137 
 
 Cattle : they buy the very best of horses, and the smartest 
 carriages, of London ; but what avails it ? they can neither 
 ride nor drive ! They curb up a thorough-bred so that 
 he's thrown clean out of his stride, and they clap the saddle 
 on his withers so that he is certain to come smash down if 
 he tries to cross a furrow. You can imagine what hands 
 they have, when I tell you that they all hold on by the 
 head ! Lord Gr., however, who knows them well, says that 
 there's no use in bringing over a good horse against them. 
 They are confoundedly cautious, and what they lack in 
 skill they make up in cunning ; and if they heard of any- 
 thing that ran second at Goodwood or Chester, they'd 
 " shut up" at once. It's only a "dodge" will do, he 
 says, and I am certain nobody knows better than he does. 
 
 Whenever they get pluck enough for hurdle-racing, 
 there will be some money to be picked up abroad ; but 
 the prosperity won't last, for when one fellow breaks his 
 neck, there will be an end of it. 
 
 I'll not close this till I can tell you the success of our 
 scheme for the races. Meanwhile to your questions, 
 which, to make short work of, I'll answer all at once. It's 
 all very fine to talk about stud} 7 ing, and the learned pro- 
 fessions, but how many succeed in them ? Three or four 
 swells carry off the stakes, and the rest are nowhere ! 
 Let me tell you, Bob, that the fellows that really do best 
 in life never knew trade nor profession, except you can 
 call Tattersall's yard a lecture-room, and short-whist a 
 calling. There's Collingwood's got two hundred thousand 
 with his wife; Upton, he's netted thirty on the last Derby, 
 and stands to win at least twelve more on the Spring 
 Meeting. Brook — Shallow Brook, as you used to call 
 him at school — has been deep enough to break the bank 
 at Hamburg ! I just wish you'd show me one of your 
 University dons who could do any one of the three! If 
 it came to a trial of wits, the heads of houses wouldn't 
 have houses over their heads. Believe me, Bob, the poet 
 was right, " The proper study of mankind is man ! " and 
 if he add thereto a little knowledge of horseflesh, there's 
 no fear of him in this life ! 
 
 Look at the thing in another light, too. The Church 
 is only open to the Protestants j the bar is, then, the sole
 
 138 THE BODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 profession with great rewards; for as to the army and 
 navy, they may do to spend money in and leave when 
 you're sick of them, but nothing else. 1-Tow the bar is 
 awful labour ; ten or twelve hours a day for three or four 
 years, a3 many more in a special pleader's office, six years 
 after that reporting for the newspapers ; and, perhaps, 
 after three or four struggling terms you drop off out of the 
 course altogether, and are only heard of as writing a 
 threatening letter to Lord John Russell, or as our " own 
 Correspondent at Tahiti ! " 
 
 As to physic, " I throw it to the dogs." It's not a 
 gentlemanly calling ! So long as a fellow can rout you 
 out of bed at night for a guinea, it's all nonsense to talk 
 about independence. Your doctor hasn't even the cab- 
 man's privilege to higgle for a trifle more. Real liberty, 
 Bob, consists in having no craft whatsoever. Like the 
 free lances in the sixteenth century, take a turn of service 
 wherever it suits you, but wear no man's livery. As Lord 
 George remarks, whenever a fellow takes to that line of 
 life the men are all afraid, and the women all delighted 
 with him ; he's so sure with his pistol and so lax in his 
 principles, nothing obstructs his progress. 
 
 This same glorious independence I am like enough to 
 attain, since, up to this moment, I am a perfect gentleman, 
 according to Lord George's definition ; nor could I, by 
 any means that I know of, support myself for twenty-four 
 hours. You would probably remark, that so blank a 
 prospect ought to alarm me. Not a bit of it ! I never 
 felt more thoroughly confident and at ease than now as I 
 write these lines. George's theory is this : Life is a round 
 game, with some skill and a vast amount of hazard ; the 
 majority of the players are dupes; who, some, from in- 
 attention, some from deficient ability, and others, again, 
 from utter indifference, are easy victims to the few shrewd 
 and clever fellows that never neglect a chance, and who 
 know when to back their luck. " Do not be too eager," 
 says George — " do not be over anxious to play, but just 
 walk about and watch the game for a } T ear or so, and only 
 cut in when it suits you. By that time you have mastered 
 the peculiar style of every man's play. You are up to all 
 their weaknesses, and aware of where their strength lies ;
 
 HIGH-FLOWN NOTIONS. 139 
 
 and if you can only afford to lose a little cash j'ourself at 
 the start, and pass for a pigeon, your fortune is made ! " 
 This, of course, is but a sorry sketch of his system ; for, 
 after all, it requires his own dashing description, his 
 figurative manner, and his flow of illustration, to make 
 the thing intelligible. He is, in reality, a first-rate fellow, 
 and may be what he chooses. All that I know of life I 
 owe to his teaching ; and I own to you I was in the 
 " lowest form " when he began with me. 
 
 The only thing that distresses me now, is the fear that 
 Vickars may yield to the governor's solicitations, and 
 give, or get me, something — some confounded official 
 appoiutment, thatwouldshut me up all day in a Government 
 office, on mayhap one hundred and twenty per annum, 
 with a promised increase of ten pounds when I attain the 
 age of fifty. I'd nearly as soon be in the hulks as the 
 Home Office, and I'm certain that pounding oyster-shells 
 is just as intellectual, and a far more salubrious occupation, 
 than precis writing ! The dread of such a destiny has 
 induced me to take a rather bold step, and one which it is 
 possible you will not exactly approve of. I have written, 
 myself, a "private and strictly confidential" note to 
 Vickars, to say that my father's application to him on my 
 behalf never had my sanction nor approval — that I despise 
 the Board of Trade, and hold the Customs uncommon 
 cheap ; and that although there are some gentlemen in 
 what they call the diplomatic service, that all the juniors 
 are snobs, and the grade above them — what George calls 
 snoozer3 — old red-tapery fellows, that label their washing 
 bills " soap question," and send out their boots to be new 
 soled in an old despatch- bag. 
 
 I have added a few lines, by way of showing that my 
 repugnance does not proceed from any disinclination to 
 exertion or an active life, that I am quite ready to accept 
 of a commission in the guards, or any good post in the 
 household, where my natural advantages might be seen 
 and appreciated. 
 
 I have not told Lord George about this, because he is 
 tremendously opposed to my taking anything like office. 
 He says it's not only " bad style," but a positive throwing 
 away of oneself; since, whenever they do get a regularly
 
 140 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 clever fellow amongst them, they always keep him in some 
 subordinate position. " They'll just treat you the way 
 they did Edmund Burke," he says; and though I'm not 
 aware how that was, I am quite satisfied that it was a 
 rascally shame ! Our name, too, I own to you, in all 
 frankness, is awfully against us. Lord George has advised 
 me over and over to add a syllable or two to it; so I 
 should, perhaps, if I were not living with the governor ; 
 but, for the present, I must submit. 
 
 The captain has just dropped in to tell me that all is 
 arranged — I am to have a fearful toothache, and be con- 
 fined to bed for two days ; and this, with heavy blankets 
 and nitre whey, will take at least seven pounds off me. 
 The governor is to be seduced into an excursion, to see 
 the works of Seraing. AVe have contrived to have his 
 card of admission dated for a particular day, and the 
 hackney coachman has been bribed to break down on the 
 way home, and detain him several hours. Lord George 
 is to have a drag ready for me at the outside of Liege at 
 eight o'clock, and I hope to figure on the course by twelve ! 
 Mary Anne alone is in the secret. 1 was obliged to tell 
 her, since, without her aid, I should have had no jacket ; 
 but she has cut up a splendid green satin of my mother's, 
 which with white sleeves and cap to match, will turn me 
 out rather smart, and national to boot. Bob is already 
 gone, and has had her canters for the last four mornings, 
 so that who knows but that we shall do something. 
 
 You describe to me the trepidation of heart you felt on 
 going up for honours at college — the fits of heat and cold, 
 the tremblings, the sighings, the throbbings, and faintish- 
 ness ; trust me, Bob, it's all nothing to what one expe- 
 riences on the eve of a race ! Your contest is conducted 
 in secret — your success or failure is witnessed by a few ; 
 ours is an open tournament, with thousands of spectators, 
 who are, or who at least fancy that they are, most com- 
 petent judges of the performance ; and if it be a glorious 
 thing to come sweeping past the grand stand amidst the 
 vociferous cheers of a mighty host, to catch the fitful 
 glance of waving hats and floating handkerchiefs as you 
 dash by, it is a sorry affair to come hobbling along dead- 
 lame or broke down, three hundred yards behind, greeted
 
 THE RACES. 141 
 
 only by the scoffs of the multitude and the jokes of the 
 greasy populace. 
 
 Which of these fortunes is to be mine you shall hear 
 before I seal this epistle ; and now, for the present, adieu ! 
 
 Friday Evening. 
 
 I have just an hour before the post closes to announce 
 to you my safe return here, though I greatly doubt if my 
 swelled and still trembling fingers will make me legible. 
 We started at cock-crow, and reached Spa for an early 
 breakfast, having " tooled along " with a spicy tandem 
 the thirteen miles in an hour. Before eight o'clock I had 
 taken a hot bath, and reduced my weight nine pounds, 
 having taken seven rounds of the race-course in a heavy 
 fur pelisse of Lord George's. Twenty minutes more toil- 
 ing, and some hot lemonade, completed my training, and 
 left me by twelve o'clock somewhat groggy in gait and 
 white about the gills, and, as George said, very much like 
 a chicken boiled down for broth ! 
 
 Our game was not to bet on the general race, but to 
 look on as mere spectators and see what could be done in 
 a private match. This was not so easy, since these Belgian 
 fellows were so intent on the "Liege St. Leger " and the 
 " Spa Derby," and twenty other travesties of the like 
 kind, that they would not listen to anything but what 
 sounded at least like English sport. We had, therefore, 
 to wait with all due patience for their tiresome races — 
 "native horses and native jockeys," as the printed pro- 
 gramme very needlessly informed us. " Flemish mares 
 and fat riders " would have been the suitable description. 
 
 I had almost despaired of doing anything, when near 
 five o'clock George came up to say that he had made a 
 match for a hundred Naps, a side — Bob against Bronchitis, 
 twice round the course — I to ride my own horse, and 
 Count Amcdee de Kaerters the other, he giving me twelve 
 pounds and a distance. Not too much odds, I assure you, 
 since Bronchitis is out of Harpsichord by a Bay Middleton 
 mare. 
 
 Before I had reached the stand, George had made a very 
 pretty book, taking five, and even seven to two, against
 
 142 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Bob, and an even fifty on her being distanced. Still I was 
 far from comfortable when I saw Bronchitis ; a splendid- 
 looking horse, with a great slapping stride, light about the 
 head, and strong in the quarters ; just the kind of horse 
 that wants no riding whatever, only to be let do his own 
 work his own way. 
 
 "The mare can't gallop with that horse, George ! " said 
 I, in a whisper. " She'll never see him after the first 
 time round ! " 
 
 " I'm half afraid of that," said he, in the same low voice. 
 " They told me he wasn't all right, but he's in top con- 
 dition. We must see what's to be done/' He smoked 
 his cigar quite coolly for a minute or two, and then said, 
 "Ah, here comes the Count! I have it, 'Jim!'" — he 
 always calls me "Jim" — "just mind me, and it will all 
 come right." 
 
 I was by no means convinced that everything was so 
 safe, however ; and had I been possessed of the fifty Naps, 
 required, I should gladly have paid the forfeit. Fortu- 
 nately, as it turned out, I hadn't so much money ; so into 
 the scale I went, my heart being the heaviest spot 
 about me ! 
 
 "Eleven two," said George; " we'll say eleven." 
 
 The count weighed eleven stone four, which, with his 
 added weight, brought him to upwards of twelve stone. 
 
 " It's exactly as I suspected," whispered George to me. 
 " The Belgian has weighed himself as if he was a gold 
 guinea. He has been so anxious not to give you an ounce 
 too much, that he has outwitted himself. All that you've 
 to do, Jim, is, ride at him every now and then ; tease and 
 worry the fellow wherever you can, and try if you can't 
 take some of that loose flesh off him before it's over." 
 
 I saw the scheme at once, Bob. I had nothing whatever 
 to do but to save my distance to win the race ; for it was 
 clearly impossible that the count could go twice round a 
 mile course, and come in as heavy as he started. 
 
 I must be brief, for my minutes are few. Would that 
 you could have seen us going round ! I, lying always on 
 his quarter; making a rush whenever I got a bit of ugly 
 ground ; and, though barely able to keep up with him, 
 just being near enough to worry him. He wasn't much
 
 THE COUNT IN THE SCALES. 143 
 
 of a rider, it is true, but he knew quite enough to see that 
 he could run away from me whenever he liked ; and so 
 he did when he came to the last turn near home. Off he 
 went at speed, pitching the mud behind him, and making 
 my smart jacket something like a dirty draught-board. It 
 was only by dint of incessant spurring, and tremendous 
 punishment, that I was able to get inside the distance- 
 post just as the cheering in front announced to me that he 
 had passed the grand stand. 
 
 Mi/ canter in — for I was so dead beat, it was on'y a 
 canter — was greeted with a universal yell of derision. To 
 have a laugh against the Englishman on a race-course was 
 a national triumph of no mean order. " It was a ' set-off' 
 against Waterloo," George said. 
 
 In I came, splashed, spattered, and scorned, but not 
 crestfallen, Bob, for one glance at my victorious rival 
 satisfied me that all was safe. The count was so com- 
 pletely fagged that he could scarcely get down from his 
 horse, and when he did so he staggered like a drunken 
 man. 
 
 " Come now, count, into the scale ! " cried Lord George ; 
 "show your weight, and let us pay our money !" 
 
 "I have weighed already," said the other. "I weighed 
 before the start." 
 
 " Very true," rejoined George, "but let us see that you 
 are the same weight still." 
 
 It required considerable explanation and argument to 
 show the justice of this proposition, nor was it till a jury 
 of English jocks decided in its favour that the Belgians 
 were convinced. 
 
 At last he did consent to get into the scale, and to the 
 utter wonderment of all but the few English present, it was 
 discovered that he had lost something like six pounds, and 
 consequently lost the race. 
 
 It was capital fun to see the consternation of the Belgians 
 at the announcement. They had been betting with such 
 perfect certainty; they had been giving any odds to tempt 
 a wager ; and there they were ! " in," as George said, " for 
 a whole pot of money." 
 
 While they were counting down the cash, too, George 
 kept assuring them that the lesson they had just received
 
 144 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 was " cheap as dirt ;" " that it ought by right to have 
 cost them thousands instead of hundreds, but that we pre- 
 ferred doing the thing in an amicable way." At such 
 times, I must say, George is perfect. He is so cool, so 
 courteous ; so apparently serious, too, that even his sharp- 
 est cuts seem like civil speeches and kindly counsel. I 
 never admired him more than when, having bought a 
 courier's leather-bag to stuff the gold in, he slung it round 
 his neck, and, taking leave of the party with a polite bow, 
 said, — 
 
 "There are times, gentlemen, when one goes all tho 
 lighter for a little additional weight ! " 
 
 I scarcely remember how we reached Liege. It was 
 almost one roar of laughter between us the whole road ! 
 And then such plans and schemes for the future ! 
 
 Luck stood by me to the last. I reached home before 
 the governor, and in time to resume my bandages and my 
 toothache. Mary Anne had taken care to have a very 
 tidy bit of dinner ready; and now, while I sip my 
 Bordeaux, I dedicate to you the last moments of my long 
 and eventful day. 
 
 I do not ask of you to write to me till you hear again, 
 for there is no guessing where I may be this day fort- 
 night. Vickars may possibly respond to my request ; or 
 I may find some complaisant doctor to order me to a distant 
 watering-place, in which case I may get free of the Dodd 
 family, who, I own to you, Bob, are a serious drawback 
 on the progress and advancement of your 
 
 Attached, but now wide-awake friend, 
 
 James Dodd. 
 
 Dodd pere has just come home with a sprained ankle. 
 The scoundrel of a coachee overdid his instructions, and 
 upset the " conveniency " into a lime-kiln. I suppose 
 I'll have to pay two or three Naps, additional for the 
 damage. 
 
 One good result, however, haw followed : the governor 
 is in such a rage that he has determined to leave this 
 to-morrow.
 
 145 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 MISS DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OP BALLYDOOLAtf. 
 
 My deaeest Kitty, — I do not, indeed, deserve your re- 
 proaches. Mine is not a heart to forget the fondest ties 
 of early affection, nor would you charge me with this 
 were you near me. But how can you, lying peacefully in 
 the calm haven of domestic quiet, " sleeping on your 
 shadow," as the poetess says, sympathize with one storm- 
 tossed, and all but shipwrecked on the wild, wide ocean of 
 life? 
 
 Of the past I cannot trust myself to speak, and I must 
 say, Kitty, if there be one lesson which the Continent 
 teaches above all others, it is not to go over the bygone. 
 A week ago, in foreign acceptation, is half a century ; and 
 he who remembers the events of yesterday rather verges 
 on being a "bore" for his pains. Probably it is the 
 intensity with which they throw themselves into the 
 "present" that imparts to foreigners their incontestable 
 superiority in all that constitutes social distinction — their 
 glowing enthusiasm even about what we should call trifles — 
 their ardour to attain what we should deem of little moment! 
 
 If you were not to witness it, Kitty, you couldn't believe 
 what an odious thing your regular untravelled Englishman 
 is. His j>ride, his stiffness, his self-conceit, his contempt 
 for everybody and everything, from good breeding to 
 grammar. Contrast him with your pliant Frenchman, 
 your courteous German, or your devoted Italian ; so 
 smiling and so submissive, so grateful for the slightest 
 mark of your favour, that you feel all the power of riches 
 in the wealth of your smiles, or the resources of your wit ! 
 
 And they are so ingenious in discovering your perfec- 
 tions ! It is not alone the rich colour of your hair, the 
 arch of your eyebrow, or the symmetry of your instep, 
 Kitty, but even the secret workings of your fancy, the 
 fitful playings of your imagination ; these they under- 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 stand by a kind of magic. I really believe that the reason 
 Englishmen do not comprehend women is, that tbey 
 despise and look down npon them. Foreigners, on the 
 other hand, adore and revere them ! There is a kind of 
 worship paid to the sex abroad that is most fascinating. 
 
 One reason for all this may be, that in England there 
 are so many roads to ambition qnite separated from female 
 influence. Now here this is not the case. We are every- 
 thing abroad, Kitty. Political, literary, artistic, fashion- 
 able — as we will. We can be fascinating, and go every- 
 where, or exclusive, and only admit a chosen few. We 
 can be deep in all the secrets of State, and exhausted with 
 all the cares of the cabinet, or can be lionnes, and affect 
 cigars and men society, talk scandal and coulisses, wear 
 all the becoming caprices of costume, and be even, more 
 than men in independence. 
 
 I see — or I fancy that I see — your astonishment at all 
 that I am telling you, and that you half exclaim, " Where 
 and how did Mary Anne learn all this ?" I'll tell you, my 
 dearest Kitty, since even the expansion of heart to my 
 oldest friend is not sweeter to me than the enjoyment of 
 speaking of one whose very name is already a spell to me. 
 
 You must know, then, that after various incidents, too 
 numerous to recount, we left Brussels for Liege, where 
 poor mamma was taken so ill that we were forced to 
 remain several weeks. This, of course, threw a gloom 
 over our party, and deprived me of the inestimable 
 pleasure I should have felt in visiting the scenes so graph- 
 ically described in Scott's delightful " Qnentin Durward." 
 As it was, I did contrive to make acquaintance with the 
 old palace of the prince bishops, and brought away, as 
 souvenir, a very pretty lace lappet and a pair of gold ear- 
 rings of antique form, which I wanted greatly to suit a 
 moyen age costume that I have just completed, and of 
 which I shall speak hereafter. 
 
 Liege, however, did not agree with any of us. Mamma 
 never slept at night ; papa did little else than sleep day 
 and night ; poor James overworked himself at study ; and 
 Cary and myself grew positively plain ! so that we started 
 at last for Aix-la-Chapelle, intending to proceed direct to 
 the Rhine. On arriving, however, at the " Quatre Saisons"
 
 A TLEASANT DEAUGHT. 147 
 
 Hotel, pa found an excellent stock of port wine, which an 
 Englishman, just deceased, had brought over for his own 
 drinking, and he resolved to remain while it lasted. There 
 were fortunately only seven dozen, or we should not have 
 got away, as we did, in three weeks. 
 
 Not that Aix was entirely devoid of amusement. In 
 the morning there is a kind of promenade round the bath- 
 house, where you drink a sulphur spa to soft music ; but, 
 as James says, a solution of rotten eggs in ditch water is 
 scarcely palatable, even with Donizetti. After that, you 
 breakfast with what appetite you may ; then you ride out 
 in large parties of fifteen or twenty till dinner, the day 
 being finished with a kind of half-dress, or no dress, ball 
 at " the rooms." The rooms, my dear Kitty, require a 
 word or two of description. They are a set of six or seven 
 salons of considerable size, and no mean pretension as to 
 architecture; at least, the ceilings are very handsome, 
 and the architraves of doors and windows display a vast 
 deal of ornament, but so dirty, so shamefully, shockingly 
 dirty, it is incredible to say ! In some there are news- 
 papers ; in others they talk ; in one large apartment there 
 is dancing ; but the rush and recourse of all seem to two 
 chambers, where they play at rouge-et-noir and roulette. 
 
 I only took a passing peep at this pandemonium, and 
 was shocked at the unshaven and ill-cared-for aspect of 
 the players, who really, to my eyes, appeared like persons 
 in great poverty ; and, indeed, Lord George informs me 
 that the frequenters of this place are a very inferior class 
 to those who resort to Ems and Baden. 
 
 I was not very sorry to get away from this ; for, inde- 
 pendently of other reasons, pa had made us very remark- 
 able — 1 had almost said very ridiculous — before the first 
 week was over. In order to prevent James from frequent- 
 ing the play-room, papa stationed himself at the door, 
 where he sat, with a great stick before him, from twelve 
 o'clock every day till the same hour at night — a piece of 
 eccentricity that of course drew public attention to him, 
 and made us all the subject of impertinent remarks, and, 
 indeed, of some practical jokes : such as sudden alarms of 
 fire, anonymous letters, and other devices, to seduce him 
 from his watclu 
 
 l. 2
 
 148 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 It was, therefore, an inexpressible relief to me to hear 
 that we were off for Cologne — that city of sweet waters 
 and a glorious cathedral ! — though I must own to you, 
 Kitty, that in the first of these two attractions the place 
 is disappointing. The manufacturers of the far-famed 
 perfume would seem so successfully to have extracted the 
 odour of the richly-gifted flowers, that they have actually 
 left nothing endurable by human nose ! Of all the towns 
 in Europe, it is, they tell, the very worst in this respect ; 
 and even papa, who, between snuff and nerves long inured 
 to Irish fairs and quarter sessions, is tolerably indifferent — 
 even he said that he felt it " rather close and stuffy." 
 
 As for the cathedral, dearest, I have no words to convey 
 my sensations of awe, wonderment, and worship. Yes, 
 Kitty, it was a sense of soft devotional bewilderment — a 
 kind of deliciously pious rapture I felt come over me, as 
 I sat in a dark recess of this glorious building, the rich 
 organ notes pealing through the vaulted aisles, and float- 
 ing upwards towards the fretted roof. Even Lord George 
 — that volatile spirit — could not resist the influence of the 
 spot, and he pressed my hand in the fervour of his feelings 
 — a liberty, I need scarcely tell you, he never would have 
 ventured on under less exciting circumstances. 
 
 Shall I own to you, Kitty, that this sign of emotion on 
 his part emboldened me to a step that you will call one of 
 daring heroism. I could not, however, resist the tempta- 
 tion of contrasting the solemn grandeur and gorgeous 
 sublimity of our Church with the cold, unimpressive naked- 
 ness of his. The theme, the spot, the hour — all seemed 
 to inspire me, Kitty ; and I suppose I must have pleaded 
 eloquently, for his hand trembled, his head drooped, and 
 almost fell upon my shoulder. I told him repeatedly that 
 it was his reason I wished to convince — that I neither 
 desired to captivate his imagination, nor engage his heart. 
 
 " And why not my heart ? " cried he, passionately. " Is 
 it that " 
 
 Oh, Kitty, who can tell what he would have said next, 
 if a dirty little acolyte had not whisked round the corner 
 and begged of us to move away and let him light two 
 tapers beside a skull in a glass case ? The officious little 
 wretch might, at least, have waited till we had gone away ;
 
 OUT ON THE LEADS. 149 
 
 but no, nothing would do for him but he must illuminate 
 his bones that very instant, and thus, probably, was lost 
 to me for ever the "unspeakable triumph I had all but 
 accomplished. 
 
 We arose and set out in search of our party, who were, 
 it appeared, in quest of papa : nor was it for two hours 
 that we found him. He had ascended the tower with us 
 all, but instead of coming down when we did, he took a 
 short turn on the leads, and, finding the door closed on 
 his return, remained a prisoner there during all the time 
 we were in search of him. There is no saying how much 
 longer he might have passed in this captivity — for all his 
 cries and shouts were unheard — had he not hit upon an 
 expedient, not entirely devoid of danger, for his rescue. 
 This was, to tear off any loose tiles he could find, and hurl 
 them over into the street beneath. Why and how nobody 
 was killed by it we cannot guess, for it is a most crowded 
 thoroughfare, and actually crammed with stalls of fruit 
 and vegetables. The buttresses and projections of the 
 cathedral probably arrested many of the missiles in their 
 flight; but one, thrown I conjecture with extraordinary 
 force, came bang on the roof of the archbishop's carriage, 
 just as his grace had got in, the noise and the shock almost 
 depriving him of consciousness ! Papa, however, knew 
 nothing of all this, and was actually hard at work detach- 
 ing a lead gutter when they rushed up and apprehended 
 him. 
 
 It was almost an hour before we could come to anything 
 like a reasonable explanation of the incident, for papa 
 insisted that he was the aggrieved person throughout, and 
 raved about his action for false imprisonment. The dean 
 of the cathedral demanded a handsome sum for reparation, 
 and threw in a sly word about " sacrilege " if we demurred. 
 Mamma, still weak and delicate, took to hysterics, while 
 a considerable mob outside gave token of preparation to 
 maltreat us on our exit. Under all these adverse conjunc- 
 tures we thought it wiser to remain where we were till 
 night ; so we sent for something to the hotel, and made 
 ourselves comfortable in the sacristan's room, where, the 
 first shock over, we grew both merry and happy, Lord 
 Gr., as usual, being the life of our party, by that buoyant
 
 150 THE DODD FA3IILY ABROAD. 
 
 exhilaration that really, Kitty, is the first of all nature's 
 gifts. 
 
 I already guess whither your thoughts are carrying 
 you, Kitty ! Have I not divined aright ? You are calling 
 to mind the night we passed at the old windmill at Gariff', 
 when the bridge was carried away by the flood ! I vow to 
 you it was uppermost in my own thoughts too ! It was 
 there Peter first told me of his love ! Never till that 
 moment had I the slightest suspicion of his feeling towards 
 me. I was young, artless, and confiding — a more child of 
 nature! Indeed, I mnst say that he was not blameless 
 in taking the advantage he did of my fresh and un- 
 suspecting heart ! What knew I of the world ? How 
 could I anticipate the position I was yet to hold in society, 
 or how measure the degree of presumption by which he 
 aspired to my hand ? 
 
 He has many excellent qualities of head and heart. I 
 do not deny it ; but the deceit he thus practised on me 
 I can never forget. I do not desire that you should tell 
 him so. No, Kitty. The likelihood is, that we may 
 never meet again ; and I do not wish that one harsh 
 thought should mar the memory of the past ! It may be 
 that, at some future time, I can befriend and serve him ; 
 and he may rest assured, that no station of life, however 
 exalted and brilliant, will separate me from the ties of 
 early friendship. Even now, I am certain, Lord George 
 would oblige me on his behalf. Do you think, or could 
 you ascertain, whether he would like to go out as surgeon 
 to a convict ship ? They tell me that these are excellent 
 appointments, and admirably suited to young men of 
 enterprising habits and no friends ; and that, if they 
 settle in the colony, they get several thousand acres of 
 land, and as many natives as they can catch. From what 
 I can learn, it would suit P. B., for he was always of a 
 romantic turn, and fond of mutton. 
 
 How my wandering fancies have led me away ! Where 
 was I ? Oh, in the little vaulted chamber of the sacristan, 
 with its quaint old wainscot and its one narrow window, 
 dim and many-paned ! It was midnight before we left it 
 to return to our hotel, and then the streets were quite 
 deserted, and. we walked along in silent thoughtfulness, I
 
 A NEW ARRIVAL. 151 
 
 leaning on Lord G.'s arm, and wishing — I know not well 
 why — that we had two miles to go ! 
 
 We are stopping at the " Emperor," a very fine hotel 
 that looks out upon the Rhine, and, as my window over- 
 hangs the river, I sat and gazed upon the rushing waters 
 till nigh daybreak, occasionally adding a line to this 
 scrawl to my dearest Kitty, and then wafting a sigh to 
 the night-breeze as it stole along. 
 
 And now at length, and after all these windings and 
 digressions, I come to what I promised to speak of in the 
 early part of this rambling epistle. We were at breakfast 
 on the morning after what Lord G. calls our " cathedral 
 service " — for he persists in quizzing about it, and says 
 that pa was practising to become a " minor canon," when 
 a very handsome travelling-carriage drove up to the hotel 
 door, attracting us all to the windows by the noise and 
 clatter. It was one of those handsome britschkas, Kitty, 
 that at once bespeak the style of their owner ; scrupu- 
 lously plain and quiet — almost Quaker-like in simplicity, 
 but elegant in form, and surrounded with all that luxury 
 of cases and imperials that show the traveller carries every 
 indulgence and comfort along with him. 
 
 There was no courier, but a very smartly-dressed maid, 
 evidently French, occupied the rumble. While we stood 
 speculating as to the new arrival, Lord George broke out 
 with a sudden exclamation of astonishment and delight, 
 and rushed downstairs. The next moment he was at 
 the side of the carriage, from which a very fair, white 
 hand was extended to him. It was very easy to see, by 
 his air and manner, that he was on the most intimate 
 terms with the fair traveller ; nor was it difficult to detect, 
 by the gestures of the landlord, that he was deploring 
 the crowded state of the hotel, and the impossibility of 
 affording accommodation. As is usual on such occasions, 
 a considerable crowd had gathered — beggars, loungers, 
 luggage-porters, waiters, and stablemen, who all eagerly 
 poked their heads into the carriage, and seemed to take a 
 lively interest in what was going forward, to escape from 
 whose impertinent curiosity Lord G. entreated the lady to 
 alight. 
 
 To this she consented, and wo saw a very elegant-look-
 
 152 THE PODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 ing person, in a kind of half-mourning, descend from the 
 carriage, displaying what James called a " stunning foot 
 and ankle " as she alighted. We had no time to resume 
 our seats at the break fast- table, when Lord George rushed 
 in, saying, " Only think, there's Mrs. Gore Hampton 
 arrived, and not a place to put her head in S Her stupid 
 courier has, they say, gone on to Bonn, although she told 
 him she meant to stay some days here." 
 
 Now, my dearest Kitty, I blush to own that not one of 
 us had ever heard of Mrs. Gore Hampton till that hour, 
 although unquestionably, from the way Lord George 
 announced the name, she was as well known in the great 
 world as Albert Prince of Wales and the rest of the 
 Royal Family. We of course, however, did not exhibit 
 our ignorance, but deplored, and regretted, and sorrowed 
 over her misfortune, as though it had been what the Times 
 calls " a shocking case of destitution." 
 
 "It just shows," said Lord George, as he walked hur- 
 riedly to and fro, rubbing his hands through his hair in 
 distraction, " that with every accident of fortune that can 
 befall human beings — rank, wealth, beauty, and accom- 
 plishment — one is not exempt from the annoyances of life. 
 If a man were to have laid a bet at Brookes's, that Mrs. 
 Gore Hampton would be breakfasting in the public room 
 of an hotel on the Rhine on such a day, he'd have netted 
 a pretty smart sum by the odds." 
 
 "And is she?" cried three or four of us together. 
 " Is that possible ? " 
 
 " It will be an accomplished fact, as the Trench say, in 
 about tea minutes," cried he, " for there is really not a 
 corner unoccupied in the hotel." 
 
 We looked at each other, Kitty, for some seconds in 
 silence, and then, as if by a common impulse, every eye 
 was turned towards papa. Whatever his feelings, I 
 cannot pretend to guess, but he evidently shrank from our 
 scrutiny, for he opened the Galignani and entrenched him- 
 self behind it. 
 
 " I'm sure that either Mary Anne or Cary," broke in 
 mamma, " would willingly give up her room." 
 
 "Oh! delighted — but too happy to oblige," cried we 
 together. But Lord George stopped us, " That's the
 
 CAUGHT EN DESHABILLE, 153 
 
 worst of it — she is so timid, so fearful of giving trouble, 
 and especially when she is not acquainted, that I'm 
 certain she could not bring herself to occasion all this 
 inconvenience." 
 
 " But it will be none whatever. If she could be content 
 with one room -" 
 
 " One room ! " cried he — " one room is a palace at 
 such a moment. But that is precisely the value of the 
 sacrifice." 
 
 We assured him, again and again, that we thought 
 nothing of it ; that the opportunity of serving any friend 
 of his — not to speak of one so worthy of every attention 
 — was an ample recompense for such a trifling inconve- 
 nience. We became eloquent and entreating, and at last, 
 I actually believe, we had to importune him at least to 
 give the lady herself the choice of accepting our propo- 
 sition. 
 
 " Be it so," cried he, suddenly ; and, starting up, hurried 
 downstairs to convey our message. 
 
 When he had left the room, we sat staring at each 
 other, as if profoundly conscious that we had done some- 
 thing very magnanimous and very splendid, and yet at 
 the same time not quite satisfied that we had done it in 
 the right way. Mamma suggested that papa ought to 
 have gone down himself with our offer. He, on the 
 contrary, said that it was her business, or that of one of 
 the girls. James was of opinion that a civil note would 
 be the proper thing. " Mrs. Kenny James Dodd, of 
 Dodsborough, presents her respectful compliments," and 
 so forth — thus giving us the opportunity of mentioning 
 our ancestral seat, not to speak of the advantage of round- 
 ing off a monosyllabic name with a sonorous termination. 
 James defended his opinion so successfully, that I actually 
 fetched my writing-desk and opened it on the breakfast- 
 table, when Lord George flung wide the door, and an- 
 nounced " Mrs. Gore Hampton." 
 
 You may judge of our confusion, when I tell you that 
 mamma was in her dressing-gown and without her cap ; 
 papa in his shocking old flannel robe de chambre, with the 
 brown spots, which he calls his " Leprosy," and a pair of 
 fur boots that he wears over his trousers, giving him the
 
 154 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 look of the Russian ferryman we see in the vignette of 
 " Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia ; " Cary and I in curl- 
 papers, and " not fastened ; " and James in a sailor's 
 check shirt and Russia-duck trousers, with a red sash 
 round him, and an enormous pipe in his hand — a pic- 
 turesque group — if not a pleasing one. I mention these 
 details, dearest Kitty, less as to any relation they bear to 
 ourselves, than for the sake of commemorating the 
 inimitable tact of our accomplished visitor. To any one 
 of less perfect breeding the situation might have seemed 
 awkward — almost, indeed, ludicrous. Mamma's efforts 
 to make her scanty drapery extend to the middle of her 
 legs — papa's struggles to hide his feet — James's endea- 
 vours to escape by an impracticable door — and Cary and 
 myself blushing as we tried to shake out our curls, made 
 up a scene that anything short of courtly good manners 
 might have laughed at. 
 
 In this trying emergency she was perfect. The easy 
 grace of her step, the elegant quietude of her manner, 
 the courtesy with which she acknowledged what she 
 termed " our most thoughtful kindness," were actual 
 fascinations. It seemed as if she really carried into the 
 room with her an atmosphere of good breeding, for we, 
 magically as it were, forgot all about the absurdities of 
 our appearance. Mamma thought no more of her almost 
 Highland costume, papa crossed his legs with the air of 
 an old elephant, and James leaned over the back of a 
 chair to converse with her, as if he had been a captain 
 of the Coldstreams in full uniform. To say that she was 
 charming, Kitty, is nothing ; for, besides being almost 
 perfectly beautiful, there is a grace, a delicacy, a feminine 
 refinement in her manner, that make you feel her love- 
 liness almost secondary to her elegance. It seemed, 
 besides, like an instinct to her, the way she fell in witli 
 all our humours, enjoying with keen zest papa's acute 
 and droll remarks about the Continent and the habits of 
 foreigners, mamma's opinions on the subject of dress and 
 domestic economy, and James's notions of " fast men " 
 and " smart people " in general. 
 
 She repeatedly assured us that she concurred in every- 
 thing we said, and gave exactly the same reasons for
 
 HASTILY FORMED FRIENDSHIP. 155 
 
 preferring the Continent to England that we did, instanc- 
 ing the very fact of our making acquaintance in this 
 unceremonious manner, as a palpable case in point. 
 " Had we been at the Star and Garter at Windsor, or tho 
 Albion at Brighton," said she, " you had certainly left 
 me to my fate, and I should not have been now enjoying 
 the privilege of an acquaintance that I trust is not 
 destined to end here." 
 
 Oh ! Kitty, if you could but have heard the tone of 
 winning softness with which she uttered words simple as 
 these. But, indeed, the real charm of manner is to invest 
 common-places with interest, and impart to the mere 
 nothings of intercourse a kind of fictitious value and 
 importance. She congratulated us so heartily on travel- 
 ling without a courier — the very thing we were at the 
 moment ashamed of, and that mamma was trying all 
 manner of artifices to conceal. " It is so sensible of you," 
 said she, " so independent, and shows that you thoroughly 
 understand the Continent. Travelling as I do "—there 
 was a sorrowful tenderness as she said this, that brought 
 the tears to my eyes — " travelling as I do," — she paused, 
 and only resumed after a moment of difficulty — "a 
 courier is indispensable; but you have no such neces- 
 sity." 
 
 "And Gregoire apparently wants to show you how well 
 you could do without him," cried Lord George. " He 
 has gone on to Bonn, and left you here to your destiny." 
 
 " Oh, but he is such a good, careful old creature," said 
 she, " that though he does make fearful mistakes, I cannot 
 be angry with him." 
 
 " It's very kind of you to say so," resumed he ; tl but 
 if J told him that I meant to stop at Cologne, and he went 
 forward to order rooms at Bonn, I'd break his neck when 
 we met." 
 
 " Then I assure you I shall do no such thing," added 
 she, taking off her gloves, as if to show how unsuited her 
 beautifully taper fingers, all glittering with gems, would 
 be to any such occupation. 
 
 "And now you'll have to wait hero tor Fordyce? " said 
 he, half angrily. 
 
 " Of course I shall! " said she, with a sweet smile.
 
 156 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Lord George made some rejoinder, but I could not hear 
 it, to this, and so, Kitty, we all determined, that instead 
 of at once setting out for Bonn, we should stay and dine 
 with Mrs. Gore Hampton, and not leave her till evening 
 — a kindness at which she really seemed overjoyed, thank- 
 ing each of us again and again for our " dear good- 
 nature." 
 
 And now, Kitty, I have just left her to hasten off these 
 lines by post hour. My heart is yet fluttering with the 
 delight of her charming conversation, and my hand trem- 
 bles as I write myself 
 
 Your ever attached and fascinated friend, 
 
 Mary Anne Dodd. 
 
 Hotel de l'Empereur, Cologne. 
 
 P.S. — Mrs. G. H. has just slipped in to my dressing- 
 room to say that she is so sorry that we are going away ; 
 that she feels as if we were actually old friends already. 
 She has evidently some secret sorrow ; would that I knew 
 how to console her ! 
 
 We are to write to each other, but I am not to show 
 her letters to Cary : this she made an express stipulation. 
 She thinks Cary " a sweet girl, but volatile ; " and I 
 believe, Kitty, that there is something of levity in her 
 character, which is its greatest defect. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 KENNY I. DODD TO THOMAS PUR0ELL, ESQ., OP THE GRANGE, BRUFP. 
 
 My dear Tom, — There's an old Turkish proverb, to the 
 effect that, whenever a man finds himself happy, he should 
 immediately sit down and write word of it to his friends ; 
 for the great likelihood is, that if he loses a post, he'll 
 have to change his note. Depend upon it, the adage 
 has some truth in it ! If, for example, I'd have finished
 
 QUIET BONN. 157 
 
 and sent off a letter I began to you last Wednesday, I'd 
 have give you a very favourable account of myself and 
 our prospects here. The place seemed very much what 
 we were looking for — a quiet little university town on the 
 bank of this fine river — snug and comfortable, and yet, at 
 the same time, not shut in, but with glorious expansive 
 views on every side ; shady walks for noonday, and hill 
 rambles for sunset; museums and collections for bad 
 weather occupation, and that kind of simple, unostenta- 
 tious living, that bespeaks a community of small fortunes, 
 and as small ambitions. 
 
 A quaint-looking, half-shy, half- defiant look in the faces, 
 showed that, if not very great or very rich folk, they still 
 had other, and perhaps not less sterling claims to worldly 
 reverence ; and so they have, too ! There are some of 
 the first men, not only in Germany but in Europe, here, 
 living on the income of a London butler, and letting the 
 " first floor furnished " to people like the Dodd family. 
 
 It is a great privation to me that I don't speak German, 
 for something tells me we should suit each other wonder- 
 fully ! Don't mistake me, Tom, and fancy that I am say- 
 ing this out of any conceit in my abilities, or any false 
 notion of my education. I believe in my heart I have as 
 little of one thing as the other ; and the only wise thing my 
 father ever did was to take me away from Doctor Bell's 
 when I was thirteen, and when he saw that putting Latin 
 and Greek into me was like sowing barley in a bog — a 
 waste of good seed in a soil not fit for it. But I'll tell 
 you why I think I'd get on well with these Germans. 
 They seem to be a kind of dreamy, thoughtful, imagina- 
 tive creatures, that would relish the dry, common-place 
 thoughts, and hard, practical hints of a man like myself. 
 I couldn't discuss a classical subject with them, nor talk 
 about the varieties of the Greek dialects ; but I could 
 converse pleasantly enough about the difference between 
 the ancients and ourselves in points of government, and 
 on matters of social life. I know little of books, but I've 
 seen a good deal of men ; and if it be objected that they 
 were chiefly of my own country, I answer at once, that, 
 however strongly impressed with his nationality, there's 
 not a man in any country of Europe so versatile, so many-
 
 15S THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 sided, and so difficult to understand, as Paddy. Don't be 
 frightened, Tom ; I'm not going off into the " ethno- 
 logies," and not a word will you hear from me about the 
 facial angle, or frontal development ! I'm not speaking of 
 Pat as if he were a plaster cast to be measured with a rule 
 and marked with a piece of charcoal ; I'm talking of him 
 as he is, in a frieze coat or one of broadcloth — a sceptical, 
 credulous, patient, headlong, calculating, impulsive, miserly 
 spendthrift — a species of bull incarnate, that never pros- 
 pers till he is ruined outright, and only has real success 
 in life when all the odds are against him. 
 
 Ireland's birdlime to me — I stick fast if I only touch 
 it ; and why ain't I back there, growling about the mar- 
 kets, cursing the poor-rates, and enjoying myself as I 
 used to do ? Doesn't it strike you, Tom, that we take 
 more " out" of ourselves in Ireland — in the way of temper, 
 I mean — than any other people we hear of in history ? 
 Paddy often reminds me of those cutters on the American 
 lakes, where they saw across the timbers to give them 
 greater speed ; we go fast, it is true, but we strain our- 
 selves terribly for the sake of it. 
 
 And now to come back to Bonn : there is really much 
 to like in it. It is cheap, it is quiet without seclusion, 
 and there's no snobbery. You know what I mean, Tom. 
 There's not a tilbury, nor a tiger, nor a genteel tea-party 
 in the town. I don't know of a single waistcoat with 
 more than five colours in it ; and, except James and the 
 head waiter, there's nobody wears diamond shirt buttons. 
 In fact, if we must live out of our country, I thought that 
 this was about the best spot we could fix upon. We made 
 an excellent bargain at our hotel ; ten pounds a week was 
 to cover everything ; no extras of any kind after that ; so 
 that at last I began to see my way before me, and perceive 
 some chance of solving that curious problem that torments 
 alike chancellors and country gentlemen — how to meet 
 expenditure by income. 
 
 Masters in German, music, and mathematics, and other 
 little odds and ends, took a couple of pounds more ; and 
 I allowed myself ten shillings a week for what the doctor 
 calls "my little charities," that now resolve themselves 
 into threepenny whist, or a game of ninepins with the
 
 QUIET DAYS AT BONN. 159 
 
 Professor of Oriental languages. Even you, Tom — u Joe " 
 as you are about the budget — couldn't pick a bole in this! 
 Not that I want to give myself credit for a measure abso- 
 lutely imperative ; for, to say the truth, our late perform- 
 ances in Brussels were of the very costliest, and even 
 Liege ran away with a deal of money. Doctors have about 
 the same ideas respecting your cash account as your con- 
 stitution. They never leave either in a state of plethora ! 
 Now, as I was saying, my letter, begun on Wednesday 
 last, had all these details, and might have concluded with 
 a flattering picture of James hard at his studies, and the 
 girls not less diligently occupied with their music and 
 embroidery — the two resources by which modern ingenuity 
 fancies it keeps female minds employed ! As if Double- 
 Bas3 or Berlin wool were disinfecting liquors ! I could 
 also have added that Mrs. D. had fallen into that peculiar 
 condition which is natural to her whenever she finds a 
 place stupid and unexciting, and what she fondly fancies 
 to be a religious frame of mind ; in other words, she took 
 to reading her breviary, and worrying Betty Cobb about 
 her duties ; got up for five o'clock mass, and insisted upon 
 Friday coming three times a week. I could bear all this 
 for quietness' sake ; and if fish diet could ensure peace, 
 I'd be content to live upon isinglass for the rest of my 
 days. 
 
 Mrs. D., however, is not a woman to do things by 
 halves ; there's no John Bnssellism about her ; and now 
 that she had taken this serious turn, I saw clearly enough 
 what was in store for us. I had actually ordered a small 
 silk skull-cap, as a protection to my head, not knowing 
 when I might be sent to do duty in a procession, when sud- 
 denly the wind veered round, and began to blow very fresh 
 in exactly the opposite quarter. You must know, Tom, 
 that just before we left Cologne we chanced to make ac- 
 quaintance with a certain very fashionable person — a Mrs. 
 Gore Hampton. She was standing disconsolately to bo 
 rained on, in the street, when Lord George brought her 
 upstairs to our rooms, and introduced her to us. She 
 was, I must say, what is popularly called a very splendid 
 woman — tall, dark-eyed, and dashing, with a bewitching 
 smile, and that kind of voice that somehow makes com-
 
 1G0 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 mon-places very graceful. She had, too, that wonderful 
 tact — wherever it comes from I can't guess — to suit us 
 all, without seeming to take the slightest trouble about 
 the matter. 
 
 She talked to Mrs. D. about London fashionable life, 
 just as if they had both been going out together for the 
 last three or four seasons ; ay, and stranger still, without 
 even once puzzling her, or making her feel astray in the 
 geography of this terra incognita. I conclude she was 
 equally successful with the girls ; and though she scarcely 
 addressed a word to James, I suppose she must have 
 made up for it by a look, for he has never ceased raving 
 of her since. 
 
 I haven't told you how she " landed " me — for I'm not 
 above confessing that I was as bad as the rest; but the 
 truth is, Tom, I don't really know how I was caught. I 
 am too old for these blandishments ; they no more suit 
 me now than a tight boot or a runaway hack; one gets 
 too rheumatic and too stiff in the joints for homage after 
 fifty ; and besides that, there's a kind of croaking con- 
 science that whispers, "Don't be making a fool of your- 
 self, Kenny James ! " and, between you and me, Tom, 
 'tis well for us when we're not too deaf to hear it. 
 
 Besides this, Tom, it is only the fellows that never were 
 m love when they were young that become irretrievably 
 entangled in after life. If you want to see a true sex- 
 agenarian victim, look out for some hang-dog. down-cast, 
 mopish creature, or some suspectful, wary, crafty, red- 
 haired rascal, that thought every woman had a trap laid 
 for him. These are your hopeless cases — these are the 
 men that always die in some mysterious manner, and 
 leave wills behind them to be litigated for half a century. 
 
 The Kenny Dodds of this world come into another 
 category. They knew that love and the measles are mildest 
 in young constitutions, and so they began early. Maybe 
 it was in a firm reliance on this that I felt so easy about 
 the widow — if widow she be — for, to tell the truth, I don't 
 yet know if Mr. Gore Hampton be to the fore or only has 
 left her a memory of his virtues. 
 
 I leave you to guess what impression she made upon 
 me ; for the more I go on trying to explain and refine
 
 Mrs. gore Hampton's "tenacity." 161 
 
 upon it, the less intelligible do 1 become. One thing, 
 however, I must say — these charming women are the ruin 
 of Irishmen ! Our own fair creatures, with a great share 
 of good looks, and far more than ordinary agreeability, 
 are not so dangerous as the English, and for this reason : 
 in their demands for admiration they are too general ; 
 they — so to say — fire at the whole covey ; now, your 
 Englishwoman marks her bird, and never goes home till 
 she bags it ! 
 
 We were to have left Cologne that morning for Bonn, 
 but so agreeably did the time pass, that we didn't start 
 till evening, and even then it was quite tearing ourselves 
 away; for the delightful widow — for widow I must call 
 her till she shows cause to the contrary — hourly gained 
 on us. 
 
 She was obliged to wait there for some lawyers or men 
 of business that were to follow her with papers to sign ; and 
 although Lord George did his best to persuade her that she 
 might as well come on with us — that Bonn was only fifteen 
 miles farther — she was firm, and said that "Old Mr. For- 
 dyce was a great prig, and when she had once named 
 Cologne for their meeting, she would have travelled from 
 Naples rather than break the appointment." I own to 
 you, there was a tenacity and determination in all that 
 which pleased me. Maybe, the great charm of it was, 
 that it was very unlike what I'd have done myself! 
 
 The whole way to Bonn we talked of nothing but her, 
 the discussion being all the more unconstrained that Lord 
 George had stayed behind, and was only to come up the 
 next morning. We were agreed upon a number of points : 
 her beauty, her elegance, the grace and fascination of her 
 manner, and her high breeding ; but we took different 
 views as to her condition — Mrs. D. and the girls thinking 
 that she was married, James and I standing out for 
 widowhood. Lord George joined us the next day ; and 
 although he could have resolved our doubts at once, Mary 
 Anne stopped all inquiry, by assuring us that nothing was 
 so hopelessly vulgar as to display any ignorance about the 
 family or connections of people of rank. " If she be in 
 the peerage, we ought to know her, and all about her. 
 She is, of course, some Augusta Louisa, b. 18 and dashj 
 
 VOL. i. M
 
 162 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 m. to tlie Honourable Leopold Conway Gore Hampton, 
 third son, and so on." In a word, Tom, we had the whole 
 family tree before ns, from its old gnarled root to its last 
 bud, and ours the shame if we were ignorant of its botan- 
 ical properties ! 
 
 A few quiet humdrum days of Bonn existence had 
 almost obliterated our memory of the charming widow, 
 and we were beginning to " train oif" our attachments to 
 fashionable life, when, in all the splashing and whip-crack- 
 ing of foreign posting, up dashes the dark green britschka 
 to our hotel on<3 fine evening ; and before we could well 
 recognize the carriage, the fair owner herself was making 
 the tour of the Dodd family, embracing and hand-shaking, 
 as age and sex dictated ! 
 
 I wish any physiologist would explain why the English, 
 that are so proverbial for a cold and chilling demeanour 
 at home, grow at once so cordial when they come abroad. 
 Whether it be the fear of the damp, or the swell mob, I 
 can't tell, but everybody in England goes about with his 
 hands in his pockets, and only nods to a friend when he 
 meets him ; whereas, here, you start with a grin at fifty 
 yards off, then off goes your hat with a flourish, that, if 
 you have any tact, what with shaking your head, and 
 looking overcome with delight, occupies you till you 
 come up with him, when your greeting grows more en- 
 thusiastic — lucky if it does not finish with a kiss on both 
 cheeks. 
 
 I suppose it was the influence of habit betrayed me, for, 
 in a fit of abstraction, I took the charming widow into 
 my arms, and saluted her as if she were Mrs. Dodd. If 
 this was in London, Tom, or even in Dublin, there's no 
 saying what mischief might not have grown out of it. I 
 might have been fighting duels every day for the last 
 week, not to mention still more formidable encounters of 
 a domestic nature ; but, just to show you what the Con- 
 tinent does for us — how instinctively, as it were, we rise 
 above the little narrow prejudices of our insular situation 
 — she threw herself into a chair and laughed immoderately. 
 Ay, and droller again, so did Mrs. D. ! To tell you the 
 truth, Tom, I oouldn't well believe my senses when I saw 
 it. It would seem to be the same in morals as in murder—
 
 A TltEATt OF ALLIANCE. 1G3 
 
 you can dignify the offence by the rank of your victim ; 
 for if it had been one of the maids at home, Mrs. D. would 
 have left my face like a piece of music paper ! 
 
 There's a great deal in how you open an acquaintance ! 
 You may be card-leaving, and bowing, and how-d'ye-doing 
 for years, and never get farther ; or, on the other hand, 
 by some lucky accident, you come plump down into the 
 right place, just as a chance shell will now and then drop 
 into a magazine, and finish an engagement at once. 
 
 In less than an hour after her arrival, Mrs. Gore Hamp- 
 ton was one of ourselves. It was not that she was calling 
 the girls dearest Cary, and darling Mary Anne, but she 
 had got a regular sisterly tone with Mrs. D. and myself — ■ 
 treating James all the while as if he was about twelve 
 years old, and at home for the holidays. She had not 
 only done all this, but before luncheon was on the table 
 we had ratified a solemn league and covenant that she 
 was to travel with us, and be one of us, going wherever 
 we went, and living as we did. How the treaty was ever 
 mooted, who proposed, and who signed it, 1 know no 
 more than the man in the moon. It was done in a kind 
 of rattling, bantering fashion ; and when we rose from 
 table it was all settled. Mrs. Gore Hampton was to take 
 Cary and Mary Anne with her in the britschka ; the " dear 
 boy " — viz. James — would be the " guard in the rumble." 
 There was a place for everybody and everything ; and I 
 believe, if any one had proposed that I should ride the 
 leader, it would have been carried without opposition. 
 Never was there such unanimity ! The whole arrange- 
 ment was huddled up like a road-presentment on a Grand 
 Jury, or a private bill before the House on a Wednesday 
 afternoon. As for myself, if I had even the will, I could 
 not have summoned the shamelessness to oflfer^any opposi- 
 tion to the measure. 
 
 " Devilish good thing for you, Dodd ! " whispered Lord 
 George. " Mrs. G. knows everybody in the world, and 
 doesn't care for money." — " Oh, papa! she is delightful ; 
 there never was such a piece of good fortune as our meet- 
 ing with her," cried Mary Anne. And Mrs. D. assured 
 me, that, for the very first time in her life, she had 
 met a person thoroughly companionable to her in all 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 respects ; in fact, a " kindred soul," though not a "blood 
 relation." 
 
 Now, Tom, considering that we came abroad to enjoy 
 the advantages of high society, fashionable habits, and 
 refined associations, this accident did indeed seem a pro- 
 pitious one ; for, disguise it how we may, the great world is 
 a dangerous ocean to venture upon without a pilot. Our 
 own little experiences might teach that lesson. We sailed 
 out in all the confidence of a stout crew and a safe vessel, 
 and a pretty voyage we made of it ! Perhaps we did not 
 make more mistakes than our neighbours, but assuredly 
 our blunders were neither few nor insignificant ! 
 
 Mrs. Gr., however, would soon rectify all this. " No 
 more making acquaintance with wrong people, K. I." 
 says Mrs. D. ; "no more getting into vulgar intimacies 
 at the cafe, and cementing friendships over a game of 
 dominoes. James will know the class of young men that 
 he ought to mix with, and the girls will only dance with 
 suitable partners." It sounded well, Tom ! It was a 
 grand protective policy, that really secured the Dodd 
 family in the possession of all home advantages, 
 and relieved them of all aggressions " from the 
 foreigner." 
 
 If we had fallen on a prize in the lottery, I don't think 
 the joy of our circle could have been greater. I am not 
 going to pretend that I didn't join in it ! I make no 
 affectation of prudent reserve and caution, and heaven 
 knows what other elegant qualities, that, however natural 
 to other people, very seldom fall to the lot of an Irishman. 
 I vow to you, Tom, I went off full cry like the rest of the 
 pack. She is a fine woman this Mrs. Gore Hampton ; she 
 has a low, soft voice, a very bewitching smile, and a way 
 of looking at you while you are talking to her, that some- 
 how half suggests to yourself that you must be making 
 love without knowing it. Now, don't misunderstand me, 
 Tom, and come out with one of your long whistles, as 
 much as to say, " Kenny James is as great a fool as ever ! " 
 No such thing ! a suit in Chancery, the repeal of the corn 
 laws, and the Estates Court, have made me an altered man. 
 The very nature of me is changed, and changed so much, 
 that many's the time I ask myself, " Is this Kenny Dodd ?
 
 "fascinated ey the widow." 105 
 
 "Where upon earth is that light-hearted, careless, hopeful 
 vagabond, that always took the sunny road in life, though, 
 maybe, it wasn't exactly the way to the place he was 
 going ? " I'm another man now ; I'm wiser, as they 
 call it ; and, upon my conscience, I'm mighty sorry 
 for it ! 
 
 But I hear you say, " Haven't you just confessed that 
 you were, what shall I call it ? — fascinated by the widow?" 
 And if I did, Tom Purcell, do you mean to tell me that 
 you would have escaped her ? Not a bit of it. The 
 brown wig would have been set a little more forward, so 
 as to bring one of those silky curls over your light eye. 
 I think I see you exchanging your spectacles for a double 
 eye-glass, and turning out your toes so as to display to the 
 best advantage that shapely calf in its trim brown silk 
 stocking. Ah, Tom ! not even quarter sessions and a 
 rate in aid will drive these thoughts out of an Irishman's 
 head. 
 
 From the moment that this new alliance was signed, 
 we entered upon a new existence. Bonn, as I have told 
 you, was a quiet little collegiate place, with primitive 
 habits of no very expensive kind. The chief pleasures 
 were weak wine in a garden, or small whist in a summer- 
 house, with now and then an "aesthetic tea," as they 
 phrase it, at the Pro-Rector's ; of which, of course, I 
 understand nothing, but sincerely hope the discourse was 
 better than the beverage. It was, I own it, Tom, a 
 strange kind of life, that seemed to me always like a 
 moral convalescence, when you were only strong enough 
 for small virtues. One undoubted advantage it had — it 
 was inexpensive, Tom. We were living, with few com- 
 forts and some privations, I confess, afc only one-third 
 more than we used to spend at Dodsborough ; and, con- 
 sidering that we know nothing of the language, I conclude 
 that we were enjoying the Continent as cheaply as was 
 practicable. 
 
 I won't pretend that it suited me. I don't want you to 
 believe that I was taking a scientific or a studious turn. 
 Still I liked the place for one thing, which was this — its 
 quiet monotony, its placid, unvarying simplicity was tell- 
 ing upon Mrs, D. and the children in an astonishing
 
 165 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD, 
 
 manner. It was exactly the way that the water-cnre 
 works its wonders with old drunkards ; the mountain air, 
 the light diet, and the early hours being the best of the 
 remedy. They were getting into a healthy state of mind 
 without ever suspecting it. 
 
 Our grand junction, as Cary calls it, finished this ; from 
 the day Mrs. G. arrived our reforms began. First, we had 
 to change our hotel, and betake ourselves to one on the 
 river-side, three times as dear, and not one-fourth as good. 
 The second story was fine enough for us before, now we 
 have the whole " premier," taking two rooms more than 
 we want, lest anybody should live on the same floor with 
 us. Instead of the table d'hote, that was cheap and cheer- 
 ful, we were to dine upstairs — " a particular dinner," as 
 they call what is particularly bad, and costly besides. 
 Then we have had to hire two lacqueys, one of whom sits 
 in an ante-room all day reading the newspaper, and only 
 rises to make me a grand bow as I pass ; which worries 
 me so much that I usually go down by the back stairs to 
 escape him. 
 
 We have two job coaches, for we are too many for one, 
 and a boat hired by the week, with a considerable retinue 
 of mountain ponies and donkeys, guides, goats, whey- 
 sellers, and geological specimen-folk without end. If 
 Mrs. Gr. was only fashionable, we couldn't be more than 
 ruined ; but she is learned and literary, and given to the 
 " ologies," Tom, and that's w T hat I fear will drive us 
 clean mad. She has an eternal restlessness in her to be 
 at something ; one day, it's the date of a medal ; the 
 next, it is the family connections of a " moss," or the 
 chemistry of a meteoric stone ; and, shall I own to you, 
 my dear friend, that I don't believe she either under- 
 stands or cares one jot about them all ? There's a big 
 herbarium bound in green, and a grand book of auto- 
 graphs in blue and gold, on the drawing-room table ; 
 there's a bit of " gneiss," a big beetle, and a fossil frog 
 on the chimney-piece ; but my name isn't Kenny Dodd 
 if she hasn't more sympathies with modern dandies than 
 antediluvian monsters. That's my private opinion ; 
 and, of course, I mention it in confidence. You'll say, 
 "What matter is that to you?" and true enough, it is
 
 MR. DODD ON THE SCIENCES. 1G7 
 
 not, as regards her ; but what will become of us, if Mrs. 
 D. takes a turn for entomology or comparative anatomy, 
 and worse, maybe ? She's just the kind of woman to 
 do it. She'd learn the tight-rope if she thought it was 
 fashionable; or, as the newspapers say, " patronized by 
 the aristocracy." Now, Tom, you can fancy the unknown 
 sea upon which we have embarked. For, however un- 
 adapted we may be to fashionable life, one thing is quite 
 clear — we never were made for the abstract sciences ; and 
 it strikes me forcibly that the great lesson of Continental 
 life is, that everybody can do everything. I am not 
 going to say that it is not a pleasant and a very flattering 
 theory, but is it quite safe, Tom? that's the question. 
 The highest step I ever attained in chemistry, was how 
 to concoct a tumbler of punch ; and my knowledge of 
 botany does not go far beyond distinguishing "greens" 
 from geraniums ; and it's not at my time of life that I'm 
 to drive myself crazy with hard names and classifications ; 
 and, if I know anything of Mrs. D., her intellectual 
 faculties have attained all the vigour that nature meant 
 for them many a year ago. 
 
 My own private opinion about these sciences is, they're 
 capital things for employing young people, and keeping 
 them out of wickedness ! The fellows that teach them, 
 too, are musty, snuff-taking, prosy old dogs, with heavy 
 shoes and greasy cravats — the very reverse of your race 
 of dancing and music masters, who are h pestilent crew ! 
 So that, for a man who has daughters abroad, my advice 
 is — stick to the sciences. Grey sandstone is safer than 
 the polka, and there's not as dangerous an experiment in 
 all chemistry as singing duets with some black-bearded 
 blackguard from Naples or Palermo. Now mind, Tom, 
 this counsel of mine applies to the education of the young, 
 for when people come to the forties, you may rely upon 
 it, if they set about learning anything, they'll have the 
 devil for a schoolmaster. What does all the geology 
 mean? Junketing, Tom — nothing but junketing ! Primi- 
 tive rock is another name for pic-nic, and what they call 
 quartz is a figurative expression for iced champagne. 
 Just reflect for a moment and see what ic comes to. You 
 can enter a protest against family extravngances when
 
 168 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 they take the shape of balls and soirees, but what are 
 you to do against botanical excursions and antiquarian 
 researches ? It's like writing yourself down Goth at 
 once to oppose these. " Oh, papa hates chemistry ; he 
 despises natural history," that's the cry at once, and they 
 hold me up to ridicule, just in the way the rascally 
 Protestant newspapers did Dr. Cullen for saying that he 
 didn't believe the world was round. If the liberty of the 
 subject be worth anything — if the right for which the 
 same Protestants are always prating, private judgment, 
 be the great privilege they deem it — why shouldn't Dr. 
 Cullen have his own opinion about the shape of the 
 earth ? He can say, " It suits one to think I'm walking 
 erect on a flat surface, and not crawling along with my 
 head down, like a fly on the ceiling ! I'm happier when 
 I believe what doesn't puzzle my understanding, and I 
 don't want any more miracles than we have in the 
 Church." He may say that, and I'd like to know what 
 harm does that do you or me? Does it endanger the 
 Protestant succession or the State religion ? Not a bit 
 of it, Tom. The real fact is simply this: private judg- 
 ment is a boon they mean to keep for themselves, and 
 never share with their neighbours. So far as I have seen 
 of life, there's no such tyrant as your Protestant, and for 
 this reason : it's bad enough to force a man to believe 
 something that he doesn't like, but it's ten times worse 
 to make him disbelieve what he's well satisfied with ; and 
 that's exactly what they do. Even on the ground of 
 common humanity it is indefensible. If my private 
 judgment goes in favour of saints' toe-nails and martyrs' 
 shin-bones, I have a right to my opinion, and you have 
 no right to attack it. Besides, I won't be badgered into 
 what may suit somebody else to think. My opinion is 
 like my flannel waistcoat, that I'll take off or put on as 
 the weather requires; and I think it very cruel if I must 
 wear mine simply because you feel cold. 
 
 I get warm — I almost grow angry, when I think of these 
 things ; and I wonder within myself why our people don't 
 expose them as they might. Not that some are not 
 doing the duty well and manfully, Tom. M'Hale is a 
 glorious fellow ; and for blackguarding a Prime Minister,
 
 AN UNPROFITABLE LEGACY. 169 
 
 for a real good effective slanging, it's hard to find his 
 equal. He never embarrasses himself with logic — ho 
 wastes no time in arguing, but "goes in" at once, and 
 plants his blow between the eyes ! That's what the 
 English can't stand. They want discussion. They are 
 always fishing for evidence for this, and a proof of that ; 
 but come down on them with a strong torrent of foul 
 abuse, and you. sweep them away like mud in a mill- 
 race. 
 
 That's where we always beat them in our controversial 
 discussions, Tom ; and we never failed so long as wo 
 relied on this superiority. It was like the bayonet in the 
 hands of our infantry. 
 
 Isn't it strange how I get back to Ireland in spite of 
 me ? I'm like that madman in the story, that can't keep 
 Charles the First out of his memorial ? And, after all, 
 why should I ? Is there anything more natural than to 
 think of my country, if I can't manage to live in it ? 
 And this reminds me to ask you about home matters. 
 What was it you wrote at the end of your letter about 
 Jones M'Carthy ? I can't make out the word, whether 
 it is his "death," or his "debts;" though, from my 
 experience of the family, I surmise it to be the latter. 
 If it's dead he is, I suppose we'll come in for that blessed 
 legacy that Mrs. D. has been talking about every day for 
 the last twenty-five years, the history of which I have 
 heard so often, that I actually know nothing about it, 
 except that it was the only bit of property possessed by 
 my wife's relations they couldn't make away with. It 
 was so strictly "tied up," as they call it in law, that 
 nobody could ever get the use of it — pretty much like the 
 silver sixpence given to a schoolboy, with the express 
 stipulation that he is never to change it. 
 
 I am rather curious to know what Mrs. D. will think of 
 these " wise provisions " of her ancestors, if she succeeds 
 to the bequest. To tell you the plain truth, Tom, I don't 
 know a greater misfortune for a man that has married a 
 wife without money, than to discover at the end of some 
 fifteen or twenty years that somebody has left her a few 
 hundred pounds ! It is not only that she conceives 
 visions of unbounded extravagance, and raves about all
 
 170 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 manner of expense, but she begins to fancy herself an 
 heiress that was thrown away, and imagines wonderful 
 destinies she might have arrived at, if she hadn't had the 
 bad luck to meet you. For a real crab-apple of discord, 
 I'll back a few hundreds in the Three per Cents, against 
 all the family jars that ever were invented. 
 
 Save us then from this, if you can, Tom. There must 
 surely be twenty ways to avoid the legacy ; and so that 
 Mrs. D. doesn't hear of it, I'd rather you'd prove her illegiti- 
 mate, than allow her to succeed to this bequest. I'll not 
 enlarge upon all I feel about this subject, hoping that by 
 your skill and address we may never hear more of it ; but 
 I tell you, frankly, I'd face the small-pox with a stouter 
 heart than the news of succeeding to the M'Carthy in- 
 heritance. 
 
 There are many other matters I intended to write 
 about, but I believe I must keep them for the next time ; 
 such as the plan for taking away the Church property, 
 and the income-tax for Ireland ; and that business of the 
 Madiais, that I read of in the papers. So far as I have 
 seen, Tom, the King of Tuscany — if that be his name — 
 was right. There were plenty of books the Madiais 
 might have read without breaking the laws. There are 
 translations of all the rascally French novels of the day, 
 from Georges Sand down to Paul de Kock ; and if they 
 wanted mischief, mightn't these have satisfied them ? 
 But the truth is, Protestants are never easy without they 
 are attacking the true Church, and if there were more of 
 them sent to the galleys, the world would be all the 
 quieter. 
 
 You amaze me about the Great Exhibition for this 
 year in Dublin. Faith! I remember when I used to 
 think that the less we exhibited ourselves the better! I 
 suppose times are changed. I think, if I could send 
 Mrs. D. over as a specimen of Continental plating on 
 Irish manufacture, she'd deserve a place, and maybe a 
 prize. 
 
 Well, well ! it's a queer world we live in. They've just 
 come to tell me that the man of the post-office has shut 
 up an hour earlier, as he is engaged out to dine, so that 
 I'll keep this open till to-morrow's mail.
 
 SCARED AT GOOD FORTUNE. 171 
 
 Wednesday Morning. 
 
 I suspect that the mischief is done, Tom — I mean about 
 the legacy. Mrs. D. received a strange-looking, square- 
 shaped, formally-addressed epistle this morning, the con- 
 tents of which, not being a demand for money, she did 
 not communicate to me. She and Mary Anne both 
 retired to peruse it in secret, . and when they again 
 appeared in the drawing-room, it was with an air of con- 
 scious pride and self-possession that smacked terribly of a 
 bequest. I own to you, the prospect alarms me ; it may 
 be that my fears take an exaggerated shape, but I can't 
 shake off the impression that this is the hardest trial I 
 had ever to go through. 
 
 I know her in most of her moods, Tom, and have got a 
 kind of way of managing her in each of them — not very 
 successful, perhaps, but sufficiently so to get on with. 1 
 have seen her in straits about money ; I have seen her in 
 her jealous fits ; I have seen her in her moments of family 
 pride ; and I have repeatedly seen her on what she calls 
 "her dying couch" — an opportunity she always seizes to 
 say the most disagreeable things she can think of, so that 
 I often speculate what she'd say if she was really going 
 off — but all these convey no notion to me of how she'd 
 behave if she thought herself rich. As for our poverty, 
 we never knew anything else; the jealousy I'm getting 
 used to ; the family pride often gives me a hearty laugh 
 when I'm alone ; and I am as hardened about death-bed 
 scenes as if I was an undertaker. It's the prosperity I 
 haven't strength for, Tom ; and I feel it. 
 
 Maybe, after all, it's only false terror alarms me. I 
 hope it may turn out so ; and in this last wish I am sure 
 of your hearty sympathy and good feeling. 
 
 Ever yours, most sincere^, 
 
 Kenny I. Dobd.
 
 172 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD, 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 MRS DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGII. 
 
 The Rhine Hotel, Bonn. 
 
 My Dear Molly, — If my well-known hand did not strike 
 you, the sight of all the black around this letter, and the 
 mourning seal, might suggest the thought that your poor 
 Jemima was no more. Your next impression will be that 
 Providence had sent for K. I. No, my dear Molly, I am 
 still reserved for more trials in this vale of tears. I must 
 bear my burden further! As for K. I., he's just as he 
 used to be — croaking away about the pain in his toe, or a 
 gouty cramp in his stomach. He's always taking things 
 that disagrees with him, and what he calls the " correc- 
 tives " makes him worse. I cannot give you the least 
 notion of how irritable he's grown. You know as well as 
 anybody the blessings he has about him. I don't speak 
 of myself, nor the stock I came from. I don't want to 
 revive the dreadful mistake that I made in my youth, nor 
 to mention the struggles I've had with him on every 
 subject for more than five-and-twenty years — struggles, 
 my dear Molly, that would have killed any one that 
 hadn't the constitution of a horse ; but that now, thanks 
 to the goodness of Providence, have become a part of my 
 nature, so that there isn't an hour of the day or night 
 that I'm not able and willing to dispute and argue with 
 him on any question whatsoever. I don't want to mention 
 these blessings — but isn't there James and Mary Anne, 
 and, indeed, except for some things, Caroline — was there 
 ever a father with more reason to be proud ? And so 
 you'd say if you only saw them. As a dear friend of 
 mine, Mrs. Gore Hampton, said this morning, "Where 
 will you see such natural advantages?" And I must 
 own, Molly, it's not flattery; for the way they talk French 
 and waltz, even how they come into a room, salute, or sit
 
 A MUCH-ENDURING WOMAN. 173 
 
 down, has something in it that shows them to be brought 
 up in the top of fashion. 
 
 Any other man than K. I. would overflow with grati- 
 tude for all this, but you'd scarcely believe, Molly, he 
 only ridicules it ! 
 
 " If we meant her for the stage," says he — this is the 
 way he talks of Mary Anne — " if we meant her for the 
 stage, I think she has effrontery enough to stand before a 
 full house, and I don't say it would discompose her ; but 
 for the wife of some respectable man of the middle rank, 
 I see no use in all this flouncing about here, and flourish- 
 ing there, whisking through a room, upsetting small tables 
 and crockery by way of gracefulness, and never sitting 
 down on a chair till she has spread out her petticoats like 
 a peacock ! " 
 
 If I've said it once to him, Molly, I've said it fifty 
 times, there's nothing I despise so much as a respectable 
 man in the middle rank. There's no refinement about 
 them — no elegance ! They may be what's called estimable 
 n their families ; but what's the use of all that for the 
 world at large. A man can only have one wife, but he 
 may have a thousand acquaintances. We don't ask how 
 amiable he is at home ; what we want is, that he should 
 be delightful abroad. " That," says Lord George, " is 
 true, both socially and economically; it's the grand 
 principle that everybody stands up for, 'the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number!'" 
 
 And talking of this, I'd strenuously advise your culti- 
 vating your mind on matters of political economy. It 
 appears dry and uninteresting at first, but as you get on 
 it improves wonderfully, and takes a great hold of the 
 mind. I don't think I was ever more unhappy than since 
 I read a chapter describing what would become of us 
 when the population got too thick ; and if the unthinking 
 creatures in Ireland don't take warning, it's exactly what 
 will happen. When my mind was full of it, I ordered up 
 Betty Cobb, aud gave her such a lecture about it she'li 
 never forget. 
 
 But you'll say it's not for this I'm gone into black; 
 neither is it, Molly — it's for my poor relative, the late 
 Jones M'Carthy, of the Folly, one of the last surviving
 
 174 THE D0DD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 members of the great M'Carthy stock, in the west of 
 Ireland. Grief and sorrow for the miserable condition of 
 his country preyed upon him, and made him seek obliter- 
 ation in drink ; and more's the pity, for he was a man of 
 enlarged understanding and capacious mind. My heart 
 overflows when I think of the beautiful sentiments I've 
 heard from him at various times. He loved his country, 
 and it was a treat to hear him praise it. " Ah ! " he 
 would say, " there's but one blot on her — the judges is 
 rogues, the Government's rogues, the grand jury's rogues, 
 and the people is villains ! " 
 
 He died as he lived, a little in drink, but a true patriot. 
 " Tell Jemima," says he, " I forgive her. She was a 
 child when she married, and she never meant to disgrace 
 us ; but as she now succeeds to the estate, I hope she'll 
 have the pride to resume the family name." 
 
 Yes, Molly, the M'Carthy property, that once extended 
 from Gorramuck to Knocksheedownie, with seventeen 
 townlands and four baronies, descends now to me. To 
 be sure, it was all mortgaged over and over again, and 
 'tis little there's left but the parchments and the maps ; 
 and, except the property in the funds, there's not a great 
 deal coming to me. This is all that I know at present, 
 for Waters, the attorney, writes in such a confused way, 
 I can make nothing of it, and I don't wish to show the 
 letter to K. I. That seems strange to you, Molly, but 
 you'll think it stranger when I tell you that the bare 
 notion of my succeeding to the estate drives him half 
 crazy. He thinks that all the money being on his side 
 makes up for his low birth, and makes a Dodd equal to a 
 M'Carthy, and that now when I get my fortune the tables 
 will be turned. Maybe he's right there, I won't say that 
 he is not; but sure it would be time enough to show this 
 feeling when my manner was changed to him. 
 
 I suppose he must have heard something from Purcell 
 about the matter, for when I came into the room, with 
 my eyes red from crying, he said, "Is it for old Jones 
 M'Carthy you're crying? Begad, then, you must have a 
 feeling heart, for you never saw him since you were three 
 years old ! " 
 
 Did you ever hear a more barbarous speech, Molly, not
 
 MR. DODD*S UNFEELING REMARKS. 175 
 
 to say a more ignorant one ? Twenty or thirty years 
 might be a very long time in a family called Dodd, but is 
 it more than a week or so in one with the name of 
 M'Carthy ? And so I told him. 
 
 "You don't pretend that you're sorry after him?" 
 says he. And I eould only answer him with my sobs. 
 " If it was Giles Moore, the distiller," says he, " that 
 ■went into mourning, one could understand the sense of it, 
 for he has lost a friend indeed ! " 
 
 " They're to bury him in Clonghdesman Abbey," says 
 I, not wishing to let his sarcastic remarks provoke me. 
 
 " They needn't take much trouble about embalming him, 
 anyway," says he, " for there's more whisky soaked into 
 him than could preserve a whole family ! " 
 
 You may think, Molly, how far I was overcome by 
 grief when he ventured to talk this way to me; and, 
 indeed, I left the room in a flood of tears. "When I grew 
 more composed I went over Waters's letter again with 
 Mary Anne, but without any great success. There is so 
 much law in it, and so many words that we never saw 
 before, and to which, indeed, our pocket dictionary gave 
 us little help. Administer being set down — to perform 
 the duty of an administrator ; and for Administrator, we 
 are told to see Administer — a kind of hide-and-go-seek 
 that one doesn't expect in books like this. 
 
 The lawyers and the doctors, my dear Molly, go on the 
 same plan — they never let us know the hard names they 
 have for everything. If we once come to do that, we'll 
 know what's the matter with ourselves, and our affairs, 
 and neither need one nor the other. Mary Anne thinks 
 that administering means going to show the will to some- 
 body that's to pay the money ; but my private opinion is, 
 that it's something about Ministers' Money, for I remem- 
 ber my poor cousin Jones never would consent to pay it, 
 nor indeed anything else that went to the Established 
 Church. It was against his conscience, he used to say; 
 and the Government that coerces a man's conscience is 
 worthy of "Grim Tartary." My notion is, then, that 
 they're coming against me for the arrears, as if I hadn't 
 any conscience too ! 
 
 At all events, Molly, the property is to come to me ;
 
 176 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 and the very thought of it gives me a feeling of indepen- 
 dence and pride that is really overwhelming. K. I.'s 
 temper was, indeed, becoming a sore trial, and how I 
 was to go on bearing it, was more than I could imagine. 
 He may now return to Ireland and his dear Dodsborough 
 whenever he pleases. Mary Anne and I are determined 
 to live abroad. Fortunately for us we have made acquaint- 
 ance with a very distinguished English lady — a Mrs. 
 Gore Hampton — who can introduce us everywhere. She 
 in the very height of the fashion, and knows all the great 
 people of Europe. She took a sudden liking — I might 
 call it an affection — for me and Mary Anne, and actually 
 proposed our all travelling together as one party. There 
 never was luck like it, Molly ! She has a beautiful 
 barouche of her own, with the arms on it, and a French 
 maid and a courier, and such heaps of luggage, you 
 wouldn't believe it could be carried. K. I. was afraid of 
 the expense, and gave, as you may believe, every kind of 
 opposition to the plan. He said it would " lead us into 
 this," and "lead us into that ; " the great thing he dreaded 
 being led into — as I told him — being " good society and 
 high company." 
 
 So far from costing us anything, I believe it will be a 
 considerable saving ; for, as Lord George says, " You can 
 always make a better bargain at the hotels, when you're 
 a strong party." And he has kindly taken the whole of 
 this on himself. 
 
 He is a w r onderful young man, Lord George ; and, con- 
 sidering his tip-top rank and connections, he's never above 
 doing anything to serve, or be useful to us. He knows 
 K. I. as well, too, as I do myself. " Let one alone," says 
 he, " to manage the governor ; I know him. He's always 
 grumbling about expense and moaning over his poverty ; 
 but you may remark that he does get the money some- 
 how." And the observation is remarkably just, Molly ; 
 for no matter what distress or distraction he's in, he does 
 contrive to rub through it; and this convinces me that he 
 is only deceiving us in talking about his want of means, 
 and so forth. Since I have discovered this, I never fret 
 the way I used about expense. 
 
 It was Lord George that arranged our compact with
 
 "what did we come abroad for?" 177 
 
 Mrs. G. "You had better leave all to me," said he to 
 K. I., " for Mrs. Gore Hampton is a perfect child about 
 money. She tells that old fool of a courier to put a 
 hundred pounds in his bag, and he pays away till it's all 
 gone, or till he says it's gone ; and then she gives him an- 
 other cheque for the same amount. So that she's not bored 
 with accounts, nor ever hears of them, she never cares." 
 
 "Of course, then," said I, " her expenses are very 
 great." 
 
 "I should say enormous," replied he; "for though 
 personally the simplest creature on earth, she never 
 objects to the cost of anything." 
 
 I hinted that, with our moderate fortune, we should 
 never be able to maintain a style of living equal to hers, 
 but he stopped me short, saying, " Don't let that distress 
 you ; besides, she has taken such a fancy for you and Miss 
 Docld that it would be a downright cruelty to deny her 
 your companionship ; and at this moment, too, when 
 really she requires sympathy." I was dying to ask on 
 what account, Molly — was it that she is a widow, or is 
 she separated, and what ? — but I hadn't the courage ; nor 
 indeed did he give me time, for he went on so fast : " Let 
 her pay half the expense, it's only fair; she has plenty of tin, 
 and nothing to do with it. Even then she will be a gainer, 
 for old Gregoire pockets as much as he pays away." 
 
 You'd suppose, Molly, that an arrangement so liberal as 
 this might have satisfied K. I. Not a bit of it. His only 
 remark was, " What's to be the amount of the other half?" 
 
 "Do you expect to travel about the Continent for nothing, 
 K. I.?" said I. " Does your experience say that it costs 
 so little?" 
 
 "No, faith!" replied he, with that sardonic grin that 
 almost kills me, "I can't say that." 
 
 " Well, then," said I, " is it better for us to go about 
 the world unnoticed and unknown, or to be visited and 
 received, and made much of everywhere ? The name of 
 Dodd," said I, " isn't a great recommendation ; and there's 
 some of us, at least, that haven't the exterior of the first 
 fashion." I wish you saw how he fidgeted when I said 
 this. " And as the great question is, What did we come 
 abroad for ? " 
 
 VOL. i. N
 
 178 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 " Ay, that's exactly it ! " cried he, thumping his clenched 
 fist on the table with a smash that made me scream oat. 
 " What did we come abroad for ?" 
 
 " There's no need to drive all the blood to my head, Mr. 
 Dodd," said I, " to ask that. Though I am accustomed to 
 your violence, my constitution may sink under it at last ; 
 but if you wish to know seriously and calmly why we came 
 abroad, I'll tell you." 
 
 " Do then," said he, folding his arms in front of him, 
 "and I'll be mighty thankful for the information." 
 
 " We came abroad," said I, " first of all, for " 
 
 "It wasn't economy," said he, with a grin. 
 
 " No, not exactly." 
 
 " I'm glad of that," cried he. " I'm glad that we've 
 got rid of one delusion, at least. Now, then, go on." 
 
 " Maybe you'll call refinement a delusion, Mr. Dodd," 
 said I. " Maybe politeness and good-breeding, the 
 French language and music, are delusions ? Is high 
 society a delusion ? Is the sphere we move in a delu- 
 sion?" 
 
 ' s I am disposed to think it is, Mrs. D.," said he, u and 
 a very great delusion, too. It's like nothing we were ever 
 used to. It is not social, and it is not friendly. It has 
 nothing to say, nor any concern with a single topic, or any 
 one theme that we can care for. Do you know one, or can 
 you even remember the names of any of the princes and 
 princesses you are always discussing ? Do you really care 
 w T hether Mademoiselle Zephyrini's pirouette was steadier 
 than Miss Angelina's ? Does it concern you that somebody, 
 with a hard name has given the first class order of the Pig 
 and Whistle to somebody else, with a harder ? Is it the 
 meat stewed to rags you like, or the reputations with 
 morality boiled out of them ? Is it pleasant to think that, 
 wherever you go, you meet nothing wholesome for mind 
 or for body ? I can stand scandal and wickedness as well 
 as my neighbours, but I can't spend my life upon them, nor 
 can I give up the whole day to dominoes. You ask me 
 what are delusions, and I tell you now some things that 
 are not." 
 
 But I wouldn't listen to more, Molly. I stopped him 
 short by saying, "You, at least, Mr. D., have little reason
 
 ANTI-DELUSIONS. 170 
 
 for your regrets, for really, in all that regards your man- 
 ner, language, dress, and demeanour, no one would ever 
 suspect you had been a day out of Dodsborongh." 
 
 " I wish to my heart my bank account could tell the 
 same story," says he : and with that he takes down a file 
 of bills, and begins to read out some of what he calls his 
 anti-delusions. 
 
 " Do you know, Mrs. D.," says he, " that your miliner 
 has got more money in the last four months than I havo 
 spent on my estate for the last eight years ? That Genoa 
 velvet and Mechlin lace have run away with what would 
 have drained the Low Meadows ! Ay, the price of that 
 red turban, that made you look like Bluebeard, would have 
 put a roof on the school-house. The priest of our parish 
 at home didn't get as much for his dues as you gave for 
 a seat to look at a procession in honour of Saint — 
 Saint " 
 
 "If you're going to blaspheme, Mr. D.," said I, "111 
 leave you;" and so I did, Molly, banging the door after 
 me in a way that I know well his gouty ankle is not the 
 better for. 
 
 I mention these particulars to show you the difficulties 
 I have to contend against, and the struggles it costs me to 
 give my children the benefits of the Continent. I intended 
 to tell you something about this place where we are stop- 
 ping too ; but my head is rambling now on other matters, 
 so that, maybe, I'll not be able to say much. 
 
 It's a university, just like Trinity College in Dublin, 
 only they don't wear gowns, nor keep within certain 
 buildings ; but scatter about over the whole town. We 
 know several of the young men who are princes, and more or 
 less related to crowned heads ; but for all that, very simple, 
 quiet, inoffensive creatures as ever you met. Billy Davis, 
 after he was articled to that attorney in Abbey Street, had 
 more impudence in him than them all put together. 
 
 The place itself is pretty, but I think it doesn't suit my 
 constitution. Maybe it's the running water, for there's a 
 big river under the windows, but I am never free from 
 cold in my head, and weak eyes. To be sure, we arc 
 always doing imprudent things, such gu sitting out till 
 after midnight in a summer-house, where the young Ger- 
 
 N 2
 
 189 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 mans come to sing for us — for singing and smoking, Molly, 
 is their two passions. It's a melancholy kind of music 
 they have, that has no tune whatever, nor anything like a 
 tune in it ; but as Mrs. Gr. and my daughters agree that 
 it's beautiful, why, of course, I give in, and say the same. 
 But, in confidence to you, Molly, I own that it puts me 
 to sleep at once ; and, indeed, most of our other amuse- 
 ments here are of the same kind. We are either botaniz- 
 ing, or looking for stones and shells, to tell us the age of 
 the world. Faith! you may well stare, Molly, but it's 
 truth I'm saying, that is what they pretend to find out. 
 They got an elephant's jawbone the other day, that gave 
 them great delight, and K. I. said, " I could tell a horse's 
 age by his teeth, but for guessing how old the earth is by 
 an elephant's grinders, is clear beyond me." 
 
 When it rains and we can't go out, we have chemistry 
 at home ; but I'm always in a fright about the combustibles, 
 and I'm sure one of these days we'll pay for our curiosity. 
 That man that comes to lecture hasn't a bit of eyebrows, 
 and only two fingers on one hand, and half a thumb on 
 the other ; not to say that he sat down one day on a 
 pocketful of crackers, and blew himself up in a dreadful 
 m anner. 
 
 If the weather be fine — and I was near saying, God 
 grant it mayn't — we are to have a course of astronomy 
 every night next week. I can stand everything, however, 
 better than " moral philosophy and economics." As to 
 the first of the two, it's not even common sense. It was 
 only two evenings ago, they laughed at me for twenty 
 minutes about a remark that's as true as the Bible. 
 
 " What relations does Locke say are least regarded ? " 
 says the professor to me. 
 
 " Faith ! I know nothing about Locke," says I ; " but 
 I know well that the relations least regarded are poor 
 relations." 
 
 As to the economics, if they could enliven it a bit by 
 experiments, as they do the chemistry, I could bear it 
 well enough ; but it's awfully dry to be always listening to 
 what you can't understand. 
 
 This is the way we live at Bonn : and though it's very 
 elevating, I find it's very depressing to the spirits. But I
 
 ~n^
 
 •\(\M 
 
 \rn 
 
 »o 
 
 n\^M^
 
 THRIFTY FORECASTINGS. 181 
 
 don't think we'll remain much longer here, for K. I. is 
 beginning to find out that the sciences are just as dear as 
 silks and satins ; and, as he remarked the other day ; " it 
 would be cheaper to have a dish of asparagus on the table 
 than them dirty weeds that they are gathering only for 
 the sake of their hard names." 
 
 Of course, when all is settled about the legacy, I'll not 
 be obliged to submit to his humours, as I have been up to 
 this. I'll have a voice, Molly, and I'll take care that it is 
 heard, too. I suppose it will come to a separation yet 
 between us. I own to you, Molly, the " impossibility " of 
 our tempers will do it at last. Well, when the time 
 comes, I'll be, as Mrs. Gr. says — equal to the occasion. I 
 can say, " I brought you rank, name, and fortune, Kenny 
 Dodd, and I leave you with my character unvarnished ; 
 and maybe both is more than you deserved !" 
 
 When I think of where and what I might be, Molly, 
 and see what I am, I fret for a whole livelong day. And 
 now a word about home before I conclude. Don't mention 
 a syllable about the legacy to Mat, or he'll be expecting a 
 present at Candlemas, and I really can spare nothing. 
 You can say to Father John, that Jones M'Carthy is dead, 
 but that nobody knows how the estate will go. He'll 
 maybe say some masses for him, in the hope of being paid 
 hereafter by the heir. I'd advise you to keep the wool 
 back, for they say prices will rise in Ireland, by reason of 
 all the people leaving it, just as it's described in the Book 
 of Genesis, Molly, only that Ireland is not Paradise — 
 that's the difference. 
 
 Mary Anne unites in her affectionate love to you, and I 
 am your attached 
 
 Jemima Dodd.
 
 182 THE DODD FAMILY AEHOAD. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 MAItr ANN* DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OP BALLYDOOLAK. 
 
 Grand Hotel du Rhin, Bonn. 
 
 Dearest Catherine, — Forgive me if I substitute for the 
 loved appellation of infancy the more softly sounding 
 epithet which is consecrated to verse in every language of 
 Europe. Yes, thou mayst be Kate of all Kates to the rest 
 of Christendom, but tome thou art Catherine — " Catrinella 
 mia," as thou wilt. 
 
 Here, dearest, as I sit embowered beside the wide and 
 winding Rhine, the day-dream of my childhood is at 
 length realized. I live, I breathe in the land glorified by 
 genius. Reflected in that stream is the castled crag of 
 Drachenfels, mirrored as in my heart the image of my 
 dearest Catherine. How shall I tell you of our existence 
 here, fascinated by the charms of song and scenery, 
 elevated by the strains of immortal verse ? We are living 
 at the Grand Hotel du Rhin, my sweet child ; and having 
 taken the entire first floor, are regarded as something like 
 an imperial family travelling under the name of Dodd. 
 
 I told you in my last of our acquaintance with Mrs. 
 Gore Hampton. It has, since then, ripened into friend- 
 ship. It is now love. I feel the dangerous captivation of 
 speaking of her, even passingly. Her name suggests all 
 that can fascinate the heart and enthral the imagination. 
 She is perfectly beautiful, and not less gifted than she is 
 lovely. Perhaps I cannot convey to my dearest Catherine 
 a more accurate conception of this charming being than 
 by mentioning some — a few — of the changes wrought by 
 her influence on the habits of our daily life. 
 
 Our mornings are scientific — entirely given up to botany, 
 chemistry, natural history, and geology, with occasional 
 readings in political economy and statistics. We all 
 attend these except papa. Even James has become a 
 most attentive student, and never takes his eyes off Mrs.
 
 the day's proceedings. 183 
 
 G. during the lecture. At three we lunch, and then 
 mount our horses for a ride ; since, thanks to Lord 
 George's attentive politeness, seven saddle-horses have 
 been sent down from Brussels for our use. Once mounted, 
 we are like a school released from study, so full of gaiety, 
 so overflowing with spirits and animation. 
 
 Where shall we go ? is then the question. Some are 
 for Godesberg, where we dismount to eat ice and stroll 
 through the gardens ; others, of whom your Mary Anne is 
 ever one, vote for Rolandseck, that being the very spot 
 whence Roland the bravo— the brave Roland — sat to gaze 
 upon those convent walls that enclosed all that he adored 
 on earth. 
 
 And oh ! Catherine dearest, is there amongst the very 
 highest of those attributes which deify human nature any 
 one that can compare with fidelity ? Does it not comprise 
 nearly all the virtues, heroic as well as humble ? For my 
 part, I think it should be the great theme of poets, blend- 
 ing as it does some of the tenderest with some of the 
 grandest traits of the heart. From Petrarch to Paul — I 
 mean Virginia's Paul — there is a fascination in these 
 examples that no other quality ever evokes. My dearest 
 Emily — I call Mrs. G. H. by her Christian name always 
 — -joined me the other evening in a discussion on this 
 subject against Lord George, James, and several others, 
 our only cavalier being the Ritter von Wolfenschafer, a 
 young German noble, who is studying here, and a remark- 
 able specimen of his class. He is tall, and what at first 
 seems heavy-browed, but, on nearer acquaintance, displays 
 one of those grand heads which are rarely met with save on 
 the canvas of Titian ; he wears a long beard and moustache 
 of a reddish brown, which, accompanied by a certain solem- 
 nity of manner and a deep-toned voice, impress you with 
 a kind of awe at first. His family is, I believe, the oldest 
 in Germany, having been Barons of the Black Forest, in 
 some very early century. " The first Hapsburg," he soys, 
 was a "knecht," or vassal, of one of his ancestors. His 
 pride is, therefore, something indescribable. 
 
 Lord George met him, I fancy, first at some royal table, 
 and they renewed their acquaintance here, shyly at the 
 beginning, but after a while with more cordiality ; and
 
 184 THE DOBD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 now he is here every day singing, sketching, reciting 
 Schiller and Goethe, talking the most delightful rhapso- 
 dies, and raving about moonlights on the Brocken, and 
 mysticism in the Hartzwald, till my very brain turns with 
 distraction. 
 
 Don't you detest the "positif" — the dreary, tiresome, 
 tame, sad-coloured robe of reality ? and do yon not adore 
 the prismatic-tinted drapery, that envelops the dream- 
 creatures of imagination ? I know, dearest Catherine, that 
 you do. I feel by myself how you shrink from the stern 
 aspect of reality, and love to shroud yourself in the graceful 
 tissues of fancy ! How, then, would you long to be here 
 — to discuss with us themes that have no possible relation 
 to anything actually existing — to talk of those visionary 
 essences which form the creatures of the unreal world ? 
 The " Hitter " is perfectly charming on these subjects ; 
 there is a vein of love through his metaphysics, and of 
 metaphysics through his love, that elevates while it sub- 
 dues. You will say it is a strange transition that makes 
 me flit from these things to thoughts of home and Ireland ; 
 but in the wilful wandering of my fancy a vision of the 
 past rises before me, and I must seize it ere it depart. I 
 wish, in fact, to speak to you about a passage in your last 
 letter, which has given me equal astonishment and suffer- 
 ing. What, dearest Kitty, do you mean by talking of a 
 certain person's " long-tried and devoted affection" — " his 
 hopes, and his steadfast reliance on my truthfulness"? 
 Have I ever given any one the right to make such an 
 appeal to me ? I do really believe that no one is less 
 exposed to such a reproach than I am ! I have the right, 
 if I please, to misconstrue your meaning, and assume a 
 total ignorance as to whom you are referring. But I will 
 not avail myself of the privilege, Kitty — I will accept 
 your allusion. You mean Doctor Belton. Now, I own 
 that I write this name with considerable reluctance and 
 regret. His many valuable qualities, and the natural 
 goodness of his disposition, have endeared him to all of 
 that humble circle in which his lot is cast, and it would 
 grieve me to write one single word which should pain him 
 to hear. But I ask you, Kitty, what is there in our 
 relative stations in society which should embolden him to
 
 COMPENSATIONS OP HIGH LIFE. 185 
 
 offer me attentions? Do we move in the same sphere? 
 have we either thoughts, ideas, or ambitions — have we 
 even acquaintances — in common ? I do not want to mag- 
 nify the position I hold. Heaven knows that the great 
 world is not a sea devoid of rocks and quicksands. No 
 one feels its perils more acutely than myself. But I repeat 
 it : Is there not a wide gulf between us ? Could lie live, 
 and move, think, act, or plan, in the circle that I associate 
 with ? Could I exist, even for a day, in his ? No, dearest, 
 impossible — utterly impossible. The great world has its 
 requirements — exactions, if you will ; they are imperative, 
 often tyrannical : but their sweet recompense comes back 
 in that delicious tranquillity of soul, that bland impertur- 
 bability that springs from good breeding — the calm equan- 
 imity that no accident can shake, from which no sudden 
 shock can elicit a vibration. I do not pretend, dearest 
 friend, that I have yet attained to this. I know well that 
 I am still far distant from that great goal ; but I am on 
 the road, Kitty — my progress has commenced, and not 
 for the wealth of worlds would I turn back from it. 
 
 AVith thoughts like these in my heart — instincts I should 
 perhaps call them — how unsuited should I be to the hum- 
 ble monotony of a provincial existence. Were I even to 
 sacrifice my own happiness, should I secure his? My 
 heart responds, No, certainly not. 
 
 As to what you remark of the past, I feel it is easily 
 replied to. The little chapel at Bruff once struck me as 
 a miracle of architectural beauty. I really fancied that 
 the doorway was in the highest taste of florid Gothic, and 
 that the east window was positively gorgeous in tracery. 
 As to the altar, I can only say that it appeared a mass of 
 gold, silver, and embroidery, such as we read of in the 
 " Arabian Nights." Am I to blame, Kitty, that, after 
 having seen the real splendours of St. Gudule, and the 
 dome of Cologne, I can recant my former belief, and 
 acknowledge that the little edifice at Bruff is poor, mean, 
 and insignificant ; its architecture a sham, and its splen- 
 dour all tinsel ? and yet it is precisely what I left it. 
 
 You will then retort, that it is I am changed ! I own 
 it, Kitty. I am so. But can you make this a matter of 
 reproach ? — If so, is not every step in intellectual progress
 
 18f) THE BODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 — every stage of development a stigma ? Your theory, 
 if carried out, would soar beyond the limits of this life, 
 and dare to assail the angelic existences of the next ! 
 
 But you could not inteud this ; no, Kitty, I acquit you 
 at once of such a notion ; even the defence of your friend 
 could not make you so unjust. Doctor Belton must, 
 surely, be in error as to any supposed pledges or promises 
 on my part. I have taxed my memory to the utmost, and 
 cannot recall any such. If, in the volatile gaiety of a 
 childish heart — remember, sweetest, I was only eighteen 
 when I left home — I may have said some silly speech, 
 surely it is not worth remembering, still less recording, to 
 make me blush for it. Lastly, Kitty, I have learned to 
 know that all real happiness is based upon filial obedience ; 
 and whatever sentiments it would be possible for me to 
 entertain for Dr. B. would be diametrically opposed to 
 the wishes of my papa and mamma. 
 
 I have now gone over this question in every direction I 
 could think of, because I hope that it may never more 
 recur between us. It is a theme which I advert to with 
 sorrow, for really I am unable to acquit of presumption 
 one whose general character is conspicuous for a modest 
 and retiring humility. You will acquaint him with as 
 much of the sentiments I here express as you deem fitting. 
 I leave everything to your excellent delicacy and discre- 
 tion. I only beg that I may not be again asked for 
 explanations on a matter so excessively disagreeable to 
 discuss, and that I may be spared alluding to those 
 peculiar circumstances which separate us for ever. If the 
 time should come when he will take a more reasonable and 
 just view of our respective conditions, nothing will be 
 more agreeable to me than to renew those relations of 
 friendship which we so long cultivated as neighbours ; 
 and if, in any future state I may occupy, I can be of the 
 least service to him, I beg you to believe that it will be 
 both a pride and a pleasure to me to know it. 
 
 It is needless, after this, to answer the question of your 
 postcript. Of course he must not write to me. Nothing 
 could induce me to read his letter. That he should ever 
 have thought of such a thing is a proof — and no slight 
 one — of his utter ignorance of all the conventional rules
 
 TONE OP SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 187 
 
 which regulate social intercourse. But a truce to a theme 
 so painful. 
 
 I answer your brief question of the turn-down of your 
 letter as curtly as it is put. No ; I am not in love with 
 Lord George, nor is he with me. We regard each other 
 as brother and sister ; we talk in the most unreserved 
 confidence ; we say things which, in the narrower preju- 
 dices of England, would be infallibly condemned. In 
 fact, Kitty, the sway of a conscientious sense of right, the 
 inward feeling of purity, admit of many liberties here, 
 which are denied to us at home. Here I tell you in one 
 word what it is that constitutes the superiority in tone of 
 the Continent over our own country — I should say it was 
 this very same freedom of thought and action. 
 
 The language is full of a thousand graceful courtesies 
 that mean so much or so little. The literature abounding 
 in analysis of emotions — that secret anatomy of the heart, 
 so fascinating and so instructive ; the habits of society so 
 easy, and so natural ; and then that chivalrous homage 
 paid to the sex, all contribute to extend the realms of 
 conversational topics, and at the same time to admit of 
 various ways of treating them, such as may suit the 
 temper, the talent, or the caprice of each. How often 
 does it happen from this that one hears the gravest themes 
 of religion and politics debated in a. spirit of the most 
 sparkling wit and levity, while subjects of the most 
 trivial kind are discussed with a degree of seriousness and 
 a display of learning actually astounding ! This wonder- 
 ful versatility is very remarkable in another respect ; for, 
 strange enough, it is the young people abroad who are the 
 gravest in manner — the most reserved and most saturnine. 
 The high-spirited — the buoyant — and most daring talkers 
 are the elderly. In a w T ord, Kitty, everything here is the 
 reverse of that at home ; and, I am forced to confess, 
 possesses a great superiority over our own notions. 
 
 I am dying to tell you more of the flitter, which, I 
 must explain to you, is the German for " Chevalier." If 
 you want a confession, too, I will make one, and that is, 
 that he is desperately in love with a poor friend of yours, 
 who feels herself quite unworthy of the devotion of this 
 scion of thirty-two quartcrings.
 
 188 THE DODD FAMILY ABHOAD. 
 
 In a worldly point of view, Kitty, the possibility of 
 such an event would be brilliant beyond conception. His 
 estates are a principality, and his Schloss von Wolfenberg 
 one of the wonders of the Black Forest. Does not your 
 heart swell and bound, dearest, at the thought of a real 
 castle, in a real forest, with a real baron, Kitty ? one of 
 those cruel creatures, perhaps, who lived in feudal times, 
 and always killed a child, to warm their feet in his heart's 
 blood. Not that our Hitter looks this. On the contrary, 
 he is gentle, low-voiced, and dreamy — a little too dreamy 
 — if I must say it, and not sufficiently alive to the rattling 
 drolleries of Lord George and James, who torment him 
 unceasingly. 
 
 Mamma likes him immensely, though their intercourse 
 is limited to mere bows and greetings ; and even papa, 
 whose prejudice against foreigners increases with every 
 day, acknowledges that he is very amiable and good tem- 
 pered. Cary appears to me to be greatly taken with him, 
 but he never notices her, nor pays her the slightest atten- 
 tion. I'm sure I wish he would, and I should be delighted 
 to contribute towards such a conjuncture. Who knows 
 what may happen later, for he has invited us all to the 
 Schloss for the shooting season — some time I believe in 
 autumn — and papa has said " Yes." 
 
 I now come to another secret, dearest Kitty, depending 
 on all your discretion not to divulge it, at least for the 
 present. Mamma has received a confidential note from 
 Waters, the attorney, informing her that she is to succeed 
 to the M'Carthy estates and property of the late Jones 
 M'Carthy, of M'Carthy's Folly. The amount is not yet 
 known to us, and we are surrounded by such difficulties, 
 from our desire to keep the matter secret, that we cannot 
 expect to know the particulars for some time. The estates 
 were considerable ; but, like those of all the Irish aristo- 
 cracy, greatly encumbered. The personal property, mamma 
 thinks, could not have been burdened, so that this alone 
 may turn out handsomely. 
 
 By some deed of settlement, or something of the kind, 
 executed at papa's marriage with mamma, he voluntarily 
 abandoned all right over any property that should 
 descend to her, so that she will possess the unlimited con-
 
 MUCH IN A NAME. 139 
 
 trol over this bequest. Mr. Waters mentions that tho 
 testator desired — I am not certain that he did not require 
 as a condition — that we should take the name of McCarthy. 
 I hope so with all my heart. I do not believe that any- 
 thing could offer such obstacles to us abroad as this 
 terrible and emphatic monosyllable ; now, Dodd M'Carthy 
 has a rhythm in it and a resonance also. 
 
 It sounds territorially, too ; like the de of French 
 nobility. We should figure in fashionable " Arrivals and 
 Departures " with a certain air of distinction, that is 
 denied to us at present ; and I really do not see why we 
 should not be " The M'Carthy." You know, dearest, 
 that the Herald's office never interferes about Celtic 
 nobility, inasmuch as its origin utterly defies investiga- 
 tion ; and there are, consequently, no pains nor penalties 
 attached to the assumption of a native title. How I 
 should be delighted to hear us announced as " The 
 M'Carthy, family and suite," with an explanatory para- 
 graph about papa being the blue or the black knight. 
 The English are always impressed with these things, and 
 foreigners regard them with immense devotion. There is 
 another incalculable advantage, Kitty, not to be over- 
 looked. All little eccentricities of manner, little peculiar- 
 ities of accent, voice, and intonation, of which neither pa 
 nor ma are totally exempt, instead of being criticized, as 
 some short-sighted folk might criticize them, as vulgar, 
 low, and common-place, rise at once to the dignity of a 
 national trait. 
 
 They are like Breton French, or certain Provencal ex- 
 pressions in use amongst the ancient " Seigneurie " of the 
 land. They actually dignify station, instead of disgracing 
 it, so that a " brogue " seems to seal the very patent of 
 your noblity, and the mutilations of your parts of speech 
 stand for quarterings on your escutcheon. 
 
 It might seem invidious were I to quote the instances 
 which support my theory ; but I assure you, seriously, 
 that social success, to be rapid, requires aids like these. 
 There was a time when being a Villiers, a Stanley, or a 
 Seymour gave you a kind of illusory nobility. You were 
 a species of human shot-silk, that turned blue in one 
 light, and brown in another ; but now that Burke is read
 
 ICO THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 in the national schools, and the "Almanack de Gotba" 
 in the godless colleges, deception on this head is impos- 
 sible. They take you " to book " at once. Tou can't be 
 one of the Howards of Ettinham, for Lady Mary died 
 childless — nor one of the Worseley branch, for the present 
 marquis, who married Lady Alice de Courtenaye, had 
 only two children, one, British envoy at the court of 
 Prince of Salms und Schweinigen, the other, &c. In fact, 
 Kitty, you are voted nobody. They will not allow you 
 father nor mother, uncle nor aunt, nor even any good 
 friends. Better be Popkins, or Perkins, Snooks, or even 
 Smith, than this ! The Celtic noblesse, however, is a 
 safe refuge against all impertinent curiosity. Tracing the 
 Dodd M'Carthy to his parent stem would be like keeping 
 count of the sheep in Sancho's story. Besides, matters 
 of succession are made matters of faith in the Church, 
 and why shouldn't they be in the M'Carthy family? 
 I don't suppose we want to be more infallible than the 
 Pope ? 
 
 I have not forgotten what you mentioned about your 
 brother Robert ; nor was it at all necessary, my dear 
 Kitty, for you to speak of his talents and acquirements, 
 which I well know are first-rate. I took an opportunity the 
 other day of alluding to the matter to Lord George, who 
 has influence in every quarter. I told him pretty much 
 in the words of your letter, that he was equally distin- 
 guished in science as in classics, had taken honours in 
 both, and was in all other respects fully qualified to be a 
 tutor. That, being a gentleman by birth, though of small 
 fortune, his desire was to obtain the advantages of foreign 
 travel, and the opportunity of acquiring modern languages, 
 for which he was quite willing to assume all the labour 
 and fatigue of a teacher. He stopped me short here by 
 saying, "I'm afraid it's no go. They've made a farce, 
 and a devilish good one, too, of the ' Irish Tutor; ' and I 
 half suspect that Dr. 'Toole, as he is called, has spoiled 
 the trade." 
 
 I tried to introduce a word about Robert's attainments, 
 but he broke in with — " That's all very well ; I'm quite 
 sure of everything you say. But who takes a ' coach ? ' " 
 — That's the slang for tutor, Kitty ! — " No one takes a
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR A " BEAR-LEADER. ' 191 
 
 ' coach ' for his learning now-a-days. What's wanted — - 
 particularly when travelling — is a sharp, wide-awake 
 fellow, that knows all the dodges of the Continent as well 
 as a courier, can bully the police, quiz the custom-house, 
 and slang the waiters. He ought to be up to the opera and 
 the ballet ; be a dead hand at ecarte, and a capital judge 
 of cigars. After these, his great requisites are never 
 ceasing good-humour, and a general flow of high spirits, 
 to stand all the bad jokes and vapid fun of young college 
 men ; a yielding disposition to go anywhere, with anyone, 
 and for anything that may be proposed ; and, finally, a 
 ready tact never to suppose himself included in any invita- 
 tion with his 'Bear,' who, however well he may treat 
 him, will always prefer leaving him at home when he dines 
 at an ' Embassy.' " 
 
 This is a rapid sketch of a tutor's life and habits, as 
 practised abroad, Kitty ; and I more than suspect Robert 
 would not like it. Should I be in error, however, and 
 that such would suit his views, I'm sure I can reckon on 
 Lord George's kindness to find him an appointment. 
 Meanwhile, let him " accustom himself to much smoking, 
 and occasional brandy-and-water, lay in a good stock of 
 droll anecdotes, and if he can acquire any conjuring 
 knowledge, or tricks on the cards^ it will aid him 
 greatly." These hints are Lord Gr.'s, and, I am sure, in- 
 valuable. 
 
 A thunderstorm has just broken over the valley of the 
 Rhine, and the dread artillery of heaven comes pealing 
 down from the " Lurlie " like a chorus of demons in a 
 modern opera. Our excursion being impossible, I once 
 more resume my task, and again seat myself to hold com- 
 munion with my dearest Kitty. 
 
 I find, besides, innumerable questions still unanswered 
 in your last dear letter. You ask me if, on the whole, I 
 am happier than I was at Dodsborough ? How could you 
 ever have penned such a qutere ? The tone of seriousness 
 which you tell me of, in my letters, admits, perhaps, of a 
 softer epithet. May it not be that soul-kinclled elevation 
 that comes of daily association with high intelligences ? 
 If I w r ere but to tell you the names of the illustrious 
 writers and great thinkers whom we meet here almost
 
 192 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 every evening, Kitty, you would no longer be amazed at 
 the soaring flight my faculties have taken. Not that they 
 appear to us, my dearest friend, in the mystic robes of 
 science, but in the humble garb of common life, playing 
 " groschen" whist, or a game of tric-trac. Just fancy, if 
 you can, Professor Faraday playing " petits jeux," or 
 Wollaston engaged at " hunt the slipper." 
 
 These are the intimacies, this the kind of intercourse, 
 which imperceptibly cultivate the mind, and enlarge the 
 understanding ; for, as Mrs. Gore Hampton beautifully 
 observes, " The charm of high-bred manner is not to be 
 acquired by attendance on a ' levee ' or a ' drawing-room,' 
 it is imbibed in the atmosphere that pervades a court, in 
 the daily, hourly association with that harmonious elegance 
 that surrounds a sovereign." So, dearest Kitty, from 
 intercourse with great minds is there a perpetual gain to 
 our stock of knowledge. " They are," as Mrs. G. says, 
 " the charged machines from which the electric sparks of 
 genius are eternally disengaging themselves." "What a 
 privilege to be the receivers! 
 
 There is a wondrous charm, too, in their simplicity, as 
 well as in that habit they have of mystically connecting 
 the most trivial topics with the most astounding specula- 
 tions. A fairy tale becomes to them a metaphysical alle- 
 gory. You would scarcely credit what curious doctrines 
 of socialism lie veiled under " Jack the Giant Killer," or 
 that the Marquis of Carabas, in the tale of " Puss in 
 Boots," is meant to illustrate the oppression of the landed 
 aristocracy. Nor is this all, Kitty ; but they go further, 
 and they are always speculating on something beyond the 
 actual catastrophe of a story ; as the other evening I 
 heard a learned argument to show, that had Bluebeard 
 not been killed, he would have inevitably formed an 
 alliance with " Sister Anne," just for the sake of support- 
 ing the cause of "marriage with a deceased wife's sister." 
 I only mention these as passing instances of that rich 
 imaginative fertility, which is as much their characteristic 
 as is their wonderful power of argumentation. 
 
 Lord George and James worry me greatly for my 
 admiration of Germany and the Germans. They talk, in 
 slang, on themes that require a high strain of intelligence
 
 CONTINENTAL CIVILIZATION. 193 
 
 to comprehend or even appreciate. No wonder, then, if 
 their frivolity offend and annoy me! The Hitter von 
 Wolfenschafer is an unspeakable relief to me, after this 
 tiresome quizzing. Shall I own that Cary is their ally in 
 the same ignoble warfare ? Indeed, nothing surprises, 
 and, at the same time, depresses me more than to remark 
 the little benefit derived by Caroline from foreign travel. 
 She would seem to sit down perfectly contented with the 
 information derived from books, as though the really sub- 
 stantial advantages of a residence abroad were not all 
 dependent on direct intercourse with the people. " "Why 
 not read Uhl and and Tieck at home at Dodsborough ? " 
 say I to her. " To what end do you come hundreds of 
 miles away from your country, to do what might so easily 
 have been accomplished at home ? " "What do you think 
 was her reply ? It was this : " That is exactly what I 
 should like to do. Having seen some parts of the Con- 
 tinent, having enjoyed the spectacle of those wonderful 
 things of nature and of art which a tour abroad would 
 display, and having acquired that facility in languages 
 which comes so rapidly by their daily use, I should like to 
 go home again, adding to the pleasures my own country 
 supplies, stores of knowledge and resources from other 
 lands. I neither want to think that Frenchmen and 
 Germans are better bred than my own countrymen, nor 
 that the rigid decorum of English manners is only a flimsy 
 veil of hypocrisy thrown over the coarse vices of a coarso 
 people." 
 
 Now, my dear Kitty, be as national and patriotic as one 
 will ; play " Rule Britannia" every morning, with varia- 
 tions, on the piano; wear a Paisley shawl and a Dunstable 
 bonnet; make yourself as hideous and absurd as the 
 habits of your native country will admit of — and that is 
 a wide latitude — you will be obliged to own the startling 
 fact, the Continent is more civilized than England. Daily 
 life is surrounded with more of elegance and of refine- 
 ment, for the simple reason that there is more leisure for 
 both. There is none of that vulgarity of incessant occu- 
 pation so observable with us. Men do not live hero 
 to be Poor-law guardians and Quarter Sessions chairmen, 
 directors of railroads, or members of select committees. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 They choose the nobler ambition of mental cultivation 
 and intellectual polish. They study the arts which adorn 
 social intercourse, and acquire those graceful accomplish- 
 ments which fascinate in the great world, and in the phrase 
 of the newspapers, " make home happy." 
 
 I have now come to the end of my paper, and perhaps 
 of your patience, but not of my arguments on this theme, 
 nor the wish to impress them upon my dearest Kitty. 
 Adieu ! Adieu ! 
 
 I can understand your astonishment at reading this, 
 Kitty; but is it not another proof that Ireland is far 
 behind the rest of the world in civilization ? The systems 
 exploded everywhere are still pursued there, and the un- 
 profitable learning that all other countries have abandoned, 
 is precisely the object of hardest study and ambition. 
 
 There are twenty other things that I wished to consult 
 my dearest Kitty about, but I must conclude. It is now 
 nigh eleven o'clock, the moon is rising, and we are off on 
 our excursion to the Drachenfels — for you must know that 
 one of the stereotyped amusements of the Continent is to 
 ascend mountains for the sake of seeing daybreak from 
 the " summit." It is frequently a failure as regards the 
 picturesque ; but never so with respect to the pleasure of 
 the trip. Think of a mountain path by moonlight, Kitty ; 
 your mule slowly toiling up the steep ascent, while some 
 one near murmurs " Childe Harold" in your ear, the perils 
 of the way permitting a hundred little devotional atten- 
 tions so suggestive of dependence and protection. I must 
 break off — they are calling for me ; and I have but time 
 to write myself my dearest Kitty's dearest friend, 
 
 Mary Anne Dodd.
 
 195 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 BETTY COBB TO MRS. SHUSAN o'SHEA, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF. 
 
 Dear Misses Shusan, — I thought before this I'd be back 
 again in BrufF, but I leave it all to Providence, that 
 maybe, all the time, is thinkin' little about me. It's not 
 out of any unpiety I say this, but bekase the longer I live 
 the more I see how sarvants are trated in this world; and 
 the next I'm towld is much the same. 
 
 If the mistress would let me alone, I'd get used to the 
 ways of the place at last, for there's some things isn't so 
 bad at all ; since we came to this we have four males 
 every day, but, if you mind grace, you might as well have 
 none. They've a puddin' for everything, fish — flesh — 
 fowl — vegebles, it's all alike ; but the hardest thing is to 
 eat blackberries with beef, or stewed pork with rasberries ; 
 not to spake of a pike with pine-apple, that we had yes- 
 terday. 
 
 There is always an abundance and a confusion at dinner 
 that's plazing to one's feelin's ; for, indeed, in Ireland 
 there is no great variety in the servants' hall, and polatics 
 has a sameness in them that's very tiresome. 
 
 We are livin' now at an elegant hotel, where we sit 
 down forty-seven of us every day, at the sound of a big 
 bell at one o'clock. They call it the table doat, and I 
 don't wonder they do, for it's the pleasantest place I ever 
 see. "We goes down, linked arm-in-arm, me and Lord 
 George's man, Mister Slipper, and the Frinsh made 
 lanin' on Mounseer Gregory, the currier ; and there's as 
 much bowin' and scrapin', or more, than upstairs in the 
 parlour. Mr. Slipper takes the head of the table, and I 
 am on his rite, and mamsel on his left, and the dishes all 
 cums to us first, and we tumble the things about, and 
 helps ourselves to the best before the others, and we laflf 
 so loud, Shusan, for Mr. Slipper is uncommon drol, and 
 tells a number of stories that makes me cry for laflm' ; and 
 he is just as polite, too, for whinever he tells anything 
 
 2
 
 196 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 wrong he says it in French. And if you. only heerd the 
 way masters and mistresses is spoke of, Shusan, you'd 
 pity poor sarvants that has to live with them, and put up 
 with their bad 'umors. Mr. Slipper himself is trated like a 
 dog, on eighty pounds a year, and what he calls the spoils 
 — that's the close that's spoiled. Many the day he never 
 sees the newspaper, for Lord Gr. sticks it in his pocket, 
 and carries it out with him ; and when he went out to 
 tay, the other evenin', there wasn't an embroidered shirt 
 of his master's to put on, and he was obleeged to take a 
 plain cambric to make a clane breast of it! " Faix," 
 says he, M there's no savin' what will happen soon, and 
 maybe the day '11 cum I'll have to buy my own cigars." 
 He had an iligant place before this one — Sir Michael 
 Bexley — but tho' the wagis was high, and the eating first- 
 rate, he couldn't stay. " We wore in Vi-enna," says he, 
 " where they dance a grate dale in sosiety, and Sir 
 Michael's hands and feet was smaller than mine, and I 
 couldn't wear either his kid gloves or his dress-boots, and 
 goin' out every night the expense was krushin'." 
 
 Mamsel is trated just as bad. It's maybe three when 
 she gets to bed ; her mistress, Mrs. Gr., wouldn't take a 
 flour out of her head herself, but must have the poor 
 crayture waitin' there, like a centry. And maybe it's at 
 that time o'night she'll take the notion of seein' how it 
 bekomes her to have her hare, this way or that, or to see 
 if she'd look better with more paint on her, or if her eye- 
 brows was blacker. 
 
 Sometimes, too, she takes a fit of tryin' ball dresses, 
 five or six, one after another ; but mamsel says, she thinks 
 she cured her of that by dropping some lamp oil over a 
 bran new white satin, with Brussels lace, that was never 
 worn at all. As Mr. Slipper says, " Our ingenuity is 
 taxed to a degree that destroys our dispositions ; " and I 
 may here observe, Shusan, that all sarvants ever I heerd 
 of get somehow worse trated than Irish. I don't mane 
 in regard to wagis, bekase the Irish cartainly gets laste, 
 but I spake of tratement ; and the rayson is this, Shusy, 
 the others do their work as a kind of duty, a thing they're 
 paid for, and that they ought to do ; we, the Irish I mane, 
 do everything as if it was out of our own goodness, and
 
 HOW TO MANAGE A MISTRESS. 197 
 
 that we wouldn't do it if we didn't like ; and that's the 
 real way to manage a master or a mistress. If he asks 
 for a knife at diner, sure he can't deny it's a knife bekase 
 it's dirty, there wouldn't be common sense in that. There's 
 two ways of doin' everything, Shusan ; but, easy as it is, 
 the Irish is the only people profits by the lesson ! It's 
 only ourselves, Shusan dear, knows how to make a master 
 or mistress downright miserable ! 
 
 It is true we seldom have good wagis, but we take it 
 out in temper. If ye seen the life I sometimes lead the 
 mistress you'd pity her ; but why would you after all ? 
 wasn't I taken away from my home and country, and put 
 down here in a strange place; and if I didn't spend the 
 day now and then cry in', would she ever think of razing 
 my sperits with a new bonnet, or a pare of shoes, or a 
 ticket for the play ? Take them azy, Shusy, and they'll 
 take you the same. But if you show them they're in your 
 power, take to your bed, sick, when they're in a hot hurry, 
 and want you most, be sulky and out of sperits when 
 they're all full of fun, and go singin' about the house the 
 day they've got a distressin' letter by the post, — keep to 
 that, and my shure and sartain beleef is, that you'll break 
 down the sperit of the wickidest master and mistress that 
 ever breathed. 
 
 Isn't my mistress, I ask you, as hard to dale with as 
 any ? Well, many's the time, when I'm listenin' at the 
 doore, I heerd her say, " Betty can't bear me in that 
 shawl — Betty put it somewhere, and I'm afraid to ask for 
 it — Betty's in one of her tantrums to-day, so I must not 
 cross her. I wish I knew how to put Betty Cobb in good 
 humour." "Faix, ma'am," says I to myself, "I believe 
 you well, and it would puzzle wiser heads nor you ! " 
 
 And now, Misses Shusan dear, is it any wonder that our 
 tempers get spoiled ? seein' the lives we lade, and the 
 dreadful turns and twists we are obleeged to give our 
 natral dispositions. It's for all the world like play- 
 actin' . 
 
 There's many things different betune this and home, 
 and first and foremost religion, Shusan. Religion isn't 
 the same at all. To begin, there's no fastin' at all, or 
 next to none ; maybe that's bekase, by the nature of the
 
 193 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD, 
 
 cookery, nobody could tell what it was he was eatin'. 
 Then, there's little penance — and the little there is ye can 
 get off of it by a thriSe. Ye go to confessin' whin ye 
 like, and ye keep anything back for another time that ye 
 don't wish to tell just then. In fact, my dear, it comes 
 to this — it's harder to go to Heaven in Ireland than any 
 place ever I heerd of, and costs more money into the 
 bargain ! 
 
 The priests hasn't half the power they have in Ireland, 
 they're not as well paid, and they can't curse a congrega- 
 tion, nor do any other good action that isn't set down in 
 their duty. It's the polis, Shusy, that makes ye tremble 
 abroad, and that's the great difference between the two 
 countries. 
 
 As to morils, my dear, I'm afraid we're not supariar, 
 for it's the women always makes love to the men, which, 
 till you get used to it, has a mighty ugly appearance. I 
 b'l'eve it's the smokin' leads to this, for a German wouldn't 
 take his pipe out of his mouth for anything ; so that 
 courtin' isn't what it is at home. 
 
 These is my general remarks on the habits of furriners, 
 which I give you as free as you ask for them. As to the 
 family, nobody knows where the money comes from, but 
 that they're spendin' it in lashins, is true as I'm here. 
 And they're broke up, Shusy, and not the way they used 
 to be. The master walks out alone, or with Miss Caraline. 
 Miss Mary Anne stays with the mother ; and Master 
 James, that's now a grone man, and as bowld as brass 
 besides, is always phelanderin' about with Mrs. Gr., the 
 lady that lives with us. I mistrust her, Shusan dear, and 
 Mamsel Virginy, her made, too, though she's mighty kind 
 and polite to me, and says she has so many " bounties " 
 for the whole family. 
 
 Paddy Byrne is exactly what you suspect. There's 
 nothin' would put the least polish on him. The very way 
 he ates at the table doat disgraces us ; whenever he gets a 
 thing he likes, instead of helpin' himself and passin' it 
 on, he takes the whole dish before him, and conshumes 
 it all. As he is always ready to fite, they let him do as 
 he likes, and he is become now the terror of the place. 
 I have towld ye now about everybody but the ould currier,
 
 BETTY ASPIRES TO " TEACH " ENGLISH. 199 
 
 Mounseer Gregory, an invetherate ould Frinsh bla'guard, 
 that never has a dacent word in his mouth, though he 
 hasn't a good tooth in it, and ye'd say 'twas at his prayers 
 the ould hardened sinner should be. The very laff he 
 has, and the way his bleery eyes twinkle, is a shame to 
 see ! It's nigh to fifty years since he took to the road, so 
 that you may think, Shusan dear, what a dale of innequity 
 he's seen in that time. It's dreadful sometimes to listen 
 to him. 
 
 If I wasn't ashamed to write them, I'd tell you two or 
 three of his stories, but I will when we meet ; and now 
 with my 
 
 hearty blessin' and love, I remane yours 
 
 to command, Betty Cobb. 
 
 What's this I heer about one of the M'Carthys dyin', 
 and leavin' his money to the mistress ? Get the news 
 right for me, Shusan dear, for I mane to ask for more 
 wagis if it's true, and if Mrs. D. won't decrease them, 
 I'll lave the sarvis. Mamsel Virginy towl me last nite 
 there was a duches here that wants a confidenshal made 
 to tache her only daughter English, and that's exactly 
 the thing to shoot me; five hundred franks a year is 
 equal to twenty pounds, alleatin' and washin', not to 
 mention the hoith of respect from all the men-ials in the 
 house. I'm takin' Frinsh lessons from ould Gregory every 
 evenin', and he says I'll be in my " accidents " next week. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. 
 
 You guessed rightly, my dear Bob ; my letter to Vickars 
 has turned out confoundedly ill, though I must say, all 
 from his total want of gentlemanlike feeling. To my 
 ineffable horror the other morning, the post arrived with
 
 200 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 a large packet for the governor, containing my " strictly 
 private and confidential " epistle, which this infernal son 
 of a pen wiper sends coolly back to be read by ray father. 
 
 Matters were not going on exactly qnite smooth before. 
 We had had a rather stormy sitting of the Cabinet the 
 evening previous on the estimates, which struck the 
 President of the Council as out of all bounds ; and yet, 
 all things considered, were reasonable enough. You 
 know, Bob, we are a strongish party. Mrs. G. H., with 
 maid and courier ; Lord George and man ; the Dodd 
 family five, with two native domestics, and two foreign 
 supernumeraries ; occupying the first floor of the first 
 hotel at Bonn, with a capital table, and a considerable 
 quantity of wine, of one kind or other; these — without 
 anything that one can call extravagance — swell up a bill, 
 and at the end of a month give it an actually formidable 
 look. 
 
 " What are these ? " said the governor, peering through 
 his glasses at a long battalion of figures at the foot of the 
 score — " what are these ? Groschen, eh ? " 
 
 " Pardon, Monsieur le Comte," said the other, bowing, 
 " dey are Prussian thalers ! " 
 
 I wish you saw his face when he heard it ! George and 
 I were obliged to bolt out of the room, or we should have 
 infallibly exploded. 
 
 " You'd better go back," said George to me, after we 
 had our laugh out ; " I'll take a stroll with the women- 
 kind till you smooth him down a bit." 
 
 A pleasant office this for me ; but there was no help for 
 it, so in I went. 
 
 The first shock of his surprise was not over as I entered, 
 for he stood holding the bill in one hand, while he pressed 
 the other on his forehead, with a most distracted expres- 
 sion of face. 
 
 "Do you suspect," said he — "have you any notion of 
 what rate we are living at, James ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest," replied I. 
 
 " Do you think it's of any consequence ? " asked he 
 again, in a harsher tone. 
 
 " Why, of course, sir, it — is — of some con- " 
 
 " I mean," broke he in, " does it signify whether I go
 
 IPPj^Stt 3 ^ s - 
 
 Q^&^A 
 
 a 
 
 9Z^U>

 
 A SMASH. 201 
 
 to gaol, and the rest of you to the workhouse — if there 
 be a workhouse in this rascally land ? " 
 
 Seeing that he had totally forgotten the landlord's 
 presence, T now motioned to that functionary to leave the 
 room. The noise of the door shutting roused up the 
 governor again. He looked wildly about him for an 
 instant, and then snatching up the poker he aimed a blow 
 at a large mirror over the chimney. He struck it with 
 such violence that it was smashed in a dozen pieces, four 
 or five of which came clattering down upon the floor. 
 
 " I'll be a maniac," cried he. " They shall never say 
 that I ran into this extravagance in my sober senses — I'll 
 finish my days in a madhouse first." And with these 
 words he made a rush over to a marble table, where a 
 large porcelain vase was standing ; by a timely spring I 
 overtook him, and pressed him down on an ottoman, 
 where, I assure you, it required all my force to hold him. 
 After a few minutes, however, there came a reaction ; he 
 dropped the poker from his grasp, and said, in a low, faint 
 voice, " There — there — I'll do nothing now — you may 
 release me." 
 
 There's not a doubt of it, Bob, but he really was insane 
 for a few moments, though, fortunately, it passed away as 
 rapidly as it came. 
 
 11 That," said he, with a motion towards the look- 
 ing-glass — "that will cost twenty, or twenty-five pounds, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Not so much, perhaps," said I, though I knew I was 
 considerably below the mark. 
 
 " Well, I'm sure it saved me from a fit of illness, any- 
 how," rejoined he, sighing. " If I hadn't smashed it, I 
 think my head would have burst. Go over that, James, 
 and see what it is in pounds." 
 
 I sat down to a table, and after some calculation made 
 out the total to be two hundred and seven pounds 
 sterling. 
 
 "And with the looking-glass, about two hundred 
 and thirty," said he, with a sigh. " That's about — 
 taking everything into consideration — five thousand a 
 year." 
 
 "You must remember," said I, trying to comfort him,
 
 202 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 " that these are not our expenses solely. There's Tiverton 
 and his servant, and Mrs. Gore Hampton and her people 
 also." 
 
 " So there is," added he, quickly ; " but they had 
 nothing to do with that ; " and he pointed to the con- 
 founded looking-glass, which somehow or other had taken 
 a fast hold of his imagination. " Eh, James, that was a 
 luxury we had for ourselves ! " There was a bitter, sar- 
 donic laugh that accompanied these words, indescribably 
 painful to hear. 
 
 " Come now," said he, in a more composed and natural 
 voice, " let us see what's to be done. This is a joint 
 account, James ; why not have sent it to Lord George — 
 ay, to the widow also. They may as well frank the Dodd 
 family, as toe pay for tliem — of course omitting the look- 
 ing-glass." 
 
 I hinted that this was a step requiring some delicacy 
 in its management ; that if not conducted with great 
 tact, it might be the occasion of deep offence. In a word, 
 Bob, I surmised, and conjectured, and hinted a hundred 
 things, just to gain a little time, and turn him, if possible, 
 into another channel. 
 
 " Well, what do you advise ? " said he, as if wishing to 
 fix me to some tangible project. 
 
 For a moment I was bent on adopting the grand parlia- 
 mentary tactic of stating that there were " three courses 
 open to the House," and then going on to show that one 
 of these was absurd, the second impracticable, and the 
 last utterly impossible ; but I saw that the governor could 
 not be so easily put down as the Opposition, and so I 
 said, " Give it till to-morrow morning, and I'll see what 
 can be done." 
 
 Here I felt I was on safe ground, for throughout life I 
 have ever remarked, that whenever an Irishman is in 
 difficulties, a reprieve is as good as a free pardon to him 
 — for so is it, the land which seems so thoroughly hope- 
 less in its destinies, contains the most hopeful population 
 of Europe ! 
 
 The delay of a few hours made all the difference in the 
 governor's spirits, and he rallied and came down to 
 supper just as usual, only whispering as we left the room,
 
 " ON HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE." 203 
 
 ■with a peculiar low chuckle in his voice, "I wouldn't 
 wonder if the fire there cracked that chimney-glass." 
 
 " Nothing more likely," added I, gravely ; and down 
 we went. 
 
 It might possibly be out of utter recklessness, or per- 
 haps from some want of a stimulant to cheer him, but he 
 insisted on having two extra bottles of champagne, and 
 he toasted Mrs. Gore Hampton with a zest and fervour 
 that certainly my mother didn't approve of. On the 
 whole, however, all passed off well, and we wished each 
 other good night, with the pleasantest anticipations for 
 the morrow. 
 
 All was well ; and we were at breakfast the next morn- 
 ing, merrily discussing the plans for the day, when the 
 post arrived, with that ominous-looking packet I have 
 already mentioned. 
 
 " Shall I guess what that contains? " cried Lord George, 
 pointing to the words, " on her Majesty's service," printed 
 in the corner. " They've made you Lord-Lieutenant of 
 your county, Dodd ! You shake your head. Well, it's 
 something in the colonies they've given you." 
 
 " Perhaps it's the Civil Cross of the Bath," said Mrs. 
 Gore Hampton. " They told me, before I left town, they 
 were going to select some Irishman for that distinction." 
 
 " I'd rather it was a baronetcy," interposed my mother. 
 
 11 You are all forgetting," broke in my father, " that it's 
 the Tories are in power, and they'll give me nothing. I 
 was always a moderate politician, and, for the last ten or 
 fifteen years, there was nothing so unprofitable. Violence 
 on either side met its reward, but the quiet men, like 
 myself, were never remembered." 
 
 " Then hang me if I should have been quiet ! " cried 
 Lord George. 
 
 "Well, you see," said my father, breaking his egg 
 slowly with the back of his spoon, " it suited me ! I've 
 seen a great deal of Ireland ; I'm old enough to remember 
 the time when the Beresfords governed the country — if 
 you can call that government that was done with pitched- 
 caps and cat-o'-nine- tails — and I remember Lord Whit- 
 worth's Administration, and Lord Wellesley's, and latterly 
 Lord Normanby's. But, take my word for it, they were
 
 204 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 wrong, every one of them, and the reason was this : the 
 English had a notion in their heads that Ireland must 
 always be ruled through the intervention of some leader- 
 ship or other. One time it was the Protestants, then it 
 was the landlords, then came Dan O'Connell, and lastly 
 it was the priests. Now, every one of these failed, 
 because they couldn't perform a tithe of what they 
 promised ; but still they all had that partial kind of 
 success that saved the Administration a deal of trouble, 
 and imposed upon the English the notion that they were 
 at last learning how to govern Ireland. Meanwhile, I'll 
 tell you what was happening. The Government totally 
 forgot there was such a thing as a people in Ireland, and, 
 what's worse, the people forgot it themselves ; and the 
 consequence was, they sank down to the level of a mean 
 party following — a miserable shabby herd — to shout after 
 an Orange or a Green Demagogue, as the case might be. 
 It was a faction, and not a nation ; and England saw that, 
 but she had not the honesty to own it was her own doing 
 made it such. It was seeing all this made me a moderate 
 politician, or, in other words, one who reposed a very 
 moderate confidence in either of the parties that pretended 
 to rule Ireland." 
 
 " But you supported your friend, Yickars, notwithstand- 
 ing," said Lord George, slyly. 
 
 " Yery true, so I did ; but I never put forward any 
 mock patriotism as the reason. What I said was, ' Ye' re 
 all rogues and vagabonds alike, and as I know you'll do 
 nothing for Ireland, at least do something for the Dodd 
 family ;' and now let us see if he has, for I perceive that 
 this address is in his handwriting." 
 
 I own to you, Bob, I quaked somewhat as I saw him 
 smash the seal. My mind misgave me in fifty ways. 
 " Yickars," thought I, " has given me some infernal store- 
 keepership in the Gambia, or made me inspector of yellow 
 fever in Chusan." I surmised a dozen different promo- 
 tions, every one of which was several posts on the road 
 to the next world. Nor were my anticipations much 
 brightened by watching the workings of the governor's 
 face as he perused the epistle, for it grew darker and 
 darker .the angles of the mouth were drawn down, till
 
 205 
 
 that expressive feature put on the semblance of a Saxon 
 arch, while his eyes glistened with an expression of fiend- 
 like malice. 
 
 " Well, K. I.," said my mother, in whom the Job-like 
 element was not of a high development — " well, K. I., 
 what does he say ? Is it the old story about his list being 
 full, or has he done it at last ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," said my father, as though echoing her 
 words. " He has done it at last ! " 
 
 " And what is it to be, papa ? Is it something that a 
 gentleman can suitably accept ? " cried Mary Anne. 
 
 " Done it at last, you may well say ! " muttered my 
 father, half aloud. 
 
 " Better late than never," cried Lord George, gaily. 
 
 ''Well, I don't know that, my lord," said my father, 
 turning upon him with an abruptness little short of offen- 
 sive ; " I am not so sure that I quite coincide with you. 
 If a young fellow enters life totally uneducated and un- 
 provided for, his only certain heritage being the mort- 
 gages on his father's property, and perhaps," he added with 
 a sneer — "and perhaps some of his mother's virtues, I say 
 I am not exactly convinced that he has improved his 
 chances of worldly success by such a production as that ! " 
 
 And with these words, every one of which he delivered 
 with a terrible distinctness, he handed a letter across the 
 table to Lord George, who slowly perused it in silence. 
 
 " As for you, sir," continued my father, turning towards 
 me, " I grieve to inform you that no vacancy at present 
 offers itself in the Guards, nor in the household, where 
 your natural advantages could be remarked and appre- 
 ciated. It will be, however, a satisfaction to you to know 
 that your high claims are already understood, and well 
 thought of in the proper quarter. There's Mr. Vickars's 
 letter." And he presented me with the note, which ran 
 thus : — 
 
 " Dear Mr. Dodd, — by the enclosed letter, bearing your 
 son's signature, I have discovered how totally below his 
 just expectations would be any of those official appoint- 
 ments which are within the limits of my humble patronago 
 to bestow.
 
 206 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 " I have, consequently, cancelled the minute of hia 
 nomination to a place in the Treasury, which was yesterday 
 conferred upon him, and having myself no influence in 
 either of those departments to which his wishes incline, I 
 have but to express the regret I feel at my inability to 
 serve him and the great respect with which I beg to 
 remain, 
 
 " Your very faithful servant, 
 
 " Haddington Vickaes. 
 
 " Board of Trade, London. 
 "To Mr. James K. Dodd, Bonn. 1 
 
 I am able to give you the precious document word for 
 word, for, if I went over it once, I did so twenty times. 
 
 " Perhaps you might like to refresh your memory by a 
 glance at the enclosure," said my father. "My Lord 
 George will kindly hand it to you." - 
 
 " It is a devilish good letter though, I must say," broke 
 in George ; who, to do him justice, Bob, never deserts a 
 friend in difficulties. u It's all very fine of this fellow to 
 talk of his inability to do this, that, and t'other. Sure, 
 we all know how they chop and barter their patronage 
 with one another. One says, you may have that thing 
 at Pernambuco, and then another says, ' Very well, there's 
 an ensigncy in the Fifty-ninth.' And that's only gammon 
 about the appointment made out yesterday ; he wants to 
 ride off on that. A sharp fellow your friend Yickars. 
 He'd look a bit surprised, however, if you were to say 
 that this letter of ' Jem's ' was a forgery, and that you 
 most gratefully accept the nomination he alludes to, and 
 which, of course, is not yet filled up." 
 
 "Eh, what! how do you mean?" cried my father, 
 eagerly, for he caught at the very shadow of a chance 
 with desperate avidity. 
 
 " I was only in jest," said Lord George, who merely 
 wanted, as he afterwards said, " to hustle the governor 
 through the deep ground " of his anger. " I was in jest 
 about them, for ' Jem's ' letter is so good, so exceedingly 
 well put, that it would be downright folly to disavow it. 
 You have no idea," continued he, gravely, " what excellent
 
 MRS. GORE HAMPTON INTERESTED. 207 
 
 policy it is always to ask for a high thing. They respect 
 you for it, even when they give you nothing ; and then, 
 when you do at last receive some appointment, it is so 
 certain to be beneath what you solicited, it establishes a 
 claim for your perpetual discontent. You go on eternally 
 boring about neglect, and so on. You accepted the humble 
 post of Envoy at Stuttgard, for instance, under an implied 
 pledge about Vienna or Constantinople. Besides these 
 advantages, it is also to be remembered that, every now 
 and then, they actually do take a fellow at his own valua- 
 tion, and give him what he asks for." 
 
 "Lord George is quite right," chimed in Mrs. Gore 
 Hampton ; " half of these things are purely accidental. I 
 remember so well my uncle writing to beg that the tutor 
 of his boys might get some small thing in the Church, just 
 at the moment when the bishop of the diocese had died, 
 and the minister, reading the letter carelessly — my uncle's 
 hand is very hard to decipher — mistook the object of the 
 request, and appointed him to the bishopric." 
 
 "In that case," remarked my father, dryly, "I think 
 Mrs. D. had better indite an epistle to the Home Office." 
 
 And, although this was said in a sneer, the laughter that 
 followed went far to restore us all to good-humour, par- 
 ticularly as Lord George took the opportunity of explain- 
 ing to Mrs. Gore Hampton what had occurred, bespeaking 
 her aid and influence in our behalf. 
 
 " It is so absurd," said she, " that one should have any 
 difficulty about these things, but such is the case. The 
 duchess will be certain to make excuses ; she cannot ask 
 for something, because she is 'in waiting,' or she is not in 
 waiting. Lord Harrowcliff is sure to tell me that he has 
 just been refused a request, and cannot subject himself to 
 another humiliation ; but I always reply, these are most 
 selfish arguments, and that I really must have what I 
 want ; that a refusal always attacks my nerves, and that I 
 will not be ill merely to indulge a caprice of theirs. 
 What is it Mr. James wants ? " 
 
 There was something so practical in this short question, 
 Bob, something so decisive, that had she been talking the 
 rankest absurdity but the moment before,*we should have 
 forgotten it all in an instant.
 
 208 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 " A mere nothing," replied Lord George. " You'll 
 smile when you hear what we're making such a fuss 
 about." As he said these words, he muttered in the 
 governor's ear, " It's all right now ; she detests asking a 
 
 favour, but, if she ivill stoop to it " an expressive 
 
 gesture implied that success was certain. 
 
 " Well, you haven't told me what it is," said she again. 
 
 Lord George passed round to the back of her chair, and 
 whispered a few words. She replied in the same low 
 tone, and then they both laughed. 
 
 " You don't mean to say," cried she, turning to my 
 father, "that you have experienced any difficulty about 
 this trifle ? " 
 
 The governor blundered out some bashful confession, 
 that he had encountered the most extraordinary obstacles 
 to his wishes. 
 
 "I really think," said she, sighing, "they do these 
 things just to provoke people. They wanted Augustus 
 t'other day to go out to the Cape, and I assure you it was 
 as much as Lady Mary could do to have the appointment 
 changed. They said his ' regiment ' was there. ' Taut 
 pis for his regiment ! ' replied she. ' It must be a most 
 disgusting station.' And that is, I must say, the worst of 
 the Horse Guards ; they are always so imperative — so 
 downright cruel. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Dodd ? " 
 
 11 They couldn't be worse than the regiment I've heard 
 my father speak of," replied my mother. " They were 
 called the ' North Britains,' and were the wickedest set of 
 wretches in the rebellion of '98." 
 
 This unhappy blunder set my father into a roar of 
 laughter, for latterly it is only on occasions like this that 
 he is moved to any show of merriment. Mrs. Gore 
 Hampton, of course, never noticed the mistake, but say- 
 ing, " Now for my letters," ordered her writing-desk to be 
 brought : a sign of promptitude that at once diverted all 
 our thoughts into another channel. 
 
 " Shall I write to the duke or to Lady Mary first ? " 
 said she, pondering ; and her eyes, accidentally falling 
 upon my mother, she thought herself the person addressed, 
 and replied, — 
 
 " Indeed, ma'am, if you ask me, I'd say the duke."
 
 " CAROLINE WALKED INTO THE LOBBY." 209 
 
 11 I'm for Lady Mary," interposed Lord George. 
 " There's nothing like a woman to ferret out news, and 
 find a way to profit by it. The duke will just say, 
 casually, ' I've got a letter somewhere — I hope I have not 
 mislaid it — about a vacancy in the " Colclstreams ; " if 
 you hear of anything, just drop me a hint. By the way — 
 is Fox in the Fusiliers still ? ' — or, - I hope they'll change 
 that shako, it's monstrous ! ' Now, my Lady Mary will 
 go another way to work. She'll remember the name of 
 everybody that can be possibly useful. She'll drive about, 
 and give little dinners, and talk, and natter, and cajole, and 
 intrigue, and growing distant here, and jealous there, she'll 
 bring into action a thousand forces that mere men-creatures 
 know nothing of." 
 
 " I'm for the duke still," said my mother; and Mary 
 Anne, by an inclination of her head, showed that she 
 seconded the motion. 
 
 It became now an actual debate, Bob, and you would be 
 amazed were I to tell you what strong expressions and 
 angry feelings were evoked by mere partisanship, on a 
 subject whereupon not one of us had the slighest know- 
 ledge whatsoever. My father and I were with Tiverton, 
 and as " Caroline walked into the lobby," as George 
 phrased it, we carried the question. Mrs. G., however, 
 declared that, beside the casting voice, she had a right to 
 a vote, and giving it to my mother's side, we were equal. 
 In this stage of the proceedings a compromise alone could 
 be resorted to, and so it was agreed that she should write 
 to both by the same post ; but the discussion had already 
 lost us a day, for the mail went out while my mother was 
 "left speaking." 
 
 I have probably been prolix, my dear friend, in all this 
 detail, but it will at least show you how the Dodd family 
 conduct questions of internal policy ; and teach you, 
 besides, that Cabinets and Councils of State have no 
 special prerogative for folly and absurdity, since even 
 small and obscure folk like ourselves can contest the palm 
 with them. 
 
 Neither could you well believe what small but bitter 
 animosities, what schisms, and what divisions grew out of 
 a matter so insignificant as this. The remainder of the 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 210 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 day was passed gloomily enough, for we each of us avoided 
 the other, with that misgiving that belongs to those who 
 have uneasy consciences. 
 
 They say that a good harvest often saves a bad admini- 
 stration ; certainly a fine day will frequently avert a 
 domestic broil. Had the morning which followed our 
 debate been a favourable one, the chances are we should 
 have been away to the Seven Mountains, or the village of 
 Konigs Winter, or some such place ; bad luck would have 
 it, that the rain came down in torrents from daybreak, 
 heavy clouds gathered over the Rhine, shutting out the 
 opposite bank from view, so that nothing remained to 
 us but home resources, which is but too often a brief 
 expression for row and recrimination. 
 
 Breakfast over, each of us, as if dreading a " call of the 
 House," affected some peculiarly pressing duty that he 
 had to perform. The governor retired to pore over his 
 accounts, and tried to make out that the debit against him 
 in his bank-book was a balance in his favour. My mother 
 retreated to her room to hold a grand inspection of her 
 wardrobe; a species of review that always discovers several 
 desertions, and a vast amount of " unserviceables." Leav- 
 ing her and Mary Anne in court-martial over Betty Cobb, 
 who, as usual, when brought up for sentence, claimed the 
 right to be sent home, I pass on to Lord George, whose 
 wet days are generally devoted to practising some new 
 " hazard off the cushion," or the investigation of that 
 philosopher's stone, a martingale at Rouge-et-Noir, and I 
 arrive at my own case, which invariably resolves itself 
 into a day of gun and pistol cleaning — an occupation 
 mysteriously linked with gloomy weather, as though one 
 ought to have everything in readiness to blow his brains 
 out, if the mercury continued to fall, 
 
 Mrs. Gr. had a headache, and Caroline was in pursuit of 
 one over the pages of the " Thirty Years' War." Such 
 was the tableau of the Dodd family on this agreeable day. 
 I don't give myself much up to reflection, Bob. I have 
 always thought that as life is a road to be travelled, one 
 step forward is worth any number in the opposite direc- 
 tion ; but I vow to you that, on this occasion, I did begin 
 to ponder a little over the past and the present, with a
 
 MRS. D. PLAYING EAVESDROPPER. 211 
 
 half-glance at the future. What the governor had said 
 the day before was no more than the truth — we were 
 living at a tremendous rate. If all belonging to us were 
 sold, the capital would scarcely afford six or seven years 
 of such expenditure. These were serious, if not stunning 
 reflections, and I heartily wished they had occupied any 
 other head than my own. 
 
 To you — who have always given your brains their own 
 share of work — thinking is no labour. It's like a gallop 
 to a horse in hard hunting condition, and only serves to 
 keep him in wind ; but to me, whose faculties are, so to 
 say, fresh from grass, the fatigue of thought is no trifling 
 infliction. Slow men, I take it, suffer more than your 
 clever fellows on these occasions, since their minds are 
 not suggestive of expedients, and they go on plodding 
 over the same ground, till they make a beaten course in 
 their poor brains, like an old race-ground. Something in 
 this fashion must have occurred to me ; for by dint of that 
 dreary morning's rumination, I half made up my mind to 
 emigrate somewhere, and if I didn't exactly know where, 
 the fault lies more in my geography than my spirit of 
 enterprise. 
 
 The only book I could lay my hands on likely to give 
 me any information was " Cook's Voyages ; " and this, I 
 remembered, was in the governor's room. I at once 
 descended the stairs, and had just reached the little con- 
 servatory outside of it, when I caught sight of a woman's 
 dress beneath the thick foliage of the orange-trees. I crept 
 noiselessly onward, and after a very devious series of 
 artful dodges, I detected Mrs. D. playing eavesdropper at 
 the governor's door. 
 
 I tried to persuade myself that I was mistaken. I did 
 my best to fancy that she was botanizing or " bouquet " 
 gathering ; but no, the stubborn fact would not be denied. 
 There she was, bent down, with ear and eye alternately at 
 the keyhole. Neither the act nor the situation were very 
 dignitied, and determining that she should not be detected 
 by any other in this predicament, I kicked down a flower- 
 pot, and, before I had well time to replace it, she was gone. 
 
 I'm quite prepared for the laugh you'll give, Bob, when 
 I own to you, that no sooner had I seen her vanish from 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 the horizon, than I deliberately took my place exactly 
 where she had been. Of course, my sense of honour and 
 delicacy suggested that I had no other object in view than to 
 ascertain what it was that had drawn her to the spot. Any 
 curiosity that possessed me was strictly confined to this. 
 
 I accordingly bent my ear to the keyhole, and had just 
 time to recognize Mrs. Gore Hampton's voice, when tire 
 noise of chairs being drawn back, and the scuffling sounds 
 of feet, showed that the interview had come to an end. 
 Scarcely a moment was left me to shelter myself among 
 the leaves, when the door opened, " discovering," as stage 
 directions would say, Mr. Dodd and Mrs. Gore Hampton 
 in conversation. 
 
 There was really a dramatic look in the situation, too. 
 The governor's flowered dressing-gown and velvet skull- 
 cap, decorated in front by his up-raised spectacles, like a 
 portcullis over his nose, contrasted so well with the 
 graceful morning robe of Mrs. G., all floating and gauzy, 
 and to which her every gesture imparted some new 
 character of vapoury lightness. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Dodd," said she, pressing his hand with 
 extreme cordiality, "you have been so very, very kind, 
 I really have no words to express what I feel towards 
 you. I have long felt that I owed you this explanation — 
 I have tried to summon courage for it for weeks past — ■ 
 then I sometimes doubted how you might receive it." 
 
 "Oh, madam ! " interrupted he, gracefully closing his dra- 
 pery with one hand, while he pressed the other on his heart. 
 
 " You kind creature !" cried she, enthusiastically. "I 
 can now wonder at myself that I should ever have 
 admitted a doubt on the question. But if you only knew 
 what sorrows I have seen — if you only knew with what 
 severe lessons mistrust and suspicion have become graven 
 on this heart, young as it is " 
 
 "Ah, madam!" murmured he, as though the last few 
 words had made the deepest impression upon him. 
 
 "Well, it's over now," cried she, in her more natural 
 tone of gaiety. " The weary load is off me, and I am 
 myself again- — thanks to you, dear, dear kind friend." 
 
 'Faith, Bob, from the enthusiasm of the utterance of 
 this last speech, I thought that a stage embrace ought to
 
 A MYSTERIOUS INTERVIEW. 213 
 
 have followed ; and I believe that the governor was of 
 my mind too, and only restrained by some real or fancied 
 necessity to keep his toga closed in front of him. Mrs. 
 G-., however, as though fearing that he might ultimately 
 forget the " unities," again pressed his hand with both 
 her own, and murmuring, " With you, then, my secret is 
 safe— to you all is confided," she hurried away, as if over- 
 come by her feelings. 
 
 I could not guess what might have reached my 
 mother's ears, but I thought to myself, if she only had 
 hoard even this much, and witnessed the fervour with 
 which it was uttered, the governor's life for the next few 
 weeks needs not be envied by any one out of a condemned 
 cell. Not that to me the scene admitted of any inter- 
 pretation which should warrant her suspicions ; but so 
 it is, she takes a jealous turn every now and then, and he 
 can't take a pinch of snuff without her peering over his 
 shoulder to see if he has not got a miniature in the lid of 
 the box. He used to try to reason her out of these 
 notions — his vindications even took the dangerous length 
 of certain abstract opinions about the sex in general, very 
 far from complimentary — but latterly he has sought 
 refuge in drink, which usually ends in an illness, so that 
 an attack of jealousy was the invariable premonitory 
 symptom of one of gout; and my mother's temper and 
 tincture of colchicum seemed inseparably connected by 
 some unseen link. 
 
 From these thoughts I followed on to others about the 
 scene itself, and what possible circumstance could have 
 led Mrs. G. H. to visit the governor in his own room, and 
 what was the prodigious mystery she had just confided 
 to his keeping. Probability, I fear, takes up little space 
 in any speculation about a woman. I am sure that if I 
 were to recount to you one-half of the absurd and extra- 
 vagant fancies that occurred to me on this occasion, you 
 would infallibly set me down as mad. I'll not tax your 
 patience with the recital, but frankly confess to you that 
 I have not a clue, even the slightest, to the mystery ; nor 
 from the manner in which I have learned its existence, 
 can I venture to ask Lord George to aid me. 
 
 The incident had one effect — it totally banished emigra-
 
 214 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 tion, clearings, and log huts from my mind, and set my 
 thoughts a rambling upon all the strange people and extra- 
 ordinary events that travelling abroad introduces one to ; 
 and with this reflection I strolled back to my room, and 
 sat brooding over the fire till it was time to dress for 
 dinner. Although you may not have the vaguest notion 
 of what is passing in the minds of certain people, the very 
 fact that they are fully occupied with certain strong feelings 
 is a reason for observing them with an extraordinary 
 interest ; and so was it that our party at table that day 
 was full of meaning to me. There was a kind of languid 
 repose about Mrs. Gore Hampton's manner which seemed 
 especially assumed towards the governor, and a certain 
 fidgety consciousness in his, sufficiently noticeable ; while 
 my mother, dressed in one of her war turbans, looked 
 unutterably fierce things on every side. It was easy 
 enough to see that all this additional weight upon the 
 safety-valves of her temper threatened a terrible explo- 
 sion at last, and it required all the tact I could muster 
 to my aid to defer the catastrophe. Lord George gave 
 me, too, his willing aid, and by the help of an old Pro- 
 fessor of Oriental Languages, we made up her rubber of 
 whist in the evening. 
 
 Alas, Bob ! even four by honours couldn't console her 
 for the " odd trick " she suspected the governor was play- 
 ing her; and she broke up the card-table, and retired 
 with that swelling dignity of manner that is the accom- 
 paniment of injured feelings. 
 
 It had been our plan to proceed from this place direct 
 to Baden-Baden, which, from everything I can learn, 
 must be a perfect Paradise ; but now, to my great 
 surprise, I discovered that for some secret reason we 
 should first go to Ems, and remain there a week or two 
 before proceeding further. This arrangement was Mrs. 
 G.'s, and Lord George seemed to give it his hearty con- 
 currence ; alleging, but for the first time, that it was 
 absurd to think of Baden before the middle of July. I 
 could easily perceive that this change of purpose con- 
 tained some mysterious motive, but, as Tiverton persisted 
 in averring that it was " all on the square," and " no 
 double," I had to accept it as such.
 
 A DIVIDED CABINET. 215 
 
 Such is, therefore, our position as I write these lines ; 
 and although to-morrow might develop the first move- 
 ment of the campaign, I cannot keep my letter open to 
 communicate it. You will see that we are as divided as 
 a Ministerial Cabinet. Some, of us, doubtless, have their 
 honest convictions, and others are, perhaps, plastic enough 
 to receive impressions from without, but how we are to 
 work together, and how, as the great authority said, the 
 " Government is to be carried on," is more than yet 
 appears to 
 
 Your ever attached friend, 
 
 , James Dodd. 
 
 I open my letter to say that Lord G. has just dropped 
 in to tell me what is the plan of procedure. The Grand 
 Duchess of Hohenschwillinghen is to arrive at Ems this 
 week, and Mrs. G. H. is anxious to wait upon her at once. 
 They were dear friends once, but something or other inter- 
 posed a coolness between them of late years. Lord G. 
 endeavoured to explain this, but I couldn't follow the 
 story. It was something about one of our royal family 
 wanting to marry, or not to marry, somebody else, and 
 that Mrs. G. H., or the duchess, had promoted or opposed 
 the match. Suffice, it was a regular kingly shindy, and 
 all engaged in it were of the blood royal. 
 
 The really important thing at the moment is, that the 
 governor is to conduct Mrs. G. H. to-morrow to Ems, and 
 we are to follow in a day or two. How my mother will 
 receive this information, or who is to communicate it to 
 her, are questions not so easily solved. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 MRS. TODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER. 
 
 My dear Molly, — If it wasn't that I am supported in 
 a wonderful way, and that my appetite keeps good for the 
 bit I eat, I wouldn't be able to sit down here and rel
 
 urn- 
 
 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 .the sufferings of my afflicted heart. There has been 
 nothing but trials and tribulations over me since I wrote 
 last, and I knew it was coming, too, for that dirty beast, 
 Paddy Byrne, upset the lamp, and spilled all the oil over 
 the sofa the other evening; and whilst the others were 
 scouring and scrubbing with spirit of soap and neumonia, 
 I sat down to cry heartily, for I foresaw what was coming ; 
 and I knew well that spilt oil is the unluckiest thing that 
 ever happens in a family. 
 
 Maybe I wasn't right. The very next morning Betty 
 Cobb goes and cuts my antic lace flounce down the middle, 
 to make borders for caps ; and that wasn't enough, but 
 she puts the front breadth of my new flowered satin 
 upside down, so that, "to make the roses go right," as 
 James says, " I ought to walk on my head." That's spilt 
 oil for you ! 
 
 Whilst I was endeavouring to bear up against these, 
 with all Christian animosity, in comes the post-bag. The 
 very sight of it, Molly, gave me a turn ; and, I declare to 
 you, I knew as well there was bad news in it as if I was 
 inside of it. You've often heard of a "presentment," 
 Molly, and that's what I had ; and. when you have that, 
 it's no matter what it's about, whether it's a road that's 
 broke up, or a bridge that's broke down, take my advice 
 and never listen to what they call " reason," for it's just 
 flying in the face of Providence. I had one before Mary 
 Anne was born. I thought the poor baby would have the 
 mark of a snail on her neck ; and true enough, the very 
 same week K. I. was shot through the skirts of his coat ; 
 and came home with five slugs in him ; and, when you 
 think, as Father Maher said, " Slugs and snails are own 
 brothers," or, at least, have a strong anomaly between 
 them, my dream came true ; not but I acknowledge grate- 
 fully that, in this case, the fright was worse than the 
 reality. 
 
 Well, to come back to the bag ; I looked at it, and said 
 to myself, as I often said to K. I., " Smooth and slippery 
 as you seem without, there's bad inside of you ; " and 
 you'll see yourself if I wasn't right both ways. 
 
 The first letter they took out was for myself, and in 
 Waters's handwriting. It began with all the balderdash
 
 THE LEGACY DWINDLES. 217 
 
 and hard names the lawyers have for everything, trying 
 to confuse and confound, just as, Father Maher says, the 
 " scuttle fish " muddies the water before he runs away ; 
 but, towards the end, my dear, he grew plainer and more 
 conspicuous, for he said, " You will perceive, by the sub- 
 joined account, that after the payment of law charges, and 
 other contingent expenses, the sum at your disposal will 
 amount to twelve hundred and thirty-four pounds six and 
 ninepence-halfpenny." I thought I'd drop, Molly, as I 
 read it ; I shook and I trembled, and I believe, indeed, 
 ended with a strong fit of screeching, for my nerves was 
 weak before, and really this shock was too much for any 
 constitution. Twelve hundred and thirty-six ! when I 
 expected, at the very least, fifteen or sixteen thousand 
 pounds ! It was only that very blessed morning that I 
 was planning to myself about a separation from K. I. I 
 calculated that I'd have about six hundred a year of my 
 own ; and, out of decency sake, he couldn't refuse me 
 three or four more, and with this, and my present know- 
 ledge of the Continent, I thought I'd do remarkably well. 
 For I must observe to you, Molly, that there's no manner 
 of disgrace, or even unpleasantness, in being separated 
 abroad. It is not like in Ireland, where everybody thinks 
 the worse of you both ; and, what between your own 
 friends and your husband's friends, there isn't an event of 
 your private life that's not laid bare before the world, so 
 that, at last, the defence of you turns out to be just as 
 dreadful as the abuse. No, Molly, here it's all different. 
 Next to being divorced, the most fashionable thing is a 
 separation, and for one woman, in really high life, that 
 lives with her husband, you'll find three that does not. I 
 suppose, like everything else in this sinful world, there's 
 good and there's bad in this custom. When I first came 
 abroad, I own, I disliked to see it. I fancied that, no 
 matter how it came about, the women was always wrong. 
 But that was merely an Irish prejudice, and, like many 
 others, I have lived to get rid of it. There's nothing con- 
 vinces you of this so soon as knowing intimately the ladies 
 that are in this situation. 
 
 Of all the amiable creatures I ever met, I know nothing 
 to compare with them. It is not merely of manners and
 
 218 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 good breeding that I speak, but the gentle, mild quietness 
 of their temper — a kind of submissive softness that, I own 
 to you, one can't have with their husbands, and maybe 
 that's the reason they've left them. I merely mention 
 this to show you, that if I had a reasonably good income, 
 and was separated from K. L, there's no society abroad 
 that I mightn't be in ; and, in fact, my dear Molly, I may 
 sum all up by saying, that living with your husband may 
 give you some comfort, when you're at home, but it cer- 
 tainly excludes you from all sympathy abroad ; and for 
 one friend that you have in the former case, you'll have, 
 at the least, ten in the latter. 
 
 This will explain to you why and how my thoughts ran 
 upon separation, for if I had stayed in Ireland, I'm sure 
 I'd never have thought of it ; for I own to you, with shame 
 and sorrow, Molly, that we know no more about civiliza- 
 tion in our poor Ireland, " than," as Lord Greorge says, 
 "a prairie bull does about oil-cake." 
 
 You may judge then of what my feelings was when I 
 read Waters's letter, and saw all my elegant hopes melting 
 like jelly on a hot plate. Twelve hundred pounds ! TV r as 
 it out of mockery he left it to me ? Faith, Molly, I cried 
 more that night than ever I thought to do for old Jones 
 McCarthy ! Myself and Mary Anne was as red in the 
 eyes as two ferrets. 
 
 The first, and of course the great shock, was the loss 
 of the money, and after that came the thought of the way 
 K. I. would behave when he discovered my disappoint- 
 ment. For I must tell you that the bare idea of my being 
 independent drove him almost crazy. He seemed, some- 
 how, to have a kind of lurking suspicion that I'd want to 
 separate, and now, "when he'd come to discover the trifle 
 I was left, there would be no enduring his gibes and his 
 jeers. I had it all before me how he'd go on, tormenting 
 and harassing me from daylight to dark. This was dread- 
 ful, Molly, and overcame me completely. I knew him 
 well ; and that he wouldn't be satisfied with laughing at 
 my legacy, but he'd go on to abuse the M'Carthy family 
 and all my relations. There's nothing a low man detests 
 like the real old nobility of a country. 
 
 Mary Anne and I talked it all over the whole night, and
 
 AN ARTFUL WOMAN. 219 
 
 turned it every way we could think. If we kept the whole 
 secret, it would save "going into black" for ourselves 
 and the servants, and that was a great object ; but then 
 we couldn't take the name of McCarthy after that of Dodd, 
 quartering the arms on our shield, and so on, without 
 announcing the death of poor Jones M'Carthy. There 
 was the hitch ; for Mary Anne persisted in thinking that 
 the best thing about it all was the elegant opportunity it 
 offered of getting rid of the name of Dodd, or, at the 
 least, hiding it under the shadow of M'Carthy. 
 
 Ah, my dear Molly, you know the proverb, " Man pro- 
 poses, but fate opposes." While we were discoursing 
 over these things, little I guessed the mine that was going 
 to explode under my feet. I mentioned to you in my last, 
 I think, a lady with whom we agreed to travel in company 
 — a Mrs. Gore Hampton, a very handsome, showy woman 
 — though I own to you, Molly, not what I call " one of 
 my beauties." 
 
 She is tall and dark haired, and has that kind of soft, 
 tender way with men, that I remark does more mischief 
 than any other. We all liked her greatly at first — I sup- 
 pose she determined we should, and spared no pains to 
 suit herself to our various dispositions. I'm sure I tried 
 to be as accommodating as she was, and I took to arts and 
 sciences that I couldn't find any pleasure in ; but I went 
 with the stream, as the saying is, and you'll see where it 
 left me ! I vow to you I had my misgivings that a hand- 
 some, fine-looking young woman was only thinking of 
 dried frogs and ferns. They weren't natural tastes, and 
 so I kept a sharp eye on her. At one time I suspected 
 she was tender on Lord George, and then I thought it was 
 James ; but at last, Molly darling, the truth flashed across 
 me, like a streak of lightning, making me stone blind in a 
 minute ! What was it I perceived, do you think, but that 
 the real " Lutherian " was no other than K. I. himself. 
 I feel that I'm blushing as I write it. The father of three 
 children, grown up, and fifty-eight in November, if he's 
 not more, but he won't own to it. 
 
 There's things, Molly, ° too dreadful," as Father Maher 
 remarks, " for human credulity," and when one of them 
 comes across you in life, the only thing is to take up the
 
 220 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAT. 
 
 Litany to St. Joseph, and go over it once or twice, then 
 read a chapter or two of Dr. Croft's " Modern Miracles of 
 the Church," and by that time you're in a frame to believe 
 anything. Well, as I hadn't the book by me, I thought 
 I'd take a solitary ramble by myself, to reflect and consider, 
 and down I went to a kind of green-house that is full of 
 orange and lemon-trees, and where I was sure to be alone. 
 
 K. I. has what he calls his dressing-room — it's little 
 trouble dressing gives him — at the end of this, but I 
 wasn't attending to that, but sitting with a heavy heart 
 under a dwarf fig-tree, like Nebuchadnezzar, and only 
 full of my own misfortunes, when I heard through the 
 trees the rustling sound of a woman's dress. I bent down 
 my head to see, and there was Mrs. Gr. in a white muslin 
 dressing-gown, but elegantly trimmed with Malines lace, 
 two falls round the cape, and the same on the arm, just 
 as becoming a thing as any she could put on. 
 
 " What's this for," said I to myself ; for you may guess 
 I knew she didn't dress that way to pluck lemons and 
 green limes ; and so I sat watching her in silence. She 
 stood, evidently listening, for a minute or two ; she then 
 gathered two or three flowers, and stuck them in her 
 waist, and, after that, she hummed a few bars of a tune, 
 quite low, and as if to herself. That was, I suppose, a 
 signal, for K. I.'s door opened ; and there he stood him- 
 self, and a nice-looking article he was, with his ragged 
 robe de chambre, a:id his greasy skull-cap, bowing and 
 scraping like an old monkey. " I little knew that such 
 a flower was blooming in the conservatory," said he, with 
 a smirk I suppose he thought quite captivating. 
 
 " You do not pretend that you selected your apartment 
 here but in the hope of watching the unfolding buds," 
 replied she ; and then, with something in a lower voice, 
 to which he answered in the same, she passed on into his 
 room, and he closed the door after her. 
 
 I suppose I must have fainted, Molly, after that. I 
 remembered nothing except seeing lemon and orange- 
 trees all sliding and flitting about, and felt myself as if I 
 was shooting down the Rhine on a raft. Maybe it's for 
 worse that I'm reserved. Maybe it would have been well 
 for me if I was carried away out of this world of woe,
 
 MRS. D. SUBDUES HER INDIGENT FEELINGS. 221 
 
 wickedness, and artful widows. When I came to myself, 
 I suddenly recalled everything ; and it was as much as I 
 could do not to scream out and bring all the house to the 
 spot and expose them both. But I subdued my indigent 
 feelings, and, creeping over to the door, I peeped at them 
 through the keyhole. 
 
 K. I. was seated in his big chair, she in another close 
 beside him. He was reading a letter, and she watching 
 him, as if her life depended on him. 
 
 "Now read this," said she, thrusting another paper 
 into his hand, "for you'll see it is even worse." 
 
 " My heart bleeds for you, my dear Mrs. Grore," said 
 he, taking off his spectacles and wiping his eyes, and red 
 enough they were afterwards, for there was snuff on his 
 hankerchief — " my heart bleeds for you ! " 
 
 These were his words, and why I didn't break open the 
 door when I heard them, is more than I can tell. 
 
 " I was certain of your sympathy ; I knew you'd feel 
 for me, my dear Mr. Dodd," said she, sobbing. 
 
 " Of course you were," said I to myself. " He was the 
 kind of old fool you wanted. But, faith, he shall feel for 
 one, too, or my name is not Jemima." 
 
 " I don't suppose you ever heard of so cruel a case ? " 
 said she, still sobbing. 
 
 " Never — never/' cried he, clasping his hands. " I 
 didn't believe it was in the nature of man to treat youth, 
 beauty, and loveliness with such inhumanity. One that 
 could do it must be a Creole Indian." 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Dodd ! " said she, looking up into his eyes. 
 
 " In Tartary, or the Tropics," said he, " such wretches 
 may be found, but in our own country, and our own 
 age " 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Dodd," said she again, "it is only in an 
 Irish heart such generous emotions have their home! " 
 
 The artful hussey, she knew the tenderest spot of his 
 nature by an instinct ! for if there was anything he 
 couldn't resist, it was the appeal to his being Irish. And 
 to show you, Molly, the designing craft of her, she knew 
 that weakness of K. I. in less than a month's acquaint- 
 ance, that I didn't find out till I was eight or nine years 
 married to him.
 
 222 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 For a minute or two my feelings overcame me so much, 
 that I couldn't look or listen to them ; but when I did, 
 she had her hand on his arm, and was saying, in the 
 softest voice, — 
 
 " I may, then, count upon your kindness — I may rest 
 assured of your friendship." 
 
 " That you may — that you may, my dear madam," 
 said he. 
 
 Yes, Molly, he called her madam to her own face. 
 
 " If there should be any cruel enough, ungenerous 
 enough, or base enough," sobbed she, •' to calumniate me, 
 you will be my protector ; and beneath your roof shall I 
 find my refuge. Your character — your station in society 
 — the honourable position you have ever held in the world 
 — your claims as a father — your age — will all give the 
 best contradiction to any scandal that malevolence can 
 invent. Those dear venerable locks " 
 
 Just as she said this, I heard somebody coming, and in 
 haste, too, for a flower-pot was thrown down, and I had 
 barely time to make my escape to my own room, where 
 I threw myself on my bed, and cried for two hours. 
 
 I have gone through many trials, Molly. Few women, 
 I believe, have seen more affliction and sorrow than my- 
 self; from the day of my ill-suited marriage with K. I. 
 to the present moment, I may say, it has been out of 
 one misery into another with me ever since. But 
 I don't think I ever cried as hearty as I did then, for, 
 you see, there was no delusion or confusion possible ! 
 I heard everything with my own ears, and saw everything 
 with my own eyes. 
 
 I listened to their plans and projects, and even heard 
 them rejoicing that, because he was stricken in years, and 
 the father of a grown family, nobody would suspect what 
 he was at. " Those dear venerable locks," as she called 
 them, were to witness for him ! 
 
 Oh, Molly, wasn't this too bad ; could you believe that 
 there was as much duplicity in the world as this ? I 
 own, I never did. I thought I saw wickedness enough in 
 Ireland. I know the shameless way I was cheated in 
 wool, and that Mat never was honest about rabbit-skins. 
 But what was all that compared to this ?
 
 MARY anne's reasoning. 223 
 
 When I grew more composed, I sent for Mary Anne, 
 and told her everything; but just to show you the perver- 
 sity of human nature, she wouldn't agree to one word I 
 said. It was law papers, she was sure, that Mrs. G. was 
 showing ; she had something in Chancery, maybe, or 
 perhaps it was a legacy " tied up," like our own, " and 
 that she wanted advice about it." But what nonsense 
 that was ! Sure, he needn't be the father of a family to 
 advise her about all that. And there I was, Molly, with- 
 out human creature to support or sustain me ! For the 
 first time since I came abroad, I wished myself back in 
 Dodsborough. Not, indeed, that K. I. would ever have 
 behaved this way at home in Ireland, with the eyes of 
 the neighbourhood on him, and Father Maher within 
 call. 
 
 I passed a weary night of it, for Mary Anne never left 
 me, arguing and reasoning with me, and trying to con- 
 vince me that I was wrong, and if I was to act upon my 
 delusions, that I'd be the ruin of them all. " Here we 
 are now," said she, "with the finest opportunity for 
 getting into society ever was known. Mrs. G. is one of 
 the aristocracy, and intimate with everybody of fashion : 
 quarrel with her, or even displease her, and where will 
 we be, or who will know us ? Our difficulties are already 
 great enough. Papa's drab gaiters, and the name of 
 Dodd, are obstacles in our way, that only great tact and 
 first-rate management can get over. When we are 
 swimming for our lives," said she, " let us not throw 
 away a life-preserver." Wasn't it a nice name for a 
 woman that was going to shipwreck a whole family. 
 
 The end of it all was, however, that I was to restrain 
 my feelings, and be satisfied to observe and watch what 
 was going on, for as they could have no conception of my 
 knowing anything, I might be sure to detect them. 
 
 When I agreed to this plan, I grew easier in my mind, 
 for, as I remarked to Mary Anne, " I'm like soda-water, 
 and when you once draw the cork, I never fret nor troth 
 any more." So that after a cold chicken, cut up with 
 salad, a thing Mary Anne makes to perfection, and a 
 glass of white wine negus, I slept very soundly till late 
 in the afternoon.
 
 224 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Mary Anne camo twice into my room to see if I was 
 awake, but I was lying in a dreamy kind of half-sleep, 
 and took no notice of her, till she said that Mrs. Gore 
 Hampton was so anxious to speak to me about something 
 confidentially. " I think," said Mary Anne, " she wants 
 your advice and counsel for some matter of difficulty, 
 because she seems greatly agitated, and very impatient 
 to be admitted." 1 thought at first to say I was indis- 
 posed, and couldn't see any one ; but Mary Anne 
 persuaded me it was best to let her in ; so I dressed 
 myself in my brown satin with three flounces, and my 
 jet ornaments, out of respect to poor Jones that w r as gone, 
 and waited for her as composed as could be. 
 
 Mary Anne has often remarked, that there's a sort of 
 quiet dignity in my manner when I'm offended, that 
 becomes me greatly. I suppose I'm more engaging when 
 I am pleased. But the grander style, Mary Anne thinks, 
 becomes me even better. Upon this occasion I conclude 
 that I was looking my very best, for I saw that Mrs. Gr. 
 made an involuntary stop as she entered, and then, as if 
 suddenly correcting herself, rushed over to embrace me. 
 
 "Forgive my rudeness, my dear Mrs. Dodd, and 
 although nothing can be in worse taste than to offer any 
 remark upon a friend's dress, I must positively do it. 
 Your cap is charming — actually charming." 
 
 It was a bit of net, Molly, with a rosette of pink and 
 blue ribbon on the sides, and only cost eight francs, so 
 that I showed her that the flattery didn't succeed. " It's 
 very simple, ma'am," said I, "and therefore more suitable 
 to my time of life." 
 
 " Your time of life," said she, laughing, so that for 
 several minutes she couldn't continue. " Say our time 
 of life, if you like, and I hope and trust it's exactly the 
 time in which one most enjoys the world, and is really 
 most fitted to adorn it." 
 
 I can't follow her, Molly ; I don't know what she said, 
 or didn't say, about princesses, and duchesses, and other 
 great folk, that made no " sensation" whatever in society 
 till they were, as she said, " like us." She is an artful 
 creature, and has a most plausible way with her; but this 
 I must say, that many of her remarks were strictly and
 
 A HUNT FOR A LETTER. 225 
 
 undeniably true; particularly when she spoke about the 
 dignified repose and calm suavity of womanhood. There 
 I was with her completely, for nothing shocks me more 
 than that giggling levity one sees in young girls, and 
 even in some young married women. 
 
 We talked a great deal on this subject, and I agreed 
 with her so entirely, that I was in danger every moment 
 of forgetting the cold reserve that I ought to feel towards 
 her ; but every now and then it came over me like a 
 shudder, and I bridled up, and called her " ma'am " in a 
 way that quite chilled her. 
 
 "Here, it's four o'clock," said she, at last, looking at 
 her watch, "and I haven't yet said one word about what 
 I came for. Of course you know what I mean ? " 
 
 11 1 have not that honour, ma'am," said I, with 
 dignity. 
 
 "Indeed! Then Mr. Dodd has not apprised you — he 
 has mentioned nothing " 
 
 "No, ma'am, Mr. Dodd has mentioned nothing;" and 
 this I said with a significance, Molly, that even stone 
 would have shrunk under. 
 
 "Men are too absurd," said she, laughing; "they 
 recollect nothing." 
 
 " They do forget themselves at times, ma'am," said I, 
 with a look that must have shot through her. 
 
 She was so confused, Molly, that she had to pretend 
 to be looking for something in her bag, and held down 
 her head for several seconds. 
 
 " Where can I have laid that letter? " said she. " I am 
 so very careless about letters ; fortunately for me I have 
 no secrets, is it not ? " 
 
 This was too barefaced, Molly, so I only said " Humph ! " 
 
 " I must have left it on my table," said she, still search- 
 ing, " or perhaps dropped it as I came along." 
 
 " Maybe in the conservatory, ma'am," said I, with a 
 piercing glance. 
 
 " I never go there," said she, calmly. " One is sure to 
 catch cold in it, with all the draughts." 
 
 The audacity of this speech gave me a sick feeling all 
 over, and I thought I'd have fainted. " The effrontery 
 that could carry her through that," thought I, " will sus- 
 
 YOL. I. Q
 
 $&6 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 tain her in any wickedness ; " and I sat there powerless 
 before her from that minute. 
 
 " The letter," said she, " was from old Madame de 
 Hougemont, who is in waiting on the duchess, and men- 
 tions that they will reach Ems by the 24th at latest. It's 
 full of gossip. You know the old Eougemont, what 
 wonderful tact she has, and how well she tells every- 
 thing." 
 
 She rattled along here at such a rate, Molly, that even 
 if I knew every topic of her discourse, I could not have 
 kept up with her. There was the Emperor of Russia, and 
 the Queen of Greece, and Prince this of Bavaria, and 
 Prince that of the Asturias, all moving about in little 
 family incidents ; and what between the things they were 
 displeased at, and others that gratified them — how this 
 one was disgraced, and that got the cross of St. Some- 
 thing, and why such a one went here to meet somebody 
 who couldn't go there — my head was so completely addled, 
 that I was thankful to Providence when she concluded 
 the harangue by something that I could comprehend. 
 " Under these circumstances, my dear Mrs. Dodd," said 
 she, " you will, I am sure, agree with me, there is no time 
 to be lost." 
 
 " I think not, ma'am," said I, but without an inkling of 
 what I was saying. 
 
 " I knew you would say so," said she, clasping my hand. 
 "You have an unerring tact upon every question, which 
 reminds me so strongly of Lady Paddington. She and 
 the Great Duke, you know, were said to be never in the 
 wrong. It is therefore an unspeakable relief to me that 
 you see this matter as I do. It will be, besides, such a 
 pleasure to the poor dear duchess to have us with her ; 
 for I vow to you, Mrs. Dodd, I love her for her own sake. 
 Many people make a show of attachment to her from 
 selfish motives — they know how gratified our royal family 
 feel for such attentions — but I really love her for herself; 
 and so will you, dearest Mrs. Dodd. Worldly folk would 
 speculate upon the advantages to be derived from her vast 
 influence — the posts of honour to be conferred on sons 
 and daughters ; but I know how little these things weigh 
 with you. Not, I must add, but that I give you less credit
 
 A ROYAL DUCHESS. 227 
 
 for this independence of feeling than I should accord to 
 others!. You and yours are happily placed above all the 
 accidents of fortune in this world ; and if it ever should 
 occur to you to seek for anything in the power of patron- 
 age to bestow, who is there would not hasten to confer it ? 
 But to return to the dear duchess. She says the 24th at 
 latest, and to-day we are at the 22nd, so you see there is 
 not any time to lose." 
 
 " Not a great deal indeed, ma'am," said I, for I suddenly 
 remembered all about her with K. I., as she laid her hand 
 on my arm exactly as I saw her do upon his. 
 
 " With a sympathetic soul," cried she, " how little need 
 is there of explanation ! You already see what I am point- 
 ing at. You have read in my heart my devotion and at- 
 tachment to that sweet princess, and you see how I am 
 bound by every tie of gratitude and affection to hasten to 
 meet her." 
 
 You may be sure, Molly, that I gave my heartiest con- 
 currence to the arrangement. The very thought of get- 
 ting rid of her was the best tidings I could hear ; since, 
 besides putting an end to all her plots and devices for the 
 future, it would give me the opportunity of settling ac- 
 counts with K. I., which it would be impossible to do till 
 I had him here alone. It was, then, with real sincerity 
 that my " sympathetic soul " fully assented to all she 
 said. 
 
 " I knew you would forgive me. I knew that you 
 would not be angry with me for this sudden flight," said 
 she. 
 
 " Not in the least, ma'am," said I, stiffly. 
 
 " This is true kindness — this is real friendship," said 
 she, pressing my hand. 
 
 " I hope it is, ma'am," said I, dryly ; for, indeed, Molly, 
 it was hard work for me to keep my temper under. 
 
 She never, however, gave me much time for anything, 
 for off she went once more about her own plans ; telling 
 me how little luggage she would take ; how soon we 
 should meet again ; how delighted the duchess would 
 be with, me and Mary Anne ; and twenty things more of 
 the same sort. 
 
 At last Ave separated, but pot till we had embraced each 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 other three times over ; and, to tell you the truth, I had it 
 in my heart to strangle her while she was doing it. 
 
 The agitation I went through, and my passion boiling in 
 me, and no vent for it, made me so ill, that I was taking 
 Hoffman and camphor the whole evening after ; and I 
 couldn't, of course, go down to dinner, but had a light veal 
 cutlet with a little sweet sauce, and a roast pigeon with 
 mushrooms, in my own room. 
 
 K. I. wanted to come in and speak to me, but I refused 
 admission, and sent him word that " I hoped I'd be equal 
 to the task of an interview in the course of a day or so ;" 
 a message that must have made him tremble for what was 
 in store for him. I did this on purpose, Molly, for I often 
 remarked that there's nothing subdues K. I. so much as 
 to keep something hanging over him. As he said once 
 himself, " Life isn't worth having, if a man can be called 
 up at any minute for sentence." And that shows you, 
 Molly, what I oftentimes mentioned to you, that if you 
 want, or expect, true happiness in the married state, there's 
 only one road to it, and that is by studying the temper 
 and the character of your husband, learning what is his 
 weakness and which are his defects. When you know 
 these well, my dear, the rest is easy ; and it's your own fault 
 if you don't mould him to your liking. 
 
 Whether it was the mushrooms, or a little very weak 
 shrub punch that Mary Anne made, disagreed with me, 
 I can't tell, but I had a nightmare every time I went to 
 sleep, and always woke up with a screech. That's the 
 way I spent the blessed night, and it was only as day 
 began to break that I felt a regular drowsiness over me 
 and went off into a good comfortable doze. Just then 
 there came a rattling of horses' hoofs, and a cracking of 
 whips under the window, and Mary Anne came up to say 
 something, but I wouldn't listen, but covered my head up 
 in the bedclothes till she went away. 
 
 It was twenty minutes to four when I awoke, and a 
 gloomy day, with a thick, soft rain falling, that I knew 
 well would bring on one of my bad headaches, and I was 
 just preparing myself for suffering, when Mary Anne came 
 to the bedside. 
 
 " Is she gone, Mary Anne ? " said I.
 
 GONE WITH MRS. GORE HAMPTON. 229 
 
 "Yes," said she ; "they went off before six o'clock." 
 
 "Thanks be to Providence," said I. "I hope I'll 
 never see one of them again." 
 
 "Oh, mamma," said she, "don't sny that!" 
 
 "And why wouldn't I say it, Mary Anne?" said I. 
 " Would you have me nurse a serpent — harbour a boa- 
 constrictor in my bosom ? " 
 
 " But, then, papa," said she, sobbing. 
 
 " Let him come up," said I. " Let him see the wreck 
 lie has made of me. Let him come and feast his eyes 
 over the rain his own cruelty has worked." 
 
 " Sure he's gone," said she. 
 
 "Gone! Who's gone?" 
 
 "Papa. He's gone with Mrs. Gore Hampton !" 
 
 With that, Molly, I gave a scream that was heard all 
 over the house. And so it was for two hours — screech 
 after screech — tearing my hair and destroying everything 
 within reach of me. To think of the old wretch — for I 
 know his age right well ; Sam Davis was at school with 
 him forty-eight years ago, at Doctor Bell's, and that 
 shows he's no chicken — behaving this way. I knew the 
 depravity of the man well enough. I didn't pass twenty 
 years with him without learning the natural wickedness 
 of his disposition, but I never thought he'd go the length 
 of this. Oh, Molly ! the shock nearly killed me ; and 
 coming as it did after the dreadful disappointment about 
 Jones M'Carthy's affairs, I don't know at all how I bore 
 up against it. I must tell you that James and Mary 
 Anno didn't see it with my eyes. They thought, or they 
 pretended to think, that he was only going as far as 
 Ems, to accompany her, as they call it, on a visit to the 
 princess — just as if there was a princess at all, and that 
 the whole story wasn't lies from beginning to end. 
 
 Lord George, too, took their side, and wanted to get 
 angry at my unjust suspicions about Mrs. G., but I just 
 said, what would the world think of me if I went away 
 in a chaise and four with him, by way of paying a visit 
 to somebody that never existed ? He tried to laugh it 
 off, Molly, and made little of it, but I wouldn't let him, 
 in particular before Mary Anne — for whatever sins they 
 may lay to my charge, I believe that they can't pretend
 
 230 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 that I didn't bring up the girls with sound principles of 
 virtue and morality — and just to convince him of that, I 
 turned to and exposed K. I. to James and the two girls 
 till they were well ashamed of him. 
 
 It's a heartless bad world we live in, Molly! and I 
 never knew its badness, I may say, till now. You'll 
 sccare believe me, when I tell you that it wasn't from my 
 own flesh and blood that I met comfort or sympathy, but 
 from that good-for-nothing creature, Betty Cobb. Mary 
 Anne and Caroline persisted in saying that K. I.'s 
 journey was all innocence and purity — that he was only 
 gone in a fatherly sort of a way with her; but Betty 
 knew the reverse, and I must own that she seemed to 
 know more about him than I ever suspected. 
 
 " Ah, the ould rogue ! — the ould villain !" she'd mutter 
 to herself, in a fashion that showed me the character he 
 had in the servants' hall. If I had only a little command 
 of my temper, I might have found out many a thing of 
 him, Molly, and of his doings at Dodsborough, but how 
 could I at a moment like that ? 
 
 And that's how I was, Molly, with nothing but enemies 
 about me, in the bosom of my own family ! One saying, 
 " Don't expose us to the world — don't bring people's eyes 
 on us;" and the other calling out, "We'll be ruined 
 entirely if it gets into the papers !" so that, in fact, they 
 wanted to deny me the little bit of sympathy I might 
 have attracted towards my destitute and forlorn con- 
 dition. 
 
 Had I been at home, in Dodsborough, I'd have made 
 the country ring with his disgrace ; but they wouldn't 
 let me utter a word here, and I was obliged to sit down, 
 as the poet says, " like a worm in the bud," and consume 
 my grief in solitude. 
 
 He went away, too, without leaving a shilling behind 
 him, and the bill of the hotel not even paid ! Nothing 
 sustained me, Molly, but the notion of my one day meet- 
 ing him, and settling these old scores. I even worked 
 myself into a half-fever at the thought of the way I'd 
 overwhelm him. Maybe it was well for me that I was 
 obliged to rouse my energies to activity, and provide for 
 the future, which I did by drawing two bills on Waters
 
 231 
 
 for a hundred and fifty each, and, with the help of them, 
 we mean to remove from this on Saturday, and proceed 
 to Baden, where, according to Lord George, " there's no 
 such things as evil speaking, lying, or slandering ;" to 
 use his own words, " It's the most charitable society in 
 Europe, and every one can indulge his vices without note 
 or comment from his neighbours." And, after all, one 
 must acknowledge the great superiority in the good 
 breeding of the Continent in this, for, as Lord G. remarks, 
 u If there's anything a man's own, it's his private 
 wickedness, and there's no such indelicacy as in canvass- 
 ing or discussing it ; and what becomes of a conscience," 
 says he, "if everybody reviles and abuses you? Sure, 
 doesn't it lead you to take your own part, even when 
 you're in the wrong?" 
 
 He has a persuasive way with him, Molly, that often 
 surprises myself how far it goes with me, and indeed, even 
 in the midst of my afflictions and distresses, he made me 
 laugh with his account of Baden, and the strange people 
 that go there. We're to go to the Hotel de Russie, the 
 finest in the place, and say that we are expecting some 
 friends to join us; for K. I. and madam may arrive at any 
 moment. As I write these lines the girls and Betty are 
 packing up the things, so that long before it reaches you 
 we shall be at our destination. 
 
 The worst thing in my present situation is, that I 
 mustn't mutter a syllable against K. L, or, if I do I have 
 them all on my back ; and as to Betty, her sympathy is 
 far worse than the silence of the others. And there's the 
 way your poor friend is in. 
 
 To be robbed — for I know Waters is robbing me — and 
 cheated, and deceived all at the same time, is too much 
 for my unanimity ! Don't let on to the neighbours about 
 K. I.; for, as Lord G. says, "these things should never 
 be mentioned in the world till they're talked of in the 
 House of Lords ; " and I suppose he's right, though I 
 don't see why — but maybe it's one of the prerogatives of 
 the peerage to have the first of an ugly story. 
 
 I have done now, Molly, and I wonder how my strength 
 has carried me through it. I'll write you as soon as I get 
 to Baden, and hope to hear from you about the wool. I'm
 
 -HI |0 Xl8&BMN° THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 3Hi *6 
 
 ABVBS&lways reading in the papers about the improvement of 
 Ireland, and yet I get less and less out of it ; but maybe 
 tliat same is a sign of prosperity ; for I remember my poor 
 father was never so stingy as when he saved a little 
 money ; and indeed my own conviction is, that much of 
 what we used to call Irish hospitality was neither more 
 nor less than downright desperation — we had so little in 
 the world, it wasn't worth hoarding. 
 
 You may write to me still as Mrs. Dodd, though maybe 
 it will be the last time the name will be borne by your 
 
 Injured and afflicted friend, 
 
 Jemima. 
 
 P.S. I'm sure Paddy Byrne is in K. I.'s secret, for he 
 goes about grinning and sniggering in the most offensive 
 manner, for which I am just going to give him warning. 
 Not, indeed, that I'm serious about discharging him, for 
 the journey is terribly expensive, but by way of alarming 
 the little blaguard. If Father Maher would only threaten 
 to curse them, as he used, we'd have peace and comfort 
 once more. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 KENNY DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OP THE GRANGE, BRTTPF. 
 
 Eisenach. 
 
 My dear Tom, — You will be surprised at the ad": ess 
 at the top of this letter, but not a whit more so than lam 
 myself; how, when, and why I came here, being matters 
 which require some explanation, nor am I quite certain of 
 making them very intelligible to you even by that process. 
 My only chance of success, however, lies in beginning at 
 the very commencement, and so I shall start with my 
 departure from Bonn, which took place eight days ago, on 
 the morning of the 22nd.
 
 THEORY OF CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 233 
 
 My last letter informed you of our having formed a 
 travelling alliance with a very attractive and charming 
 person, Mrs. Gore Hampton. Lord George Tiverton, who 
 introduced us to each other, represented her as being a 
 fashionable of the first water, very highly connected, and 
 very rich — facts sufficiently apparent by her manners and 
 appearance, as well as by the style in which she was 
 travelling. He omitted, however, all mention of her im- 
 mediate circumstances, so that we were profoundly ignorant 
 as to whether she were a widow or had a husband living, 
 and if so, whether separated from him casually, or by a 
 permanent arrangement. 
 
 It may sound very strange that we should have formed 
 such a close alliance while in ignorance of these circum- 
 stances, and, doubtless, in our own country, the inquiry 
 would have preceded the ratification of this compact, but 
 the habits of the Continent, my dear Tom, teach very 
 different lessons. All social transactions are carried on 
 upon principles of unlimited credit, and you endorse 
 every bill of passing acquaintanceship with a most reckless 
 disregard to the day of presentation for payment. Some 
 would, perhaps, tell you that your scruples would only 
 prove false terrors. My own notion, however, is less 
 favourable, and my theory is this : you get so accustomed 
 to " raffish " intimacies, you lose all taste or desire for dis- 
 crimination ; in fact, there's so much false money in cir- 
 culation, it would be useless to " ring a particular rap on 
 the counter." 
 
 Not that I have the very most distant notion of apply- 
 ing my theory to the case in hand. I adhere to all I said 
 of Mrs. G. in my former epistle, and notwithstanding your 
 quizzing about my "raptures," &c, I can only repeat 
 everything I there said about her loveliness and fascina- 
 tion. 
 
 Perhaps one's heart becomes, like mutton, more tender 
 by being old, but this I must say, I never remember to 
 have met that kind of woman when I was young. Either 
 I must have been a very inaccurate observer, or, what I 
 suspect to be nearer the fact, they were not the peculiar 
 productions of that age. 
 
 When the Continent was closed to us by war, there was
 
 234 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 a home stamp upon all our manufactures — our chairs and 
 tables, our knives, and our candlesticks, were all made 
 after native models, solid and substantial enough, but, I 
 believe, neither very artistic nor graceful. We were used 
 to them, however, and as we had never seen any other, we 
 thought them the very perfection of their kind. The 
 Peace of '15 opened our eyes, and we discovered, to our 
 infinite chagrin and astonishment, that, in matters of 
 elegance and taste, we were little better than barbarians — 
 that shape and symmetry had their claims as well as 
 utility, and that the happy combination of these qualities 
 was a test of civilization. 
 
 I don't think we saw this all at once, nor, indeed, for a 
 number of years, because, somehow, it's in the nature of 
 a people to stand up for their shortcomings and defi- 
 ciencies — that very spirit being the bone and sinew of all 
 patriotism — but I'll tell you where we felt this discrepancy 
 most remarkably — in our women, Tom, the very point, of 
 all others, that we ought never to have experienced it in. 
 
 There was a plastic elegance — a species of soft, seduc- 
 tive way about foreign women, that took us wonderfully. 
 They did not wait for our advances, but met us half way 
 in intimacy, and this without any boldness or effrontery 
 — quite the reverse, but with a tact and delicacy that were 
 perfectly captivating. 
 
 I don't doubt but that, for home purposes, we should 
 have found that our own answered best, and, like our other 
 manufactures, that they would last longer, and be less liable 
 to damage ; but, unfortunately, the spirit of imitation that 
 stimulated us in hardware and jewellery, set in just as 
 violently about our wives and daughters, and a pretty 
 dance has it led us ! From my heart and soul I wish wa 
 had limited the use of French polish to our mahogany ! 
 
 I don't know how I got into this digression, Tom, nor 
 have I the least notion where it would conduct me, but I 
 feel that the Mrs. Gore Hamptons of this world took their 
 origin in the time and from the spirit I speak of, and a 
 more dangerous invention the age never made. 
 
 When you read over your notes, and sum up what I've 
 been saying, you'll perhaps discover the reason of what you 
 are pleased in your last letter to call my u extreme sensi-
 
 BEWILDERING COSTUMES. 235 
 
 bility to the widow'3 charms." But you wrong us both, 
 for JT'm not in love, nor is she & widow ! And this brings 
 me back to my narrative. 
 
 About ten days ago, as I was sitting in my own room, 
 in the " otium cum dig" of my old dressing-gown and 
 slippers, I received a visit from Mrs. Gr. in a manner 
 which at once proclaimed the strictest secrecy and confi- 
 dence. She came, she said, to consult me, and, as a gen- 
 tleman, I am bound to believe her ; but if you want to 
 make use of a man's faculties, you'd certainly never 
 begin by turning his brain. If you wished to send him 
 of a message, you'd surely not set out by spraining his 
 ankle ? 
 
 They say that the French Cuirassiers puzzled our Horse 
 Guards greatly at Waterloo. There was no knowing 
 where to get a stick at them. There's a kind of dress, 
 just now the fashion among ladies, that confuses me fully 
 as much — a species of gauzy, filmy, floating costume, that 
 makes you always feel quite near, and yet keeps you a 
 considerable distance off. It's a most bewitching, etherial 
 style of costume, and especially invented, I think, for the 
 bewilderment of elderly gentlemen. 
 
 More than half of the effect of a royal visit to a man's 
 own house is in the contrast presented by an illustrious 
 presence to the little commonplace objects of his daily 
 life. Seeing a king in his own sphere, surrounded with 
 all the attributes and insignia of his station, is not nearly 
 so astounding as to see him sitting in your old leather 
 arm-chair, with his feet upon your fender — mayhap, stir- 
 ring your fire with your own poker. Just the same kind 
 of thing is the appearance of a pretty woman within the 
 little den, sacred to your secret smokings and studies of 
 the Times newspaper. An angel taking off her wings in 
 the hall, and dropping in to take pot-luck with you, could 
 scarcely realize a more charming vision ! 
 
 All this preliminary discourse of mine, Tom, looks as if 
 I were skulking the explanation that I promised. I know 
 well what is passing in your mind this minute, and I fancy 
 that I hear you mutter, u Why not tell us what she came 
 about — what brought her there ? " It's not so easy as you 
 think, Tom Purcell. When a very pretty woman, in the
 
 236 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 most becoming imaginable toilette, comes and tells you a 
 long story of personal sufferings, and invokes your sym- 
 pathy against the cruel treatment of a barbarous husband 
 and his hard-hearted family — when the narrative alternates 
 between traits of shocking tyranny ou one side, and 
 angelic submission on the other — when you listen to 
 wrongs that make your blood boil, recounted by accents 
 that make your heart vibrate — when the imploring looks, 
 and tones, and gesture that failed to excite pity in her 
 " monster of a husband " are all rehearsed before you 
 yourself — to you directed those tearful glances of melting 
 tenderness — to you raised up those beautiful hands of more 
 than sculptured symmetry, I say again, that your reason 
 is never consulted on the whole process. Your sensibility 
 is aroused, your sympathy is evoked, and all your tenderest 
 emotions excited, pretty much as in hearing an Italian 
 opera, where, without knowing one word of the language, 
 the tones, the gestures, the play of feature, and the signs 
 of passion, move and melt you into alternate horror at 
 cruelty, and compassionate sorrow for suffering. 
 
 Make the place, instead of the stage, your own study, 
 and the personage too prima donna, but a very charming 
 creature of the real world, and the illusion is ten times 
 more complete. 
 
 I have no more notion of Mrs. Gore Hampton's history 
 than I should have of the plot of a novel from reading a 
 newspaper notice of it. She was married at sixteen. She 
 was very beautiful, very rich — a petted, spoilt child. She 
 thought the world a fairy tale, she said. I was going to 
 ask, was it " Beauty and the Beast " that was in her mind. 
 At first all was happiness and bliss ; then came jealousy, 
 not on her part, but his ; disagreements and disputes 
 followed. They went abroad to visit some royal person- 
 age — a duchess, a grand-duchess, an archduchess of 
 something, who figures through the whole history in a 
 mysterious and wonderful manner, coming in at all times 
 and places, and apparently never for any other purpose 
 than wickedness, like Zamiel in the " Freyschutz ; " but, 
 notwithstanding, she is always called the dear, good, kind 
 princess — an apparent contradiction that also assists the 
 mystification. Then, there are letters from the husband —
 
 AN INTRICATE STORY. 237 
 
 reproach and condemnation ; from the wife — love, tender- 
 ness, and fidelity. 
 
 The duchess happily writes French, so I am spared the 
 pains of following her correspondence. Chancery was 
 nothing to the confusion that comes of all this letter- 
 writing, bnt I come out with the one strong fact, that the 
 dear princess stands by Mrs. G. through thick and thin, 
 and takes a bold part against the husband. A ship- 
 wrecked sailor never clung to a hencoop with greater 
 tenacity than did I grasp this one solitary fact, floating at 
 large upon the wide ocean of uncertainty. 
 
 I assure you I almost began to feel an affection for the 
 duchess, from the mere feeling of relief this thought 
 afforded. She was like a sanctuary to my poor, perse- 
 cuted, hunted-down imagination ! 
 
 Have you ever, in reading a three-volume novel, Tom, 
 been on the eve of abandoning the task from pure inability 
 to trace out the story, when suddenly, and as it were by 
 chance, some little trait or incident gives, if not a clue to 
 the mystery, at least that small flickering of light that 
 acts as a guide-star to speculation ? 
 
 This was what I experienced here, and I said to myself, 
 " I know the sentiments of the duchess, at least, and 
 that's something." 
 
 Do you know, that I didn't like proceeding any farther 
 with the story — like a tired swimmer, who had reached a 
 rock far out at sea, I didn't fancy trusting myself once 
 more to the waves. However, I was not allowed the 
 option. Away went the narrative again — like an express 
 train in a dark tunnel. If we now and then did emerge 
 upon a bit of open country where we could see about us, it 
 was to dive the next minute into some deep cutting, or 
 some gloomy cavern, without light or intelligence. 
 
 It appeared to me that Mr. Gore Hampton would be a 
 very proper case for private assassination, but I didn't 
 like the notion of doing it myself, and I was considerably 
 comforted by finding that the course she had decided on, 
 and for which she was now asking my assistance, was more 
 pacific in character, and less dangerous. We were to seek 
 out the dear princess ; she was to be at Ems on the 24th, 
 and we were at once to throw ourselves, figuratively, into
 
 238 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 her hands, and implore protection. The " monster " — 
 the word is shorter than his name, and serves equally 
 well — had written innumerable letters to prejudice her 
 against his wife, recounting the most infamous calumnies, 
 and the most incredible accusations. These we were to 
 refute : how I didn't exactly know, but we were to do it. 
 With the dear princess on our side, the monster would be 
 quite powerless for further mischief, for, by some mys- 
 terious agency, it appeared that this wonderful duchess 
 could restore a damaged reputation, just as formerly kings 
 used to cure the evil. 
 
 It was a great load off my mind, Tom, to know that 
 nothing more was expected of me. She might have 
 wanted me to go to England, where there are two writs 
 out against me, or to advance a sum of money for law 
 when I haven't a sixpence for living, or, maybe, to bully 
 somebody that wouldn't be bullied ; in fact, I didn't know 
 what impossibilities mightn't be passing through her 
 brain, or what difficult tasks she might be inventing, as 
 we read of in those stories where people make compacts 
 with the devil, and always try to pose him by the terms of 
 the bargain. 
 
 In the present instance, I certainly got off easier than 
 I should have done with the " Black Gentleman." All 
 that was required of me was, to accompany a very charm- 
 ing and most agreeable woman on an excursion of about 
 two or three days' duration through one of the most 
 picturesque parts of the Rhine country, in a comfortable 
 town-built britschka, with every appliance of ease and 
 luxury about it. We have an adage in Ireland, " There's 
 worse than this in the North," and faith, Tom, I couldn't 
 help saying so. Mrs. Gr.'s motive in asking my com- 
 panionship was, to show her dear duchess that she was 
 domesticated, and living with a most respectable family, 
 of which I was the head. You may laugh at the notion, 
 Tom, but I was to be brought forward as a model " pater- 
 familias," who could harbour nothing wrong. 
 
 I believe I smiled myself at the character assigned. But 
 " isn't life a stage ? " and in nothing more so than the 
 fact that no man can choose his part, but must just take 
 what the great stage manager — Fate— assigns him : and
 
 AN AWKWARD DIFFICULTY, 239 
 
 it is just as cruel to ridicule the failures and shortcomings 
 we often witness in public men as to shout, in gallery- 
 fashion, at some poor devil actor obliged to play a gentle- 
 man with broken boots and patched pantaloons. 
 
 There were, indeed, two difficulties, neither of them 
 inconsiderable, in the matter. One was, money. The 
 journey would needs be costly. Posting abroad is to the 
 full as expensive as at home. The other was, as to Mrs. 
 Dodd. How would she take it ? I was bound over in 
 the very heaviest recognizances to secrecy. Mrs. G. 
 insisted that I alone should be the depositary of her 
 secret ; and she was wise there, for Mrs. D. would have 
 revealed it to Betty Cobb before she slept. What if she 
 should take a jealous turn ? It was true the Mary Jane 
 affair had made her rather ashamed of herself, but time 
 was wearing off the effect. Mrs. Gore Hampton was a 
 handsome woman, and there would be a kind of eclat in 
 such a rivalry ! I knew well, Tom, that if she once 
 mounted this hobby, there was nothing could stop her. 
 All her visions of fashionable introductions, all the bright 
 charms of high society, to which Mrs. G.'s intimacy was 
 to lead, would melt away, like a mirage, before the high 
 wind of her angry indignation. 
 
 She would have put Mrs. G. in the dock, and arraigned 
 her like any common offender. It was not without reason, 
 then, that I dreaded such a catastrophe, and in a kind of 
 semi-serious, semi-jocose way, I told Mrs. Gore of my 
 misgivings. 
 
 She took it beautifully, Tom. She didn't laugh as if 
 the thing was ridiculous, and as if the idea of Kenny 
 Dodd performing Amoroso was a glaring absurdity. " Not 
 at all," she gravely said ; " I have been thinking over that, 
 and, as you remark, it is a difficulty." Shall I own to you, 
 Tom, that the confession sent a strange thrill through 
 me ; and like a man selected to lead a forlorn hope, I still 
 felt that the choice redounded to my credit ? 
 
 11 1 think, however," said she, after a pause, "if you con- 
 fided the matter to my management, if you leave me to 
 explain to Mrs. Dodd, I shall be able, without revealing more 
 than I wish, to satisfy her as to the object of our journey." 
 
 I heartily assented to an arrangement so agreeable j I
 
 smi.io AJLISH3MM 
 
 ^40 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 aM4° 
 
 even promised not to see Mrs. D. before we started, lest 
 any unfortunate combination of circumstances might 
 interfere with our project. 
 
 The pecuniary embarrassment I communicated to Lord 
 George. He quite agreed with me, that I couldn't 
 possibly allude to it to Mrs. G. "In all likelihood," said 
 he, " she will just hand you a book of blank cheques, or 
 Herries's circulars, and say, ■ Pray do me the favour to 
 take the trouble off my hands.' It is what she usually 
 does with any of her friends with whom she is sufficiently 
 intimate, for, as I told you, she is a ' perfect child about 
 money.' " I might have told him, that so far as having 
 very little of it, so was I too. 
 
 " But supposing," said I, " that, in the bustle of depar- 
 ture, and in the preoccupation of other thoughts, she 
 shouldn't remember to do this ; such is likely enough, you 
 know ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing more so," said he, laughing. " She is 
 the most absent creature in the world." 
 
 " In that case," said I, u one ought to be, in a measure, 
 prepared." 
 
 " To a certain extent, assuredly," said he, coolly. 
 u You might as well take something with you — a hundred 
 pounds or so." 
 
 You can imagine the choking gulp in my throat as I 
 heard these words. Why, I hadn't twenty — no, not ten ; 
 I doubt, greatly, if I had fully five pounds in my posses- 
 sion. I was living in the daily hope of that remittance 
 from you, which, by the way, seems always tardier in 
 coming in proportion as Ireland grows more prosperous. 
 
 Tiverton, however, does not limit his services to good 
 counsel, he can act as well as think. For a bill of three 
 thousand francs, at thirty-one days, I received, from the 
 landlord of the hotel, something short of a hundred 
 Napoleons — a trifle under six hundred per cent, per 
 annum ; but, of course, not meant to run for that time. 
 Lord George said, " Everything considered, it was reason- 
 able enough ; " and if that implied that I'd never repay a 
 farthing of it, perhaps he was correct. " I'm sorry," said 
 he, " that the ' bit of stiff,' " meaning the bill, " wasn't for 
 five thousand francs, for I want a trifle of cash myself, at
 
 GORGEOUS LANDSCAPE. 241 
 
 this moment." In this regret I did not share, Tom, for I 
 clearly saw that the additional eighty pounds would have 
 been out of my pocket ! 
 
 I have now, as briefly as I am able, but, perhaps, 
 tediously enough, told you of all the preliminary arrange- 
 ments of our journey, save one, which was three lines that 
 I left for Mrs. D. before starting — not very explanatory, 
 perhaps, but written in " great haste." 
 
 It was a splendid morning when we started. The sun 
 was just topping the Drachenfels, and sending a perfect 
 flood of golden glory over the Rhine, and that rich tract 
 of yellow corn country along its left bank, the right being 
 still in deep shadow. From the Kreutzberg to the Seven 
 Mountains it was one gorgeous panorama, with mountain 
 and crag, and ruined castles, vine-clad cliffs, and plains 
 of waving wheat, all seen in the calm splendour of a still 
 summer's morning. 
 
 I never saw anything as beautiful, perhaps I never shall 
 again. Of my rapturous enjoyment of the scene, as we 
 whirled along with four posters at a gallop, the best 
 criterion I can give you is, that I totally forgot everything 
 but the enchanting vision around me. Ireland, home, 
 Dodsborough, petty sessions, police and poor-rates, county 
 cess, Chancery, all my difficulties, down even to Mrs. D. 
 herself, faded away, and left me in undisturbed and 
 unbounded enjoyment. 
 
 I have often had to tell you of my disappointment with 
 the Continent; how little it responded to my previous 
 expectations, and how short came every trait of nation- 
 ality of that striking effect I had once foreshadowed. The 
 distinctive features of race, from which I had anticipated 
 so much amusement, all the peculiarities of dress, custom, 
 and manner, which I had speculated on as sources of 
 interest, had either no existence whatever, or demanded a 
 far shrewder and nicer observation than mine to detect. 
 These have I more than once complained of to you in my 
 letters; and I was fast lapsing into the deep conviction 
 that, except in being the rear-guard of civilization, and 
 adhering to habits which have long since been superseded 
 by improved and better modes with us, the Continent 
 differs wonderfully little from England. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 242 TEE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 The reason of this impression was manifestly because I 
 was always in intercourse with foreigners who live and 
 trade upon English travellers, who make a livelihood of 
 ministering to John Bull's national leanings in dress, 
 cookery, and furniture ; and who, so to say, get up a kind 
 of artificial England abroad, where the Englishman is 
 painfully reminded of all the comforts he has left behind 
 him, without one single opportunity for remembering the 
 compensations he is receiving in return. To this cause is 
 attributable, mainly, the vulgar impression conveyed by a 
 first glance at the Continent. It is a bad travestie of a 
 homely original. 
 
 What a sudden change came over me now, as we swept 
 along through this enchanting country, where every sight 
 and every sound were novel and interesting ! The little 
 villages, almost escarped from the tall precipice that skirted 
 the river, were often of Roman origin ; old towers of brick, 
 and battlemented walls, displaying the S. P. Q. R., those 
 wonderful letters which, from school days to old age, call 
 up such conceptions of this mighty people. A great 
 waggon would draw aside to let us pass ; and its giant 
 oxen, with their massive beams of timber on their necks, 
 remind one of the old pictures in some illustrated edition 
 of the " Georgics." The splash of oars, and the loud shouts 
 of men, turn your eyes to the Rhine, and it is a raft, whole 
 acres of timber, slowly floating along, the evidence of some 
 primeval pine forest hundreds of miles away, where the 
 night winds used to sigh in the days of the Csesars. And 
 now every head is bare, and every knee is bowed, for a 
 procession moves past, on its way to some holy shrine, the 
 zigzag path to which, up the mountain, is traceable by the 
 white line of peasant girls, whose voices are floating down 
 in mellow chorus. Oh, Tom ! the whole scene was full of 
 enchantment, and didn't require the consciousness that 
 would haunt me to make it a vision of perfect enjoy- 
 ment. You ask what was that same consciousness I allude 
 to ? Neither more nor less, my dear friend, than the little 
 whisper within me, that said, " Kenny Dodd, where are 
 you going, and for what ? Is it Mrs. I), is sitting beside 
 you ? or are you quite sure it's not some other man's wife ? " 
 
 You'll say, perhaps, these were rather disturbing reflec-
 
 ANDERNACH. 243 
 
 tions, and so they would have been, had they ever got that 
 far ; but as mere flitting fancies, as passing shadows over 
 the mind, they heightened the enjoyment of the moment 
 by some strange and mysterious agency, which I am quite 
 unable to explain, but which, I believe, is referable to the 
 same category as the French duchess's regret " that iced 
 water wasn't a sin, or it would be the greatest delight of 
 existence." 
 
 If my conscience had been unmannerly enough to say, 
 "Ain't you doing wrong, Kenny Dodd?" I'm afraid I'd 
 have said " Yes," with a chuckle of satisfaction. I'm 
 afraid, my dear Tom, that the human heart, at least, in 
 the Irish version, is a very incomprehensible volume. 
 
 Let us strive to be good as much as we may, there is a 
 secret sense of pleasure in doing wrong that shows what a 
 hold wickedness has of us. I believe we flatter ourselves 
 that we are cheating the devil all the while, because we 
 intend to do right at last ; but the clanger is that the game 
 comes to an end before we suspect, and there we are, 
 "cleaned out," and our hand full of trumps. 
 
 You'll say, " What has all this to say to the Rhine, or 
 Mrs. Gore Hampton?" Nothing whatever. It only shows 
 that, like the Reflections on a Broomstick, your point 
 of departure bears no relation to the goal of your voyage. 
 
 " What's the name of this village, Mr. Dodd ?" whispers 
 a soft voice from the deep recesses of the britschka. 
 
 " This is Andernach, madam," said I, opening my 
 " John," for I find there's no doing without him. " It 
 is one of the most ancient cities of the Rhine. It was 
 called by the Romans " 
 
 " Never mind what it was called by the Romans, isn't 
 there a legend about this ancient castle ? To be sure there 
 is, pray find it." 
 
 And I go on mumbling about Drusus and Roman camps, 
 and vaulted portals. 
 
 " Oh, it's not that," cries she, laughing. 
 
 " There are two articles of traffic peculiar to this spot. 
 
 Millstones " She puts her hand on my lips here, and 
 
 I am unable to continue my reading, while she goes on : 
 '* I remember the legend now. It was a certain Siegfried, 
 the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who, on his return from 
 
 r 2
 
 244 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 the Crusades, was persuaded by slanderous tongues to 
 believe his wife had been faithless to him." 
 
 " The wretch ! — the count I mean." 
 
 "So he was. He drove her out a wanderer upon the 
 wide world, and she fled across the Rhine into that 
 mountain country you see yonder, which then, as now, 
 was all impenetrable forest. There she passed years and 
 years of solitary existence, unknown and friendless. There 
 were no Mr. Dodds in those days, or, at least, she had not 
 the good fortune to meet with them." 
 
 I sigh deeply, under the influence of such a glance, To:n, 
 and she resumes, — 
 
 " At last, one day, when fatigued with the chase, and 
 separated from his companions, the cruel count throws 
 himself down to rest beside a fountain : a lovely creature, 
 attired gracefully, but strangely, in the skins of wild 
 beasts " 
 
 " She didn't kill them herself?" said I, interrupting. 
 
 " How absurd you are ! of course she didn't ; " and she 
 draws her own ermine mantle across her as she speaks, 
 smoothing the soft fur with her softer hand, " The count 
 starts to his feet, and recognizes her in a moment, and, at 
 the same instant, too, he is so struck by the manifest pro- 
 tection Providence has vouchsafed her, that he listens to her 
 tale of justification, and conducts hei in triumph home 
 — his injured, but adored wife. J think, really, people 
 were better formerly than they are now — more forgiving, 
 or rather, I mean, more open to truth and its generous 
 impulses." 
 
 " Faith, I can't say," replied I, pondering ; " the skins 
 may have had something to say to it." Here she bursts 
 into such a fit of laughter that I join from sheer sympathy 
 with the sound, but not guessing in the least why, or at 
 what. 
 
 "We soon left Andernach behind us, and rolled along 
 beside the rapid Rhine, on a beautiful road almost level 
 with the river, which now, for some miles, becomes less 
 bold and picturesque. 
 
 At last we arrived at Coblentz to dinner, stopping at a 
 capital inn called the " Giant," after which we strolled 
 through the town to stare at the shops and the quaintly-
 
 EXPENSIVE TASTES. 245 
 
 dressed peasant girls, whose embroidered head-gear, a kind 
 of velvet cap worked in gold or silver, so pleased Mrs. G. 
 that we bought three or four of them, as well as several of 
 those curiously-wrought silver daggers which they wear 
 stuck through their back hair. 
 
 I soon discovered that my fair friend was a " child" 
 about other things besides " money." Jewellery was one 
 of these, and for which she seemed to have the most in- 
 satiable desire, combined with a most juvenile indifference 
 as to cost. The country girls wear massive gold earrings 
 of the strangest fashion, and nothing would content her 
 but buying several sets of these. Then she took a fancy 
 to their gold chains and rosaries, and, lastly, to their un- 
 couth shoe-buckles, all of which, she assured me, would 
 be priceless in a fancy dress. 
 
 Jn fact, my dear Tom, these minor preparations of hers, 
 to resemble a Rhine-land peasant, came to a little over 
 seventeen pounds sterling, and suggested to me, more than 
 once, the secret wish that our excursion had been through 
 Ireland, where the habits of the natives could have been 
 counterfeited at considerably less cost. 
 
 As " we were in for it," however, I bore myself as 
 gallantly as might be, and pressed several trifling articles 
 on her acceptance, but she tossed them over contempt- 
 uously, and merely said, " Oh, we shall find all these 
 things so much better at Ems. They have such a bazaar 
 there!" an announcement that gave me a cold shudder 
 from head to foot. After taking our coffee, we resumed 
 our journey, Ems being only distant some eleven or twelve 
 miles, and, I must say, a drive of unequalled beauty. 
 
 Once more on the road, Mrs. Gr. became more charming 
 and delightful than ever. The romantic glen, through 
 which we journeyed, suggested much material for conver- 
 sation, and she was legendary and lyrical, plaintive and 
 merry by turns, now recounting some story of tragic 
 history, now remembering some little incident of modern 
 fashionable life, but all, no matter what the theme, 
 touched with a grace and delicacy quite her own. In a 
 little silence that followed one of these charming sallies, I 
 noticed that she smiled as if at something passing in her 
 own thoughts.
 
 2-tO THE DUDD FAMTL1 AliitOAD. 
 
 " Shall I tell you what I was thinking of?" said she, 
 smiling. 
 
 ; ' By all means," said I ; " it is a pleasant thought, so 
 pray let me share in it." 
 
 "I'm not quite so certain of that," said she. "It is 
 rather puzzling than pleasant. It is simply this : ' Here 
 we are now within a mile of Ems. It is one of the most 
 gossiping places in Europe. How shall we announce our- 
 selves in the Strangers' List? '" 
 
 The difficulty had never occurred to me before, Tom ; 
 nor, indeed, did I very clearly appreciate it even now. I 
 thought that the name of Kenny Dodd would have sufficed 
 for me, and I saw no reason why Mrs. Gore Hampton 
 should not have been satisfied with her own appellation. 
 
 " I knew," said she, laughing, " that you never gave this 
 a thought. Isn't that so?" I had to confess that she 
 was quite correct, and she went on: "Adolphus" — this 
 was the familiar for Mr. Gore Hampton — "is so well 
 known that you couldn't possibly pass for him ; besides, he 
 is very tall, and wears large moustaches, the largest, I 
 think, in the Blues." 
 
 " That's clean out of the question, then," said I, stroking 
 my smooth chin in utter despair. 
 
 " You're very like Lord Harvey Bruce, couldn't you be 
 him?" 
 
 " I'm afraid not ; my passport calls me Kenny James 
 Dodd." 
 
 " But Lord Harvey is a kind of relative of mine ; his 
 mother was a Gore ; I'm sure you could be him." 
 
 I shook my head despondingly ; but somehow, whenever 
 a sudden fancy strikes her, the impulse to yield to it seems 
 perfectly irresistible. 
 
 " It's an excellent idea," continued she, " and all you have 
 to do is to write the name boldly in the Travellers' Book, 
 and say your passport is coming with one of your people." 
 
 " But he might be here ? " 
 
 " Oh, he's not here ; he couldn't be here ! I should have 
 heard of it if he were here." 
 
 " There may be several who may know him personally 
 here." 
 
 " There need be no difficulty about that," replied she ;
 
 A PRISONER AND A SLAVE. 247 
 
 " you have only to feign illness, and keep your room. I'll 
 take every precaution to sustain the deception. You shall 
 have everything in the way of comfort, but no visitors — 
 not one." 
 
 I was thunderstruck, Tom ! the notion of coming away 
 from home, leaving my family, and braving Mrs. D., all 
 that I might go to bed at Ems, and partake of low diet 
 under a fictitious title, actually overwhelmed me. I thought 
 to myself, " This is a hazardous exploit of mine ; it may be 
 a costly one too : at the rate we are travelling, money flies 
 like chaff, but at least, I shall have something for it. 1 shall 
 see fashionable life under the most favourable auspices. I 
 shall dine in public with my beautiful travelling companion. 
 I shall accompany her to the Cursaal, to the Promenade, 
 to the play-tables. I shall eat ice with her under the 
 " Lindens," in the " Allee." I shall be envied and hated 
 by all the puppy population of the Baths, and feel myself 
 glorious, conquering, and triumphant. These, and similar, 
 had been my sustaining reflections, under all the adverse 
 pressure of home thoughts. These had been my compen- 
 sation for the terrors that assuredly loomed in the distance. 
 But now, instead of the realization, I was to seek my con- 
 solation in a darkened room, with old newspapers and 
 water gruel ! 
 
 Anger and indignation rendered me almost speechless. 
 li Was it for this ? " I exclaimed twice or thrice, without 
 being able to finish my sentence ; and she gently drew her 
 hand within my arm, and, in the tenderest of accents, 
 stopped me, and said, " No ; not for this ! " 
 
 Ah, Tom ! you know what we used to hear in the 
 " Beggar's Opera," long ago. " 'Tis women that seduces 
 all mankind." I suppose it's true. I suppose that if 
 nature has made us physically strong, she has made us 
 morally weak. 
 
 I wante^ to be resolute ; injured, and indignant, I did 
 my best to feel outraged, but it wouldn't do. The touch 
 of three taper fingers of an ungloved hand, the silvery 
 sounds of a soft voice, and the tenderly reproachful 
 glance of a pair of dark blue eyes, routed all my resolves, 
 and I was half ashamed of myself for needing even such 
 gentle reproof.
 
 IIP AJJSM3MN0 
 
 3 HI J (Si 48 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 AHVH8I! 
 
 From that moment I was her slave ; she might have 
 sent me to a plantation, or sold me in a market-place, 
 resistance, on my part, was out of the question ; and isn't 
 this a pretty confession for the father of a family, and the 
 husband of Mrs. D. ? Not but, if I had time, I could 
 explain the problem, in a non-natural sense, as the 
 fashionable phrase has it, or even go farther, and justify 
 my divided allegiance, like one of our own bishops, show- 
 ing the difference between submission to constituted 
 authority, and fidelity to matters of faith — Mrs. D. stand- 
 ing to represent Queen Victoria, and Mrs. Gore Hampton 
 Pope Pius the Ninth ! 
 
 These thoughts didn't occur to me at once, Tom ; they 
 were the fruit of many a long hour of self-examination 
 and reflection as I lay alone in my silent chamber, think- 
 ing over all the singular things that have occurred to me 
 in life, the strange situations I have occupied, and of this, 
 I own, the very strangest of all. 
 
 It must be a dreadful thing to be really sick in one of 
 these places. There seems to be no such thing as night, 
 at least as a season of repose. The same clatter of plates, 
 knives, and glasses, goes on ; the same ringing of bells, 
 and scuffling sounds of running feet ; waltzes and polkas ; 
 waggons and mule carts ; donkeys and hurdy-gurdies ; 
 whistling waiters and small puppies, with a weak falsetto, 
 infest the air, and make up a din that would addle the 
 spirit of Pandemonium. 
 
 Hour after hour had I to lie listening to these, taking 
 out my wrath in curses upon Strauss and late suppers, 
 and anathematizing the whole family of opera writers, 
 who have unquestionably originated the bleating perform- 
 ances of every late bed-goer. Not a wretch toiled up- 
 stairs, at four in the morning, without yelling out " Casta 
 Diva," or " Gib, mir wein." The half-tipsy ones were 
 usually sentimental, and hiccupped the " Tu che al cielo," 
 out of the " Lucia." 
 
 To these succeeded the late sitters at the play-tables — 
 a race who, to their honour be it recorded, never sing. 
 Gambling is a grave passion, and, whether a man win or 
 lose, it takes all fun out of him. A deep-muttered male- 
 diction upon bad luck— a false oath to play no more— a
 
 IN DURANCE VILE. 249 
 
 hearty curse against Fortune — were the only soliloquies of 
 these the last votaries of Pleasure that now sought their 
 beds as day was breaking. 
 
 Have you ever stopped your ears, Tom, and looked at a 
 room full of people dancing ? The effect is very curious. 
 What was so graceful but a moment back is now only 
 grotesque. The plastic elegance of gesture becomes 
 downright absurdity. She who tripped with such fairy- 
 like lightness, or that other who floated with swan-like 
 dignity, now seems to move without purpose, and, stranger 
 still, without grace. It was the measure which gave the 
 soul to the performance — it was that mystic accord, like 
 what binds mind to matter, that gave the wondrous charm 
 to the whole ; divested of this it was like motion without 
 vitality — abrupt, mechanical, convulsive. Exactly the 
 same kind of effect is produced by witnessing fashionable 
 amusements, with a spirit untuned to pleasure. You 
 know nothing of their motives, nor incentives to enjoy- 
 ment ; you are not admitted to any participation in their 
 plan or their object, and to your eyes it is all " dancing 
 without music." 
 
 I need not dwell on a tiresome theme, for such would 
 be any description of my life at Ems. Of my lovely com- 
 panion I saw but little. About midday her maid would 
 bring me a few lines, written in pencil, with kind in- 
 quiries after me. Later on I could detect the silvery 
 music of her voice, as she issued forth to her afternoon 
 drive. Later again I could hear her, as she passed along 
 the corridor to her room ; and then, as night wore on, she 
 would sometimes come to my door to say a few words — 
 very kind ones, and in her own softest manner, but of 
 which I could recall nothing, so occupied was I with 
 observing her in all the splendour of evening dress. 
 
 When a bright object of this kind passes from your 
 presence, there still lingers for a second or so a species of 
 twilight, after which comes the black and starless night 
 of deep despondency. Out of these dreamy delusive fits 
 of low spirits I used to start with the sudden question, 
 11 What are you doing here, Kenny Dodd ? Is it the 
 father of a family ought to be living in this fashion? 
 What tomfoolery is this ? Is this kind of life instructive,
 
 250 THE DODD FAMILY ABIIOAD. 
 
 intellectual, or even amusing? Is it respectable ? I am 
 not certain it is any one of the four. How long is it to 
 continue, or where is it to end ? Am I to go down to the 
 grave under a false name, and are the Dodd family to put 
 on mourning for Lord Harvey Brooke ? " 
 
 One night that these thoughts had carried me to a high 
 pitch of excitement, I was walking hurriedly to and fro 
 in my room inveighing against the absurd folly which 
 originally had embarked me on this journey. Anger had 
 so far mastered my reason, that I began to doubt every- 
 thing and everybody. I grew sceptical that there were 
 such people in the world as Mr. Gore Hampton or Lord 
 Harvey Brooke, and in my heart I utterly rejected the 
 existence of the K princess." Up to this moment I had 
 contented myself with hating her, as the first cause of all 
 my calamities, but now I denied her a reality and a 
 being. I didn't at first perceive what would come of my 
 thus disturbing a great foundation-stone, and how inevi- 
 tably the whole edifice would come tumbling down about 
 my ears in consequence. 
 
 This terrible truth, however, now stared me in the face, 
 and I sat down to consider it with a trembling spirit. 
 
 "May I come in?" whispered a low but well-known 
 voice — " may I come in ? " 
 
 My first thoughts were to affect sleep and not answer, 
 but I saw that there was an eagerness in the manner 
 that would not brook denial, and answered, "Who's 
 there?" 
 
 " It is I, my dear friend," said Mrs. Gore Hampton, 
 entering, and closing the door behind her. She came 
 forward to where I was sitting despondingly on the side 
 of the bed, and took a chair in front of me. 
 
 " What's the matter ; you are surely not ill in reality ? " 
 asked she, tenderly. 
 
 "I believe I am," replied I. "They say in Ireland 
 * mocking is catching,' and faith, I half suspect I'm 
 going to pay the price of my own deceitfulness.'.' 
 
 " Oh! no, no ! you only say that to alarm me. You 
 will be perfectly well when you leave this ; the confine- 
 ment disagrees with you." 
 
 " I think it does," said I ; " but when are we to go ? "
 
 IN A SCEPTICAL HUMOUR. 251 
 
 " Immediately ; to-night, if possible. I have just re- 
 ceived a few lines from the dear princess ■" 
 
 " Oh, the princess ! " ejaculated I, with a faint groan. 
 
 " Why ; what do you mean ? " asked she, eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, nothing ; go on." 
 
 " But, first tell me, what made you sigh so when I spoko 
 of the princess? " 
 
 " God knows," said I ; " I believe my head was wan- 
 dering." 
 
 " Poor, dear head ! " said she, patting me as if I was a 
 small King Charles's spaniel, " it will be better in the fresh 
 air. The princess writes to say that we must meet her 
 at Eisenach, since she finds herself too ill to come on 
 here. She urges us to lose no time about it, because the 
 Empress Sophia will be on a visit with her in a few days, 
 which of course would interfere with our seeing her fre- 
 quently. The letter should have been here yesterday, 
 but she gave it to the Archduke Nicholas, and he only 
 remembered it when he was walking with me this even- 
 
 These high and mighty names only made me sigh 
 heartily, and she seemed at once to read all that was 
 passing within me. i 
 
 " I see what it is," said she, with deep emotion ; " you 
 are growing weary of me. You are beginning to regret 
 the noble chivalry — the generous devotion you had shown 
 me. You are asking yourself, ' What am I to her ? Why 
 should she cling to me? Cruel question — of a still more 
 cruel answer ! But go, sir, return to your family, and 
 leave me if you will to those heartless courtiers who mete 
 out their sympathies by a sovereign's smiles, and only 
 bestow their pity when royalty commands it ; and yet, 
 before we part for ever, let me here, on my bended knees, 
 
 thank and bless " I can't do it, Tom ; I can't write 
 
 it. I find I am blubbering away just as badly as when 
 the scene occurred. Blue eyes half swimming in tears, 
 silky-brown ringlets, and a voice broken by sobs, are 
 shamefully unfair odds against an Irish gentleman on the 
 shady side of fifty-two or three. 
 
 It's all very well for you — sitting quietly at your turf 
 fire — with an old sleepy spaniel snoring on the hearth-
 
 252 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 rug, and nothing younger in the house than Mrs. Shea, 
 your late wife's aunt — to talk about "My time of life" 
 — " Grown-up daughters " — and so on. " He scoffs at 
 wounds who never felt a scar." The fact is, I'm not a bit 
 more susceptible than other people ; I even think I am 
 less yielding — less open to soft influences than many of 
 my acquaintances. I can answer for it, I never found 
 that the strongest persuasions of a tax-gatherer disposed 
 me to look favourably on " county cess, or a rate-in- 
 aid." Even the priest acknowledges me a tough subject 
 on the score of Easter dues and offerings. If I know 
 anything about my own nature, it is that I have rather a 
 casuistic, hair-splitting kind of way with me — the very 
 reverse of your soft, submissive, easily-seduced fellows. 
 I was always known as the obstinate juryman at our 
 assizes, that preferred starvation and a cart to a glib 
 verdict like the others. I am not sure that anybody ever 
 found it an easy task to convince me about anything, 
 except, perhaps, Mrs. D., and then, Tom, it was not 
 precisely " conviction " — that was something else. 
 
 I think I have now made out a sufficient defence of 
 myself, and I'll not make the lawyer's blunder of proving 
 too much. Give me the same latitude that is always 
 conceded to great men when their actions will not square 
 with their previous sentiments. Think of the Duke and 
 Sir Robert, and be merciful to Kenny Dodd. 
 
 AVe left Ems, like a thief, in the night ; the robbery, 
 however, was performed by the landlord, whose bill for 
 five days amounted to upwards of twenty-seven pounds 
 sterling. Whether Gregoire and Mdlle. Virginie drank 
 all the champagne set down in it I cannot say, but if so, 
 they could never have been sober since their arrival. 
 There are some other curious items too, such as maras- 
 chino and eau de Dantzic, and a large assessment for 
 "real Havannahs ! " Who sipped and smoked the above 
 is more than I know. 
 
 With regard to out-of-door amusements, Mrs. Gr. must 
 have ridden, at the least, four donkeys daily, not to speak 
 of carriages, and a sort of sedan-chair for the evening. 
 
 I assure you I left the place with a heart even lighter 
 than my purse. I was falling into a very alarming kind
 
 POST-HASTE TO EISENACH. 253 
 
 of melancholy, and couldn't much longer have answered 
 for my actions. 
 
 If we loitered inactively at Ems, we certainly suffered 
 no grass to grow under our feet now. Four horses on the 
 level, six when the road was heavy or newly gravelled ; 
 bulls at all the hills. 
 
 It's the truth I'm telling you, Tom, for a light London 
 britschka, the usual team on a rising ground was six 
 horses and three oxen, with about two men per quadruped 
 — boys and beggars ad libitum. I laughed heartily at it, 
 till it came to paying for them, after which it became one 
 of the worst jokes you can imagine. Onward we went, 
 however, in one fashion or another, walking to " blow the 
 cattle " when the road was level and smooth, and keeping 
 a very pretty hunting-pace when the ruts were deep, and 
 the rocks rugged. 
 
 It seemed, to judge from our speed, that our haste was 
 most imminent, for we changed horses at every station 
 with an attempt at despatch that greatly disconcerted 
 the post functionaries, and probably suggested to them 
 grievous doubts about our respectability. After twenty- 
 four hours of this jolting process, I was, as you may sup- 
 pose, well wearied — the more so, since my late confine- 
 ment to bed had made me weak and irritable. Mrs. G., 
 however, seemed to think nothing of it, so that for very 
 shame sake I could not complain. There is either a greater 
 fund of endurance about women than in men, or else 
 they have a stronger and more impulsive will, overcoming 
 all obstacles in its way, or regarding them as nothing. I 
 assure, you, Tom, I'd have pulled up short at any of the 
 villages we passed through and booked myself for a ten- 
 hours' sleep, in that horizontal position that Nature in- 
 tended, but she wouldn't hear of it. " We must get on, 
 dear Mr. Dodd ; " " You know how important time is to 
 us ; " " Do our best, and we shall be late enough." Theso 
 and such like were the propositions which I had to assent 
 to, without the very vaguest conception why. 
 
 That night seemed to me as if it would never end. I 
 never could close my eyes without dreaming of bailiffs, 
 writs, judges' warrants, and Mrs. D. Then I got the 
 notion into my head that I had been sentenced for some
 
 254 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 crime or other to everlasting travelling — an impression, 
 doubtless, suggested by my hearing through my sleep 
 how we were constantly crossing some frontier, and enter- 
 ing a new territory. Now, it was Hesse Cassel would 
 pry into our portmanteaus, now, it was Bavaria wanted 
 to peep at our passports. Sigmaringen insisted on seeing 
 that we had no concealed lire-arms. Hoch Heckingen 
 searched us for smuggled tobacco. From a deep doze, 
 which to my ineffable shame I discovered I had been 
 taking on my fair companion's shoulder, I was suddenly 
 awakened at daybreak by the roll of a drum, and the 
 clatter of presenting arms. This was a place called Hein- 
 feld, in the Duchy of Saxe Weimar, where the commandant, 
 supposing us to be royal personages, from our six horses 
 and mounted courier, turned out the guard to salute us. 
 I gave him briefly to understand that we were incog., and 
 we passed on without further molestation. 
 
 By noon we reached Eisenach, where, descending at tho 
 " Rautenkranz," the head inn, I bolted my door, and 
 throwing myself on my bed, slept far into the night. 
 When I awoke, the house was all at rest, every one had 
 retired, and in this solitude did I begin the recital of the 
 singular page in my history which is now before you. I 
 felt like one of those storm-tossed mariners who, on 
 some unknown and distant ocean, commit their sorrows 
 to paper, and then enclosing it in a bottle, leave the 
 address to Fortune. I know not if these lines are ever to 
 reach you. I know not who may read them. Perhaps, 
 like Perouse, my fate may be a mystery for future ages. 
 I feel altogether very low about myself. 
 
 I was obliged to break off suddenly above, but I am 
 now better. We have been two days here, and I like the 
 place greatly. It lies in the midst of a fine mountain 
 range — the Thuringians — with a deep forest on every 
 side. Up to this we have had no tidings of the princess, 
 but we pass our time agreeably enough in visiting the 
 remarkable objects in the neighbourhood, one of which 
 is the Wartburg, where Luther passed a year of imprison- 
 ment.
 
 DOUBT AND UNCERTAINTY. 255 
 
 1 have collected some curious materials about the life 
 of this Protestant champion for Father Maher, which will 
 make a considerable sensation at home. There is an 
 armoury, too, in the castle of the most interesting kind, 
 but, as usual, all the remarkable warriors were little 
 fellows. The robbers of antiquity were big, but the great 
 characters of chivalry, I remark, were small. The Con- 
 stable de Bourbon's armour wouldn't fit Kenny Dodd. 
 
 I intend to send off this package to-day, by a "gentle- 
 man of the Jewish persuasion," so he styles himself, who 
 is travelling " in the interest of soft soap," and will be in 
 England within a fortnight. Where I shall be myself, by 
 that time, Tom, Heaven alone can tell ! 
 
 My cash is running very low. I don't think that, above 
 my lawful debts in this place, I could muster twelve 
 pounds, and, after a careful exploration of the locality, I 
 see no spot at all likely to " advance money on good 
 personal security." You must immediately remit me a 
 hundred, or a hundred and fifty, for present emergencies. 
 My humiliation will be terrible if I have to speak about 
 pecuniary matters in a certain quarter ; and, as I said 
 before, how long we may remain here, or where proceed 
 when we leave this, I know as much as you do ! 
 
 I have begun four letters to Mrs. D., but have not 
 satisfied myself that I am on the right tack in any of 
 them. Writing home when you have not heard from it, 
 is like legislation for a distant colony without any clue to 
 the state of public opinion. You may be trying rigorous 
 measures with a people ripe for rebellion, or, perhaps, re- 
 fusing some concession that they have just wrested by 
 force. When I think of domestic matters, I am strongly 
 reminded of the Caffre war, for, somehow, affairs never 
 look so badly as when they seem to promise a peace ; and, 
 like Sandilla, Mrs. D. is great at an ambush. 
 
 You must write to her, Tom ; say that I am greatly 
 distressed at not getting any answers to my letters ; that 
 I wrote four ; which is true, though I never sent off* any 
 of them. Make a plausible case for my absence out of 
 the present materials, and speak alarmingly about my 
 health, for she knows I have sold my policy of insurance 
 at the Phoenix, and is really uneasy when I look ill.
 
 256 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 If I wasn't in such a mess I should be distressed about 
 the family, for I left them at Bonn with a mere trifle. 
 When a man has got an incurable malady he spends little 
 money on doctoring, and so there is nothing saves fret- 
 ting so much as being irretrievably ruined. Besides, it 
 is in the world as in the water, it is struggling that drowns 
 you ; lie quietly down on your back, don't stir hand or 
 limb, and somebody will be sure to pull you out, though it 
 may chance to be by the hair. 
 
 1 have often thought, Tom, that life is like the game of 
 chess. It's a fine thing to have the " move," if you play 
 well, but if you don't, take my word for it, it's better to 
 stay quiet, and not budge. This will give you the key to 
 my system ; and if I ever get into public life, this, I assure 
 you, shall be " Dodd's Parliamentary Guide." 
 
 I have now done, and you'll say it's time too ; but let 
 me tell you, Tom, that, when I seal and send off this, I'll 
 feel myself very lonely and miserable. It was a comfori 
 to me some days back to go every now and then and dot 
 down a line or two ; it kept me from thinking, which was 
 a great blessing. You know how Gibbon felt when he 
 wrote the last sentence of his great history ; and although 
 the Rise and Fall of Kenny Dodd be a small matter to 
 posterity, it has a great hold upon his own affections. 
 
 I see my pony at the door, and Mrs. G. is already 
 mounted. We are going to some old abbey in the forest, 
 where she is to sketch, and I am to smoke for an hour or 
 two ; so good-bye, and remember that my escape from this 
 must depend upon your assistance. This princess has not 
 yet made her appearance, nor have I the slightest guide as 
 to her future intentions. 
 
 There are a quantity of home questions I am anxious to 
 speak about, but must defer the discussion till my next. 
 I have not seen a newspaper since I started on this excur- 
 sion. I know not who is " in " or " out." I shall learn 
 all these things later on; so, once more, good-bye. Address 
 me at the " Rue Garland," and believe me, faithfully, your 
 friend, 
 
 Kenny I. Dodd. 
 
 P.S. — AVhen you mention to the neighbours having
 
 INJUNCTIONS TO SECRECY. 257 
 
 heard from me, it would be as well to say nothing of this 
 little adventure of mine. Say that the Dodds are all well, 
 and enjoying themselves, or something like that. If Mrs. 
 D. has written to old Molly, try and get hold of the epistle, 
 or otherwise I might as well be in the " Hue and Cry." 
 Indeed, I don't see why you couldn't stop her letters at 
 the post-office in Bruff. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 MRS. DODD TO MISTRESS MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROTTGH. 
 
 Cour de Bade, Baden-Baden. 
 My dear Molly, — It will be five weeks on Tuesday next 
 since we saw K. I., and except a bit of a note, of which I'll 
 speak presently, never any tidings of him has reached us ! 
 I suppose, within the memory of man, wickedness equal 
 to this has not been heard of. To go and disgrace himself, 
 and, what's more, disgrace us, at his time of life, with two 
 daughters grown up, and a son just going into the world, 
 is a depth of baseness to which the mind cannot ascend. 
 
 They're away in Germany, my dear, the happy pair ! 
 I wish I was near him. I'd only ask to be for five minutes 
 within reach of him. Faith, I don't think he'd be so 
 seductive and captivating for a little time to come. They're 
 off, I hear, to what they call the " Hearts Forest ; " a 
 place, I take from the name, to be the favourite resort of 
 loving couples. From the first day, Molly, I suspected 
 what was coming, for though James and Mary Anne per- 
 sisted in saying that he was only gone for a day or two, I 
 went to his drawers and saw that he had taken every stitch 
 of his clothes that was good for anything away with him. 
 
 "If he's only gone for two days," says I, " what does he 
 want with fourteen shirts and four embroidered fronts for 
 dress, not to speak of his new black suit and his undress 
 Deputy-Lieutenant's coat ? " I tossed and tumbled over 
 everything, and sure enough there was little left to look 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 at. So you see, Molly, it was all planned before, and the 
 whole was arranged with a cold-blooded duplicity that 
 makes me boil to think over. This wasn't all, either ; but 
 he must go and draw a bill on the landlord for a hundred 
 and twenty pounds ; and, without the slightest attention 
 to all that we owed in the hotel, or even leaving us a six- 
 pence, away goes my gallant Lutherian, only thinking of 
 love and pleasure ! 
 
 The half of the McCarthy legacy is gone already to meet 
 these demands and enable us to come on here ; and even 
 with that I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been for 
 Lord George's kindness, for he knows so much about bills, 
 and bankers, and when the exchange is good, and what is 
 the favourable moment to draw upon London, that, as he 
 says himself, one learns at last to " make a pound go as 
 far as five." 
 
 As to staying any longer at Bonn, it was out of the 
 question. The whole town was talking of K. I., and 
 everybody used to stop us and ask, with a mournful voice, 
 if we hadn't got any tidings of Mr. Dodd ? 
 
 And now we're here, I must say it is a charming place ; 
 and for real life and enjoyment, there's probably not its 
 equal in Europe. And then, Molly, the great feature is 
 certainly the universal kindness and charity that prevail?. 
 5Tou may do what you like, wear what you like, go where 
 you like. I was a little bit afraid at first that the story ot 
 K. I. would get abroad and damage us in society ; but 
 Lord George said, " You mistake Baden, my dear Mrs. 
 Dodd. If there's anything they're peculiarly lenient to, 
 it's just that. There's no cant, no hypocrisy here ; nobody 
 would endure such for an hour. Everybody knows that 
 the world is not peopled with angels, and England is the 
 only country where they affect that delusion. Here, all 
 are natural, sincere, and candid." These were his words, 
 and I assure you they are no more than the truth ; and so 
 far from K. I.'s conduct being regarded in any spirit of 
 unfairness towards us, I really believe that we have met a 
 great deal of delicate and refined notice on account of it. 
 As Lord G. remarks, " They know that you don't belong 
 to that strait-laced set of humbugs that want to frown 
 down all mankind. They see at once that you have the
 
 LORD GEORGE DISPLAYS HIS TACT. 259 
 
 habits of the world, and the instincts of good society, and 
 that you come amongst them neither to criticize nor censure, 
 but to please and be pleased." I quote his very expres- 
 sions, Molly, because, with all his wildness, his sentiments 
 are invariably beautiful ; and I must say that an ill-natured 
 word never comes out of his mouth. If there's anything 
 he excels in, too, it's tact. This he showed very remark- 
 ably when we arrived here. " We must do the thing 
 handsomely," said he, " or we shall be sure to hear that 
 Mr. D.'s absence is owing to pecuniary difficulties." And 
 so accordingly he arranged to purchase a beautiful pair of 
 grey ponies, and a small park phaeton, belonging to a 
 young Russian, that was just ruined at the tables. "We 
 got the whole equipage for little more than half what it 
 cost, and a tiger — as they call the little boy in buttons — 
 goes with it. 
 
 We have taken the first apartment in the " Cour de 
 Bade," and have put Paddy Byrne in a suit of green and 
 gold, that always reminds me of poor Daniel O'Connell. 
 Lord Gr. drives me out every day himself, and I hear all 
 the passers-by say, " It's Tiverton and Mrs. Dodd," in a 
 manner that shows we're as well known as the first people 
 in the place. He is acquainted with every man, woman, 
 and child in the town ; and it is a perpetual " How are 
 ye, Tiverton?"—" How goes it, George ?"— " At the old 
 trade, eh?" — as we drive along, that amuses me greatly. 
 And it isn't only that he knows them personally, but ho is 
 familiar with all their private histories. It would fill a 
 book — and a nice volume it would be ! — if I were to tell 
 you one-half of the stories he told me yesterday, going 
 down to Lichtenthal. But the names is so confusing. 
 How he remembers them all, I can't conceive. 
 
 We go to the rooms in the evening, full dressed, and as 
 fine as you please ; and if you saw how the company rises 
 to meet us, and the gracious manner we are received by 
 all the first people, you'd think we were sisters with half 
 the room. For rank, wealth, and beauty, I never saw its 
 equal ; and the " tone," as Lord Gr. observes, is " so easy." 
 Mary Anne usually dances all night, but / only stand up 
 for a quadrille, though Lord George torments me to polka 
 with him. As for James, he never quits the roulette-table, 
 
 S 2
 
 260 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 which is a kind of game where you always win thirty-six 
 times as much as you put down, though maybe occasion- 
 ally you lose your stake, for it's all chance, Molly, and, 
 like everything else in this wicked world, in the hands of 
 Fate ! 
 
 I'm afraid James doesn't understand the game, or for- 
 gets to take up his winnings, for when he joins us at 
 supper he looks depressed and careworn, till he has taken 
 two or three glasses of champagne. Caroline, as you may 
 suppose, stays moping at home. If there's anything dis- 
 tresses me more than another, it's the way that girl goes 
 on. Here we are, in the very thick of the fashion, spend- 
 ing money— as fast as hops — ruining ourselves, I may say, 
 with expense ; and instead of taking the benefit of it while 
 " it's going," she sits up in her room reading her eyes out 
 of her head, and studying things that no woman need 
 know. As I say to her, " What good is it to you ? Will 
 it ever get you a husband, to know that Sir Humphrey 
 Clinker invented the safety lamp ? or do you suppose that 
 any man will take a fancy to you for the sake of your 
 chemistry and eccentricity ? Besides," says I, " you could 
 do all this at home, in Dodsborough, and who knows if 
 we shouldn't be obliged to go back and finish our days in 
 Ireland ! " And in my heart and soul I believe it's what 
 she'd like ! 
 
 The real affliction in life is to see your children not take 
 after you ! That is the most dreadful calamity of all. 
 You toil and you slave to bring them up with high notions, 
 to teach them to look down upon whatever is low and 
 mean, to avoid their poor relations, and whatever disgraces 
 them, and you find, the whole time, 'tis looking back they 
 are to their humble origin, and fancying that they were 
 happier, for no other reason than because they were lower ! 
 
 It is, maybe, the M'Carthy blood in me, but I feel as 
 if the higher I went the lighter I grew, and so it is, I'm 
 sure, with Mary Anne. I know, from her face across the 
 room, whether she's dancing with a " prince," or only " a 
 gentleman from the United States!" And even in the 
 matter of looks it makes the greatest difference in her. In 
 the one case, her eyes sparkle, her head is thrown back, 
 her cheek glows with animation j while, in the other, she
 
 ARISTOCRATIC PROCLIVITIES. 2G1 
 
 seems half asleep, dances out of time, and probably answers 
 out of place. 
 
 From all these facts, I gather, Molly, that there's nothing 
 «30 elevating to the mind as moving in a rank above your 
 own ; and I'm sure I don't forgive myself when I keep 
 company with my equals. I believe James has less of the 
 Dodd and more of the M'Carthy in him than the girls. 
 He takes to the aristocracy so naturally — calls them by 
 their names, and makes free with them in a way that is 
 really beautiful ; and they call him " Jim," or some of them 
 say u Jeemes," just as familiar as himself. I suppose it's 
 no use repining, but I often feel, Molly, that if it was the 
 Lord's will that I was to be left a widow, I'd see my 
 children high in the world before long. 
 
 This reminds me of K. I., and here's his letter for you. 
 I copy it word for word, without note or comma : — 
 
 u Dear Jemi, — We are waiting here for the princess, 
 who has not yet arrived, but is expected to-day or to- 
 morrow at furthest. You will be sorry to hear that I was 
 ill and confined for more than a week to my bed at Ems." 
 Will I indeed ? " It was a kind of low fever." I read it 
 a love fever, Molly, when I saw it first. " But I am now 
 much better." You never were worse in "your life, you old 
 hypocrite, thinks I. " And am able to take a little exercise 
 on horseback. 
 
 " The expense of this journey, unavoidable as it was ! is 
 very considerable, so that I reckon upon your practising 
 the strictest economy during my absence." I thought I'd 
 choke, Molly, when I seen this. Just think of the daring 
 impudence of the man telling me that while he is lavishing 
 hundreds on his vices and wickedness; the family is to starve 
 to enable him to bear the expense. " The strictest economy 
 during my absence." I wish I was near you when youwroteit! 
 
 Then comes in some balderdash about the scenery, and 
 the place they're at, just as coolly described as if it was 
 talking of Bruff or the neighbourhood ; the whole winding 
 up with, " Mrs. Gr. H. desires me to convey her tender 
 regards " — what she can spare, I suppose, without robbing 
 him — " to you and the girls. No time for more, from yours 
 
 6incerel 7' "Kenny James Dodd."
 
 262 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 There's an epistle for you ! You'll not find the like of 
 it in the " Polite Letter- Writer," I'll wager. The father of 
 a family — and such a family too ! — discoursing as easily 
 about the height of iniquity as if he was alluding to the 
 state of the weather, or the price of sheep at the last fair. 
 He flatters himself, maybe, that this free-and-easy way is 
 the best to bamboozle me, and that by seeming to make 
 nothing of it, I'll take the same view as himself. Is that 
 all he knows of me yet ? Did he ever succeed in deceiving 
 me during the last seventeen years ? Didn't I find him 
 out in twenty things when he didn't know himself of his 
 own depravity ? I tell you in confidence, Molly, that if 
 coming abroad is an elegant thing for our sex, it's downright 
 ruin to men of K. I.'s time of life ! When they come to 
 fifty, or thereabouts, in Ireland, they settle down to some- 
 thing respectable, either on the Bench, or Guardians to the 
 Union. Their thoughts runs upon green crops and drain- 
 ing, and how to raise a trifle, by way of loan, from the 
 Board of Works. But not having these things, abroad, 
 to engage them, they take to smartening themselves up 
 with polished boots and blackened whiskers, and what 
 between pinching here, and padding there, they get the 
 notion that they're just what they were thirty years ago ! 
 Oh dear ! oh dear ! sure they've only to go upstairs a little 
 quick, to stoop to pick up a handkerchief, or button a 
 boot, to detect the mistake, and if that won't do, let them 
 try a polka with a young lady just out for her first 
 season ! 
 
 Of all the old fools, in this fashion, I never met a worse 
 than K. I. ! and what adds to the disgrace, he knows it 
 himself, and he goes on saying, " Sure I'm too old for 
 this," or " I'm past that;" and I always chime in with, " Of 
 course you are ; you'd cut a nice figure ;" and so on. But 
 what's the use of it, Molly? Their vanity and conceit 
 sustains them against all the snubs in the world, and till 
 they come down to a Bath-chair, they never believe that 
 they can't dance a hornpipe ! 
 
 I could say a great deal more on this subject, but I must 
 turn to other things. You must see Purcell and tell him 
 the way we're left, without a fraction of money, nor 
 knowing where to get it. Tell him that I wrote to
 
 OUT OF THE WAY OF A CHANCE. 263 
 
 Waters about a separation, which I would, only that K. I.'s 
 affairs is in such a state, I'd have to put up with a mere 
 trifle. Say that I'm going to expose him in the news- 
 papers, and there's " no knowing where I'll stop," for that's 
 exactly the threat Tom Purcell will be frightened at. 
 
 Get him to send me a remittance immediately, and 
 describe our distress and destitution as touchingly as you 
 can. 
 
 Hero's more of it, Molly. James has just come in to 
 say that the Ministry is out in England, and that the new 
 Government is giving everything away to the Irish, and 
 that old villian, K. I., not on the spot to ask for a place ! 
 James tells me, it's the Brigade is to have the best things ; 
 bat I don't remember if K. I. belongs to it, though I know 
 he's in the Yeomanry. From Lord-Lieutenant down to 
 the letter-carriers, they must be all Irish now, James says. 
 We're to have Ireland for ourselves and as much of England 
 as we can, for we'll never rest till we get perfect equality, 
 and I must say it's time too ! 
 
 K. I. isn't fit for much, but maybe he might get some- 
 thing. The Treasury is where he'd like to be, but I'm not 
 certain it would suit him. At all events, he's not to the 
 fore, and I don't think they'll send to look for him, as 
 they did for Sir Robert Peel! Till we know, however, 
 whether he has a chance of anything, it would be better 
 to keep his present conduct a profound secret, for James 
 remarks " that they make a great fuss about character 
 now-a-days;" and it comes well from them, Molly, if the 
 stories I hear be true ! 
 
 Ask Purcell what's vacant in K. I.'s line ? which, you 
 may say, goes from Lunatic Asylums to the Court of 
 Chancery. I don't want James to have an Irish appoint- 
 ment, but he says there's something in Gambia — wherever 
 that is — that he'd like. 
 
 As of course K. I. and myself can never live together 
 again, it would be very convenient if he was to get some- 
 thing that would require him to stay in Ireland — either a 
 suspensory magistrate or a place in Newgate would do. 
 You'll wonder at my troubling myself about a man that 
 behaved as ho did ; and indeed I wonder at myself for it ; 
 and what I say is, maybe this might happen, maybe the
 
 264 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 other, and I'd be sorry afterwards ; and if he was to be 
 taken away suddenly, I'd like to be sure to have my mind 
 easy, and in a happy frame. 
 
 Isn't it dreadful to think that it's about these things my 
 letter is filled, while all the enjoyment in life is going on 
 about me ? There's the band underneath my window 
 playing the Railroad Polka, and the crowd round them 
 is princesses, and duchesses, and countesses, all so ele- 
 gantly dressed, and looking so sweet and amiable. Every 
 minute the door opens, with an invitation for this or that, 
 or maybe a nosegay of beautiful flowers that a prince 
 with a wonderful name has sent to Mary Anne. And 
 here's a man with the most tempting jewellery from 
 Vienna, and another with lace and artificial flowers ; and 
 all for nothing, Molly, or next to nothing — if one had a 
 trifle to spend on them. And so we might, too, if K. I. 
 hadn't behaved this way. 
 
 There's to be a grand ball to-night at the Rooms, and 
 Mary Anne is come to me about her dress ; for one thing 
 here is indispensable — you must never appear twice in the 
 same. For the life of me, I don't know what they do 
 with the old gowns, but Mary Anne and myself has a 
 stock already that would set up a moderate mantua- 
 maker. As to shoes, and gloves too, a second night out 
 of them is impossible, though Mary Anne tries to wear 
 them at small tea-parties. Speaking of this, I must say 
 that girl will be a treasure to the man that gets her ; for 
 she has so many ways of turning things to account: 
 there's not an old lace veil, nor a bit of net, nor even a 
 flower, that she can't find use for, somewhere or other. 
 As to Caroline, she looks like a poor governess ; there's 
 no taste nor style whatever about her ; and as to a bit of 
 ribbon round her throat, or a cheap brooch, she never 
 wears one ! I tell her every day, " You're a Dodd, my 
 dear — a regular Dodd. You have no more of the 
 M'Carthy in you than if you never saw me." And 
 indeed she takes after the father in everything. She has 
 a dry, sneering way about whatever is genteel or high- 
 bred, and the same liking for anything low and common ; 
 but, after all, I'm lucky to have Mary Anne and James 
 what they are ! There's no position in life that they're
 
 MRS. DODD ON " HOME " MANNERS. 2G5 
 
 not equal to ; and if I'm not greatly mistaken, it's in the 
 very highest rank they'll settle down at last. This opinion 
 of mine, Molly, is the best and shortest answer I can give 
 to what you ask me in your last letter, "What's the use 
 of going abroad ? " But, indeed, your question — as Lord 
 George remarked, when I told him of it — is, " What's the 
 nse of civilization ? What's the use of clothes ? What's 
 the use of cooked victuals?" You'll say, perhaps, that 
 you have all these in Ireland ; and I'll tell you, just as 
 flatly, You have not. You stare with surprise, but I 
 repeat to you, You have not. 
 
 An old iron shop in Pill Lane, with bits of brass, broken 
 glass, and old crockery, is just as like Storr and Morti- 
 mer's as your Irish habits and ways are like the real 
 world. Why, Molly, there's no breeding nor manners at 
 all ! You are all twice too familiar, or what you, perhaps, 
 would call cordial, with each other ; and yet you daren't, 
 for the life of you, say what every foreigner would say to 
 a lady the first time he ever met her. That's your notion 
 of good manners ! 
 
 As to your clothes, I get red as a turkey-cock with pure 
 shame when I think of a Dublin bonnet, with a whole 
 botanical garden over it ; but indeed, when one thinks of 
 the dirty streets and the shocking climate, they forgive 
 you for keeping all the finery for the head. 
 
 The cookery I won't speak of. There's people can eat 
 it, and much good may it do them ; and my heart bleeds 
 when I think of their sufferings. But maybe Ireland is 
 coming round after all. What I hear is, that when every- 
 body is sold out, matters will begin to mend. I suppose 
 it's just as if the whole country was taking what's called 
 the "Benefit of the Act," and that they'll start fresh 
 again in the world without owing sixpence. If that's the 
 meaning of the Cumbered Estates, it's the best thing 
 ever was done for Ireland, and I only wonder they didn't 
 think of it earlier; for my sure and certain opinion is, 
 that there's nothing distresses a man like trying to pay 
 off old debts ; and it destroys the spirits besides, for ye're 
 always saying, " It wasn't me that spent this. I hadn't 
 any fun for that." 
 
 James has just come in with the list of the new
 
 266 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 Ministry, and among all the Irish appointments I don't 
 see as good a name as K. I.'s ; and you may fancy how 
 respectable they are after that ! But the truth is, Molly, 
 it's the same with politics as with the potatoes : one is 
 satisfied to put up with anything in a famine. K. I. used 
 to say that when he was young, his Irish name would 
 have excluded him as much from any chance of office as 
 if he was a Red Indian ; but times is changed now, and I 
 see two or three in the list that their colleagues will 
 never pronounce rightly — and that at least is something 
 gained. 
 
 And just to think of it, Molly ! Who knows, if K. I. 
 wasn't disgracing himself this minute, that he wouldn't 
 be high in the Administration ? 1 remember the time 
 when it was only Lord James this, or Sir Michael • that, 
 got anything ; but now you may remark that it's maybe a 
 fellow would rob the mail is a Lord of the Treasury, and 
 one that would take fright at his own shadow is made 
 Clerk of the Ordnance. That's a great " step in the right 
 direction," Molly, and it shows, besides, that we're daily 
 living down obscene and antiquated prejudices. 
 
 You like a long letter, you say, and I hope you'll be 
 satisfied with this, for I'm four days over it ; but, to be 
 sure, half the time is spent crying over the barbarous 
 treatment I've met from K. I. That you may never 
 know what it is to have a like grief, is the prayer of your 
 affectionate friend, 
 
 Jemima Dodd. 
 
 P.S. — Mary Anne sends her love and regards, and Cary, 
 too, desires to be remembered to you. She is longing to 
 have old Tib here, as if a black cat would be anything 
 remarkable on the Continent. But that's the way with 
 her. All the Dodsborough geese are swans in her estima- 
 tion.
 
 267 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. 
 
 Baden-Baden. 
 
 My dear Bob. — I copy the following paragraph from the 
 Galignani of yesterday : " Considerable excitement has 
 been caused amongst the fashionable visitors of Baden by 
 the rumoured elopement of the charming Mrs. G * * * 
 H ***** * with an Irish gentleman of large fortune, 
 and who, though considerably past the prime of life, is 
 evidently not beyond the age of fascination. Our readers 
 will appreciate the reserve with which we only allude to 
 a report, the bare mention of which will doubtless give 
 the deepest distress amongst a wide circle of our very 
 highest aristocracy." 
 
 Probably all your conic sections and spherical trigono- 
 metry learning wCuld never enable you to read the riddle 
 aright, and so I shall save you the profitless effort by say- 
 ing that the delinquent so delicately indicated in the above 
 is no other than the worthy governor himself. Ay, Bob, 
 as the old song says : 
 
 "No age, no profession, nor station is free, 
 To sovereign beauty mankind bends the knee ; " 
 
 and how should it be expected that Dodd pere could resist 
 the soft impeachment ? To be as intelligible as the cir- 
 cumstances permit, I must ask of you to call to mind a 
 certain very beautiful fellow-traveller of ours — a Mrs. 
 Gore Hampton. She is the Dido of this iEneid. Not 
 that there is in reality any — even the remotest — shade of 
 truth in the newspaper paragraph ; the entire event being 
 explicable upon far less romantic and less interesting 
 grounds. Mrs. G. H. having desired the protection of 
 my father's escort to some small town in Germany, and 
 not wishing to excite the inevitable hostility of my mother 
 to the arrangement, determined upon a night march, with-
 
 268 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 out beat of drum. In this way was the fortress evacuated ; 
 and when the garrison were mustered for duty, Dodd 
 pere was reported missing. 
 
 Tiverton, who was in the secret throughout, explained 
 everything to me, and I as readily imparted the explana- 
 tion to the girls ; but all our endeavours to convince my 
 mother were totally fruitless. " She knew him of old " — 
 u she guessed many a day since what he was " — " it was 
 not now that she had to read his character " — these and 
 similar intimations, coupled with others even stronger and 
 less nattering as regarded his time of life, manners, and 
 personal advantages, were more than enough to drown all 
 our arguments ; and I must confess that she arranged the 
 details of circumstantial evidence against him with a 
 degree of art and dexterity that might have reflected 
 credit on a Crown lawyer. 
 
 Of course, the first three or four days after the event 
 were not of the pleasantest, for, not satisfied with the sym- 
 pathies of a home circle, my mother empannelled " special 
 juries" of the waiters and chambermaids, and arraigned 
 the unlucky governor on a series of charges extending to 
 a period far beyond the " statute of limitations." 
 
 Under these circumstances there was nothing for it but 
 to leave this place at once, and establish our quarters in 
 some new locality. Baden offered the most advisable 
 sphere, whither we have come, if not to hide our sorrows, 
 at least to console our griefs. I am perfectly convinced 
 that if the governor came back to-morrow, and could 
 only obtain a fair hearing, he could satisfactorily explain 
 why he went, where he was, and everything else about 
 his absence ; but there lies the real difficulty, Bob. He 
 will be condemned per contumaciam, if not actually hooted 
 out of court with indignation. While this is undeniably 
 true, you will be astonished to hear how thoroughly public 
 sympathy would be with him, were he boldly to stand 
 forth and tender his plea of " Guilty." I was slow to 
 credit this when Tiverton told me so at first, but I now 
 see it is perfect fact. Good society abroad exacts some- 
 thing in the way of qualification — like what certain charit- 
 able institutions require at home — you must have sinned 
 before you can hope for admittance ! It is not enough
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR GOOD SOCIETY. 269 
 
 that you express profligate opinions — speak disparagingly 
 of whatever is right, and praise the wrong — you are 
 expected to give a proof, a good, palpable, unmistakable 
 proof, of your professions, and show yourself a man of 
 your word. The oddest thing about all this is, that these 
 evidences are not demanded on any moral or immoral 
 grounds, but simply as requirements of good breeding — 
 in other words, you have no right to mix in society where 
 your purity of character may give offence ; such preten- 
 sion would be a downright impertinence. 
 
 Hence you will perceive that if the governor only knew 
 of it, he might take brevet rank as a scamp, and actually 
 figure here as one of the "profligates of the season." 
 Meanwhile, his absence is not without its inconveniences ; 
 and if he remain much longer away, I am sorely afraid, 
 we shall be reduced to a paper currency, not " conver- 
 tible " at will. 
 
 I have myself been terribly unlucky at " the tables," 
 have lost heavily, and am deeply in debt. Tiverton, 
 however, tells me never to despair, and that when pushed 
 to the wall a man can always retrieve himself by a rich 
 marriage. I confess the remedy is not exactly to my 
 taste — but what remedy ever is ? If it must be so, it 
 must. There are just now some three or four great prizes 
 in the wheel matrimonial here, of which I will speak 
 more fully in my next ; my object in the present being 
 rather to tell you where we are, than to communicate the 
 " res gestce " of 
 
 Your ever attached friend, 
 
 James Dodd. 
 
 P.S. — Don't think of reading for the Fellowship, I beg 
 and entreat of you. If you will take to "monkery," do 
 it among our own fellows, who at least enjoy lives of 
 ease and indolence. Besides, it is a downright absurdity 
 to suppose that any man ever rallies after four years of 
 hard study and application. As Tiverton says, " You 
 train too fine, and there's no work in you afterwards."
 
 270 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 KENKT DODD TO THOMAS PUBCELL, ESQ., OP THE GRANGE, BRT7FF. 
 
 Eisenach. * ' The Rue Garland. ' ' 
 My dear Tom, — You may see by the address that I am 
 still here, although in somewhat different circumstances 
 from those in which I last wrote to you. No longer 
 "mi lor," the occupant of the "grand suite of apart- 
 ments with the balcony," nattered by beauty, and waited 
 on witli devotion. I am now alone ; the humble tenant 
 of a small sanded parlour, and but too happy to take a 
 very unpretending place at my host's table. I seek out 
 solitary spots for my daily walks — I select the very 
 cheapest " Oanastre " for my lonely pipe — and, in a word, 
 I am undergoing a course of "the silent system," accom- 
 panied by thoughts of the past, present, and the future, 
 gloomy as ever were inflicted by any code of penitentiary 
 discipline. 
 
 I know not if — seeing the bulk of this formidable 
 despatch — you will have patience to read it : I have my 
 doubts that you will employ somebody to "note the brief" 
 for you, and only address yourself to the strong points of 
 the case. Be this as it may, it is a relief to me to decant 
 my sorrows even into my ink-bottle ; and I come back at 
 night with a sense of consolation that shows me that, no 
 matter how lonely and desolate a man may be in the 
 world, there is a great source of comfort in the sympathy 
 he has for himself. This may sound like a bull, but it is 
 not one, as I am quite ready to show. But my poor 
 brains are not in order for metaphysics, and so, with your 
 leave, I'll just confine myself to narrative for the present, 
 and keep all the philosophy of my argument for another 
 occasion. 
 
 Lest, however, you should only throw your eyes care- 
 lessly over these lines and not adventure far into the 
 detail of my sorrows, I take this early opportunity of 
 saying that I am living here on credit — that I haven't
 
 THE AtlT OF LIVING CHEAPLY. 271 
 
 five shillings left to me — that my shoemaker lies in wait 
 for me in the Juden-Gasse, and my washerwoman watches 
 for me near the church. Schnaps, snuff, and cigars have 
 encompassed me round about with small duns, and I live 
 in a charmed circle of petty persecutions, that would 
 drive a less good-tempered man half-crazy. Not that I am 
 ungrateful to Providence for many blessings ; I acknow- 
 ledge heartily the great advantage I possess in knowing 
 nothing whatever of the language, so that I am enabled 
 to preserve my equanimity under, what very probably 
 may be, the foulest abuse that ever was poured out upon 
 insolvent humanity. 
 
 My wardrobe is dwindled to the "shortest span." I 
 have " taken out " my great-coat in Kirschwasser, and 
 converted my spare small-clothes into cigars. My hat 
 has gone, to repair my shoes ; and, as my razors are 
 pledged for pen, ink, and paper, I have grown a beard 
 that would make the fortune of an Italian refugee, or of 
 a missionary speaker at Exeter Hall ! 
 
 My host of the " Rue Garland " hasn't seen a piece of 
 my money for the last fortnight ; and now, for the first 
 time since I came abroad, am I able to say that I find the 
 Continent cheap to live in. Ay, Tom, take my word for 
 it, the whole secret lies in this — " Do with little, and pay 
 for less," and you'll find a great economy in coming 
 abroad to live. But if you cannot cheat yourself as well 
 as your creditors, take my advice and stay at home. 
 These, however, are only spare reflections ; and I'll now 
 resume my story, taking up the thread of it where I left 
 off in my last. 
 
 It is really all like a dream to me, Tom ; and many 
 times I am unable to convince myself that it is not a 
 dream, so strange and so novel are all the incidents that 
 have of late befallen me, so unlike every former passage 
 of my life, and so unsuited am I by nature, habit, and 
 temperament for the curious series of adventures in 
 which I have been involved. 
 
 After all, I suppose it is downright balderdash to say 
 that a man is not adapted for this, or suited to that. I 
 remember people telling me that public life wouldn't do 
 for me ; that I wasn't the kind of man for Parliament,
 
 272 £HE t>ODt> FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 and so on ; but I see the folly of it all now. The truth 
 is, Tom, that there is a faculty of accommodation in human 
 nature, and wherever you are placed, under whatever 
 circumstances situated, you'll discover that your spirit, 
 like your stomach, learns to digest everything; though 
 I won't deny that it may now and then be at the cost of 
 a heartburn in the one case as well as the other. 
 
 When I wrote to you last I was living a kind of pas- 
 toral life — a species of Melibceus, without sheep ! If I 
 remember aright, I left off when we were just setting out 
 on an excursion into the forest — one of those charming 
 rides over the smooth sward, and under the trellised 
 shadow of tall trees, now, loitering pensively before some 
 vista of the wood, now, cantering along with merry 
 laughter, as though with every bound we left some care 
 behind never to overtake us. Ah, Tom, it's no use for 
 me to argue and reason with myself ; I always find that 
 I come back to the same point, and that whatever touches 
 my feelings, whatever makes my heart vibrate with plea- 
 sant emotion, whatever brings back to me the ardent, 
 confiding, trustful tone of my young days, does me good, 
 and that I'm a better man for it, even though " the situa- 
 tion," as you would call it, was rather equivocal. Don't 
 mistake me, Tom, Purcell I don't want to go wrong ; I 
 have not the slightest inclination to break my neck. The 
 height of my ambition is, only to look over the precipice. 
 Can't you understand that? Try and "realize " that to 
 yourself, as the Yankees say, and you'll at once compre- 
 hend the whole charm and fascination of my late life 
 here. I was always "looking over the precipice," always 
 speculating upon the terrible perils of the drop, and 
 always half hugging myself in my sense of security. 
 Maybe this is metaphysics again ; if it is, I'm sorry for 
 it, but the German Diet must take the blame of it — a 
 course of sauerkraut would make any man flighty. 
 
 Well, I'll spare you all description of these " Forest 
 days," at whatever cost to my own feelings ; and it is not 
 every man that would put that much constraint upon 
 himself, for something tells me that the theme would 
 make me " come out strong." That, what with my 
 descriptive powers as regards scenery, and my acute
 
 "i NEVER THOUGHT HE HAD THIS IN HIM." 273 
 
 analysis on the score of emotions, I'd astonish you, and 
 you'd be forced to exclaim " Kenny is a very remarkable 
 man. Faith ! I never thought he had this in him." Nor did 
 I know it myself, Tom Purcell ; nor as much as suspect it. 
 The fact is, my natural powers never had fair play. Mrs. 
 D. kept me in a state of perpetual conflict. " Little 
 wars," as the duke used to say, " destroy a state; " and 
 in the same way it's your small domesticities — to coin a 
 word — that ruin a man's nature and fetter his genius. 
 You think, perhaps, that I'm employing an over-ambitious 
 phrase, but I am not. Mrs. Gr. H. assured me that I 
 actually did possess " genius," and I believe in my heart 
 that she is the only one who ever really understood me. 
 
 No man understood human nature better than Byron, 
 and he says, in one of his letters, " that none of us ever 
 do anything till a woman takes us in hand ; " by which, 
 of course, he means the developing of our better instincts 
 — the illustrating our latent capabilities, and so on ; and 
 that, let me observe to you, is exactly what our wives 
 never do. With them, it is everlastingly some small 
 question of domestic economy. They " take the vote on 
 the supplies " every morning at breakfast, and they go to 
 bed at night with thoughts of the "budget." The woman, 
 therefore, referred to by the poet cannot be, what we 
 should call in Ireland, " the woman that owns you." 
 And here, again, my dear friend, is another illustration 
 of my old theory — how hard it is for a man to be good 
 and great at the same time. Indeed, I am disposed to 
 say that Nature never intended we should, but in all pro- 
 bability meant to typify, by the separation, the great 
 manufacturing axiom — " the division of labour." 
 
 Be this as it may, Byron is right, and if there be an 
 infinitesimal spark of the divine essence in your nature, 
 your female friend will detect it with the same unerring 
 accuracy that a French chemist hunts out the ten-thou- 
 sandth part of a grain of arsenic in a case of poison. It 
 would amaze you were I to tell you how markedly I 
 perceived the changes going on in myself when under 
 this influence. There was, so to say, a great revolution 
 going on within me, that embraced all my previous 
 thoughts and opinions on men, manners, and morals. I 
 
 T0L. I. T
 
 274 THE DODD FAMILY ABKOAD. 
 
 felt that hitherto I had been taking a kind of Dutch 
 view of life from the mere level of surrounding objects, 
 but that now I was elevated to a high and commanding 
 position, from which I looked down with calm dignity. 
 I must observe to you that Mrs. G. H. was not only in 
 the highest fashionable circles of London, but that she 
 was one who took a very active part in political life. 
 This will doubtless surprise you, Tom, as it did myself, 
 for we know really nothing in Ireland of the springs that 
 set great events in motion. Little do we suspect the 
 real influence women exercise — the sway and control 
 they practise over those who rule us. I wish you heard 
 Mrs. Gr. H. talk, how she made Bustle do this, and per- 
 suaded Pumi stone do the other. Foreign affairs are her 
 forte, and, indeed, she owned to me that purely Home 
 matters were too narrow and too local to interest her. 
 What she likes is a great Russian question, with the 
 Bosphorus and the Danubian Provinces, and the Hospodar 
 of Wallachia to deal with ; or Italy and the Austrians, 
 with a skirmishing dash at the Pope and the King of 
 Naples. She is a Whig, for she told me that the Tories 
 were a set of rude barbarians, that never admitted female 
 influence ; and " the consequence is," says she, " they 
 never know what is doing at foreign courts. Now we 
 knew everything : there was the Princess Sleeboffsky, at 
 St. Petersburg ; and the Countess von Schwarmerey, at 
 Berlin ; and Madame de la Tour de Force, at Florence, 
 all in our interest. There was not a single impertinent 
 allusion made to England, in all the privacy of royal 
 domestic life, that we hadn't it reported to us ; and we 
 knew, besides, all the little ' tendresses ' of the different 
 statesmen of the Continent, for, in our age, we bribe with 
 Beauty, where formerly it was a matter of Bank-notes. 
 The Tories, on the other hand, lived with their wives, 
 which at once accounts for the narrowness of their views, 
 and the limited range of their speculations." 
 
 All this may read to you like a digression, my dear 
 Tom, but it is not ; for it enables me to exhibit to you 
 some of those traits by which this fascinating creature 
 charmed and engaged me. She opened so man}' new 
 views of life to me — explained so much of what wag
 
 INFLUENCE OF WOMEN, 275 
 
 mystery to me before — recounted so many amusing stories 
 of great people — gave me such passing glimpses of that 
 wonderful world made up of kings, and kaisers, and 
 ministers, who are, so to say, the great pieces of the chess- 
 board, whereon we are but pawns — that I actually felt as 
 if I had been a child till I knew her. 
 
 Another grand result of this kind of information is, 
 that, as you extend your observation beyond the narrow 
 sphere of home — whether it be politically or domestically 
 ■ — you learn at last to think so little of what you once 
 regarded as your own immediate and material interests, 
 that you have as many — maybe more — sympathies with 
 the world at large than with those actually belonging to 
 you. Such was the progress I made in this enlightenment, 
 that I felt far more anxious about the Bosphorus than 
 ever I did for Bruff, and would rather have seen the 
 Austrians expelled from Lombardy than have turned out 
 every " squatter " off my own estate at Dodsborough. 
 And it is not only that one acquires grander notions this 
 way, but there are a variety of consolations in the system. 
 You grumble at the poor-rates, and I point to the popula- 
 tion of Milan paying ten times as much to their tyrants. 
 You exclaim against extermination, and I reply, " Look 
 at Poland." You complain of the priests' exactions, and 
 I say, " Be thankful that you haven't the Pope." 
 
 Now, Tom, come back from all these speculations, and 
 bring your thoughts to bear upon her that originated 
 them, and don't wonder at me if I didn't know how the 
 days were slipping past ; nor could only give a mere 
 passing, fugitive reflection to the fact that I have a wife 
 and three children somewhere, not very abundantly fur- 
 nished with the " sinews of war." I suppose, if we could 
 only understand it, that we'd discover our minds were 
 like our bodies, and that we sometimes succumb to 
 influences we could resist at other moments. Put your 
 head out of the window at certain periods, and you are 
 certain to catch a cold. I conclude that there are seasons 
 the heart is just as susceptible. 
 
 I cannot give you a stronger illustration of the strange 
 delirium of my faculties than the fact that I actually 
 forgot the princess whom we came expressly to meet, and 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 never once asked about her. It was some time in the 
 sixth week of our sojourn that the thought shot through 
 my brain — " Wasn't there a princess to be here ? — didn't 
 we expect to see her ? " How Mrs. G. H. laughed when 
 I asked her the question! She really couldn't stop her- 
 self for ten minutes. "But I am right," — cried I — ■ 
 " there really was a princess ? " 
 
 " To be sure you are, my dear Mr. Dodd," said she, 
 wiping her eyes ; " but you must have been living in a 
 state of trance, or you would have remembered that the 
 poor dear duchess was obliged to accompany the empress 
 to Sicily, and that she couldn't possibly count upon being 
 here before the middle of September." 
 
 " What month are we in now ? " asked I, timidly. 
 
 " July, of course ! " said she, laughing. 
 
 " June, July, August, September," said I, counting on 
 my fingers ; " that will be four months ! " 
 
 "What do you mean ? " asked she. 
 
 " I mean," said I, " it will be four months since I saw 
 Mrs. D. and the family." 
 
 She pressed her handkerchief to her face, and I thought 
 I heard her sob; indeed, I am certain I did. Nothing 
 was further from my thoughts than to say a rude thing, 
 or even an unfeeling one, and so I assured her over and 
 over. I protested that it was the very first time since I 
 came away that I ever as much as remembered one 
 belonging to me ; that it was impossible for a man to feel 
 less the ties of family ; that I looked upon myself — and, 
 indeed, I hoped she also looked upon me in a way — in 
 fact, regarded me in a light — I'm not exactly clear, Tom, 
 what light I said ; of course, you can imagine what I 
 intended to say, if I didn't say it. 
 
 "Is this really true?" said she, without uncovering 
 her face, while she extended her other hand towards 
 me. 
 
 " True ! " repeated I. "If it were not true, why am I 
 
 here ? Why have I left " I just caught myself in 
 
 time, Tom. I was nearly " in it " again, with an allusion 
 to Mrs. D. ; but I changed it, and said : " Why am I your 
 
 slave — why am I at your feet " Just as I said that, 
 
 suiting the action to the words, the door of the room was
 
 THE REAL LORD HARVEY. 277 
 
 jerked violently open, and a tall man, with a tremendous 
 bushy pair of whiskers, poked his head in. 
 
 " Oh, heavens ! " cried she ; " ruined and undone ! " and 
 fled before I could see her, while the stranger, fastening 
 the door behind him with the key, advanced towards me 
 with an air at once so menacing and warlike that I seized 
 the poker, an instrument about four feet six long, and 
 stood on the defensive. 
 
 " Mr. Kenny Dodd, I believe," said he, solemnly. 
 
 " The same ! " said I. 
 
 " And not Lord Harvey Bruce, at least on this occasion," 
 said he, with a kind of sneer. 
 
 " No," said I, " and who are you ? " 
 
 " I am Lord Harvey Bruce, sir," was the answer. 
 
 I don't think I said anything in reply ; indeed, I am 
 quite sure I did not say a syllable ; but I must have made 
 some expressive gesture, or suffered some exclamation to 
 escape me, for he quickly rejoined, — 
 
 " Yes, sir, you have, indeed, reason to be thankful ; for 
 had it been my wretched, miserable, and injured friend 
 instead, you would now be lying weltering in your 
 blood.'; 
 
 " Might I make bold to ask the name of the wretched, 
 miserable, and injured gentleman to whom I was about to 
 be so much indebted? " 
 
 " The husband of your unhappy victim, sir," exclaimed 
 he, and with such an energy of voice that I brandished 
 the poker to show I was ready for him. " Yes, sir, Mr. 
 Gore Hampton is now in this village — to a mere accident 
 you owe it that he is not in this hotel — ay, in this very 
 room." 
 
 And he gave a shudder at the words, as though the 
 thoughts they suggested were enough to curdle a man's 
 blood. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, my lord," said I, getting the table 
 between us, to prevent any sudden attack on his part, " all 
 your anger and high-flown indignation are clean thrown 
 away. There is no victim here at all — there is no villain ; 
 and, so far as I am concerned, your friend is not either 
 miserable or injured. The circumstances under which I 
 accompanied that lady to this place are all easy of expland-
 
 278 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 tion, and such as require a very different acknowledgment 
 from what you seem disposed to make for them." 
 
 " If you think you are dealing with a schoolboy, sir, 
 you are somewhat mistaken," broke he in. " I am a 
 man of the world, and it will save us a deal of time, 
 sir, if you will please to bear this plain fact in your 
 memory." 
 
 " You may be that, or anything else you like, my lord," 
 said I ; " but I'd have you to know that I am a man well 
 respected in the world, the father of a grown-up family. 
 There is no occasion for that heavy groan at all, my lord ; 
 the case is not what you suspect. I came here purely out 
 of friendship " 
 
 "Come, come, sir, this is sheer trifling, or it is worse, it 
 is outrageous insult. The man who elopes with a woman, 
 passes under a false name, retires with her into one of the 
 most remote and unvisited towns of Germany, is dis- 
 covered — as I lately discovered you — only insults the 
 understanding of him who listens to such excuses. We 
 have tracked you, sir — it is but fair to tell you — from the 
 Rhine to this village. We are prepared, when the proper 
 time comes, to bring a host of evidence against you. In 
 all probability a more scandalous case has not come before 
 the public these last twenty years. Rest assured, then, 
 that denial, no matter how well sustained, will avail you 
 little ; and when you have arrived at this palpable convic- 
 tion, it will greatly facilitate our progress towards the 
 termination of this unhappy business." 
 
 u Well, my lord, let us suppose, for argument's sake — 
 * without prejudice,' however, as the attorneys say — that I 
 see everything with your eyes, what is the nature of the 
 termination you allude to ? " 
 
 " From a gentleman coming from your side of St. 
 George's Channel, the question is somewhat singular," 
 observed he, with a sneer. 
 
 "Oh, I perceive," said I; "your lordship means a 
 duel." He bowed, and I went on : " Very well ; I'm quite 
 ready, whenever and wherever you please ; and if your 
 friend shouldn't make the arrangement inconvenient, it 
 would be a great ' honour to me to exchange a shot with 
 your lordship afterwards. I have no friend by me, it is
 
 WANT OF A "FRIEND.'* 279 
 
 true ; but maybe the landlord would oblige me so far, and 
 I'm sure you'll not refuse me a pistol." 
 
 " As regards your polite attentions to myself, sir, I have 
 but to say I accept them ; at the same time, I fear you are 
 paying me a French compliment. It is not a case for a 
 formal exchange of shots ; so long as Hampton lives, you 
 can never leave the ground alive! " 
 
 " Then the best thing I can do is to shoot him," said I ; 
 and whether the speech was an unfeeling one, or the way 
 I said it was bloodthirsty, but he certainly looked any- 
 thing but easy in his mind. 
 
 " The sooner we settle the affair the better, sir," said 
 he, haughtily. 
 
 11 1 think so too, my lord." 
 
 " With whom can I then communicate on your part ? " 
 
 " I'll ask the landlord, and if he declines, I'll try the 
 little barber on the Platz." 
 
 " I must say, sir, it is the first time in my life I find 
 myself in such company. Have you no countryman of 
 your acquaintance within a reasonable distance ? " 
 
 " If Lord George Tiverton were here' " 
 
 "If he were, sir, he could not act for you — he is the 
 near relative of my friend." 
 
 I thought of everybody I could remember : but what 
 was the use of it ? I couldn't reach any of them, and so 
 
 I was obliged to own. He seemed to ponder over this for 
 some time, and then said, — 
 
 " The matter requires some consideration, sir. "When 
 the unhappy result gets abroad in the world, it is necessary 
 that nothing should attach to us as men of honour and 
 gentlemen. Your friends will have the right to ask if you 
 were properly seconded. 
 
 " By the unhappy result, your lordship delicately insin- 
 uates my death ? " 
 
 He gave a little sigh, adjusted his cravat, and smoothed 
 down his moustaches at the glass over the chimney. 
 
 " If it should occur as your lordship surmises," said I, 
 
 II it little matters who officiates on the occasion ; indeed," 
 added I, stroking my beard, "the barber mightn't be an 
 inappropriate friend. But I've been ' out ' on matters of 
 this kind a few times, and, somehow, I never got grazed
 
 2£0 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 yet : and that's more than the man opposite me was able 
 to say." 
 
 "You'll stand before a man to-morrow, sir, that can hit 
 a Napoleon at twenty paces.'' 
 
 Faith, Tom, I was nigh saying I wish he could find one 
 for a mark about me; but I caught myself in time, and 
 only observed, — • 
 
 " He must be an elegant shot." 
 
 " The best in the Blues, sir ; but this is beside the 
 question. The difficulty is now about your friend. There 
 may be some retired officer here — some one who has served ; 
 if you will institute inquiry, I'll wait upon you this evening, 
 and conclude our arrangements." 
 
 I promised I'd do all in my power, and bowed him out 
 of the room and downstairs with every civility, which, 
 I am bound to say, he also returned, and we parted on 
 excellent terms. 
 
 Now, Tom, you'll maybe think it strange of me, with a 
 thing of the kind on hand, but so it was, the moment he 
 was off, I went to look for Mrs. Gore Hampton. 
 
 " The lady ? " cried the waiter ; " she started with extra- 
 post half an hour ago." 
 
 " Started ! " exclaimed I— u which way ? " 
 
 " On the high road to Munich." 
 
 " She left no letter — no note, for me?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Poor thing — overcome, I suppose. She was crying, 
 wasn't she?" 
 
 " No, sir, she looked very much as usual, but hurried, 
 perhaps ; for she nearly forgot the ham sandwiches she had 
 ordered to be got ready for her." 
 
 "The ham sandwiches!" exclaimed I, and they nearly 
 choked me. " I'm going to be shot for a woman that, in 
 the very extremity of her ruin, has the heart to order ham 
 sandwiches ! " That was the reflection that arose to my 
 mind, and can you fancy a more bitter one 
 
 " Are you sure," asked I, " the sandwiches weren't for 
 Madame Virginie, or the little dog?" 
 
 II They might, sir, but my lady desired us to be sure and 
 put plenty of mustard on them." 
 
 This was the damning circumstance, Tom. She was
 
 DESERTED. 281 
 
 fond of mustard — I had often remarked it — and just see, 
 now, on what a trivial thing a man's happiness can hang. 
 For I own to you, so long as I was strong in what I fancied 
 to be her good graces, I could have fought the whole regi- 
 ment of Blues ; but when I thought to myself, " She doesn't 
 care a brass farthing for you, Kenny Dodd; she may be 
 laughing at you this minute over the ham sandwiches " — 
 I felt like a drowning man that had nothing to grapple on. 
 Talk of unhappy and injured men, indeed ! Wasn't I in 
 that category myself ? Not even a husband's selfishness 
 could dispute the palm of misery with me ! In the matter 
 of desertion we were both in the same boat, and for the life 
 of me, I don't see what we could have to fight about. I 
 never heard of two sailors rescued from shipwreck quarrel- 
 ling as to who it was lost the vessel ! 
 
 " The best thing for us to do," thought I, "would be 
 to try and console each other, and if he be a sensible, good- 
 hearted fellow, he'll maybe take the same view of it. I'll 
 ask him and my lord to dinner ; I'll make the landlord give 
 us some of that wonderful old Steinberger, that was 
 bottled three hundred years ago ; I'll treat them to a 
 regular Saxon dish of venison with capers, washed down 
 with Marcobrunner, and if we're not brothers before morn- 
 ing, my name isn't Kenny Dodd." 
 
 I was on " these hospitable thoughts intent," when Lord 
 Harvey Bruce was again announced. He had found out 
 an old sergeant-major of artillery, who, for a consideration, 
 would undertake the duties of my second — kindly adding, 
 that he and his family, a very large one, would also attend 
 my obsequies. 
 
 I interrupted his lordship to remark that an event had 
 just occurred to modify the circumstances of the case, and 
 mentioned Mrs. Gore Hampton's departure. 
 
 " I really cannot perceive, sir," replied he, " that this in 
 any way affects the matter in hand. Is my friend less 
 injured — is his honour less tarnished, because this unhapjDy 
 woman has at last awoke to a sense of her degraded and 
 pitiable condition ?" 
 
 I thought of the sandwiches, Tom, but could say nothing. 
 
 II Are you less his greatest enemy on earth, sir?" cried 
 he, passionately.
 
 282 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 "Now listen to me patiently, my lord," said I. " I'll be 
 as brief as I can, for both our sakes. I don't value it one 
 rush whether I go out with your friend or not. If you 
 want a proof of what I say, step into the little garden here 
 and I'll give it to you. I'm neither boasting, nor blood- 
 thirsty, when I say that I know how to stand at either end 
 of a pistol ; but there's nothing to fight about between us." 
 
 "Oh, if you renew that line of argument," cried he, 
 interrupting me, " it is totally impossible I can listen." 
 
 u And why not ? " said I. " Is it a greater satisfaction to 
 your friend to believe himself injured and dishonoured, 
 than to know that he is neither one nor the other ?" 
 
 " Then why did you come away with her?" 
 
 " I can't tell," said I, for my head was quite confused 
 with all the discussion. 
 
 " And why call yourself by my name at Ems ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell." 
 
 " Nor what do you mean by the attitude in which I found 
 you when I entered the room?" 
 
 " I can't tell that either," cried I, driven to desperation 
 by sheer embarrassment. " It's no use asking me any 
 more. I have been living for the last five or six weeks 
 like one under a spell of enchantment. I can no more 
 account for my actions than a patient in S wift's Hospital. 
 I'm afraid to commit my scattered thoughts to paper, lest 
 they might convict me of insanity. I know and feel that 
 I am a responsible being, but somehow my notions of right 
 and wrong are so confused, I have learned to look on so 
 many things differently from what I used, that I'd cut a 
 sorry figure under cross-examination on any matter of 
 morality. There's the whole truth of it now. I'd have 
 kept it to myself if I could ; I'm heartily ashamed at owning 
 to it — but I can't help it — it would come out. Therefore 
 don't bother me with, ■ Why did you do this ? ' ' What 
 made you do that ? ' for I can give you no reasons for any- 
 thing." 
 
 " By Jove ! this is a very singular affair," said he, lean- 
 ing over the back of a chair, and staring me steadfastly in 
 the face. "Your age — your standing in society — your 
 appearance generally, Mr. Dodd, would, I feel bound to 
 say, rather " Here he hesitated and faltered, as if
 
 PLEASANT PROSPECTS. 283 
 
 the right word was not forthcoming, and so I continued 
 for him, — 
 
 "Just so, my lord ; would rather refute, than fix upon 
 me, such an imputation. I'm not very like the kind of 
 man that figures usually in these sort of cases." 
 
 "As to that," said he, cautiously, "there is no saying. 
 I am now only speaking my own private sentiments, the 
 result of impressions made upon myself as an individual. 
 Courts of Law take their own views of these things ; and 
 the House of Lords has also its own way of regarding 
 them." 
 
 The words threw me into a cold perspiration from head 
 to foot, Tom ! Courts of Law ! and the House of Lords ! 
 wasn't that a pretty prospect for an encumbered Irish 
 gentleman ? A shot, or even two, at twelve or fourteen 
 paces, cannot be a very expensive thing, in a pecuniary 
 point, to any man, and there's an awkwardness in declining 
 it if others are anxious to have it, so that you appear un- 
 gracious and disobliging. But Westminster Hall and St. 
 Stephen's, Tom, is mighty different. I won't speak of the 
 disgrace that attends such a proceeding at my time of life, 
 nor the hue-and-cry that the Press sets up at you, and 
 follows you with to your own hearth— "the place from 
 whence you came," and where now your wife waits for 
 you — to perform the last sentence of the law. I won't 
 allude to Punch and the Illustrated News, that live upon 
 you for three weeks ; but I'll just take the thing in its 
 simplest form — financially. Why, racing, railroads, con- 
 tested elections, are nothing to it. You go to work exactly 
 as Cobden says France and England do with their arma- 
 ments : Chatham launches a seventy-four, and out comes 
 Cherbourg with a line-of-battle ship — "Injured Husband," 
 secures Sir Fitzroy Kelly ; " Heartless Seducer,"sends his 
 brief to Cockburn. It's a game of brag from that 
 moment ; and there's as much scheming and plotting to 
 get a hold of Frank Murphy, as if he was the knave of 
 spades ! It matters little or nothing what the upshot of 
 the case may be : you may sink the enemy, or be compelled 
 to strike your own flag ; it doesn't signify in the least ; 
 the damages of the action are fatal to you. 
 
 Now, Tom, although I never speculated in all my life
 
 284 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 as to figuring in an affair like this, these considerations 
 were often strongly impressed upon me by reading the 
 newspapers, and I had come to the conclusion that a man 
 should never think of defending an action of this kind, no 
 more than he would a petition against his election, and for 
 the same reason. Since, although not actually guilty in 
 the one case or the other, you are certain to have com- 
 mitted so many indiscretions — written, maybe, so many 
 ridiculous letters — and, in fact, exposed yourself so much, 
 that if you cannot keep out of sight altogether, the next 
 best thing is, let the judgment go by default. I say this 
 to show you, that the moment my lord threw out the hint 
 about law, I had made up my mind from that instant. 
 
 "I sincerely wish," said he, after some deliberation, 
 " that I could hit upon any mode of arranging this affair ; 
 for although I own you have made a strongly favourable 
 impression upon me, ■ Dodd ' " — he called me Dodd here, 
 quite like an old friend — " we cannot expect that Hampton 
 could concur in this view. The fact is, the whole thing 
 has got so much blazed abroad — they are so well known in 
 the fashionable world, both home and foreign — she is so 
 very handsome, so much admired, and he is such a charm- 
 ing fellow — the case has created a kind of European eclat. 
 Looking at the matter candidly, there may be a good deal 
 in what you have said, but, as a man of the world, I am 
 forced to say that Hampton must shoot you, or sue for a 
 divorce. I am well aware that whichever course he adopts 
 many will condemn him. In the clubs there will be always 
 parties. There may spring up even a kind of juste milieu, 
 who will say, ' Now that poor Dodd is dead, I wonder if 
 he really was guilty?" 
 
 " I protest I feel very grateful to them, my lord," 
 said I. But he paid no attention to my remark, and 
 went on, — 
 
 " If vengeance be all that a man looks for, probably the 
 law of the land will do as much for him as the law of 
 honour. You ruin a fellow, irretrievably ruin him, by an 
 action of this kind. You probably remember Sir Gay- 
 brook Foster, that ran off with Lady Mudford ? Well, he 
 had a splendid estate, didn't owe a shilling, they said, 
 before that ; they tell me now that some one saw him the
 
 OVER A FLASK OF STEINBERGER. 285 
 
 other day at Geelong, croupier to a small ' hell.' Then 
 there was Lackington, whom we used to call the ' Cool of 
 the Evening.'" 
 
 " I never knew one of them, my lord," said I, im- 
 patiently, for I didn't care to hear all the illustrations of 
 his theory. 
 
 " Lackington was older than you are," continued he, 
 " when he bolted with that city man's wife — what's his 
 confounded name ? " 
 
 " I am shamefully ill-read, my lord, in this kind of 
 literature," said I, u nor has it the same interest for me 
 that it seems to afford your lordship. May I take the 
 liberty of recalling your attention to the matter before us ?" 
 
 " I am giving to it, sir," said he, gravely, "my best and 
 most careful consideration. I am endeavouring, by the 
 aid of such information as is before me, to weigh the 
 difficulties that attach to either course, and to decide for 
 that one which shall secure to my friend Hampton the 
 largest share of the world's sympathy and approval, I 
 have seen a great deal of life, and all that I know of it 
 teaches the one lesson — distrust, rather than yield to, first 
 impressions. A while ago, when I entered this room, I 
 would have said to Hampton, ' Shoot him like a dog, sir.' 
 Now, I own to you, Dodd, this is not the counsel I should 
 give him. Now, understand me well, I neither acquit 
 nor condemn you ; circumstances are far too strong against 
 you for the one, and I have not the heart to do the 
 other." 
 
 " This talking is dry work, my lord," said I. " Shall 
 we have a glass of wine ? " 
 
 " "Willingly," said he, seating himself, and throwing his 
 gloves into his hat, with the air of a man quite disposed 
 to take his ease comfortably. 
 
 Our host produced a flask of his inimitable Steinberger, 
 and another of a native growth, to which he invited our 
 attention, and left us to ourselves once more. We filled, 
 touched our glasses, German fashion, drank, and resumed 
 our converse. 
 
 11 If any man could have told me, twenty- four hours 
 ago, that I should be sitting where I now find myself, and 
 with you for my companion, I'd have told him to his face
 
 286 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD, 
 
 he was a calumniator and a scoundrel ! This time yester- 
 day, Dodd, I'd have put a bullet through you, myself." 
 
 " You don't say that, my lord ? " 
 
 " I do say, and repeat it, I believed you to be the greatest 
 villain the universe contained. I thought you a monster of 
 the foulest depravity." 
 
 "Well, I'm delighted to have undeceived you, my 
 lord." 
 
 " You have undeceived me ! — I own to it. I believe, if 
 I know anything, it is human nature. I have not been a 
 deep student in other things, but in the heart of man I 
 have read deeply. I know your whole history in this 
 affair, as well as if I was present at the events. You 
 never intended seduction here." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind, my lord — never dreamed 
 of it ! " 
 
 " I know it, I know it. She got an influence over you 
 — she fascinated you — she held you captive, Dodd. She 
 mingled in your thoughts — she became part of all your 
 most secret cogitations. With that warm, impulsive nature 
 of your country, you made no resistance — you could make 
 none. You fell into the net at once — don't deny it. I 
 like you the better for it — upon my life I do. Don't sup- 
 pose that I'm Archbishop of Canterbury or Dean of Dur- 
 ham, man." 
 
 " I don't suspect in the least," said I. 
 
 " I'm no humbug of that kind," said he, resolutely. 
 " I'm a man of the world, that just takes life as he finds 
 it, and neither fancies that human nature is one jot better 
 or worse than it is. Hampton goes and marries a girl of 
 sixteen ; she is very beautiful and very rich. What of 
 that ? She leaves him — and what becomes of the wealth 
 and beauty ? She is ruined — utterly ruined ! He has his 
 action at law, and gets swingeing damages, of course. 
 What's the use of that ? Will twenty thousand — will 
 forty — would a hundred thousand pounds serve to com- 
 pensate him for a lost position in life, and the affection of 
 that charming creature ? You know it would not, sir. 
 Don't affect hesitation nor doubt about it. You know it 
 would not." 
 
 " That wasn't what I was thinking of at all, my lord,
 
 THE WAY TO A COMPROMISE. 287 
 
 I was only speculating on the mighty small chance your 
 friend would have of the money." 
 
 " Do you mean to say, sir, that the jury wouldn't 
 give it ? " 
 
 11 The jury might, but Kenny Dodd wouldn't," said I. 
 
 " The Queen's Bench, sir, or the Court of Exchequer, 
 would take care of that. They'd issue a ' Mandamus ' — 
 the strongest weapon of our law ; they'd sell to the last 
 stick of your property ; they'd take your wife's jewels — 
 the coat off your back " 
 
 "As to the jewels of Mrs. D.," says I, " and my own 
 wardrobe, I'm afraid they'd not go far towards the liqui- 
 dation." 
 
 "They'd attach every acre of your estate." 
 
 " Much good it would do them," said I. " We're in 
 the Encumbered Court already." 
 
 " Whatever your income may be derived from, they're 
 sure to discover it." 
 
 "Faith!" said I, "I'd be grateful to them for the in- 
 formation, for it's two months now since I heard from 
 Tom Purcell, and I don't know where I'm to get a 
 shilling ! " 
 
 " But what are damages, after all! " said he ; " nothing, 
 absolutely nothing ! " 
 
 " Nothing indeed ! " said I. 
 
 " And look at the misery through which a man must 
 wade ere he attain to them. A public trial, a rule to 
 Vhow cause, a motion — three or four thousand gone for 
 that. The case heard at Westminster Hall — forty-seven 
 witnesses brought over special from different parts of the 
 Continent, at from two guineas to ten per diem, and 
 travelling expenses — what money could stand it ; and see 
 what it comes to : you ruin some poor devil, without 
 benefiting yourself. That's the folly of it ! Believe me, 
 Dodd, the only people that get any enjoyment out of these 
 cases are the lawyers ! " 
 
 " I can believe it well, my lord." 
 
 " I know it — I know it, sir," said he, fiercely. " I have 
 already told you that I'm no humbug. I don't want to 
 pretend to any nonsense about virtue, and all that. I was 
 once in my life — I was young, it is true — in the same
 
 283 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 predicament you now stand in. It won't do to speak of 
 the parties, but I suspect our cases were very similar. 
 The friend who acted for the husband happened to be one 
 who knew all my family and connections. He came 
 frankly to me, and said, — 
 
 " ' Bruce, this affair will come to a trial — the damages 
 will be laid at ten thousand — the costs will be about three 
 more. Can you meet that ? ' 
 
 " No,' said I, ' I'm a younger son — I've got my com- 
 mission in the Guards, and eight thousand in the " Three- 
 and-a-Half's " to live on, so that I can't.' 
 
 " What can you pay ? ' said he. 
 
 " ' I can stand two thousand,' said I, boldly. 
 
 " ' Say three/ said he — ; say three.' 
 
 " And I said, ' Three be it,' and the affair was settled — 
 an exposure escaped — a reputation rescued — and a clear 
 saving of something like ten thousand pounds : and this 
 just because we chanced both of us to be ' men of the 
 world.' For look at the thing calmly; how should any 
 of us have been bettered by a three days' publicity at Nisi 
 Priiis — one's little tendernesses ridiculed by Thesiger, and 
 their soft speeches slanged by Serjeant Wilkins. Turn it 
 over in your mind how you may, and the same conclusion 
 always meets you. The husband, it is true, gets less 
 money ; but then he has no obloquy. The wife escapes 
 exposure ; and the ' other party ' is only mulct to one- 
 fourth of his liability, and at the same time is exempt 
 from all the ruffianism of the long robe ! A vulgarly- 
 minded fellow might have said, ' What's the woman's 
 reputation to me ? I'll defend the action — I'll prove this, 
 that, and t'other. Ill engage the first counsel at the bar, 
 and fight the battle out. I don't care a jot about being 
 blackguarded before a jury, lampooned in the papers, and 
 caricatured in the windows, he might say ; ' what signifies 
 to me what character I hold before the world — I have 
 neither sons nor daughters to suffer from my disgrace.' 
 I know that all these and similar reasons might prompt a 
 man of a certain stamp to regret this course, and say, 
 ' Be it so. Let there be a trial ! ' But neither you nor J, 
 Dodd, could see the matter in this light. There is this 
 peculiarity about a man of the world, that not alone he
 
 FISHING FOR EXPLANATIONS. 289 
 
 sees rightly, but he sees quickly ; he judges passing events 
 with a kind of instinctive appreciation of what will be 
 the tone of society generally, and he says to himself, 
 1 There are doubtless elements in this question that I 
 would wish otherwise. I would, perhaps, say this is not 
 exactly to my taste ; I don't like that ; ' but whoever yet 
 found that he broke his leg exactly in the right place ? 
 What man ever discovered that the toothache ever attacked 
 the very tooth he wanted ? I take it, Dodd, that you are a 
 man who has seen a good deal of life ; now did your heart 
 ever bound with delight on seeing the outside of a bill of 
 cost3 ? or on hearing the well-known knock of a better 
 known dun at your hall door ? True philosophy consists 
 in diminishing, so far as may be, the inevitable ills of life. 
 Don't you agree with me ? " 
 
 " With the general proposition I do, my lord ; the 
 question here is, how far the present case may be con- 
 sidered as coming within your theory. Suppose now, just 
 for argument's sake, I was to observe that there was no 
 similarity between our situations ; that while you openly 
 avow culpability, I, as distinctly, deny it." 
 
 " You prefer to die innocent, Dodd ? " said he, puffing 
 his cigar coolly as he spoke. v 
 
 " I prefer, my lord, to maintain the vantage ground 
 that I feel under my feet. Had you been patient enough 
 to hear me out, I could have explained to your perfect 
 satisfaction how I came here, and why. I could have 
 shown you a reason for everything that may possibly seem 
 strange or mysterious- " 
 
 " As, for instance, the assumption of a name and title 
 that did not belong to you — a fortnight's close seclusion 
 to avoid discovery — the sudden departure for Ems, and 
 headlong haste of your journey here — and, finally, the 
 attitude of more than persuasive eloquence in which I 
 myself saw you. Of course, to a man of an ingenious and 
 inventive turn, all these things are capable of at least 
 some approach to explanation. Lawyers do the thing 
 every day, some, with tears in their eyes, with very affect- 
 ing appeals to Heaven, according to the sums marked on 
 the outside of the briefs. If your case had been one of 
 murder, I could have got you a very clever fellow who 
 
 VOL. i. U
 
 290 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 would have invoked divine vengeance on his own head in 
 open court if he were not in heart and soul assured of 
 your spotless innocence ! But now please to bear in mind 
 that we are not in Westminster Hall. We are here talking 
 frankly and honestly, man to man — sophistry and special 
 pleading avail nothing ; and here I candidly tell you, that, 
 turn the matter how you will, the advice I have given is 
 the only feasible and practicable mode of escaping from 
 this difficulty." 
 
 If you think me prolix, my dear Purcell, in narrating 
 so circumstantially every part of this curious interview, 
 just remember that I am naturally anxious to bring to 
 bear upon your mind the force of argument to which 
 mine at last yielded. It is very possible I may not be 
 able to present these reasonings with all the strength 
 and vigour with which they appealed to myself. I may 
 — like a man who plays chess with himself — favour one 
 side a little more than the other, or it is possible that 
 I may seem weaker in my self-defence than I ought 
 to have been. However you interpret my conduct on 
 this trying occasion, give me the benefit of never having 
 for a moment forgotten the fame and fortune of that 
 lovely creature whose fate was in my hands, and whom 
 I have rescued at a heavy price. 
 
 I do not wish to impose upon you the wearisome task 
 of reading all that passed between my lord and myself. 
 The whole correspondence would fill a blue book, and 
 be about as amusing as such folios usually are. I'll spare 
 you, therefore, the steps of the negotiation, and merely 
 give you the heads of the treaty : — 
 
 " Firstly, Mr. G. H„ by reason, and in virtue of certain 
 compensations to be hereafter stated, binds himself to 
 consider Mrs. G. H. in all respects as before her meeting 
 K. I. D., regarding her with the same feelings of esteem, 
 love, and affection as before that event, and treating her 
 with the same ' distinguished consideration.' 
 
 " Secondly, K. I. D., on his part, agrees to give accept- 
 ances for two thousand pounds sterling, with interest at 
 the rate of five per cent, per annum on same till the time 
 of payment. The dates to be at the convenience of 
 K* I. D., always provided that the entire payment be
 
 TERMS OF THE TREATY. 291 
 
 completed within the term of five years from the present 
 day. 
 
 "Thirdly, K. I. D. pledges his word of honour never 
 to dispute or contest his liability to the above debt, by 
 any unworthy subterfuge, such as ' no value,' ' intimidation 
 used,' or any like artifice, legal or otherwise, but accepts 
 these conditions in all the frankness of a gentleman." 
 
 Here follow the signatures and seals of the high con- 
 tracting parties, with those of a host of witnesses on 
 both sides. Brief as the articles read,' they occupied 
 several days in the discussion of them, during which 
 Hampton retired to a village in the neighbourhood, it 
 not being deemed " etiquette " for us to inhabit the same 
 town until the terms of a treaty had laid down our 
 respective positions. These were my lord's ideas, and 
 you can infer from them the punctilious character of 
 the whole negotiation. Lord Harvey dined and supped 
 with me every day, breakfasting at Schweinstock with 
 his principal. I thought, indeed, when all was finally 
 settled between us, that G. H. and I might have met and 
 dined together as friends; but my lord negatived the 
 notion strongly. " Come, come, Dodd, you mustn't be 
 too hard upon poor Gore; it is not generous." And 
 although, Tom, I cannot see the force of the observation, 
 I felt bound to yield to it, rather than appear in any invi- 
 dious or unamiable light. I, consequently, never met 
 him during his stay in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Lord Harvey left this, about ten days ago, for Dresden. 
 We parted the very best of friends, for with all his zeal 
 for G. H., I must say that he behaved handsomely to me 
 throughout ; and in the matter of the bills, lie at once 
 yielded to my making the first for £500, at nine months, 
 though he assured me it would be a great convenience 
 to his friend if I could have said " six." I should have 
 quitted this to join the family on the same day ; but when 
 I came to pay the hotel bill, I found that the dinners 
 and champagne during the week of diplomacy had not 
 left me five dollars remaining, so that I have been detained 
 by sheer necessity, and partly by my own will, and partly 
 by my host's sense of caution, my daily life has been 
 gradually despoiled of its little enjovments, till I find 
 
 U %
 
 292 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 myself in the narrow circumstances of which this letter 
 makes mention at the opening. 
 
 From beginning to end, it would be difficult to imagine 
 a more unlucky incident ; nor do I believe that any man 
 ever got less for two thousand pounds since the world 
 began. You cannot say a severe thing to me that I have 
 not said to myself ; you cannot appeal to my age, and my 
 habits, with a more sneering insolence than I am daily 
 in the habit of doing ; your very bitterest vituperations 
 would be mild in comparison to one of my own soliloquies, 
 so that, as a matter of surplusage, spare me all abuse, and 
 rather devote your loose ingenuities to assisting me out 
 of my great embarrassments. 
 
 I know well, that if we don't discover a gold mine at 
 Dodsborough, or fall upon a coal shaft near Bruff, that 
 I have no possible prospect to pay these bills ; but as the 
 first of them is nine months off, there is no such pressing 
 emergency. The immediate necessity is, to send me 
 enough to leave this place, and join Mrs. D. and the 
 family. Write to me, therefore, at once, with a remit- 
 tance, and mention where they are — if still at Bonn, 
 where I left them. 
 
 You had also better write to Mrs. D. ; in what strain, 
 and to what purport, I must leave to your own ingenuity. 
 As for myself, I know no more how to meet her, nor 
 what mood to assume, than if I were about to enter the 
 cage of one of Van Amburgh's lions. Now, I fancy, that 
 maybe a contrite, broken-hearted look would be best ; 
 and now, I rather lean to the bold, courageous, over- 
 bearing tone ! Heaven direct me to what is best, for I 
 never felt myself so much in want of guidance ! 
 
 When you write to me, be brief; don't worry me with 
 details of home, and inflict me with, one of your national 
 epistles about famine, and fever, and faction fights. I 
 have no pity for anybody but myself just now, and I care 
 no more for what's doing in Tipperary than if it was 
 Canton. It will be time enough when I join the others 
 to speculate upon whither we shall turn our steps, but 
 my present thoughts tend to going back to Dodsborough. 
 I wish from my soul that we had never left it, nor 
 embarked in this infernal crusade after high society,
 
 A HINT FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY. 29& 
 
 education, and grandeur — the vain pursuit of w hich leaves 
 me to write myself, as I now do, your most miserable 
 and melancholy friend, 
 
 Kenny Dodd. 
 
 P.S. — I have a gold watch, made by Gaskin of Dublin 
 about fifty years back ; but it's so big and unwieldy that 
 nobody would buy it, except for a town clock. The case 
 of it alone wouldn't make a bad-sized covered dish, and 
 I'm sure the works are as strong as a French steam- 
 engine ; but what's the use of it all if I can't find a 
 purchaser ? I have already parted with my tortoiseshell 
 snuff-box, that my grandmother swore belonged to 
 Quintus Curtius ; and the only family relic remaining to 
 me is a bamboo sword-cane, the being possessed of which, 
 if it became known, would subject me to three months' 
 imprisonment in a fortress, with hard labour ! If I were 
 in Austria the penalty is death — and maybe that same 
 would be a mercy in my misfortunes. 
 
 The only walk where I don't meet my duns is down 
 by a canal — a lonely path, with dwarf willows along it. 
 I almost think I'd have jumped in yesterday, if it wasn't 
 for the bull-frogs — the noise they made drove me away 
 from the place. Depend upon it, Tom, the Humane 
 Society ought to get the breed for the Serpentine. It's 
 only a most " determined suicide " could venture into 
 their company ! The chorus in " Robert le Diable " is a 
 love ditty compared to them 1 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 MRS. DODD TO MR. PURCELL, OF THE GRANGE, BRUFB". 
 
 Baden-Baden. 
 
 Dear Me. Purcell, — Your letter is now before me, and 
 if I didn't know the mark of your hand before, I'd scarce 
 believe the sentiments was yours. It well becomes 
 you, one that but one woman would ever accept of, to
 
 294 the dodd family abkoad. 
 
 lecture the likes of me on the way I ought to treat my 
 husband. A stingy old creature that sits croaking over 
 an extra sod of turf on the fire, and counts out the 
 potatoes to the kitchen, is not exactly the kind of authority 
 to dictate laws to the respectable head of a family ! I 
 often suspected the nature of the advice you gave K. I., 
 but I didn't think you'd have the hardihood to come out 
 with it yourself, and to me ! How much you must have 
 forgotten both of us, it's mighty clear ! 
 
 Where did you get all the elegant expressions about 
 K. I.'s "unavoidably prolonged absence " — " the sacrifices 
 exacted from friendship " — " the generous ardour of a 
 chivalrous nature," and the other fine balderdash you 
 bestow upon your friend's disgraceful behaviour ? Do 
 you know what you are talking about ? Have you a 
 notion about the affair at all ? Answer me that. Are 
 you aware that he is now two months and four days away 
 without as much as a letter, except a bit of an impertinent 
 note, once, to ask are we alive or dead, not a sixpence in 
 cash, not a cheque, nor even a bill that we might try to 
 get protested, or whatever they call it ? I don't make any 
 illusions to why he went, and what he went for. I 
 wouldn't disgrace my pen with the subject, nor myself 
 by noticing it ; but, except yourself, in the brown wig 
 and the black satin small clothes, I don't know one less 
 suited to perform the "Lutherian." You are a nice pair, 
 and I expect nothing less than to hear of yourself next ! 
 And you have the impudence to tell me that these are 
 some of the "innocent freedoms of Continental life!" 
 "What do you know about them, I'd beg to ask — you,, that 
 never was nearer the Continent than Malahide ? As to 
 the innocent freedoms of the Continent, there's nobody 
 can teach me anything ; I see them before me in the day 
 when I drive out, at the table d'hote where I dine, and at 
 every ball where they dance. Sweet innocence it is, 
 indeed ! and particularly when practised by the father of 
 a grown-up family — fifty-seven, he says, in June, but 
 more likely sixty odd, for I know many of his co-trum- 
 peries, and nice young gentlemen they are, too ! 
 
 You assure me that you sympathize sincerely with K. I. 
 I've no objection to that; he'll need all the comfort it
 
 PLAIN SPEAKING. 295 
 
 can give lrim when he comes home again, or I'm much 
 mistaken. With the help of the saints, I'll teach him the 
 differ between going off with a lady and living with his 
 lawful wife. If he didn't know the distinction before, 
 he shall now ! And then you think to terrify me about 
 the state of his health. It won't do, Mr. Tom Purcell. 
 He'll live to disgrace us this many a year. I know well 
 what his constitution can bear, and what he calls the 
 gout is neither more nor less than the outbreaks of his 
 violent and furious temper ! Never natter yourself, 
 therefore, that you can make any of us uneasy on that 
 score ; and if he comes back on a litter it won't save 
 him. 
 
 Your "sincere regrets that we ever came abroad," are 
 very elegantly expressed, and require all my acknowledg- 
 ments. Isn't there anything else you are sorry for ? 
 Isn't it grief to you that we never caught the small-pox, 
 or that James wasn't transported for forgery ? We ought 
 to have stayed at Bruff; and, judging from the charms 
 of your style, I have no doubt that we might have derived 
 great benefit from your vicinity. 
 
 You are eloquent, too, about expense ; and add, that 
 you always believed that there was no economy in living 
 abroad. Perhaps, not, sir, if one unites foreign vices with 
 home ones ; but I beg to say, when we left Dodsborougb, 
 I, for one, never contemplated the cost of two establish- 
 ments — take that, Mr. Tom Purcell ! 
 
 I wonder at myself how I keep my temper, and con- 
 descend to argue with you about points on which an old 
 bachelor, or widower (for it's the same), must necessarily 
 be ignorant. Don't you perceive, that for you to discourse 
 on family matters, is like a deaf man describing music ? 
 
 And you wind up about the privileges of old friendship, 
 and so on ! It's a new notion of friendship that makes a 
 man impudent ! Where did you ever hear that knowing 
 people a long time was a reason for insulting them ? As 
 to your kind inquiries for the girls, I'd have liked them as 
 well if not coupled with those " natural fears " for the 
 con sequences of foreign contamination. Mary Anne and 
 myself got a hearty laugh out of your terrors ; and so I 
 forgive your mention of them.
 
 296 THE DODD FAMILY ABEOAD. 
 
 James is quite well ; and would, he says, be better, if 
 that remittance you spoke of had arrived. 
 
 You tell me that the M'Carthy legacy is paid, and the 
 money lodged at Latouche's. But what's the use of that? 
 It's here I want it. Find out a safe hand, if you can, and 
 send it over to me ; for I'm resolved to have nothing to do 
 with bills as long as I live. 
 
 And now I believe I have gone through the principal 
 matters in your last, and I hope given you my ideas as 
 clearly as your own. It may save you some time and 
 stationery if I say that my mind is made up about K. I. ; 
 and if it was Queen Victoria was interceding for him, I'd 
 not alter my sentiments. It's no use appealing " to the 
 goodness of my heart, and the feminine sweetness of my 
 nature ;" all that you say on that head is only a warning 
 to me not to let my weaknesses get the upper hand of 
 me : a lesson I will endeavour to profit by, so long as I 
 write myself, 
 
 Your very obedient to command, 
 
 Jemima Dodd. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, HOUSEKEEPER, DODSBOROUGH. 
 
 Dear Molly, — I send you herewith a letter for Tom 
 Purcell, which you'll take care to deliver with your own 
 hands. If you are by when he reads it, you'll, maybe, 
 perceive that it's not the " compliments of the season " I 
 was sending him. He says he likes plain speaking, and I 
 trust he is satisfied now. 
 
 You are already aware of the barbarous manner K. I. 
 has behaved. I've told you how he deserted me and the 
 family, and the disgrace that he has brought down upon 
 us in the face of Europe ; for I must observe to you, 
 Molly, that whatever is talked of here goes flying over
 
 THE PEACE CONGHESS. 297 
 
 the whole world, and is the common talk of every Court 
 on the Continent. I could fill chapters if I was to describe 
 his wickedness and inhumanity. Well, my dear, what do 
 you think ! but in the face of all this Mr. Tom Purcell 
 takes the opportunity to read me a long lecture on my 
 "congenial" duties, and to instruct me in what manner I 
 am to treat K. I. on his return. 
 
 Considering what he knows of my character, Molly, I 
 almost suspect that he might have spared himself this 
 trouble. Did he, or did any one else, ever see me posed 
 by a difficulty ? When did any event take me unawares ? 
 Am I by nature one of those terrified creatures that get 
 flurried by misfortune ? or am I, by the blessing of Provi- 
 dence, gifted in a remarkable manner with great powers 
 of judgment, matured by a deep knowledge of life, and a 
 thorough acquaintance with the wickedness of the human 
 heart ? That's the whole question — which am I ? Is it 
 after twenty-six years studying his disposition and pon- 
 dering over all his badness, that any one can come and 
 teach me how to manage him ? I know K. I. as I know 
 my old slipper ; and, indeed, one is worth about as much 
 as the other! I haven't the patience — it would be too 
 much to expect from any one — to tell you how beautifully 
 Mister Tom discourses to me about the innocent freedoms 
 of the Continent, and the harmless fragilities of female 
 life abroad ! Does the old sinner believe in his heart that 
 black is white abroad ? and would he have me think that 
 what's murder in Bruff was only a justifiable hom'-a-side 
 at Brussels? If he doesn't mean that, what does he 
 mean ? Maybe, to be sure, he's one of the fashionable set 
 that make out that the husband is always driven to some 
 kind of vice or other by his wife's conduct ! For, I must 
 remark to you, Molly, there's a set of people now in the 
 world — they call themselves " The Peace Congress," I 
 think — that say there must be no more wars, no fighting, 
 domestically or nationally ! 
 
 Their notion is this : everybody is right, and nobody 
 need quarrel with his neighbour, but settle any trifling 
 disagreement by means of arbitration. Mister Tom is, 
 perhaps, an arbitrator. Well, I hope he likes the office ! 
 Since I knew anything of life myself, I always found that,
 
 298 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 if there was three people mixed up in a shindy, there was 
 no hope of settling it, on any terms. 
 
 He says, K. I. is coming home. Let him come, says I. 
 Let him surrender himself, Molly, and justice will take 
 its course. That's all the satisfaction I'll give either of 
 them. 
 
 "Don't be vindictive," says Mister Tom. Isn't that 
 pretty language to use to me, I ask ? Is the Chief Justice 
 "vindictive," Molly, when he says, "Stand forward, and 
 hear your sentence? " Is he behaving " unlike a Chris- 
 tian " when he says, " Use the little time that's left you in 
 making your peace ? " 
 
 The old creature then goes on to quote Scripture to me, 
 and talks about the prodigal son. " Yery well," says I, 
 " be it so. K. I. may be that if he likes, but I'll not be 
 the fatted calf— that's all ! " The fact is, Molly, I'm im- 
 mutable as the Maids and Prussians. They may talk till 
 they're black in the face, but I'll never forgive him ! 
 
 Wouldn't it be a nice example, I ask, to the girls, if I 
 was to overlook K. I.'s conduct, and call it a " venal " 
 offence ? And this, too, when the eyes of all Europe is 
 staring at us. "How will Mrs. D. take it?" says the 
 Prince of this. " What will Mrs. D. say to him ? " says 
 the Duke of that. " Does she know it yet ? " asks the 
 Archduke of Moravia. That's the way they go on from 
 morning till night ; so that, in fact, Molly — as Lord 
 George observes — " he is less of a private culprit than a 
 great public malefactor." 
 
 There's the way I am forced to look on the case ; and 
 think more of the good of society than of my family 
 feelings. 
 
 Such are my sentiments, Molly, after giving to the case 
 a most patient and careful consideration ; and it's little 
 good in Tom Purcell's trying to oppose and obstruct me. 
 
 If it were not for this unhappy event, I must own to 
 you, Molly, that we never enjoyed ourselves anywhere 
 more than we do here. It's a scene of pleasure and gaiety 
 all day— and, indeed, all night long ; and nothing but the 
 anticipation of K. I.'s return could damp the ardour of 
 our happiness. However it's managed, I can't tell ; but 
 the most elegant balls and entertainments are given here
 
 DIFFERENT KINDS OF BALLS. 299 
 
 free and for nothing ! "Who keep up the rooms, pays for 
 the lighting, the servants, and the refreshments, is more 
 than I can say. All I know is, that your humble servant 
 never contributed a sixpence to one of them. Lord George 
 says that the Grand Duke is never happy except when 
 the place is crammed ; and that he'd spend his last shilling 
 rather than not see people amuse themselves. And there's 
 a Frenchman, too — a Mr. Begasset, or Benasset, or some- 
 thing like that — who is so wild about amusement, that he 
 goes to any expense about the place, and even keeps a pack 
 of hounds for the public. 
 
 Contrast this, my dear Molly, with one of our little 
 miserable subscription balls at home, where Dan Cassidy, 
 the dancing-master, is driving about the country, for 
 maybe three weeks, in his old gig, before he can scrape 
 together a matter of six or seven pounds, to pay for mutton 
 lights, two fiddles, and a dulcimer ; and, after all, it's 
 perhaps over the Bridewell we'd be dancing, and the snouts 
 of the dirty creatures below would be coming up at every 
 pause of the music. Now, here, it's like a royal palace — 
 elegant lustres, with two hundred wax-lights in each of 
 them ; a floor like glass. Ask Mary Anne if it isn't as 
 slippery ! The dress of the company actually magnificent! 
 none of your little shabby-coloured muslins, or Limerick 
 lace ; none of your gauze petticoats, worn over glazed 
 calico, to look like satin, but everything real, Molly — the 
 lace, the silk, the satin, the jewels, the gold trimmings, 
 the feathers — all the best of the kind, and fresh as they 
 came out of the shop. You don't see the white satin 
 shoes with the mark of a man's foot on them, nor the satin 
 body with four fingers and a thumb on the back of it, as 
 you would at a Patrick's Ball in Dublin ! Everything is 
 new for each night. 
 
 How Mary Anne laughs at the Irish notions of dress, 
 of what they call in the Evening Post " a beautiful lama 
 petticoat over a white satin slip !" or " a train of elegant 
 figured tabinet." AVhy, Molly darling, you might as well 
 wear a mackintosh, or go out in a suit of glazed alpaca 
 cloth. Mary Anne says that the ball at the Castle of 
 Dublin is like a tournament, where all the company dance 
 in armour ; and, indeed, when I think of the rattling of
 
 800 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 bead bracelets, false pearls, and Berlin necklaces, it rather 
 reminds me of a hornpipe in fetters ! 
 
 I must confess to you, Molly, there's nothing as low- 
 anywhere as Dublin, and latterly, when anybody asks 
 Mary Anne or me if it's pleasant, we always say with a 
 strong English accent, " Our military friends say, vastly, 
 but we really don't know ourselves." Isn't that a pretty 
 pass to be reduced to ? But I'm told that all the Irish, 
 of any distinction, are obliged to do the same, and never 
 confess to have seen more of Ireland than one does from 
 the Welsh mountains. It's no want of patriotism makes 
 me say this. I wish, with all my heart, that Ireland was 
 a perfect paradise ; and it's no fault of mine that Provi- 
 dence intended otherwise. 
 
 If I wasn't writing with my head so full of Tom Purceli 
 and his late impudence, I'd have plenty to tell you about 
 the girls and James. Mary Anne is more admired than 
 any girl here, and so would Cary, if she'd only let herself 
 be so ; but she has got a short, snubby, tart kind of way 
 with people, that never goes down abroad, where, as Lord 
 Gr. says, " every cat plays with his claws covered." 
 
 And as to Lord George himself, I wonder is it Mary 
 Anne or Cary that he's after. I watch him day by day, 
 and can make nothing of it ; but sure and certain it is he 
 means one of the two, and that is the reason why he left 
 this suddenly the other morning for England, and saying, — 
 
 II There's no use letter-writing ; I'll just dash over and 
 have a talk with my governor." 
 
 I wouldn't ask him about what, but I saw the way the 
 girls looked down when he spoke, and that was enough to 
 i "show me in what quarter the wind was blowing. 
 
 I wish from my heart and soul the proposal would come 
 before K. I. came back. I'd like to have to show the 
 superior way I have always managed the family affairs ; 
 for I needn't tell you, Molly, that he never had an eye to 
 the peerage for one of his daughters ! but if he returns 
 before it's settled, he'll say that he had his share in it all S 
 As to James, he is everything that a fond and doting 
 mother could wish. Six feet two and a half — he grew the 
 half since he came here — with dark eyes, and a pair of 
 whiskers and moustaches that there's not the like here,
 
 HYDROPATHY FOR IRELAND. 301 
 
 dressed in the very top of the fashion, with opal and 
 diamond studs to his shirt and waistcoat, and a black 
 velvet paletot with turquoise buttons for evening wear. 
 The whole room turns to look at him wherever he goes, 
 for he walks along just for all the world as if he owned 
 the place. You may suppose, ray dear Molly, how little 
 he resembles K. I. ; and, indeed, I have heard many mako 
 the same remark when we were at Bonn. 
 
 I made Mary Anne write me down a list of the great 
 people here who have all called on us ; but what's the uso 
 of sending it, after all ? You couldn't pronounce them 
 if they were before you ! I send you, however, a bit I 
 cut out of Galignani's Messenger, where you'll see that 
 we are put down amongst the distinguished visitors as 
 "Madame M'Carthy Dodd, family and suite!" James 
 still thinks if K. I. would call himself " The O'Dodd," it 
 would serve us greatly ; and Mary Anne agrees with the 
 opinion ; and perhaps now, when he comes back under a 
 cloud, as one may say, it may not be so difficult to make 
 him give in. As James remarks, " Print it on your card, 
 call out and shoot the first fellow that addresses you as 
 Mr. — make it no laughing matter for anybody, before 
 your face at least — and the thing is done." Maybe we'll 
 live to see this yet, Molly, but I fear ifc won't be till 
 Providence sends for K. I. 
 
 I spoke rather sharply to Waters in ray last ; and I find 
 now that the legacy is paid into Latouche's. Will you 
 remind Purcell, that to be of any use to me, the money 
 ought to be here. As to the Loan Fund, I wonder how 
 you have the face to ask me for anything, knowing the 
 way I'm in for ready cash, and that I'd rather borrow 
 than lend any day. Tell Peter Belton, also, that I stop 
 my subscription after this year to the Dispensary; and I 
 am quite sure the old system of physic is nothing but 
 legalized poisoning. Looking to the facilities of the 
 country, and the natural habits of the people, I'm con- 
 vinced, Molly, that the water-cure is what you want in 
 Ireland ; and I've half a mind to write a letter to one of 
 the papers about it. Cheapness is the first requisite in a 
 poor country ; and any one can vouch for it, water isn't a 
 dear commodity with you.
 
 302 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Father Maher's remarks upon poor Jones McCarthy is, 
 I must say, very unfeeling ; and I don't coincide with the 
 conclusions he draws from them; for if he was half as 
 bad as he says, masses will do him little good : and for a 
 few thousand years, more or less, I can't afford to pay 
 fifty pounds! Ask him, besides, is it reasonable, that 
 when the price of everything is falling, with Free-trade, 
 that the old tariff of Purgatory is to be kept up still ? 
 That would be downright absurd! Priests, my dear 
 Molly, must lower their rates, as the Protectionists do 
 their rents : that's " one of the demands of the age, and 
 can't be resisted." As Lord George says, " The Church, 
 like the railroad people, fell into the mistake of lavish 
 expenditure ! Purgatory was like a station, and ought 
 never to be made too costly. No one wants to live there: 
 the most one requires is, to be decently comfortable, till 
 you can 'go on.' What's the use of fine furniture, 
 elegant chairs and carpets ? they're clean thrown away 
 in such a place." If Father Maher thinks that the re- 
 marks are not uttered in a respectful spirit, tell him he's 
 wrong ; for Lord Gr. and all his family are great Whigs, 
 and intend to do more mischief to the Established Church 
 than any party that ever was in power ; and I must say, 
 I never heard Father Maher abuse Protestants, bigotry, 
 and intolerance more bitterly than Lord Gr. It is so 
 seldom that one ever hears really liberal sentiments, or 
 anything like justice to Ireland, I could listen to him for 
 hours when he begins. If I'm right in my conjecture 
 about the object of his journey to London, it will be the 
 making of James ; since, once that we are connected with 
 the aristocracy, Molly, there's nothing we cannot have ; 
 for, you see, the way is this : if you belong to the 
 middle classes, they expect that you ought to have 
 some kind of fitness for the occupation you look 
 for; and they say, "This wouldn't suit you at all;" 
 "That's not your line in the least;" but when you 
 are one of the " higher orders," there's, so to say, a 
 general adaptiveness about you, and you can do any- 
 thing they put before you, from ranging Windsor Forest 
 to keeping a lighthouse ! When one reflects upon that, 
 it's no wonder that one of our great poets says : " Oh,
 
 UNSUITED FOR IRELAND. 803 
 
 bless," or "preserve" — I forget which — "our old 
 nobility!" 
 
 Go into any of the great public offices — the Foreign or 
 the Colonial, for instance — and they tell me that such a 
 set of incapable-looking creatures never was seen, with 
 spy-glasses stuck in their eyes, airing themselves before a 
 big fire, and reading the Times ; and yet, Molly — confess 
 it we must — the work is done somehow, and by somebody. 
 It reminds me of a paper-mill I once saw, and no matter 
 how dirty and squalid the rags that went in, they came 
 out " Beautiful fine wove," or " Bath extra." 
 
 As to the questions in your last, I can't answer a tithe 
 of them. You go on, letter after letter, with the same 
 tiresome demand — " Are we as much in love with the 
 Continent as we were ? Is it so cheap ? Is the climate 
 as fine as they say ? Is there never any rain or wind at 
 all ? Is everybody polite and agreeable ? Is there no 
 such thing as backbiting or slandering ? Are all the men 
 handsome and brave, and all the women beautiful and 
 virtuous?" This is but a specimen taken at random out 
 of your late inquiries ; and I'd like to know, that if even 
 you gave me " notice of a question," as they do in the 
 House, how could I satisfy you on these points ? The 
 most I can do is to say, that there may be some slight 
 exaggeration in one or two of these — the rain, for instance, 
 and the virtue — but that, generally speaking, the rest is 
 all true. I can be more explicit in regard to what you 
 ask in your last postscript — " After living so long abroad, 
 can we ever come back to reside in Ireland?" Never, 
 Molly, never! I make neither reserve nor qualification in 
 my answer. That would be clearly impossible ! for it's 
 not only that Ireland would be insupportable to us, but, 
 as Mary Anne remarks, " we would be insupportable to 
 the Irish." Our walk, our dress, our looks, our accent, 
 our manner with men, and our way with women ; the 
 homage we're used to ; the respect we feel our due ; the 
 topics we discuss with freedom, and the range of our 
 views generally over life, would shock the whole popula- 
 tion from Cape Clear to the Causeway. 
 
 It's not easy for me to explain it to you, Molly ; but, 
 somehow, everything abroad is different from at home.
 
 304 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Not only the things you talk of, but the way you talk of 
 them, is quite distinct ; and the whole world of men, 
 morals, and manners, have quite another standard ! It is 
 the same with one's thoughts as with their diet; half the 
 things we like best are only what is called acquired tastes. 
 Trouble enough we often have to learn them ; but when 
 once we do so, who'd be fool enough to go back upon his 
 old ignorance again ? High society and genteel manners, 
 Molly, however you may like them when you are used to 
 them, are just like London porter — mighty bitter when 
 you first taste it. I know there are plenty of people will 
 tell you the contrary, and that they took to it naturally 
 like mother's milk; but don't believe them, it's quite 
 impossible it could be true. 
 
 Once for all, I beg to tell you that there's no earthly 
 use in tormenting and teasing us about the state the house 
 is in at Dodsborough ; how the roof is broken here, and 
 the walls given way there. I trust sincerely that it may 
 soon become perfectly uninhabitable, for I never wish to 
 see it again ! I often think it wouldn't be a bad plan for 
 K. I. to go back and reside there. I'm sure if he collected 
 his rents himself, instead of leaving all to Tom Purcell, it 
 would be " telling him something." You say that the 
 country is getting disturbed again, and that they're likely 
 to have a "sharp winter for the landlords ; " but if it was 
 the will of Providence anything should happen, I hope I 
 have Christian feelings to support me ! Indeed, I'm well 
 used to trials now ! It's a mistake, besides, Molly, to 
 suppose that these — I hate to call them " outrages," as the 
 newspapers do — these little outbreaks of the boys have 
 any deep root in the country. The Orangemen, I know, 
 would make them out as a regular system, and say that 
 it's an organized society for murder; but it's no such 
 thing. Father Maher himself told me that he spoke 
 against it from the altar, and said : " What a pass the 
 country has come to," says he, " that the poor labouring 
 hard-working man has no justice to right him, except his 
 own stout heart and strong arm." What could he say 
 more than that, Molly ? but even these beautiful expres- 
 sions didn't save him from the Evening Mail ! 
 
 The English are always boasting about their bravery
 
 A COMPROMISE WITH ASSASSINS. 805 
 
 and their courage, and so on ; and when any one says, 
 " AVhy don't you buy property in Ireland ? " the answer 
 is, " We're afraid." I have heard it myself, Molly, with 
 my own ears. But their ignorance is even worse than 
 their cowardness, for if they only knew the people, they'd 
 see there was nothing to be frightened at. Sure, I 
 remember myself, when we lived at Cloughmanus, Sam 
 Gill came up to the house one morning, to say that there 
 was two men come from below Lahinch to shoot K. I. 
 
 "They have the pass words," says he, "and all the 
 tokens, and though I'm your honour's man, I was obliged 
 to take them into my house and feed them." 
 
 11 It's a bad business, Sam," says he. " What are they 
 to get for it ? " 
 
 " Five pound between them, sir — if it's done com- 
 plete." 
 
 "Would they take three," says K. I., " and let me 
 live?" 
 
 " I don't know, sir ; but, if you like, I'll ask them." 
 
 " I would like it, indeed," says K. I. 
 
 And down went Sam to the gate-house, and spoke to 
 them. They were both decent, reasonable men, and 
 agreed at once to the offer. The money was paid, and the 
 two came up and ate a hearty breakfast at the house, and 
 K. I. walked more than a mile of the road with them 
 afterwards — talking about the crops and the state of the 
 country down westward — and shook hands with them 
 cordially at parting. 
 
 Now, Molly, this is as true as the Bible, and yet there's 
 people and there's newspapers call the Irish " irreclaimable 
 savages." It is as big a lie as ever was written ! The real 
 truth is, they don't know how, if they really wished, to 
 reclaim them ! And, after all, how little reclaiming they 
 need ! To hear English people discuss Ireland, you'd sup- 
 pose that it was the worst part of Arabia Felix they were 
 describing. But I haven't patience to go on ; I fly out 
 the moment I hear them, and, faith, they're not proud of 
 themselves when I'm done. 
 
 "I wish you were in the House, Mrs. Dodd," says one 
 of them to me the other night. 
 
 "I wish I was," says I ; " if I wouldn't make it too hot 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 for Slowbuck, my name isn't Jemima ! for he's the one 
 that abuses us most of all ! " Well, I must say, we are well 
 repaid for all the cruel treatment we receive at home, 
 by the kindness and " consideration," as they call it, we 
 meet with abroad ! The minute a foreigner hears we're 
 Irish, he says, " Oh dear, how sorry we are for your suffer- 
 ings ; we never cease deploring your hard lot ; " and to be 
 sure, Molly, " wicked Old England," and the " Harlequin 
 Flag," as Dan called it, come in for their share of abuse. 
 Besides these advantages, I must remark that Catholics is 
 greatly thought of on the Continent ; for it isn't as in 
 Ireland, where's it's only the common people to mass. 
 Here you may see royalty at their devotions. They sit in 
 little galleries with glass windows, which they open every 
 now and then, to take part in the prayers ; and indeed, 
 whatever rank and fashion is in the place, you're sure to 
 see it "at church ; " mind, Molly, at church, for no 
 educated Catholic even says "at mass." 
 
 You want to hear " all about the converts to our holy 
 faith," you say, but this isn't the place to get you the best 
 information ; but as I hope we'll pass the winter in Italy, 
 I'll, maybe, be able to give you some account of them. 
 Lord George tells me that the Pope makes Rome delightful 
 to strangers ; but whether it's " dinners," or " receptions," 
 I don't know. At any rate, I conclude he doesn't give 
 "balls." 
 
 "What a fuss they're making all over the world about 
 these " rapparees," or refugees, or whatever they call them. 
 My notion is, Molly, that we who harbour them have the 
 worst of the bargain ; and as to our fighting for them, it 
 would be almost as sensible as to take up arms in defence 
 of a flea that got into your bed ! Considering how plenty 
 blackguards are at home, I think it's nothing but greedi- 
 ness in us to want to take Russian and Austrian ones ! We 
 have our own villains ; and any one of moderate desires 
 might be satisfied with them ! These are Lord Gr.'s sen- 
 timents, but I'm sure you like to hear the opinions of the 
 aristocracy on all matters. 
 
 What you say about Bony's marriage was the very 
 thought that occurred to myself, and it was just the turn 
 of a pin whether Mary Anne wasn't at this moment Empress
 
 A PUZZLING SITUATION. 807 
 
 of France ! Well, who knows what's coming, Molly ! 
 There's many a one, now in a private station, and mighty 
 hard up for means, that will, maybe, turn out a King or a 
 Grand-Duke before long. At any rate, no elevation to 
 rank or dignity will ever make me forget my old friends, 
 and yourself, the first of them. And with this, I subscribe 
 myself, 
 
 Yours ever affectionately, 
 
 Jemima Dodd M'Carthy. 
 
 P.S. — I'll make one of the girls write to you next week, 
 for I know I'll be so much overcome by my feelings when 
 K. I. arrives, that I'll be quite incapable to take up my 
 pen. 
 
 I sometimes think that I'll take to my bed, and be 
 11 given over," against the day of his coming; for you see 
 there's nothing gives such solemnity and weight to one's 
 reproaches as their being last words. You can say such 
 bitter things, Molly, when you are supposed to be too 
 weak to bear a reply. But I've done this once or twice 
 before, and K. I. is a hardened creature. 
 
 Lord G says : " Treat him as if it were nothing at all 
 — as if you saw him yesterday : don't give him the impor- 
 tance of having irritated you. Be a regular woman of 
 fasrhion." If my temper would permit, perhaps this would 
 be best of all ; but have I a right to acquit a " great 
 public malefactor ?" That's a " case of conscience," Molly, 
 that perhaps only the Church could resolve. The saints 
 direct me ! 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 JAME9 DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLTN. 
 
 My dear Bob, — It is quite true, I am a shameful corre- 
 spondent, and your last three letters now before me, 
 unanswered, comprise a tremendous indictment against 
 me ; but reflect for a moment, and you will see that in 
 
 x 2
 
 308 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 all complaints of this kind there is a certain amount 
 of injustice, since it is hardly possible ever to find two 
 people whose tastes, habits, and present circumstances 
 place them on such terms of perfect equality that the 
 interchange of letters is as easy for one as the other. 
 Think over this for a moment, and you will perceive that 
 sitting down at your quiet desk, in "No. 2, Old Square," 
 is a different process from snatching a hurried moment 
 amidst the din, the crash, and the conflict of life at Baden ; 
 and if your thoughts flow on calmly, tinctured with the 
 solemn influences around you, mine as necessarily reflect 
 an existence chequered by every rainbow hue of good or 
 evil fortune. 
 
 Be therefore tolerant of my silence and indulgent to my 
 stupidity, since to transmit one's thoughts requires pre- 
 viously that you should think ; and who can, or ever could, 
 in a place like this ? Imagine a winding valley, with 
 wooded hills rising in some places to the height of moun- 
 tains, in the midst of which stands a little village — for it 
 is no more — nearly every house of which is a palace, some 
 splendid hotel of France, Russia, or England. You pass 
 from these by a shady alley to a little rustic bridge, over 
 what might be, and very possibly is, an excellent trout- 
 stream, and come at once in front of a magnificent struc- 
 ture, ferscoed without and gilded and stuccoed within. 
 " The Rooms," the Temple of Fortune, the ordeal of des- 
 tiny, Bob, is held here ; and the rake of the croupier is 
 the distaff of the Fate. Hither come flocking the repre- 
 sentatives of every nation of the world, and of almost 
 every class in each. Royalty, princely houses, and nobility 
 with twenty quarterings, are jostled in the indiscriminate 
 crowd with houseless adventurers, beggared spendthrifts, 
 and ruined debauchees. All who can contribute the clink 
 of their Louis d'or to the music are welcome to this 
 orchestra ! And women, too, fair, delicate, and lovely, 
 the tenderest flowers that ever were nursed within domes- 
 tic care, mixed up with others, not less handsome per- 
 haps, but whose syren beauty is almost diabolic by com- 
 parison. What a Babel of tongues, and what confusion of 
 characters ! The grandee of Spain, the escaped galley 
 slave, the Hungarian magnate, the London " swell," the
 
 A MIXED SOCIETY. 309 
 
 old and hoary gambler with snow-white moustaches, and 
 the unfledged minor, anticipating manhood by ruining 
 himself in his "teens." All these are blended and com- 
 mingled by the influence of play ; and, differing as they 
 do in birth, in blood, in lineage, and condition, yet are 
 they members of one guild, associates of one society — the 
 gambling-table. And what a leveller is play ! He who 
 whispers in the ear of the Crown Prince yonder is a 
 branded felon from the Bagnes de Brest ; the dark-whis- 
 kered man yonder, who leans over the lady's chair, is an 
 escaped forger ; the Carlist noble is asking friendly coun- 
 sel of a Christino spy ; the London pickpocket offers his 
 jewelled snuif-box to an Archduke of Austria. " How 
 goes the game to-day ? " cries a Neapolitan prince of the 
 blood, and the question is addressed to a red-bearded 
 Corsican, whose livelihood is a stiletto. " Is that the 
 beautiful Countess of Hapsburg?" asks a fresh-looking 
 Oxford man ; and his friend laughingly answers : " Not 
 exactly ; it is Mademoiselle Varenne, of the Odeon." 
 The fine-looking man yonder is a Mexican general, who 
 carried off the military chest from Guanaguato ; the pom- 
 pous little fellow beside him is a Lucchese count, who stole 
 part of the Crown jewels of his sovereign ; the long-haired, 
 broad-foreheaded man, with open shirt-collar, so violently 
 denouncing the wrongs of injured Italy, is a Russian spy; 
 and the dark Arab behind him is a Swiss valet, more 
 than suspected of having murdered his master in the 
 Mediterranean. Our English contingent embraces lords 
 of the bedchamber, members of Parliament, railroad 
 magnates, money-lending attorneys, legs, swells, and 
 swindlers, and a small sprinkling of University men, out 
 to read and be ruined — the fair sex, comprising women of 
 a certain fast set in London, divorced countesses, a long 
 category of the widow class, some with daughters, some 
 without. There is an abundance of good looks, splendid 
 dress, and money without limit ! The most striking fea- 
 ture of all, however, is the reckless helter-skelter pace at 
 which every one is going, whether his pursuit be play, love, 
 or mere extravagance. There is no such thing as calcula- 
 tion — no counting the cost of anything. Life takes its 
 tone from the tables, and where, as wealth and beggary
 
 310 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 succeed each other, so does every possible extreme of joy 
 and misery, people wager their passions and their emotions 
 exactly as they do their bank-notes and their gold pieces. 
 Chance, my dear Bob — chance is ten times a more intoxi- 
 cating liquor than champagne, and once take to " dram- 
 ming " with fortune, and you may bid a long adieu to 
 sobriety ! I do not speak here of the terrible infatuation 
 of play, and the almost utter impossibility of resisting it, 
 but I allude to what is infinitely worse, the certainty of 
 your applying play theories and play tactics to every event 
 and circumstance of real life. 
 
 The whole world becomes to you but one great green 
 cloth, and everything in it a question of luck ! Will the 
 bad run continue here ? Will good fortune stand much 
 longer to you ? These are the questions ever rising to 
 your mind. You grow to regard yourself as utterly 
 powerless and impassive ; a football at the toe of Destiny ! 
 I think I see your eyebrows upraised in astonishment at 
 these profound reflections of mine. You never suspected 
 me of moralizing, nor, shall I own it, was I aware myself 
 that I had any genius that way. Shall I tell you the 
 secret, Bob — shall I unlock the mysterious drawer of 
 hidden motives for you ? It is this, then : I have been a 
 tremendously heavy loser at Rouge-et-Noir ! As long 
 as luck lasted, which it did for three weeks or more, I 
 enjoyed this place with a zest I cannot describe to you. 
 The moralists tell us that prosperity hardens the heart ; 
 I cannot believe it. I know, at least, that in my brief 
 experience I never felt such a universal tenderness for 
 everything and everybody. I seemed to live in an atmo- 
 sphere of beauty, luxury, and splendour ; every one was 
 courteous ; all were amiable ! It was not alone that 
 fortune favoured me, but I appeared to have the good 
 wishes of all beholders ; words of encouragement mur- 
 mured around me as I won ; soft bewitching glances 
 beamed over at me, as I raked up my gold. The very 
 banker seemed to shovel out the shining pieces to me 
 with a sense of satisfaction ! Old veterans of the tables 
 peeped over me to watch my game, and exclamations of 
 wonder and admiration broke forth at each new moment 
 of my triumphs ! I don't care what it may be that con-
 
 THE WORSHIP OF SUCCESS. 311 
 
 stitutes the subject of display : a great speech iu the 
 House, a splendid picture at the Gallery, a novel, a song, 
 a spirited lecture, a wonderful feat of strength or horse- 
 manship; but there is an inward sense of intoxication 
 in being the "cynosure of all eyes" — the "one in a 
 thousand " — that comes very nigh to madness ! Many a 
 time have I screwed up my hunter to a fence — a regular 
 yawner — that I knew in my heart was touch-and-go with 
 both of us, simply because some one in the crowd said, 
 " Look how young Dodd will do it." I made some 
 smashing ventures at the " tables," under pretty similar 
 promptings, and, I must say, with splendid success. 
 
 "Are you always so fortunate !" asked a royal person- 
 age, with a courteous smile towards me. 
 
 " And in everything ?" sighs a gentle voice, with a look 
 of such bewitching softness that I forgot to take up my 
 stake, and see it remain on the board to double itself the 
 next deal. 
 
 Besides all this, there is a grand magnificence in all 
 your notions under the access of sudden wealth. You 
 give orders to your tradespeople with a Jove-like omni- 
 potence. You revel in the unbounded realms of " I 
 will." What signifies the cost of anything — the most 
 gorgeous entertainment ? It is only adding twenty Naps, 
 to your next bet ! That rich bracelet of rubies — pshaw ! 
 —it is to be had for the turn of a card ! In a word, Bob, 
 I felt that I had fallen upon the " Bendigo Diggins," 
 without even the trouble of the search ! I wanted 
 fifty Naps, for a caprice, and strolled in to win them, 
 as coolly as though I were changing a cheque at my 
 banker's ! 
 
 " Come, Jim, be a good fellow, and back me this time ; 
 I'm certain to win if you do," whispers a young lord, 
 with fifteen thousand a year. 
 
 " Which side is Dodd on ? " asked an old peer, with 
 his purse in his hand. 
 
 11 How I should like to win eighty Louis, and buy that 
 roan Arab," whispers Lady Mary to her sister. 
 
 " I'd rather spend the money on that opal brooch," 
 murmurs the other. 
 
 " Egad ! if I win this time, I'll start for my regiment
 
 312 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 to-night," mutters a pale-looking sub., with a red spot in 
 one cheek, and eyes lustrous as if on fire. 
 
 Fancy the power of him who can accomplish these, and 
 a hundred like longings, without a particle of sacrifice on 
 his own part ! Imagine, my dear Bob, the conscious rule 
 and sway thus suggested, and ask yourself what ecstasy 
 ever equalled it ! I possessed all that Peter Schlemihl did, 
 and hadn't to give even my " shadow " in return. During 
 these three glorious weeks, I gave dinners, concerts, and 
 suppers, commanded plays, bespoke operas, patronized 
 humbugs of all kinds, and headed charities without number. 
 As to presents of jewellery, I almost fancied myself a kind 
 of distributing agent for Storr and Mortimer. 
 
 The hotel stables were filled with animals of all kinds 
 belonging to me — dogs, donkeys, horses, Spanish mules, 
 and a bear ; while every shape and description of equipage 
 crammed the coach-houses and the court-yard. One of 
 these, with a single wheel in front, and great facilities for 
 upsetting behind, was invented by a Baden artist, and 
 most flatteringly and felicitously called " Le Dod." Wasn't 
 that fame for you, my boy ? Think of going down to 
 posterity on noiseless wheels and patent axles ! fancy being 
 transmitted to remote ages on C springs and elastic 
 cushions ! Suoh was the rage for my patronage, that an 
 ingenious cutler had dubbed a newly-invented forceps by 
 my name, and I was introduced into the world of surgery 
 as a torture. 
 
 Now for the obverse of the medal. It was on that un- 
 luckiest of all days — a Friday — that fortune changed with 
 me. I had lain all the morning a-bed, after being up the 
 whole night previous, and only went down to the Rooms 
 in the evening. As usual, I was accompanied by my train 
 of followers, lords, baronets, M.P.s, foreign counts and 
 chevaliers — for I went to the field like a general, with his 
 full staff around him ! You'll scarcely believe me when I 
 tell you, Bob, but I say it in all truth and seriousness, that 
 so long as my star was in the ascendant — so long as my 
 counsels were what Homer would call " wealth-bestowing 
 words," there was not an opinion of mine upon any subject, 
 no matter how great my ignorance of it might have been, 
 that was not listened to with deference and repeated with
 
 313 
 
 approval. " Dodd said so yesterdary " — " I hear Dodd 
 thinks highly of it" — " Dodd's opinion is unfavourable;" 
 and so on, were phrases that rang around me from every 
 group I passed, and from the " odds on the Derby " to the 
 " division on the Budget," there was a profound impression 
 that my sentiments were worth hearing. 
 
 The pleasantest talkers in Europe, the wittiest conversers 
 that ever convulsed a dinner-party with laughter, would 
 have been deserted and forsaken to hear me hold forth, 
 whether the theme was art, literature, law and politics, or 
 the drama, or any other you please to mention, and of 
 which my ignorance was profound. My luck was unfailing. 
 " Dodd never loses," — " Dodd has only to back it ;" these 
 were the gifts which all could acknowledge and profit by, 
 and these no man undervalued or denied. 
 
 " Benasset " — this was the proprietor of the tables — 
 11 has been employing his time profitably, Dodd, during 
 your absence. He has made a great morning of it — 
 cleared out the old Elector, and sent the Margraf of Ragatz 
 penniless to his dominions." This was the speech that 
 met me as I entered the door, and a general all hail 
 followed it. 
 
 " Now, you'll see some smart play," whispered one to 
 his newly-come friend. " Here's young Dodd ; we shall 
 have some fun presently." Amid these and similar mur- 
 murings I approached the tables, at which a place for me 
 was speedily made, for my coming was regarded by the 
 company as a good augury. 
 
 I could dwell long upon the sensations that then thronged 
 my brain ; they were certainly upon the whole highly 
 pleasurable, but not unmixed with some sadness ; for I 
 already was beginning to feel a kind of contempt for my 
 worshippers, and for myself too, as tho unworthy object 
 of their devotion. This scorn had not much leisure 
 granted for its indulgence, for the cards were now presented 
 to me for " the cut," and the game began. 
 
 As usual, my luck was unbroken. If I had doubled my 
 stake, or by caprice withdrew it altogether, it was the 
 same. Fortune seemed to wait upon my orders. Revel- 
 ling in a kind of absolutism over fate, I played a thousand 
 pranks with luck, and won — won on, as if to lose was an
 
 314 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 impossibility. "What strange fancies crossed my mind as 
 I sat there ; vague fears, shadowy terrors of the oddest 
 kind, wild, dreamy and undefined ! Visions of joy and 
 misery ; orgies, mad and furious with mirth, and agonizing 
 sights of misery, thoughts of men who had made compacts 
 with the Fiend, and the terrors that beset them in the 
 midst of their voluptuous abandonment ; Belshazzar at his 
 feast ; Faust on the Brocken, rose to my mind, and I 
 almost started up and fled from the table at one moment, 
 so impressed was I by these images ! Would that I had ! 
 Would that I had listened to that warning whisper of my 
 good genius that was then admonishing me ! 
 
 My reverie had become such at last, that I really never 
 saw nor heard what went on about me. You can picture 
 my condition to yourself when I say, that -I was only re- 
 called to self-possession by loud and incessant laughter, that 
 rang out on every side of me. " What's the matter — what 
 has happened ? " cried I, in amazement. " Don't you 
 perceive, sir, "said a bystander, " that you have broken the 
 bank, and they are waiting for a remittance to continue the 
 play?" 
 
 So it was, Bob ; I had actually won their last Napoleon, 
 and there I sat pushing my stake mechanically into the 
 middle of the table, and raking it up again, playing an 
 imaginary game, to the amusement of that motley crowd, 
 who looked on at me with screams of laughter. I laughed 
 too, when I came to myself. It was such a relief to me 
 to join, even for a moment, in any feeling that others 
 experienced ! 
 
 The money came at last. Two strongly-clasped, heavily- 
 ironed coffers were borne into the room by four powerful 
 men. I watched them with interest as they unlocked and 
 poured forth their shining stores; for in imagination they 
 were already my own. I believe at that moment, if any 
 one had offered to assure me the winning of them " for 
 fifty Naps.," that I should have rejected the proposal with 
 disdain, so impossible did it seem to me that luck could 
 desert me ! Do you know, Bob, that what most interested 
 me at the time, was the varied expressions displayed by 
 the company at sight of the gorgeous treasure before 
 them. It was strange to mark how little all their good
 
 CHANGE OF LUCK. 815 
 
 breeding and fine manners availed to repress vulgarity of 
 thought and feeling, for there was greed, or envy, or 
 hatred, or some inordinate passion or other, on every face 
 around ; looks of mild and gentle meaning became dashed 
 with a half ferocity ; venerable old age grew fretful and 
 impatient ; youth lost its frank and careless bearing ; and, 
 in fact, gain, and the lust of gain, was the predominant 
 and overbearing thought of every mind, and wish of 
 every heart ! I pledge you my word, there was more 
 animal savagery in the expressions on all sides than ever 
 I saw on a pack of yelping fox-hounds when the hunts- 
 man held up the fox in the midsfc of them. It was the 
 comparison that came to my mind at the moment, and I 
 repeat it, with the reservation that the dogs behaved best. 
 
 There was an old careworn, meanly-dressed man, with 
 a faded blue ribbon in his button-hole, seated in the place 
 I usually occupied, and he arose to give it to me with that 
 mingled air of reluctance and respect which it is so hard 
 to resist. His manner seemed to say, " I am too poor and 
 too humble to contest the matter, but I'd remain here if 
 I could." " So you shall, then," said I to myself and 
 pushed him gently down upon the seat again. 
 
 "By Jove! the old fellow has got the lucky place," 
 cried one in the crowd behind me. 
 
 " Hang me, if Dodd hasn't given up his old chair ! " 
 said another. 
 
 11 I'd rather have had that seat," exclaimed a third, 
 u than one at the India Board." 
 
 But I only laughed at these absurd superstitions — as 
 though it were the spot, and not myself, that Fortune 
 loved to caress ! As if to resent the foolish credulity, I 
 threw a heavy bet on the table, and lost it ! Again and 
 again I did the same, with the like result : and now a 
 murmur ran through the room that luck had turned with 
 me. I had given up my winning seat, and was losing at 
 every turn of the cards. 
 
 " Let me have a peep at him," I heard one whisper to 
 his friend behind. " I'd like to see how he bears it ! " 
 
 " He loses remarkably well," muttered the other. 
 
 " Admirably ! " said another. " He seems neither con- 
 fident nor impatient, I like the way he stands it."
 
 316 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 " Egad, his hand trembles though ! He tore that bank- 
 note in trying to get it out of his fingers ! " 
 
 " His hand is hot too — see how the Louis stick to it !" 
 
 " They'll not do so very long, depend on't," said a close- 
 shaved, well-whiskered fellow, with a knowing eye ; 
 and the remark met an approving smile from the by- 
 standers. 
 
 "I have just added up his last fifteen bets," said a 
 young man to a lady on his arm, " and what do you think 
 he has lost ? Forty-eight thousand francs — close on two 
 thousand pounds ! " 
 
 " Quite enough for one evening! " said I, with a smile 
 towards him, which made both himself and his friend 
 blush deeply at being overheard ; and with this I shut up 
 my pocket-book, and strolled away from the tables into 
 another room, where there were chess and whist-players. 
 I took a chair, and affected to watch the game with 
 interest, my heart at the moment throbbing as though it 
 would burst through my chest. Don't mistake, Bob, and 
 fancy it was the accursed thirst for gold that enthralled 
 me. I swear to you, that mere gain, mere wealth, never 
 entered into my thought at that moment. It was the 
 gambler's lust — to be the victor, not to be beaten — that 
 was the terrible passion that now struggled and stormed 
 within me! I'd like to have staked a limb — honour — 
 happiness — life itself — on the issue of a chance; for I felt 
 as though it were a duel with destiny, and I could not 
 quit the ground till one of us should succumb ! 
 
 How poor and unsatisfying seemed the slow combina- 
 tions of skill, as I watched the chess-players! What 
 miserable minuteness ! what petty plottings for small 
 results! — nothing grand, great, or decisive! It was like 
 being bled to death from some wretched trickling vessel, 
 instead of meeting one's fate gloriously, amidst the roar 
 of artillery and the crash of squadrons ! 
 
 I lounged into the salons where they dance ; it was a 
 very brilliant and a very beautiful assembly. There were 
 faces and figures there that might have proved attractive 
 to eyes more critical than my own. My sudden appear- 
 ance amongst them, too, was rapturously welcomed. I was 
 already a celebrity ; and I felt that amidst the soft glances

 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Of 
 UNlVtrtSH r of ILLINOIS
 
 CORRUPTING INFLUENCE OF PLAY. 317 
 
 and beaming smiles around me, I had but to clioose out 
 her whom I would distinguish by my attentions. My 
 mother and the girls came to me with pressing entreaties 
 to take out the beautiful Countess de B., or to be presented 
 to the charming Marchioness of N. There was a dowager 
 archduchess who vouchsafed to know me. Miss Some- 
 body, with I forget how many millions in the funds, told 
 Mary Anne she might introduce me. Already the master 
 of the ceremonies came to know if I preferred a mazurka 
 or a waltz. The world was, so to say, at my feet ; and, 
 as is usual at such moments, I kicked it for being there. 
 In plain English, Bob, I saw nothing in all that bright 
 and brilliant crowd but scheming mammas and designing 
 daughters — a universal distrust — an utter disbelief in 
 everything and everybody had got hold of me. Whatever 
 I couldn't explain, I discredited. The ringlets might be 
 false ; the carnation might be rouge ; the gentle timidity 
 of manner might be the cat-like slyness of the tiger ; the 
 artless gaiety of heart, the practised coquetry of a flirt — 
 ay, the very symmetry that seemed perfection, might it 
 not be the staymaker's ! Play had utterly corrupted me, 
 and there was not one healthy feeling, one manly thought, 
 or one generous impulse left within me ! I left the room 
 a few minutes after I entered it. I neither danced nor 
 got presented to any one ; but after one lounging stroll 
 through the salons, I quitted the place, as though there 
 was not one to know, not one to speak to ! I have more 
 than once witnessed the performance of this polite process 
 by another. I have watched a fellow making the tour of 
 a company, with a glass stuck in his eye, and his hand 
 thrust in his pocket. I have tracked him as he passed on 
 from group to group, examining the guests with the same 
 coolness he bestowed on the china, and smiling his little 
 sardonic appreciation of whatever struck him as droll or 
 ridiculors ; and when he has retired, it has been all I 
 could do not to follow him out, and kick him down the 
 stairs at his departure. I have no doubt that my conduct 
 on this occasion must have inspired smiliar sentiments ; 
 nor have I any hesitation in avowing that they were well 
 merited. 
 
 When I reached the open air, I felt a delicious sense of
 
 818 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAB. 
 
 relief. It was so still, so calm, so tranquil ! a bright 
 starlit summer's night, with here and there a murmuring 
 of low voices, a gentle laugh, heard amongst the trees, and 
 the rustling sounds of silk drapery brushing through the 
 alleys — all those little suggestive tokens that bring up 
 one's reminiscences of 
 
 ' ' Those odorous hours 
 In jasmine bowers, 
 Or under the linden-tree ! " 
 
 But they only came for a second, Bob, and they left not a 
 trace behind them. The monotonous rubric of the 
 croupier rang ever through my brain — " Faites votre jeu, 
 Messieurs ! " — " Messieurs, faites votre jeu ! " The table, 
 the lights, the glittering gold, the clank of the rake, were 
 all before me, and I set off at full speed to the hotel, to 
 fetch more money, and resume my play. 
 
 I'll not weary you with a detail, at every step of which 
 I know that your condemnation tracks me. I re-entered 
 the play-room, secretly and cautiously ; I approached the 
 table stealthily; I hoped to escape all observation — at 
 least, for a time ; and with this object I betted small sums, 
 and attracted no notice. My luck varied : now, inclining 
 on this side ; now, to that. Fortune seemed as though in 
 a half-capricious mood, and, as it were, undetermined how 
 to treat me. " This comes of my own miserable timidity," 
 thought I ; " when I was bold and courageous, she favoured 
 me. It is the same in everything. To win, one must 
 venture." 
 
 There was a vacant place in front of me ; a young 
 Hungarian had just quitted it, having lost his last "Louis." 
 I immediately took it. The card on which he had been 
 marking the chances of the game still lay there. I took 
 it up, and saw that he had been playing most rashly ; that 
 no luck could possibly have carried a man safely through 
 such a system as he had followed. 
 
 I must let you into a little secret of this game, Bob, 
 and do not be incredulous of my theory, because my own 
 case is a sorry illustration of it. Where all men fail at 
 Rouge-et-Noir, is from temper. The loser makes tremen- 
 dous efforts to repair his losses ; the winner grows cautious 
 with success, and diminishes his stake. Now the wise
 
 CAUGHT IN THE WHIRLPOOL. 319 
 
 course is, play low when you see Fate against you, and 
 back your luck to the very limit of the bank. You ask, 
 perhaps, " How arc you to ascertain either of these facts? 
 What evidence have you that Fortune is with or against 
 you ? " As you are not a gambler, I cannot explain this 
 to you. It is part of the masonry of the play-table, and 
 every one who risks heavily on a chance knows well what 
 are the instincts that guide him. 
 
 I own to you, that though well aware of these facts, 
 and thoroughly convinced that they form the only rules of 
 play, I soon forgot them in the excitement of the game, 
 and betted on, as caprice, or rather as passion, dictated. 
 We Irish are bad stuff for gamblers. We have the bull- 
 dog resistance of the Englishman — his stern resolve not 
 to be beaten — but we have none of his caution or reserve. 
 We are as impassioned as the men of the South, but we 
 are destitute of that intense selfishness that never suffers 
 an Italian to peril his all. In fact, as an old Belgian 
 said to me one night, we make bad winners and worse 
 losers ; too lavish in one case, too reckless in the other. 
 
 I am not seeking excuses for my failure in my nation- 
 ality. I accept the whole blame on my own shoulders. 
 With common prudence I might have arisen that night a 
 large winner ; as it was, I left the table with a loss of 
 nigh three thousand pounds. Just fancy it, Bob — five 
 thousand pounds poorer than when I strolled out after 
 luncheon. A sum sufficient to have started me splendidly 
 in some career — the army, for instance — gone without 
 enjoyment, even without credit ; for already the critics 
 were busily employed in analyzing my " play," which 
 they unanimously pronounced " badly reasoned and con- 
 temptible." There remained to me still — at home in the 
 hotel, fortunately — about eight hundred pounds of my 
 former winnings, and I passed the night canvassing with 
 myself what I should do with these. Three or four weeks 
 back I had never given a second thought to the matter, 
 indeed, it would never have entered my head to risk such 
 a sum at play ; but now, the habit of winning and 
 losing heavy wages, the alternations of affluence and 
 want, had totally mastered all the calmer properties of 
 reason, and I could entertain the notion without an effort.
 
 320 (The dodd Family abroad. 
 
 I'll not tire you with my reasonings on this subject. Pro* 
 bably you would scarcely dignify them with the name. 
 They all resolved themselves into this : "If I did not 
 play, I'd never win back what I lost; if I did, I might." 
 My mind once made up to this, I began to plot how I 
 should proceed to execute it. I resolved to enter the 
 room next day just as the table opened, at twelve o'clock. 
 The players who frequented the room at that hour were a 
 few straggling, poor-looking people, who usually combined 
 together to make up the solitary crown-piece they wished 
 to venture. Of course I had no acquaintances amongst 
 them, and, therefore, should be free from all the embarras- 
 sing restraints of observation by my intimates. My judg- 
 ment would be calmer, my head cooler, and, in fact, I 
 could devote myself to the game with all my energies 
 uncramped and unimpeded. 
 
 Sharp to the moment of the clock striking twelve, I 
 entered the room. One of the croupiers was talking to 
 a peasant- girl at the window. The other, seated on a 
 table, was reading the newspaper. They both looked 
 astonished at seeing me, but bowed respectfully, not, 
 however, making any motion to assume their accustomed 
 places, since it never occurred to them that I could have 
 come to play at such an hour of the morning. A little 
 group, of the very "seediest" exterior, was waiting 
 respectfully for when it might be the croupiers' pleasure to 
 begin, but the functionaries never deigned to notice them. 
 
 " At what hour are the tables opened ?" asked I, as if 
 for information. 
 
 "At noon, Monsieur le Comte," said one of the 
 croupiers, folding up his paper, and producing the keys 
 of the strong-box; "but, except these worthy people " — ■ 
 this he said with a most contemptuous air of compassion 
 ■ — " we have no players till four, or even five, of the 
 afternoon." 
 
 " Come, then," said I, taking a seat, " I'll set the 
 virtuous fashion of early hours. There go twenty Naps. 
 for a beginning." 
 
 The dealer shuffled the cards. I cut them, and we 
 began. We, I say ; because I was the only player, the 
 little knot of humble folk gathering around me in mute
 
 A KEEN OBSERVER. 321 
 
 astonishment, and wondering what millionaire they had 
 before them. If I had not been too deeply engaged in 
 the interest of the game, I should have experienced the 
 very highest degree of entertainment from the remarks 
 and comments of the bystanders, who all sympathized with 
 me, and made common cause against the bank. 
 
 Some of them were peasants, some were small shop- 
 keepers from distant towns — the police regulations 
 exclude all natives of Baden, it being the Grand-Ducal 
 policy only to pillage the foreigner — and one, a half- 
 starved, decrepit old fellow, had been a professor of some- 
 thing somewhere, and turned out of his university to 
 starve for having broached some liberal doctrines in a 
 lecture. He it was who watched me with most eager 
 intensity, following every alternation of my game with a 
 card and a pin. At the end of about an hour I was 
 winner of something more than two hundred pounds, and 
 I sat betting on, my habitual stake of five, or sometimes 
 ten, "Naps." each time. 
 
 " Get up and go away now," whispered the old man in 
 my ear. " You have done enough for once — gained more 
 in this brief hour than ever I did in any two yea,rs of 
 hard labour." 
 
 "At what trade did you work?" asked I, without 
 raising my head from my game. 
 
 " My faculty was the ' Pandects,' " replied he, gravely ; 
 "but I lectured in private on history, philology, and 
 chemistry." 
 
 Shocked at the rudeness of my question to one in his 
 
 „ station, I muttered some half-intelligible excuse ; but he 
 
 did not seem to suspect any occasion for apology — never 
 
 recognizing that he who laboured with head could arrogate 
 
 over him who toiled with his hands. 
 
 " There, I told you so," broke he in, suddenly. "You 
 will lose all back again. You play rashly. The runs of 
 the game have been ' triplets,* and you bet on to the 
 fourth time of passing." 
 
 "So, then, you understand it!" said I, smiling, and 
 still making my stake as before. 
 
 " Let the deal pass — don't bet now," whispered he, 
 eagerly. 
 
 VOL. i. Y
 
 322 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 " Herr Ephraim, I have warned you already," cried the 
 croupier, " that if you persist in disturbing the gentlemen 
 who play here, you will be removed by the police." 
 
 The word police — so dreadful to all German ears — 
 made the old man tremble from head to foot ; and he 
 bowed twice or thrice in hurried submission, and protested 
 that he would be more cautious in future. 
 
 "You certainly do not exhibit such signs of good for- 
 tune on your own person," said the croupier, " that should 
 entitle you to advise and counsel others." 
 
 " Quite true, Herr Croupier," assented he, with an 
 attempt to smile. 
 
 " Besides that, if you reckon upon the count's good- 
 nature to give you a trifle when the game is over, you'll 
 certainly merit it better by silence and respect now." 
 
 The old man's face became deep scarlet, and then as 
 suddenly pale. He made an effort to say something, but 
 though his hands gesticulated, and bis lips moved, no 
 sounds were audible, and with a faint sigh he tottered 
 back and leaned against the wall. I sprang up and placed 
 him in a chair, and, seeing that he was overcome by 
 weakness, I called for wine, and hastily poured a glassful 
 down his throat. I could not induce him to take a second, 
 and he seemed, while expressing his gratitude, to be 
 impatient to get away and leave the place. 
 
 " Shall I see you home, Herr Ephraim ? " said I ; " will 
 you allow me to accompany you ? " 
 
 " On no account, Herr Graf," said he, giving me the 
 title he had heard the croupier address me by. " I can 
 go alone ; I am quite able, and — I prefer it." 
 
 " But you are too weak, far too weak to venture by 
 yourself — is he not so?" said I, turning to the croupier 
 to corroborate my words. A strangely significant raising 
 of the eyebrow, a sort of — I know not what — meaning, 
 was all the reply he made me ; and half ashamed of the 
 possibility of being made the dupe of some practised 
 impostor, I drew nigh the table for an explanation. 
 " What is it ? what do you mean ? " asked I, eagerly. 
 A shrug of the shoulders, and a look of pity, was his 
 answer. 
 
 " Is he a hypocrite ? — is he a cheat ? " asked I,
 
 A DANGEROUS CHARACTER. 323 
 
 "Perhaps not exactly that" said he, shuffling the 
 
 cards 
 
 " A drunkard — does he drink, then ? " asked I. 
 
 "I have never heard so," said he. 
 
 " Then what has he done ? — what is he ? " cried I, 
 impatiently. 
 
 He made a sign for me to come close, and then whis- 
 pered in my ear what I have just told you, only with a 
 voice full of holy horror at the crime of a man who had 
 dared to have an opinion not in accordance with that of 
 a Police Prefect ! That he — a man of hard study and 
 deep reading — should venture to draw other lessons from 
 history than those taught at drum-heads by corporals and 
 petty officers ! 
 
 " Is that all ? — is that all ? " asked I, indignantly. 
 
 " All ! all ! " exclaimed he ; " do you want more ? " 
 
 "Why, these things may possibly interest police spies, 
 but they have no imaginable concern for me." 
 
 " That is precisely what they have, sir," said he, hastily, 
 and in a still more cautious tone. " You could not show 
 that miserable man a kindness without its attracting the 
 attention of the authorities. They never could be brought 
 to believe mere humanity was the motive, and they would 
 seek for some explanation more akin to their daily habits. 
 As an Englishman, I know your custom is to treat these 
 things haughtily, and make every personal insult of this 
 kind a national question ; but the inconvenience of this 
 course will track you over the whole Continent. Your 
 passport will be demanded, here — permission refused you 
 to remain, there. At one town your luggage will be 
 scrutinized — at another, your letters opened. I conclude 
 you come abroad to enjoy yourself. Is this the way to 
 do it? At all events he is gone now," added he, looking 
 down the room, " and let's think no more of him. 
 Messieurs, faites voire jeu," and once more rang out 
 the burden of that monotonous injunction to ruin and 
 beggary ! 
 
 I wasn't exactly in the mood for high play at the 
 moment; on the contrary, my thoughts were with poor 
 Ephraim and his sorrows; but, for wry pride's sake, 
 I was obliged to seem indifferent and at case. For I 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 must tell you, Bob, this cold, impassive bearing is the 
 high breeding of the play-table, and to transgress it, even 
 for an instant, is a gross breach of good manners. I 
 have told you my mind was preoccupied ; the results were 
 soon manifest in my play. Every " coup " was ill-timed. 
 I was always on the wrong colour, and lost without in- 
 termission. 
 
 " This is not your 'beau moment,' Monsieur le Comte," 
 said the croupier to me, as he raked in a stake I had 
 suffered to quadruple itself by remaining. "I should 
 almost say, wait for another time ! " 
 
 " Had you said so half an hour ago," replied I, bitterly, 
 "the counsel might have been worth heeding. There 
 goes the last of twenty thousand francs." And there it 
 did go, Bob ! swept in by the same remorseless hand that 
 gathered all I possessed. 
 
 I lingered for a few moments, half stunned. I felt like 
 one that requires some seconds to recover from the effects 
 of a severe blow, but who feels conscious that with time 
 he shall rally and be himself again. After that I strolled 
 out into the open air, lighted my cigar, and turned off 
 into a steep path that led up the mountain side, under the 
 cover of a dense pine forest. I walked for hours, without 
 noticing the way at either side of me, and it was only 
 when, overcome with thirst, I stooped to drink at a little 
 fountain, that I perceived I had crossed over the crest of 
 the mountain, and gained a little glen at its foot, watered 
 by what I guessed must be a capital fishing-stream. In- 
 deed, I had not long to speculate on this point, for, a few 
 hundred yards off, I beheld a man standing knee-deep in 
 the water, over which he threw his line, with that easy 
 motion of the wrist that bespeaks the angler. 
 
 I must tell you that the sight of a fly-fisher is so far 
 interesting abroad, that it is only practised by the 
 English; and although, Heaven knows, there is no 
 scarcity of them in town and cities, the moment you 
 wander in the least out of the beaten, frequented track of 
 travel, you rejoice to see your countryman. I made 
 towards him, therefore, at once, to ask what sport he 
 had, and came up just as he had landed a good-sized 
 fish.
 
 A CHAT WITH CAPTAIN MORRIS. 325 
 
 " I see, sir," said I, " that the fish are not so strong as 
 in our waters. You'd have given that fellow twenty 
 minutes more play, had he been in a Highland tarn." 
 
 "Or in that brisk little river at Dodsborough," replied 
 he, laughing ; and, turning round at the same time to 
 salute me, I perceived that it was Captain Morris. You 
 may remember him being quartered at Bruff, about two 
 years ago, and having had some altercation with my 
 governor on some magisterial topics. He was never 
 much to my taste. I thought him somewhat of a military 
 prig, very stiff and stand off, but whether it was the shoot- 
 ing-jacket vice the red coat, or change of place and scene, 
 I know not, but now, he seemed far more companionable 
 than I could have thought him. He was a capital angler 
 too, and spoke of shooting and deer-stalking like one 
 passionately fond of them. I felt half ashamed at first, 
 when he asked me my opinion of the trout streams in the 
 neighbourhood, and it was only as we warmed up, that I 
 owned to the kind of life I had been leading at Baden, 
 and the consequences it had entailed. 
 
 " Fortunately for me, in one sense," said Pie, laughing, 
 " I have always been too poor a man to play at anything ; 
 and chess, which excludes all idea of money, is the only 
 game I know. But of this I am quite sure, that the 
 worst of gambling is neither the time nor the money lost 
 upon it ; it is the simple fact that, if you ever win, from 
 that moment forth you are unfitted to the pursuits by 
 which men earn their livelihood. The slow, careworn 
 paths of daily industry become insufferable to him who 
 can compass a year's labour by the turn of a die. Enrich 
 yourself but once — only once — at the play-table, and try 
 then what it is to follow any career of patient toil." 
 
 He had seen, he said, many examples of this in his own 
 regiment; some of the very finest fellows had been ruined 
 by play, for, as he remarked, " it is strange enough, thero 
 are few vices so debasing, and yet the natures and tem- 
 peraments most open to the seduction of tho gaming-table 
 are very far from being those originally degraded." I 
 suppose that his tone of conversation chimed in well with 
 my thoughts at the moment, for I listened to all he said 
 with deep interest, and willingly accepted his invitation
 
 326 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 to eat some of his morning's sport at a little cottage, 
 where be lived, hard by. He had taken it for the season, 
 and was staying there with his mother, a charming old 
 lady, who welcomed me with great cordiality. 
 
 I dined and passed the evening with them. I don't 
 remember when I spent one so much to my satisfaction, 
 for there was something more than courtesy — something 
 beyond mere politeness in their manner towards me ; and 
 I could observe in any chance allusion to the girls, there 
 was a degree of real interest that almost savoured of 
 friendship. There was but one point on which I did not 
 thoroughly go with Morris, and that was about Tiverton. 
 On that I found him full of the commonest and most 
 vulgar prejudices. He owned that there was no acquaint- 
 anceship between them, and therefore I was able to attri- 
 bute much, if not all, of his impressions to erroneous 
 information. Now I know George intimately — nobody 
 can know him better. He is what they call in the world 
 " a loose fish." He's not overburdened with strict notions, 
 or rigid principles ; he'd tell you himself, that to be en- 
 cumbered with either would be like entering for a rowing- 
 match in a strait waistcoat ; but he is a fellow to share 
 his last shilling with a friend — thoroughly generous and 
 free-hearted. These are qualities, however, that men 
 like Morris hold cheap. They seem to argue that 
 nobody stands in need of such attributes. I differ with 
 them there, totally. My notion is, that shipwreck is so 
 common a thing in life, it is always pleasant to think that 
 a friend can throw you a spare hencoop when you're 
 sinking. 
 
 We chatted till the night closed in, and then, as the moon 
 got up, Morris strolled with me to within a mile of Baden. 
 
 " There ! " said he, pointing to the little village, now 
 all spangled with its starry lights — " there lies the fatal 
 spot that has blighted many a hope, and made many a 
 heart a ruin ! I wish you were miles away from it ! " 
 
 " It cannot injure me much now," said I, laughing ; 
 " I am as regularly ' cleaned out ' as a poor old professor 
 I met there this morning, Herr Ephraim." 
 
 " Not Ephraim Gauss ? " asked he. " Did you meet
 
 A FRIENDLY WARNING. 827 
 
 " If that be his name, a small, mean-looking man, with 
 a white beard " 
 
 " One of the first men in Germany — the greatest civilian 
 — the most learned Orientalist — and a man of almost 
 universal attainment in science — tell me of him." 
 
 I told him the little incident I have already related to 
 yon, and mentioned the caution given me by the croupier. 
 
 " Which is not the less valuable," broke he in, " because 
 he who gave it is himself a paid spy of the police." 
 
 I started, and he went on. 
 
 " Yes, it is perfectly true ; and the advice he gave you 
 was both good and well intended. These men who act as 
 the croupiers are always in the pay of the police. Their 
 position affords them the very best and safest means, of 
 obtaining information ; they see everybody, and they hear 
 an immensity of gossip. Still, it is not their interest that 
 the English, who form the great majority of play-victims, 
 should be excluded from places of gambling resort. With 
 them, they would lose a great part of their income ; for 
 this reason he gave you that warning, and it is by no 
 means to be despised or undervalued." 
 
 At length we parted, he, to return over the mountain 
 to his cottage, and I, to continue my way to the hotel. 
 
 " At least promise me one thing," said he, as he shook 
 my hand : "you'll not venture down yonder to-night ; " and 
 he pointed to the great building where the play went 
 forward, now brilliant in all its illumination. 
 
 " That's easily done," said I, laughing, " if you mean 
 as regards play." 
 
 II It is as regards play, I say it," replied he ; " for the 
 rest, I suppose you'll not incur much hazard." 
 
 II I say that the pledge costs little sacrifice ; I have no 
 money to wager." 
 
 11 All the better, at least for the present. My advice to 
 you would be, take your rod, or, if you haven't one, take 
 one of mine, and set out for a week or ten days up the 
 valley of the * Moorg.' You'll have plenty of fishing, 
 pretty scenery, and, above all, quiet and tranquillity to 
 compose your mind and recover your faculties after all 
 this fevered excitement." 
 
 He continued to urge this plan upon me with consider-
 
 328 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 able show of reason, and such success, that as I shook his 
 hand for the last time it was in a promise to carry out the 
 scheme. He'd have gone with me himself, he said, but 
 that be could not leave his mother, even for a few days ; 
 and, indeed, this I scarcely regretted, because, to own the 
 honest fact, my dear Bob, I felt that there was a terrible 
 gulf between us in fifty matters of thought and opinion; 
 and, what was worse, I saw that he was more often in the 
 right than myself. Now, wise notions of life, prudent 
 resolves, and sage aphorisms, are certain to come some 
 time or other to everybody ; but I'd as soon think of 
 "getting up" wrinkles and crows' feet as of assuming 
 them, at one-and-twenty. I know, at least, that's Tiverton's 
 theory, and he, it can't be denied, does understand the 
 world as well as most men. Not that I do not like Morris ; 
 on the contrary, I am sure he is an excellent fellow, and 
 worthy of all respect, but somehow he doesn't " go along," 
 Bob ; he's — as we used to say of a clumsy horse in heavy 
 ground — " he's sticky." But I'm not going to abuse him, 
 and particularly at the moment when I am indebted to his 
 friendship. 
 
 When I reached the hotel I was so full of my plan that 
 I sent for the landlord, and asked him to convert all my 
 goods and chattels, live and dead, into ready cash. After 
 a brief and rather hot discussion the scoundrel agreed to 
 give me two hundred " Naps." for what would have been 
 cheap at twelve. No matter, thought I, I'll make an end 
 of Baden, and if ever I set foot in it again " 
 
 " Come, out with the cash, Master Miiller," cried I, 
 impatient to be off; " I'm sick of this place, and hope 
 never to set eyes on't more !" 
 
 " Ah, the ' Herr Graf is going away then ? " said he, 
 in some surprise. " And the ladies, are they, too, about 
 to leave ? " 
 
 " I know nothing about their intentions, nor have you 
 any business to make the inquiry," replied I ; "pay this 
 money, and make an end of it." 
 
 He muttered something about doing the thing regularly, 
 not having " so much gold by him," and so on, ending 
 with a promise that in half an hour I should have the cash 
 sent to my room.
 
 OFF FOR A "WEEK'S FISHING. 329 
 
 I accordingly hurried upstairs to put away my traps. 
 My mother and the girls had already gone out for tho 
 evening, so that I wrote a few lines to say that I was off 
 for a week's fishing, but would be back by Wednesday. I 
 had just finished my short despatch, when the landlord 
 entered with a slip of paper in one hand and a canvas bag 
 of money in the other. 
 
 II This is the inventory of the goods, Herr Graf, which 
 you will please assign over to me, by affixing your sig- 
 nature." 
 
 I wrote it at once. 
 
 "This is my little account for your expenses at tho 
 hotel," said he, presenting a hateful-looking strip of a foot 
 and a half long. 
 
 " Another time — no leisure for looking over that now ! " 
 said I, angrily. 
 
 " Whenever you please, Herr Graf," said he, with tho 
 same imperturbable manner. " You will find it all correct, 
 I'm sure. This is the balance ! " And opening the bag 
 he poured forth some gold and silver, which, when counted, 
 made up twenty-seven Napoleons, fourteen francs. 
 
 "And what's this?" cried I, almost boiling over with 
 rage. 
 
 " Your balance, Herr Graf. All that is coming to you. 
 If you will please to look here " 
 
 II Give me up that inventory — that bill of sale," cried 
 I, perfectly wild with passion. 
 
 He only gave a grim smile, while, by a significant ges- 
 ture, he showed that tho paper in question was in his 
 breeches-pocket. For a second, Bob, I was so thoroughly 
 beside myself with passion, that I determined to regain 
 possession of it by force. To this end I went to the door, 
 and locked it ; but by the time I returned to him, I found 
 that he had thrown up the window and addressed some 
 words to the people in the court-yard. This brought me 
 to my senses, so I counted over my twenty-seven Naps., 
 placed the bill on the chimney-piece, unlocked the door, 
 and told him to go ; an injunction which, I assure you, ho 
 obeyed with such alacrity, that had I been disposed to 
 assist his exit I could not have been in time to do it. 
 
 For both our sakes I'll not recall the state of mind in
 
 330 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 which this scene left me. As to going an excursion with 
 such a sum, or rather with what would have remained of 
 it, after paying waiters, porters, and such-like, it was too 
 absurd to think of, so that I coolly put it in my pocket, 
 walked over to the rooms, threw it on the green cloth of 
 the gaming-table — and — lost it ! There ends the episode 
 of my last fortnight's existence — as dreary and disreput- 
 able a one as need be. As to how I have passed the last 
 four days I'm not quite so clear ! I have walked some 
 twenty-five or thirty miles in each, dining at little way- 
 side inns, and returning late at night to Baden. 
 
 Passing through picturesque glens, and along mountain 
 ridges of boldest outline, I have marked little. I remem- 
 ber still less. Still the play-fever is abating. I can sleep 
 without dreaming of the croupier's chant, and I awake 
 without starting at any imaginary loss ! I feel as though 
 great bodily exertion and fatigue would ultimately antago- 
 nize the excessive tension of nerves too long and* too pain- 
 fully on the stretch, and I am steadily pursuing this system 
 for a cure. 
 
 When I come home — after midnight — I add some pages 
 to this long epistle, which I sometimes doubt if I shall 
 ever have courage to send you ! for there is this poignant 
 misery about one's play misfortunes, you never can expect 
 a friend's sympathy, no matter how severe your sufferings 
 be. The losses at play are thoroughly selfish ills — they 
 appeal to nothing for consolation ! 
 
 You will have remarked how I have avoided all mention 
 of the family in this epistle. The truth is, I scarcely ever 
 see my mother or Mary Anne. Caroline occasionally 
 comes to me before I'm up of a morning ; but it is to 
 sorrow over domestic griefs of one kind or other. My 
 father is still away, and, strangely too, we do not hear 
 from him ; and, in fact, we are a most ill-ordered, broken- 
 up household, each going his own road, and that being — 
 in almost every case, I fear — a bad one. 
 
 This recital — if it be ever destined to come to hand — 
 may possibly tend to reconcile you to home life, and the 
 want of those advantages which you are so thoroughly 
 convinced pertain to foreign travel. I know that in my 
 present mood I am very far from being an impartial
 
 TIVERTON ON THE JEW BILL. 331 
 
 witness, and I am also aware that I am open to the 
 reproach of not having cultivated those arts which give 
 to Continental residence its peculiar value ; but let me 
 tell you, Bob, the ignorance with which I left home — the 
 utter neglect of education in youth- — left me unable 
 to derive profit from what lay so seemingly accessible. 
 You do not plate over cast-iron, and the thin lacquer of 
 gold or silver would never even hide the base metal 
 beneath. I haven't courage to go over and see Morris ; 
 and here I live, perfectly isolated and companionless. 
 
 Tiverton writes me word that he'll be back in a few days. 
 He went over to speak on the Jew Bill. He says that his 
 liberal speech on that measure " stood to him" very hand- 
 somely in Lombard Street. He has forwarded the report 
 of his oration, but I haven't read it. His chief argument 
 in favour of admitting them into Parliament is, " There 
 are so few of them." It's very like the lady's plea — of 
 the child being a little one. However, I don't think it 
 signifies much one way or t'other ; but it seems strange to 
 exclude men from legislation who claim for their ancestor 
 the first Lawgiver. 
 
 I shall be all eagerness to hear what success you have 
 had for the scholarship. You are a happy fellow to have 
 heart and energy for an honourable ambition ; and that 
 you may have "luck" — for that is requisite, too — is the 
 sincere wish of your attached friend, 
 
 James Dodd. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 CAROLINE DODD TO MISS COX, AT MISS MINCINO'S ACADEMY, BLACK ROCK, 
 IRELAND. 
 
 The Moorg Thai. 
 My dear Miss Cox, — How happy would you be if only 
 seated in the spot where I now write these lines ! I am 
 at an open window, the sill of which is a great rock, all 
 covered with red-brown moss, and beneath again, at some 
 thirty feet lower, runs the clear stream of the Moorg river.
 
 332 THE t>ODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Two gigantic mountains, clad in pine forests to the sum- 
 mits, enclose the valley, the view of which, however, 
 extends to full two miles, showing little peeps of farm- 
 houses and mills along the river's bank, and high upon a 
 great bold crag, the ducal castle of Eberstein. The day- 
 is hot but not sultry, for a light summer breeze is playing 
 over the water, and, high up, the clouds move slowly on, 
 now casting broad masses of mellow shadow over the deep- 
 tinted forest. 
 
 The stream here falls over some masses of rock with a 
 pleasant gushing music, that harmonizes well with the 
 songs of the peasant girls, who are what we should in 
 Ireland call " beetling" their clothes in the water. On 
 the opposite bank some mowers are seated at their dinner, 
 under the shadow of a leafy horse-chestnut tree, and, far 
 away in the distance, a waggon of the newly-cut hay is 
 traversing the river ; the horses stop to drink, and the 
 merry children are screaming their laughter from the top 
 of the load. I hear them even here. 
 
 That you may learn where I am, and how I have come 
 hither, let me tell you that I am on a visit with Mrs. Morris, 
 the mother of Captain M., at a little cottage they have 
 taken for the season, about twelve miles from Baden, in a 
 valley called the Moorg Thai. If its situation be the very 
 perfection of picturesque choice, it contains within quite 
 enough of accommodation for those who occupy it. The 
 furniture, too, most simple though it be, is of that nice 
 old walnut- wood, so bright and mellow-looking ; and our 
 little drawing-room is even handsomely ornamented by a 
 richly carved cabinet and a centre table, the support of 
 which is a grotesque dwarf with four heads. Then we 
 have a piano, a reasonably well-filled book-shelf, and a 
 painter's easel, to which I turn at intervals, as I write, to 
 give a passiug touch of light to those trees now waving in 
 the summer's wind, and which I destine, when finished, 
 for my dear, dear governess. All the externals of rural 
 life in Germany are highly picturesque — I might almost 
 call them poetic. The cottages, the costume, the little 
 phrases in use amongst the people, their devotional offices, 
 and, above all, their music, make up an ideal of country 
 life such as I scarcely conceived possible to exist.
 
 ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE PEOPLE. 333 
 
 There is, too, I am told — for my imperfect knowledge 
 of the language does not permit me to state the fact of 
 myself — an amount of information amongst the people 
 seldom found in a similar class throughout the rest of 
 Europe. I do not mean the peasantry here, but the 
 dwellers in the small villages — those, for instance, who 
 follow handicrafts and small trades, and who are usually 
 great readers and very acute thinkers. Denied almost 
 entirely all access to that daily literature of newspapers on 
 which our people feed, they fall back upon a very different 
 class of writing, and are conversant with the works of their 
 great prose and verse writers. Their thoughts are thus 
 idealized to a degree ; they themselves become assuredly 
 less work-a-day and practical, but their hopes, their aspira- 
 tions, and their ambitions, take a higher flight than we 
 could ever think possible from such humble resting-places. 
 Mrs. Morris, who knew Germany many years ago, tells 
 me that those fatal years of '48 and '49 have done them 
 great injury. Suddenly called upon to act, in events and 
 contingencies of which they derived all their knowledge 
 from some parallels in remote history, they rushed into 
 the excesses of a mediseval period, as the natural conse- 
 quences of the position ; and all the atrocities of bygone 
 centuries were re-enacted by a people who are unques- 
 tionably the most docile and law-obeying of the whole 
 Continent. They are now calming down again, and there 
 is every reason to think that, if unshaken by troubles from 
 without or within, Germany will again be the happy land 
 it used to be. 
 
 Forgive me, my dear Miss Cox, if I grow tiresome to 
 you, by a theme which now fills all my thoughts, and 
 occupies so much of our daily talking. Captain M. has 
 gone to England on some important matter of business, 
 and the old lady is my only companion. 
 
 Oh, how you would like her! and how capable you 
 would be of appreciating traits and features of her mind, 
 of which I, in my insufficiency, can but dimly catch the 
 meaning. She is within a year or two of eighty, and yet 
 with a freshness of heart and a brightness of intellect 
 that would shame one of my age. 
 
 The mellow gaiety of heart that, surviving all the trials
 
 334 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 of life, live3 on to remote age, hopeful in the midst of 
 disappointments, trusting even when betrayed, is the 
 most captivating trait that can adorn our poor nature. 
 The spirit that can extract its pleasant memories from the 
 past, forgetting all their bitterness, is truly a happy one. 
 This she seems to do, in all gratitude for what blessings 
 remain to her, after a life not devoid of misfortune. She 
 is devotedly attached to her son, who, in return, adores 
 her. Probably no picture of domestic affection is more 
 touching than that subsisting between a man already past 
 youth and his aged and widowed mother. The little 
 tender attentions — the watchful kindnesses on both sides 
 — those graceful concessions which each knows how and 
 when to make of their own comfort — and, above all, that 
 blending of tastes by which at last each learns to adopt 
 some of the other's likings, and, even in prejudices, to 
 become more companionable. 
 
 To me, the happiness of my present life is greater than 
 I can describe to you. The peaceful quietude of an 
 existence on which no shocks obtrude is unspeakably 
 delightful. If the weather forbid us to venture abroad, 
 which on fine days we do for hours together, our home 
 resources are numerous. The little cares of a household, 
 amusing as they are, associated with so many little 
 peculiar traits of nationality, help the morning to pass ; 
 after which I draw, or write, or play, or read aloud, 
 mostly German, to the old lady. Whatever my occupa- 
 tion, be it at the easel, the desk, or the pianoforte, her 
 criticisms are always good and just ; for, strange to say, 
 even on subjects of which she professes to know nothing, 
 there is an instinctive appreciation of the right ; and this 
 would seem to result from an intense study, and deep love 
 of nature. She herself was the first to show me, that 
 this was a charm which the Bible possessed in the most 
 remarkable manner, and, unlike other literature, gave it 
 the most uncommon value in the eyes of the humblest 
 classes, who are from the very accidents of fortune the 
 deep students of nature. The language whose illustra- 
 tions are taken from objects and incidents that every 
 peasant can confirm, has a direct appeal to a lowly heart; 
 and there is a species of flattery to his intelligence in the
 
 GREATNESS OP SHAKSPEARE. 335 
 
 fact, that iuspiration could not typify more strongly its 
 conception than by analogies open to the lowliest son of 
 labour. 
 
 After this, she places Shakspeare, whose actual know- 
 ledge is miraculous, and whose immortality is based upon 
 that very fact, since the true will be true to all ages and 
 people ; and, however men's minds may differ about the 
 forms of expression, the fact will remain imperishable. 
 According to her theory, Shakspeare understood human 
 nature as learned men do an exact science — where certain 
 results must follow certain premises and combinations 
 inevitably and of necessity. How otherwise explain that 
 intimate acquaintance with the habits and modes of 
 thought of classes of which he never made one ? How 
 account for the delineation of kingly feelings by him who 
 scarcely saw the steps of a throne ? " And yet," said 
 Mrs. M., " Louis Philippe himself told me, that Shak- 
 speare's kings were as true as his lovers. His Majesty 
 once amused me much," said she, " by alluding to a 
 passage in ' Hamlet,' which assuredly would never have 
 occurred to me to notice. It is where the King and 
 Queen are dismissing their attendants from further wait- 
 ing. His Majesty says, ' Thanks, Rosenkrantz, and gentle 
 Guildenstern ; ' on which the Queen adds, * Thanks, 
 Guildenstern, and gentle Rosenkrantz.' 'Now,' said 
 Louis Philippe, ' one almost should have been a Queen to 
 know that it was needful to balance the seeming prefer- 
 ence of the Royal epithet, by inverting the phrase.' " 
 
 While I ram Die on thus, I may seem to be forgetting 
 the subjects on which more properly I ought to dwell — 
 home and family. Our pursuit of greatness still con- 
 tinues, my dear Miss Cox. We are determined to be fine 
 people ; and, I suppose, after all, that our short-comings 
 and disappointments are not greater than usually fall to 
 the lot of those who aspire to what is beyond or above 
 them. In England the gradations of rank are as fixed as 
 the degrees of a service; and we, being who and what we 
 are, could no more pretend to something else than could 
 a subaltern pass off for a colonel to his own regiment. 
 Here, however, there is a general scramble for position, 
 and each seems to have the same privilege to call himself
 
 336 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 what he likes, that he exercises over the mere spelling of 
 his name. I judge this to be the case from the anecdotes 
 I have heard in society about the Count this, and the Baron 
 that. Since papa's absence in the interior of Germany, 
 whither he accompanied Mrs. Gore Hampton, to visit, I 
 believe, some crowned head of her acquaintance, mamma 
 has pursued a kind of royal progress towards greatness. 
 Our style of living has been most expensive — I might 
 almost call it splendid. We have servants, horses, equip- 
 age — everything, in fact, that appertains to a certain 
 station, but one, and that one thing unfortunately is the 
 grand requisite of all — the air that belongs to it. The 
 truth is, Miss Cox, as the old lawyer one day said at 
 dinner to papa, " You prove too much, Mr. Dodd." That 
 is exactly what mamma is doing. She dresses magnifi- 
 cently for small occasions ; she insists too eagerly upon 
 what she deems her due ; and she is far too exclusive with 
 respect to those who seek her acquaintanceship. Would, 
 you believe it, that though I am permitted to accept the 
 kind hospitality which 1 at this moment enjoy, it is upon 
 the condition that neither mamma nor Mary Anne are to 
 " be dragged into the mire of low intimacies ; " that Mrs. 
 Morris is to be " Cary's friend." Proud am I, indeed, if 
 she will deign to consider me such ! 
 
 I must acknowledge that mamma's " Wednesdays " 
 collected all that was high and distinguished at Baden. 
 We had the old Kurfurst of something, with a long white 
 moustache, and thirty orders ; an archduchess with a 
 hump-back, and a mediatized prince with one eye. There 
 were generals, marshals, ministers, envoys, and plenipos 
 without end — "your highness" and " your excellency" 
 were household words round our tea-table. But I often 
 asked myself, " Are not these great folk paying off in 
 falsehood the imposition we are practising upon them ? 
 Are they not laughing at the ' Dodds,' and their thousand 
 solecisms in good breeding ? " These would be very un- 
 worthy suspicions of mine if I did not feel convinced 
 they were well founded ; but more than once I have over- 
 heard chance words and phrases that have suffused my 
 cheeks with " shame-red," as the Germans call it, for an 
 hour after. Is it not an indignity to accept hospitality
 
 BISTERLY PRAISE. 337 
 
 and requite it by ridicule ? Is it not base to receive atten- 
 tions, and repay them in scorn ? 
 
 "Whether it is from feeling as I do on the subject or 
 not, I cannot say, but James rarely or never appears at 
 mamma's receptions. He is among" what is called " a 
 fast set ;" but I always incline to think that his nature is 
 not corrupted, though doubtless sullied, by the tone of 
 society around us. 
 
 You ask me about Mary Anne's appearance, and here I 
 can speak without reserve or qualification. She is, indeed, 
 the handsomest girl I ever saw ; tall and well-propor- 
 tioned, and with a carriage and a style about her that 
 might grace a princess. A critic, inclined to severity, 
 might say there was perhaps a slight tendency to haugh- 
 tiness in the expression of the features, especially the 
 mouth ; the head, too, is a little, a very little, too much 
 thrown back ; but somehow these might be defects in 
 another, and yet, in her, they seem to give a peculiar 
 stamp and character to her beauty. All her gestures are 
 grace itself, and her courtesy, save that it is a little too 
 low, perfect. She speaks French and German fluently, 
 and knows the precise title of some hundred acquaint- 
 ances, every one of whom would be distracted if defrauded 
 in the smallest coin of his rank. I need not say how 
 superior all these gifts make her to your humble and 
 unlettered correspondent. Yes, my dear Miss Cox, the 
 French " irregulars " are the same puzzle to me they used 
 to be, and my mind will no more carry me on to the verb 
 at the end of the German sentence than will my feet 
 bear me over fifty miles a day. I am the stupid Caroline 
 of long ago, and what renders the case so hopeless is, 
 with the best of dispositions to do otherwise. 
 
 I am, however, improved in my painting, particularly 
 in my use of colour. I begin at last to recognize the 
 merits of harmony in tint, and see how Nature herself 
 always contrives to be correct. I hope you will like the 
 little sketch that accompanies this ; the rock in the fore- 
 ground is the spot on which I sit at every sunset. Would 
 that I had you beside me there, to counsel, to guide, and 
 to correct me ! 
 
 When Captain Morris returns, I shall leave this, as 
 
 YOL. i. Z
 
 338 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Mrs. M. will not require my companionship any longer, 
 although she is already planning twenty things we are to 
 do then. 
 
 Pray, therefore, write to me, as before, to Baden ; and 
 with my most affectionate regards to all who may remem- 
 ber me, and my dearest love to yourself, 
 
 Believe me, yours ever, 
 
 Caroline Dodd. 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 MISS MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OP BALLYDOOLAN. 
 
 My dearest Kitty, — It was our names you saw in the 
 Morning Post! We are " The Dodd McCarthys." It 
 was no use deferring the decision for papa's return ; and, 
 as I observed to mamma, circumstances are often stronger 
 than ourselves ; for, in all likelihood, Louis Napoleon 
 would not have declared the Empire so soon if it were not 
 for the " Rouges," or the Orleanists, or the others. Events, 
 in fact, pressed us from behind — go forward we must; 
 and so, like the distinguished authority I have mentioned, 
 we accepted greatness, in the shape of our present desig- 
 nation. 
 
 We took the great step on Monday evening last, and 
 issued one hundred and thirty-eight cards for our Wednes- 
 day at home, as Madame Dodd M'Carthy. Of course, I 
 conclude the new title was amply discussed and criticized; 
 but, as James remarked, the coup d'etat succeeded per- 
 fectly. He sent me three different bulletins during the 
 day from " the Rooms," where he was engaged at play. 
 The first was briefly — " Great excitement, and much 
 curiosity as to the reasons. Causes assigned — vague, 
 various, and contradictory. Strict silence on my part."
 
 ASSUMPTION OF A NEW TITLE. 839 
 
 The second ran — " Funds rising rapidly — confidence re- 
 stored." The third was — " Victory — opposition crushed, 
 annihilated — dynasty secure. Send a card at once to tho 
 Crown Prince of Dalinatia, at the * Lion.' He is just 
 come." 
 
 Mamma's nervous tremors during this eventful day were 
 dreadful. Nothing sustained her but a high consciousness, 
 and some excellent curacoa. Every cry in the street, every 
 chance commotion, the slightest assemblage beneath our 
 windows — she took for popular demonstrations. You 
 know, my dearest Kitty, we live in really eventful times, 
 and nobody can answer for how the mere populace will 
 receive any attempts to recover ancient feudal privileges. 
 I own to you frankly the attempt was a bold one. We, so 
 to say, stemmed the foamy torrent of Democracy at its 
 highest flood ; but the moment was also propitious. Now 
 or never was the time for nobility to raise its head again ; 
 and ive, I am proud to say, have given the initiative to 
 astonished Europe. 
 
 From the hour that we took the great step, Kitty, I felt 
 my heart rise with the occasion. My spirit seemed to say, 
 " Swell to the magnitude of those grand proportions around 
 you ;" and I really felt myself, as it were, disenthralled 
 from the narrow limits of a mere Dodd, and expanding to 
 the wide realms of a M'Carthy ! If you only knew the 
 sufferings and heart-burnings that plebeian appellation has 
 cost us ! The hateful monosyllable seemed to drop down 
 like a shell in the midst of a company; and often has it 
 needed a fortnight's dinners and evening parties, in a new 
 place, to overcome the horrid impression caused by tho 
 name of Dodd ! 
 
 Now, as it stands at present, it serves to give vigour and 
 energy to the name. Dodd M'Carthy is like Gorman 
 O'Moore, Grogan 0'D\vyer,or any other of the patronymics 
 of ancient Ireland. 
 
 From the deep interest caused by this decisive step, I 
 was obliged at once to turn to the details of our great 
 reception to be held on the Wednesday following, for it 
 was necessary that in splendour and distinction it should 
 eclipse all that had preceded it. Happily for us, dearest 
 Caroline was absent as well as papa; she had gone to 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 spend a week with a tiresome old lady some miles away, 
 and we were therefore relieved from the annoyance of that 
 vexatious restraint imposed by the mere presence of those 
 whose thoughts and ideas are never yours. I have already 
 told you that she has taken up a completely mistaken line, 
 and utterly destroyed any natural advantages she pos- 
 sessed. I told her so myself over and over ; I reasoned 
 and argued the question deliberately. " I see," said I, 
 " your tastes are not those of high and fashionable society. 
 You do not feel the instinctive fascination that comes of 
 being admired by the distinguished classes. Your 
 ambitions do not soar to those aristocratic regions whose 
 atmosphere breathes of royalty. Be it so ; there is another 
 path open to you — the sentimental and the romantic. Your 
 hair suits it, your complexion, your figure, your style 
 generally, will easily adapt themselves to the character. If 
 not a part that attracts general admiration, it is one which 
 never fails, in every society, to secure some favourable 
 notice ; and elder sons, educated either ' at home or in 
 clergymen's families,' are constantly captured by its fascina- 
 tion." This, I must remark to you, Kitty, is perfectly 
 true, and it is of great consequence frequently to have a 
 woman that suits shy men, and saves them the much- 
 dreaded exhibition of themselves by talking aloud. I told 
 her all this, and I even condescended to use arguments 
 derived from her own narrow views of life, by showing 
 that it is a style requiring little expense in the way of 
 dress ; ringlets and a white muslin "peignoir" of a morning, 
 a broad-leaved straw hat for the promenade, something, in 
 short, of the very simplest kind, and no ornaments. No ! 
 my dearest Kitty, it was of no use ! She is one of those 
 self-opinionated girls that reason never appeals to. She 
 coolly replied to me, that all this wonld be nnreal and 
 unnatural — "a mere piece of acting," as she said, and 
 consequently unworthy of her, and unbecoming. I repeat 
 the very words of her reply, to show you the great benefits 
 she has derived from foreign travel ! Why, dearest Kitty, 
 nobody is real — nobody pretends to be real abroad ; if they 
 were to do so, they'd be shnnned like wild beasts. What 
 is it, I ask, that constitutes the very essence of high breed- 
 ing ? Conventional usages, forms of expression, courtesies,
 
 MISS dodd's admirers. 341 
 
 attentions, flatteries, and observances — all stimulated, all 
 put on, to please and captivate. Reject this theory, and 
 instead of society, you have a mob ; instead of a salon, 
 you have a wild beast "menagerie." Caroline says she is 
 Irish ; she might as well say she was Cochin- Chinese. 
 Nobody can recognize any trait in that nationality but 
 its uniform " savagery," for I must tell you, Kitty, that 
 Ireland itself — though politically deplored, pitied, and wept 
 over, abroad — is encumbered by geographical doubts and 
 difficulties like the North-West Passage. Many suppose 
 it to be a town in the West of England ; others fancy it a 
 barren tract along the coast ; and a few, whose sympathies 
 are more acute for suffering nations, fancy it to be a species 
 of penal settlement in an unknown latitude. 
 
 If Caroline even developed the character — if she had, as 
 the French say, cree le role of an Irish girl, what with 
 eccentricities of dress, manner, and Moore's melodies, 
 something might be made of it. It admits of all those 
 extravagances that are occasionally admired, and any 
 amount of liberty with the male sex. Cary's reading of 
 the part was very different ; it was neither poetic nor 
 pictorial ; in fact, it was a mere vulgar piece of common- 
 place devotion to home and its tiresome associations, and 
 a clinging attachment to whatever recalled memories of 
 our former obscurity — these "national traits " being eked 
 out with a most insolent contempt for the foreigner, and a 
 compassionate sorrow for the patience with which we 
 endured him. 
 
 Pardon me, my dearest friend, if I weary you with this 
 unpleasant theme, but I wish to satisfy your mind, that if 
 my sisterly affection be strong, it still does not tyrannize 
 over my reason, and that increased powers of judgment, if 
 they elevate the understanding, are frequently exercised at 
 the cost of our tenderest feelings. 
 
 To come back to the point whence I started, " our 
 Wednesday " — and this, by the way, enables me to answer 
 some of the questions in your last. You ask about my 
 admirers ; you shall have the catalogue as lately revised 
 and corrected, though I scarcely flatter myself that the 
 names will admit of vocal repetition. First, then, there 
 is the Neapolitan Prince Sierra d'Aquila Nero, whom I
 
 342 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 already mentioned to you in one of my letters from 
 Brussels. In my then innocence of the Continent I 
 thought him charming, so impassioned, so poetical, and 
 so perfumed. Now, Kitty, I find him an intolerable old 
 bore ; he is upwards of seventy, but so painted, patched, 
 and plastered, as to pass offpanoramically for five-and-forty. 
 He affects all the habits and even the vices of young men. 
 He keeps saddle-horses that he dare not ride, and hires 
 a " chasse," though he never fires a gun ; and lastly, 
 issues from his hairdresser's shop at intervals with a wig 
 of shortened proportions, coolly alleging that he has 
 just had his hair cut ! When he drives out of an evening 
 the whole Allee reeks of "Bergamot," and the flutter of 
 his handkerchief is a tornado in the Spice Islands. Need 
 I say that Ms chance is at zero ? Count Rastuchewitsky, 
 a Russian Pole, comes next — at least in order of seniority ; 
 a short, stern-looking man, of about fifty, with a snow- 
 white beard and moustache, with abrupt manners, and an 
 unpleasant voice. I believe that he only pays me any 
 attention because he sees the prince do so, for he hates all 
 Italians, and tries to thwart them in everything. The 
 count's great claim to distinction rests upon his father, 
 or mother, I forget which, having helped to assassinate the 
 Emperor Paul — a piece of chivalry that he dwells on 
 unceasingly. 
 
 The Chevalier de Courcelles makes " No. Three," and 
 thirty years ago he might have been very presentable, but 
 be belongs to a school even older than his time. He is 
 of the Richelieu order, and seems to be always in a 
 terrible fright about the effect of his own powers of 
 fascination : his constant effort being to show you that 
 he really is not fond of making victims. There is a 
 German Graf von Herrenshausen, a large, yellow-bearded, 
 blear-eyed monster, with a frogged coat and a huge pipe 
 stick projecting from the hind pocket, who kisses my 
 hand whenever we meet, and leers at me from the whist- 
 table — for, happily, he is past dancing — like a Ghoul in 
 an Eastern tale. There are a vast number of others, one or 
 two of whom I reserve for favourable mention hereafter ; 
 but these are the true "pretendants," of which number, I 
 believe, I might select the one which pleases me best.
 
 "home productions." 8-13 
 
 Amongst "home productions," as you term them, I 
 may mention the Honourable Sackville Cavendish — a thin, 
 pale, white-eyebrowed babe of diplomacy, that smallest 
 of Foreign Office infants yclept an " unpaid attache." 
 He has just emerged from the " nursery " at Downing 
 Street, and is really not strong enough to go alone. I 
 have supported him in an occasional polka, and " hustled 
 him," as James called it, through a waltz, and have in 
 turn received the meed of his admiration as expressed in 
 the most lacklustre eyes that ever glittered out of a doll's 
 head ; and, lastly, there is Mister Milo Blake O'Dwyer, 
 who formerly — O'Connell regnante — represented the town 
 of Tralee in Parliament, and who now, with altered 
 fortunes, performs the duty of Foreign Correspondent 
 to that great newspaper, " The Sledge Hammer op 
 Freedom." 
 
 Perhaps I'm not strictly correct in enrolling him 
 amongst the number of my worshippers ; with more rigid 
 justice, I believe he belongs to mamma; at least he's in 
 constant attendance upon her, and continually assures 
 me, with upturned eyes and a smack of the lip, that 
 she is a " gorgeous woman," and " wonderfully pre- 
 served ! " This worthy individual is really a curiosity; 
 since being in manner, exterior, knowledge, and fortune 
 totally deficient of all those aids which achieve success 
 in society, he has actually contrived, by the bare force of 
 impudence, to move with, and be received by, persons 
 in the very first ranks. Foreigners, I must tell you, 
 Kitty, conceive the most ridiculous notions of England ; ' 
 one of the most popular of which is, that more than one- 
 half of our government is carried on by newspaper 
 writing, the minister contributing his sentiments, one 
 day, some individual of the public replying, the next, f 
 Now, the illustrious Milo takes every opportunity of 
 propping up this fallacy, while he represents himself as 
 the very bone and sinew of all English opinion on the 
 Continent. To believe him, no foreign prince or potentate 
 could raise a sixpence on loan till he subscribes the scheme. 
 How many an appropriation of territory have his warn- 
 ings arrested ? From what cruelties has he saved the 
 Poles ! What a crisis did his pen achieve in the fortunes
 
 344 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 of Hungary! And then the bushels of diamond snuff- 
 boxes that he has thrown from him with disgust, the 
 "heaps of orders that he has rejected with proud scorn! " 
 As he says himself, " Haven't I more power than them 
 all ? When I send off my article to the Sledge, don't 
 I see them trembling and shaking for what's coming? 
 Ay, says I to myself, haughty enough you look to-day, 
 but won't I expose your Majesty, won't I lay bare the 
 cruelties of your prisons and the infamy of your spies ! 
 And your Eminence, too, how silky you are ; but I know 
 you well, and I've a copy of the last rescript you sent 
 over to Ireland ! Don't be afraid, my little darling ; never 
 mind the puppies that hissed you at Parma, I'll make 
 your fortune in London. A word from me to Lumley, 
 and it's as good as five thousand pounds in the bank ! " 
 
 It really gives me a great notion of the glut of genius 
 that we possess in England, when you see a man whose 
 qualifications are great in war and peace ; whose know- 
 ledge ranges over the world of politics, religion, literature, 
 fine arts, and the drama ; who knows mankind to per- 
 fection, and understands statecraft to a miracle, with no 
 higher nor prouder position than that of writing for the 
 Sledge. It is but fair to own that he has been of great 
 service to us here. The hardest thing to find in the 
 world is some person of pushing habits and impudent 
 address, who will speak of you at all times and in all 
 companies, doing for you, socially, what, in the world of 
 trade, is accomplished by huge advertisements and red- 
 lettered placards. Now, one really cannot stick up on 
 the walls great announcements of " unrivalled attraction," 
 the " positively last night but one " of Mrs. Dodd's great 
 soirees, and so on, but you can come pretty nigh the same 
 result by a little tact and management. A few insigni- 
 ficant commissions about camellias, a change of arrange- ' 
 ment about the fiddles, entrusted to him, and Milo was 
 prepared to go forth, trumpet in hand, for us, from day 
 to dark. Woe to the luckless wight that hadn't got a 
 card for our " Evening ! " the obligation Milo would place 
 him under was a bond debt for life. Then he contrived 
 to know everybody, and though he made sad hash of their 
 names, they only smiled at his blunders.
 
 INCONVENIENT REMINISCENCES. 345 
 
 I have heard that a great English minister one day 
 confessed that the only exaction of office he never could 
 thoroughly reconcile himself to, was the nature of thoso 
 persons he was occasionally obliged to employ as subordi- 
 nates. I suppose that, without being leader of a cabinet, 
 everybody must have experienced something or other of 
 this kind in life. 
 
 I think I hear you ask, "Where is the Ritter von 
 Wolfenshafer all this time ? "What has become of him ? " 
 you say. You really are very tiresome, dearest Kitty, 
 with your little poisonous allusions to " old loves," former 
 attachments, and so on. As to the Ritter, however, I 
 heard from him yesterday ; he cannot, it seems, come to 
 Baden ; his father is not on terms with the Grand-Duke, 
 and he strictly charges me not to mention their names to 
 any one. His letter repeats the invitation to us all to 
 spend some weeks at the " Schloss " — an arrangement 
 which might, very possibly, suit our plans well, since, 
 when the season ends here, it is still too early to go into 
 winter quarters; and one is sorely puzzled what to do 
 with the late autumn, which is as wearisome as the time 
 one passes in the drawing-room before dinner. Of course 
 we must await pa's return, to reply to this invitation ; 
 and I incline to say we shall accept it. Why will you 
 be so silly as to remind me of the follies of my childhood ? 
 Are there no naughtinesses of the nursery you can rake 
 up to record ? You know as well, if not better than 
 myself, that the attentions you allude to could never have 
 been seriously meant ! nor could Dr. B. believe them 
 such, if not totally deficient in those qualities of good 
 sense and judgment for which I always have given him 
 credit. I will not say that, in the artless gaiety of 
 infancy, I have not amused myself with the mock devotion 
 he proffered ; but you might as well reproach me with 
 fickleness for not taking a child's interest any longer in 
 the nursery games that once delighted me, as for not 
 sustaining my share in this absurd illusion! 
 
 I plainly perceive one thing, Kitty — the gentleman in 
 question has very little pride ; but even that, in your eyes, 
 may bo an excellence, for you have discovered innumer- 
 able merits in his character under circumstances which, I
 
 346 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 am constrained to own, have failed to impress me with 
 a suitable degree of interest. The subject is so very un- 
 pleasant, however, that I must beg it may never be 
 reopened between us ; and if you really feel for him so 
 acutely as you say, I can only suggest that you should hit 
 upon some plan of consolation perfectly independent of 
 any aid from your attached friend, 
 
 Mart Anne. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OP BALLYDOOLAW. 
 
 My dearest Kitty, — Another delay, and more u last 
 words ! " I had thought that my poor epistle was already 
 miles on the way towards you, wafted by the sighs of my 
 heaving heart, but I now discover that Mr. Cavendish 
 will not send off his bag to the Foreign Office before 
 Saturday, as the Grand-Duke wants to send over some 
 guinea-pigs to the royal children, so that I shall detain 
 this till that day, and perhaps be able to tell you of a 
 great " pic-nic " we are planning to the Castle of Eber- 
 stein for Thursday next. It is one of the things every- 
 body does here, and of course we must not omit it. James 
 talks of the expense as terrific, which really comes with 
 an ill grace from one who wagers fifty, or even sixty, 
 Napoleons on a card! Besides, a " pic-nic " is an asso- 
 ciation, and the whole cost cannot fall to the share of an 
 individual. The Great Milo begs that we will leave 
 everything to him, and I feel assured that it is the wisest 
 course we can adopt, not to speak of the advantage of 
 seeing the whole festivity glowingly described in the 
 columns of the Sledge. The Princess Sloboffsky has just 
 driven to the door, so I must conclude for the present. 
 
 I come back to say that the pic-nic is fixed for Thursday, 
 the number to be, by special request of the princess, 
 limited to forty — the list to be made out this evening.
 
 A START UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 347 
 
 " Mammas " to go in open carriages — young ladies horse- 
 back or ass-back — men indiscriminately ; no more at 
 present decided on. I am wild with delight at the plea- 
 sure before us. Would you were one of us, dearest 
 Kitty ! 
 
 Thursday Morning. 
 
 Oh, Kitty, what a day ! It might be December in 
 London. The rain is swooping down the mountain sides, 
 and the wind howling fearfully. It is now seven o'clock, 
 and my maid, Augustine, has called me to get up and 
 dress. Mamma has had two notes already, which, being 
 in French, she is waiting for me to read and reply to. 
 I'll hasten to see what they mean. 
 
 One of the " billets " is from the Duchesse de Sargance, 
 merely asking the question, " Que faire? " The other is 
 from the Princess Sloboffsky, who, in consideration " for 
 all the trouble mamma has been put to," deems it better 
 to go at all events, and that we can dine at the Grand- 
 Ducal Schloss, instead of on the grass. This reads omin- 
 ously in one sense, Kitty, and seems to imply that we are 
 giving the entertainment ourselves ; but I must keep this 
 suspicion to myself, or we should have a terrible exposure. 
 When an evil becomes inevitable, patient submission is 
 the true philosophy. 
 
 Ten o'clock. 
 What an animated, I might almost call it a stormy, 
 debate we have just had in the drawing-room. The as- 
 sembled lieges have been all discussing the proposed 
 excursion ; if that can be called discussion, where every- 
 body screamed out his own opinion, and nobody listened 
 to his neighbour. The two parties for and against going 
 divided themselves into the two sexes — the men, being 
 for staying where we are, the ladies as clamorously declar- 
 ing for the road. Of course the " Ayes " had it, and we 
 are now putting the whole house in requisition for cloaks, 
 mantles, and macintoshes. The half-dozen men for whom 
 no place can be made in coach or " caleche " are furious 
 at having to ride. I half suspect that some attachments, 
 whose fidelity has hitherto defied time and years, will 
 yield, to-day, before the influence of mero water. The
 
 348 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 truth is, Kitty, foreigners dread it in every shape. They 
 mix a little of it, now and then, with their wine, and they 
 rather like to see it in fountains and "jets d'eau," but 
 there ends all the acquaintance they ever desire to 
 maintain with the pure element. 
 
 I must confess that the aspect of the u outsiders " is 
 suggestive of anything rather than amusement. They 
 stand to be muffled and waterproofed like men who, hav- 
 ing resigned themselves to an inevitable fate, have lost all 
 interest in the preliminaries that conduct to it. They are, 
 as it were, bound for the scaffold, and they have no care 
 for the shape of the "hurdle" that is to draw them 
 thither. The others, who have secured inside places, 
 are overwhelmingly civil, and profuse in all the little 
 attentions that cost nothing, nor exact any sacrifice. I 
 have seen no small share of national character this morn- 
 ing, and if I had time could let you into some secrets 
 about it. 
 
 The arrangement of the company, that is, who is to go 
 with whom, is our next difficulty. There are such intri- 
 cacies of family history, such subtle questions of propriety 
 to be solved, we'd not get away under a year were we to 
 enter upon half of them. As a general rule, however, 
 ladies ought not to be packed up in the same coach with 
 the husbands from whom they have been for years 
 separated, nor people with deadly feuds between them to 
 be placed vis-a-vis. As to the attractive principles, the 
 cohesionary elements, Kitty, are more puzzling still, since 
 none but the parties themselves know where the minds 
 are simulated and where real. 
 
 Milo has taken a great part of this arrangement upon 
 his own hands, and from what I can see, with his accus- 
 tomed want of success in all matters of tact and delicacy. 
 Of this, however, he is most beautifully unconscious, and 
 goes about in the midst of muttered execrations with the 
 implicit belief of being a benefactor of the human race. I 
 wish you could see the self-satisfied chuckle of his greasy 
 laugh, or could hear his mumbled " Maybe I don't know 
 what ye'r after, my old lady. Haven't I put the little 
 count with the green spectacles next you ; don't I under- 
 stand the cross looks ye'r giving me ? Ah, mademoiselle,
 
 Saddled witii the cost. 340 
 
 never fear me, I have in my eye for you — a wink ia 
 enough for Milo Blake any day. Yes, my darling, I'm 
 looking for him this minute." These and such-like mut- 
 terings will show you the spirit of his ministering, and 
 when I repeat that he makes nothing but blunders, you 
 may picture to yourself the man. He has appointed 
 himself on mamma's staff, and as I go with the princess 
 and the Count Boldourouki, I shall see no more of him 
 for a while. 
 
 It is quite clear, Kitty, that we are the entertainers, 
 though how it came to be so, I cannot even guess. Some 
 blunder, I suspect, of this detestable Milo ; and James 
 will do nothing whatever. He is still in bed, and, to all 
 my entreaties to get up, merely says that he'll be with us 
 at dinner. The hampers of proggery will fill two carriages, 
 and a charette with the champagne in ice is already sent 
 forward. Three cooks — for such, I am told, are three 
 gentlemen in black coats and white neckcloths — are to 
 accompany us ; and the whole preparations are evidently 
 got up in the " very first style," and " totally regardless 
 of expense." 
 
 i Twelve o'clock. 
 
 Another dilemma. There is only one •' bus " in the 
 town ; and as none of the band will sit outside in this 
 terrible weather, what is to be done? Milo proposes billet- 
 ing them, singly, here and there, through the carriages; 
 but the bare mention has excited a rebellion amongst the 
 equestrians, who will not consent to be treated worso 
 than the fiddlers ! The Commissary of Police has just 
 sent to know if we have obtained a ministerial permission 
 to assemble in vast numbers and for objects unnamed." 
 I have got one of the German nobles to settle this dilliculty, 
 which, in Milo's hands — if he only heard of it— might 
 become formidable. 
 
 Happily, he is now engaged u telling off" the band, and 
 selecting from the number such as we can find room to 
 accommodate. The permission has been accorded, tho 
 carriages are drawing up, the guests are taking tbeir seats, 
 we are ready — wo are off.
 
 850 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD* 
 
 Saturday Morning. 
 
 Dearest Kitty, — Mr. Cavendish has just sent me word 
 that the courier will start in half an hour, so that I have 
 only time for a few lines. Gloomily as the day broke 
 yesterday, its setting at evening was infinitely sadder, and 
 more sorrowful. Never did a prospect of pleasure prove 
 more delusive ; never did a scene of enjoyment terminate 
 more miserably. 
 
 Tears of anguish, of passion, and of shame, blot my 
 words as I write them. You must not ask me to describe 
 the course of events, when my mind has but room for tho 
 sad catastrophe that closed them ; but in a few brief lines 
 I will endeavour to convey to you what occurred. 
 
 Our journey to Eberstein, from being all up hill and 
 over roads terribly cut up by the weather, w r as a slow 
 process. The procession, some of the riders remarked, 
 had a most funereal look, winding along up the zig-zags 
 of the mountain, and on a day which assuredly suggested 
 few thoughts of pleasure. I can only answer for my own 
 companions ; but they, I am bound to say, were in the 
 very w r orst of tempers the whole way, discussing the whole 
 plot of the excursion with — considering mamma's share 
 in it — a far greater degree of candour than politeness. 
 They ridiculed pic-nics in general; pronounced them 
 vulgar, tiresome, and usually " failures." They insinuated 
 that they were the resources of people who felt more at 
 ease in the semi-civilized scramble of a country party than 
 amid the more correct courtesies of daily life ! As to the 
 " diner sur l'herbe " itself, it was a shocking travestie of 
 a real dinner. Spiders and cockroaches settled in your 
 soup, black beetles bathed in your champagne, wasps con- 
 tested your fruit with you, and you were lucky if you did 
 not carry back a scorpion or a snake in your pocket. Then 
 the company came in for its share of comment. So many 
 people crept in that nobody knew, nobody acknowledged, 
 and apparently nobody had invited. You always, they 
 said, found that all your objectionable acquaintances dated 
 from these parties. Lastly, they were excursions which 
 no weather suited, no toilet became ! If it were hot, the 
 sufferings of sun-scorching and mosquitoes were insuffer- 
 able. If it proved bad and rainy, they were in the sad
 
 CRITICISMS OF THE DISCONTENTED. 851 
 
 situation of that very moment ! As to dress, who could 
 fix upon a costume to be becoming in the morning, grace- 
 ful in the afternoon, and fresh and radiant at night? In 
 a word, Kitty, they said so much, and so forcibly, that 
 nothing but great constraint upon my feelings saved me 
 from asking, " Why, in Heaven's name, could they have 
 consented to come upon an excursion, every detail of which 
 was a sorrow, and every step a suffering? " 
 
 No other theme, however, divided attention with this 
 calamitous one ; and as we toiled languidly up the moun- 
 tain side, you can fancy with what pleasant feelings the 
 way was beguiled. 
 
 At last we reached the castle ; but fresh disappointment 
 here awaited us. Although parties were admitted to see 
 the Schloss and the grounds, they could not obtain leave 
 to dine anywhere within the precincts. We begged hard 
 for a room in the porter's lodge, the laundry, the stable, 
 even the hayloft ! but all without success. We at length 
 capitulated for a moss-house, where the rain came filtering 
 down through a network of foliage and birds'-nests ; but 
 even this was refused. What was to be done ? The army 
 was now little short of mutiny ; a violent debate was 
 carried on from carriage windows ; and strong partisans 
 of particular opinions went slopping about, with tucked- 
 up trousers and huge umbrellas, trying to enforce their 
 own views ! Some were for an equitable distribution of 
 the eatables on the spot. " Food commissaries," as the 
 Germans expressed it, being chosen, to allot the victuals 
 to each coach ; some were for a forcible entry into tho 
 castle, and an occupation by dint of arms ; others voted 
 for a return to Baden ; and lastly, a small section, which 
 gradually grew in power and persuasiveness, suggested 
 that, by descending the opposite side of the mountain, we 
 should reach a little inn in the Moorg Thai, much fre- 
 quented by fishermen, and where we were sure to find 
 shelter at least, if not something more. The " Anglers' 
 Rest " was now adopted as our goal ; and thither we started, 
 with some slight tinge of renewed hope and pleasure. 
 
 Our journey down was nearly as slow as that vp the 
 mountain ; for the steep descent required the greatest 
 caution, with heavily-laden and jaded horses. It was,
 
 352 the dodd Family abroad. 
 
 therefore, already dark when we reached the " Anglers* 
 Rest." All that I could see of this " hostel," from the 
 rain- streaked glasses of the carriage, was a small, one- 
 storied house, built over the stream of a small but rapid 
 river, Mountains, half wrapped in mists, and seeming to 
 smoke with the steam of hot rain, environed the spot on 
 all sides, which probably, in fine weather, would have been 
 picturesque, and even pretty. 
 
 "We are destined to be unlucky to-day, princess," said 
 a young French marquis, approaching our carriage. 
 " This miserable ' guinguette,' it seems, is full of people, 
 who are by no means disposed to yield the place to us." 
 
 " Who are they— what are they ? " asked she, in haughty 
 astonishment at their contumacy. 
 
 " They are, I believe, some young tradesfolk, on, what 
 is called in Germany, the * Wander-Jahre ' — that travelling 
 probation that municipal law dictates to native handi- 
 craft." 
 
 "But, surely, when they hear who we are- " 
 
 " Graf Adelberger has been eloquently explaining that 
 to them the last ten minutes, and the Baron von Baden- 
 schwill has told them of his eighteen quarterings ; but 
 though they have consented to drink his health, they will 
 not abdicate the territory." 
 
 Here was a pretty proof of what the years '48 and '49 
 had done for the Continent of Europe, and maybe Blum, 
 Kossuth, Mazzini, and Co., didn't come in for their share ! 
 To think of creatures — shoemakers, who could assure us 
 they were, might be tailors — daring to proclaim that they 
 preferred their own ease and comfort to that of carriages 
 full of unknown but titled individuals ! 
 
 " It's impossible ! " "Incredible!" "Fabulous!" "In- 
 famous!" "Monstrous!'" were expressions screamed 
 from carriage to carriage, while telegraphic signs of horror 
 and amazement were exchanged from window to window. 
 11 Did they know who we were ? " " Do they know who 
 I am?" were the questions incessantly pouring forth. 
 Alas ! they had heard it all. There was not a claim we 
 could prefer to greatness that they had not before them, 
 and, alas ! they remained inexorable ! 
 
 Deputations of various nations went in, and came back
 
 NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE " BURSCHEN." 353 
 
 baffled and unsuccessful. The "Burschen," as they were 
 called, were at that very moment impatiently waiting for 
 their own supper, and seemed to verify the adage of the 
 ill result of arguing with hungry men. Milder and more 
 practicable counsels now began to prevail amongst us, and 
 some even of the most conservative hinted at compromise 
 and accommodation. What if we were to share with some 
 of the vast abundance that we had with us ? What if we 
 tried bribery ? The " Food Commissaries " assured us 
 that, even after the most liberal allowance for our wants, 
 we could feed a moderately-sized village. 
 
 The proposal was therefore framed, and two Germans 
 of high rank persuaded — sorely against their prejudices 
 and inclination — to convey it to ° Das Volk " — the popu- 
 lace. It seemed as though the memorable years 1 have 
 referred to had taught some curious lessons in popular 
 force ; for the demands of the masses indicated strength 
 and power. They stipulated, first, that they should hold 
 the kitchen ; secondly, that the meats assigned them should 
 be set before them uncut ; and lastly, that none of our 
 servants were to be quartered on the table. Here was 
 the "Monarchy of the Middle Classes" proudly enun- 
 ciated ; and, I assure you, many excellent things were said 
 by all of us — not only upon the past and the present, but 
 on " what we were coming to ! " 
 
 If I weary you with this detail, Kitty, it is that you 
 may sympathize with me in the fatigue the long discussion 
 inflicted. We were fully three-quarters of an hour at the 
 door ere the treaty was concluded. . Then came the 
 descent from the carriages, the unpacking of the eatables, 
 the unrolling of the life-mummies that were to consume 
 them, which, wrapped up as they were in soaked drapery, 
 was a long process. I shall not delay you with an account 
 of the distribution of the proggery, but content myself 
 with stating that the two deputies accredited by the 
 " Trades' " union to receive their share, acknowledged 
 that we behaved not only well, but with munificence; 
 since not only did we bestow upon them the grosser 
 material of a meal, but many of the higher refinements 
 of a great entertainment ; in particular, a large game 
 pasty, representing a feudal fortress, with a flag waving 
 
 VOL. i. A A
 
 354 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 over it, on which the enthusiastic cook had inscribed the 
 words, "Hoch Lebe die Dodd," or "the Dodd for ever." 
 It was a vulgar dish, Kitty, and by my own special diplo- 
 macy was it consigned to the second table. 
 
 At length we were seated at table, but only for new 
 disappointment. Milo, in telling off the band, had made 
 the irreparable blunder of leaving all the flute, clarionet, 
 and horn players behind ; and there we were, with kettle- 
 drums, trombones, and ophocleides enough to have stunned 
 a garrison. They could beat a " generale," it is true, but 
 there ended their orchestral powers. This stupid mistake, 
 however, gave room for laughter, and, in spite of our 
 annoyance, we laughed at it long and heartily. 
 
 I am spared the painful task of recording the catas- 
 trophe of our story, by a message from Mr. Cavendish, to 
 say that the courier is starting. Indeed, his carriage is 
 now at the door, and I must say, Kitty, that the hand- 
 somest men in our diplomacy are the Mercuries. They 
 dress so becomingly, too — something between a hussar 
 and Lord Byron ; their pelisses of rich furs, their slashed 
 frocks, and Polish caps, harmonizing beautifully with their 
 mingled air of intrepidity and gentleness. 
 
 Mr. Dudley Vignerton, who takes this, is remarkably 
 good-looking — something of George Canning, with a clash 
 of Count d'Orsay. I wish, however, he would let me 
 finish these few lines in peace, for he keeps on compliment- 
 ing me about my hair, and my handwriting, and I don't 
 know what besides. He offers, also, to bring me shoes 
 from Paris, for really Germany is too bad ! 
 
 He is a strange man, Kitty, and I regret not to see 
 more of him ; he looks at once so bland and so determined. 
 He tells me that the adventurous nature of the life he 
 leads makes a man at once daring and enduring- — about 
 equal parts lamb and lion. Don't you wish to see him ? 
 
 Yours, in great haste, 
 
 M. A. D.
 
 855 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQ., TRINITY COLLEGE, LUBLIN. 
 
 " The Fox." Liclitenthal. 
 My dear Bob, — I promised to give you the earliest in- 
 telligence of the governor's return ; and this is to inform 
 you that the agreeable incident in question occurred on 
 "Wednesday last, accompanied, however, by circumstances 
 which I must call " attenuantes," that is to say, consider- 
 ably impairing the felicitous character of the event. We 
 — that is, the Dodd M'Carthy portion of the family, for 
 so we had already constituted ourselves — had organized a 
 most stunning pic-nic ; one of those entertainments which 
 are the great facts of the season, just as certain battles 
 are the grand incidents of a campaign : we had secured 
 everything that Baden contained of company and cuisine, 
 and we did not leave a turkey, a truffle, nor a titled in- 
 dividual in the whole village. 
 
 La Mere Dodd had in fact resolved on one of those great 
 coups de tele, which, in the social as in the political world, 
 are needed to terminate a difficult position, and, as the 
 journalists say in France, " legitimize the situation." How 
 I love a phrase that permits one to escape the pettiness of 
 a personal detail by some grand and sweeping generality ! 
 
 The pic-nic is to the fashionable world what a general 
 election is in that of politics. It is a brief orgie, in which 
 each condescends to acquaintanceship, or even intimacy, 
 without in the slightest degree pledging himself to futuro 
 consequences. You, as it were, pass out of the conven- 
 tional limits of ordinary life, and take a M day rule " for 
 indiscretions. The natural consequence is, that people will 
 come to you, in this way, that no efforts could seduce into 
 your house ; and the great lady, who would scorn your 
 attentions on a Turkey carpet, will suffer you to carve her 
 chicken, and fill her champagne glass, when seated on the 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 TELE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 grass. u Oh ! I don't know him. I saw him somewhere 
 — on a steamer, or at a pic-nic, perhaps." This spoken, 
 with a stare of ineffable nnconcern, is the extent of the 
 recognition accorded to you after. At first, when you call 
 to mind the way you struggled to get her sherry, how you 
 fought for the lobster, and descended to actual meanness 
 for the mustard, you are disposed to fancy yourself the 
 most injured, and her the most ingrate of mankind ; but 
 you soon learn to perceive that this is the law of these 
 cases, and that you are not worse treated than your 
 fellows. 
 
 I leave you to conjecture why we deemed a pic-nic an 
 essential stroke of policy. I assure you it was a question 
 well and maturely discussed in our cabinet. We knew it 
 to be a measure from which there was no retreating 
 when once entered upon ; we also knew that the gover- 
 nor's return would utterly render such a course impossible. 
 It was now or never with us. Would that it had been 
 never ! But to proceed. Everything, even from the start, 
 promised badly ; the day broke in torrents of rain ; it 
 was like one of those days of Irish pic-nic at the " Dargle," 
 where a drowned family squat under a hedge to eat soaked 
 sandwiches. We set out, in bad humour, determined to 
 " take our pleasure excursion" under difficulties; a pro- 
 ceeding about as sensible as that of a man who, having 
 sprained his ankle on his way to a ball, still insists upon 
 waltzing. At Eberstein, where we had purposed to dine, 
 they would not admit us. It is a royal residence, and 
 although, usually, there was no permission necessary for 
 parties wishing to pass the day there, an order from the 
 court had closed the castle against all pic-nicaries ; a fact 
 not made more palatable to us by the information that it 
 was the misconduct of some interesting individuals of the 
 family of the Simkins, the Popkins, or the Perkins, which 
 had provoked the edict in question. And here I must 
 say, Bob — and I say it in deep sorrow — that we are either 
 grossly calumniated abroad, or else very grievous faults 
 attach to us, since every scratched picture, every noseless 
 statue, every chipped relic, and every flawed marble, is 
 sure of being assigned to the work of English fingers. I 
 repeat, I have no means of knowing if the accusation be
 
 PEUDENT COUNSELS. 857 
 
 wrongful or not ; at all events, I conclude it to be greatly- 
 exaggerated beyond truth. If scratching and mutilating, 
 " the chalking aud maiming acts " against works of art, 
 be popular practices of travellers generally, it follows that, 
 as we English supply a very large majority of the earth's 
 vagabonds, a vast number of these offences must fall to our 
 share ; but I sincerely hope we do not deserve our whole- 
 sale reputation, nor possess any exclusive patent for bar- 
 barism. I argue the point as the priest used to do at home 
 about Catholics and Protestants, when he triumphantly 
 asked, " Why white-faced sheep eat more than black- 
 faced?" and having puzzled us all, answered, "Because 
 there are more of them!" And that's the reason the 
 English commit more breaches of decorum than their 
 neighbours. Rely upon it, Bob, the simple illustration is 
 very widely applicable ; and whenever you hear of our 
 derelictions abroad, please to remember it. 
 
 As we could not gain admittance to Eberstein, it became 
 a grand subject of debate what to do. The prudent said, 
 " Go back." Is it not strange, Bob ? but there is an 
 almost stereotyped uniformity in wise counsellors, and 
 that whenever a difficulty arises in life, they all cry out, 
 " Go back ! " I conclude that this is the whole secret of 
 the Tory party, and that all the reputation they have 
 acquired of " safe," " prudent," and so forth, has no other 
 basis than this simple maxim. Upon the present occa- 
 sion, " the Progresistas " carried the day — we went on ! 
 
 A little wayside inn — the resort of a few summer visi- 
 tors — was to be our destination ; but, when we arrived 
 there, it was to find the house crammed with a most motley 
 rabble, a set of those wandering artisans which, from 
 some singular notion of her own upon the virtues of vaga- 
 bondism, Germany sends forth broadcast over her whole 
 land ; the law requiring that each tradesman should travel 
 for a year, or, in some states, two years, before he can ob- 
 tain permission from the municipality of his own town to 
 reside at home. Now, as these individuals are rarely or 
 never persons of independent fortune, but rather of scanty 
 and precarious means, the " Wander- Jahre," as the year of 
 travel is called, is usually a series of events vibrating be- 
 tween roguery and begging, and at all events little condu-
 
 358 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 cive to those habits of orderly, patient industry, which, in 
 England, at least, are deemed the highest qualities of a 
 labouring man. 
 
 Wherever you travel in Germany you are certain to find 
 droves of these people on the road, their heavy knapsacks 
 covered with an undressed calf-skin, and usually decorated 
 at either extremity by a Wellington boot, " pendant," but 
 not "proper," their long'j pipes and longer beards, their 
 well-tuned voices — for they always sing — and, lastly, their 
 unblushing appeals to your charity, proclaim them to ,'be 
 " Lehre-Junge," or apprentices. But you must not fall 
 into the absurd mistake of one of our well-known English 
 writers on Germany, who has called them travelling stu- 
 dents, and thereupon moralized long and learnedly on the 
 poverty of life and the cheapness of education in that 
 country. Occasionally, it is true, a student of the very 
 humblest class will associate himself with the " youths ;" 
 but even he will be the exception, and the university to 
 which he belongs one of the very lowest in rank. I should 
 ask your forgiveness for this long and wide digression, my 
 dear Bob, were it not that I know that whenever I speak 
 of matters which are new and unfamiliar to you, I am at 
 least as interesting as by any purely personal history. 
 You would like to hear a thousand traits of foreign life 
 and manners, far better than I am capable of communi- 
 cating them. 
 
 Our inn, as I have said, was full of these " gents," and 
 no persuasion of ours, no threats, nor any flatteries, could 
 induce them to vacate the territory in our favour. In 
 fact, they presumed to reason upon the case, on the 
 absurd presumption that rain would wet and wind chill 
 them, and positively resisted all our assurances to tho 
 contrary. 
 
 We ended by a compromise ; they gave us the parlour, 
 and retired to the kitchen, we purchasing the concession 
 by sundry articles of consumption, such as fowls, ham, 
 preserves, and a pasty, to be by them devoured as their 
 own proper and peculiar prog. The selection, which was 
 made by a special commission named by both sides, was 
 rather an amusing process, though probably prolonged a 
 little beyond the limits of ordinary patience. At length
 
 NOISES WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 859 
 
 the treaty was concluded, the price paid, the territory 
 evacuated, and we sat down ourselves to table, I will not 
 say in the very happiest of humours, for throughout the 
 whole of the negotiation our pride and self-esteem were 
 at each moment receiving the very rudest buffets, princes, 
 dukes, counts, and barons as we were ! It was a sore 
 lesson we were acquiring; and, as a great man of our 
 party remarked, " The canaille had apparently been 
 taught little or nothing by the last two years." A fact 
 not so difficult to entertain, when one remembers that 
 those whose education is conducted by grape and 
 musketry are seldom left to evidence the advantages of 
 the system, and the survivors are the " naughty boys who 
 have learned nothing." 
 
 Our first disappointment was rather a laughable one, 
 though certes in itself a bore. In the hurry of leaving 
 Baden, a selection of the town band of musicians was 
 made, as we had not carriage-room for the whole ; but by 
 ill-luck it was the rejected we had taken, and there we 
 were with drums, cymbals, trombones, and an ophocleide, 
 but not a flute, flageolet, or a French horn ! You may 
 fancy the attempt to perform the overture to " William 
 Tell " with such appliances. Crash after crash it went, 
 drowned in our own uproarious laughter, or louder cries 
 of horror and disgust. We had scarcely rallied, some 
 from the amusement, others from the annoyance pro- 
 duced by this event, when a tremendous uproar outside 
 the door attracted our attention. It sounded like an 
 attempt being made to establish a forcible entry into our 
 apartment, and vigorous resistance offered. So it proved, 
 by the account of certain wouuded and disabled who fell 
 back to tell us of the affray. "The Trades" were in 
 reality in open insurrection, and marching upon us, 
 " headed," as the trombone said, " by a stout, elderly man 
 of savage appearance." To organize a resistance would 
 have been impossible, with countesses fainting on every 
 side, duchesses in hysterics. The men of our party, too, 
 avowed that without an armoury of guns, pistols, and 
 cutlasses, they were powerless. As to smashing up a 
 chair, or seizing a table-leg, they had no idea of it; so 
 that I saw myself the only combatant in a room full of
 
 360 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 people, who, by way of fitting me for my task, threw 
 themselves around my neck and on my back in a fashion 
 far more flattering than favourable. 
 
 By great exertions I wrested myself free from my 
 " backers," and bounding over the table with a formidable 
 old tongs in my hand, I reached the door just as it gave 
 way to the assaulting party, and came flat down off the 
 hinges, discovering the forlorn hope of the enemy led on 
 by — on, shame and disgrace ineffable ! — no other than 
 my father himself! There he was, Bob, without his coat, 
 with a large saucepan in one hand for a shield, and a 
 kitchen cleaver in the other. He vociferously cheered on 
 his followers to the breach. I own to you that, what 
 with his patched and poor attire, his long beard, and his 
 moustaches, I scarcely knew him. His voice, however, 
 there was no mistaking ; and, at the first word he uttered, 
 I grounded my arms in surrender. 
 
 It turned out that some infernal device in pastry had 
 communicated to him the intelligence that it was Mrs. D. 
 was the entertainer of the gorgeous company, the crumbs 
 from whose sumptuous table he and his friends were then 
 consuming. Maddened with the indignity of his position, 
 and outraged at her extravagance, he tossed off two 
 tumblers of sherry to give him courage, and cried out to 
 his partisans "to charge!" I have often heard that no 
 description can convey even the faintest notion of the 
 horrors of a town taken by assault. I now believed it. 
 For the same good reason, you will not expect of me to 
 portray what I own to be beyond my pictorial powers. I 
 can, it is true, give you the ingredients, as Lord Macartney 
 did those of a plum-pudding to the Chinese cook, but you 
 must yourself know how to mingle and combine them. 
 Take thirty ladies of various ages, from sixteen to sixty, 
 and of all nations of Europe, with gents to match ; throw 
 them into strong convulsions of fright, horror, fun, or 
 laughter, amidst smashed crockery, broken glass, upset 
 viands, and drinkables ; beat them up with some ten or 
 twelve travellers of unwashed appearance, neither civil 
 of speech nor ceremonious in conduct ; dash the mixture 
 with Dodd pere in a state of frenzied passion, to which 
 he gave short and per solium utterance in such phrases
 
 AFTER THE FIGHT. 361 
 
 as" Spitzbuben!" "Coquins!" " Canaille! " "Scoundrels!" 
 " Gueax ! " " Blackguards !" &c. ; a vocabulary that, even 
 without a laboured context, seemed sufficiently intelligible. 
 The company took Lady Macbeth's hint; they didn't 
 stand upon the order of their going, " they went at once." 
 I do not believe that a party ever separated with greater 
 despatch and less useless ceremony. A few of tho 
 "greatly overcome" were, indeed, led out between 
 friends, " unconscious ; M but the mass fled with a laudable 
 precipitancy, leaving the field to my father and the rest 
 of the Dodd family — a group, I beg to say, that nothing 
 but a painter could properly render. That it may one 
 day be thought worthy of a fresco, let me record it. 
 
 Foreground, and principal figure, Dodd pere, seated 
 Marius-like amidst the ruins, cravat in one hand, turban 
 of a spoiled countess inadvertently grasped in the other ; 
 countenance strongly marked with intense perplexity, a 
 kind of universal doubt of everything ; prevailing im- 
 pression of the figure, power, but power weakened by 
 incredulity. 
 
 Middle distance, Mary Anne Dodd, dishevelled and 
 weeping, gracefully draped, and the attitude well chosen. 
 
 Extreme distance, Dodd mere, seated on the floor, with 
 a student's cap stuck on over her own toque, evidently 
 horror-struck and unconscious, as seen by the wild stare 
 of her eyes, and the half-open lips. Dodd fils, dimly 
 detected in the shadow of left foreground, mixing brandy- 
 and-water. 
 
 There's the tableau ; the smaller details are, a universal 
 smashery, with occasional vestiges of that part of tho 
 creation consigned to hairdressers, tailors, and milliners, 
 of which the ground displays various curious specimens, 
 in scalps, fronts, ringlets, and tufts, scraps of lace, tuckers, 
 and trinkets, with skirts of coats, cravats, and a false 
 calf! Had these been all that the company left behind 
 them, Bob, it might have been bearable, but alas ! they 
 had bequeathed to us other relics — their contempt, their 
 very lowest contempt. Even my father's French was 
 intelligible enough to show what he claimed, and what wo 
 could not deny him, to be. You can fancy, therefore, tho 
 impression they must have conceived of us !
 
 362 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 One of the worst features of this unlucky occurrence 
 was, that it happened at Baden. Baden is, so to say, one 
 of those great banking-houses at which a note is sure to 
 be presented at some period or other of its circulation, 
 and here we were now — declared a " forgery," pronounced 
 " not negotiable." 
 
 These were the bitter thoughts which each of us had 
 now to revolve in secret, tormenting our several ingenui- 
 ties to find a remedy for the evil. The governor wa3 
 apparently the first of us to rally, for he turned round at 
 last to the table, cleared a small spot for his operations at 
 a corner, helped himself to some of a game pie, and began 
 to eat like one who had not relished such delicacies for 
 some time back. 
 
 " May I give you a glass of champagne, sir? " said I, 
 seeing that he was " going in " with an air of determina- 
 tion. 
 
 " With all my heart," responded he ; " but I think you 
 might as well open a fresh bottle." I did so, Bob, and 
 followed it by another, of which I partook also. 
 
 " There are some excellent fellows out there in the 
 kitchen," said the governor. " There is a little lame 
 tailor from Anspach, and an ivory-turner from the town 
 of Lindau, both as agreeable companions as ever I 
 journeyed with. Take them out that pie, James, and let 
 the waiter fetch them half a dozen bottles of this red 
 wine. Pay Jacob — he's the tailor — four florins that I 
 borrowed from him ; and beg of Herman, a little Jewish 
 rogue, with an Astracan cap, to keep my tobacco-bag, 
 out of remembrance of me. Tell the assembled company 
 that I'll see them all by-and-by, for, at present, I have 
 some family affairs to look after. Be civil and courteous, 
 with them, James, they all have been so to me ; and if you'll 
 sit down at the table for half an hour, and converse with 
 them, take my word for it, boy, you'll not rise to go away 
 without being both wiser and humbler." 
 
 I set about my mission with a willing heart. I was 
 glad to do anything which should give the governor even 
 a momentary satisfaction; and I was well pleased, also, 
 to mark the calm, dispassionate tone of his language. 
 
 The " Lehr-Jungen " received me with a most respect-
 
 AN EVENING WITH LEHR-JUNGEN. 363 
 
 ful courtesy, in which, however, there was not the very- 
 slightest taint of subserviency or meanness. They showed 
 me that they really felt kindly, and even affectionately, 
 towards my father, who had been their companion for the 
 last nine days on foot. They enjoyed in a high degree 
 the dry humour which he possesses, and they relished his 
 remarks on the country, and the people, through which 
 they travelled, savouring as they did of a caustic shrewd- 
 ness perfectly new to them. In fact, I soon saw that his 
 frank temperament, enriched by that native quaintness 
 every Irishman has his share of, had made him a prime 
 favourite with them, and they were equally disposed to be 
 flattered by his acquaintanceship as attached to himself. 
 I sat with them till past midnight. Indeed, when I heard 
 that our family had ordered bedrooms and retired for 
 the night, I was not sorry to dissipate my cares, even in 
 much humbler society than I had left home to foregather 
 with. 
 
 It is not necessary I should make any confession to you 
 of my unlettered ignorance, nor own how deplorably defi- 
 cient I am in every branch of knowledge or acquirement. 
 I was a stupid schoolboy, and an idle one, and the result 
 is not very difficult to imagine ; and yet, with all these 
 disadvantages, I have a lazy man's craving for informa- 
 tion, if I only could obtain it easily. I'd like to be cured, 
 if the doctor would only make the physic palatable. Now, 
 will you believe me, Bob, when I say, that these poor 
 travelling tradesfolk, patched and threadbare as they 
 were, talked upon subjects of a very high character, and 
 discussed them too, with a shrewdness and propriety per- 
 fectly astonishing. I had been living in Germany for 
 some six or eight months, and yet now, for the first time, 
 did I hear mention made of the popular literature of the 
 day — who were the writers most in vogue, and what 
 modifications p.iblic taste was undergoing, and how the 
 mystical and the imaginative were giving way before a 
 practical common-sense and common-place spirit more 
 adapted to the exigencies of our age. This, I must 
 observe, thoy entirely ascribed to the influence of England, 
 which they described as being paramount on the Con- 
 tinent since the peace. Not alone that the vast hordes of
 
 364 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 our nation flooded every land of Europe, but that our 
 mechanical arts, our inventions, and our literature, per- 
 vaded every nook and crevice of the Continent. 
 
 As the tailor said, " It is not alone that we conform to 
 your notions in dress, and endeavour to make our coats 
 loose and square-skirted, to look English, but there is an 
 Anglomania in all things, even where we will not confess 
 it. Our novelists, too, have followed the fashion, and 
 instead of those dreamy conceptions, where the possible 
 and impossible were always in conflict, we have now 
 domestic stories, ay, even before we have domesticity it- 
 self." 
 
 I do not quote my friend Jacob for anything remarkable 
 in the sentiment itself, though I believe it to be just and 
 true, but to show the general tone of a conversation 
 maintained for hours by a set of poor artisans, not one of 
 whom would not be well contented could he earn a shilling 
 a day. 
 
 Perhaps you will ask me, if, in their several trades, 
 these fellows were the equals of our own ? In all prob- 
 ability they were not. The likelihood is, they were greatly 
 inferior, as in every detail of the useful and the practical 
 Germany is far behind us ; but it is strange to speculate 
 on what such a people may, or might, become, if their 
 institutions should ever conform to the development of 
 their natural intelligence. This again is the tailor's 
 remark — and I could " cabbage " from him for hours 
 together. 
 
 I thought a hundred times of you, Bob. How you 
 would have enjoyed this strange fraternity. What 
 amusement — not to say something better and higher — ■ 
 you would have abstracted from them. What traits of 
 native humour — what studies of character ! As for me, 
 much, by far the greater part, was lost upon me for want 
 of previous knowledge of the subjects they discussed. Of 
 the kingdoms whose politics they canvassed I scarcely 
 knew the names ; of the books, I had not even heard the 
 titles ! I have no doubt many of their opinions were 
 incorrect ; much of what they uttered might have been 
 illogical or inaccurate ; but making a wide allowance for 
 this, I was struck by the general acuteness of their
 
 305 
 
 remarks, and the tone of moderation and forbearance that 
 characterized all they said. 
 
 This brief intercourse has at least taught me one thing 
 — which is not to look down with any depreciating pity 
 on the troops of these wayfarers we pass on the road, still 
 less to ridicule their absurd appearance, or make a jest of 
 their varied costume. I now know that amidst those 
 motley figures are men of shrewd intelligence and culti- 
 vated minds, content to follow the very humblest callings, 
 and quite satisfied if their share of this world's good 
 things never rises higher than black bread and a cup of 
 sour wine. I should like greatly to see something more 
 of the gipsy life they lead, and if ever the opportunity 
 offer, shall certainly not suffer it to escape me. 
 
 We left the inn of the Moorg Thai at daybreak, my 
 mother and Mary Anne in one carriage, the governor and 
 myself in a little open caleche. He spoke little, and 
 seemed deep in thought all the way. From an occasional 
 expression he dropped, I dreaded to surmise that he had 
 resolved on returning to Ireland. One remark which he 
 made of more than ordinary bitterness was, " If we go on 
 as we are doing, we shall at length close every town of 
 Europe against us. We left Brussels in shame, and now 
 we quit Baden in disgrace: the sooner this ends the 
 better." 
 
 We did not proceed the whole way to Baden, but 
 stopped about a mile from it, at a village called Lichten- 
 thal, where we found a comfortable inn, with moderate 
 charges. From this I was despatched to our hotel, after 
 nightfall, to arrange our affairs, settle our bill, fetch away 
 our baggage, and make all necessary arrangements for 
 departure. 
 
 I am free to own that I entered on my mission with no 
 common sense of shame. I knew, of course, how our 
 story had by this time become the table-talk of Baden, 
 and how, from the prince to the courier, " the Dodds " 
 were the only topic. Such notoriety as this is no boon, 
 and I confess, Bob, that I believe I could have submitted 
 my hand to the knife with less shrinking of the spirit 
 than I raised it to pull the door-bell of the Hotel de 
 Russie.
 
 866 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 When a man has to encounter an anticipated humilia- 
 tion, he usually puts on an extra amount of offensive 
 armour. I suppose mine, on this occasion, must have 
 been of unquestionable strength. None seemed willing 
 to put it to the proof. The host was humble — the waiters 
 cringing — the very porter fawned on me ! The secretary 
 — at your flash hotels abroad they always have a secretary, 
 usually a Pole, who has an immense estate under seques- 
 tration somewhere — this dread functionary, who, in pre- 
 senting you the bill, ever gives you to understand that he 
 is quite prepared to afford you personal satisfaction for 
 any item in the score — even he, I say, was bland, courteous, 
 and gentle. I little knew at the moment to what circum- 
 stance I owed all this unexpected politeness, and that this 
 silky courtesy was a very different testimony from what I 
 suspected ; it being neither more nor less than the joyful 
 astonishment of the household at seeing one of us again, 
 and an amazement, rising to enthusiastic delight, at the 
 bare possibility of our paying our bill ! Already in their 
 estimation the " Dodd family" had been pronounced 
 swindlers, and various speculations were abroad as to the 
 value of the several trunks, imperials, and valises we had 
 left behind us. 
 
 My mother, in her abject misery — you may imagine the 
 amount of it from the circumstance — had given me her 
 bank-book, with full liberty to deal with the balance in 
 her favour. In fact, such was her dread of encountering 
 one of her former acquaintances, that I verily believe she 
 would have agreed to an exile to Siberia rather than pass 
 one more week at Baden. Our bill was a swingeing one. 
 With all the external show of politeness, I plainly saw 
 that they treated us just as Napoleon used to treat a con- 
 quered nation whose imputed misconduct had outlawed 
 it ! For us there was no appeal ; we could not threaten 
 the indignation of powerful friends — the terrors of fashion- 
 able exposure — not even the hackneyed expedient of a 
 letter in the Times ! Alas ! we had ceased to be " reason- 
 able and sufficient bail" for any statement. 
 
 Such charges never were seen before, I'd swear. Dinners 
 and suppers figured as unimportant matters. It was the 
 " extraordinaries " that ruined us ; for your hotel-keeper
 
 BILL- SETTLING AT BADEN. 867 
 
 is obliged, for very shame's sake, to observe a semblance 
 of decorum in his demands for recognized items. It is in 
 the indefinable that he revels; just as your geographer 
 indulges every caprice of his imagination when laying 
 down the limits of land and water at the Pole ! 
 
 It would not amuse, nor could it instruct you, were I to 
 give the details of this iniquitous demand. I shall there- 
 fore spare you all, save the grand fact of the total, wherein 
 something less than six weeks' living of four people, with 
 as many servants, amounts to a fraction under three 
 hundred pounds sterling ! Meanwhile, the price of rooms, 
 breakfasts, beds, &c, were all reasonable enough. It was 
 " Eclairage," " Service," "Exceptions, Mardi," "Mercredi," 
 and " Jeudi." These were the heavy artillery, to which all 
 the rest was a light- dropping fire. This bill-settling is 
 indeed an awful process ; for when you rally from the first 
 horror-stricken feelings that the sum total calls up, and aro 
 blandly asked by the smirking secretary, " To what is it 
 that Monsieur objects ? " you are totally powerless and 
 prostrated. Your natural impulse would be to say, " To 
 the whole of it — to that infamous row of figures at the 
 bottom ! " 
 
 In all probability, you never made an hotel bill in your 
 life. The wretches know this, and they feel the full force 
 of your unhappy situation. Just fancy a surgeon saying, 
 " What particular part of the operation do you dislike, sir ? 
 It can't be the first incision; I made it in Cooper's method 
 — one sweep of the knife. You surely have no complaint 
 about the arteries — I took them up in eighteen seconds by 
 a stop watch." " What do I care for all this ? "you answer. 
 " I know nothing about science, but I am fully open to the 
 impression of pain." Nothing, however, kills me like the 
 fellow saying, " If Monsieur thinks the lemonade too dear, 
 we'll take off half a franc/' Two-and-sixpenee deducted 
 from a bill of three hundred pounds ! 
 
 I went through all this, and more. I went through 
 special appeal cases, from twenty subordinates, on peculiar 
 infractions of broken heads, smashed crockery, and 
 damaged furniture, which each assured me in turn " would 
 be charged against him" if Monsieur had not the "honour- 
 able consideration " — that's the formula — to pay it. I
 
 368 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 satisfied some, I compromised with others ; I resisted 
 none. No, Bob. There was no "locus standi," as you 
 would call it, for opposition. Noue of the Dodds could 
 come into court, and claim to be heard as witnesses. 
 
 This agreeable function concluded, I drove off to the 
 Police Commissary about our passport. The " authorities" 
 had finished the duties of the day. The bureau was 
 closed. I asked where the "authorities" lived, and was 
 told the street and the number. I went there, but the 
 "authorities" were at their "cafe." They liked "their 
 dominoes and their beer ;" and why should they not have 
 their weaknesses ! 
 
 I hastened to the cafe ; not one of those brilliantly 
 decorated and lighted establishments where foreigners of 
 all nations foregather, but a dim-looking, musty, sanded- 
 floored, smoke-dried den, filled with a company to suit. 
 There was that mysterious half light, and that low whis- 
 pering sound which seemed to form a fit atmosphere for 
 spies and eavesdroppers, of which I need scarcely tell you 
 government officials are composed. 
 
 By the guidance of the waiter, I reached the table where 
 the Herr von Schureke was seated at his dominoes. He 
 was a beetle-browed, scowling, ill-conditioned-looking gent 
 of about fifty, who had a trick of coughing a hard dry 
 cough between every word he uttered. 
 
 "Ah," said he, after I explained the object of my visit, 
 " you want your passport. You wish to leave Baden, and 
 you come here, to give your orders to the Polizey Beamten 
 as if you were the Grand-Duke ! " 
 
 I deprecated this intention in my politest German ; but 
 he went on. 
 
 " Es geht nicht"— literally, " It's no go "— " my worthy 
 friend. We are not the officials of England. We are 
 Badeners. We are the functionaries of an independent 
 sovereign. You can't bully us here, with your line-of- 
 battle ships, your frigates, and bomb-boats." 
 
 " No. Gott bewa.hr ! " echoed the company ; " that will 
 do elsewhere — but Baden is free ! " 
 
 The enthusiasm the sentiment evoked brought all the 
 guests from the several tables to swarm around us. 
 
 I assured the meeting that Cobden and Co. were not
 
 ENGLAND IN FOREIGN ESTIMATION. 3 GO 
 
 more pacifically minded than I was; that as to anything 
 like threat, menace, or insolence towards the GrancV 
 Duchy, it never came within thousands of miles of ra^ 
 thoughts ; that I came to make the civilest of requests, 
 in the very humblest of manner ; and if by ill-luck 
 the distinguished functionary I had the honour to ad- 
 dress should not deem cither the time opportune, or the 
 place suitable 
 
 " You'll make it an affair for your House of Commons," 
 broke he in. 
 
 " Or your Tl-mes newspaper ! " cried another, converting 
 the title of the Thunderer, into a strange dissyllable. 
 
 " Or your Secretary of State will tell us that you are a 
 ' Civis Romanus,' " wheezed out a small man, that I heard 
 was Archivist of something, somewhere. 
 
 " Britannia rule de waves, but do not rule de Grand 
 Duchy," muttered a fourth, in English, to show that he 
 was thoroughly imbued, not alone with our language, but 
 the spirit of our Constitution. 
 
 " Really, gentlemen," said I, " I am quite at a loss for 
 any reason for this audible outburst of nationality. I 
 disclaim the very remotest idea of offending Baden, or 
 anything belonging to it. I entertain no intention of con- 
 verting my case into a question of international dispute. 
 I simply wait my passport, and free permission to leave 
 the Grand-Duchy and all belonging to it." 
 
 This declaration was unanimous^ pronounced insolent, 
 offensive, and insulting ; and a vast number of unpleasant 
 remarks poured down upon England and Englishmen, 
 which, I need not tell you, are not worth repetition. The 
 end of all was, that I lost temper too — the wonder is how 
 1 kept it so long — and ventured to hint that people of my 
 country had sometimes the practice of righting themselves, 
 when wronged, instead of tormenting their Government or 
 pestering the Times newspaper ; and that if they had any 
 curiosity as to the hoiv, I should be most happy to favour 
 any one with the information that would follow me into 
 the street. 
 
 There was a perfect Babel of angry vociferation as I 
 said this ; the meaning of which I might guess, though the 
 words were unintelligible ; and, as I issued forth into the 
 
 VOL. I. b B
 
 370 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 street, expressions of angry indignation and insult were 
 actually showered upon me. I reached Lichtenthal late at 
 night ; the governor was in bed, and I hastened to " report 
 myself" to him. This done, I sat down to give you this 
 full narration of our doings ; and only regret that I must 
 conclude without telling you anything of our future plans, 
 of which I know actually nothing. I should have spared 
 you the uninteresting scene with the authorities, if you had 
 not asked me, in your last, " Whether the respect felt 
 towards England by every foreign nation did not invest 
 the travelling Englishman with many privileges and im- 
 munities unknown to others ?" I have heard that such 
 was once the case. I believe, indeed, there was a time that 
 any absurdity or excess of John Bull would have been 
 set down as mere eccentricity — a dash of that folly ascrib- 
 able to our insular tastes and habits ; but this is all changed 
 now ! Partly from our own conduct ; in part from real, 
 and sometimes merely imputed, acts of our rulers ; and 
 partly from the tone of our Press, which no foreigner can 
 ever be brought to understand aright, we have got to be 
 thought a set of spendthrift, wealthy, reckless misers, 
 lavish and economical by turns, socially proud and ex- 
 clusive, but politically red republican and levelling — 
 tyrants in our families, and democrats in the world ; in fact, 
 a sort of living mass of contradictory qualities, not ren- 
 dered more endurable by coarse tastes and rude manners ! 
 This, at least, Morris told me, and he is a shrewd observer, 
 like many of those sleepy-eyed, quiet " coves " one meets 
 with. Not that he reads individuals like Tiverton ! No ; 
 George is unequalled in ready dissection of a man's 
 motives, and will detect a dodge before another begins 
 to suspect it. I wish he were back ; I feel frequently so 
 helpless without his counsel and advice. The turf is, 
 surely, a wonderful school for sharpening a man's faculties, 
 and it gives you the habit of connecting words with 
 motives, and asking yourself, " What does So-and-so 
 mean by that ? " " What is he up to now ?" that, at last, 
 you decipher character, let its lines be written in the very 
 faintest ink ! 
 
 Our post leaves at daybreak, so that I shall just have 
 time for this. When I write next, I'll answer — that is if
 
 371 
 
 I can — all your questions about myself, what I mean to 
 do, and when to begin it. 
 
 Not, indeed, that they are themes I like to touch upon, 
 for somehow all the quiet pursuits of life look wonderfully 
 slow and tiresome affairs in comparison with the pano- 
 ramic effects of travel. The perpetual change of scene, 
 actors, and incidents, supplies in itself that amount of 
 excitement which, under other circumstances, calls for so 
 much exertion and effort. There is another thing, also, 
 which has always given me great discouragement. It is, 
 that the humbler walks of life require not only an amount 
 of labour, but of actual ability, that are never called for 
 in higher positions. Think of the work a fellow does as 
 a doctor or a lawyer ; and think of the brains, too, he has 
 to bring to these careers, and then picture to yourself a 
 man in a Government situation, some snug colonial gov- 
 ernorship, or something at home — say, he's Secretary-at- 
 War, or has something in the household. He writes his 
 name at the foot of an occasional report or a despatch, 
 and he puts on his blue ribbon, or his grand cross, as it 
 may be, on birthdays. There's the whole of it ! As 
 Tiverton says, " One needs more blood and bone now-a- 
 days for the hack stakes than the Derby;" he means, of 
 course, in allusion to real life, and not to the turf ! Don't 
 fancy that I take it in ill part any remarks you make 
 upon my idleness, nor its probable consequences. We are 
 old friends, Bob ; but even were we not, I accept them as 
 sincere evidence of true interest and regard, though I may 
 not profit by them as I ought. The Dodds are an imprac- 
 ticable race, and in nothing more so than by fully appre- 
 ciating all their faults, and yet never making an effort for 
 their eradication. 
 
 Some people are civil enough to say how very Irish this 
 is ; but I think it is only so in half, inasmuch as our per- 
 ceptions are sharp enough to show us even in ourselves 
 those blemishes which your blear-e} r ed Saxon would never 
 have discovered anywhere. Do you agree with me ? 
 "Whether or not, my dear Bob, continue to esteem and 
 believe me ever your affectionate friend, 
 
 James Dodd.
 
 372 THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. 
 
 Though I am totally innocent as to our future, it is 
 better not to write till you hear again from me, for of 
 course we shall leave this at once ; but, where for? that's 
 the question. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Woodfall & Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W'.C.
 
 '" - 
 
 1