CHAPTER XXVIII

In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries

The regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships provided

by His Majesty's government for the occasion: and in two days after

the festive assembly at Mrs. O'Dowd's apartments, in the midst of

cheering from all the East India ships in the river, and the military

on shore, the band playing "God Save the King," the officers waving

their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports went down

the river and proceeded under convoy to Ostend. Meanwhile the gallant

Jos had agreed to escort his sister and the Major's wife, the bulk of

whose goods and chattels, including the famous bird of paradise and

turban, were with the regimental baggage: so that our two heroines

drove pretty much unencumbered to Ramsgate, where there were plenty of

packets plying, in one of which they had a speedy passage to Ostend.

That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full of incident,

that it served him for conversation for many years after, and even the

tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring narratives which he

had to tell about the great campaign of Waterloo. As soon as he had

agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased

shaving his upper lip. At Chatham he followed the parades and drills

with great assiduity. He listened with the utmost attention to the

conversation of his brother officers (as he called them in after days

sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could. In these

studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great assistance to him; and

on the day finally when they embarked on board the Lovely Rose, which

was to carry them to their destination, he made his appearance in a

braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging cap ornamented

with a smart gold band. Having his carriage with him, and informing

everybody on board confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of

Wellington's army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a

commissary-general, or a government courier at the very least.

He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were likewise

prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again as the packet made

Ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her regiment, which

entered the harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos

went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the

ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos's carriage and luggage

from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without

a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial having conspired

together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water. This

revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr.

Sedley, junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition,

but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the

business, Jos said), rated him and laughed at him soundly: the

mustachios were grown in advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to

embark. In place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics, who

could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's party a swarthy

little Belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, by

his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My

lord," speedily acquired that gentleman's favour. Times are altered at

Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or

act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy. They seem for

the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and

brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.

But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman in the Duke of

Wellington's army paid his way. The remembrance of such a fact surely

becomes a nation of shopkeepers. It was a blessing for a

commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers: and

to have such creditable warriors to feed. And the country which they

came to protect is not military. For a long period of history they

have let other people fight there. When the present writer went to

survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor

of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been

at the battle. "Pas si bete"--such an answer and sentiment as no

Frenchman would own to--was his reply. But, on the other hand, the

postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial

General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road. The moral is

surely a good one.

This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more rich

and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, when its green

fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when

its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages: when its

great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old

villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded

with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who drank at the

village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald, the

Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-house, rocked the baby's

cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out getting in the hay. As our

painters are bent on military subjects just now, I throw out this as a

good subject for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest

English war. All looked as brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park

review. Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind his curtain of

frontier-fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive

all these orderly people into fury and blood; and lay so many of them

low.

Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader (for

the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in the

whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm

with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country

seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand

in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and

our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort,

were, like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease.

The famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made

acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to

march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the

which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and

accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the eating and

drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that

there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to

Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so

delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from

Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he

drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat. Jos's death was

not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd

insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his happiness

complete. He sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish

beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the

ladies.

His courage was prodigious. "Boney attack us!" he cried. "My dear

creature, my poor Emmy, don't be frightened. There's no danger. The

allies will be in Paris in two months, I tell you; when I'll take you

to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove! There are three hundred thousand

Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by Mayence and the

Rhine--three hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly,

my poor love. You don't know military affairs, my dear. I do, and I

tell you there's no infantry in France can stand against Rooshian

infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit to hold a candle to

Wittgenstein. Then there are the Austrians, they are five hundred

thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches of the frontier by

this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles. Then there are the

Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal. Show me a cavalry chief

like him now that Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd? Do you think our

little girl here need be afraid? Is there any cause for fear, Isidor?

Hey, sir? Get some more beer."

Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid of any man alive,

let alone a Frenchman," and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink

which expressed her liking for the beverage.

Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words,

faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the Collector, had

lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now, especially

when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be. He was rather a

favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers with

sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs. And as there is one

well-known regiment of the army which travels with a goat heading the

column, whilst another is led by a deer, George said with respect to

his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an elephant.

Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to be rather

ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present

her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the

latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment

soon, and to get his wife away from those damned vulgar women. But

this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's society is much more common

among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be

sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person,

had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook

for delicacy on his own part. Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in

her hat, and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to

ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by

her fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these

ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave

excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the Major's

came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady's

eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company.

As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman of

middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more

instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major

O'Dowd. "Talk about kenal boats; my dear! Ye should see the kenal

boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. It's there the rapid travelling

is; and the beautiful cattle. Sure me fawther got a goold medal (and

his Excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer mate

in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw

in this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that for good

streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country

like England."

"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said the Major's

lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her nation, to

make comparisons greatly in favour of her own country. The idea of

comparing the market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had

suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part.

"I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of

the market-place," said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought

the old tower down. The place was full of English soldiery as they

passed. English bugles woke them in the morning; at nightfall they

went to bed to the note of the British fife and drum: all the country

and Europe was in arms, and the greatest event of history pending: and

honest Peggy O'Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another, went on

prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the stables at

Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and Jos Sedley interposed about

curry and rice at Dumdum; and Amelia thought about her husband, and how

best she should show her love for him; as if these were the great

topics of the world.

Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to speculate upon what

MIGHT have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence of what

actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and

profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to

themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to come back from

Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame. The

historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied powers

were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear down at a

moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor. The august jobbers assembled at

Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of Europe according to their

wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set

the armies which had overcome Napoleon to fight against each other, but

for the return of the object of unanimous hatred and fear. This

monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself

Poland, and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half Saxony,

and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of

a third's solicitude. Each was protesting against the rapacity of the

other; and could the Corsican but have waited in prison until all these

parties were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned

unmolested. But what would have become of our story and all our

friends, then? If all the drops in it were dried up, what would become

of the sea?

In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits of

pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them,

and no enemy in front. When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in

which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune, as

all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant

little capitals in Europe, and where all the Vanity Fair booths were

laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendour. Gambling was

here in profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to fill

with delight that great gourmand of a Jos: there was a theatre where a

miraculous Catalani was delighting all hearers: beautiful rides, all

enlivened with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange

costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little

Amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with

charming surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine

handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne,

who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for

about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia

was as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England.

Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for

all parties. There was a church to see, or a picture-gallery--there

was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making music

at all hours. The greatest folks of England walked in the Park--there

was a perpetual military festival. George, taking out his wife to a

new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as

usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character. And a

jaunt or a junket with HIM! Was it not enough to set this little heart

beating with joy? Her letters home to her mother were filled with

delight and gratitude at this season. Her husband bade her buy laces,

millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all sorts. Oh, he was the kindest,

best, and most generous of men!

The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and fashionable

persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every public place,

filled George's truly British soul with intense delight. They flung

off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally

characterises the great at home, and appearing in numberless public

places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they

met there. One night at a party given by the general of the division

to which George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing with

Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices

and refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for

Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got

home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed. He

called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the Park;

he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was

quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old Bareacres,

who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a dinner

anywhere.

"I hope there will be no women besides our own party," Lady Bareacres

said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been made, and

accepted with too much precipitancy.

"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the man would bring his

wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's arms

in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. "The men are

bearable, but their women--"

"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old Earl said.

"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose, as Papa wants to

go, we must go; but we needn't know them in England, you know." And so,

determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great

folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him

pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife

uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation. This

is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female reigns

supreme. To watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler

women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity

Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money, was

the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had in her

honeymoon. She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to

her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken

to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage

Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came

away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d----

bad dinner, and d---- dear. But though Amelia told all these stories,

and wrote home regarding her guests' rudeness, and her own

discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and

talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such

assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and

peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B.,

and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and

in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his

high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-by,

or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the Parks--those

who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognise the daring

Peninsular and Waterloo officer. He has thick curling brown hair and

black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple. He was

light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter in the person and in the

limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late. When he was

about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which

was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and

curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour.

Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair,

because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he

quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de

Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the

green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the

General's wig has nothing to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the --th were sauntering in the

flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville, which

Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her

fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an orderly

behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came

amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money

could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer

remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom,

who carried it with a grin, following his chief, who rode away in great

state and self-satisfaction.

"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd was remarking.

"Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers. We have an acre

of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps

weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me honour and conscience

I think our magnolias is as big as taykettles."

Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked Osborne

delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare

her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a

safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people

with shrieks of yelling laughter.

"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd. "Is it his nose

bleedn? He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have

pomped all the blood out of 'um. An't the magnolias at Glenmalony as

big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"

"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major said. When the

conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of the

officer who purchased the bouquet.

"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.

"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse, Molasses, that won

the cop at the Curragh," the Major's wife was exclaiming, and was

continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by

saying--

"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry division"; adding

quietly, "he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera."

"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh. "General Tufto!

Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."

Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why. The sun did not seem to shine

so bright. The tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all

of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest

and most beautiful days at the end of May.