Page images
PDF
EPUB

LOVE AND A DUEL.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the city of Cork, just at the town's end, there lived a gentleman of the name of Catlin. He was a man of independent property, sufficient to enable him to keep in with the society of the place; had a good house, an over-dressed wife, two daughters, three maid-servants, a footman, a horse and car, and a rough unlicked-cub of a groom-gardener. We may call him an underservant generally, for he seemed quite at the bottom of things in the establishment, and was so far under all the rest of the household, that they seemed agreed to lay upon his shoulders all the dirty work that nobody else would do. Few orders were given that Larry Lynch did not come in for at second-hand. "John, I want the car."—" Larry, your missis wants the

66

car."-"Take this parcel to Mrs. Leary." Larry, take this parcel to Mrs. Leary's.""Run with the letter to the post."—" Larry, run with the letter to the post.". "Where's the beer?"" Larry, where's the beer?""Fetch the newspaper." Larry, fetch the newspaper." Nobody could have been in the house a day without wondering how they did anything at all without him. One would not have been surprised at hearing, "Larry, open my mouth, and put in a piece of meat; —now, some potatoe;-now, a little beer:" so entirely indispensable was he.

Mr. Catlin was a soft, easy-going man, who would make almost any sacrifice for a quiet life. All he cared for was a good plain dinner, a friend or two of his own way of thinking, a sufficiency of pocket-money, and a room to himself. People said he was henpecked; perhaps a strong expression applied to a man who seemed very much to have his own way, and particularly as there was no public demonstration of pecking. If he did catch it, the infliction was of that private and mysterious nature that, in all well-regulated families, is shrouded in the sacred secrecy of the bedcurtains. One thing there was no doubt about

-Mrs. Catlin had her own way in every thing : the domestic legislature was carried on without an opposition, organised or other; the prime minister's measures passed the house without an attempt at amendment; and the only bills Mr. Catlin was ever known to bring in were those payable to the bearer at the Bank of Ireland.

Mrs. Catlin was of the world, worldly. She flowed along with the grand stream; and to be out of that was, in her eyes, to be "bound in shallows and in misery." She liked bustling on, scrambling above other scramblers, and was nowise particular as to kicking and treading them down if they stood in her way. was a great thing with her; she freely seized upon the handles of people's names to help her up in the world, and took a pride in exchanging cards with even the "Lady" of a knighted porkbutcher.

Rank

Of her two daughters, the youngest is our heroine: the other was like her mother. Julia Catlin was,

"Ah! now we shall have it," says Miss Tibbs. "Now it's coming! I know what it will be! Her form is what a Grecian sculptor would have delighted to model; that's quite

clear. She has a high, pale brow, most likely; and these men-writers always dwell upon beautiful bosoms, and that sort of trash; a fairyfoot-a sweetly rounded arm, and a soft hand with long slender fingers, well adapted for moulding on occasion of love-scenes. One can't, of course, guess at the kind of eyes he may give her; they will be either tender hazles, melting blues, too-expressive blacks, or a thoughtful grey; and she will certainly have a Grecian nose; a finely-chiselled mouth with coral lips, just revealing the pearly teeth. I feel convinced that she will be all frank, affectionate, gushing innocence; a being to shelter from the rude storms of life; a holy thing, and all heart."

We regret extremely that our description cannot keep pace with Miss Tibbs's imaginary picture; but truth obliges us to declare that our heroine was none of these. She was no beauty; had not a regular feature in her face; and her figure, if formed upon the Grecian model, was of the plumpest of that school.

No; she was not the "faultless monster" of a novel, but something much better she was an artless, homely, earnest girl; thoughtless and confiding from ignorance of the world,

and gay from abundant animal spirits. She was a kind of person that a man would leave all the beauties to sit by: in short, she was a sensible, nice girl, with a good wholesome face, and no affectation.

In one thing she resembled the regular heroines, she was in love. She went the reprehensible length of believing what a young gentleman told her: he said he loved her; and I am almost afraid she was silly enough to own that she loved him in return. Artless girls do run into these mistakes, till they have been schooled out of the practice, and make the discovery that the whole truth is only to be told in a witness-box.

The young gentleman, Mr. Henry Farnham, was a subaltern in one of Her Majesty's regiments of foot, and, at the period of our story, was on the point of embarkation at Cove. His regiment was on board a transport in the harbour, and only waiting a favourable wind to bid adieu to the shores of Ireland for a distant tropical climate.

"The course of true love never did run smooth,"

and there was no exception made to the general rule in favour of our lovers. It all went

« PreviousContinue »