Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843

"Well sir, this beautiful critter asked my help, just as you're doing—dragged me hither and thither, first asking for one soldier, then another."

"And finally, smiling very sweetly on yourself. I know their ways—said the stranger.

"Do you, now? Not joking?—Oh lord! the sooner the better, for such lips to smile with, are not met with every day. Well sir, then there came up a puppy fellow of the name of Chatterton."

"Oh, Chatterton!" said the stranger; "that is curious."

"And insulted us, either her or me I forget which; but I blew him up, and he said he would send a friend to me"—here a new thought seemed to strike Mr Clam—his countenance assumed a very anxious expression—"you're not his friend, sir?" he asked.

"No sir; far from it. He is the very person with whom I have the quarrel."

"You've quarrelled with him too? Another breach of promise?—a wild dog that Chatterton."

"Another breach! I did not know that that was your cause of quarrel."

"Nor I; 'pon my solemn davit, I'm as ignorant as a child of what my quarrel is about; all that I know is, that my beautiful companion seemed to hate the sight of him."

"Then I trust you won't refuse me your assistance, since you have insults of your own to chastise. I expect his message every moment. My name is Captain Smith."

"And mine, Nicholas Clam, No. 4, Waterloo Place, Welling"—

"Then, gentlemen," said Major M'Toddy, lifting his hat, "I'm a lucky man—fortunatus nimium, as a body may say, to find you both together; for I am charged with an invitation to you from my friend Mr Chatterton."

"Oh! he wants to make it up, does he, and asks us to dinner? No. I won't go," said Mr Clam.

"Then you know the alternative, I suppose!" said the Major.

"To pay for my own dinner at the inn," replied Mr Clam; "of course I know that."

The Major threw a glance at Mr Clam, which he would probably have taken the trouble to translate into two or three languages, although it was sufficiently intelligible without any explanations, but he had no time. He turned to Captain Smith, and said:—

"I'm very sorry, Captain Smith, to make your acquaintance on such a disagreeable occasion. I've heard so much of you from mutual friends, that I feel as if I had known you myself, quod facit per alium facit per se—I'm Major M'Toddy of this regiment."

"I have long wished to know you, Major, and I hope even this matter need not extend any of its bitterness to us."

The gentlemen here shook hands very cordially—

"Well, that's a rum way," said Mr Clam, "of asking a fellow to go out and be shot at. But this whole place is a mystery. I'll listen, however, and find out what this is all about."

"And noo, Captain Smith, let me say a word in your private ear."

"Privateer! that's a sort of ship," said Mr Clam.

"I hate eaves-droppers," continued the Major, with another glance at Mr Clam—"odi profanum vulgus, as a body may say—and a minute's talk will maybe explain matters."

"I doubt the power of a minute's talk for any such purpose," said Captain Smith, with a smile; "but," going a few yards further from Mr Clam at the same time—"I shall listen to you with pleasure."

"Weel, then, I canna deny—convenio, as a body may say—that in the first instance, you played rather a severe trick on Mr Chatterton."

"I play a trick!" exclaimed Captain Smith; "I don't understand you. But proceed, I beg. I will not interrupt you."

"But then, on the other hand, it's not to be denied that Mr Chatterton's method of showing his anger was highly reprehensible."

"His anger, Major M'Toddy!"

"'Deed ay, just his anger—ira furor brevis—and it's really very excusable in a proud-spirited young man to resent his being jilted in such a sudden and barefaced manner."

"He jilted! but again I beg pardon—go on."

"Nae doubt—sine dubio, as a body may say—the lassie had a right to change her mind; and if she thought proper to prefer you to him, I canna see what law, human or divine"—

"Does the puppy actually try to excuse himself on so base a calumny as that Marion preferred me? Major M'Toddy, I am here to receive your message; pray deliver it, and let us settle this matter as soon as possible."

"Whar's the calumny?" said the major. "You wadna have me to believe, Captain Smith, that the lady does not prefer you to him?"

"Now perhaps she does, for she has sense enough and pride enough, I hope, to despise him; but never girl was more attached to a man in the world than she to Chatterton. Her health is gone—she has lost the liveliness of youth. No, no—I am much afraid, in spite of all that has passed, she is fond of the fellow yet."

"How long have you suspected this?" enquired the major.

"For some time; before my marriage, of course, I had not such good opportunities of judging as I have had since."

"Of course, of course," said the major, in a sympathizing tone; "it's bad business. But if you had these suspicions before, what for did you marry?"

"Why? Do you think things of that sort should hinder a man from marrying the girl he likes? Mrs Smith regrets it as much as I do."

"Then what for did she not tell Chatterton she was going to marry you?"

"What right had he to know, sir?"

"A vera good right, I think; or if he hadna, I wad like to know wha had?"

"There, sir, we differ in opinion. Will you deliver your message, name your place and hour, and I shall meet you. I shall easily get a friend in this town, though I thought it better at one time to apply to a civilian; but I fear," he added, with a smile, "my friend Mr Clam will scarcely do."

"I really dinna ken—I positively don't know, as a body may say, how to proceed in this matter. In the first place, if your wife is over fond of Chatterton."

"My wife, sir?"

"'Deed ay—placens uxor, as a body may say—I say if your wife continues to like Chatterton, you had better send a message to him, and not he to you."

"So I would, if she gave me occasion, Major M'Toddy; but if your friend boasts of any thing of that kind, his conduct is still more infamous and intolerable than I thought it."

"But your ainsel'—your own self told me so this minute."

"You mistake, sir. I say that Marion Hope, my wife's sister, is still foolish enough to like him."

"Your wife's sister! You didna marry Chatterton's sweetheart?"

"No, sir—her elder sister."

"Oh, lord, if I had my fingers round the thrapple o' that leein' scoundrel on the tap of the coach! Gie me your hand, Captain Smith—it's all a mistake. I'll set it right in two minutes. Come with me to Chatterton's rooms—ye'll make him the happiest man in England. He's wud wi' love—mad with affection, as a body may say. He thought you had run off with his sweetheart, and it was only her sister!"

Captain Smith began to have some glimmerings of the real state of the case; and Mr Clam was on the point of going up to where they stood to make further enquiries for the improvement of his mind, when his travelling companion, again deeply veiled, laid her hand on his arm.

"Move not for your life!" she said.

"I'm not agoing to move, ma'am."

"Let them go," she continued; "we can get down by a side street. If they see me, I'm lost."

"Lost again! The mystery grows deeper and deeper."

"One of these is my husband."

Mr Clam drops her arm. "A married woman, and running after captains and colonels! Will you explain a little ma'am, for my head is so puzzled, that hang me if I know whether I stand on my head or my heels?"

"Not now—sometime or other you will perhaps know all; but come with me to the beach—all will end well."

"Will it?—then I hope to heaven it will end soon, for an hour or two more of this will kill me."

The two gentlemen, in the meantime, had disappeared, and Mr Clam was on the eve of being hurried off to the harbour, when a young officer came rapidly towards them.

"Charles!" cried the lady, and put her arms round his neck.

"There she goes!" said Mr Clam—"another soldier!—She'll know the whole army soon."

"Mary!" exclaimed the soldier—"so good, so kind of you to come to receive me."

"I wished to see you particularly," she said, "alone, for one minute."

The brother and sister retired to one side, leaving Mr Clam once more out of ear-shot.

"More whispering!" muttered that disappointed gentleman. "This can never enlarge the intellect or improve the mind. Mrs M. is a humbug—not a drop of information can I get for love or money. Nothing but whisperings here, closetings there—all that comes to my share is threats of shootings and duckings under pumps. I'll go back to Waterloo Place this blessed night, and burn 'Woman's Dignity' the moment I get home."

"Then let us go to Chatterton's rooms," said the young officer, giving his arm to his sister; "I have no doubt he will explain it all, and I shall be delighted to see your husband."

"She's going to see her husband! She's the wickedest woman in England," said Mr Clam, who caught the last sentence.

"Still here'" said a voice at his ear—"lurking about the barracks!"

He looked round and saw the irate features of the tremendous Mrs Sword. He made a rapid bolt and disappeared, as if he had a pulk of Cossacks in full chase at his heels.

The conversation of the good-natured Colonel Sword with Chatterton had opened that young hero's eye so entirely to the folly of his conduct, that it needed many encouraging speeches from his superior to keep him from sinking into despair.—"That I should have been such a fool," he said, "as to think that Marion would prefer any body to me!" Such was the style of his soliloquy, from which it will be perceived, that in spite of his discovery of his stupidity, he had not entirely lost his good opinion of himself—"to think that she would marry an old fellow of thirty-six! What will she think of me! How lucky I did not write to my father that I had broken matters off. Do you think she'll ever forgive me, colonel?"

"Forgive you, my, dear fellow?" said the colonel; "girls, as Mrs Sword says, are such fools, they'll forgive any thing."

"And Captain Smith!—a fine gentlemanly fellow—the husband of Marion's sister—I have insulted him—I must fight him, of course."

"No fighting here, young man; you must apologize if you've done wrong; if not, he must apologize to you; Mrs Sword would never look over a duel between two Sucking Pigeons."

"Then I must apologize."

"Ye canna have a better chance—you can't have a better opportunity, as a body may say," said the bilingual major, entering the room, "for here's Captain Smith ready to accept it."

"With all his heart, I assure you," said that gentleman, shaking Chatterton's hand; "so I beg you'll say no more about it."

"This is all right—just as it should be," said the Colonel. "Captain Smith, you'll plead poor Chatterton's cause with the offended lady."

"Perhaps the culprit had better be his own advocate—he will find the court very favourably disposed; and as the judge is herself at the Waterloo hotel"—

"Marion here!" exclaimed Chatterton; "good heavens, what an atrocious ass I have been!"

"She is indeed," replied the Captain. "I knew she would be anxious to receive her brother Charles on his landing, and as I had wormed out from her the circumstances of this lover's quarrel"—

"Amantium ira amoris redintegratio est—as a body may say," interposed Major M'Toddy.

"And was determined to enquire into it, I thought that the pretence of welcoming Captain Hope would allay any suspicion of my intention; and so, with her good mother's permission, I brought her down, leaving my wife in Henley Street"—

"Where she didn't long remain," said no other than Captain Charles Hope, himself leading in Mrs Smith, the mysterious travelling acquaintance of Mr Clam.

"Do you forgive me," she said to her husband, "for coming down without your knowledge?"

"I suppose I must," said Captain Smith, laughing, "on condition that you pardon me for the same offence?"

"And noo, then," said Major M'Toddy, "I propose that we all, together and singly, conjunctim ac separatim—as a body may say—go down instanter to the Waterloo Hotel. We can arrange every thing there better than here, for we must hear the other side—audi alteram partem, as a body may say."

"This will be a regular jour de noce, as you would say, Major," remarked Colonel Sword, giving his arm to Mrs Smith.

"It's a nos non nobis, poor auld bachelors—as a body may say," replied the Major, and the whole party proceeded to the hotel.

Mr Clan, on making his escape from the fulminations of Mrs Sword, had been rejoiced to see his carpet-bag still resting against the wall under the archway of the inn, as he had left it when he first arrived.

"Waiter!" he cried; and the same long-haired individual in the blue coat, with the napkin over his arm, came to his call.

"Is there any coach to London this evening?"

"Yes, sir—at half-past six."

"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Mr Clam, "I shall get out of this infernal town. Waiter!"

"Yes, sir."

"I came from London to-day with a lady—close veiled, all muffled up. She is a married woman, too—more shame for her."

"Yes, sir. Do you dine before you go, sir." said the waiter, not attending to Mr Clan's observations.

"No. Her husband doesn't know she's here; but, waiter, Mr Chatterton does." Mr Clam accompanied this piece of information with a significant wink, which, however, made no sensible impression on the waiter's mind.

"Yes, Chatterton does; for you may depend on it, by this time he's found out who she is."

"Yes, sir. Have you secured a place, sir?"

"Now, she wouldn't have her husband know she is here for the world."

"Outside or in, sir? The office is next door"—continued the waiter.

"Then, there's a tall gentleman, who speaks with a curious accent. I wonder who the deuce he can be."

"No luggage but this, sir? Porter will take it to the office, sir."

"Nor that dreadful he-woman in the hat—who the mischief can she be? What had Chatterton done?—who is the husband?—who is the lady? Waiter, is there a lunatic asylum here?"

"No, sir. We've a penitentiary."

"Then, 'pon my davit, the young woman"—

But Mr Clam's observation, whatever it was—and it was evidently not very complimentary to his travelling companion—was interrupted by the entrance of the happy party from Chatterton's rooms.

Mr Clam looked first at the colonel and Captain Hope, and Mrs Smith—but they were so busy in their own conversation, that they did not observe him. Then followed Major M'Toddy, Captain Smith, and Mr Chatterton.

"Here's our civil friend," said the Major—"amicas noster, as a body may say."

"Oh, by Jove!" said Mr Chatterton, "I ought to teach this fellow a lesson in natural history."

"He's the scientific naturalist that called you popinjay," continued the major—"ludit convivia miles, as a body may say."

"He's the fellow that refused to be my friend, and told me some foolish story of his flirtations with a lady he met in the coach," added Captain Smith.

"Gentlemen," said Mr Clam, "I'm here in search of information; will you have the kindness to tell me what we have all been fighting, and quarrelling, and whispering and threatening about for the last two hours? My esteemed and talented neighbour, the author of 'Women's Dignity developed in Dialogues'"—

"May gang to the deevil," interposed Major M'Toddy—abeat in malam crucem, as a body may say—We've no time for havers, i prae, sequar, as a body may say. What's the number of her room?"

"No. 14," said the Captain, and the three gentlemen passed on.

"Her room!" said Mr Clam, "another lady! Waiter!"

"Yes sir."

"I'll send you a post-office order for five shillings, if you'll find out all this, and let me know the particulars—address to me, No. 4, Waterloo Place, Wellington Road, Regent's Park, London. I've done every thing in my power to gain information according to the advice of Mrs M., but it's of no use. Let me know as soon as you discover any thing, and I'll send you the order by return of post."

"Coach is coming, sir," said the waiter.

"And I'm going; and very glad I am to get out of the town alive. And as to the female banditti in the riding habit, with all the trunks and boxes; if you'll let me know"—

"The coach can't wait a moment, sir."

Mr Clam cast a despairing look as he saw his last hope of finding out the mystery disappear. He stept into the inside of the coach—

"Coachman," he said, with his foot on the step—"There's no lady inside, is there?"

"No, sir."

"Then drive on; if there had been, I wouldn't have travelled a mile with her." The roll of the coach drowned the remainder of Mr Clam's eloquence; and it is much feared that his enquiries have been unsuccessful to the present day.

THE EAST AND SOUTH OF EUROPE

A Steam-voyage to Constantinople, by the Rhine and Danube, in 1840-41, and to Portugal, Spain, &c. By the Marquis of Londonderry. In 2 vols. 8vo.

We have a very considerable respect for the writer of the Tour of which we are about to give extracts in the following pages. The Marquis of Londonderry is certainly no common person. We are perfectly aware that he has been uncommonly abused by the Whigs—which we regard as almost a necessary tribute to his name; that he has received an ultra share of libel from the Radicals—which we regard as equally to his honour; and that he is looked on by all the neutrals, of whatever colour, as a personage too straightforward to be managed by a bow and a smile. Yet, for all these things, we like him the better, and wish, as says the old song—

"We had within the realm Five hundred good as he."

He is a straightforward, manly, and high-spirited noble, making up his mind without fee or reward, and speaking it with as little fear as he made it up; managing a large and turbulent population with that authority which derives its force from good intention; constant in his attendance on his parliamentary duty; plainspoken there, as he is every where; and possessing the influence which sincerity gives in every part of the world, however abounding in polish and place-hunting.

His early career, too, has been manly. He was a soldier, and a gallant one. His mission to the Allied armies, in the greatest campaign ever made in Europe, showed that he had the talents of council as well as of the field; and his appointment as ambassador to Vienna, gave a character of spirit, and even of splendour, to British diplomacy which it had seldom exhibited before, and which, it is to be hoped, it may recover with as little delay as possible.

We even like his employment of his superfluous time. Instead of giving way to the fooleries of fashionable life, the absurdities of galloping after hares and foxes, for months together, at Melton, or the patronage of those scenes of perpetual knavery which belong to the race-course, the Marquis has spent his vacations in making tours to the most remarkable parts of Europe. It is true that Englishmen are great travellers, and that our nobility are in the habit of wandering over the Continent. But the world knows no more of their discoveries, if they make such, or of their views of society and opinions of governments, if they ever take the trouble to form any upon the subject, than of their notions of the fixed stars. That there are many accomplished among them, many learned, and many even desirous to acquaint themselves with what Burke called "the mighty modifications of the human race," beginning with a land within fifteen miles of our shores, and spreading to the extremities of the earth, we have no doubt. But in the countless majority of instances, the nation reaps no more benefit from their travels than if they had been limited from Bond Street to Berkeley Square. This cannot be said of the Marquis of Londonderry. He travels with his eyes open, looking for objects of interest, and recording them. We are not now about to give him any idle panegyric on the occasion. We regret that his tours are so rapid, and his journals so brief. He passes by many objects which we should wish to see illustrated, and turns off from many topics on which we should desire to hear the opinions of a witness on the spot. But we thank him for what he has given; hope that he will spend his next autumn and many others as he has spent the former; and wish him only to write more at large, to give us more characters of the rank with which he naturally associates, draw more contrasts between the growing civilization of the European kingdoms and our own; and, adhering to his own straightforward conceptions, and telling them in his own sincere style, give us an annual volume as long as he lives.

Steam-boats and railways have produced one curious effect, which no one anticipated. Of all levellers they are the greatest. Their superiority to all other modes of travelling crowds them with the peer as well as the peasant. Cabinets, and even queens, now abandon their easy, but lazy, equipages for the bird-like flight of iron and fire, and though the "special train" still sounds exclusive, the principle of commixture is already there, and all ranks will sweep on together.

The Marquis, wisely adopting the bourgeois mode of travelling, set forth from the Tower Stairs, on a lovely morning at the close of August 1840. Fifty years ago, the idea of a general, an ambassador, and a peer, with his marchioness and suite, embarking on board the common conveyance of the common race of mankind, would have been regarded as an absolute impossibility; but the common sense of the world has now decided otherwise. Speed and safety are wisely judged to be valuable compensations for state and seclusion; and when we see majesty itself, after making the experiment of yachts and frigates, quietly and comfortably return to its palace on board a steamer, we may be the less surprised at finding the Marquis of Londonderry and his family making their way across the Channel in the steamer Giraffe. Yet it is to be remarked, that though nothing can be more miscellaneous than the passengers, consisting of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Yankee; of Jews, Turks, and heretics; of tourists, physicians, smugglers, and all the other diversities of idling, business, and knavery; yet families who choose to pay for them, may have separate cabins, and enjoy as much privacy as is possible with specimens of all the world within half-an-inch of their abode.

The voyage was without incident; and after a thirty hours' passage, the Giraffe brought them to the Brill and Rotterdam. It has been an old observation that the Dutch clean every thing but themselves; and nothing can be more matter of fact than that the dirtiest thing in a house in Holland is generally the woman under whose direction all this scrubbing has been accomplished. The first aspect of Rotterdam is strongly in favour of the people. It exhibits very considerable neatness for a seaport—the Wapping of the kingdom; paint and even gilding is common on the outsides of the shops. The shipping, which here form a part of the town furniture, and are to be seen every where in the midst of the streets, are painted with every colour of the rainbow, and carved and ornamented according to such ideas of taste in sculpture as are prevalent among Dutchmen; and the whole exhibits a good specimen of a people who have as much to struggle with mud as if they had been born so many eels, and whose conceptions of the real colour of the sky are even a shade darker than our own.