Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850. Various
eye would have been out of its socket!
Captain Gabion, breathing the only execration I ever heard from his lips, choked the skipper off.
The Portuguese bystanders, though much interested in the fray, had not been thoroughly sensible of its character. To them, probably, the fight had looked as if a man, in perfect possession of his temper, had been merely playing with a very savage assailant, so clean and easy was the Major's style of punishing. But now, when they walked up, and looked in the miserable sufferer's face, they perceived the serious nature of the castigo administered. Instead of features they beheld – a mask, I was going to say, but that would be incorrect; for in most masks, you have eyes, nose, and mouth. Here, distinctness was obliterated; and as to eyes, why, you couldn't see the eyelashes. I handed the skipper to Snowball, advising he should be taken on board, and seen to. Snowball walked of, conducting him down the passage. I thought of the knife, procured it from the Captain, ran, and handed it to the nigger. "Tell him," said I, "never to use that again, except for cheese-toasting, picking his teeth, and so forth." "Yes, massa; me tell him you say so." "I say, Snowball," added I, "hadn't you better put a little oil on his face, to keep off the mosquitos? If they get at him as he is now, they'll drive him mad." "Ah no, massa," said Blackey, regretfully; "no muskitto here, dis tree, five week; dis place too cold, mosh very. Let alone, no muskitto on de wottah here, nebber at no time."
I hurried back, and found Captain Gabion supporting the Major, who stood with both hands spread out over his right eye, and, to all appearance, suffering intense agony. Blood was visible between his fingers, and on his cheek. The Captain, solicitous to ascertain the amount of injury, made a gentle attempt to withdraw the Major's hands.
"Don't! don't!" gasped the Major. "Has he – got my eye – in his pocket?"
"All right, all right," replied the Captain; "you have still a spare eye to wink with. Near thing, though."
"To-night I meant to have slept at Villa Franca," said the Major, still speaking as if his agony was extreme. "My man is waiting just by with the horses, at the chafriz."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Captain Gabion; "to-night you must sleep at our quarters. Pledget is there, and will look at your eye. Mr Y – , there's the chafriz; that stone fountain, where you see the open space."
I stepped in that direction, and found an English servant, holding two horses. The Major had intended to "polish off" the skipper, mount forthwith, and away for Sacavem at a hand-gallop. So he might; only that the skipper, according to his own ideas of manly combat, having got his opponent undermost, and secured a grip of the Major's love-lock with his four fingers, had hooked his thumb-nail, and eke a portion of his thumb, in the – but enough. I brought up the man and horses, and with some difficulty we got the Major to the hotel.
Pledget was there, examined the eye, did not consider the injury serious, but deferred giving any decided opinion. Ordered the Major to bed, and prescribed leeches: wanted to apply a poultice, but the patient couldn't bear the pressure. For a few days he remained a prisoner. After that, I met him in the streets with a green shade – eye doing well. Next spring, saw him on duty. No damage was then visible, save and except a small scar at the inner corner of the eye.
How soon, or how slowly, the skipper recovered from his polishing I never learned. The skipper, it appears, a year or two before the American war broke out, had put into the Tagus in a vessel from New Orleans, damaged. She was detained for repairs; and he, not liking an idle life, had procured employment in a Falmouth ship. After the war commenced, he chose to continue in the packet line. The exact nature of his offence, offered to the Major, I never ascertained. But it was something connected with the pumping of bilge-water, when the Major was suffering from sea-sickness, prostrate on the deck. Some years after, I heard of the skipper again. He had left Falmouth, and had obtained the command of a packet running between Southampton and the coast of France. He still had a bad name for insulting and ill-treating his passengers; and, what is curious, he again received a polishing from an English officer, at Dieppe. On this occasion, if I mistake not, the operator was an officer of the engineers. Whether said officer came out of the mêlée a Cyclops – the little dog forgot to mention.
CHAPTER VIII
The morning after our landing from the packet, I sought out, and with some difficulty discovered, my uncle's office; where I was very cordially received by both uncles, and very politely by the other gentlemen of the department. I announced myself prepared to start forthwith for headquarters; fully expecting to be off that night, or next day at latest. Uncle No. 1 told me I must go home with him to dinner, and see my aunt and cousins. Uncle No. 2 advised me to look out for a billet.
All this sounded ominous. The sympathising reader is already advised, that my progress from Lisbon to headquarters was not quite so expeditious as I had anticipated. The cause of the delay was this.
My dear mother, as I have already related, had overruled all objections to my joining the Peninsular army; and through her influence, my honoured father gave his reluctant consent. Shortly after, he was ordered to sea: his ship left the Downs; and he did not return, till after my departure from England. As the time of my departure drew nigh, my dear mother, left to her own cogitations, began to view the subject in a very different light. In short, she was perfectly frightened at her own act; and, when it came to the last, wrote off, without my knowledge, a letter to my uncle No. 2, entreating him by all means to detain me at Lisbon, not for the world to send me up the country – in short, to keep me far beyond the sound, let alone the range, of hostile cannon. Her letter, posted at Deal the very day I started thence for London, came out to Lisbon by the same conveyance with myself; and was doubtless in my uncle's hands, when I presented myself at the office. Many years after, in looking over some old correspondence, I found a letter of hers to my father at sea, revealing the whole plot.
Next morning, I again presented myself, still expecting to receive my orders, and be off slick to headquarters. Uncle No. 2 was there; hoped I had not been much tormented with bugs and fleas; pointed out a desk with a high seat; and informed me – that was my place!
The scene, which would have instantly appalled the whole department, had I given expression to my feelings, was happily prevented by one reflection, which struck me just in time; viz., that I was now an employé, bound to obedience by military law, and that Nunky was my commanding officer.
I sulkily took my seat; and Nunky left me for a few minutes, to the pleasing process of mental digestion. Presently, he stood by my side with a huge bundle of papers: – laid the papers on my desk.
"A fortnight," said he, "will probably elapse ere you can proceed to headquarters. I wish, in the mean time, you would just see what you can do, in arranging these convalescent accounts. We could not spare a hand for them, and they have got sadly into arrear. Do try what you can make of them."
I went to work; – worked hard for a fortnight. At the end of that time, with occasional directions from my uncle, the confused mass of accounts was reduced to something like order. Still nothing was said about my journey to headquarters. Fresh work was given me, which took another week. I began to get regularly savage – was rapidly turning misanthrope – sympathised with George Barnwell. Nunky requested my company in a private room.
"You came out," said he, "expecting to go up the country."
"Yes; and on that understanding I applied for the appointment, as I expressed in my letter from England. On that understanding too, unless I mistook the reply, my services were accepted."
"Well, G – ," said he, "I put it to yourself. The fact is, those plaguy convalescent accounts have given us more trouble than all the business of the office besides. Till you came out, we never have had a clerk that could do them. You do them excellently. Of course, you are well aware the public service is the first thing. The long and the short of it is, you perform this duty so much to our satisfaction, your uncle J – and I have come to the determination – we must keep you with us at Lisbon."
This, my dear madam, with the exception of being crossed in love – and to that, you know, we all are liable – was my first serious disappointment in life. Baulked in my schemes of military glory – for already, in imagination, I was a gentleman volunteer, had mounted a breach, and won a commission