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stand, and there I found a dragoon whistling the 'Roast Beef of Old
England,' as he cleaned down a cavalry horse. 'Whose horse, fellow,
is that?' cried I.
'Feller, indeed!' replied the Englishman: 'the horse belongs to my
captain, and he's a better FELLER nor you any day.'
I did not stop to break his bones, as I would on another occasion,
for a horrible suspicion had come across me, and I made for the
garden as quickly as I could.
I knew somehow what I should see there. I saw Captain Quin and Nora
pacing the alley together. Her arm was under his, and the scoundrel
was fondling and squeezing the hand which lay closely nestling
against his odious waistcoat. Some distance beyond them was Captain
Fagan of the Kilwangan regiment, who was paying court to Nora's
sister Mysie.
I am not afraid of any man or ghost; but as I saw that sight my
knees fell a-trembling violently under me, and such a sickness came
over me, that I was fain to sink down on the grass by a tree against
which I leaned, and lost almost all consciousness for a minute or
two: then I gathered myself up, and, advancing towards the couple on
the walk, loosened the blade of the little silver-hilted hanger I
always wore in its scabbard; for I was resolved to pass it through
the bodies of the delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons. I
don't tell what feelings else besides those of rage were passing
through my mind; what bitter blank disappointment, what mad wild
despair, what a sensation as if the whole world was tumbling from
under me; I make no doubt that my reader hath been jilted by the
ladies many times, and so bid him recall his own sensations when the
shock first fell upon him.
'No, Norelia,' said the Captain (for it was the fashion of those
times for lovers to call themselves by the most romantic names out
of novels), 'except for you and four others, I vow before all the
gods, my heart has never felt the soft flame!'
'Ah! you men, you men, Eugenio!' said she (the beast's name was
John), 'your passion is not equal to ours. We are like--like some
plant I've read of--we bear but one flower and then we die!'
'Do you mean you never felt an inclination for another?' said
Captain Quin.
'Never, my Eugenio, but for thee! How can you ask a blushing nymph
such a question?'
'Darling Norelia!' said he, raising her hand to his lips.
I had a knot of cherry-coloured ribands, which she had given me out
of her breast, and which somehow I always wore upon me. I pulled
these out of my bosom, and flung them in Captain Quin's face, and
rushed out with my little sword drawn, shrieking, 'She's a liar--
she's a liar, Captain Quin! Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you
are a man!' and with these words I leapt at the monster, and
collared him, while Nora made the air echo with her screams; at the
sound of which the other captain and Mysie hastened up.
Although I sprang up like a weed in my illness, and was now nearly
attained to my full growth of six feet, yet I was but a lath by the
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