Mejor-General of the French service to put us
through the exercise."
Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found
herself all of a sudden a member: with Mrs. O'Dowd as
an elder sister. She was presented to her other female
relations at tea-time, on whom, as she was quiet, good-
natured, and not too handsome, she made rather an
agreeable impression until the arrival of the gentlemen from
the mess of the 150th, who all admired her so, that her
sisters began, of course, to find fault with her.
"I hope Osborne has sown his wild oats," said Mrs.
Magenis to Mrs. Bunny. "If a reformed rake makes a
good husband, sure it's she will have the fine chance with
Garge," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked to Posky, who had lost
her position as bride in the regiment, and was quite angry
with the usurper. And as for Mrs. Kirk: that disciple of
Dr. Ramshorn put one or two leading professional
questions to Amelia, to see whether she was awakened,
whether she was a professing Christian and so forth, and
finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne's replies that
she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three
little penny books with pictures, viz., the "Howling
Wilderness," the "Washerwoman of Wandsworth Common,"
and the "British Soldier's best Bayonet," which, bent upon
awakening her before she slept, Mrs. Kirk begged Amelia
to read that night ere she went to bed.
But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied
round their comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their
court with soldierly gallantry. She had a little triumph,
which flushed her spirits and made her eyes sparkle.
George was proud of her popularity, and pleased with the
manner (which was very gay and graceful, though naive
and a little timid) with which she received the gentlemen's
attentions, and answered their compliments. And
he in his uniform--how much handsomer he was than
any man in the room! She felt that he was affectionately
watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his kindness. "I
will make all his friends welcome," she resolved in her
heart. "I will love all as I love him. I will always try and
be gay and good-humoured and make his home happy."
The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation.
The Captains approved, the Lieutenants applauded, the
Ensigns admired. Old Cutler, the Doctor, made one or
two jokes, which, being professional, need not be repeated;
and Cackle, the Assistant M.D. of Edinburgh, condescended
to examine her upon leeterature, and tried her
with his three best French quotations. Young Stubble went
about from man to man whispering, "Jove, isn't she a
pretty gal?" and never took his eyes off her except when
the negus came in.
As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to
her during the whole evening. But he and Captain Porter
of the l50th took home Jos to the hotel, who was in a
very maudlin state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with
great effect, both at the mess-table and at the soiree, to
Mrs. O'Dowd in her turban and bird of paradise. Having
put the Collector into the hands of his servant, Dobbin
loitered about, smoking his cigar before the inn door.
George had meanwhile very carefully shawled his wife,
and brought her away from Mrs. O'Dowd's after a general
handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied
her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off. So
Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out of the
carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken
any notice of her all night.
The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of
smoking, long after the inn and the street were gone to
bed. He watched the lights vanish from George's sitting-
room windows, and shine out in the bedroom close at
hand. It was almost morning when he returned to his own
quarters. He could hear the cheering from the ships in
the river, where the transports were already taking in
their cargoes preparatory to dropping down the Thames.
CHAPTER XVIII
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
