Shortly after our marriage, we went, in company with the Colonel, to England, and from thence to Ireland. My uncle hesitated for some time, whether, as he was a bachelor, he would take up house himself, or live with my father in Dublin, or with me. The former was too dull and monotonous a life for him, and he soon therefore laid the idea aside. He would have liked very well to live with his sister, but unfortunately my father's ways of thinking and his were so dissimilar, that there was no prospect of their harmonizing together, the former being Whiggish in his principles, and the Colonel a staunch Tory. He, therefore, resolved to ensconce himself under my roof. I forgot to say, that, the week after our arrival, he made me a present of two thousand pounds.

It is now ten years since these events have taken place. My pretty Louise and I live very happily together, and she now speaks English as well as her native tongue. We have a couple of fine boys and a handsome girl-quite as many children as a military man has any occasion for. The Colonel lately made his will, in which he has left the whole of his property, with the exception of some small legacies, to me and my two sons. He says I must provide for my daughter as I think proper. Among the countrypeople round about-for we live in the country, six miles to the north of Belfast-he is much liked. He is still the Squinting Colonel of the children, whom he sometimes amuses, by grinning in their faces, and telling frightful stories. The farmers around think

him a man of prodigious valour-as he undoubtedly is-and stare woundily at his extraordinary exploits in India, which he still relates with unimpaired humour and veracity. He is, in fact, a favourite with everybody, and with none more than my wife and children. His mind is a perfect storehouse of military marvels, which my boys are perpetually urging him to relate. It is, indeed, delightful to see the young rogues staring, wonder-struck at the old gentleman, while he is pouring forth upon their imaginations his miraculous deeds. Sometimes we have a visit from such of our messmates as survive-and then the old affair of "Capital, Colonel-devilish good," is sure to be renewed, as when, ten or eleven years before, we sat at the regimental table.

COLONEL O'SHAUGHNESSY IN INDIA.*

You have doubtless often heard me talk of India. It is at this very moment, twenty-three years, two months, and five days, since I sailed for that country in the Blunderbuss transport. I was not then a Colonel. No, confound my ill stars, I was only plain Captain O'Shaughnessy. The regiment was with me, or rather I was with the regiment: and a pleasant time we had of it during our passage from the Downs to Calcutta. Our Colonel was a fat, lusty, little man, of some five feet, or thereabouts, with a paunch like an alderman-broad across the shoulders, and with legs as round and brawny as an elephant's. He had a large, lumpish nose, red like claret, and as irregular in its outilne as a bunch of grapes. I am sorry to say that Colonel M'Mulligan, for that was his name, was anything but esteemed in the regiment. His temper was something like his nose, very fiery. The least

*

Colonel O'Shaughnessy is supposed to relate these adventures to his friends, over a bottle of wine. In the preceding paper, the reader will find a description of the worthy Colonel.

thing put him into a passion; and plague take him; when he once got into one, he never got out of it.

A very different sort of man was Major O'Dunder. He was a countryman of my own, as you may know by the name: indeed I rather think he was distantly related to me by the mother's side. Like the other, he was a little man, but the Colonel would make three of him, the Major being as meagre as his superior was corpulent. In addition to this, he had a snubnose, and was bandy-legged. He was withal a goodtempered and worthy man. Such were our two commanding officers. What I myself am, I need not say. You know me well; and some things concerning me, which you do not know, will appear before I am done with my story.

We entered the Hoogly on a September evening, and were safely landed at Calcutta,—not a soul of us having died by the way. We were four hundred strong; and I will take it upon me to say, that a finer body of troops never entered India. There was not a man among them under five feet ten, with the exception of the Colonel, the Major, and one of the regimental drummers. Some of them were even as tall as myself.

We were reviewed by his Excellency the Governor-General, who was pleased to express his high satisfaction at our martial appearance, and the able manner in which we went through our evolutions. In a particular manner, he complimented my company for the dexterity of its manœuvres, and hoped to see the

day when I should be at the head of the regiment. His words were prophetic, although, at the time, the prophecy had little chance of being accomplished, as there were several Captains older and richer than I; and my two superiors were healthy men. How I stepped into the boots of the latter gentlemen you shall The praise of the Governor, whether merited or not, it does not become me to say. Our men swore that I deserved it all, and O'Dunder said the same thing.

soon see.

In Calcutta we were thrown, as it were, upon a new world. Everything was different from what we had been accustomed to see. The men were different; the women were different; the very reptiles and insects were different. I cannot say that I much liked the manners of the people. Nobody there does anything for himself. Walking is quite abolished. You will see great, fat, unwieldy Europeans, carried through the streets, not in carriages but in palanquins, and not by horses or bullocks, but on the shoulders of men. On my arrival, I was advised to get a palanquin, and to be sure, I got one; and a pretty business there was the very first time I got into it. My bearers, four in number, were carrying me to the Government-House, to pay my respects to his Excellency, when all at once we came bang against some opposing substance, with a concussion like that of an earthquake. Before I could account for this extraordinary greeting, an immense body, like a feather-bed, tumbled upon the top of me, and brought not only myself, but my palanquin to the