contres? Nothing of the kind. Rencontres? You talk like a militia officer. Rencontres? You'll soon dismiss all that kind of thing from your thoughts, after you have seen two or three rencontres with the French. Rencontres? No, no; no field of forty footsteps at headquarters. Rencontres? It would be a perfect absurdity, where men have the chance of being shot gratis every day of their lives, without going out of the way for it. Rencontres? No; I did not mean that. What I meant to say was this: you would infallibly be made a general butt. Rencontres? Why, Mr Y-, if you show any nonsense of that sort, you'll be tormented to death. Rencontres? Oh, what lots of fun they'll take out of you! Meanwhile, think yourself fortunate that you are now getting a seasoning. I am truly glad, for your sake, that you have had the opportunity here at Falmouth, and will have the opportunity on your passage out, of seeing something of military men and modes before you join. may, and probably will, be dubbed, on your arrival, a Johnny Newcome. But, at any rate, you will not be a Johnny Raw." You Gingham closed the conference by walking to the other end of the room, and steadfastly contemplating his own beautiful physiognomy in the glass. During our conversation, his hand had frequently visited his nose. now stood opposite the mirror, slewing his head first this way, then that, and at length broke silence : He "Well, I was not aware of it; but I do think that my nose is a little crooked." "I presume," said I, "you have no sisters ?" "I have none," replied Gingham. "Nor are you, I apprehend, a married man?" "There, alas, you are right again," said Gingham; "but what has that to do with it?" "Your wife, or your sisters, if you had any, would have told you that you have a very crooked nose." "Well, but," said Gingham, "there's my mother. My dear mother never told me that my nose was crooked." "Your mother, probably, is totally unconscious of the fact; and, should she hear any one else assert such a thing, would deny it most strenuously." "Nay, but," said Gingham, "though I have neither sister nor wife, and supposing my dear mother to be blind to my personal defects, I have-in short, Mr Y-, before I left London, I took a tender leave of her whom I hope to persuade, on my next return from the Peninsula, to accept the hand and the heart of a Gingham. SHE did not tell me that my nose was crooked. She mentioned various obstacles to our union; but she never mentioned that." "Then," said I, "depend upon it, she means to have you. And depend upon this, too; she will tell you your nose is crooked when you have made her Mrs Gingham, if she does not tell you so before." "As to my walking sideways," said Gingham, "that's a palpable fiction." "Here," said I, "come to this extremity of the room, and place yourself opposite the glass." He came, and placed himself accordingly. "Now walk straight down upon the glass, keeping your eye fixed upon your reflected nose." "What nose? Which nose?" said Gingham, in a state of obvious alarm. "Do you mean the nose in my face ?" "I mean your nose in the glass." He walked as I had directed. "Well, really," said Gingham, "it's extraordinary; it's very curious. When I walk and look at my nose in the glass, it appears quite straight again just as it ought to be, in the middle of my face." "That's just it," said I. "Then you walk sideways. Depend upon it, if you walked straight, your nose would appear crooked." He repeated the experiment again and again, muttering to himself, "Very remarkable, very curious; quite a natural phenomenon." "Don't distress yourself about your nose," said I; "it is a good enough nose, in magnitude respectable, though not strictly rectilinear. Make yourself easy; and say, with Erasmus, 'Nihil me pœnitet hugeous nasi.'” My Peninsular Medal.-Part I. [Nov. CHAPTER III. Where Gingham got his classical knowledge, I had not at this time ascertained. Certain it is, he was a very fair classic. But there was one dreadful drawback to his character, and, in a man of his gravity, a strange one: I mean his offensive, horrid practice of making most atrocious Latin puns. A pun in English he viewed with utter contempt. stirred his bile. It No English pun escaped his lips. But for a Latin pun, be scrupled not to lay under contribution even the first-rate Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid—nay, his favourite author, Horace; and if I, influenced by bad example, was weak enough, in an unguarded moment, to commit the same offence, he stole my puns, and made them again as his own. On the eve of our embarkation we strolled forth, after an early dinner, for a parting view of the sunset from the castle. Walking up town, we met the man of rum, the sleep-murdering Macbeth of the mail-coach. Still he was talking-for want of company, talking to himself. But his eyes were set, half-closed, and dim; his aspect was peculiarly meditative, and his course curvilinear. He had taken on board plus æquo of his own samples. Perceiving our approach, he gave a lurch to clear us. But his legs, being not altogether under management, brought him exactly in the direction which he sought to shun; his stomach, which had already suffered so many assaults in the coach, most unfortunately impinged upon my elbow; and again it was "ugh!" His gummy eyes expanded, and gleamed on us like two fresh-opened oysters. Awhile he gazed with drunken gravity; then, turning round, bent over the roadside gutter, as if about to tumble in, and jocosely imitated the operation of drawing a cork. His organs of vision then assumed a slow movement of horizontal oscillation, and gradually settled on a pastry-cook's shop over the way. Towards this point he directed his zigzag approaches, recommencing his agreeable conference with himself, in terms of which we could catch only the words-" Archimedes dreadful. Emerging from the town in The influence of bad example is our way to the castle, we met a merry party, male and female, all equestrians save some six or eight, who occupied the interior and exterior of a post-chaise. Gingham, who saw into wedding party; and a buxom dame, a thing at once, pronounced them a who was mounted on a lively little west country galloway, the bride. said Gingham; "but if that dear lady As Gingham appears more than I recognised him he did not recognise me. Time had somewhat changed his look, his dress very little. Its predominant aspect was still white. His nose, too, was unmistakeable. Perceiving at once that he was, like myself, a passenger to the Peninsula, I availed myself of the freedom conceded in such cases, and commenced a conversation by some remark on the steamer. "I presume, sir," said he, "you are a passenger?” "Yes, Mr Gingham, and so are you. Glad to meet you." He stared, but admitted the fact. "But, sir," said he, "you have the advantage of me." "Well, well," said I, "you'll find me out to-morrow on board the Guadalquivir. Fine ship that. To-morrow, you know, as Horace said, when he was off by the steamer :- Cras, ingins! iterabimus æquor!" The effect was instantaneous. Gingham did not speak, he shouted :— "Dine with me: I have got a john dory." We walked off to the town-I rubbing my shoulder, which Gingham shook, when he shook my hand-he, for a few paces, thoughtful and silent. I expected a burst of sentiment. "By the bye," said Gingham, "while your hand was in, you might just as well have quoted the other line, for that, also, refers to our voyage." "The other line?" "Yes, the other line. Don't you see that pair of rooks flying over the harbour?" "Rooks fly in droves. I see no rooks." "Right," said he ; "they are a couple of crows." "But the line from Horace, referring to our voyage?" "Not only referring to it," said Gingham, "but highly encouraging. 'Nil desperandum two crow duce, et auspice two crow." “Gingham, you are incorrigible." To reach the street from the water's side we had to pass through a narrow passage, and there met the stewardess of the steamer, who was going on board. She stalked along in clogs on tiptoe, her left hand gathering up, behind, her cloak, gown, petticoat, &c., while her right hand bore an umbrella one size larger than a parasol, and a reticule one size less than a pannier; emerging from which pannier appeared the ugly mug of an enormous Portuguese red ram cat, the pet of the stewardess, and the constant companion of her Peninsular voyages. "My cat inter omnes," said Gingham. But I have rambled, and am a quarter of a century wide of the mark. The period of which I have now to write, the important period to which my present narrative refers, is not the more recent year, 1838, but the remoter year, 1813, glorious in the annals of England; the year that saw the commencement of Napoleon's downfal; the year of triumph and rout beneath the walls of Vittoria; the year of a still sterner and equally successful conflict at St Sebastian; the year, too, that furnished a name for a princess of a royal line, that QUEEN VICTORIA who, in her high estate and royal clemency, remembered and rewarded the long-forgotten and long unrecompensed heroes of those bygone times. In the early spring of that year, 1813, I was there at Falmouth, a raw youth, launched on the wide world in search of adventure, burning to reach the headquarters of the Peninsular army, fully capable of making a fool of myself when I got there, and anxiously waiting for the sailing of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig, which, for want of a better, performed the office of Lisbon packet. It was well for me that, at Falmouth, I had already fallen into friendly hands. On the morning of our embarkation, March the th, 1813, Gingham went early on board the packet, for his personal baggage was bulky and various, to see to its stowage part in his berth, part in the hold. It was settled between us that he was to return ashore, that we were to breakfast together at the hotel, and afterwards go off together to the packet, which was still lying in the harbour, and was to sail about noon. I waited breakfast for Gingham, but no Gingham came. At length I received a long note from him, dated on board the packet. It began by stating that an attempt had been made to impose upon him, and that he was determined not to stand it. The attempted imposition, as I learned from him afterwards, was this : On Gingham walked down from the hotel to the water's side, and engaged a boat, which was to take him on board the packet for eighteenpence; he, Gingham, understanding thereby, according to the tenor of many previous bargains at the same rate of payment, that he was to be taken on board, and put on shore again. this, however, the last day of our abode at Falmouth, the two boatmen, thinking they might safely try it on, and conjecturing also that Gingham's time might possibly be too valuable to be wasted in discussion, determined to take a different view of the subject, and exact a second fare for landing him. The boat reached the packet, Gingham went on board, the boatmen made fast to a harbour-buoy, and waited the result. Gingham went below, made his arrangements, came on deck, and hailed his boat to take him ashore. The elder boatman civilly touched his hat, and remarked, with a winning smile, that they hadn't been paid "nuffin" for bringing him on board. Gingham replied, that he should pay as usual when they had got back to the quay. The boatman, courteous as before, again touched his hat, and answered, simpering, "Beg your pardon, sir, but this ear last day, when the peckit's hoff, jeddlemen holways pays bofe ways, cummin aboord, and gooin back again." "Oh, do they?" said Gingham, and walked down into the cabin, where he quietly wrote his note to me, in a hand that beat copperplate; and breakfasted upon sea biscuit, junk, and ship's cocoa, the steward not having yet got off his stock of groceries for the voyage. Everybody on board knew Gingham, and he had no difficulty in getting his note brought ashore in the ship's boat, without the knowledge of the two 'longshore fellows, who were riding at the buoy, and who still thought they had the best of the bargain-as it is a rule in harbour, or at any rate was in those days, that no private passenger by a packet passed or repassed except by 'longshore boats. Gingham was now all right, and did not care one farthing for the boatmen; for he already had the bulk of his things on board, he was on board himself, and his note advised me respecting his remaining matters ashore. He continued below, having resolved, as he told me afterwards, to keep the boatmen waiting alongside till the packet was off, and then give them ninepence. Meanwhile he sent up, by the steward, an injunction to the people on deck, who enjoyed not a little the false position of the two boatmen, not on any account to let them come on board. Gingham's note to me, which was, as I have already intimated, a beautiful specimen of commercial penmanship, was to the following effect:That he was detained on board by his determination to resist a gross imposition; that the laundress had still in her keeping a small quantity of his linen, which she was to bring to the hotel about breakfast-time; that he had settled with the servants that morning; and that the landlady was indebted to him in the sum of two shillings, he having paid his bill the night before, in which bill was included the charge of two shillings for a cold-meat breakfast, which he should not take; that he requested me to get back the two shillings from the landlady; that he would also thank me to receive the linen from the laundress, see that it was correct per invoice, (washing-bill, I presume,) check her account, liquidate it, and bring the linen on board with me. Meanwhile a circumstance arose, which was of great moment in itself, and gave Gingham a further advantage in his affair with the two Falmouth lads. An extra mail for Lisbon had arrived from London, sent off by despatch to catch the packet before she sailed; and, by management of Gingham's partners, who were influential people, brought Gingham letters on a matter of some importance. These letters were taken off to Gingham by a trusty drabcoated Falmouth "Friend," in another 'longshore boat, and rendered it absolutely requisite that he should go ashore, and perhaps defer his voyage. The packet at this time was surrounded with boats and bustle, the two boatmen still fast to the buoy; and Gingham had no difficulty in returning ashore by the boat which brought off his mercantile friend, without being observed by them. In fact, they were half asleep, still secure, as they thought, of their victim, and affording no small sport to the crew of the packet, who saw how things were going. I shall only mention here, that the communication, received by Gingham from London, related to a grand financial speculation, an idea of his own, having reference to the monetary transactions at headquarters, which were very large, and as well conducted as circumstances permitted, but attended with great difficulties, and considerable loss to the British government. Gingham's plan would have been backed by private capital to any amount. It was knocked on the head by the peace of 1814: but I have more to say about it hereafter. True to her time, the laundress arrived at the hotel; not bringing, as Gingham had described it, a small quantity of linen, but attended by a man with a barrow, wheeling two large buckbaskets, each piled with an immense heap of shirts, white inexpressibles, white double-breasted dimity waistcoats, in short every thing white,--a stock for a voyage to China. On the interior of the collar of one of the said white doublebreasted dimity waistcoats, I noticed G G the cypher -No. 1 of the fourth 37 dozen! So profuse was Gingham in his provision for the habiliment of his own elegant exterior. I settled with the laundress, engaged the barrowman to go off with me in charge of the linen, and take back the baskets, finished my breakfast, paid my bill, and went on board. Such was my first embarkation for the Peninsula. Little dreaming that there was a spoke in my wheel, and that some time was still to elapse between my departure from Falmouth and my arrival at the British headquarters, I had longed for the day of the packet's sailing. But now, when the wishedfor moment had arrived, a lot of little things, coming upon me at the last, quite put it out of my head that I was quitting my native land, and about to enter on new scenes, mingle with strangers, embark in active life, and master-where alone they could be mastered, on their vernacular soil-two ancient, expressive, and kindred languages, which I had conned rudimentally on the banks of Cam. Nor did I dream that I went to earn a prospective claim to a Peninsular Medal; and jot down mental memoranda, still vividly legible, of all I heard and saw, for the information and amusement of readers then unborn. "Gooin' off to the peckit, sir? Here, Bill, hand the jeddleman's boxes." Then, when we were half way to the brig,-" Wherry 'ot on the worter, sir. Ope you'll be ginnerous a little hextry for the luggidge, sir. Wherry dry work pullin', sir." Gingham, when I reached the packet, was not on board. The cause of his absence was explained to me by the steward, who assisted in stowing away the contents of the two buckbaskets in Gingham's berth. During this operation, the steward, who fully participated in the antipathy to 'longshore boatmen common to his class, communicated to me, with no small glee, the occurrences of the morning; and begged me to take a sight, when I went on deck, of the two expectant gentlemen at the buoy. There they were, sure enough, very much at their ease-quite satisfied that Gingham would want to be taken that theirs was the boat that must ashore again before the packet sailed, take him, and that they had the game in their own hands. On deck I met our three breakfast guests of the day before. They greeted me cordially, made many inquiries after Gingham, and introduced me, as a particular old crony of theirs, to Staff-Surgeon Pledget, who had arrived by the mail overnight, and was also a passenger to Lisbon, on his return to the British army. I soon began to perceive that it was a standing rule with my three new acquaintances, regular "Peninsulars," to extract fun from even the most common incidents-in fact, from everybody and everything. StaffSurgeon Pledget, as able a man in his profession as any staff-surgeon attached to the Peninsular army, was matter-of-fact personified; and the dignified cordiality with which he received an old crony of theirs, evidently afforded the three hoaxers |