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CHAPTER II.

"The first of July, in old Bridge Town,
There was a grievous battle."

OLD ORANGE SONG.

WE reached Drogheda on the 30th of June: the business of the next day was commenced by a furious cannonade on the banks of the Boyne, which must have frightened every spangled salmon from his oozy retreat. At noon half the population was up to the knees in water; the battle, however, was waged in harmless style. Duke Schomberg was shot with a squib in the ford at Old Bridge; and King William, mounted on a white charger, and dressed up with a huge wig and tin cuirass, led on his troops in person to the attack of the undefended left bank of the Boyne, where, (instead of warlike representations of poor King James's army) he was received by the "whole corporation, just-asses and mayor" of the right worshipful, the right loyal, and then ultra-Orange town of Drogheda!

While in this neighbourhood, I had an opportunity of seeing the beautiful demesne of Collon, the seat of the late Lord Oriel, a treat worth a journey of a hundred miles at any time, and also Slane Castle, that of the present Marquess of Conyngham. The town itself, although I saw it of course to great advan tage, crowded with all the neighbouring nobility and gentry, appeared to me a most agreeable and fashionable place; as well paved and lighted as the best part of the metropolis. During the week of festivity, the theatre was every night crowded to the ceiling. It was under the management of Mr. O'Neill, father of that delightful tragedian, whose retirement from the dramatic world has left a void which will probably never be filled with equal talent. From what I recollect of the performances they were execrable: if such was Miss O'Neill's Thespian school, she must, indeed, have been a heaven-born actress! One laughable incident I well remember: during the performance of the Agreeable Surprise, in which the once celebrated Cornelys was the Lingo, a person meanly attired forced his way into the pit which was nearly on a level with the stage, without taking the trouble, or, indeed, having the means to pay. The manager, jumping over the narrow orchestra, sprang upon the insolvent intruder, and fairly kicked

him out of doors!—he then, with a degree of activity remarkable for such a stout heavy man, sprang again on the boards, and went through the remainder of his part, that of the kind and hospitable Sir FELIX FRIENDLY, with spirit and applause.

From Drogheda we proceeded through the rural town of Dundalk, thence to the thriving and mercantile one of Newryon to Belfast, the ultonian metropolis. At all these places the Orange mania raged; but not with that fierce and ferocious spirit which disgraced its partisans of later years. My father continued to wear his volunteer uniform; I, my blue and Orange, which would of themselves have proved passports to welcome and good cheer in this hospitable town, even without the introductory letters which my father brought to some of the most respectable merchants of that flourishing mart of industry and enterprise, Belfast. During our short stay at this town, I was indulged with an excursion to the Giant's Causeway, which struck me then as it did in after years, when I viewed it with more attention, as one of those extraordinary features of nature which once seen can never be forgotten.

On our progress towards the port of embarkation, we passed the neat little towns of Lisburn, its bleaching grounds presenting alternate streaks of emerald green and snowy white, extending as far as the eye could reach, of Hillsborough, and lastly, Donaghadee,—(Heaven help the English jaws attempting to pronounce this awful name with its due guttural force!) These pretty towns, which do credit to the province, were but named and passed. "The wind sat on the shoulder of our sail;" and in three hours, from land to land, we found ourselves safely on shore at Port Patrick! Heaven bless the name! had it been ST. ANDREW, it would not have sounded half so sweet to the ear of the Irish boy, whose foot, for the first time, pressed the sod of a foreign land.

How we got to Edinburgh, I neither knew nor heeded; not seeing any thing in the land of cakes to admire, or engage my particular attention, until I reached the capital, when all was new, strange, and astonishing to me. The inequality of the ground, the apparently interminable height of the buildings, the garb, the accent, and employments of the lower orders, were all subjects of deep attention and surprise; not unmixed with feelings, little complimentary to the Caledonian character and habits. The new town was then becoming thickly inhabited; that portion called the old town, already but too much in “mal odeur,” was voted a bore; yet it was in that part of Auld Reekie that our quarters lay. After two long days, which, to me, seemed an age, we took our leave of modern Athens, accompanied by a fellow traveller, if I may so term a lady, who had been on a visit to some northern friends, and who was introduced by our hostess as an agreeable compa

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nion in a post-chaise." She was a woman of extremely engaging face and good person, but whom I thought a superannuated being-I should presume she was nearly forty years of age! After the usual ceremonies and arrangements as to expense, &c., we took our seats; each of the adults occupied their corner, whilst I sat in the centre as bodkin, rather stinted in room. I was induced, occasionally, to stand up and loll out of the front, to indulge my curiosity by a view of the country; during which my ever gallant sire made some observations, inaudible to me, to his fair companion, on the beauty of the prospect, I suppose. Whatever they were, it was evident they were not displeasing, as the flushed cheek and sparkling eye of the lady gave testimony.

On arriving at our stage-Berwick, I believe-late in the evening, some conversation took place in low whispers, in which I could hear "the child" often mentioned. Whatever was the nature of their confabulation, it appeared to have ended in the most amicable understanding. The lady, taking me by the hand, called me "her dear," and led me into the house, while papa superintended the unloading of our joint luggage. Every comfort the good inn afforded was lavished on me, and my kind protectress herself took the trouble to put me to bed, bestowing on me, at parting, a kiss so maternal, that it set my young mind on the spirit of conjecture for a full hour. Youth and nature, however, asserted their claims, and I was locked in profound sleep, when the summons to rise was given next morning. On descending to the parlour, the cheerful looks of both parties, the handsome nosegay presented to me by the lady, who, by the way, appeared ten years younger for the good night's rest and a bountiful breakfast, made me one of the happiest of boys.

On setting out that morning, I was indulged with a corner seat to myself, in order to have my full view of the country, the lady condescending to accept of the bodkin seat; surely nothing, I thought, could be more amiably kind. Thus, we proceeded on our journey, all parties in the highest spirits, until we reached Newcastle, where, at the inn door, the husband of the lady waited to receive her. The warm terms in which she bore testimony to my papa's kind attentions to her during the journey, added to the inexpressible joy she evinced at once more meeting her dear Hambleton after a painful separation of six weeks, absolutely brought tears of gratitude into the reverend and unsuspicious eyes of the good shovel-hatted husband; and the sonorous smack which, with uxurious incaution he bestowed on the pouting lip of his beloved at the conclusion of her rhapsody, proved at once his confidence and connubial bliss. The whole party had tea together very com

fortably; and we retired at nine o'clock, after a very tender parting, on our sides, with the parson and his amiable lady.

At six the next morning we were packed into a stage-coach of six inside, and were not to break our fast till we reached Darlington. Stage-coaches, in those days, did not get over the ground as they do at present, at the ten-miles-an-hour pace; neither was their construction very well calculated for repose. I became heartily sick of the morning's jaunt; and, leaning my head on the shoulder of my next neighbour,-a worthy old lady, who, with her husband and two fat fubsy daughters, were on the route from Newcastle to Manchester, by way of Leeds,—I tried to compose myself for a nap; but found it as impossible to keep my eyes open as my ears shut; the old gentleman and his wife snored a Lancashire duet, which was the death of sleep! while, on the opposite seat, my worthy dad, entertaining the young ladies in his peculiar way, seemed quite at home. What he could possibly see, hear, feel, or understand, in these lasses, to call forth such torrents of flattery as he poured on them, I could not for the life of me discover. From my earliest recollections, I hated (like Byron) a dumpy woman. These girls were both so: both had light, frizzled, flaxen hair, large blue bogle eyes, fine but neglected teeth, most redundant bosoms, with a peculiarity of shape in the lower moiety of their persons, which would render them liable to a double charge for sitting room in any place or vehicle where seats were let by admeasurement. I abhorred his bad taste, and kept a most perverse silence, although repeatedly invited to engage in conversation with them. My father contrived to divide his attentions with so much tact, that each seemed equally flattered and gratified; and when, at Leeds, the parting moment arrived, he bestowed on each, with the consent of the laughing parents, a kiss, which lasted thirty seconds by the clock of the cloth hall! The good old lady gave us an invitation to her house in Watergate Street, Manchester, should we ever visit that town; a compliment in which the daughters most heartily joined. In the progress of our journey southward that day, I happened to remark that I thought our late fellow-travellers very ugly! an observation at which my father laughed most heartily, replying, "My good boy, take my word for it, there is no such thing as a perfectly ugly woman in the creation; the plainest of them have some redeeming point of beauty." He was, to be sure, an authority on that subject, and I became silent.

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OUR last night on the road was passed at Barnet; shortly after leaving which, London, vast London, broke on my astonished view, the extent of which my eyes in vain attempted to embrace: I fancied every inch of the road a mile, from Highgate to town. But how great was my mortification and disappointment, after all I had heard and read of its splendour, on reaching it, the reader may imagine when he learns that our route lay through its vilest avenues; filthy Smithfield, and all those narrow nasty lanes which led to the George Inn, Aldermanbury. When my father gave his directions to the postboy at Barnet, I fully persuaded myself we were on our way to the house of some civic friend of his, and was cruelly grieved on our halt, to discover that Alderman Bury was a place and not a person! However, it had often before been my father's earliest resting-place, as his business was in the first instance confined to that portion of the metropolis exclusively termed the "city." As that which now brought him to London would not detain him in that quarter above two or three days, he determined for my sake to get through it quickly, and afterwards seek our pleasures at the more fashionable end of the town. His affairs appeared to have been satisfactorily settled: whatever was the nature of them, I was most materially benefited, as besides a present of three guineas to lay out just as I pleased, my father purchased a variety of articles of dress for me, vastly superior in cut and quality to any I had ever seen on our side of the channel. I was quite enraptured with my situation and with his liberality, and this grateful feeling kept me silent as the grave as to many little things I had perceived of his gambolings and frolics during our short sojourn, and upon all of which I was doomed to undergo a most severe cross-examination when I returned home.

As there was nothing to be seen in the nature of sights, which would not appear Gothic to dwell on in this age of refinement, and as the impressions on the mind of a boy could not

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