order postchaises for nothing at all, and I was very nearly at the end of my rhino; so I said to myself, ‘McShane, you must retrench.’ And I did so; instead of dining at the coffee-house, I determined to go to an eating-house, and walked into one in Holborn, where I sat down to a plate of good beef and potatoes, and a large lump of plum-pudding, paid 1 shilling and 6 pence, and never was better pleased in my life; so I went there again, and became a regular customer; and the girls who waited laughed with me, and the lady who kept the house was very gracious. Now, the lady was good-looking, but she was rather too fat; there was an amiable look about her, even when she was carving beef; and by degrees we became intimate, and I found her a very worthy creature, and as simple-minded as a child, although she could look sharp after her customers. It was, and is now, a most thriving establishment—nearly two hundred people dine there every day. I don’t know how it was, but I suppose I first fell in love with her beef; and then with her fair self; and finding myself well received at all times, I one day, as she was carving a beefsteak-pie which might have tempted a king for its fragrance, put the question to her, as to how she would like to marry again. She blushed, and fixed her eyes down upon the hole she had made in the pie, and then I observed that if there was a hole in my side as big as there was in the pie before her, she would see her image in my heart. This pretty simile did the business for me, and in a month we were married; and I never shall want a dinner as long as I live, either for myself or friend. I will put you on the free list, O’Donahue, if you can condescend to a cook’s shop: and I can assure you that I think I have done a very wise thing, for I don’t want to present any wife at Court, and I have a very comfortable home.”
“You have done a wise thing, in my opinion, McShane—you have a wife who makes money, instead of one who spends it.”
“And, moreover, I have found my bargain better that I anticipated, which is seldom the case in this world of treachery and deceit. She has plenty of money, and is putting by more every year.”
“Which you have the control of, at your disposition, do you mean to say?”
“Why, yes, I may say that now; but, O’Donahue, that is owing to my circumspection and delicacy. At first starting, I determined that she should not think that it was only her money that I wanted; so, after we were married, I continued to find myself, which, paying nothing for board and lodging and washing, I could easily do upon my half-pay; and I have done so ever since, until just now.”
“I had not been married a week before I saw that she expected I would make inquiries into the state of her finances, but I would not. At last, finding that I would not enter into the business, she did, and told me that she had 17,000 pounds Consols laid by, and that the business was worth 1,000 pounds per annum (you may fish at Cheltenham a long while, O’Donahue, before you get such a haul as that). So I told her I was very glad she was well off, and then I pretended to go fast asleep, as I never interfered with her, and never asked for money. At last she didn’t like it, and offered it to me; but I told her I had enough, and did not want it; since which she has been quite annoyed at my not spending money; and when I told her this morning that there was a brother officer of mine arrived in town, to whom I had owed some money for a long while, she insisted upon my taking money to pay it, put a pile of bank-notes in my had, and was quite mortified when she found I only wanted 20 pounds. Now you see, O’Donahue, I have done this from principle. She earns the money, and therefore she shall have the control of it as long as we are good friends; and upon my honour, I really think I love her better than I ever thought I could love any woman in the world for she has the temper, the kindness, and the charity of an angel, although not precisely the figure; but one can’t have everything in this world; and so now you have the whole of my story, and what do you think of it?”
“You must present me to your wife, McShane.”
“That I will with pleasure. She’s like her rounds of beef—it’s cut and come again; but her heart is a beauty, and so is her beefsteak-pie—when you taste it.”
Chapter Eleven
“And now, O’Donahue,” said McShane, “if you are not yet tired of my company, I should like to hear what you have been doing since we parted: be quite as explicit, but not quite so long-winded, as myself; for I fear that I tired you.”
“I will be quite as explicit, my good fellow; but I have no such marvellous adventures to relate, and not such a fortunate wind up. I have been to Bath, to Cheltenham, to Harrogate, to Brighton, and everywhere else where people meet, and people are met with, who would not meet or be met with elsewhere. I have seen many nice girls; but the nice girls were, like myself, almost penniless; and I have seen many ill-favoured, who had money: the first I could only afford to look at—the latter I have had some dealings with. I have been refused by one or two, and I might have married seven or eight; but, somehow or other, when it came near the point, the vision of a certain angel, now in heaven, has risen before me, and I have not had the heart or the heartlessness to proceed. Indeed, I may safely say that I have seen but one person since we parted who ever made the least impression on me, or whom I could fancy in any degree to replace her whom I have lost, and she, I fear, is lost also; so we may as well say no more about it. I have determined to marry for money, as you well know; but it appears to me as if there was something which invariably prevents the step being taken; and, upon my honour, fortune seems so inclined to balk me in my wishes, that I begin to snap my fingers at her, and am becoming quite indifferent. I suffer now under the evil of poverty; but it is impossible to say what other evils may be in store if I were to change my condition, as the ladies say. Come what will, in one thing I am determined—that if I marry a girl for money, I will treat her well, and not let her find it out; and as that may add to the difficulty of a man’s position when he is not in love with his wife, why, all I can say is, Captain O’Donahue doesn’t go cheap—that’s decided.”
“You’re right, my jewel; there’s not such a broth of a boy to be picked up every day in the week. Widows might bid for you, for without flattery, I think you a moral of a man, and an honour to Old Ireland. But O’Donahue, begging your pardon, if it’s not a secret, who may have been this lady who appears to have bothered your brains not a little, since she could you forget somebody else?”
“I met her at the Lakes of Cumberland, and being acquainted with some of the party, was invited to join them. I was ten days in her company at Windermere, Ambleside, Derwentwater, and other places. She was a foreigner, and titled.”
“Murder and Irish! you don’t say so?”
“Yes; and moreover, as I was informed by those who were with her, has large property in Poland. She was, in fact, everything that I could desire—handsome, witty, speaking English and several other languages, and about two or three and twenty years old.”
“And her name, if it’s no offence to ask it?”
“Princess Czartorinski.”
“And a princess in the bargain? And did you really pretend to make love to a princess?”
“Am not I an Irishman, McShane? and is a princess anything but a woman, after all? By the powers! I’d make love to, and run away with, the Pope himself; if he were made of the same materials as Pope Joan is said to have been.”
“Then, upon my faith, O’Donahue, I believe you—so now go on.”
“I not only made love to her, but in making love to her, I got most terribly singed myself; and I felt, before I quitted her, that if I had ten thousand a-year, and she was as poor as my dear Judith was, that she should have taken her place—that’s the truth. I thought that I never could love again, and that my heart was as flinty as a pawnbroker’s; but I found out my mistake when it was too late.”
“And did she return you the compliment?”
