第90章

But he drank a prodigious quantity of wine; and I must say that my friend Mr.Hart's port wine is so good that I myself took--well, Ishould think, I took three glasses.Yes, three, certainly.HE--Imean Mr.P.--the old rogue, was insatiable: for we had to call for a second bottle in no time.When that was gone, my companion wanted another.A little red mounted up to his yellow cheeks as he drank the wine, and he winked at it in a strange manner."Iremember," said he, musing, "when port wine was scarcely drunk in this country--though the Queen liked it, and so did Hurley; but Bolingbroke didn't--he drank Florence and Champagne.Dr.Swift put water to his wine.'Jonathan,' I once said to him--but bah! autres temps, autres moeurs.Another magnum, James."This was all very well."My good sir," I said, "it may suit YOU to order bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a bottle; but that kind of price does not suit me.I only happen to have thirty-four and sixpence in my pocket, of which I want a shilling for the waiter, and eighteen pence for my cab.You rich foreigners and SWELLS may spend what you like" (I had him there: for my friend's dress was as shabby as an old-clothes man's); "but a man with a family, Mr.

Whatd'you-call'im, cannot afford to spend seven or eight hundred a year on his dinner alone.""Bah!" he said."Nunkey pays for all, as you say.I will what you call stant the dinner, if you are SO POOR!" and again he gave that disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crook-nailed and by no means clean finger to his nose.But I was not so afraid of him now, for we were in a public place; and the three glasses of port wine had, you see, given me courage.

"What a pretty snuff-box!" he remarked, as I handed him mine, which I am still old-fashioned enough to carry.It is a pretty old gold box enough, but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom I can just remember as a child, when she was very kind to me."Yes; a pretty box.I can remember when many ladies--most ladies, carried a box--nay, two boxes--tabatiere and bonbonniere.What lady carries snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you a prise? Ican remember a lady with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world!--ah! that was a time, that was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee then? Do I not see thee still?"This was passing strange.My ancestress--but there is no need to publish her revered name--did indeed live at Bungay St.Mary's, where she lies buried.She used to walk with a tortoise-shell cane.She used to wear little black velvet shoes, with the prettiest high heels in the world.

"Did you--did you--know, then, my great-gr-nd-m-ther?" I said.

He pulled up his coat sleeve--"Is that her name?" he said.

"Eliza--"

There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature written in red on his arm.

"YOU knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange knack); "I knew her young and lovely.I danced with her at the Bury ball.Did I not, dear, dear Miss ----?"As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's MAIDEN name.Her maiden name was ----.Her honored married name was ----.

"She married your great-gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won the Newmarket Plate," Mr.Pinto dryly remarked.

Merciful powers! I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very horse.My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair flowing over his shoulders, was over the mantelpiece, and Poseidon won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783!

"Yes; you are right.I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg.And I quarreled with your grandf--, ha!"As he said "Ha!" there came three quiet little taps on the table--it is the middle table in the "Gray's-Inn CoffeeHouse," under the bust of the late Duke of W-ll-ngt-n.

"I fired in the air," he continued; "did I not?" (Tap, tap, tap.)"Your grandfather hit me in the leg.He married three months afterwards.'Captain Brown,' I said 'who could see Miss Sm-th without loving her?' She is there! She is there!" (Tap, tap, tap.) "Yes, my first love--"But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows means "No.""I forgot," he said, with a faint blush stealing over his wan features, "she was not my first love.In Germ--in my own country--there WAS a young woman--"

Tap, tap, tap.There was here quite a lively little treble knock;and when the old man said, "But I loved thee better than all the world, Eliza," the affirmative signal was briskly repeated.

And this I declare UPON MY HONOR.There was, I have said, a bottle of port wine before us--I should say a decanter.That decanter was LIFTED UP, and out of it into our respective glasses two bumpers of wine were poured.I appeal to Mr.Hart, the landlord--I appeal to James, the respectful and intelligent waiter, if this statement is not true? And when we had finished that magnum, and I said--for Idid not now in the least doubt her presence--"Dear gr-nny, may we have another magnum?" the table DISTINCTLY rapped "No.".