They started at once with four posters for the North, intending to cross over to Scotland. My engagements induced me to leave town for Cork, and in less than a fortnight I found at my club a letter from Blunden, enclosing the fifty pounds, with a thousand thanks for my prompt kindness, and innumerable affectionate reminiscences from Madame. They were as happy as—confound it, every one is happy for a week or a fortnight; so I crushed the letter, pitched it into the fire, was rather pleased with myself for what I had done, and thought no more of the whole transaction.
Here then my tale should have an end, and the moral is obvious. Indeed, I am not certain but some may prefer it to that which the succeeding portion conveys, thinking that the codicil revokes the body of the testament. However that may be, here goes for it.
It was about a year after this adventure that I made one of a party of six travelling up to London by the “Grand Junction.” The company were chatty, pleasant folk, and the conversation, as often happens among utter strangers, became anecdotic; many good stories were told in turn, and many pleasant comments made on them, when at length it occurred to me to mention the somewhat singular rencontre I have already narrated as having happened to myself.
“Strange enough,” said I, “the last time I journeyed along this line, nearly this time last year, a very remarkable occurrence took place. I happened to fall in with a young officer of the Buffs, eloping with an exceedingly pretty girl; she had a large fortune, and was in every respect a great ‘catch;’ he ran away with her from an evening party, and never remembered, until he arrived at Liverpool, that he had no money for the journey. In this dilemma, the young fellow, rather spooney about the whole thing, I think would have gone quietly back by the next train, but, by Jove, I could n’t satisfy my conscience that so lovely a girl should be treated in such a manner. I rallied his courage; took him over to Ireland in the packet, and got them married the next morning.”
“Have I caught you at last, you old, meddling scoundrel!” cried a voice, hoarse and discordant with passion, from the opposite side; and at the same instant a short, thickset old man, with shoulders like a Hercules, sprung at me. With one hand he clutched me by the throat, and with the other he pummelled my head against the panel of the conveyance, and with such violence that many people in the next carriage averred that they thought we had run into the down train. So sudden was the old wretch’s attack, and so infuriate withal, it took the united force of the other passengers to detach him from my neck; and even then, as they drew him off, he kicked at me like a demon. Never has it been my lot to witness such an outbreak of wrath; and, indeed, were I to judge from the symptoms it occasioned, the old fellow had better not repeat it, or assuredly apoplexy would follow.
“That villain,—that old ruffian,” said he, glaring at me with flashing eyeballs, while he menaced me with his closed fist,—“that cursed, meddling scoundrel is the cause of the greatest calamity of my life.”
“Are you her father, then?” articulated I, faintly, for a misgiving came over me that my boasted benevolence might prove a mistake. “Are you her father?” The words were not out, when he dashed at me once more, and were it not for the watchfulness of the others, inevitably had finished me.
“I’ve heard of you, my old buck,” said I, affecting a degree of ease and security my heart sadly belied. “I ‘ve heard of your dreadful temper already,—I know you can’t control yourself. I know all about the waiter at Maidstone. By Jove, they did not wrong you; and I am not surprised at your poor daughter leaving you—” But he would not suffer me to conclude; and once more his wrath boiled over, and all the efforts of the others were barely sufficient to calm him into a semblance of reason.
There would be an end to my narrative if I endeavored to convey to my reader the scene which followed, or recount the various outbreaks of passion which ever and anon interrupted the old man, and induced him to diverge into sundry little by-ways of lamentation over his misfortune, and curses upon my meddling interference. Indeed his whole narrative was conducted more in the staccato style of an Italian opera father than in the homely wrath of an English parent; the wind-up of these dissertations being always to the one purpose, as with a look of scowling passion directed towards me, he said, “Only wait till we reach the station, and see if I won’t do for you.”
His tale, in few words, amounted to this. He was the Squire Blunden,—the father of the lieutenant in the “Buffs.” The youth had formed an attachment to a lady whom he had accidentally met in a Margate steamer. The circumstances of her family and fortune were communicated to him in confidence by herself; and although she expressed her conviction of the utter impossibility of obtaining her father’s consent to an untitled match, she as resolutely refused to elope with him. The result, however, was as we have seen; she did elope,—was married,—they made a wedding tour in the Highlands, and returned to Blunden Hall two months after, where the old gentleman welcomed them with affection and forgiveness. About a fortnight after their return, it was deemed necessary to make inquiry as to the circumstances of her estate and funded property, when the young lady fell upon her knees, wept bitterly, said she had not a sixpence,—that the whole thing was a “ruse;” that she had paid five pounds for a choleric father, three ten for an aunt warranted to wear “satin;” in fact, that she had been twice married before, and had heavy misgivings that the husbands were still living.