I had a mouthful of mother's Christmas dumpling in my throat at that moment, and it well-nigh choked me.
The mistletoe hung over our heads; but I never claimed the playful privilege it accorded. Was there not some terrible change, when I dared not—or scorned—to kiss Bessie, even in jest? Others' kisses had been upon her lips, and so they had no longer a charm for me!
Day and night dread and doubt haunted me, while hope, with her hundred shapes and many hues, returned no more. Brooding, silent, and melancholy thoughts seemed to consume me; yet the time passed slowly and heavily, for Bessie's falsehood and fickleness formed the first recollection in the morning, the last at night, and the source of many a tantalizing dream between. All the ebbs and flows of feeling or emotion which torment the lover I endured. My sufferings were very great; and from being as jolly, hardy, and expert a gunner as ever levelled a Lancaster or an Armstrong, I was becoming a very noodle—a moonstruck creature—"a thoroughbred donkey," as Tom Inches would have called me—and all for the love of Bessie Leybourne.
Short though my time at home would be, Bessie could give me but little of her society. My jealousy would no longer be concealed, and that she had secret meetings with our squire I could no more doubt. Then came tears, upbraidings, and bitterness, with promises that she would meet him no more; and in the strongest language I could command, I told her of the perils she ran, of the desperate character of Valentine Raikes, of his mad orgies and debaucheries, of the gambling, drinking, singing, swearing, and whooping that accompanied the suppers he and Hooknose had almost every night in a lonely lodge of the rectory grounds.
"Oh, Bob, don't bother," she would say, imploringly, through her smiles and tears. "It is terrible to be told constantly that one must marry one particular young man."
"Meaning, Bessie, that mother reminds you of being engaged to me?"
"Well, yes."
"You are fickle, Bessie."
"My poor Bob, you are not rich, neither am I."
"Hence your fickleness; but, oh, Bessie, don't think I want to make a soldier's wife of you. I hope for better days, and to settle down at home. Oh, Bessie, my own Bessie, listen to me, and hear me."