And, with good heed, the moral a-read, Which is of this tale the pith, If your corn you sell to the fiend of hell, You may sell yourself therewith.
And if by mishap you fall in the trap,— Would you bring the fiend to shame, Lest the tempting prize should dazzle her eyes, Lock up your frugal dame.
TERENCE O'SHAUGHNESSY'S FIRST ATTEMPT
TO GET MARRIED.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF WATERLOO."
Yes—here I am, Terence O'Shaughnessy, an honest major of foot, five feet eleven and a half, and forty-one, if I only live till Michaelmas. Kicked upon the world before the down had blackened on my chin, Fortune and I have been wrestling from the cradle;—and yet I had little to tempt the jade's malevolence. The youngest son of an excellent gentleman, who, with an ill-paid rental of twelve hundred pounds, kept his wife in Bath, and his hounds in Tipperary, my patrimony would have scarcely purchased tools for a highwayman, when in my tenth year my father's sister sent for me to Roundwood; for, hearing that I was regularly going to the devil, she had determined to redeem me, if she could.
My aunt Honor was the widow of a captain of dragoons, who got his quietus in the Low Countries some years before I saw the light. His relict had, in compliment to the memory of her departed lord, eschewed matrimony, and, like a Christian woman, devoted her few and evil days to cards and religion. She was a true specimen of an Irish dowager. Her means were small, her temper short. She was stiff as a ramrod, and proud as a field-marshal. To her, my education and future settlement in life were entirely confided, as one brief month deprived me of both parents. My mother died in a state of insolvency, greatly regretted by every body in Bath to whom she was indebted; and before her disconsolate husband had time to overlook a moiety of the card claims transmitted for his liquidation, he broke his neck in attempting to leap the pound-wall of Oranmore, for a bet of a rump and dozen. Of course he was waked, and buried like a gentleman,—every thing sold off by the creditors—my brothers sent to school—and I left to the tender mercy and sole management of the widow of Captain O'Finn.
My aunt's guardianship continued seven years, and at the expiration of that time I was weary of her thrall, and she tired of my tutelage. I was now at an age when some walk of life must be selected and pursued. For any honest avocation I had, as it was universally admitted, neither abilities nor inclination. What was to be done? and how was I to be disposed of? A short deliberation showed that there was but one path for me to follow, and I was handed over to that refugium peccatorum, the army, and placed as a volunteer in a regiment just raised, with a promise from the colonel that I should be promoted to the first ensigncy that became vacant.
Great was our mutual joy when Mrs. O'Finn and I were about to part company. I took an affectionate leave of all my kindred and acquaintances, and even, in the fulness of my heart, shook hands with the schoolmaster, though in boyhood I had devoted him to the infernal gods for his wanton barbarity. But my tenderest parting was reserved for my next-door neighbour, the belle among the village beauties, and presumptive heiress to the virtues and estates of Quartermaster MacGawly.