BOB BURKE’S DUEL WITH ENSIGN BRADY.
BY THE LATE WILLIAM MAGINN, LL.D.
[MAGA. May 1834.]
CHAPTER I.
HOW BOB WAS IN LOVE WITH MISS THEODOSIA MACNAMARA.
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When the 48th were quartered in Mallow, I was there on a visit to one of the Purcells, who abound in that part of the world, and, being some sixteen or seventeen years younger than I am now, thought I might as well fall in love with Miss Theodosia Macnamara. She was a fine grown girl, full of flesh and blood, rose five foot nine at least when shod, had many excellent points, and stepped out slappingly upon her pasterns. She was somewhat of a roarer, it must be admitted, for you could hear her from one end of the Walk to the other; and I am told, that as she has grown somewhat aged, she shows symptoms of vice, but I knew nothing of the latter, and did not mind the former, because I never had a fancy for your mimini-pimini young ladies, with their mouths squeezed into the shape and dimensions of a needle’s eye. I always suspect such damsels as having a very portentous design against mankind in general.
“She was at Mallow for the sake of the Spa, it being understood that she was consumptive—though I’ll answer for it, her lungs were not touched; and I never saw any signs of consumption about her, except at meal times, when her consumption was undoubtedly great. However, her mother, a very nice middle-aged woman—she was of the O’Regans of the West, and a perfect lady in her manners, with a very remarkable red nose, which she attributed to a cold which had settled in that part, and which cold she was always endeavouring to cure with various balsamic preparations taken inwardly,—maintained that her poor chicken, as she called her, was very delicate, and required the air and water of Mallow to cure her. Theodosia (she was so named after some of the Limerick family), or, as we generally called her, Dosy, was rather of a sanguine complexion, with hair that might be styled auburn, but which usually received another name. Her nose was turned up, as they say was that of Cleopatra; and her mouth, which was never idle, being always employed in eating, drinking, shouting, or laughing, was of considerable dimensions. Her eyes were piercers, with a slight tendency to a cast; and her complexion was equal to a footman’s plush breeches, or the first tinge of the bloom of morning bursting through a summer-cloud, or what else verse-making men are fond of saying. I remember a young man who was in love with her writing a song about her, in which there was one or other of the similes above mentioned, I forget which. The verses were said to be very clever, as no doubt they were; but I do not recollect them, never being able to remember poetry. Dosy’s mother used to say that it was a hectic flush—if so, it was a very permanent flush, for it never left her cheeks for a moment, and had it not belonged to a young lady in a galloping consumption, would have done honour to a dairymaid.