“Well! if yiz will have the story, I suppose I must tell it:—Maria de Carmo, you see, is a Portuguese name, as you Redmond, and you Tom Pattherson knows well: for it's often you saw the self-same young girl I'm going to tell about; and as purty a crature she was as ever stept in shoe leather,—a beautiful and as sweet a young blossom as the sun ever shone upon, with her black curls, and her white teeth, set just like little rows of harpsichord kays; and her eyes, and her lips, and her ancles! O! she bet all the girls I ever saw in either Spain or Portugal; that you may depend upon. Well, Harry Gainer was her sweetheart; poor fellow! he was my comrade for many a long day. You knew him well, Sargeant.”
“I listed the lad mysel at Waterford, aboot this time ten years, as near as poossible; an' a gay callant he was,” said M'Fadgen; and then with an important sigh resumed his pipe.
“Well, Harry and I went out with the rigiment from Cork to Lisbon in 1810, and it was in March; for we spent our Patrick's Day aboord, and drowned our shamrock in a canteen of ration rum, just as we were laving sight o' Ireland: and we gave the counthry three cheers on the forecastle—the whole lot of us together, sailors an' all, as the green hills turned blue, an' began to sink away from our sight. We had a fine passage, an' landed at a place called the Black Horse Square, in Lisbon, afther only six days' sailing, as hot and as fine a day, although in March, as one of our July days here. Well—to make a long story short, we made no delay, but, according to ordthers, were embarked aboord the boats, and sailed up the Tagus to Villa Franca (as pretty a river as ever I sailed in), and then the rigiment marched on to Abrantes, where we halted: it was in this town that Harry first met with Maria de Carmo. Both he and I were quarthered at her father's house, a nice counthry sort of place, what the Portuguese call a Quinta, in the middle of a thick wood of olives, on the side o' the high hill of Abrantes. You could see from the door fifty miles and more, over beautiful blue mountains on one side; an' on the other side, across the Tagus, a fertile, cultivated counthry, with the fine wide river itself, like a looking-glass, wandering away—God knows where. O, it was as purty a spot as any in Ireland, I'm sure, barrin' the town itself; and that was a dirty, narrow hole of a place, on the very top o' the high hill,—yet it was fortified all round, as if it was worth living in. The streets are so narrow that you could shake hands out o' the windows with the opposite neighbours. There's a bit of a square, to be sure, or Praça, as they call it, but that's not worth mentioning. The fact is, I often thought that the town of Abrantes was like a big dunghill in the middle o' Paradise.
“We halted here about a month, during which time Gainer was always looking afther this young girl; and faith! he hadn't much throuble to find her any day, for she was just as fond of looking afther him. I often met them both sthrolling up along the side o' the river, like two turtle doves, billing and cooing, and I could ha' tould how the matther would have gone, in two days afther we arrived; for, 'pon my sowl I don't know how it is, but when a young couple meets, that's made for one another, there is such an atthraction, an' such a snaking toward this way an' that way, that they are always elbowing and jostling, 'till they fall into each other's arms.
“Poor Harry was a warm-hearted sowl as ever was born, and as honourable, too. He came to me the night before we marched from Abrantes for Elvas, and says he to me (we were just outside the town, taking a bit of a walk in an orange garden), says he, ‘Tom,’ an' the poor fellow sighed enough to brake his heart; ‘Tom,’ says he, ‘I don't know what to do with that girl; the rigiment marches to-morrow, and God knows will I ever see her again. She wants to come with me, unknown to her parents.’ ‘An' will you take her?’ says I.—‘Take her, Tom,’ says he; ‘is it an' she, the only child of the good-natured ould man that behaved so well to us? The Lord forbid! I'd sooner jump off this hill into the river than I'd lade a sweet and innocent young girl asthray, to brake the heart o' her father.’
“Och, I knew well, before I mintioned it, that Harry's heart was in the right place.—‘Well,’ says I, ‘you must only lave her, poor thing; it's betther nor take her with you. But what does her father say?’ ‘O,’ says Harry, ‘the poor man would be willing enough to let her marry me if I was settled; but although he likes me so much, he knows well that this is no time for marriages with soldiers.’ ‘Well, then, Harry,’ says I, ‘there's no manner o' use in talking; you must only give her a lock o' your hair and a parting kiss,—then God speed you both.’
“With that we went back to our quarthers, an' took share of a canteen o' wine; but although Harry drank, I saw it was more for the dthrowning of his throubles, and the sake of conversation about Maria, than for any liking he had to licker. But faith! I'm sure, although I'm no great hand at it myself, I think a glass on such an occasion as that, when the heart o' the poor fellow was so full, an' my own not very empty, an' when we were going to march from the town we spent some pleasant hours in, was a thing that if a man could not enjoy, he ought to be thrown behind the fire, as a dthry chip.
“We were just finishing the last glass, when the ould man, our Patroa, Signior Jozé, came to say that we must ate a bit o' supper with him, as it was our last night in the place; and although I didn't undtherstand much o' the language, yet he explained himself well enough to make us know that he was in the right earnest o' good-nature. We had no more wine to offer him, at which he smiled, and pointed to the parlour below,—‘La esta bastante,’ says he; which manes there's enough below stairs, my boys. We went down to supper, which was a couple of Galinias boas, or in plain English, roast fowls,—an' soup: with oranges of the best quality, just plucked out of the ould man's garden. Maria was with us, an' I don't think I ever passed a pleasanter night. God knows whether it was so with Harry an' his sweetheart or not; I believe it was a sort o' mixture. They were both not much in the talking way, an' Maria looked as if she had a hearty male o' crying before she sat down to supper. However, I kept up the conversation with Jozé, though I was obliged to get Harry to interpret for me often enough, as he was a far betther hand at the Portuguese than I was, from always discoursing with Maria—faith! in larning any language there's nothing like a walking dictionary;—that is to say, a bit of a sweetheart.
“Signior Jozé gave us a terrible account o' the French when they came to Abrantes first; an' all he feared was, that ever they should be able to make their way there again. He hoped he would never see the day, on account of his dear Maria, for they nather spared age nor sex in the unfortunate counthry.
“‘They call themselves Christians,’ says he, ‘and the English infidels; but actions, afther all, are the best things to judge by: the sign o' the cross never kept a devil away yet; if so, there should not have been such a Legion of them here along with the French, for we had crosses enough.’