But the trumpet of war was soon ringing in our ears; and on the battle-field Gahagan is a man! The Bundelcund Invincibles received orders to march, and Jowler, Hector-like, donned his helmet and prepared to part from his Andromache. And now arose his perplexity: what must be done with his daughter, his Julia? He knew his wife’s peculiarities of living, and did not much care to trust his daughter to her keeping; but in vain he tried to find her an asylum among the respectable ladies of his regiment. Lady Gutch offered to receive her, but would have nothing to do with Mrs. Jowler; the surgeon’s wife, Mrs. Sawbone, would have neither mother nor daughter: there was no help for it, Julia and her mother must have a house together, and Jowler knew that his wife would fill it with her odious blackamoor friends.
I could not, however, go forth satisfied to the campaign until I learned from Julia my fate. I watched twenty opportunities to see her alone, and wandered about the Colonel’s bungalow as an informer does about a public-house, marking the incomings and the outgoings of the family, and longing to seize the moment when Miss Jowler, unbiassed by her mother or her papa, might listen, perhaps, to my eloquence, and melt at the tale of my love.
But it would not do—old Jowler seemed to have taken all of a sudden to such a fit of domesticity, that there was no finding him out of doors, and his rhubarb-coloured wife (I believe that her skin gave the first idea of our regimental breeches), who before had been gadding ceaselessly abroad, and poking her broad nose into every ménage in the cantonment, stopped faithfully at home with her spouse. My only chance was to beard the old couple in their den, and ask them at once for their cub.
So I called one day at tiffin:- old Jowler was always happy to have my company at this meal; it amused him, he said, to see me drink Hodgson’s pale ale (I drank two hundred and thirty-four dozen the first year I was in Bengal)—and it was no small piece of fun, certainly, to see old Mrs. Jowler attack the currie-bhaut;—she was exactly the colour of it, as I have had already the honour to remark, and she swallowed the mixture with a gusto which was never equalled, except by my poor friend Dando à propos d’huîtres. She consumed the first three platefuls with a fork and spoon, like a Christian; but as she warmed to her work, the old hag would throw away her silver implements, and dragging the dishes towards her, go to work with her hands, flip the rice into her mouth with her fingers, and stow away a quantity of eatables sufficient for a sepoy company. But why do I diverge from the main point of my story?
Julia, then, Jowler, and Mrs. J., were at luncheon; the dear girl was in the act to sabler a glass of Hodgson as I entered. “How do you do, Mr. Gagin?” said the old hag, leeringly. “Eat a bit o’ currie-bhaut,”—and she thrust the dish towards me, securing a heap as it passed. “What! Gagy my boy, how do, how do?” said the fat Colonel. “What! run through the body?—got well again—have some Hodgson—run through your body too!”—and at this, I may say, coarse joke (alluding to the fact that in these hot climates the ale oozes out as it were from the pores of the skin) old Jowler laughed: a host of swarthy chobdars, kitmatgars, sices, consomahs, and bobbychies laughed too, as they provided me, unasked, with the grateful fluid. Swallowing six tumblers of it, I paused nervously for a moment, and then said -
“Bobbachy, consomah, ballybaloo hoga.”
The black ruffians took the hint, and retired.
“Colonel and Mrs. Jowler,” said I solemnly, “we are alone; and you, Miss Jowler, you are alone too; that is—I mean—I take this opportunity to—(another glass of ale, if you please)—to express, once for all, before departing on a dangerous campaign”—(Julia turned pale)—“before entering, I say, upon a war which may stretch in the dust my high-raised hopes and me, to express my hopes while life still remains to me, and to declare in the face of heaven, earth, and Colonel Jowler, that I love you, Julia!” The Colonel, astonished, let fall a steel fork, which stuck quivering for some minutes in the calf of my leg; but I heeded not the paltry interruption. “Yes, by yon bright heaven,” continued I, “I love you, Julia! I respect my commander, I esteem your excellent and beauteous mother: tell me, before I leave you, if I may hope for a return of my affection. Say that you love me, and I will do such deeds in this coming war, as shall make you proud of the name of your Gahagan.”
The old woman, as I delivered these touching words, stared, snapped, and ground her teeth, like an enraged monkey. Julia was now red, now white; the Colonel stretched forward, took the fork out of the calf of my leg, wiped it, and then seized a bundle of letters which I had remarked by his side.
“A cornet!” said he, in a voice choking with emotion; “a pitiful beggarly Irish cornet aspire to the hand of Julia Jowler! Gag— Gahagan, are you mad, or laughing at us? Look at these letters, young man—at these letters, I say—one hundred and twenty-four epistles from every part of India (not including one from the Governor-General, and six from his brother, Colonel Wellesley)—one hundred and twenty-four proposals for the hand of Miss Jowler! Cornet Gahagan,” he continued, “I wish to think well of you: you are the bravest, the most modest, and, perhaps, the handsomest man in our corps; but you have not got a single rupee. You ask me for Julia, and you do not possess even an anna!”—(Here the old rogue grinned, as if he had made a capital pun.)—“No, no,” said he, waxing good-natured; “Gagy my boy, it is nonsense! Julia love, retire with your mamma; this silly young gentleman will remain and smoke a pipe with me.”