s be on the top of a coach, which
was his throne of happiness.

Plenty of stories are current still of his fame as a four-in-hand
coachman. They say he once drove an Emperor and a King, a Prince
Chancellor and a pair of Field Marshals, and some ladies of the day,
from the metropolis to Richmond Hill in fifty or sixty odd minutes,
having the ground cleared all the way by bell and summons, and only a
donkey-cart and man, and a deaf old woman, to pay for; and went, as you
can imagine, at such a tearing gallop, that those Grand Highnesses had
to hold on for their lives and lost their hats along the road; and a
publican at Kew exhibits one above his bar to the present hour. And
Countess Fanny was up among them, they say. She was equal to it. And
some say, that was the occasion of her meeting the Old Buccaneer.

She met him at Richmond in Surrey we know for certain. It was on
Richmond Hill, where the old King met his Lass. They say Countess Fanny
was parading the hill to behold the splendid view, always admired so
much by foreigners, with their Achs and Hechs! and surrounded by her
crowned courtiers in frogged uniforms and moustachioed like sea-horses,
a little before dinner time, when Kirby passed her, and the Emperor made
a remark on him, for Kirby was a magnificent figure of a man, and used
to be compared to a three-decker entering harbour after a victory. He
stood six feet four, and was broad-shouldered and deep-chested to match,
and walked like a king who has humbled his enemy. You have seen big
dogs. And so Countess Fanny looked round. Kirby was doing the same.
But he had turned right about, and appeared transfixed and like a royal
beast angry, with his wound. If ever there was love at first sight,
and a dreadful love, like a runaway mail-coach in a storm of wind and
lightning at black midnight by the banks of a flooded river, which was
formerly our comparison for terrible situations, it was when those two
met.

And, what! you exclaim, Buccaneer Kirby full sixty-five, and Countess
Fanny no more than three and twenty, a young beauty of the world of
fashion, courted by the highest, and she in love with him! Go and gaze
at one of our big ships coming out of an engagement home with all her
flags flying and her crew manning the yards. That will give you an idea
of a young woman's feelings for an old warrior never beaten down an inch
by anything he had to endure; matching him, I dare say, in her woman's
heart, with the Mig