and battle-smoke, when every English
boy was for being a sailor and daring the Black Gentleman below. In
all truth, the bad words came from him; though an excellent scholar has
assured me they should be taken for aspirates, and mean no harm; and so
it may be, but heartily do I rejoice that aspirates, have been dropped
by people of birth; for you might once hear titled ladies guilty of them
in polite society, I do assure you.

We have greatly improved in that respect. They say the admiral's
reputation as a British sailor of the old school made him, rather his
name, a great favourite at Court; but to Court he could not be got to
go, and if the tale be true, their Majesties paid him a visit on board
his ship, in harbour one day, and sailors tell you that Old Showery gave
his liege lord and lady a common dish of boiled beef with carrots and
turnips, and a plain dumpling, for their dinner, with ale and port wine,
the merit of which he swore to; and he became so elate, that after the
cloth was removed, he danced them a hornpipe on his pair of wooden legs,
whistling his tune, and holding his full tumbler of hot grog in his hand
all the while, without so much as the spilling of a drop!--so earnest
was he in everything he did. They say his limit was two bottles of port
wine at a sitting, with his glass of hot grog to follow, and not a soul
could induce him to go beyond that. In addition to being a great seaman,
he was a very religious man and a stout churchman.

Well, now, the Curtis Fakenham of Captain Kirby's day had a good deal
of his uncle as well as his father in him, the spirit of one and the
outside, of the other; and, favoured or not, he had been distinguished
among Countess Fanny's adorers: she certainly chose to be silent about
the name of the assailant. And it has been attested on oath that two
days and a night subsequent to the date furnished by Charles Dump,
Curtis Fakenham was brought to his house, Hollis Grange, lame of a leg,
with a shot in his breast, that he carried to the family vault; and his
head gamekeeper, John Wiltshire, a resolute fellow, was missing from
that hour. Some said they had a quarrel, and Curtis was wounded and John
Wiltshire killed. Curtis was known to have been extremely attached to
the man. Yet when Wiltshire was inquired for, he let fall a word of
'having more of Wiltshire than was agreeable to Hampshire'--his county.
People asked what that meant. Yet, according to the tale, it was
the su