er I cannot repeat; no epithet ever stood
by itself. When I was young the boys relished these dreadful words
because they seemed to smell of tar 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