upiers. If anything
could have saved me from the consequences of villainy in others, and
(I confess it, for I am not above owning to my faults) my own too easy,
generous, and careless nature, it would have been the admirable prudence
of that worthy creature. She never went to bed until all the house was
quiet and all the candles out; and you may fancy that this was a matter
of some difficulty with a man of my habits, who had commonly a dozen of
jovial fellows (artful scoundrels and false friends most of them were!)
to drink with me every night, and who seldom, for my part, went to bed
sober. Many and many a night, when I was unconscious of her attention,
has that good soul pulled my boots off, and seen me laid by my servants
snug in bed, and carried off the candle herself; and been the first
in the morning, too, to bring me my drink of small-beer. Mine were no
milksop times, I can tell you. A gentleman thought no shame of taking
his half-dozen bottles; and, as for your coffee and slops, they were
left to Lady Lyndon, her doctor, and the other old women. It was my
mother's pride that I could drink more than any man in the country,--as
much, within a pint, as my father before me, she said.

That Lady Lyndon should detest her was quite natural. She is not the
first of woman or mankind either that has hated a mother-in-law. I set
my mother to keep a sharp watch over the freaks of her Ladyship; and
this, you may be sure, was one of the reasons why the latter disliked
her. I never minded that, however. Mrs. Barry's assistance and
surveillance were invaluable to me; and, if I had paid twenty spies
to watch my Lady, I should not have been half so well served as by the
disinterested care and watchfulness of my excellent mother. She slept
with the house-keys under her pillow, and had an eye everywhere. She
followed all the Countess's movements like a shadow; she managed to
know, from morning to night, everything that my Lady did. If she walked
in the garden, a watchful eye was kept on the wicket; and if she chose
to drive out, Mrs. Barry accompanied her, and a couple of fellows in my
liveries rode alongside of the carriage to see that she came to no harm.
Though she objected, and would have kept her room in sullen silence,
I made a point that we should appear together at church in the
coach-and-six every Sunday; and that she should attend the race-balls
in my company, whenever the coast was clear of the rascally bailiffs who
bese