Observing Vessel: Observations, thoughts and general incoherent ramblings of a nutter.

Due to character limitations in the above fields, the rules listed here are only a guideline. The full rules can be found in our wiki. BadHistory Books and Resources list. In order to debunk something it should be somewhat close enough to the truth that you could understand where the mistake is. How would you debunk 'Pearl Harbor is a fish in Argentina'? With this I don't even get what this is about.

Who even is the "israeli funded" leader? A fish in Argentina?

GLORY, GLORY, ALLELLUIAH…

In cases like this, I find the phrase "you're not even wrong" applies. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. I mean you don't really have to go past the first line "Israeli funded leader", because you know Not to defend pedants and idiots but there were people actively trying to create an Israeli state. So I guess there could be a theoretical Israeli funded politician before Israel itself was an official entity.

Not that it makes this idiot correct. That would be the technical term for them, yes. However the term Zionist has taken on so much additional meaning since then and been so strongly associated with specific political and religious movements that outside of including a lot of preamble its almost misleading in its original context.

Just mentioning the word Zionist without any a lengthy intro would bring out the worst in everybody wrt follow on comments.

Maybe not here, but damn near anywhere else on Reddit. Israel is a really, really old word and concept so it is totally possible, and makes sense that it was used by people trying to create an jewish state. Sitting around getting paid in many cases huge piles of money to write, speak and debate.

Yeah I get what you're saying, but it just stood out to me because he repeatedly get's something wrong that is so basic. It just screams ignorance, on top of all the antisemitism and neo-nazi make believe. The idea that Hindenburg was Jewish backed is pretty laughable considering Hindenburg was a right-wing autocrat, just not a Fascist.

Also Hindenburg didn't give Hitler full control, Hitler seized power from Hindenburg once he died in office. There was a boycott of Germany organized by some Jewish groups in , but it certainly didn't cause "mass starvation" and was indeed protested by some Jews inside Germany. The Nazis did attempt a boycott of Jewish goods but it wasn't particularly effective since most Germans ignored it.

No one threatened war with Germany, Germany threatened war with everyone else. Germany sent soldiers and weapons to Fascist Spain. Germany forcibly annexed Austria. Germany then threatened war over the Sudetenland, and in fact Hitler was reportedly angry that the allies conceded to everything he wanted since he wanted to start a war. Germany then invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Finally Germany threatened War over Poland in which they refused to present any demands at all to prevent the allies from conceding them.

Then Germany invaded half a dozen other neutral countries. Hitler was simply not interested in peace, he actively wanted war. In fact the allies were the ones who were too conciliatory to Hitler. Yes, Jews were over-represented in communist circles, but that's kind of what happens when traditional political options don't do anything for you.

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In Russia this can be explained by the history of pogroms and repressions against Jews, which attracted many to left-wing parties, while in Germany, simply because Luxemburg and Liebknecht were Jews does not mean that German workers were not interested by a political alternative. The Soviets were the only ones that were willing to put their foot down in Czechoslovakia, provided Poland allowed them passage, which they did not understandably given recent history at the time.

Now I'm nothing a critic of the USSR, but had France and the UK put down a firmer stance in , it's very unlikely Germany would have been able to achieve its early war successes. In fact France and GB were both outpacing Germany in war production by the time the war began.

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Germany required quick wars because the Nazis had a very unstable economy and the wait diminished their advantage. The whole appeasement policy was based on a combination of them not wanting war, and them thinking Fascism was the lesser evil to socialism. They were as capable as ever in as they were the next year. In fact it's generally thought that appeasement bought time for Germany to rearm. I don't know much about history but didn't Germany lose pretty much all of its arms production capability besides small arms after WWI?

I would have thought that the Germans would be getting stronger over the 30's as they rebuilt their arms industry but maybe they were able to do it really quickly or the restrictions from the Treaty of Versailles weren't as bad as I thought, hell I might be wrong about all of this because I haven't read much on this.

Versailles forbid them machine guns, artillery, tanks, most heavy ships or limited it , and more. However the treaty was dead by 35, and Hitler basically ignored it from the get go. Hell Germany as a whole basically went about it with a fast and loose style, Hitler just gave them even more rope. Part of this was that neither France nor England were particularly interested in fighting Germany again, partly because Hitler doubled the stuff up several places orgininated as transports for private flight, not military , and more. Also Germany military took lots of equipment from its enemies because it didn't have nearly as much as you'd think.

The whole shtick of Germans having lots of vehicles was bogus, horses were still common when they invaded Poland. France had a large amount of mobilization options that way Germans wouldnt be invading the vast USSR via bikes and horses like WW1 again. So wouldn't they have been a lot weaker in than ? If the arms industry had only really restarted a few years ago for the Germans but had been uninterrupted for the Allies I would have thought that the passage of time would only give the Germans more of an advantage.

Can you give a source for Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia? My understanding is that the Soviet Union was woefully unequipped to wage a traditional war in In the chapter about Munich he discusses the Soviet overtures. And certainly, the Red Army in was a bit of a disaster. But we're talking about a war where Germany is literally surrounded by enemies, and Czechoslovakia had some prime defensive terrain.

The Red Army was still a force to be reckoned with, especially since Germany was in a much lower state of preparedness than in , and they did not nearly have as much support from the rest of the Axis. I thought maybe they were referring to von Papen rather than Hindenburg at first fits better with the antisemitic narrative but then realized that's probably too obscure for your run of the mill antisemite That's part of the trick. The royal arms cut in bold relief in the broad stone over the porch — where, pray, is that stone now, the memento of its old viceregal dignity?

The tower, indeed, remains, with half its antique growth of ivy gone; but the body of the church is new, and I, and perhaps an elderly fellow or two more, miss the old-fashioned square pews, distributed by a traditional tenure among the families and dignitaries of the town and vicinage who are they now? As for the barrack of the Royal Irish Artillery, the great gate leading into the parade ground, by the river side, and all that, I believe the earth, or rather that grim giant factory, which is now the grand feature and centre of Chapelizod, throbbing all over with steam, and whizzing with wheels, and vomiting pitchy smoke, has swallowed them up.

A line of houses fronting this — old familiar faces — still look blank and regretfully forth, through their glassy eyes, upon the changed scene. How different the company they kept some ninety or a hundred years ago! Where is the mill, too, standing fast by the bridge, the manorial appendage of the town, which I loved in my boyhood for its gaunt and crazy aspect and dim interior, whence the clapper kept time mysteriously to the drone of the mill-sluice?

I think it is gone. One glance, however, before you go, you will vouchsafe at the village tree — that stalworth elm. It has not grown an inch these hundred years. It does not look a day older than it did fifty years ago, I can tell you. There he stands the same; and yet a stranger in the place of his birth, in a new order of things, joyless, busy, transformed Chapelizod, listening, as it seems to me, always to the unchanged song and prattle of the river, with his reveries and affections far away among by-gone times and a buried race.

Thou hast a story, too, to tell, thou slighted and solitary sage, if only the winds would steal it musically forth, like the secret of Mildas from the moaning reeds. The palmy days of Chapelizod were just about a hundred years ago, and those days — though I am jealous of their pleasant and kindly fame, and specially for the preservation of the few memorials they have left behind, were yet, I may say, in your ear, with all their colour and adventure — perhaps, on the whole, more pleasant to read about, and dream of, than they were to live in.

On the second day of his, or rather my sojourn I take leave to return to the first person , there was a notable funeral of an old lady. Her name was Darby, and her journey to her last home was very considerable, being made in a hearse, by easy stages, from her house of Lisnabane, in the county of Sligo, to the church-yard of Chapelizod. So that my uncle, who was a man of an anxious temperament, had little trouble in satisfying himself of the meerings and identity of this narrow tenement, to which Lemuel Mattocks, the sexton, led him as straight and confidently as he could have done to the communion-table.

These fossils, after his wont, he lifted decently with the point of his shovel, and pitched into a little nook beside the great mound of mould at top. Mattocks had climbed nimbly to the upper level, and taking the skull in his fist, turned it about this way and that, curiously. But though he was no chicken, his memory did not go far enough back to throw any light upon the matter. Just then the slim figure of my tall mild uncle, the curate, appeared, and his long thin legs, in black worsted stockings and knee-breeches, stepped reverently and lightly among the graves.

The men raised their hats, and Mattocks jumped lightly into the grave again, while my uncle returned their salute with the sad sort of smile, a regretful kindness, which he never exceeded, in these solemn precincts. It was his custom to care very tenderly for the bones turned up by the sexton, and to wait with an awful solicitude until, after the reading of the funeral service, he saw them gently replaced, as nearly as might be, in their old bed; and discouraging all idle curiosity or levity respecting them, with a solemn rebuke, which all respected.

It is shot through with a bullet, and cracked with a poker besides. He sustained two heavy blows, beside that gunshot through the head. I moved a little aside, with a sort of thrill, to give him freer access to my uncle, in the hope that he might, perhaps, throw a light upon the history of this remarkable memorial. The old fellow had a rat-like gray eye — the other was hid under a black patch — and there was a deep red scar across his forehead, slanting from the patch that covered the extinguished orb.

And we walked through the town, and over the bridge, and we saw nothing of his cocked hat and red single-breasted frock, and returned rather disappointed to tea. I ran into the back room which commanded the church-yard in the hope of seeing the old fellow once more, with his cane shouldered, grinning among the tombstones in the evening sun. But there was no sign of him, or indeed of anyone else there. So I returned, just as my uncle, having made the tea, shut down the lid of his silver tea-pot with a little smack; and with a kind but absent smile upon me, he took his book, sat down and crossed one of his thin legs over the other, and waited pleasantly until the delightful infusion should be ready for our lips, reading his old volume, and with his disengaged hand gently stroking his long shin-bone.

In the meantime, I, who thirsted more for that tale of terror which the old soldier had all but begun, of which in that strangely battered skull I had only an hour ago seen face to face so grizzly a memento, and of which in all human probability I never was to hear more, looked out dejectedly from the window, when, whom should I behold marching up the street, at slow time, towards the Salmon House, but the identical old soldier, cocked-hat, copper nose, great red single-breasted coat with its prodigious wide button-holes, leggings, cane, and all, just under the village tree.

But by the time I had reached the street, which you may be sure was not very long, I found my uncle had got the window up and was himself inviting the old boy, who having brought his left shoulder forward, thanked the curate, saluting soldier-fashion, with his hand to his hat, palm foremost. Many years after, as will sometimes happen, a flood of light was unexpectedly poured over the details of his narrative; on my coming into possession of the diary, curiously minute, and the voluminous correspondence of Rebecca, sister to General Chattesworth, with whose family I had the honour to be connected.

I wish I could infuse their spirit into what I am going to tell, and above all that I could inspire my readers with ever so little of the peculiar interest with which the old town has always been tinted and saddened to my eye. My boyish imagination, perhaps, kindled all the more at the story, by reason of it being a good deal connected with the identical old house in which we three — my dear uncle, my idle self, and the queer old soldier — were then sitting. There was a little of that sheet-lightning early in the evening, which betokens sultry weather.

The clouds, column after column, came up sullenly over the Dublin mountains, rolling themselves from one horizon to the other into one black dome of vapour, their slow but steady motion contrasting with the awful stillness of the air. There was a weight in the atmosphere, and a sort of undefined menace brooding over the little town, as if unseen crime or danger — some mystery of iniquity — was stealing into the heart of it, and the disapproving heavens scowled a melancholy warning.

She had dreamed of making the great four-post, state bed, with the dark green damask curtains — a dream that betokened some coming trouble — it might, to be sure, be ever so small — it had once come with no worse result than Dr. The omen hung over them doubtful.

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A large square letter, with a great round seal, as big as a crown piece, addressed to the Rev. Hugh Walsingham, Doctor of Divinity, at his house, by the bridge, in Chapelizod, had reached him in the morning, and plainly troubled him. It was, indeed, a remarkably dark night — a rush and downpour of rain!

John carried a handsome horn-lantern, which flashed now on a roadside bush — now on the discoloured battlements of the bridge — and now on a streaming window. It was a quarter past ten, and no other sound of life or human neighbourhood was stirring. If secrecy were an object, it was well secured by the sable sky, and the steady torrent which rolled down with electric weight and perpendicularity, making all nature resound with one long hush — sh — sh — sh — sh — deluging the broad street, and turning the channels and gutters into mimic mill-streams which snorted and hurtled headlong through their uneven beds, and round the corners towards the turbid Liffey, which, battered all over with rain, muddy, and sullen, reeled its way towards the sea, rolling up to the heavens an aspect black as their own.

As they passed by the Phoenix a little rivulet, by-the-bye, was spouting down from the corner of the sign; and indeed the night was such as might well have caused that suicidal fowl to abandon all thoughts of self-incremation, and submit to an unprecedented death by drowning , there was no idle officer, or lounging waiter upon the threshold. The door was nearly closed, and only let out a tall, narrow slice of candle-light upon the lake of mud, over every inch of which the rain was drumming.

I dare say old Bob Martin, the sexton, and grave Mr. Irons, the clerk, were reassured when they heard the cheery voice of the rector hailing them by name. There were now three candles in church; but the edifice looked unpleasantly dim, and went off at the far end into total darkness. Zekiel Irons was a lean, reserved fellow, with a black wig and blue chin, and something shy and sinister in his phiz. But the rector had lots to say — though deliberately and gravely, still the voice was genial and inspiring — and exorcised the shadows that had been gathering stealthily around the lesser Church functionaries.

Bob Martin thanked his reverence; the cold rheumatism in his hip was better. They changed her into her lead coffin in the vault — he and the undertaker together — her own servants would not put a hand to her. She was buried in white satin, and with her rings on her fingers. It was her fancy, and so ordered in her will. They said she was mad.

She had a long hooked nose; and her eyes were open. For, as he was told, she died in her sleep, and was quite cold and stiff when they found her in the morning. He went down and saw the coffin today, half an hour after meeting his reverence. The rector consulted his great warming-pan of a watch. It was drawing near eleven. He fell into a reverie, and rambled slowly up and down the aisle, with his hands behind his back, and his dripping hat in them, swinging nearly to the flags — now lost in the darkness — now emerging again, dim, nebulous, in the foggy light of the lanterns.

When this clerical portrait came near, he was looking down, with gathered brows, upon the flags, moving his lips and nodding, as if counting them, as was his way. The doctor was thinking all the time upon the one text: And as for that old house at Ballyfermot, why any one could have looked after it as well as he. Three vehicles with flambleaux, and the clang and snorting of horses came close to the church porch, and there appeared suddenly, standing within the disc of candle-light at the church door, before one would have thought there was time, a tall, very pale, and peculiar looking young man, with very large, melancholy eyes, and a certain cast of evil pride in his handsome face.

And an elderly clergyman, in surplice, band, and white wig, with a hard, yellow, furrowed face, hovered in, like a white bird of night, from the darkness behind, and was introduced to Dr. Walsingham, and whispered for a while to Mr. Irons, and then to Bob Martin, who had two short forms placed transversely in the aisle to receive what was coming, and a shovel full of earth — all ready. So, while the angular clergyman ruffled into the front of the pew, with Irons on one side, a little in the rear, both books open; the plump little undertaker, diffusing a steam from his moist garments, making a prismatic halo round the candles and lanterns, as he moved successively by them, whispered a word or two to the young gentleman [Mr.

Mervyn, the doctor called him], and Mr. Walsingham and John Tracy got into contiguous seats, and Bob Martin went out to lend a hand. How much heavier, it always seems to me, that sort of load than any other of the same size! A great oak shell: Tressels was unwilling to screw it down, having heard that the entrance to the vault was so narrow, and apprehending it might be necessary to take the coffin out. So it lay its length with a dull weight on the two forms. The lead coffin inside, with its dusty black velvet, was plainly much older. And above this plain, oval plate was a little bit of an ornament no bigger than a sixpence.

Tressels, who almost overlooked it, thought it was nothing better than a fourpenny cherub. Irons, the clerk, knew that it was a coronet; and when he heard the other theories thrown out, being a man of few words he let them have it their own way, and with his thin lips closed, with their changeless and unpleasant character of an imperfect smile, he coldly kept this little bit of knowledge to himself. The flag that closed the entrance of the vault had been removed.

But the descent of Avernus was not facile, the steps being steep and broken, and the roof so low. Young Mervyn had gone down the steps to see it duly placed; a murky, fiery light; came up, against which the descending figures looked black and cyclopean. Walsingham offered his brother-clergyman his hospitalities; but somehow that cleric preferred returning to town for his supper and his bed.

Mervyn also excused himself. It was late, and he meant to stay that night at the Phoenix, and tomorrow designed to make his compliments in person to Dr. Tressels, with an angry whisk, without bidding him good-night. The morning was fine — the sun shone out with a yellow splendour — all nature was refreshed — a pleasant smell rose up from tree, and flower, and earth. The now dry pavement and all the row of village windows were glittering merrily — the sparrows twittered their lively morning gossip among the thick ivy of the old church tower — here and there the village cock challenged his neighbour with high and vaunting crow, and the bugle notes soared sweetly into the air from the artillery ground beside the river.

The town of Chapelizod, in short, was just sitting down to its breakfast. Mervyn, in the meantime, had had his solitary meal in the famous back parlour of the Phoenix, where the newspapers lay, and all comers were welcome. He was by no means a bad hero to look at, if such a thing were needed. His face was pale, melancholy, statuesque — and his large enthusiastic eyes, suggested a story and a secret — perhaps a horror.

Most men, had they known all, would have wondered with good Doctor Walsingham, why, of all places in the world, he should have chosen the little town where he now stood for even a temporary residence. It was not a perversity, but rather a fascination. His whole life had been a flight and a pursuit — a vain endeavour to escape from the evil spirit that pursued him — and a chase of a chimera. He was standing at the window, not indeed enjoying, as another man might, the quiet verdure of the scene, and the fragrant air, and all the mellowed sounds of village life, but lost in a sad and dreadful reverie, when in bounced little red-faced bustling Dr.

Coffee not so bad, Sir; rather good coffee, I hold it, at the Phoenix. Cream very choice, Sir? I hope they gave you — eh? They make a precious noise, I can tell you, when it showers. And what a night we had — dark as Erebus — pouring like pumps, by Jove. Anything in the paper, eh? Well, and what do you think — a queer night for the purpose, eh? The turnpike rogue — just round the corner there — one of the talkingest gossips in the town — and a confounded prying, tattling place it is, I can tell you — knows the driver; and Bob Martin, the sexton, you know — tells me there were two parsons, no less — hey!

Cauliflowers in season, by Jove. Walsingham, our rector, a pious man, Sir, and does a world of good — that is to say, relieves half the blackguards in the parish — ha!

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Toole paused for nearly a minute, as if expecting something in return; but it did not come. The painters come out by dozens in the summer, with their books and pencils, and scratch away like so many Scotchmen. Seven baronies to shoot for ten and five guineas. Ha, doctor; how goes it? A good many of your corps there, major? Plenty of dry eyes after him. In the meantime, stout, tightly-braced Captain Cluffe of the same corps, and little dark, hard-faced, and solemn Mr. So Mervyn, the stranger, by no means affecting this agreeable society, took his cane and cocked-hat, and went out — the dark and handsome apparition — followed by curious glances from two or three pairs of eyes, and a whispered commentary and criticism from Toole.

It was really a gay rural sight. The circular target stood, with its bright concentric rings, in conspicuous isolation, about a hundred yards away, against the green slope of the hill. The competitors in their best Sunday suits, some armed with muskets and some with fowling pieces — for they were not particular — and with bunches of ribbons fluttering in their three-cornered hats, and sprigs of gay flowers in their breasts, stood in the foreground, in an irregular cluster, while the spectators, in pleasant disorder, formed two broad, and many-coloured parterres, broken into little groups, and separated by a wide, clear sweep of green sward, running up from the marksmen to the target.

In the luminous atmosphere the men of those days showed bright and gay. Such fine scarlet and gold waistcoats — such sky-blue and silver — such pea-green lutestrings — and pink silk linings — and flashing buckles — and courtly wigs — or becoming powder — went pleasantly with the brilliant costume of the stately dames and smiling lasses. There was a pretty sprinkling of uniforms, too — the whole picture in gentle motion, and the bugles and drums of the Royal Irish Artillery filling the air with inspiring music. All the neighbours were there — merry little Dr.

Toole in his grandest wig and gold-headed cane, with three dogs at his heels — he seldom appeared without this sort of train — sometimes three — sometimes five — sometimes as many as seven — and his hearty voice was heard bawling at them by name, as he sauntered through the town of a morning, and theirs occasionally in short screeches, responsive to the touch of his cane. Sturk and Toole, behind backs, did not spare one another.

Fat, short, radiant, General Chattesworth — in full, artillery uniform — was there, smiling, and making little speeches to the ladies, and bowing stiffly from his hips upward — his great cue playing all the time up and down his back, and sometimes so near the ground when he stood erect and threw back his head, that Toole, seeing Juno eyeing the appendage rather viciously, thought it prudent to cut her speculations short with a smart kick.

His sister Rebecca — tall, erect, with grand lace, in a splendid stiff brocade, and with a fine fan — was certainly five-and-fifty, but still wonderfully fresh, and sometimes had quite a pretty little pink colour — perfectly genuine — in her cheeks; command sat in her eye and energy on her lip — but though it was imperious and restless, there was something provokingly likeable and even pleasant in her face. Mervyn — I saw it on his dressing case. See how she smiles.

Macnamara, the widow — joined, with a venemous wheeze in the laugh. Those who suppose that all this rancour was produced by mere feminine emulations and jealousy do these ladies of the ancient sept Macnamara foul wrong. Mack, on the contrary, had a fat and genial soul of her own, and Magnolia was by no means a particularly ungenerous rival in the lists of love.

To-day, for instance, when the firing was brisk, and some of the ladies uttered pretty little timid squalls, Miss Magnolia not only stood fire like brick, but with her own fair hands cracked off a firelock, and was more complimented and applauded than all the marksmen beside, although she shot most dangerously wide, and was much nearer hitting old Arthur Slowe than that respectable gentleman, who waved his hat and smirked gallantly, was at all aware.

Aunt Rebecca, notwithstanding all this, and although she looked straight at her from a distance of only ten steps, yet she could not see that large and highly-coloured heroine; and Magnolia was so incensed at her serene impertinence that when Gertrude afterwards smiled and courtesied twice, she only held her head the higher and flung a flashing defiance from her fine eyes right at that unoffending virgin. Everybody knew that Miss Rebecca Chattesworth ruled supreme at Belmont.

Observing Vessel

With a docile old general and a niece so young, she had less resistance to encounter than, perhaps, her ardent soul would have relished. Fortunately for the general it was only now and then that Aunt Becky took a whim to command the Royal Irish Artillery. She had other hobbies just as odd, though not quite so scandalous. It had struck her active mind that such of the ancient women of Chapelizod as were destitute of letters — mendicants and the like — should learn to read.

Aunt Becky kept good fires, and served out a mess of bread and broth, along with some pungent ethics, to each of her hopeful old girls. In winter she further encouraged them with a flannel petticoat apiece, and there was besides a monthly dole. So that although after a year there was, perhaps, on the whole, no progress in learning, the affair wore a tolerably encouraging aspect; for the academy had increased in numbers, and two old fellows, liking the notion of the broth and the 6d.

Then Aunt Becky visited the gaols, and had a knack of picking up the worst characters there, and had generally two or three discharged felons on her hands.

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Some people said she was a bit of a Voltarian, but unjustly; for though she now and then came out with a bouncing social paradox, she was a good bitter Church-woman. So she was liberal and troublesome — off-handed and dictatorial — not without good nature, but administering her benevolences somewhat tyrannically, and, for the most part, doing more or less of positive mischief in the process.

Toole to stand well at Belmont. So, seeing that Miss Mag was disposed to be vicious, and not caring to be compromised by her tricks, he whistled and bawled to his dogs, and with a jolly smirk and flourish of his cocked-hat, off he went to seek other adventures. Toole , involved her innocent relations in scorn and ill-will; for this sort of offence, like Chinese treason, is not visited on the arch offender only, but according to a scale of consanguinity, upon his kith and kin.

As handsome, slender Captain Devereux, with his dark face, and great, strange, earnest eyes, and that look of intelligence so racy and peculiar, that gave him a sort of enigmatical interest, stepped into the fair-green, the dark blue glance of poor Nan Glynn, of Palmerstown, from under her red Sunday riding-hood, followed the tall, dashing, graceful apparition with a stolen glance of wild loyalty and admiration. Oh, pretty Lilias — oh, true lady — I never saw the pleasant crayon sketch that my mother used to speak of, but the tradition of thee has come to me — so bright and tender, with its rose and violet tints, and merry, melancholy dimples, that I see thee now, as then, with the dew of thy youth still on thee, and sigh as I look, as if on a lost, early love of mine.

Perhaps if some charitable lady would take me in hand, something might be made of me still. There was a vein of seriousness in this reverie which amused the young lady; for she had never heard anything worse of him — very young ladies seldom do hear the worst — than that he had played once or twice rather high. She did not know how much obliged Devereux was to her for remembering that poor little joke, and how much the handsome lieutenant would have given, at that instant, to kiss the hand of the grave little girl of five years ago. There was, by-the-bye, a rumour — I know not how true — that these two sages were concocting between them, beside their folios on the Castle of Chapelizod, an interminable history of Ireland.

Devereux was secretly chafed at the sort of invisible, but insuperable resistance which pretty Lilias Walsingham, as it seemed, unconsciously opposed to his approaches to a nearer and tenderer sort of trifling. How is it that she interests me, and yet repels me so easily? The Chattesworths by this time, as well as others, were moving away — and that young Mr. Mervyn, more remarked upon than he suspected, walked with them to the gate of the fair-green.

As he passed he bowed low to good Parson Walsingham, who returned his salute, not unkindly — that never was — but very gravely, and with his gentle and thoughtful blue eyes followed the party sadly on their way. Little Lilias, with her hand within his arm, wondered, as she glanced upward into that beloved face, what could have darkened it with a look so sad and anxious; and then her eyes also followed the retreating figure of that pale young man, with a sort of interest not quite unmixed with uneasiness. If I stuck at a fib as little as some historians, I might easily tell you who won the prizes at this shooting on Palmerstown Green.

I remember his lively old face, his powdered bald head and pigtail, his slight erect figure, and how merrily he used to play the fiddle for his juvenile posterity to dance to. But I was not of an age to comprehend the value of this thin, living volume of old lore, or to question the oracle. There was a large and pleasant dinner-party, too, in the mess-room of the Royal Irish Artillery. Lord Castlemallard was there in the place of honour, next to jolly old General Chattesworth, and the worthy rector, Doctor Walsingham, and Father Roach, the dapper, florid little priest of the parish, with his silk waistcoat and well-placed paunch, and his keen relish for funny stories, side-dishes, and convivial glass; and Dan Loftus, that simple, meek, semi-barbarous young scholar, his head in a state of chronic dishevelment, his harmless little round light-blue eyes, pinkish from late night reading, generally betraying the absence of his vagrant thoughts, and I know not what of goodness, as well as queerness, in his homely features.

Walsingham, indeed, in his simple benevolence, had helped the strange, kindly creature through college, and had a high opinion of him, and a great delight in his company. They had got hold of Chapelizod Castle, a good tough enigma. It was a theme they never tired of. Loftus had already two folios of extracts copied from all the records to which Dr.

Walsingham could procure him access. This pursuit was a bond of close sympathy between the rector and the student, and they spent more time than appeared to his parishioners quite consistent with sanity in the paddock by the river, pacing up and down, and across, poking sticks into the earth and grubbing for old walls underground. Lord Castlemallard was accustomed to be listened to, and was not aware how confoundedly dull his talk sometimes was.

It was measured, and dreamy, and every way slow. He was entertaining the courteous old general at the head of the table, with an oration in praise of Paul Dangerfield — a wonderful man — immensely wealthy — the cleverest man of his age — he might have been anything he pleased. His lordship really believed his English property would drop to pieces if Dangerfield retired from its management, and he was vastly obliged to him inwardly, for retaining the agency even for a little time longer.

He was coming over to visit the Irish estates — perhaps to give Nutter a wrinkle or two. He was a bachelor, and his lordship averred would be a prodigious great match for some of our Irish ladies. Chapelizod would be his headquarters while in Ireland. No, he was not sure — he rather thought he was not of the Thorley family; and so on for a mighty long time.

For overhearing, during a short pause, in which he sipped some claret, Surgeon Sturk applying some very strong, and indeed, frightful language to a little pamphlet upon magnetism, a subject then making a stir — as from a much earlier date it has periodically done down to the present day — he languidly asked Dr. Walsingham his opinion upon the subject. The power, indeed, is in the witch, and not conferred by him; but this versipellous or Protean impostor — these are his words — will not suffer her to know that it is of her own natural endowment, though for the present charmed into somnolent inactivity by the narcotic of primitive sin.

I verily believe that a fair description — none of your poetical balderdash, but an honest plodding description of a perfectly comfortable bed, and of the process of going to sleep, would, judiciously administered soon after dinner, overpower the vivacity of any tranquil gentleman who loves a nap after that meal — gently draw the curtains of his senses, and extinguish the bed-room candle of his consciousness. Between ourselves, Puddock was short and fat, very sentimental, and a little bit of a gourmet ; his desk stuffed with amorous sonnets and receipts for side-dishes; he, always in love, and often in the kitchen, where, under the rose, he loved to direct the cooking of critical little plats , very good-natured, rather literal, very courteous, a chevallier , indeed, sans reproche.

He had a profound faith in his genius for tragedy, but those who liked him best could not help thinking that his plump cheeks, round, little light eyes, his lisp, and a certain lack-a-daisical, though solemn expression of surprise, which Nature, in one of her jocular moods, seemed to have fixed upon his countenance, were against his shining in that walk of the drama. He was blessed, too, with a pleasant belief in his acceptance with the fair sex, but had a real one with his comrades, who knew his absurdities and his virtues, and laughed at and loved him.

I tell you if you stand well in her gratheth, by Jove, Thir, you mutht give yourthelf up to her body and thoul. Two blessed hours a-day, regular practice, besides an odd half-hour, now and agin, for three mortial years, it took him to larn it, and dhrilled a dimple in his chin you could put a marrow-fat pay in. And so they talked stage-talk. I say, gentlemen, there are fine voices among you. Will some gentleman oblige the company with a song?

Loftus was shy, simple, and grotesque, and looked like a man who could not sing a note. So when he opened his eyes, looked round, and blushed, there was a general knocking of glasses, and a very flattering clamour for Mr. But when silence came, to the surprise of the company he submitted, though with manifest trepidation, and told them that he would sing as the company desired.

It was a song from a good old writer upon fasting in Lent, and was, in fact, a reproof to all hypocrisy. Hereupon there was a great ringing of glasses and a jolly round of laughter rose up in the cheer that welcomed the announcement. Father Roach looked queer and disconcerted, and shot a look of suspicion at Devereux, for poor Dan Loftus had, in truth, hit that divine strait in a very tender spot. The fact is, Father Roach was, as Irish priests were sometimes then, a bit of a sportsman. He and Toole used occasionally to make mysterious excursions to the Dublin mountains.

He had a couple of mighty good dogs, which he lent freely, being a good-natured fellow. Well, one morning — only a few weeks before — Devereux and Toole together had looked in on some such business upon his reverence — a little suddenly — and found him eating a hare! It was at breakfast. His dinner was the meal of an anchorite, and who would have guessed that these confounded sparks would have bounced into his little refectory at that hour of the morning?

There was no room for equivocation; he had been caught in the very act of criminal conversation with the hare-pie. He rose with a spring, like a Jack-ina-box, as they entered, and knife and fork in hand, and with shining chops, stared at them with an angry, bothered, and alarmed countenance, which increased their laughter.

It was a good while before he obtained a hearing, such was the hilarity, so sustained the fire of ironical compliments, enquiries, and pleasantries, and the general uproar. They made him narrate minutely every circumstance connected with the smuggling of the game, and the illicit distillation for the mess. They never passed so pleasant a morning. Shortly after this little surprise, I suppose by way of ratifying the secret treaty of silence, Father Roach gave the officers and Toole a grand Lent dinner of fish, with no less than nineteen different plats , baked, boiled, stewed, in fact, a very splendid feast; and Puddock talked of some of those dishes more than twenty years afterwards.

No wonder, then, if Father Roach, when Loftus, in the innocence of his heart, announced his song and its theme, was thoroughly uneasy, and would have given a good deal that he had not helped that simple youth into his difficulty. But things must now take their course. So amid a decorous silence, Dan Loftus lifted up his voice, and sang. That voice was a high small pipe, with a very nervous quaver in it. He leaned back in his chair, and little more than the whites of his upturned eyes were visible; and beating time upon the table with one hand, claw-wise, and with two or three queer, little thrills and roulades, which re-appeared with great precision in each verse, he delivered himself thus, in what I suspect was an old psalm tune: I believe no song was ever received with heartier bursts of laughter and applause.

Puddock indeed was grave, being a good deal interested in the dishes sung by the poet. So, for the sake of its moral point, was Dr. But honest Father Roach was confoundedly put out by the performance. He sat with his blue double chin buried in his breast, his mouth pursed up tightly, a red scowl all over his face, his quick, little, angry, suspicious eyes peeping cornerwise, now this way, now that, not knowing how to take what seemed to him like a deliberate conspiracy to roast him for the entertainment of the company, who followed the concluding verse with a universal roaring chorus, which went off into a storm of laughter, in which Father Roach made an absurd attempt to join.

Loftus sang nothing about a goat, though kid is not a bad thing: Have you never eaten them, either preserved or candied — a — why I— a — I happen to have a receipt — a — and if you permit me, Sir — a capital receipt. When I was a boy, I made some once at home, Sir; and, by Jupiter, my brother, Sam, eat of them till he was quite sick — I remember, so sick, by Jupiter, my poor mother and old Dorcas had to sit up all night with him — a — and — I was going to say, if you will allow me, Sir, I shall be very happy to send the receipt to your housekeeper.

Loftus has, I think, a still better way. Loftus had by this time climbed to the savage lair of his garret, overstrewn with tattered papers and books; and Father Roach, in the sanctuary of his little parlour, was growling over the bones of a devilled-turkey, and about to soothe his fretted soul in a generous libation of hot whiskey punch. Unlimited One-Day Delivery and more. There's a problem loading this menu at the moment. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us.

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