'Truth.'
'Then you advise — '
'You to live a quiet life and marry some respectable young tradesman who can keep you in comfort before it is too late.'
'I walk out with such a one every Sunday now.'
'Then marry him, Mary, and believe me you will bless me every day you live for this advice — if you take it.'
'I Will.'
'Really?'
'Really, I will, and I will write out to India to you, and tell you when I am married, and you shall be godfather to my first child. Now tell me how I am to address you?'
'You know my name well, 'Cornet S-, Madras Cavalry, East Indies.' I don't know what regiment till I arrive there.'
'One favour,' cried poor Mary, 'will you put on your uniform one night, and let me see you in it before you go, then I think I shall be happier, and whenever I let my husband have me, I will shut my eyes and think of you.'
'My darling Mary, I feel highly honoured, I'm sure.'b 'Oh, Edward,' cried the poor little girl, 'Don't talk to me that way, I'm not a fine lady like your Miss Lucy's and your Miss N-l's, but a poor simple girl of humble parentage. Would you had been humble too, and then — then — but no matter, you will let me see you in your uniform once; only once?'
'Dear girl,' said I, 'no time like the present time, the wind may change tomorrow, and I may have to bid you adieu,' and I took out my keys and opened a portmanteau. I drew forth a superb uniform: sky-blue jacket, the breast one blaze of silver embroidery, with the same costly embroidery up each sleeve to the bend of the arm; cartouche belt and sword belt, all of silver lace striped with crimson silk; a pair of sky-blue trousers with a broad lace of silver down the sides; a pair of boots, with silver box spurs — Hoby's masterpiece (price three guineas); a steel scabbarded sword, straight and pointed; and the glorious shakoe or dress hat, with its plume of feathers — all of which I proceeded to don.
Poor little Mary was in raptures as she helped me to dress. 'Mars arrayed by Venus,' said I, conceitedly, but Mary had never heard of either Mars or Venus before, so the conceit and the flattery were lost upon her. The costume completed, I pulled on a pair of white kid gloves, then drawing my sword, I performed the salute as I would to my general, and dropping the point to the ground raised my left hand flatwise to my forehead.
'Oh how beautiful you are now!' cried little Mary, throwing herself upon my embroidered breast.
'Fine feathers make fine birds, Mary,' said I, 'but I would rather you'd admire me naked.'
'Then be naked, my own love,' cried the charmer.
By Jove, I pulled off that toggery a precious deal quicker than I had put it on, and stood stark naked before her. She caught me up in her arms with the strength of a lioness, and carried me like a baby to the bed; her tongue roved over my entire body like a lambent fire; she licked, she kissed every part of me, then tearing off her clothes with a frenzy almost allied to madness, she flung her lovely body upon me, joined herself to me, and gave me no rest for two mortal hours. At length she ceased, and rising up put on her clothes again; it was twelve o'clock.
'Mary,' said I. 'I have other work to do, you know it. I must have some refreshment; go, my dear love, and get me the wing of a chicken, a slice or two of tongue and a bottle of wine. I am quite famished.'
She hastened away and soon returned with what I required; I made a hasty supper and bade her good-night. She kissed me and wished me joy of Mrs Fraser. In point of fact, I lost no time in finding my way to the arms of that dear woman.
'Truant!' she said, 'you are come at last then, I had almost given you up. I have been asleep, I think, dear me, what time is it?'
'Oh, about twelve, I believe, my dear, but never mind the hour.'
I passed a delightful night.
In a few days the wind changed, we all went on board, and the Reliance commenced her voyage down channel — but I am not going to inflict upon the reader the tedious narrative of a tedious voyage; I will content myself with relating a few curious anecdotes of some amorous adventures that occurred on the passage.
Lucy, her sister Fanny and the younger Miss N-l had often expressed their regret to me that we could never meet, except in the cuddy or on deck, where a hundred eyes observed our every gesture. I took the hint, and used to lower myself down by a rope into the quarter-gallery, and so got through the WC into their cabin, where we used to amuse ourselves by eating oranges, reading novels out loud, and by an occasional frigging (when Henrietta and the elder Miss N-l, who were the pink of propriety, were out of the way).
One day we three were diverting ourselves in this way, the weather being very sultry and the ship becalmed, when Lucy, who wore nothing but her chemise and a most fascinating robe de chambre of white linen, after letting me toy with and view her beauties for some time, casting upon me an amorous look, murmured half inaudibly, 'And is marriage so very terrible that girls always so much fear the first night?'
'My dearest girl,' said I, enchanted, 'there is nothing terrible in marriage, though it is true the maiden feels some pain at first. Will you let me show you what it is like? Do! do! I will be very gentle and stop the moment you tell me!'
She made some resistance at first, but as I was seconded by her friend, who represented to her that no ill could come of it as I was too young to do much mischief, she at length, Murmuring I will ne'er consent,
Consented …
She had long been spending and I slipped into her in a moment. She gave one little suppressed cry as her hymen snapped, and then hugging me in her arms, threw her legs over my back, and abandoned herself to the joys of the hour. As for Louise, she could not restrain herself, so seizing me from behind, she began to rub herself against me with fury. When Lucy was satisfied, and I had a little recovered, her friend caught me in her arms, and worked me with such ardour, that ten minutes finished the second maidenhead. We were all in a bath of perspiration and quite exhausted. So I was glad to recline on Lucy's bed, while the fair creatures petted and fed me with oranges. What more we should have done I know not, but just as I was again getting ready for action, Henrietta came in. I seized on The Fortunes of Nigel, and commenced reading.
'Oh, here you are again, you young scapegrace,' said she, 'I wonder what Aunt S- would say if she knew that you came into our cabin every day to eat oranges and read Sir Walter Scott.'
'What, indeed!' thought I, but I did not say so. 'This is such an interesting tale,' I said, 'we had just got to the scene in Whitefriars where Nigel kills Captain Culpepper.'
'Really!' exclaimed Henrietta, maliciously, 'I thought it must be very exciting, for you all look quite flushed with the recital.'
This was so palpable a hint that I took an early opportunity to beat a retreat.
A few days afterwards I was proceeding to enter the quartergallery as usual, and watched for the roll of the ship to swing myself into it, when lo! I found myself in the lap of the virtuous Henrietta, who was performing a very natural office of nature there, and did not the least expect an intruder from the seaboard. So imagining me to be some dreadful kind of merman, she began to sing out like a stuck pig.
In a moment, and before I could extricate myself from the extremely delicate position in which I found myself, appeared Mrs S-, her lean demure daughter, the Misses N-l, Lucy and Fanny, and, oh! confusion worse confounded, the charming stewardess, Mrs Fraser. I was so completely overwhelmed by such an array, that without thinking what I was doing, I sprang at once out of the quarter-gallery into the sea. Being a good swimmer, and the ship being becalmed at the time, the only injury I sustained was a good ducking and the chance of being devoured by a shark, who made for me with great rapidity, but I dived under the ship's bottom, and coming to the surface on the starboard side, seized a rope which the seamen threw to me upon the cry of 'Man overboard', and was hauled on deck before the monster of the deep could catch me.
As soon as I had changed my clothes, I received a polite message from the captain that he would like to say a few words to me in his cabin. So thither I went.
The captain (who after all was in the right), gave me a tremendous wigging, 'You must know, sir, that I consider all the young ladies on board this ship under my especial protection, and I cannot allow any gentleman, however young he may be, to enter their cabins, least of all in the clandestine manner you have attempted to do.'
''Pon my life, captain, I'm very sorry,' said I, 'if I have infringed any of your rules, I beg to offer my apologies,
