in a necessary point of view.'
Indeed, before the gallant Captain could get himself buttoned up, nature compelled Miss Bonham, greatly against her ideas of delicacy, to lift the seat she had just been stooping over and again baring her beautiful bottom, to put the temple of refuge to its legitimate use.
All this the Captain viewed with the utmost complacency; in fact, he rather expected it, as a natural consequence, and was cool enough about the matter to hand his cousin some soft paper which he happened to have in his pocket. And there is not the slightest doubt that he would have waited in attendance on his fair lady, until she had finished her business, had not the prudent Eliza suggested the propriety of his absenting himself, for fear Mr. Bonham should find him in or near the temple, which with Eliza inside, must have looked very suspicious.
So the gallant commander, lighting a cigar, took himself off and paraded a neighbouring walk, until such time as Mr. Bonham should make his appearance, or his daughter should emerge from her lurking place. The former event took place first, and Mr. Bonham's approach was made known by his heavy footsteps, and his blowing his nose after the manner of a trumpet, heralding his advent.
'Ha! Alfred my boy, all by yourself! What have you done with Eliza?'
'Miss Bonham, Uncle, left me a few minutes ago, I don't know exactly where she has gone but I have no doubt she will return directly.'
The answer was made with the greatest coolness and most commendable gravity, and certainly without leaving the elderly gentleman room to suppose that anything uncommon had taken place during the last twenty minutes or thereabouts.
'Eliza is a charming girl, though I am her father and perhaps should not say so,' remarked the old gentleman, as they walked along. To this, the younger one gave ready assent.
'And as good as she looks,' continued Mr. Bonham.
'You should be no stranger to my opinion of my cousin Eliza's charms, by this time sir,' replied the young officer. 'I consider her to be all perfection, both in her mind and person (I wonder what the old boy would say if he knew how intimately I am acquainted with all parts of her beautiful body, both back and front.)'
This last remark, as may be imagined, he made to himself.
'Well, Alfred,' his uncle resumed, 'as soon as you get your step, I do not see any particular objection to your being married. What with your private property, your pay and Eliza's money-ahem! — you ought to be able to do very well, and I'll look and see what cash on hand I have at my bankers. I am not sorry to hear that your Major is about to leave your corps. I have heard a very bad character of him.'
'Indeed sir!' was the reply, 'I am surprised to hear that. Major Pobjoy is considered a very respectable man, rather pious indeed, and very discreet.'
'Pobjoy wasn't the name mentioned to me, but I heard of the affair this day, as I passed through Rutshole, and very hurriedly. A respectable tenant of mine, or rather the wife of a tenant,' (Mrs. Fielding, I'll bet a sovereign, muttered Alfred)-'told me some hardly credible stories about a certain Major named Ringdove, or Stifftail or some such name as that.'
'By Gad, she's very sharp about it!' muttered Torrant, and then said out aloud: 'I don't know any officer of that name, sir, but pray, what has the culprit been doing?'
'Why my dear boy, I hardly like mentioning such indecent subjects; but I believe he had connection with a young lady of the Reverend Stiggins' congregation, in the chapel, under that faithful shepherd's very nose!'
'Pray, uncle, did the lady enjoy being fucked?'
'Why no, I can't say that I understood she did,' replied Mr. Bonham, completely taken back both by the question and the straightforward way in which it was asked. 'But the scandal does not stop there, for on the sainted pastor proceeding to the barracks next day to reprove the man of sin, and entreat him to flee from the wrath to come, Major Dovetail, or whatever his name is, accused the apostle of having been detected in the criminal action of having connection with a swine, and kicked him out of the barracks.'
'Had Mr. Stiggins been discovered poking a pig?' asked Captain Torrant, with an air of great interest, not as if the incident was at all unlikely.
'Great Providence, nephew, no! Why Stiggins is next door but one to one of the holy apostles and-'
'But he may have buggered the pig for all that,' stubbornly insisted Captain Torrant, 'at least it is as likely as any part of the story. There is no Major Ringdove or Stiff tail, or any such name in our regiment. One of the lambs of the fold may have got rogered, in the fear of the Lord, and in the middle of the sermon-very likely-and Stiggins may have been kicked out of the barracks, and may be again, if he goes there on any of his stinking errands. The pig copulation I know nothing about-I wasn't there so didn't see it. But here comes my fair cousin, so perhaps we had better defer our discussion until some other time.'
'I think so, indeed, Alfred,' was the reply, 'but I see that I have been imposed upon, and I should like to hear a little more from you on the subject, so instead of returning tonight, suppose you stay here and we will talk over matters in general, and your future prospects, matrimonial and otherwise. Here comes Eliza; let us walk together to the stables, and countermand your horses…'
So saying the trio walked off in the direction of the yard, Miss Bonham not at all displeased to hear her dear cousin's consent to pass the night at Rutsden Lodge.
CHAPTER 4
If Mr. Bonham fancied when he asked Captain Torrant to pass the night in his hospitable mansion, that this gallant officer would content himself with the solitary wretchedness of what was generally known as the bachelor's room, we believe him to have been very considerably mistaken. Indeed Miss Bonham, by virtue of her position as mistress of the establishment, took the first step with regard to her cousin's comfort in ordering the best bedroom to be prepared for him. This the reader will recollect our noticing as being adjacent to her room.
The kind, thoughtful girl considered that if her dear Alfred were taken ill in the middle of the night, he would be so far away from any assistance she could render him, and, worse still, he might be afflicted with that terrible complaint known in the medical vocabulary as 'prickstand', in which case he would be inconveniently far from her bed and a great deal too near Lucy's.
The result of this prudent arrangement was that the young dragoon did not occupy the luxurious bed allotted to him at all, but partially undressed, devoted half-an-hour to a fascinating book of a decidedly lascivious character. When that space of time elapsed, he made pretty certain of two matters; first, that his respected uncle was in bed and sleeping the first sleep of the just, and secondly, that notwithstanding his delightful encounters with his lovely cousin, in the course of the day, he was perfectly able to do her as much justice as she could possibly desire in the fucking department. Under this impression, he noiselessly glided from his room to Eliza's, the door of which, he quietly opened.
'Is that you, dear Alfred?' asked the young lady, neither surprised nor frightened; indeed the probability was that she had been expecting him, for she was wide awake and a dim lamp was burning in her room.
'Bolt the door gently,' she continued, 'and come to bed. You know after what Papa said this evening, I consider you as good as my husband now. But my goodness, Alfred, you have not got your sheath on, and how awfully stiff you are!'
To this the young gentleman made reply to the effect that he supposed the painful stiffness would be cured in a couple of minutes, and that with regard to the condom, as he expected his darling Eliza would become his wife in less than a month, that useful precaution was no longer necessary. The young lady assented, as indeed she would have assented to anything her lover proposed, and as he entered her luxurious couch, folded him in something more luxurious still, throwing her soft white arms around him, and placing one of her beautiful legs over him as he lay. We shall not detain our reader long in the lady's bedroom, as the lovers, being calmer than usual after the day's enjoyments, were disposed to be rational, somewhat in the manner of married couples after the honeymoon; so that the proceedings comprised a judicious amount of straightforward fucking, variegated by alternations of refreshing slumber, enjoyed in each other's arms. But this quiet domestic sort of rogering, as it may be termed, is singularly effective in its results, though not as full of incident and excitement as more impromptu and passionate licentiousness-at any rate, one thing is pretty certain: that when Captain Torrant crept quietly back to his room
