208 BACCHANALIAN GROUP. 



Under cover of the Priest's melody we approached the 

 window. There sat a party, who might well put the Tempe- 

 rance Society to the hlush. For their years, I suspect there 

 was not a healthier, and I will swear not a happier, trio in 

 the King's dominion. It was just the scene a Flemish artist 

 would select to employ his pencil on. For effect, the light 

 was excellent : the candles haying heen removed to the ex- 

 tremity of the apartment, the bacchanalian group were revealed 

 by the red and mellow blaze of a brilliant wood-fire. Sepa- 

 rated by a table provided with every requisite for a deep 

 carouse, sat the soldier and the churchman. The back of 

 the latter was turned to the window, but his amplitude of 

 shoulder and bull-neck at once bespoke the strength for which 

 he was remarkable, while the partial baldness of his head 

 told that he had passed life's meridian. The tall and martial 

 figure opposite contrasted well with the churchman's. Older 

 by some half-score years, he might, like Jack Falstaif, be 

 " some fifty, ay, or, by the mass, threescore !" but his age 

 was green; and notwithstanding the wear and tear that a 

 military life and its occasional excesses had caused, his cheerful 

 countenance and merry eye showed that he loved yet to hear 

 " the chimes at midnight." The otter-killer completed the 

 group : sitting on a low stool, from time to time he regulated 

 and supplied the wood-fire ; his silver hair collected in a 

 long cue, seal-skin pouch, singular dress, and venerable air, 

 made him the most striking figure of the party. A little 

 terrier bitch, who never left her master, lay at the old man's 

 feet, while an indulged black setter luxuriated before the 

 blaze, with his intelligent head and pendulous silky ears 

 rested on the Colonel's knee. 



"Is not that indeed a picture?" whispered my cousin. 

 " What heads they have ? John placed yonder bottle before 

 them as I went out, and two parts of it are gone already. 

 But hush ! let us hear the conversation. I think if there be 

 strength in poteen, the Colonel has reached the moralizing 

 point." 



"Andrew," said the commander. ("The Colonel," said 

 my kinsman, aside, " is generally hard screwed when he calls 

 the priest Andrew.") 



" Andrew, fill the glass : the boys are ruminating beside the 

 river ; heir young blood is hotter than ours, so we'll stick to 

 the ing^C'Side and the tumbler. There was a day when v* 



