Colonel Manners

“ Colonel Manners was too much a man of the world, and too much a man of sense, to suffer such impressions to affect his conduct in the slightest degree. He knew that this earth contains every grade and every sort of hypocrisy; and that Satan himself will occasionally assume the form of an angel of light: but at the same time, although his behaviour was on all occasions guarded by what he had learned from experience, yet through life he had preserved his natural enthusiasm unblunted by the hard world in which we live ”

“ Nov. 22.—When I went for my morning inquiries, Colonel Manners came out to me. He could give me no precise account, as the sitters-up had not yet left the king, but he feared the night had been bad. We mutually bewailed the mournful state of the house. He is a very good creature at heart, though as unformed as if he had just left Eton or Westminster. But he loves his master with a true and faithful heart, and is almost as ready to die as to live for him, if any service of that risk was proposed to him.
While the queen’s hair was dressing, though only for a close cap, I was sent again. ”

“ There was no resisting,-even the quiet Colonel Wellbred could not resist laughing out here. But Colonel Manners, quite at his ease, continued his self-discussion.
“I do think, now, if I was to have a person to play over a thing to me again and again, and then let me sing it, and stop me every time I was wrong, I do think I should be able to sing ‘God save the king’ as well as some ladies do, that have always people to show them.” ”

“ You must know, Colonel Manners, that that old gentleman is a very privileged person in our family, and often condescends to pour forth the secrets of the village upon us, in despite of all our struggles and reluctance."
"I am sorry he did not gratify himself this morning," said Manners: "there are few things more delightful than a village story well told."
"You were the great obstacle, I am afraid," replied Miss Falkland: "he has his own peculiar notions of decorum, and a visiter is pretty sure of reverence ”

“ Colonel Manners was a man who had too much confidence in his own motives, and too much reliance on what he called his good fortune, though others named it his good judgment, to care much what the world said; and this was probably one of the reasons why that world was well satisfied to load him with praise and honour. He took his way back to Morley House, therefore, tolerably satisfied with what he had done, thinking, "I must now, however, try to soften down Mrs. Falkland's wrath and indignation at my persevering rudeness this evening ”

“ Although, as we have observed, one can scarcely be said to think, yet there is no situation on the earth--or very few--in which a man so little likes to have his thoughts interrupted, and his fine imaginations forcibly called back to the dull ground. Colonel Manners, therefore, was not very well pleased, when, after following the walk which he had chosen to the end, he heard footsteps beyond the bushes, round which the path now swept. ”

“ Having thus reached Morley House in safety, Manners's first inquiry was for Mr. Arden; but the old butler, with a look of solemn importance, informed him that the magistrate had been gone about half an hour, leaving a message, however, for Colonel Manners, to the effect that, having some other business of much importance awaiting his return, he could not have the honour of staying till Colonel Manners arrived, but would come back early the following morning. ”

“ No two men that ever lived were more different in mind, in character, in tastes, and feelings, than Colonel Charles Manners and Lord Dewry; yet, strange to say, the peer did not like the idea of Manners's quitting him. Their views were as distinct as light and darkness; and, though for a moment they were pursuing the same object, could the hearts of both have been seen, how different would have been the spectacle presented--how different from those in the bosom of the other would have been all the springs, and motives, and designs, which actuated and guided each! ”

“ He seems to care no more for the people who have been wounded in his service than if they were things of wood."
After a few short comments on the means to be next employed, Manners retired to the chamber prepared for him, and lay down to rest. He rose betimes, however: but it was long ere the peer made his appearance; for, exhausted with activity, and watching, and contending passions--the most wearing of all the many assailants of life and strength--he fell into a deeper slumber than he had known for many years. At length he came, and at a late hour set out with Colonel Manners for Dimden ”

“ I should think that Lord Dewry had sent you, did I not know that he went away yesterday morning to Dimden, and then before midday back to the hall."
"You are a very singular person," said Colonel Manners, with a smile, "not only because you know every thing that is going on in the place, as well as a village gossip, but because you will not believe the truth when it is told you. ”

“ Lord Charles Manners, ninth son of John, second Duke of Rutland, was many years an officer in the Third Regiment of Foot Guards, in which corps he was promoted to the rank of captain and lieutenant-colonel, on the 27th of May, 1745. On the breaking out of the seven years’ war, he was commissioned to raise, form, and discipline a regiment of foot, now the Fifty-sixth, of which he was appointed colonel in December, 1755. In 1759 he was promoted to the rank of major-general. ”

“ In different directions across the common might be seen a hundred small foot-roads, winding in that tortuous and unsteady manner which is sure to mark a path trodden out by man's unguided feet, and which offers no bad comment on his uncertain and roundabout way of arriving at his object; but, as the ground comprised many hundred acres, Colonel Manners might have been puzzled which way to take, had not his military habits at once sent him to the small planted tumulus which we have mentioned, in order to obtain a general view of the place. ”

“ All the others cry out that it is evident it does so; wonder they could have admired it; and poor patient merit is kicked back into the shade."
"But still, the same process takes place again," rejoined Colonel Manners. "The learned fool and his generation die off; but still, the merit of the thing remains till some one again rescues it from oblivion, and its reputation is finally established."
"Indeed, now, Colonel Manners," said Mrs. Falkland, "I think that you have admitted Marian's maxim with too little limitation. ”

“ To what the change is owing I cannot conjecture; but I do all that in me lies 306 to support it, preferring the entire sacrifice of every moment, from our dinner to twelve at night, to her harshness and horrors. Nevertheless, a lassitude of existence creeps sensibly upon me.
Colonel Manners, however, for the short half-hour of tea-time, is irresistibly diverting. He continues my constant friend and neighbour, and, while he affects to play off the coadjutrix to advantage, he nods at me, to draw forth my laughter or approbation, with the most alarming undisguise. ”

“ It is a very disagreeable thing to have any two feelings thus making a shuttlecock of our attention; or, when they are very eager, struggling for it with mutual pertinacity; but the only way to act under such circumstances is, to treat them like two quarrelsome boys; and, shutting them up together, leave them to fight it out without interruption. Such was the plan which Colonel Manners now proposed to pursue; and, consequently, quitting the hall where his conversation with De Vaux had taken place, he walked straight to the library, and opened the door. ”

“ Colonel Manners smiled. "In the past you are certainly not far wrong: but it is the future I wish to hear: what of it?"
"You mock us, sir," said the gipsy, eying him. "However, you shall hear your fate as it is. You shall be fortunate and unfortunate."
"That is the common lot of human nature," rejoined Colonel Manners.
"But herein does your fate differ from the common lot of human nature," replied the gipsy: "you shall be no longer fortunate in those things wherein you have hitherto found success; for you shall do all that you think you will not do ”

“ Her presence made no difference in his conduct towards others; and the moment his attention or his speech was called from the conversation with his niece, he seemed to become a different being,--dark, stern, and overbearing.
Such a demeanour, of course, was not calculated to promote any thing like cheerful conversation; and the atmosphere of his gloom would have affected all those by whom he was surrounded, and extinguished every thing like pleasure for that night, had it not been for the counteracting influence of Colonel Manners. ”

“ Miss Port and myself had, afterwards, an extremely risible evening with Colonels Goldsworthy, Wellbred, and Manners the rest were summoned away to the king, or retired to their own apartments. Colonel Wellbred began the sport, undesignedly, by telling me something new relative to Dr. Herschel’s volcanoes. This was enough for Colonel Manners, who declared aloud his utter contempt for such pretended discoveries. He was deaf to all that could be said in answer, and protested he wondered how any man of common sense could ever listen to such a pack of stuff. ”

“ Then, in agitation, and horror, and anxiety, he had clung to any one for the sake of society; and more especially to one whose character and reputation gave him confidence, and whose warm co-operation afforded support. Now, however, he was going to hear from his agents the progress of dark and subtle plans of which Colonel Manners knew nothing--to examine and speak with persons whom he had engaged in proceedings equally cunning and unjustifiable ”

“ The activity, the energy, and the fire he displayed in his whole proceedings not a little surprised Colonel Manners; and had he had time or inclination for anything like gayety, he might have smiled to think that he had refused, on account of age, to cross his sword with one who, in passions, at least, seemed anything but an old man. Ere the letters were sealed, however, it was announced that Mr. De Vaux's servant had arrived from Barholm, and inquired for Colonel Manners. With the peer's permission he was brought in ”

“ The truth is," she added more seriously, "that after riding very fast, my ideas, which are never in a very composed and tranquil state, get into such a whirl, that I am always obliged to come and read some good book for a quarter of an hour ere I dare venture into rational society. Do you feel the same, Colonel Manners?"
"Not exactly," answered Manners smiling, "but I rather fancy that I am more accustomed to galloping than you are, Miss Falkland ”

“ It was now the height of summer; and though men sat long and drank deep in those days, yet people who were sufficiently reasonable to condemn the practice, and sufficiently firm to contemn an idle sneer, could rise from table when they liked, even then. Thus, about an hour after the ladies had retired, and just as the sun's lower rim touched the horizon, Colonel Manners, who had been strangling a whole generation of yawns, rose and sauntered to the window. Mr. Arden, who had sat next to him, instantly seized the decanter, and exclaimed, "Come, come, colonel ”

“ A fight lets the bad blood out of ye. Sure it was a pike or a gun O'Connell 'ud shouldher in the ould days, and no one to say him nay, and we all following him like the Colonel of a regiment—an' proud to do it, too. But now it's only the soft words we get from him."
"A child's hand shall guide," said the priest. Then he added:
"It has guided him. Whenever ye get them wicked thoughts about shouldherin' a gun and flashin' a pike, come round to confession, Flaherty, and it's the good penance I'll give ye to dhrive the devil's temptation away from ye." ”

“ Among these praisers of the past time, who with ostentatious obstinacy affected the manners of a former generation, was this same Paulus Pleydell, Esq. otherwise a good scholar, an excellent lawyer, and a worthy man.
Under the guidance of his trusty attendant. Colonel Mannering, after threading a dark lane or two, reached the Highstreet, then clanging with the voice of oyster-women and the bells of pyemen, for it had, as his guide assured him, just "chappit eight upon the Tron." ”

“ But without dwelling on minor instances, I will refer you at once to the character of Colonel Mannering, as one of the most striking representations I am acquainted with, of a gentleman in feelings and in manners, in habits, taste, predilections; nay, if the expression may be ventured, a gentleman even in prejudices, passions, and caprices. ”

“ Would you?"
"Without the slightest apprehension," answered Colonel Manners, laughing. "They may try their chiromancy on me, when they please, and do me all the harm they can for half a crown, which is, I believe, the stipulated sum."
"That is, because you are a man and a hero," replied Miss Falkland, in the same gay tone, "and you are bound by honour and profession to be afraid of nothing ”

“ Junius retorted with sarcasms on Draper's tacit renunciation of the Manilla claims, and on his exchange with Colonel Gisborne, the latter, an everyday transaction, being represented as ‘unprecedented among soldiers.’ ‘By what accident,’ asked Junius, ‘did it happen that in the midst of all this bustle and all these claims for justice to your injured troops, the name of the Manilla ransom was buried in a profound, and since then an uninterrupted silence? Did the ministers suggest any motive powerful enough to tempt a man of honour to desert and betray his fellow-soldiers? ”