fast on the same.  Claret flows soberly from long-necked bottles whose corks bear the brand of the wine-merchant, high priced and legal, instead of from the cask of which the snug sandy cove and the roguish-looking hooker could have told tales.  But, in spite of visionary rents, and poor-rates sternly real, the Irish squire still clings to the exercise of that hospitality which has been an heirloom with the tribes since the days of Strongbow.

One of my longest halting-places was at Ralph Mohun’s, by whom, though personally unknown to him, I was made very welcome as a friend of Guy’s.  My host deserves a more especial mention, for his history was a sad, though not an uncommon one.

He began life in a Cavalry regiment, wherein he conducted himself with fair average propriety till he met Lady Caroline Desborough.  He fell in love with her—­most people did—­but, unluckily, when she married Mr. Mannering, to whom she had been predestined since her debut, he could not bring himself to wear the willow decently and in order, like her other disappointed admirers.

It was the old unhappy story:  her husband neglected Lady Caroline consistently—­ill-treated her sometimes.  Mohun pursued his purpose with the relentless obstinacy of his character.  Eighteen months after her marriage they fled together.

He was not rich, so that the trial which ensued, with its heavy damages, completely crippled him.  The partner of his crime was absolutely penniless.  They went to Vienna, and Ralph entered the Austrian Cuirassiers, where he had some interest to push him.  He had lingered some time within reach of England, to give Mannering an opportunity of demanding satisfaction.  But the injured husband knew his man too well to trust himself within fifteen paces of Mohun’s pistol.  He chose a surer, safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring Ralph from his only means of atonement—­marriage with his victim.

He varied the dull routine of seducers, it is true, for he never wearied of, or behaved unkindly to, the woman he had ruined.  Time brought many troubles on them, but never satiety or coldness.  To the very last he worshiped her, and, to the utmost of his power, guarded her tenderly.  Rough, and hard, and morose as he was to others, she never heard his lips utter one harsh word.

But she was of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her strength when she thought she could bear dishonor.  After that duel with which Austria rang, in which the best schlager in his brigade fell, horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; but the women—­who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful glances?  Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern dowagers, or deter them from their prey.  Wherever the carcass of a fair fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned—­the choosers of the slain.