When, many a year afterwards, the hard ground of a mountain bivouac, with its pitiful portion of pickled cork-tree yclept mess-beef, and that pyroligneous aquafortis they call corn-brandy have been my hard fare, I often looked back to that day's dinner with a most heart-yearning sensation,--a turbot as big as the Waterloo shield, a sirloin that seemed cut from the sides of a rhinoceros, a sauce-boat that contained an oyster-bed. There was a turkey, which singly would have formed the main army of a French dinner, doing mere outpost duty, flanked by a picket of ham and a detached squadron of chickens carefully ambushed in a forest of greens; potatoes, not disguised _à la maître d'hôtel_ and tortured to resemble bad macaroni, but piled like shot in an ordnance-yard, were posted at different quarters; while massive decanters of port and sherry stood proudly up like standard bearers amidst the goodly array. This was none of your austere "great dinners," where a cold and chilling _plateau_ of artificial nonsense cuts off one-half of the table from intercourse with the other; when whispered sentences constitute the conversation, and all the friendly recognition of wine-drinking, which renews acquaintance and cements an intimacy, is replaced by the ceremonious filling of your glass by a lackey; where smiles go current in lieu of kind speeches, and epigram and smartness form the substitute for the broad jest and merry story. Far from it. Here the company ate, drank, talked, laughed,--did all but sing, and certainly enjoyed themselves heartily. As for me, I was little more than a listener; and such was the crash of plates, the jingle of glasses, and the clatter of voices, that fragments only of what was passing around reached me, giving to the conversation of the party a character occasionally somewhat incongruous. Thus such sentences as the following ran foul of each other every instant:--
"No better land in Galway"--"where could you find such facilities"--"for shooting Mr. Jones on his way home"--"the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"--"kiss"--"Miss Blake, she's the girl with a foot and ankle"--"Daly has never had wool on his sheep"--"how could he"--"what does he pay for the mountain"--"four and tenpence a yard"--"not a penny less"--"all the cabbage-stalks and potato-skins"--"with some bog stuff through it"--"that's the thing to"--"make soup, with a red herring in it instead of salt"--"and when he proposed for my niece, ma'am, says he"--"mix a strong tumbler, and I'll make a shake-down for you on the floor"--"and may the Lord have mercy on your soul"--"and now, down the middle and up again"--"Captain Magan, my dear, he is the man"--"to shave a pig properly"--"it's not money I'm looking for, says he, the girl of my heart"--"if she had not a wind-gall and two spavins"--"I'd have given her the rights of the church, of coorse," said Father Roach, bringing up the rear of this ill-assorted jargon.