Читать книгу Lord William Beresford, V.C., Some Memories of a Famous Sportsman, Soldier and Wit онлайн

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There was that great fine Irishman, the late Colonel King-Harman, most majestic of men and model parent, who came to children’s parties and danced with poor awestricken me, my feet seldom touching the ground, but my heart full of admiration for so king-like a being. The Raleigh knew him as one of the merriest, always ready for a rag.

Lord Alfred Paget, equerry to Queen Victoria, whom I used to admire so much when I was a child, sat in front of us in church one winter in the Isle of Wight. His commanding carriage, handsome dark eyes, and beetroot complexion fascinated me; and he was so decorous and good in church, with a pew full of daughters all apparently reverencing him as I did, for he spent such a long time bending over the pew and gazing into his hat when he came into church. And the gallant way in which, without a smile, smallest hesitation, or fluster, he disentangled the bonnets of two ladies who got mixed up in front of him one Sunday. It came about through the lady in the front pew getting up from her knees before the lady in the seat behind her had completed her devotions. Consequently, when she did get up the spangled aigrette in her bonnet mixed itself up hopelessly in the veil and sweeping plume of the head-dress in front of her. Both tugged and pulled, growing redder in the face and angrier each moment. My eyes were riveted on the couple, appalled, wondering whose headgear would be pulled off first, when the gallant equerry, without moving a muscle of his face, reached over with his long arm and gave one healthy tweak which separated the two bonnets, while a shower of tinkling bugles fell from the aigrette to the floor, but still no sign of mirth on the deliverer’s face. While walking home after the service my father congratulated him on the speedy way he had freed the ladies, but Lord Alfred was not unduly mirthful even then, when out of church and all was over. Yet he too was no stranger at the Raleigh.