The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 359, March 7, 1829

In Ireland, when a man marries, who cannot afford to treat his friends to whiskey upon the occasion, they take the door of his house off the hinges, lay him upon it, and carry him thus upon their shoulders all day. In the evening he is allowed to return to his deserted bride. This custom is called "boarding," and is so frequent, as I myself can attest from personal observation, as to attract but little attention from the commonalty, and nothing like a mob.

M.L.B.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE MAN-MOUNTAIN

We were all—Julia, her aunt, and myself, seated at a comfortable fire on a December evening. The night was dark, starless, and rainy, while the drops pattered upon the windows, and the wind howled at intervals along the house-tops. In a word, it was as gloomy a night as one would wish to see in this, the most dismal season of the year. Strictly speaking, I should have been at home, for it was Sunday; and my own habitation was at too great a distance to justify a visit of mere ceremony on so sacred a day, and amid such stormy weather. The truth is, I sallied out to see Julia.

I verily believe I could write a whole volume about her. She came from the north country, and was at this time on a visit to her aunt, in whose house she resided; and in whose dining-room, at the period of my story, we were all seated round a comfortable fire. Though a prodigious admirer of beauty, I am a bad hand at describing it. To do Julia justice, however, I must make the attempt. She was rather under the middle size, (not much,) blue-eyed, auburn-haired, fair-complexioned, and her shape was of uncommon elegance and proportion. Neck, bosom, waist, ankles, feet, hands, &c. all were perfect, while her nose was beautifully Grecian, her mouth sweetness itself, and her teeth as white and sparkling as pearls. In a word, I don't believe that wide Scotland could boast of a prettier girl—to say nothing of merry England and the Isle of Saints.

It was at this time about eight o'clock: tea had just been over, the tray removed, and the table put to rights. The star of my attraction was seated at one side of the fire, myself at the opposite, the lady of the house in the centre. We were all in excellent humour, and Julia and I eyed each other in the most persevering style imaginable. Her aunt indeed rallied us upon the occasion; and I thought Julia never appeared half so beautiful as now.

A servant bouncing by accident into a room where a gallant is on his knees before his mistress, and in the act of "popping the question," is vexatious. An ass thrusting its head through the broken window of a country church, and braying aloud while the congregation are busily chanting "Old Hundred," or some other equally devout melody, is vexatious. An elderly gentleman losing his hat and wig on a windy day, is vexatious. A young gentleman attempting to spring over a stile by way of showing his agility to a bevy of approaching ladies, and coming plump down upon the broadest part of his body, is vexatious. All these things are plagues and annoyances sufficient to render life a perfect nuisance, and fill the world with innumerable heart-breakings and felo-de-sees. But bad as they are, they are nothing to the intolerable vexation experienced by me, (and I believe by Julia too,) on hearing a slow, loud, solemn stroke of the knocker upon the outer door. It was repeated once—twice—thrice. We heard it simultaneously—we ceased speaking simultaneously—we (to wit, Julia and I) ceased ogling each other simultaneously. The whole of us suspended our conversation in a moment—looked to the door of the room—breathed hard, and wondered what it could be. The reader will perhaps marvel how such an impression could be produced by so very trivial a circumstance; but if he himself had heard the sound, he would cease to wonder at the strangeness of our feelings. The knocks were the most extraordinary ever heard. They were not those petty, sharp, brisk, soda-water knocks given by little, bustling, common-place men. On the contrary, they were slow, sonorous, and determinate. What was still more remarkable, they were three in number, neither more nor less.

Scarcely had our surprise time to subside, than we heard the outer door opened by the servant—then it closed—then heavy footsteps, one, two, and three, were audible in the lobby—then the dining-room door was opened; and a form which filled the whole of its ample aperture, from top to bottom, from right to left, made its appearance. It was the figure of a man, but language would sink under his immensity. Never in heaven, or earth, or air, or ocean, was such a man seen. He was hugeness itself—bulk personified—the beau ideal of amplitude. When the dining-room door was first opened, the glare of the well-lighted lobby gleamed in upon us, illuminating our whole apartment with increase of lustre; but no sooner did he set his foot upon the threshold, than the lobby light behind him was shut out. He filled the whole gorge of the door like an enormous shade.

Onward, clothed in black, came the moving mountain, and a very pleasing monster he was. A neck like that of a rhinoceros sat piled between his "Atlantean shoulders," and bore upon its tower-like and sturdy stem, a countenance prepossessing from its good-humour, and amazing for its plumpness and rubicundity. His cheeks were swollen out into billows of fat—his eyes overhung with turgid and most majestic lids, and his chin double, triple, ay quadruple. As for his mouth—

"It was enough to win a lady's heart
With its bewitching smile."

Onward came the moving mountain—shaking the floor beneath his tread, filling a tithe of the room with his bulk, and blackening every object with his portentous shadow.

I was amazed—I was confounded—I was horrified. Not so Julia and her aunt, who, far from participating in my perturbed emotions, got up from their seats, smiled with a welcoming nod, and requested him to sit down.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Tims," said Julia.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Tims," said her aunt.

"Mr. Tims!" Gracious heavens, and was this the name of the mighty entrant? Tims! Tims! Tims!—the thing was impossible. A man with such a name should be able to go into a nut-shell; and here was one that the womb of a mountain could scarcely contain! Had he been called Sir Bullion O'Dunder, Sir Theodosius M'Turk, Sir Rugantino Magnificus, Sir Blunderbuss Blarney, or some other high-sounding name, I should have been perfectly satisfied. But to be called Tims! Upon my honour, I was shocked to hear it.

Mr. Tims sat him down upon the great elbow-chair, for he was a friend, it seems, of the family—a weighty one assuredly; but one whose acquaintanceship they were all glad to court. The ladies, in truth, seemed much taken with his society. They put fifty questions to him about the play—the assembly—the sermon—marriages—deaths—christenings, and what not; the whole of which he answered with surprising volubility. His tongue was the only active part about him, going as glibly as if he were ten stones, instead of thirty, and as if he were a Tims in person as well as in name. In a short time I found myself totally neglected. Julia ceased to eye me, her aunt to address me, so completely were their thoughts occupied with the Man-Mountain.

In about half an hour I began to feel confoundedly uncomfortable. I was a mere cipher in the room; and what with the appalling bulk of Mr. Tims, the attention the ladies bestowed upon him, and the neglect with which they treated me, I sunk considerably in my own estimation. In proportion as this feeling took possession of me, I experienced an involuntary respect for the stranger. I admired his intimate knowledge of balls, dresses, faux pas, marriages, and gossip of all sorts—and still more I admired his bulk. I have an instinctive feeling of reverence towards "Stout Gentlemen;" and, while contrasting my own puny form with his, I laboured under a deep consciousness of personal insignificance. From being five feet eight, I seemed to shrink to five feet one; from weighing ten stones, I suddenly fell to seven and a half; while my portly rival sat opposite to me, measuring at least a foot taller than myself, and weighing good thirty stones, jockey weight. If any little fellow like me thinks of standing well with his mistress, let him never appear in her presence with such a gentleman as Mr. Tims. She will despise him to a certainty; nor, though his soul be as large as Atlas or Teneriffe, will it compensate for the paltry dimensions of his body.

What was to be done? With the ladies, it was plain, I could do nothing: with Mr. Tims, it was equally plain, I ought to do nothing—seeing that, however much he was the cause of my uneasiness, he was at least the innocent cause, and therefore neither morally nor judicially amenable to punishment. From respecting Mr. Tims I came to hate him; and I vowed internally, that, rather than be annihilated by this enlarged edition of Daniel Lambert, I would pitch him over the window. Had I been a giant, I am sure I would have done it on the spot. The giants of old, it is well known, raised Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to scale the throne of heaven; and tossed enormous mountains at the godhead of Jupiter himself. Unfortunately for me, Mr. Tims was a mountain, and I was no giant.

I accordingly got up, and, pretending it was necessary that I should see some person in the next street, abruptly left the room. Julia—I did not expect it—saw me to the door, shook hands with me, and said she hoped I would return to supper when my business was finished. Sweet girl! was it possible she could prefer the Man-Mountain to me?

Away I went into the open air. I had no business whatever to perform: it was mere fudge; and I resolved to go home as fast as I could.

But I did not go home. On the contrary, I kept strolling about from street to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims. The night was of the most melancholy description—a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy December night. Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern, like an incarnation of the Will-o'-wisp. I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head. It was well I chanced to be so well fortified against the weather; for had it been otherwise, I must have been drenched to the skin. Where I went I know not, so deeply was my mind wound up in its various melancholy cogitations. This, however, I do know, that, after striking against sundry lamp-posts, and overturning a few old women in my fits of absence, I found myself precisely at the point from which I set out, viz. at the door of Julia's aunt's husband's house.

I paused for a moment, uncertain whether to enter, and, in the meantime, turning my eyes to the window, where, upon the white blind, I beheld the enormous shadow of a human being. My flesh crept with horror on witnessing this apparition, for I knew it to be the shadow of the Man-Mountain—the dim reflection of Mr. Tims. No other human being could cast such a shade. Its proportions were magnificent, and filled up the whole breadth of the window-screen; nay, the shoulders shot away latterly beyond its utmost limits, and were lost in space, having apparently nothing whereon to cast their mighty image. On beholding this vast shade, my mind was filled with a thousand exalted thoughts.

I paused at the door for sometime, uncertain whether to enter; at last my mind was made up, and I knocked, resolved to encounter the Man-Mountain a second time, and, if possible, recover the lost glances of Julia. On entering the dining-room, I found an accession to the company in the person of our landlord, who sat opposite to Mr. Tims, listening to some facetious story, which the latter gentleman seemed in the act of relating. He had come home during my absence, and, like his wife and her niece, appeared to be fascinated by the eloquence and humour of his stout friend. At least, so I judged, for he merely recognised my presence by a slight bow, and devoted the whole of his attention to the owner of the mighty shadow. Julia and her aunt were similarly occupied, and I was more neglected than ever.

Perhaps the reader may think that there was something ludicrous in the idea of such a man being in love. Not at all—the notion was sublime; almost as sublime as his shadow—almost as overwhelming as his person. Conceive the Man-Mountain playing the amiable with such a delicate young creature like Julia. Conceive him falling on his knees before her—pressing her delicate hand, and "popping the question," while his large round eyes shed tears of affection and suspense, and his huge sides shook with emotion! Conceive him enduring all the pangs of love-sickness, never telling his love; "concealment, like a worm in the bud, preying upon his damask cheek," while his hard-hearted mistress stood disdainfully by, "like pity on a monument, smiling at grief." Above all, conceive him taking the lover's leap—say from Dunnet or Duncansby-head, where the rocks tower four hundred feet above the Pentland Firth, and floundering in the waters like an enormous whale; the herring shoals hurrying away from his unwieldy gambols, as from the presence of the real sea-born leviathan. Cacus in love was not more grand, or the gigantic Polyphemus, sighing at the feet of Galatea, or infernal Pluto looking amiable beside his ravished queen. Have you seen an elephant in love? If you have, you may conceive what Mr. Tims would be in that interesting situation.

Supper was brought in. It consisted of eggs, cold veal, bacon-ham, and a Welsh rabbit. I must confess, that, perplexed as I was by all the previous events of the evening, I felt a gratification at the present moment, in the anxiety to see how the Man-Mountain would comport himself at table. I had beheld his person and his shadow with equal admiration, and I doubted not that his powers of eating were on the same great scale as his other qualifications. They were, indeed. Zounds, how he did eat! Cold veal, eggs, bacon-ham, and Welsh rabbit, disappeared "like the baseless fabric of a vision, and left not a wreck behind;" so thoroughly had nine-tenths of them taken up their abode in the bread basket (vide Jon Bee) of the Man-Mountain; the remaining tenth sufficed for the rest of the company, viz. Julia, her aunt, her aunt's husband, and myself.

Liquor was brought in, to wit, wine, brandy, whisky, and rum. I felt an intense curiosity to see on which of the four Mr. Tims would fix his choice. He fixed upon brandy, and made a capacious tumbler of hot toddy. I did the same, and asked Julia to join me in taking a single glass—I was forestalled by the Man-Mountain. I then asked the lady of the house the same thing, but was forestalled by her husband.

Meanwhile, the evening wearing on, the ladies retired, and Mr. Tims, the landlord, and myself, were left to ourselves. This was the signal for a fresh assault upon the brandy-bottle. Another tumbler was made—then another—then a fourth. At this period Julia appeared at the door, and beckoned upon the landlord, who arose from table, saying he would rejoin us immediately. Mr. Tims and I were thus left alone, and so we continued, for the landlord, strange to say, did not again appear. What became of him I know not. I supposed he had gone to bed, and left his great friend and myself to pass the time as we were best able.

We were now commencing our fifth tumbler, and I began to feel my whole spirit pervaded by the most delightful sensations. My heart beat quicker, my head sat more lightly than usual upon my shoulders; and sounds like the distant hum of bees, or the music of the spheres, heard in echo afar off, floated around me. There was no bar between me and perfect happiness, but the Man-Mountain, who sat on the great elbow-chair opposite, drinking his brandy-toddy, and occasionally humming an old song with the utmost indifference.

It was plain that he despised me. While any of the others were present he was abundantly loquacious, but now he was as dumb as a fish—tippling in silence, and answering such questions as I put to him in abrupt monosyllables. The thing was intolerable, but I saw into it: Julia had played me false; the "Mountain" was the man of her choice, and I his despised and contemptible rival.

These ideas passed rapidly through my mind, and were accompanied with myriads of others. I bethought me of every thing connected with Mr. Tims—his love for Julia—his elephantine dimensions, and his shadow, huge and imposing as the image of the moon against the orb of day, during an eclipse. Then I was transported away to the Arctic sea, where I saw him floundering many a rood, "hugest of those that swim the ocean stream." Then he was a Kraken fish, outspread like an island upon the deep: then a mighty black cloud affrighting the mariners with its presence: then a flying island, like that which greeted the bewildered eyes of Gulliver. At last he resumed his human shape, and sat before me like "Andes, giant of the Western Star," tippling the jorum, and sighing deeply.

Yes, he sighed profoundly, passionately, tenderly; and the sighs came from his breast like blasts of wind from the cavern of Eolus. By Jove, he was in love; in love with Julia! and I thought it high time to probe him to the quick.

"Sir," said I, "you must be conscious that you have no right to love Julia. You have no right to put your immense body between her and me. She is my betrothed bride, and mine she shall be for ever."

"I have weighty reasons for loving her," replied Mr. Tims.

"Were your reasons as weighty as your person, you shall not love her."

"She shall be mine," responded he, with a deeply-drawn sigh. "You cannot, at least, prevent her image from being enshrined in my heart. No, Julia! even when thou descendest to the grave, thy remembrance will cause thee to live in my imagination, and I shall thus write thine elegy:

I cannot deem thee dead—like the perfumes
Arising from Judea's vanished shrines
Thy voice still floats around me—nor can tombs
A thousand, from my memory hide the lines
Of beauty, on thine aspect which abode,
Like streaks of sunshine pictured there by God.

She shall be mine," continued he in the same strain. "Prose and verse shall woo her for my lady-love; and she shall blush and hang her head in modest joy, even as the rose when listening to the music of her beloved bulbul beneath the stars of night."

These amorous effusions, and the tone of insufferable affectation with which they were uttered, roused my corruption to its utmost pitch, and I exclaimed aloud, "Think not, thou revivification of Falstaff—thou enlarged edition of Lambert—thou folio of humanity—thou Titan—thou Briareus—thou Sphynx—thou Goliath of Gath, that I shall bend beneath thy ponderous insolence?" The Mountain was amazed at my courage; I was amazed at it myself; but what will not Jove, inspired by brandy, effect?

"No," continued I, seeing the impression my words had produced upon him, "I despise thee, and defy thee, even as Hercules did Antaeus, as Sampson did Harapha, as Orlando did Ferragus. 'Bulk without spirit vast,' I fear thee not; come on." So saying, I rushed onward to the Mountain, who arose from his seat to receive me. The following passage from the Agonistes of Milton will give some idea of our encounter:

"As with the force of winds and water pent,
When mountains tremble, these two massy pillars,
With horrible convulsion to and fro,
He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder,
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath."

"Psha!" said Julia, blushing modestly, "can't you let me go?" Sweet Julia, I had got her in my arms.

"But where," said I, "is Mr. Tims?"

"Mr. who?" said she.