A Starved Soul

Preface

. HIS little volume was originally intended by the author to follow the publication of a small series of short poems, essays, and sketches (sporting, &c), which modest work has been unaccountably delayed in making its appearance, and will probably have to be re-written. Under these circumstances the author can but hope for the indulgence of the Public towards a first venture; and that the little-known scenes amidst which much of his trifling tale is laid, many of its incidents having occurred in his own past experience of the same out-of-the-way parts of the world in days gone by, will be of sufficient interest to the not-too-critical reader, to redeem any faults of style and construction, or graver errors displayed (as the writer is only too well aware there are) in " A Starved Soul." Criticism on the smaller work which has, he fears, been strangled before seeing the light, would have been of much value to the author in the pub lication of what should have been his second attempt ; therefore he ventures to hope that this short story, which, as elsewhere stated, is by no means entirely a work of fiction,* * Savage's description (pp. 115 and 116) of the sudden change ol temperature experienced by a regiment moved in winter from Ber muda to Halifax, N.S., is founded upon fact, though in this case thc corps had not just passed through an epidemic of yellow-fever.

PREFACE.

. may, in spite of its many errors and shortcomings, and although " there is nothing new under the sun," be found by the "novel-crushed," long-suffering Public, worthy of perusal for the small modicum of originality which it may claim to possess. W. L. F. CONTENTS. i. the "seining" Party ... ... page i II. "the three disgraces" ... ... ... 7 III. a "water-picnic" ... ... ... ... 14 IV. "ordered home" ... ... ... ... 2 2 I V. AN UNWELCOME APPARITION' ... ... ... 28 VI. "hostages to fortune" 3S VII. IRELAND IN 186 — (" HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF") ... ... ... 48 VIII. MORE LETTERS FROM BERMUDA ... ... 58 IX. "YELLOW JACK" IN A GARRISON HOSPITAL . 63 X. SOME "TRAVELLERS' YARNS" ... ... 73 XI. " FESTINA LENTE" (RETROSPECTIVE) ... 85 xii. " hell has no fury like a woman scorned" ... ... ... ... ... 95 XIII.

" MORS OMNIBUS CO.MMUNIS " ... ... I08 XIV. A CHANGE OF CLIMATE — AND SCENE — ... 120 XV. THE HUNTERS' " CAMP " I30 xvi. a "creeping" tale 138 XVII. THE "ACCIDENT" WARD 146 XVIII. AN UNREPENTANT SINNER 156 XIX. TOO late! 164 XX. "tempora MUTANTUR, xos et mutamur in ILLIS" '76 ERRATUM. Insert comma between the words "Helen " and "flushed '' on page 15, line 24.

Chapter I. Eep

the corks up, for heaven's sake, or they'll all be over ! There ! I told you so ! Why the d ," &c. The speaker, a stout, red-faced individual of about fifty, whose attire appeared to consist mainly of a dilapidated flannel dressing-gown and a pair of white canvas shoes, having delivered himself of a volley of mild expletives, proceeded to mop his bald head with a red bandanna, which he had detached from his waist, at the same time seating himself in the midst of a fine bunch of prickly pears growing on a low stone wall just behind him, which he had failed to notice till too late, in his haste and disgust at the neglect of his directions. A howl of wrath and pain, mingled with roars of unsympathetic laughter from his companions, was the result, whilst the victim, giving vent to a fresh torrent of objurgations, with both hands clapped to that portion of the " human form divine," which, in his case, was somewhat too fully de veloped for manly beauty, danced round on one leg in a paroxysm of agony.

The scene of this quaint outbreak was a long, narrow strip of sand, glistening snow-white under a full semi tropical moon, bounded by high limestone rocks on either E side, with bases lost in the inky darkness peculiar to the shade of bright moonlight ; behind were the dim outlines of a thick cedar wood, from which was wafted by the light land-breeze an indescribably sweet perfume, only to be in haled in perfection at night or early morning. In front, the ripple of the wavelets on the edge of the deep, narrow, land-locked bay, the scene broadening into a wide, moonlit expanse of ocean, more calm in the still night than is often known in the "still vexed Bermoothes," in which far-away islands my story opens. At present, however, the midnight quiet of the little bay was ruffled, and the sweet stillness of the night air was dis turbed only by the plaints of the unfortunate victim of mis placed confidence, and the shouts and vociferations pro ceeding from a group of excited men, busily engaged in hauling ashore a large "seine."

The strain on the ropes, and the frequent disappearance of the corks, gave promise of a weighty catch. Occasionally a silvery flash in the moonlight told that a school of grey mullet were escaping the toils by leaping the top of the net, though not without determined opposition from the swimmers beyond, who, by raising the corks at arm's length, succeeded in stopping about one fish to every ten that got away, establishing the wily fishes' right of kinship to their red relations (the woodcock of the sea), as hard to bring to bag, and as toothsome a morsel as their feathered namesakes. The fishermen were a party of young officers of H.M.'s — th Regiment, belonging to a de tachment quartered in the old convict barracks of Boaz Island, Bermuda. With the major in command at their head, they had turned out for a night's " hauling " after dinner, on this sultry summer evening in 186 — , in pre ference to a rubber of whist in the anteroom, or a game of pool in the smoky, ill-ventilated atmosphere of the billiard-room.

This specimen of " Royal Engineer " archi tecture had been erected from plans sent out by mistake from the War Office to Bermuda instead of Belfast, where the grumbling British officer shivers in a great-coat, with benumbed fingers, at his winter evening game of " pyramids," in a building originally intended for the Arctic (?) climate of Hong-Kong ! The wounded hero, known in the regiment by the soubriquet of "Old D ," had retired to his quarters, supported by his soldier servant, to undergo, at the hands of the assistant-surgeon — whose skilful manipulation of the forceps was somewhat impeded by the patient's want of restraint in movement and language — the delicate operation of extracting the spines of the prickly-pear leaves, during which curses, " both loud and deep," might have been heard, had a listener been near, mingled with the very pronounced brogue of the Irish doctor's unavailing re monstrances.

In the meantime, the party on the beach, heedless of their leader's mishap, with some labour, and many a shout of " Now, all together, boys, with a will, yo-ho ! " and not without sundry rents of the leaded bottom of the heavily weighted seine, at last succeeded in getting ashore their best and last haul of fish for the night, and were busily employed in reckoning up the spoils, and filling with them buckets, baskets, bath-tubs, coal-boxes, and every available receptacle that could be pressed into the service. And what a variety of fish were there, as they lay about in the bright moonlight on the white sand, of species and hues undreamt of by fishermen at home !

The red snapper and its brown congener ; the blue and yellow angel-fish, with its enormously-developed brilliantly-tinted fins ; the pink-fleshed amberfish ; the giant grouper, or coral rock cod ; the bovine-looking cowfish, with its plainly-indicated pair of fleshy horns ; the long, elegantly-shaped bonito ; the red and grey mullet ; the snouted hog-fish ; small baby sharks, not a foot long, by no means bad eating at that tender age ; hundreds of tiny sea-horses (hippocampus), entangled by their spines in the meshes ; a couple of small turtle, caught napping ; a few diminutive deep-blue fish with orange fins, then unnamed by the Bermudians ; quantities of hideous cuttlefish, starfish, sea-slugs, sea-pike, sea-urchins, hedgehogs, and cucumbers ; and several brilliantly-striped " marais," or small sea-serpents ; these, and many others better known to our dull-coloured northern seas, lay around in struggling, scaly heaps, mingled with patches of gulf and other seaweed, countless B small shells of every shape and tint, lumps of coral, sponge, and small brain-stones torn up by the net, often with magnificent sea-ferns attached to them.

The latter, with the coarser and more useless fish, were returned to their native element ; while the more valuable portion of the catch was borne barrackwards by a fatigue-party, turned out for the purpose, and only too delighted to leave their mosquito-haunted barrack-rooms for the sweet-scented air, to say nothing of the change in prospect for to-morrow's meal from their tainted salt pork rations. " Now, then, Brady, put those two turtle in your pocket, and bring them along to the mess, where we will turn them out in the fish-pond. I don't think there are more than half-a-dozen small ones left, since ' Daniel Webster ' was killed and sent to head-quarters last guest-night." The speaker was a tall, yellow-haired, brown-eyed young fellow of twenty-five, known to his brother officers as " Biddy," from a supposed striking likeness to the Irish mess-cook (Bridget Aialoney), but whose name appeared in ■the Army List as Captain Samuel Hill.

The youth addressed was the last-joined ensign, a raw youth, whose somewhat nondescript appearance needed, but for his Hibernian name, the opening of his mouth to betray his nationality. At most of the military stations (detachment or otherwise) in the islands, small fish-ponds, with an outlet to the salt water, are attached to each officers' mess, wherein large fish of different kinds and live turtle are kept and fed. The latter, being greedy feeders, soon fatten, and, when they attain a weight of some 60 lb., are killed, and divided among the different officers' messes, where, in the form of turtle-soup, steaks, cutlets, stewed fins, &c, they appeared on the table on any grand occasion, such as the weekly "guest-nights." " Daniel Webster " was a turtle who had been christened " Daniel Lambert" because of its enormous size, but Brady had contrived to confuse the surnames, and, for the six months preceding his decease, the fish, who was a great favourite, and, from his long sojourn in the pond, so tame as to feed readily from the hand when called, was always addressed as " Daniel Webster."

The Irish ensign, whose dress comprised only a white shirt and pair of "pyjamas," and who, like all the party, was dripping from head to foot from his prolonged bath in the warm salt water, stared blankly at his " skipper," who solved his difficulty by slinging the two turtles, tied together by a leathern strap he detached from his own waist, round the neck of the " sub," saying, as he did so, " There's a brace of good-conduct medals for you, my boy ! Come along, now." The whole party of some eight or ten, dripping and half clad, yet merry and good-tempered youngsters, already forgetful of their senior's late mishap and sufferings, followed in the wake of the fatigue-party, presently to reassemble in the verandah outside the mess-room for a final smoke and "night-cap" before seeking their well-earned repose.

Let us introduce them as they appear, one by one, in this moonlit verandah, running entirely round thc mess-house of the officers' quarters, and throw themselves, fatigued and limp with the warm, damp night air of Bermuda, into the numerous cane lounges which are scat tered about. To begin with the senior. Captain Robertson is a handsome, grizzled man of forty-five or thereabouts, a widower, with a family of three young daughters, of whom more hereafter. He is somewhat taciturn and unsociable, ordinarily eschewing the company and amusements of his juniors, and spending most of his evenings at home with his daughters, or in the society of the third Captain of the detachment, Captain North, a married man, who just now is employed in visiting the guards scattered over a dreary round of six miles or more.

Then there is Savage, the senior lieutenant, a tall, cadaverous, hook-nosed individual, commonly known as " Mephisto," owing to his uncanny appearance; Mortimer, a good-looking, merry youngster of twenty-one ; Captain Vandaleur, a slight, well-knit man of somewhat maturer age, lately exchanged from the " Lancers," the rather saturnine expression of whose well cut and sun-browned features is relieved by a pair of dark, earnest, deep-sunk eyes ; and Ensigns Gray and Green, popularly christened "Tweedledum" and "Tweedledee," but with no single point in common beyond the fact that they had both joined on the same day some two years ago, the first named being as lanky, awkward, and untidy a youth as the latter is short, rotund, compact, and dapper. " Has anyone seen 'old D ' since Brophy (the doctor) left him ?

" asked Savage, as he lit an enormous cheroot. "I have," answered Brady. "An' faith, he says he's kilt entirely to-night, an' won't go to the picnic to-morrow, becase he'll niver get the docther's powltices off in time. He's lyin' in bid now, an' says he feels like sittin' on rid hot coals ! " This was a long speech for Brady, who sighed deeply as he added, in an undertone he seemed to think befitted the occasion, " An' he asked me to tie me damp dhrawers round his hid before I lift. It burned so." " Ah, Brophy has been heaping coals of fire on his head, has he ? " interposed Hill. " He owed ' old D ' one, after the way he was treated in the orderly-room this morning." " Bedad, no ! " replied Brady, " he said he was sittin' on coals, tho' it was lyin' down he was, screeching wid the pain in his hid."

" Shut up, you Irish idiot," exclaimed Lieutenant Savage, " and just see what has happened to North. He's gone racing by the gate there like a madman, without his cap, as if ten thousand devils were after him." Brady, who was a kind of fag and universal messenger, hurried out, and returned in a few minutes with an awe struck expression on his stolid face. It was North, he reported, who, on passing the Cemetery — a lonely spot, thickly wooded with the cedar and sage - scrub of the country, and crowded with white stone monuments in memory of the victims of the latest epidemic of yellow fever — had seen a ghost or heard a " Banshee," or some thing of the kind, and had turned tail and run all the way home, leaving his cap behind, and without completing his rounds. " But thin," added the narrator, in a tone of relief, "sure he's bin dhrinkin' again !"

" Well, he'll have to square matters with ' old D ' to-morrow morning," rejoined Savage. " I'm going to turn in now. It's past two, and we shan't get home till late to-morrow; so good-night, everyone." The rest speedily followed his example.

Chapter II

|E must now make amends to our readers for the very ungallant forgetfulness of our duty in neglecting to follow the orthodox rule among novel-writers of " place aux dames," by introducing the former, somewhat hurriedly it may be and in a manner which we can but hope will not be too much for the nerves of that most respectable personage, "the British matron," to the trio of fair sisters whose one surviving parent has already made his entry on the stage under the name of Captain Robertson. The three Miss Robertsons had been christened by an envious 'Mudian family of their acquaintance, also consisting of three young women of somewhat maturer age, and whose jaded charms did not compare favourably with the fresh youth of our British born maidens, " The Three Disgraces," from their supposed Bohemian surroundings, and consequent backslidings in the matter of feminine propriety.

Our girls had turned the tables on their malicious sponsors by bestowing on the latter the names of " Battle," " Murder," and " Sudden Death," as a variation from the playful epithets of " Plague," " Pestilence," and " Famine," once given them by the officers of a regiment, in whose eyes the three island "beauties" did not find the favour they perhaps too eagerly aspired to. Though sisters, a greater contrast than the three girls presented in features, form, and colouring could hardly be imagined, although barely three years represented the difference of age. Alice, the eldest, was eighteen; and Winifred, the youngest, not yet sixteen. The second, Helen, was considered by her father the beauty of the family. She had inherited her dead mother's brunette beauty, and, from her superior height, might well have been taken for the senior.

Alice was a tall, well-developed girl for her eighteen years, and much admired in the half- American-colonial society for her fair, delicate complexion, and violet-blue, wistful eyes. Winnie, a laughing, auburn haired maid, whose brilliant tint of rude health and joyous blue eyes rather accentuated the air of langour and slight delicacy of colour to be observed in her two sisters, though due merely to the relaxing, damp heat of the climate, often proved herself a dangerous rival to them in the readily transferable affections of the young subalterns of her father's regiment. With these she was a great favourite, much to the disturbance and disquiet of the patient, meek, elderly aunt who had been in charge of Captain Robertson's household ; but had left by the last mail steamer for England, to recruit a constitution much weakened by a two years' sojourn in Bermuda.

Helen had glorious dark eyes, blue-black glossy tresses, and pale, olive, transparent skin, beneath which the passionate Southern blood inherited from her mother showed, at times almost too evidently, a dangerously ardent temperament, only kept in check and subdued by the firmness of character evident in the full, red, firm lips, and perfect chin, which harmonised so well with the small, chiselled Grecian nose. Added to these attractions, was a fulness of form not often seen in a girl of seventeen, and a perfection of outline to which might well be applied the poet's lines : — " A daughter of the Gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair," and we must leave our readers to fill in any blanks that we have left in our description of the " Three Disgraces' " outward appearance. On this bright summer morning, the three sisters, in the most becoming of bathing-costumes, were splashing merrily in the rippling waters of a tiny bay, adjoining a bathing-house belonging to the Superintendent of the Dockyard at Ireland Island, and gallantly placed by him at their service for their morning dips.

"Come along; let us dress and go home," said Winnie, running lightly up the step-ladder leading to the bathing house, and shaking her long, curly tresses free from the bathing-cap she wore. " I see the Quiverful children parading, and papa said he would wait for us on the way home to breakfast, as he passed by the dockyard." "What took him to Ireland Island at this time of the morning ? " asked Alice, who now stood with her youngest sister on the wooden platform outside the bathing-house, the two young girls forming a pretty study for an artist ot "the female form divine," as they stood together in their short, clinging bathing-dresses, half expressing the beauties they concealed so enviously, while Helen slowly emerged, like the foam-born Venus she was, from the water at their feet, though her namesake's patron Goddess would have known better than to permit herself to make her first appearance, we think, in a bathing-gown, however taste fully made and coquettishly arranged.

" Oh, didn't you hear ? I thought you were awake this morning when he knocked at my door and told me that he had to attend orderly-room early for ' old D ,' who hurt himself last night fishing." This from Helen, who was generally the first to be made aware of their father's movements. " Yes, and poor Tim O'Leary, our old servant, you know, has come to grief, and is a prisoner this morning," rejoined Winnie, who was always well up in the smallest detail of regimental news, and a confidant of the married soldiers and their " better halves " in their joys and troubles. " His wife came to me about it last night in great trouble. She seared he might lose one of his five stripes, and he gets his pension next month." " Nonsense ! " ejaculated Alice, smiling. " I saw what happened as Helen and I went through the dockyard gates to call on the Halls yesterday evening.

He was confined by that ugly little Sergeant McDermott, for what the sergeant calls ' an irregularity on sentry duty,' and he'll get off with a night in the guard-room." She then related to her sisters how it had happened that poor Tim, one of the oldest and best-conducted soldiers in the regiment, had so far forgotten himself as to have com mitted a breach of discipline, for which he had been locked up in the quarter-guard-room the day before. At the time of which we are writing, the French troops in Mexico, or what was left of them after Maximilian's disgraceful betrayal and surrender at the hands of their late Emperor, were being brought home in troopships which frequently stopped to coal at the dockyard at Ireland Island. A party of French officers, on their way to dine at the mess of their English confreres in the barracks above the dockyard, and whose attire, representing in its variety almost every branch, regular and irregular, of the French service, with its tawdry worsted ornaments, contrasted un favourably — -at least, in O'Leary's eyes — with the richer and simpler gold-lace of his own officers' full-dress uniforms, had happened to pass through the gates while "Tim" was on sentry, and were saluted by him in due form, according to his orders.

By way, possibly, of showing their appreciation of the compliment paid them by the humble, red-coated representative of " Perfidious Albion," each Frenchman removed his " kepi " or " chaco," and returned the sentry's salute with a graceful sweep of the arm and a low bow. This was too much for the Irishman's sense of humour or equanimity, and, as soon as the party had turned the corner and were out of hearing and sight, Private O'Leary had " ordered arms," and indulged his pent-up feelings of astonishment and amusement by a hearty, though stifled, prolonged guffaw, from the effects of which his expressive features were still reddened and distorted when he was sur prised by the scandalised sergeant in command, and inconti nently clapped into the guard-room. Sine il/æ lachrymee. Our three nereids, looking, in their neat, white flannel short dresses and white straw hats, very fresh and rosy from their bathe, had meanwhile joined their father out side, and were strolling with him lazily homewards to the breakfast which was awaiting them in the verandah of the convict warder's pretty cottage assigned to Captain Robertson as a " married officer's quarter."

Their way led them by the scene of Captain North's adventure, narrated in the previous chaper, and they listened with much amusement to their father's narrative of his terror and headlong flight. They found it hard to realise, in the bright sunshine of the early morning, the weird effects caused by the moonlight on the dark trees and high, white monuments, which had proved too much for male nerves far weaker than their own. Knowing Captain North's family so intimately, and meeting his wife so frequently as they did, it was impossible altogether to conceal from them, wide-awake young women as they were, the secret of poor North's besetting weakness ; but Captain Robertson did not tell them of an amusing experience from the same source he had that morning met with, though the ladies were made acquainted with it from another quarter before the day was many hours older.

On arriving at the orderly-room that morning, Captain Robertson had found, to his surprise, his commanding officer, "old D ," already presiding, clothed and in his right mind, at the judgment-seat, which in this instance was the orderly-room table, in front of which the delin quents of the day before were solemnly paraded to hear the evidence against them, and the punishment awarded them by the presiding "Rhadamanthus," who had scarcely yet recovered from the effects of last night's " misfortunate" occurrence (as Brady called it), and could hardly be said to be equal to the solemnity and impartiality due to the office. The last of the defaulters (Tim O'Leary) had just been dismissed with a caution, when North, whose presence was requisite as the captain of O'Leary's company, and whose nerves, at no time of the steadiest, were now much upset by his fright of the night before, and the remedy he had thought it essential to apply, in reaching forward to remove the defaulters' book, managed to upset the contents of an enormous inkstand over the guard-report placed in front of the Major, at the same time plentifully bespattering the latter's white-duck tunic and pants with the inky fluid.

Turning to Savage, the acting-adjutant, the irate fieldofficer, in a whisper hoarse with rage, exclaimed : " Take him away, sir ; he's drunk. Turn him out ! " " Certainly," replied North, whose ears and wits were not so dulled by drink as to prevent him improving the occasion ; " I'll remove him at once, Major. Come along out of this, you drunken blackguard! You hear what is said ? " And seizing the orderly-room " clerk," a mild little sergeant, seated at an adjacent table, by the collar of his tunic, he bundled him out of the room before any of the bystanders, convulsed with laughter at the result of old D 's order to " Turn him out," could interfere to prevent the contretemps. " Consider yourself under arrest, sir ! " roared the now thoroughly-aroused senior, as North returned, breathless and smiling, from his unaccustomed exertions ; and, turning on his heel, the Major, almost choking with wrath, strode, with all the dignity that the doctor's poultices would admit of, to the mess-room above, to seek solace in his well-earned matutinal meal.

" Here comes Mr. Brady," laughed Alice, as the party of four came in sight of the mess-room buildings, with their whitewashed roof and green verandah. " What a funny walk he has, papa ; and what enormous feet ! I always know who it is before I see the rest of him, when we meet suddenly round a corner." " Mr. Green told me last week," said Winnie, senten tiously, " that for a long time after Mr. Brady joined he walked lame, because he had never worn boots regularly before ; and I really believe he meant what he said," she added, in a lower tone, as Brady approached them. " Good-mornin' to ye," Miss Robertson, " was the latter's salutation, as he touched his forage-cap, awkwardly and shyly, to the three ladies. " I see ye've bin bath in', like meself, and I daresay ye're in a hurry, like me, to git home and dhry yourselves."

This was Brady's way of cutting short the interview, and he shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other, as he encountered Miss Winnie's bantering smile and eyes dancing with fun. " Why, Mr. Brady, we've done that already, and how is it that you've taken no notice yet of Helen or me ? You know you wished me ' the top of the morning ' politely enough the day before yesterday, when I met you alone." "Miss Winnifrid, how can you !" stuttered poor Brady, whose awe of Winnie began to disappear before his righteous indignation at such an unjust accusation from his tor mentor, made in her father's presence, too, while an amused expression stole into the latter's grave eyes. " Never mind, Brady," was his good-humoured remark. " I always said you were cut out for a lady's man ; some of these days, when you get rid of that diffidence that sits so well on the youthful Irishman, you'll do.

But come along, girls ; breakfast is waiting, and our fish will be getting cold. Besides, we are keeping Brady, who says he wants drying." " Sorra bit of it ; I'm dhry enough now," was the Ensign's awkward rejoinder. And, truth to say, the warmth of his few minutes' continuous blushing under this, for him, formidable ordeal, had effectually supplied the place of the towel he was seeking when we first saw him ; at any rate, as far as one could judge from his now rubicund visage. And, with what was meant as a graceful parting salute, he shambled clumsily away through the open mess garden gate behind him. Leaving all our acquaintances to their breakfasts, we shall hope, later on, to meet them again in the widened circle of this evening's promised picnic.

Chapter III He

more active spirits of the officers' mess — Hill, Savage, Mortimer, Vandaleur, and others — had arranged for a picnic on one ot the smallest and loveliest of the three hundred and sixty-five islands which make up the group known as " the Bermudas." Detached from the three or four larger islands which, connected by causeways and ferry-boats, and under the names of St. George's, Somerset, Boaz, and Ireland Islands, present an irregular crescent or horseshoe, and form the mainland ; the smaller islets, with their fringe of reddish-brown coral and volcanic rocks, and with their cedar and sage-scrub-covered low hills and grassy glades, shone beneath the low evening sun, like emeralds in a setting of old gold on the sapphire seas. The afternoon's programme included a meet of 'Mudian boats, dignified by their owners with the title of yachts, though the largest could not have been over seven tons ; a couple of hours' deep-sea fishing (for those who did not object to the swell) on the reefs some miles out ; a race homewards to tea on the small isle already mentioned ; a dance in the one room of a ruined cottage on the island, buried in the wood, and to which a piano had been con veyed for this purpose in the morning ; and a torchlight procession of boats homewards, with a display of fireworks, about midnight or in the small hours of the morning.