Note 02 — Chapter III · IN WHICH MISS FREYNE ENTERS CALCUTTA, BUT NOT IN TRIUMPH.

We had spent near a week at Madrass when it was suggested that we should make a party to St Thomas’s Mount, which lies about three miles from Fort St George, and at its foot the Company has a very fine garden. Here is the Company’s garden-house, which we in England should call a mansion standing in its own grounds, and likewise the garden-houses of the gentlemen of the greatest figure in the factory, and the proposition was that we should lie a night at the Mount, and return to Madrass in the cool of the morning. ’Twas an agreeable jaunt enough, and the general enjoyment was not marred but by the anxiety of the navy gentlemen, to whom the Admiral had only granted leave to be present on the condition that they returned at once should they hear a cannon fired as a signal of recall. This seemed to most of us only a pleasant jest on Mr Watson’s part, to tease his officers by reminding them of the insecure foundation of their present joys; but before it was light in the morning we were all awaked by the sound of a great gun, and on jumping out of bed and peering through the checks[02] (which are a sort of blind made of slips of wood), we saw the gentlemen all rushing together from the different summer-houses where they had been lodged, calling for their servants, and shouting for their horses or palanqueens. How they managed it I can’t pretend to say, but all the officers were equipped and gone in a quarter of an hour, leaving the garden as quiet as it had but just now been full of noise. Some two hours later, when the young lady who shared my room was taking with me the slight meal which is served here on rising, we heard another gun.