never was a sailor anyhow. And so I set a-thinking what you were. You were too silent for a peddler, and your hands were too white to be in the smuggling trade; but when I saw your boots, I had the secret at once, and knew ye were one of the French army that landed the other day at Killala."
"It was stupid enough of me not to have remembered the boots!" said I, laughing.
"Arrah, what use would it be?" replied he; "sure ye'r too straight in the back, and your walk is too reg'lar, and your toes turns in too much, for a sailor; the very way you hould a switch in your hand would betray you!"
"So it seems; then I must try some other disguise," said I, "if I'm to keep company with people as shrewd as you are."
"You needn't," said he, shaking his head, doubtfully; "any that wants to betray ye, wouldn't find it hard."
I was not much flattered by the depreciating tone in which he dismissed my efforts at personation, and walked on for some time without speaking.
"Yez came too late, four months too late," said he, with a sorrowful gesture of the hands. "When the Wexford boys was up, and the Kildare chaps, and plenty more ready to come in from the North, then, indeed, a few thousand French down here in the West would have made a differ; but what's the good in it now? The best men we had are hanged, or in jail; some are frightened; more are traitors! 'Tis too late – too late!"
"But not too late for a large force, landing in the North, to rouse the island to another effort for liberty."
"Who would be the gin'ral?" asked he, suddenly.
"Napper Tandy, your own countryman," replied I, proudly.
"I wish ye luck of him!" said he, with a bitter laugh; "'tis more like mocking us than any thing else the French does be, with the chaps they sent here to be gin'rals. Sure it isn't Napper Tandy, nor a set of young lawyers, like Tone and the rest of them, we wanted. It was men that knew how to drill and manage troops – fellows that was used to fightin'; so that when they said a thing, we might believe that they understhood it, at laste. I'm ould enough to remimber the 'Wild Geese,' as they used to call them – the fellows that ran away from this to take sarvice in France; and I remimber, too, the sort of men the French were that came over to inspect them – soldiers, real soldiers, every inch of them: and a fine sarvice it was. Volle-face!" cried he, holding himself erect, and shouldering his stick like a musket; "marche! Ha, ha! ye didn't think that was in me; but I was at the thrade long before you were born."
"How is this," said I, in amazement, "you were not in the French army?"
"Wasn't I, though? maybe I didn't get that stick there." And he bared his breast as he spoke, to show the cicatrix of an old flesh-wound from a Highlander's bayonet. "I was at Fontenoy!"
The last few words he uttered, with a triumphant pride, that I shall never forget. As for me, the mere name was magical. "Fontenoy" was like one of those great words which light up a whole page of history; and it almost seemed impossible that I should see before me a soldier of that glorious battle.
"Ay, faith!" he added, "'tis more than fifty, 'tis nigh sixty years now since that, and I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was in the regiment 'Tourville;' I was recruited for the 'Wellon,' but they scattered us about among the other corps afterward, because we used now and then to be fighting and quarrelin' among one an' other. Well, it was the Wellons that gained the battle; for after the English was in the village of Fontenoy, and the French was falling back upon the heights near the wood – arrah, what's the name of the wood? – sure I'll forget my own name next. Ay, to be sure, Verzon – the 'wood of Verzon.' Major Jodillon – that's what the French called him, but his name was Joe Wellon – turned an eight-pounder short round into a little yard of a farm-house, and, making a breach for the gun, he opened a dreadful fire on the English column. It was loaded with grape, and at half-musket range, so you may think what a peppering they got. At last the column halted, and lay down; and Joe seen an officer ride off to the rear, to bring up artillery to silence our guns. A few minutes more, and it would be all over with us. So Joe shouts out as loud as he could, 'Cavalry there! tell off by threes, and prepare to charge!' I needn't tell you that the devil a horse nor a rider was within a mile of us at the time; but the English didn't know that; and, hearin' the order, up they jumps, and we heerd the word passin', 'Prepare to receive cavalry!' They formed square at once, and the same minute we plumped into them with such a charge as tore a lane right through the middle of them. Before they could recover, we opened a platoon fire on their flank; they staggered, broke, and at last fell back in disorder upon Aeth, with the whole of the French army after them. Such firin' – grape, round-shot, and musketry – I never seed afore, and we all shouting like divils, for it was more like a hunt nor any thing else; for ye see the Dutch never came up, but left the English to do all the work themselves, and that's the reason they couldn't form, for they had no supportin' colum'.
"It was then I got that stick of the bayonet, for there was such runnin' that we only thought of pelting after them as hard as we could; but ye see, there's nothin' so treacherous as a Highlander. I was just behind one, and had my sword-point between his blade-hones, ready to run him through, when he turned short about, and run his bayonet into me under the short ribs, and that was all I saw of the battle; for I bled till I fainted, and never knew more of what happened. 'Tisn't by way of making little of Frenchmen I say it, for I sarved too long wid them for that– but sorra taste of that victory ever they'd see if it wasn't for the Wellons, and Major Joe that commanded them! The English knows it well, too! Maybe they don't do us many a spite for it to this very day!"
"And what became of you after that?"
"The same summer I came over to Scotland with the young Prince Charles, and was at the battle of Preston-pans afterward; and, what's worse, I was at Culloden! Oh, that was the terrible day! We were dead bate before we began the battle. We were on the march from one o'clock the night before, under the most dreadful rain ever ye seen! We lost our way twice; and, after four hours of hard marching, we found ourselves opposite a mill-dam we crossed early that same morning; for the guides led us all astray! Then came ordhers to wheel about face, and go back again; and back we went, cursing the blaguards that deceived us, and almost faintin' with hunger. Some of us had nothing to eat for two days, and the Prince, I seen myself, had only a brown bannock to a wooden measure of whiskey for his own breakfast. Well, it's no use talking, we were bate, and we retreated to Inverness that night, and next morning we surrendered and laid down our arms – that is, the 'Regiment du Tournay,' and the 'Voltigeurs de Metz,' the corps I was in myself."
"And did you return to France?"
"No; I made my way back to Ireland, and after loiterin' about home some time, and not liking the ways of turning to work again, I took sarvice with one Mister Brooke, of Castle Brooke, in Fermanagh, a young man that was just come of age, and as great a devil, God forgive me, as ever was spawned. He was a Protestant, but he didn't care much about one side or the other, but only wanted divarsion and his own fun out of the world; and faix he took it, too! He had plenty of money, was a fine man to look at, and had courage to face a lion!
"The first place we went to was Aix-la-Chapelle, for Mr. Brooke was named something – I forget what – to Lord Sandwich, that was going there as an embassador. It was a grand life there while it lasted. Such liveries, such coaches, such elegant dinners every day, I never saw even in Paris. But my master was soon sent away for a piece of wildness he did. There was an ould Austrian there – a Count Riedensegg was his name – and he was always plottin' and schamin' with this, that, and the other; buyin' up the sacrets of others, and gettin' at their sacret papers one way or the other; and at last he begins to thry the same game with us; and as he saw that Mr. Brooke was very fond of high play, and would bet any thing one offered him, the ould Count sends for a great gambler from Vienna, the greatest villain, they say, that ever touched a card. Ye may have heerd of him, tho' 'twas long ago that he lived, for he was well known in them times. He was
