LITMIR.BIZ

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as what gallant hearts are not?

      The breach was to be stormed at sunset, and like true soldiers we sat down to make the most of our time. The rogue of a Doctor took the liver-wing for his share--we gave the other to our guest, a prisoner; those scoundrels Jack Delamere and Tom Delaney took the legs--and, 'faith, poor I was put off with the Pope's nose and a bit of the back.

      "How d'ye like his Holiness's FAYTURE?" said Jerry Blake.

      "Anyhow you'll have a MERRY THOUGHT," cried the incorrigible Doctor, and all the party shrieked at the witticism.

      "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," said Jack, holding up the drumstick clean.

      "'Faith, there's not enough of it to make us CHICKEN-HEARTED, anyhow," said I; "come, boys, let's have a song."

      "Here goes," said Tom Delaney, and sung the following lyric, of his own composition--

      "Dear Jack, this white mug that with Guinness I fill, And drink to the health of sweet Nan of the hill, Was once Tommy Tosspot's, as jovial a sot, As e'er drew a spigot, or drain'd a full pot-- In drinking all round 'twas his joy to surpass, And with all merry tipplers he swigg'd off his glass.

      "One morning in summer, while seated so snug, In the porch of his garden, discussing his jug, Stern Death, on a sudden, to Tom did appear, And said, 'Honest Thomas, come take your last bier;' We kneaded his clay in the shape of this can, From which let us drink to the health of my Nan."

      "Psha!" said the Doctor, "I've heard that song before; here's a new one for you, boys!" and Sawbones began, in a rich Corkagian voice--

      "You've all heard of Larry O'Toole, Of the beautiful town of Drumgoole; He had but one eye, To ogle ye by-- Oh, murther, but that was a jew'l! A fool He made of de girls, dis O'Toole.

      "'Twas he was the boy didn't fail, That tuck down pataties and mail; He never would shrink From any sthrong dthrink, Was it whisky or Drogheda ale; I'm bail This Larry would swallow a pail.

      "Oh, many a night at the bowl, With Larry I've sot cheek by jowl; He's gone to his rest, Where there's dthrink of the best, And so let us give his old sowl A howl, For twas he made the noggin to rowl."

      I observed the French Colonel's eye glistened as he heard these well-known accents of his country but we were too well-bred to pretend to remark his emotion.

      The sun was setting behind the mountains as our songs were finished, and each began to look out with some anxiety for the preconcerted signal, the rocket from Sir Hussey Vivian's quarters, which was to announce the recommencement of hostilities. It came just as the moon rose in her silver splendor, and ere the rocket-stick fell quivering to the earth at the feet of General Picton and Sir Lowry Cole, who were at their posts at the head of the storming-parties, nine hundred and ninety nine guns in position opened their fire from our batteries, which were answered by a tremendous canonnade from the fort.

      "Who's going to dance?" said the Doctor: "the ball's begun. Ha! there goes poor Jack Delamere's head off! The ball chose a soft one, anyhow. Come here, Tim, till I mend your leg. Your wife has need only knit half as many stockings next year, Doolan my boy. Faix! there goes a big one had wellnigh stopped my talking: bedad! it has snuffed the feather off my cocked hat!"

      In this way, with eighty-four-pounders roaring over us like hail, the undaunted little Doctor pursued his jokes and his duty. That he had a feeling heart, all who served with him knew, and none more so than Philip Fogarty, the humble writer of this tale of war.

      Our embrasure was luckily bomb-proof, and the detachment of the Onety-oneth under my orders suffered comparatively little. "Be cool, boys," I said; "it will be hot enough work for you ere long." The honest fellows answered with an Irish cheer. I saw that it affected our prisoner.

      "Countryman," said I, "I know you; but an Irishman was never a traitor."

      "Taisez-vous!" said he, putting his finger to his lip. "C'est la fortune de la guerre: if ever you come to Paris, ask for the Marquis d' O'Mahony, and I may render you the hospitality which your tyrannous laws prevent me from exercising in the ancestral halls of my own race."

      I shook him warmly by the hand as a tear bedimmed his eye. It was, then, the celebrated colonel of the Irish Brigade, created a Marquis by Napoleon on the field of Austerlitz!

      "Marquis," said I, "the country which disowns you is proud of you; but--ha! here, if I mistake not, comes our signal to advance." And in fact, Captain Vandeleur, riding up through the shower of shot, asked for the commander of the detachment, and bade me hold myself in readiness to move as soon as the flank companies of the Ninety-ninth, and Sixty-sixth, and the Grenadier Brigade of the German Legion began to advance up the echelon. The devoted band soon arrived; Jack Bowser heading the Ninety-ninth (when was he away and a storming-party to the fore?), and the gallant Potztausend, with his Hanoverian veterans.

      The second rocket flew up.

      "Forward, Onety-oneth!" cried I, in a voice of thunder. "Killaloo boys, follow your captain!" and with a shrill hurray, that sounded above the tremendous fire from the fort, we sprung upon the steep; Bowser with the brave Ninety-ninth, and the bold Potztausend, keeping well up with us. We passed the demilune, we passed the culverin, bayoneting the artillerymen at their guns; we advanced across the two tremendous demilunes which flank the counterscarp, and prepared for the final spring upon the citadel. Soult I could see quite pale on the wall; and the scoundrel Cambaceres, who had been so nearly my prisoner that day, trembled as he cheered his men. "On, boys, on!" I hoarsely exclaimed. "Hurroo!" said the fighting Onety-oneth.

      But there was a movement among the enemy. An officer, glittering with orders, and another in a gray coat and a cocked hat, came to the wall, and I recognized the Emperor Napoleon and the famous Joachim Murat.

      "We are hardly pressed, methinks," Napoleon said sternly. "I must exercise my old trade as an artilleryman;" and Murat loaded, and the Emperor pointed the only hundred-and-twenty-four-pounder that had not been silenced by our fire.

      "Hurray, Killaloo boys!" shouted I. The next moment a sensation of numbness and death seized me, and I lay like a corpse upon the rampart.

      II.

      "Hush!" said a voice, which I recognized to be that of the Marquis d' O'Mahony. "Heaven be praised, reason has returned to you. For six weeks those are the only sane words I have heard from you."

      "Faix, and 'tis thrue for you, Colonel dear," cried another voice, with which I was even more familiar; 'twas that of my honest and gallant Lanty Clancy, who was blubbering at my bedside overjoyed at his master's recovery.

      "O musha, Masther Phil agrah! but this will be the great day intirely, when I send off the news, which I would, barrin' I can't write, to the lady your mother and your sisters at Castle Fogarty; and 'tis his Riv'rence Father Luke will jump for joy thin, when he reads the letther! Six weeks ravin' and roarin' as bould as a lion, and as mad as Mick Malony's pig, that mistuck Mick's wig for a cabbage, and died of atin' it!"

      "And have I then lost my senses?" I exclaimed feebly.

      "Sure, didn't ye call me your beautiful Donna Anna only yesterday, and catch hould of me whiskers as if they were the Signora's jet-black ringlets?" Lanty cried.

      At this moment, and blushing deeply, the most beautiful young creature I ever set my eyes upon, rose from a chair at the foot of the bed, and sailed out of the room.

      "Confusion, you blundering rogue," I cried; "who is that lovely lady whom you frightened away by your impertinence? Donna Anna? Where am I?"

      "You are in good hands, Philip," said the Colonel; "you are at my house in the Place Vendome, at Paris, of which I am the military Governor. You and Lanty were knocked down by the wind of the cannon-ball at Burgos. Do not be ashamed: 'twas the Emperor pointed the gun;" and the Colonel took off his hat as he mentioned the name darling to France. "When our troops returned from the sally

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