CHAPTER XXX. SCENE IN THE ROYAL BARRACKS
It would afford me little pleasure to write, and doubtless my readers less to read, my lucubrations as I journeyed along towards Dublin. My thoughts seldom turned from myself and my own fortunes, nor were they cheered by the scene through which I travelled. The season was a backward and wet one, and the fields, partly from this cause, and partly from the people being engaged in the late struggle, lay untilled and neglected. Groups of idle, lounging peasants stood in the villages, or loitered on the highroads as we passed, sad, ragged-looking, and wretched. They seemed as if they had no heart to resume their wonted life of labour, but were waiting for some calamity to close their miserable existence. Strongly in contrast with this were the air and bearing of the yeomanry and militia detachments with whom we occasionally came up. Quite forgetting how little creditable to some of them, at least, were the events of the late campaign, they gave themselves the most intolerable airs of heroism, and in their drunken jollity, and reckless abandonment, threatened, I know not what—utter ruin to France and all Frenchmen. Bonaparte was the great mark of their sarcasms, and, from some cause or other, seemed to enjoy a most disproportioned share of their dislike and derision.
At first it required some effort of constraint on my part to listen to this ribaldry in silence; but prudence, and a little sense, taught me the safer lesson of ‘never minding,’ and so I affected to understand nothing that was said in a spirit of insult or offence.
On the night of the 7th of November we drew nigh to Dublin; but instead of entering the capital, we halted at a small village outside of it, called Ghapelizod. Here a house had been fitted up for the reception of French prisoners, and I found myself, if not in company, at least under the same roof, with my countrymen.
Nearer intercourse than this, however, I was not destined to enjoy, for early on the following morning I was ordered to set out for the Royal Barracks, to be tried before a court-martial. It was on a cold, raw morning, with a thin, drizzly rain falling, that we drove into the barrack-yard, and drew up at the mess-room, then used for the purposes of a court. As yet none of the members had assembled, and two or three mess-waiters were engaged in removing the signs of last night’s debauch, and restoring a semblance of decorum to a very rackety-looking apartment. The walls were scrawled over with absurd caricatures, in charcoal or ink, of notorious characters of the capital, and a very striking ‘battle-piece’ commemorated the ‘Races of Castlebar,’ as that memorable action was called, in a spirit, I am bound to say, of little flattery to the British arms. There were, to be sure, little compensatory illustrations here and there of French cavalry in Egypt, mounted on donkeys, or revolutionary troops on parade, ragged as scarecrows, and ill-looking as highwaymen; but a most liberal justice characterised all these frescoes, and they treated both Trojan and Tyrian alike.
I had abundant time given me to admire them, for although summoned for seven o’clock, it was nine before the first officer of the court-martial made his appearance, and he having popped in his head, and perceiving the room empty, sauntered out again, and disappeared. At last a very noisy jaunting-car rattled into the square, and a short, red-faced man was assisted down from it, and entered the mess-room. This was Mr. Peters, the Deputy Judge Advocate, whose presence was the immediate signal for the others, who now came dropping in from every side, the President, a Colonel Daly, arriving the last.
A few tradespeople, loungers, it seemed to me, of the barracks, and some half-dozen non-commissioned officers off duty, made up the public; and I could not but feel a sense of my insignificance in the utter absence of interest my fate excited. The listless indolence and informality, too, offended and insulted me; and when the President politely told me to be seated, for they were obliged to wait for some books or papers left behind at his quarters, I actually was indignant at his coolness.
As we thus waited, the officers gathered round the fireplace, chatting and laughing pleasantly together, discussing the social events of the capital, and the gossip of the day; everything, in fact, but the case of the individual on whose future fate they were about to decide.
At length the long-expected books made their appearance, and a few well-thumbed volumes were spread over the table, behind which the Court took their places, Colonel Daly in the centre, with the judge upon his left.
The members being sworn, the Judge Advocate arose, and in a hurried, humdrum kind of voice, read out what purported to be the commission under which I was to be tried; the charge being, whether I had or had not acted treacherously and hostilely to his Majesty, whose natural-born subject I was, being born in that kingdom, and, consequently, owing to him all allegiance and fidelity. ‘Guilty or not guilty, sir?’