‘What hast in the tonnslet, Lela?’ continued he, tapping the little silver-hooped barrel she carried at her back.
‘Ah, que voulez-vous? cried she laughing, with a low, husky sound, the laugh of famine.
‘I must have a glass of it to your health, ma belle Lela, if it cost me a crown-piece’; and he drew forth the coin as he spoke.
‘For such a toast, the liquor is quite good enough,’ said Lela, drawing back at the offer of money; while slinging the little cask in front, she unhooked a small silver cup, and filled it with water.
‘No brandy, Lela?’
‘None, colonel,’ said she, shaking her head; ‘and if I had, those poor fellows yonder would not like it so well.’
‘I understand,’ said he significantly; ‘theirs is the thirst of fever.’
A short, dry cough, and a barely perceptible nod of the head, was all her reply; but their eyes met, and any so sad an expression as they interchanged I never beheld! it was a confession in full of all each had seen of sorrow, of suffering, and of death—the terrible events three months of famine had revealed, and all the agonies of pestilence and madness.
‘That is delicious water, Tiernay,’ said the colonel, as he passed me the cup, and thus trying to get away from the sad theme of his thoughts.
‘I fetch it from a well outside the walls every morning,’ said Lela; ‘ay, and within gunshot of the Austrian sentries, too.’