"I never thought anything about it," Stapleton said. "My only idea was that I must look as if I wasn't afraid, and must set a good example to the men, and that it was all very unpleasant, and that probably my turn might come next, and that I would give a good deal for something like a gallon of beer. As far as I can remember those were my leading ideas yesterday."
"Well, Denis, what is it?" Ralph asked his servant, who approached with a long face.
"Have you any dry tinder about you, your honor? I have been trying to strike a light for the last half-hour till the tinder box is full of water, and I have knocked all the skin off my knuckles."
"That's bad, Denis; but I don't think you will get a fire anyhow. The wood must be all too soaked to burn."
"I think it will go, sor, if I can once get it to light. I have pulled up some pea-sticks from an old woman's garden; and the ould witch came out and began at me as if I was robbing her of her eldest daughter. It was lucky I had a shilling about me, or be jabbers she would have brought down the provost's guard upon me, and then maybe I would have had my back warmed the least taste in the world more than was pleasant. I hid the sticks under a wagon to keep them dry, and Mike Doolan is standing sentry over them. I promised him a stick or two for his own kindling. The weather is too bad entirely, your honor, and the boys are well-nigh broken-hearted at turning their backs to the Frenchmen."
"Ah, well, they will turn their faces to-morrow, Denis; and as for the weather, I guess you have got wet before now digging praties in the old country."
"I have that, your honor, many and many a time; and it's little I cared for it. But then there was a place to go into, and dry clothes to put on, and a warm male to look forward to, with perhaps a drop of the crater afterward; and that makes all the difference in the world. What we are going to do to-night, sorra of me knows."
"You will have to lie down in the mud, Denis."
"Is it lie down, your honor? And when shall I get the mud off my uniform? and what will the duke say in the morning if he comes round and sees me look like a hog that has been rowling in his sty?"
"You won't be worse than any one else, Denis; you see we shall all be in the same boat. Well, here's the tinder. I should recommend you to break up a cartridge, and sprinkle the powder in among the leaves that you light your fire with."