"Our fate in life."
"I've known what fate were on the line o' march in Flanders, when my boots pinched—is it that ye mane?"
"Fate," said Drumbirrel, ponderingly—"don't know much about it. I know that every bullet has its billet—a saying we have in the army—and it comes pretty much to the same thing. But be jolly, youngsters, and you may all come in time to the halbert," he added, with a wink which made all the soldiers laugh, as his speech contained an allusion known to them alone.
"Thunder and blazes!" exclaimed Corporal Mahony "here is that unbelieving fifer ating mate on a Friday, like a heretical Protestant."
"Well, there's no fast to the poteen—glory be to God!" replied the fifer, who was his countryman; "so fire away, my boys, till the butt-end of the morning."
"Silence all!" commanded the sergeant, who seemed literally to live on tobacco-smoke and brandy-and-water; "silence for a song, or I'll knock the dominoes out of your jaws with my halbert—and, drummer, brace up, for an accompaniment."
With these words he struck up a rollicking barrack-room ditty of the day, in the prolonged "Tol-de-rol-lol" of which the whole party joined, and the drum was added, so that the din, with the clattering of jugs on the table, and iron heels on the floor, was tremendous.
Behold poor Will, just come from drill,
'Twas only last night I enlisted;
I sold my cart to pay the smart,
But money King George resisted!
I know not what my fate may be,
Yet think it mighty odd, sirs,
That a lad so trim and smart as me
Should be in the awkward squad, sirs!
Tolderol, lol, lol, &c.
Perhaps a recruit may chance to shoot
The great citizen Bonaparte, sirs—
Our halberdier, who had become considerably the worse of his potations, here became inarticulate; and would have fallen off his chair, but was recovered by Corporal Mahony (a prompt doctor on such occasions), who, in five minutes, sobered him by pouring down his throat a little tea, dashed with strong vinegar.