"And recollect, gentlemen and soldiers," continued Lisle, "that if I am maltreated by any within these walls, you may all smart for it yet. See you, sirs, the allies are close at hand, driving the boasting soldiers of the Emperor before them as the wind drives the mist, and the whole of Gascony will be theirs before another sun sets."
"Présomption et vanité!" said the major, turning up his eyes and shrugging his shoulder. "Aha! Les François sont au fait du métier de la guerre de terre!" And many officers of the 105th, who crowded round, laughed heartily, and observed, that probably in a week or two the allies would be flying for shelter across the Pyrenees. Lisle blessed his stars that the garrison was not composed entirely of Spaniards; for, assuredly, the duke would have slain him on the spot but for the firm interference of the French officers. He was, however, put under close arrest, and a sentinel placed over him. The place in which he was confined was a projecting turret of the outworks, and there he was left to his own reflections, which were none of the most agreeable. He found himself acting the part of a romantic hero, but certainly little to his own satisfaction. In the same turret was confined a genuine Teague, a soldier of the 88th regiment, who had been placed in durance for two desperate attempts to escape when the allies appeared in sight. Mister Paddy Mulroony was seated very composedly in a corner, smoking a black pipe about an inch long, while in his cunning but good-natured face was seen that droll curl of the mouth and keen twinkling of the eye, which are so decidedly Irish.
"Och, tearin' murder! this is a poor case indeed," said he, springing up to attention. "Bad luck to the whole boiling of them! and is it a gintlemin like yer honner that they are afther traitin' this way? Never mind, sir; the allies—the hand iv Saint Pater be over thim!—are in sight, and may be they will be stormin' this rookery some fine morning, whin, wid the blessin' ov God, we'll see every throat in it cut."
Lisle was boiling with rage at the treatment to which he was subjected; but that was a slight affair when compared with his anxiety for Virginia, who was now entirely at the mercy of her father, of whose ferocity and remorseless disposition he had seen several examples. For some time he remained immersed in thought, while he strode hastily backward and forward in the narrow compass of their prison; and it was not until Teague's maledictions became very vehement, that Lisle found he had a companion in misfortune.
"Well, friend; and what brought you here?"
"Eight French spalpeens, sir, and my fortine or misfortine, and that little baste ov a major, bad luck to him! I was nigh out ov their claws this very mornin', clever and clane; but they clapped me up here, the ill-mannered bog-trotters! And sure, it 'ud vex ould Moses himself to see the rid coats across the river yonder, and yet be caged up here like a rat in a trap."
"To what regiment do you belong?"
"The Connaught Rangers, yer honner,—the boys that gave Phillipon, the ould scrawdon, such a fright at Badajoz."
"A brave corps. And your name?"
"Pat Mulroony. I come from one side of Dublin, where my father has a beautiful estate, wid deer-parks such as ye never saw on the longest day's march. And though it is meself that siz it, there was not a smarter fellow than me in the whole division, from right to left; no, not one, yer honner! If you plaze, sir, we may yet give the French—bad cess to them! the slip; and by the mortal! I'll stand by yer honner like steel, for shure I'd do it for love if for nothin' else; for the Scots and Irish were one man's childer in Noah's day. In ould ancient forren times, the blessed Saint Patrick himself was a Scotsman, until his bad-mannered countrymen, in a fit of unkindness, cut off his head, and he swam over wid it under his arm to Donaghadee, and became a good Irishman. Often I have heard ould Father O'Rafferty at Dunleary tell us of that, when I used to take him home from Mother Macnoggin's wid a dhrop in his eye. He was the broth of a boy, that ould O'Rafferty, and a riglar devil among the girls, for all that he was a praste; and whin the craytur was in, it's little he'd think of giving the best man in his flock a palthog on the ear. But perhaps it's inthrudin' on yer honner I am?" Louis, though pleased with the fellow's humour, was not in a talking mood. "May my tongue be blisthered if I spake any more to ye, or bother ye in the midst of yer throubles!" said Pat in conclusion.