"'Bravo, bravo! my bould boy;' replied Count Dillon, 'you are the very boy for my business and project—all shall go on well!' He then ejoculated, 'vous avez razon, vous avez razon,' until I fairly thought that he would have lost his own razon all out and out, any how!"
"But pray proceed, Mr. Phelim O'Neale, with your narrative, in which I begin to take some little interest."
"Thus emboldened, your Riverence, as I was by my commander's lave, I up and tould him, as I till you and your friend, all my plan, of which he highly approbated. Every matter being duly prepared, a time for making the grand attack was appointed. The soldiers who were to make the attempt, as I have already tould your Riverence, were all disguised as Flemish peasants, in their blue caps and blue frocks, and were each man to have a Flanders' pipe stuck in his jaw, and smoking away briskly, as much as to say, the devil may care for yeez all! I will now till the whole of my contrivance, as plotted and planned from the first to the last, without any deviation or prevarication from the truth at all, at all! To go on then with my story:—the charabbon, or waggon, contained, as already I have said, thirty soldiers, who upon this occasion were to be headed by me; in the cart we had several stout planks of oak, which were destinated for a treble purpose: firstly, to hide us who were packed beneath, but whose hearts were strong and unbending as the planks over our heads; and secondly, to support some baskets of fruit and vegetables, for which this country is most remarkable."
"Yes," said Doctor M'Kenzie, addressing Colonel Davidson, "it is recorded that when Anne of Cleves, the queen consort of King Henry VIII., wanted a sallad, she used to despatch a messenger to Flanders to procure one."
The colonel nodded his assent, and requested Mr. Phelim O'Neale to proceed onward with his tale.
"Well the planks were, as I said, destinated for a treble purpose, I have tould two of these; the third was, in the last place, to erect them as uprights, to prevent the falling of the portcullis upon our skulls who were to make the attack. And the charabban was intentionally, on purpose to be sure, to be overturned at the door of the guard-house to block up the guard while cracking their walnuts, &c. If this attempt of gaining the Nieuport-gate had succeeded, a carabine was to have been fired to give a signal to the Marshal de Rantzau, who was stationed with the remainder of our force, which, as I have already obsarved, amounted to two thousand men; and upon their coming up in time, in obedience to the signal, we were sure and sartin of the capture of Ostind.
"We had thus anxiously planned, and with strong grounds and hopes of success, this elegant enterprise, which was to burst forth upon the fifteenth day of June; whether the termination was fortunate or the reverse will soon be tould yeez. The military gait and air of the supposed peasants it is thought led to suspicion, and seemed to awaken the attention of the garrison. Just when the charabbonier[16] drove up his wehicle in which I was, and approached to the Nieuport-gate of Ostind, forward advanced the damniers, (douaniers,[17] or custom-house officers,) and with their accustomed agility forth flew their rapiers, flashing in the bright summer glow of the harvest moon; they cut, and thrust, and terced, prodding the contints of the waggon without any distinction or respect of persons or property, whether dead or alive stock, but according to custom, searching for counter-brand goods and chattels. At length a sharp Toledo of one of these damned damniers stuck in one of my ribs, and sure enough the blood began to leak. 'Arah,' roared I, 'what the d—l are you perpetrating; and would you be after murdering me, you Flanders' boucher!'
"'Ah, hah!—Jean Bull!—Jean diable!' cried he aloud, 'emportez soldats! ca herse—bas—bas—ouvrez le fenetre!' Which every body knows is 'shut the gate!' And sure enough bang down went the portcullis, up leapt the draw-bridge; and closed and securely bolted and barred in no time were the gates. And, oh, 'tis true enough, poor Phelim O'Neale had got sartain and sure at the wrong side of the gate, where he was soon made prisoner, and all his brave plans completely dumb-foundered and knocked upon the head in one short and sad moment. I with several others, thus caught in this Flemish trap, were made prisoners; while suspicion being aroused, and all our resources having been cut off, outnumbered as Marshal Rantzau was by the enemy, it was only left him to sound a retreat, and retire to his chaloupes, (large boats.)
"After having remained for a long period in prison, I at last caught the attention of the head gaoler, who taking a fancy to me, made me his under gaoler; and some years after, (seven I think,) upon his death, I was constatuted head gaoler. And here I am; I have a good salary, a good roomy house, and with the allowance of coals and candles. I am married to a pretty, and what is far better, to a good Flemish lass; and we have already four childer in the space of three years, and the Lord be praised they are all the right sort—they are all of the emasculate ginder! So that I am, in troth, in some sort of mizzure indamnified for my losses and sufferings by the post which I here hould."
Mr. Phelim O'Neale, the head gaoler, or, in phrase modern, diplomatique, the head governor of the citadel, paid the most marked attention to his prisoners; and said, that before the morning's dawn he would think of something that would ixtrickate them from their prison. "For when a man gets into a scrape or difficulty, Riverend Father, he has only to consult an Irishman, who will be sure and sartain to get him safely and genteely out of it."