The peasants looked at each other; and whether it was my accent, my impudence, or my strange dress and appearance, or all together, I can not say, but, after a few seconds' pause, they burst out into a roar of laughter, in the midst of which my two comrades came up.
"We saw the sheep feeding on the hills, yonder," said I, recovering self-possession, "and guessed that by giving them chase, they'd lead us to some inhabited spot. What is this place called?"
"Shindrennin," said a man who seemed to be the chief of the party; "and, if I might make so bould, who are you, yourselves?"
"French officers; this is my colonel," said I, pointing to Charost, who was wiping his forehead and face after his late exertion.
The information, far from producing the electric effect of pleasure I had anticipated, was received with a coldness, almost amounting to fear, and they spoke eagerly together for some minutes in Irish.
"Our allies evidently don't like the look of us," said Charost, laughing; "and if the truth must be told, I own the disappointment is mutual."
"'Tis too late you come sir," said the peasant, addressing the colonel, while he removed his hat, and assumed an air of respectful deference. "'Tis all over with poor Ireland, this time."
"Tell him," said Charost, to whom I translated the speech, "that it's never too late to assert a good cause: that we have got arms for twenty thousand, if they have but hands and hearts to use them. Tell him that a French army is now lying in that bay yonder, ready and able to accomplish the independence of Ireland."
I delivered my speech as pompously as it was briefed to me; and, although I was listened to in silence, and respectfully, it was plain my words carried little or no conviction with them. Not caring to waste more of our time in such discourse, I now inquired about the country—in what directions lay the high roads, and the relative situations of the towns of Killala, Castlebar, and Ballina, the only places of comparative importance in the neighborhood. I next asked about the landing-places, and learned that a small fishing-harbor existed, not more than half a mile from the spot where we had landed, from which a little country road lay to the village of Palmerstown. As to the means of transporting baggage, guns, and ammunition, there were few horses to be had, but with money we might get all we wanted; indeed, the peasants constantly referred to this means of success, even to asking "what the French would give a man that was to join them?" If I did not translate the demand with fidelity to my colonel, it was really that a sense of shame prevented me. My whole heart was in the cause; and I could not endure the thought of its being degraded in this way. It was growing duskish, and the colonel proposed that the peasant should show us the way to the fishing-harbor he spoke of, while some other of the party might go round to our boat, and direct them to follow us thither. The arrangement was soon made, and we all sauntered down toward the shore, chatting over the state of the country, and the chances of a successful rising. From the specimen before me, I was not disposed to be over sanguine about the peasantry. The man was evidently disaffected toward England. He bore her neither good-will nor love; but his fears were greater than all else. He had never heard of any thing but failure in all attempts against her; and he could not believe in any other result. Even the aid and alliance of France inspired no other feeling than distrust; for he said more than once, "Sure, what can harm yez? Haven't ye yer ships, beyant, to take yez away, if things goes bad?"
I was heartily glad that Colonel Charost knew so little English, that the greater part of the peasant's conversation was unintelligible to him, since, from the first, he had always spoken of the expedition in terms of disparagement; and certainly what we were now to hear was not of a nature to controvert the prediction.