"I should say go, Tiernay."
"Go, by all means, lad," broke in the aid-de-camp, who throughout assumed a tone of dictation and familiarity most remarkable. "If a stand is to be made in this miserable country, it will be with Rey's force; here the game will not last much longer. There lies the only man capable of conducting such an expedition, and his health can not stand up against its trials!"
"Not so, Merochamp; I'll be on horseback to-morrow or the day after at furthest; and if I never were to take the field again, there are others, yourself among the number, well able to supply my place: but to Tiernay—what says he?"
"Make it duty, sir, and I shall go, or remain here with an easy conscience," said I.
"Then duty be it, boy," said he; "and Merochamp will tell you every thing, for all this discussion has wearied me much, and I can not endure more talking."
"Sit down here," said the aid-de-camp, pointing to a seat at his side, "and five minutes will suffice."
He opened a large map of Ireland before us on the table, and running his finger along the coast-line of the western side, stopped abruptly at the bay of Lough Swilly.
"There," said he, "that is the spot. There, too, should have been our own landing! The whole population of the North will be with them—not such allies as these fellows, but men accustomed to the use of arms, able and willing to take the field. They say that five thousand men could hold the passes of those mountains against thirty."
"Who says this?" said I, for I own it, that I had grown marvelously skeptical as to testimony.
"Napper Tandy, who is a general of division, and one of the leaders of this force;" and he went on: "The utmost we can do will be to hold these towns to the westward till they join us. We may stretch away thus far," and he moved his finger toward the direction of Leitrim, but no further. "You will have to communicate with them; to explain what we have done, where we are, and how we are. Conceal nothing—let them hear fairly, that this patriot force is worth nothing, and that even to garrison the towns we take they are useless. Tell them, too, the sad mistake we made by attempting to organize what never can be disciplined, and let them not arm a population, as we have done, to commit rapine and plunder."