I found a very pleasant party assembled around the Bishop's breakfast-table at Killala. The Bishop and his family were all there, with Charost and his staff, and some three or four other officers from Ballina. Nothing could be less constrained, more easy, or more agreeable, than the tone of intimacy which in a few days had grown up between them. A cordial good feeling seemed to prevail on every subject, and even the reserve, which might be thought natural on the momentous events then happening, was exchanged for a most candid and frank discussion of all that was going forward, which I must own astonished as much as it gratified me.
The march on Castlebar, the choice of the mountain-road, which led past the position occupied by the Royalists, the attack and capture of the artillery, had all to be related by me for the edification of such as were not conversant with French; and I could observe that however discomfited by the conduct of the militia, they fully relied on the regiments of the line and the artillery. It was amusing, too, to see with what pleasure they listened to all our disparagement of the Irish volunteers.
Every instance we gave of insubordination or disobedience delighted them, while our own blundering attempts to manage the people, the absurd mistakes we fell into, and the endless misconceptions of their character and habits, actually convulsed them with laughter.
"Of course," said the Bishop to us, "you are prepared to hear that there is no love lost between you, and that they are to the full as dissatisfied with you as you are dissatisfied with them."
"Why, what can they complain of?" asked Charost, smiling; "we gave them the place of honor in the very last engagement!"
"Very true, you did so, and they reaped all the profit of the situation. Monsieur Tiernay has just told the havoc that grape and round-shot scattered among the poor creatures. However, it is not of this they complain—it is their miserable fare, the raw potatoes, their beds in open fields and highways, while the French, they say, eat of the best and sleep in blankets; they do not understand this inequality, and perhaps it is somewhat hard to comprehend."
"Patriotism ought to be proud of such little sacrifices," said Charost, with an easy laugh; "besides, it is only a passing endurance, a month hence, less, perhaps, will see us dividing the spoils, and reveling in the conquest of Irish independence."
"You think so, Colonel?" asked the Bishop, half slyly.
"Parbleu! to be sure I do, and you?"
"I'm just as sanguine," said the Bishop, "and fancy that about a month hence we shall be talking of all these things as matters of history; and while sorrowing over some of the unavoidable calamities of the event, preserving a grateful memory of some who came as enemies, but left us warm friends."