"Not very far from it certainly, for I am a lieutenant of hussars," said I, with a little of that pride which we of the loose pelisse always feel on the mention of our corps.
"I knew it well all along," said he, coolly; "the way you stood in the room, your step as you walked, and, above all, how ye believed me when I spoke of the spring tides, and the moon only in her second quarter, I saw you never was a sailor anyhow. And so I set a-thinking what you were. You were too silent for a peddler, and your hands were too white to be in the smuggling trade; but when I saw your boots, I had the secret at once, and knew ye were one of the French army that landed the other day at Killala."
"It was stupid enough of me not to have remembered the boots!" said I, laughing.
"Arrah, what use would it be?" replied he; "sure ye'r too straight in the back, and your walk is too reg'lar, and your toes turns in too much, for a sailor; the very way you hould a switch in your hand would betray you!"
"So it seems; then I must try some other disguise," said I, "if I'm to keep company with people as shrewd as you are."
"You needn't," said he, shaking his head, doubtfully; "any that wants to betray ye, wouldn't find it hard."
I was not much flattered by the depreciating tone in which he dismissed my efforts at personation, and walked on for some time without speaking.
"Yez came too late, four months too late," said he, with a sorrowful gesture of the hands. "When the Wexford boys was up, and the Kildare chaps, and plenty more ready to come in from the North, then, indeed, a few thousand French down here in the West would have made a differ; but what's the good in it now? The best men we had are hanged, or in jail; some are frightened; more are traitors! 'Tis too late—too late!"
"But not too late for a large force, landing in the North, to rouse the island to another effort for liberty."
"Who would be the gin'ral?" asked he, suddenly.