“I regret to hear the last statement made by Captain Fenwick,” returned Major Fitzmauriee.—“Any inconvenience arising from the non-arrival of Peter’s inexpressibles, would have been but a private concern—but passing bad dollars is a more serious affair, compromising, as it does, the honour of an old and distinguished regiment. If the report be true, that Peter palmed off base money upon Sir Thomas Picton, why, he’s nothing better than what the swell-mob call ‘a smasher’—and the offence is additionally aggravated, because that, under a conviction he was playing with respectable men, Sir Thomas thought it unnecessary to ring the dollar on the table, as if he were in a silver hell.—But where are you going? I know you are on duty—but, hang it, Peter, you need not visit your guards this half-hour. Oh, Peter, I’m sorry to say, this evasion on your part looks very like guilt—and if you don’t clear the matter up satisfactorily in the morning, I’ll apply for a regimental inquiry.”
“He’s off!” said a lieutenant of light infantry. “Of all Peter’s flights of fancy, that jollification at head-quarters will prove the most fatal.” Turning to me he continued:—
“Peter Crotty, Mr. O’llalloran, is one of the best men on earth; and all he requires is, to meet with a true believer. Don’t be alarmed at some of his revelations—he’s not so truculent as at times he represents himself. For example: he’s pleased to make frequent mention, when he has dipped into the second bottle or fourth tumbler, as the case may be, ‘of having once pursued an unfortunate author on the banks of the Suir for a whole summer’s day, and despatched him with the thirteenth shot. Of course, on his own showing, you would write him down a determined murderer.—Not at all. I believe the most rascally scribbler that ever blotted paper, might live to four score, and Peter never volunteer to be his executioner. The fact is, that in the pleasant part of Tipperary which witnessed the nativity of our friend, it is customary, when a couple of t’s come together, to change the second into an h, and hence it was an otter, and not an author, that he put to death.”
“And I will bear testimony,” said Captain Fenwick, “to Peter’s gallantry. When I was knocked down at Podrigo, and lay at the foot of the great breach, I saw honest Peter crown it—and with some dozen hair-brained devils, like himself, he fought on the summit, hand to hand. The French, when the lesser breach was carried, gave way—the town was won—and Peter, with a fortunate few, gained the streets without sustaining personal injury. Two days afterwards he visited me in hospital, bitterly lamenting the total loss of a skirt, which had been bodily removed by a bayonet thrust. ‘Bad luck to him for an unlucky thief!’ was Peter’s indignant observation. ‘He tattered the only jacket that I had; and though the tailor has been on the look-out ever since, the devil a skirt he can fall upon that will match it!’”
“Gentlemen,” observed the assistant-surgeon, “you have borne an honourable testimony to my excellent friend and countryman, Mr. Crotty, as a person of lively imagination, and a stout soldier besides. I beg to complete the merited eulogium, by assuring you that Peter is a good catholic into the bargain. Captain Fenwick noticed his conduct during the assault—and I accidentally witnessed his Christian temperament, immediately before the division moved into the trenches on that glorious and bloody evening. With three others, Peter and I held a ruinous apartment of an old farm-house in joint tenancy, and my corner was divided from the rest, by a blanket suspended from a line. When the division was under arms, I discovered that I had left some instruments behind which might possibly be required, returned consequently, to the house, and while hunting for them behind the blanket, I heard Peter Crotty open the outer door and come in. He, too, was in search of something he had forgotten—and in a false assurance that he was perfectly alone, he commenced ‘thinking aloud,’ and I kept quiet.
“‘Holy Mary!’ he ejaculated, ‘you have the best interest in heaven, and that every body knows. If I had as good at the Horse Guards, I would be a colonel in a fortnight. Oh, bad luck attend ye, Tim Doyle’—and he kept rummaging through an old bullock-trunk.
“‘There’s no finding anything after ye, you drunken sweep! Well, blessed Virgin, this is likely to be a bloody night; and the Lord, of course, will take his dealing trick out of the regiment,—glory to him—nobody can complain of it. But, sweet Lady—all I wish is, that it won’t be as it was at Badajoz, in funeral order, but just let him take them fairly as they stand. There’s three field-officers with the regiment, and we can easily spare one of them;—a couple of captains, ye know, would never be missed out of the number—and as to the subalterns, why let him have his own way about them. Oh, murder! there go the taps. If I live to come back, Tim Doyle, I wouldn’t be in your jacket for a new thirteen.’ * Again the drum ruffled—Peter shut down the trunk-lid, slammed the door after him, and hurried off to join his company—making his final exit in muttering a prayer to the Virgin, and an imprecation upon Tim Doyle.”
* Anglice—a shilling.
Early next morning. I was agreeably surprised at receiving an order from Lord Wellington to attend him that afternoon. I rode over accordingly; and once more found myself in the presence of him who had been destined to restore the tarnished glory of the British arms, and after a brilliant career of conquest, terminate a doubtful struggle by a crowning victory. I found him immured in business—and yet the details of his bureau seemed to go on as orderly and methodically as the arrangements of a merchant’s counting-house. On seeing me, he beckoned me to come forward.
I think I have been able to meet your wishes, Mr. O’Halloran.