Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.

"He is remonstrating, sir," replied I, "on the neglect of his countrymen; he says that they do not seem treated like soldiers; no post has been assigned nor any order given them."

"Tell him, sir," said Humbert, with a savage grin, "that the discipline we have tried in vain to teach them hitherto, we'll not venture to rehearse under an enemy's fire; and tell him also that he and his ragged followers are free to leave us, or, if they like better, to turn against us, at a moment's warning."

I was saved the unpleasant task of interpreting this civil message by Conolly who, taking O'Donnel aside, appeared endeavoring to reason with him, and reduce him to something like moderation.

"There, look at them, they're running like sheep!" cried Humbert, laughing, as he pointed to an indiscriminate rabble, some hundred yards off, in a meadow, and who had taken to their heels on seeing a round shot plunge into the earth near them. "Come along, sir: come with me, and when you have seen what fire is, you may go back and tell your countrymen! Serazin, is all ready? Well then, forward. March!"

"March!" was now re-echoed along the line, and steadily, as on a parade, our hardy infantry stepped out, while the drums kept up a continued roll as we mounted the hill.

The first to cross the crest of the ascent were the "Legion," as the Irish were called, who, dressed like French soldiers, were selected for some slight superiority in discipline and bearing. They had but gained the ridge, however, when a well-directed shot from a six-pounder smashed in among them, killing two and wounding six or seven others. The whole mass immediately fell back on our grenadiers. The confusion compelled the supporting column to halt, and once more the troops were retired behind the hill.

"Forward men, forward!" cried Humbert, riding up to the front, and in evident impatience at these repeated checks; and now the grenadiers passed to the front, and, mounting the height, passed over, while a shower of balls flew over and around them. A small slated house stood half way down the hill, and for this the leading files made a dash, and gained it, just as the main body were, for the third time, driven back to re-form.

It was now evident that an attack in column could not succeed against a fire so admirably directed; and Humbert quickly deployed into line, and prepared to storm the enemy's position.

Up to this the conduct of the Royalists had been marked by the greatest steadiness and determination. Every shot from their batteries had told, and all promised an easy and complete success to their arms. No sooner, however, had our infantry extended into line, than the militia, unaccustomed to see an enemy before them, and unable to calculate distance, opened a useless, dropping fire, at a range where not a bullet could reach!

The ignorance of this movement, and the irregularity of the discharge, were not lost upon our fellows, most of whom were veterans of the army of the Rhine; and, with a loud cheer of derision, our troops advanced to meet them, while a cloud of skirmishers dashed forward, and secured themselves under cover of a hedge.

Even yet, however, no important advantage had been gained by us; and if the Royalists had kept their ground in support of their artillery, we must have been driven back with loss; but, fortunately for us, a movement we made to keep open order was mistaken by some of the militia officers for the preparation to outflank them, a panic seized the whole line, and they fell back, leaving their guns totally exposed and unprotected.

"They're running! they're running!" was the cry along our line; and now a race was seen, which should be first up with the artillery. The cheers at this moment were tremendous from our "allies," who, having kept wide aloof hitherto, were now up with us, and, more lightly equipped than we were, soon took the lead. The temerity, however, was costly, for three several times did the Royalist artillery load and fire; and each discharge, scarcely at half-musket range, was terribly effective.

We were by no means prepared for either so sudden or complete a success, and the scene was exciting in the highest degree, as the whole line mounted the hill, cheering madly. From the crest of this rising ground we could now see the town of Castlebar beneath us, into which the Royalists were scampering at full speed. A preparation for defending the bridge into the town did not escape the watchful eyes of our general, who again gave the word "Forward!" not by the road alone, but also by the fields at either side, so as to occupy the houses that should command the bridge, and which, by a palpable neglect, the others had forgotten to do.

Our small body of horse, about twenty hussars, were ordered to charge the bridge; and had they been even moderately well mounted, must have captured the one gun of the enemy at once; but the miserable cattle, unable to strike a canter, only exposed them to a sharp musketry; and when they did reach the bridge, five of their number had fallen. The six-pounder was, however, soon taken, and the gunners sabred at their posts, while our advanced guard coming up, completed the victory; and nothing now remained but a headlong flight.

Had we possessed a single squadron of dragoons, few could have escaped us, for not a vestige of discipline remained. All was wild confusion and panic. Such of the officers as had ever seen service, were already killed or badly wounded; and the younger ones were perfectly unequal to the difficult task of rallying or restoring order to a routed force.

The scene in the market-square, as we rode in, is not easily to be forgotten; about two hundred prisoners were standing in a group, disarmed, it is true, but quite unguarded, and without any preparation or precaution against escape!

Six or seven English officers, among whom were two majors, were gathered around General Humbert, who was conversing with them in tones of easy and jocular familiarity. The captured guns of the enemy (fourteen in all) were being ranged on one side of the square, while behind them were drawn up a strange-looking line of men, with their coats turned. These were part of the Kilkenny militia, who had deserted to our ranks after the retreat began.

Such was the "fight" of Castlebar; it would be absurd to call it a "battle;" a day too inglorious for the Royalists to reflect any credit upon us; but, such as it was, it raised the spirits of our Irish followers to a pitch of madness; and, out of our own ranks, none now doubted in the certainty of Irish independence.

Our occupation of the town lasted only a week; but, brief as the time was, it was sufficient to widen the breach between ourselves and our allies into an open and undisguised hatred. There were, unquestionably, wrongs on both sides. As for us, we were thoroughly, bitterly disappointed in the character of those we had come to liberate; and, making the egregious mistake of confounding these semi-civilized peasants with the Irish people, we deeply regretted that ever the French army should have been sent on so worthless a mission. As for them, they felt insulted and degraded by the offensive tone we assumed toward them. Not alone they were never regarded as comrades, but a taunting insolence of manner was assumed in all our dealings with them, very strikingly in contrast to that with which we conducted ourselves toward all the other inhabitants of the island, even those who were avowedly inimical to our object and our cause.

These things, with native quickness, they soon remarked. They saw the consideration and politeness with which the Bishop and his family were treated; they saw several Protestant gentlemen suffered to return to their homes "on parole." They saw, too – worst grievance of all – how all attempts at pillage were restrained, or severely punished, and they asked themselves, "To what end a revolt, if neither massacre nor robbery were to follow? If they wanted masters and rulers, sure they had the English that they were used to, and could at least understand."

Such were the causes, and such the reasonings, which gradually ate deeper and deeper into their minds, rendering them at first sullen, gloomy, and suspicious, and at last insubordinate, and openly insulting to us.

Their leaders were the first to exhibit this state of feeling. Affecting a haughty disdain for us, they went about with disparaging stories of the French soldiery; and at last went even so far as to impugn their courage!

In one of the versions of the affair of Castlebar, it was roundly asserted, that but for the Irish threatening to fire on them, the French would have turned and fled; while in another, the tactics of that day were all ascribed to the military genius of Neal Kerrigan, who, by-the-by, was never seen from early morning until late the same afternoon, when he rode into Castlebar on a fine bay horse that belonged to Captain Shortall of the Royal Artillery!

If the feeling between us and our allies was something less than cordial, nothing could be more friendly than that which subsisted between us and such of the Royalists as we came in contact with. The officers who became our prisoners were treated with every deference and respect. Two field-officers and a captain of carbineers dined daily with the General, and Serazin entertained several others. We liked them greatly; and I believe I am not flattering if I say that they were equally satisfied with us. "Nos âmis l'ennemie," was the constant expression used in talking of them; and every day drew closer the ties of this comrade regard and esteem.

Such was the cordial tone of intimacy maintained between us, that I remember well, one evening at Humbert's table, an animated discussion being carried on between the General and an English staff-officer on the campaign itself – the Royalist averring, that, in marching southward at all, a gross and irreparable mistake had been made, and that if the French had occupied Sligo, and extended their wings toward the north, they would have secured a position of infinitely greater strength, and also become the centre for rallying round them a population of a very different order from the half-starved tribes of Mayo.

Humbert affected to say that the reason for his actual plan was, that twenty thousand French were daily expected to land in Lough Swilly, and that the western attack was merely to occupy time and attention, while the more formidable movement went on elsewhere.

I know not if the English believed this; I rather suspect not. Certes, they were too polite to express any semblance of distrust of what was told them with all the air of truth.

It was amusing, too, to see the candor with which each party discussed the other to his face; the French general criticising all the faulty tactics and defective manœuvres of the Royalists; while the English never hesitated to aver, that whatever momentary success might wait upon the French arms, they were just as certain to be obliged to capitulate in the end.

"You know it better than I do, General," said the Major of Dragoons. "It may be a day or two earlier or later, but the issue will and must be – a surrender."

"I don't agree with you," said Humbert, laughing; "I think there will be more than one 'Castlebar.' But let the worst happen, and you must own that your haughty country has received a heavy insult – your great England has got a soufflét in the face of all Europe!"

This, which our General regarded as a great compensation – the greatest, perhaps, he could receive for all defeat – did not seem to affect the English with proportionate dismay, nor even to ruffle the equanimity of their calm tempers.

Upon one subject both sides were quite agreed – that the peasantry never could aid, but very possibly would always shipwreck, every attempt to win national independence.

"I should have one army to fight the English, and two to keep down the Irish!" was Humbert's expression; and very little experience served to show that there was not much exaggeration in the sentiment.

Our week at Castlebar taught us a good lesson in this respect. The troops, wearied with a march that had begun on the midnight of the day before, and with an engagement that lasted from eight till two in the afternoon, were obliged to be under arms for several hours, to repress pillage and massacre. Our allies now filled the town, to the number of five thousand, openly demanding that it should be given up to them, parading the streets in riotous bands, and displaying banners with long lists of names, doomed for immediate destruction.

The steadiness and temper of our soldiery were severely tried by these factious and insubordinate spirits; but discipline prevailed at last, and before the first evening closed in, the town was quiet, and, for the time, at least, danger over.

(To be continued.)

SKETCHES FROM LIFE

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU

I. THE OLD GOVERNESS

The afternoon was come when the Morells must go on board. They were going to Canada at last, after having talked about it for several years. There were so many children, that it was with much difficulty they had got on for some years past; and there was no prospect for the lads at home. They had, with extreme difficulty, paid their way: and they had, to a certain extent, educated the children. That, however, was Miss Smith's doing.

"We shall always feel, every one of us," said Mrs. Morell, with tears, to the elderly homely governess, "that we are under the deepest obligations to you. But for you, the children would have grown up without any education at all. And, for the greatest service you or any one could possibly render us, we have never been able to give you your due – even as regards the mere money."

"I can only say again," replied the governess, "that you do not look at the whole of the case. You have given me a home, when it is no easy matter for such as I am to earn one, with my old-womanish ways and my old-fashioned knowledge."

"I will not hear any disparagement of your ways and your knowledge," interrupted Mrs. Morell. "They have been every thing to my children: and if you could have gone with us…"

This, however, they all knew to be out of the question. It was not only that Miss Smith was between fifty and sixty, too old to go so far, with little prospect of comfort at the end of the journey; but she was at present disabled for much usefulness by the state of her right hand. It had been hurt by an accident a long time before, and it did not get well. The surgeon had always said it would be a long case; and she had no use whatever of the hand in the mean time. Yet she would not part with the baby till the last moment. She carried him on the left arm, and stood on the wharf with him – the mother at her side – till all the rest were on board, and Mr. Morell came for his wife. It was no grand steamer they were going in, but a humble vessel belonging to the port, which would carry them cheap.

"Now, my love," said the husband. "Now, Miss Smith," taking the child from her. "Words can not tell…"

And if words could have told, the tongue could not have uttered them. It was little, too, that his wife could say.

"Write to us. Be sure you write. We shall write as soon as we arrive. Write to us."

Miss Smith glanced at the hand. She said only one word, "Farewell!" but she said it cheerfully.

The steamer-tug was in a hurry, and down the river they went. She had one more appointment to keep with them. She was to wave her handkerchief from the rocks by the fort; and the children were to let her try whether she could see their little handkerchiefs. So she walked quickly over the common to the fort, and sat down on the beach at the top of the rocks.

It was very well that she had something to do. But the plan did not altogether answer. By the time the vessel crossed the bar it was nearly dark, and she was not quite sure, among three, which it was, and she did not suppose the children could see her handkerchief. She waved it, however, according to promise. How little they knew how wet it was!

Then there was the walk home. It was familiar, yet very strange. When she was a child her parents used to bring her here, in the summer time, for sea air and bathing. The haven and the old gray bathing houses, and the fort, and the lighthouse, and the old priory ruins crowning the rocks, were all familiar to her; but the port had so grown up that all else was strange. And how strange now was life to her! Her parents gone, many years back, and her two sisters since; and now, the Morells! She had never had any money to lose, and the retired way in which the Morells lived had prevented her knowing any body out of their house. She had not a relation, nor a friend, nor even an acquaintance, in England. The Morells had not been uneasy about her. They left her a little money, and had so high an opinion of her that they did not doubt her being abundantly employed, whenever her hand should get well. They had lived too much to themselves to know that her French, learned during the war, when nobody in England could pronounce French, would not do in these days, nor that her trilling, old-fashioned style of playing on the piano, which they thought so beautiful, would be laughed at now in any boarding school; and that her elegant needleworks were quite out of fashion; and that there were new ways of teaching even reading, spelling, and writing.

She knew these things, and cautioned herself against discontent with the progress of society, because she happened to be left alone behind. She suspected, too, that the hand would not get well. The thing that she was most certain of was, that she must not rack her brain with fears and speculations as to what was to become of her. Her business was to wait till she could find something to do, or learn what she was to suffer. She thought she had better wait here. There was no call to any other place. This was more familiar and more pleasant to her than any other – the Morells' cottage being far away, and out of the question – and here she could live with the utmost possible cheapness. So here she staid.

The hand got well, as far as the pain was concerned, sooner than she had expected. But it was in a different way from what she had expected. It was left wholly useless. And, though the time was not long, it had wrought as time does. It had worn out her clothes; it had emptied her little purse. It had carried away every thing she had in the world but the very few clothes she had on. She had been verging toward the resolution she now took for three or four weeks. She took it finally while sitting on the bench near the fort. It was in the dusk; for her gown, though she had done her best to mend it with her left hand, was in no condition to show by daylight. She was alone in the dusk, rather hungry and very cold. The sea was dashing surlily upon the rocks below, and there was too much mist to let any stars shine upon her. It was all dreary enough; yet she was not very miserable, for her mind was made up. She had made up her mind to go into the workhouse the next day. While she was thinking calmly about it a fife began to play a sort of jig in the yard of the fort behind her. Her heart heaved to her throat, and the tears gushed from her eyes. In this same spot, fifty years before, she had heard what seemed to her the same fife. Her father was then sitting on the grass, and she was between his knees, helping to tassel the tail of a little kite they were going to fly: and, when the merry fife had struck up, her father had snatched up her gay harlequin that lay within reach, and made him shake his legs and arms to the music. She heard her own laugh again now, through that long course of fifty years, and in the midst of these tears.

All that night she pondered her purpose: and the more she considered, the more sure she was that it was right. "I might," thought she, "get maintained by charity, no doubt: I might call on any of the clergymen of this place, and the rich people. Or I might walk into the shops and tell my story, and I dare say the people would give me food and clothes. And, if it was a temporary distress, I would do so. I should think it right to ask for help, if I had any prospect of work or independence in any way. But I have none: and this, I am convinced, points out my duty. Hopeless cases like mine are those which public charity – legal charity – is intended to meet. My father little dreamed of this, to be sure; and the Morells little dream of it at this moment. But when do our parents and friends, when do we ourselves dream of what our lot is really to turn out? Those old notions have nothing to do, if we could but think so, with the event. Nor has my disgust any thing to do with my duty. The plain fact is, that I am growing old – that I am nearly helpless – that I am cold and hungry, and nearly naked – that I have no friends within reach, and no prospect whatever. I am, therefore, an object for public charity, and I will ask for what is my due. I am afraid of what I may find in the workhouse – the vicious people, the dirty people, the diseased people – and, I suppose, not one among them who can give me any companionship whatever. It is dreadful; but it can't be helped. And the worse the case is about my companions – my fellow-paupers – (for I must learn to bear the word) – the greater are the chances of my finding something to do for them – something which may prevent my feeling myself utterly useless in the world. This is not being wholly without prospect, after all. I suppose nobody ever is. If it were not so cold now, I could sleep upon mine."

It was too cold for sleep; and when, in the morning, she offered her old shawl in payment for her bed, assuring the poor old woman who let it that she should not want the shawl, because she was going to have other clothes, the woman shook her head sorrowfully – her lodger looked so wan and chilled. She had no fear that there was any thought of suicide in the case. No one could look in Miss Smith's sensible face, and hear her steady, cheerful voice, and suppose that she would do any thing wild or impatient.

"Who is that woman with a book in her hand?" inquired the visiting commissioner, some months afterward, of the governor of the workhouse. The governor could only say she was a single woman of the name of Smith, who had no use of her right hand. As to who she was, he could tell no more than this; but his wife had sometimes mentioned her as a different sort of person from those they generally saw there. She could not only read, but she read very well; and she read a great deal aloud to the old people, and in the infirmary. She talked unlike the rest, too. She said little; but her language was good, and always correct. She could not do much on account of her infirmity: but she was always willing to do what could be done with one hand; and she must have been very handy when she had the use of both.

"I should have thought her eyes had been too weak for much reading," observed the commissioner. "Has the medical officer attended to her?"

The governor called his wife: and the wife called a pauper woman who was told the question. This woman said that it was not exactly a case for the doctor. Nobody that shed so many tears could have good eyes. Ah! the governor might be surprised; because Smith seemed so brisk in the daytime, and cheered the old people so much. But she made up for it at night. Many and many a time she cried the night through.

"How do you know?" asked the commissioner.

"I sleep in the next bed, sir. I can't say she disturbs any body; for she is very quiet. But if any thing keeps me awake I hear her sobbing. And you need but feel her pillow in the morning. It is wet almost through."

"And does that happen often?"

"Yes, sir. Many a time when she has turned her back – gone into the infirmary, or been reading to the old people – I have got her pillow and dried it. And I have seen her do it herself, with a smile on her face all the time."

The commissioner walked away. Before he left the place, the woman Smith was beckoned out by the governor. She went with a beating heart, with some wild idea in her head that the Morells had sent, that some friends had turned up. While still in the passage, however, she said to herself that she might as well look to see her parents risen from the dead.

The commissioner had, indeed, nothing to tell. He wanted to ask. He did ask, as much as his delicacy would allow. But he learned nothing; except, indeed, what he ought to have considered the most important thing, the state of her mind about being there. About that she was frank enough. She said over again to him what she had said to herself, about this being the right place for one in her circumstances. She considered that it would be an abuse of private charity for her to be maintained in idleness at an expense which might set forward in life some person in a less hopeless position.