With Moore at Corunna | Page 7

under a guard,
and three hours later the Mayo Fusiliers marched through the town with
their band playing at their head, and amid the cheers of the populace.
As yet the martial spirit that was roused by the struggle in the Peninsula
had scarcely begun to show itself, but there was a strong animosity to
France throughout England, and a desire to aid the people of Spain and
Portugal in their efforts for freedom. In Ireland, for the most part, there
was no such feeling. Since the battle of the Boyne and the siege of
Limerick, France had been regarded by the greater portion of the
peasantry, and a section of the population of the towns, as the natural
ally of Ireland, and there was a hope that when Napoleon had all
Europe prostrate under his feet he would come as the deliverer of
Ireland from the English yoke. Consequently, although the townspeople
of Athlone cheered the regiment as it marched away, the country
people held aloof from it as it passed along the road. Scowling looks
from the women greeted it in the villages, while the men ostentatiously
continued their work in the fields without turning to cast a glance at
them.
Terence was not posted to his father's company, but was in that of
Captain O'Driscol, although the lad himself would have preferred to be
with Captain O'Grady, with whom he was a great favourite. The latter
was one of the captains whose companies were unprovided with an
ensign, and he had asked the adjutant to let him have the lad instead of
the ensign who was to join at Cork.
"The matter has been settled the other way, O'Grady; in the colonel's
opinion he will be much better with O'Driscol, who is more likely to
keep him in order than you are."
O'Grady was one of the most original characters in the regiment. He
was rather under middle height, and had a smooth face, a guileless and
innocent expression, and a habit of opening his light-blue eyes as in

wonder. His hair was short, and stuck up aggressively; his brogue was
the strongest in the regiment; his blunders were innumerable, and his
look of amazement at the laughter they called forth was admirably
feigned, save that the twinkle of his eye induced a suspicion that he
himself enjoyed the joke as well as anyone. His good-humour was
imperturbable, and he was immensely popular both among men and
officers.
"O'Driscol!" he repeated, in mild astonishment. "Do you mean to say
that O'Driscol will keep him in better order than meself? If there is one
man in this regiment more than another who would get on well with the
lad it is meself, barring none."
"You would get on well enough with him, O'Grady, I have no doubt,
but it would be by letting him have his own way, and in encouraging
him in mischief of all kinds."
O'Grady's eyebrows were elevated, and his eyes expressed hopeless
bewilderment.
"You are wrong entirely, Cleary; nature intended me for a schoolmaster,
and it is just an accident that I have taken to soldiering. I flatter meself
that no one looks after his subalterns more sharply than I do. My only
fear is that I am too severe with them. I may be mild in my manners,
but they know me well enough to tremble if I speak sternly to them."
"The trembling would be with amusement," the adjutant grumbled.
"Well, the colonel has settled the matter, and Terence will be in Orders
to-morrow as appointed to O'Driscol's company, and the other to
yours."
"Thank you for nothing, Cleary," O'Grady said, with dignity. "You
would have seen that under my tuition the lad would have turned out
one of the smartest officers in the regiment."
"You have heard of the Spartan way of teaching their sons to avoid
drunkenness, Captain O'Grady?"

"Divil a word, Cleary; but I reckon that the best way with the haythens
was to keep them from touching whisky. It is what I always
recommend to the men of my company when I come across one of
them the worse for liquor."
The adjutant laughed. "That was not the Spartan way, O'Grady; but the
advice, if taken, would doubtless have the same effect."
"And who were the Spartans at all?"
"I have not time to tell you now, O'Grady; I have no end of business on
my hands."
"Thin what do you keep me talking here for? haven't I a lot of work on
me hands too. I came in to ask a simple question, and instead of giving
me a civil answer you kape me wasting my time wid your O'Driscols
and your Spartans and all kinds of rigmarole. That is the worst of being
in an Irish regiment, nothing