“’Twas he was the boy didn’t fail,
That tuck down pataties and mail;
He never would shrink
From any sthrong dthrink,
Was it whisky or Drogheda ale;
I’m bail
This Larry would swallow a pail.

“Oh, many a night at the bowl,
With Larry I’ve sot cheek by jowl;
He’s gone to his rest,
Where there’s dthrink of the best,
And so let us give his old sowl
A howl,
For twas he made the noggin to rowl.”

I observed the French Colonel’s eye glistened as he heard these well-known accents of his country but we were too well-bred to pretend to remark his emotion.

The sun was setting behind the mountains as our songs were finished, and each began to look out with some anxiety for the preconcerted signal, the rocket from Sir Hussey Vivian’s quarters, which was to announce the recommencement of hostilities.  It came just as the moon rose in her silver splendor, and ere the rocket-stick fell quivering to the earth at the feet of General Picton and Sir Lowry Cole, who were at their posts at the head of the storming-parties, nine hundred and ninety nine guns in position opened their fire from our batteries, which were answered by a tremendous canonnade from the fort.

“Who’s going to dance?” said the Doctor:  “the ball’s begun.  Ha! there goes poor Jack Delamere’s head off!  The ball chose a soft one, anyhow.  Come here, Tim, till I mend your leg.  Your wife has need only knit half as many stockings next year, Doolan my boy.  Faix! there goes a big one had wellnigh stopped my talking:  bedad! it has snuffed the feather off my cocked hat!”

In this way, with eighty-four-pounders roaring over us like hail, the undaunted little Doctor pursued his jokes and his duty.  That he had a feeling heart, all who served with him knew, and none more so than Philip Fogarty, the humble writer of this tale of war.

Our embrasure was luckily bomb-proof, and the detachment of the Onety-oneth under my orders suffered comparatively little.  “Be cool, boys,” I said; “it will be hot enough work for you ere long.”  The honest fellows answered with an Irish cheer.  I saw that it affected our prisoner.

“Countryman,” said I, “I know you; but an Irishman was never a traitor.”

“Taisez-vous!” said he, putting his finger to his lip.  “C’est la fortune de la guerre:  if ever you come to Paris, ask for the Marquis d’ O’Mahony, and I may render you the hospitality which your tyrannous laws prevent me from exercising in the ancestral halls of my own race.”

I shook him warmly by the hand as a tear bedimmed his eye.  It was, then, the celebrated colonel of the Irish Brigade, created a Marquis by Napoleon on the field of Austerlitz!

“Marquis,” said I, “the country which disowns you is proud of you; but—­ha! here, if I mistake not, comes our signal to advance.”  And in fact, Captain Vandeleur, riding up through the shower of shot, asked for the commander of the detachment, and bade me hold myself in readiness to move as soon as the flank companies of the Ninety-ninth, and Sixty-sixth, and the Grenadier Brigade of the German Legion began to advance up the echelon.  The devoted band soon arrived; Jack Bowser heading the Ninety-ninth (when was he away and a storming-party to the fore?), and the gallant Potztausend, with his Hanoverian veterans.