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natural courage and ferocity returned, and he became the tyrant of
all round about him. All recruits, especially, were the object of
the brute's insult and ill-treatment.
I had no money, as I said, and was sitting very disconsolately over
a platter of rancid bacon and mouldy biscuit, which was served to us
at mess, when it came to my turn to be helped to drink, and I was
served, like the rest, with a dirty tin noggin, containing somewhat
more than half a pint of rum-and-water. The beaker was so greasy and
filthy that I could not help turning round to the messman and
saying, 'Fellow, get me a glass!' At which all the wretches round
about me burst into a roar of laughter, the very loudest among them
being, of course, Mr. Toole. 'Get the gentleman a towel for his
hands, and serve him a basin of turtle-soup,' roared the monster,
who was sitting, or rather squatting, on the deck opposite me; and
as he spoke he suddenly seized my beaker of grog and emptied it, in
the midst of another burst of applause.
'If you want to vex him, ax him about his wife the washerwoman, who
BATES him,' here whispered in my ear another worthy, a retired link-
boy, who, disgusted with his profession, had adopted the military
life.
'Is it a towel of your wife's washing, Mr. Toole?' said I. 'I'm told
she wiped your face often with one.'
'Ax him why he wouldn't see her yesterday, when she came to the
ship,' continued the link-boy. And so I put to him some other
foolish jokes about soapsuds, henpecking, and flat-irons, which set
the man into a fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us.
We should have fallen to at once, but a couple of grinning marines,
who kept watch at the door, for fear we should repent of our bargain
and have a fancy to escape, came forward and interposed between us
with fixed bayonets; but the sergeant coming down the ladder, and
hearing the dispute, condescended to say that we might fight it out
like men with FISTES if we chose, and that the fore-deck should be
free to us for that purpose. But the use of fistes, as the
Englishman called them, was not then general in Ireland, and it was
agreed that we should have a pair of cudgels; with one of which
weapons I finished the fellow in four minutes, giving him a thump
across his stupid sconce which laid him lifeless on the deck, and
not receiving myself a single hurt of consequence.
This victory over the cock of the vile dunghill obtained me respect
among the wretches of whom I formed part, and served to set up my
spirits, which otherwise were flagging; and my position was speedily
made more bearable by the arrival on board our ship of an old
friend. This was no other than my second in the fatal duel which had
sent me thus early out into the world, Captain Fagan. There was a
young nobleman who had a company in our regiment (Gale's foot), and
who, preferring the delights of the Mall and the clubs to the
dangers of a rough campaign, had given Fagan the opportunity of an
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