Works (Volume 17) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XXV. A PASSING VISIT TO KILLALA. I Found a very pleasant party assembled around the bishop's breakfast-table at Killala. The bishop and his family were all there, with Charost and his staff, and some three or four other officers from Ballina. Nothing could be less constrained, more easy, or more agreeable, than the tone of intimacy which in a few days had grown up between them. A cordial good feeling seemed to prevail on every subject, and even the reserve which might be thought natural on the momentous events then happening was exchanged for a most candid and frank discussion of all that was going forward, which, I must own, astonished as much as it gratified me. The march on Castlebar, the choice of the mountain- road, which led past the position occupied by the Royalists, the attack and capture of fue artillery, had all to be related by me for the edification of such as were not conversant with French; and I could observe that'however discomfited by the conduct of the militia, they fully relied on the regiments of the line and the artillery. It was amusing, too, to see with what pleasure they listened to all our disparagement of the Irish volunteers. Every instance we gave of insubordination or disobedience delighted them, while our own blundering attempts to manage the people, the absurd mistakes we fell into, and the endless misconceptions of their character and habits, actually convulsed them with laughter. " Of course," said the bishop to us, " you are prepared to hear that there is no love lost between you, and that they are to the full as dissatisfied with you as you are dissatisfied with them?" "Why, what can they complain of?" asked Charost, smiling; " we gave them the place of honour in the very last engagement!" " Very true, you did so, an...