148 LOVE AND SEA SICKNESS. 



think that Fm romancin, when I tell yees how he said 

 we tuck the concate out ov the Frinch 88th ; he said 

 every word ov it, and more too, iv I could repate it in 

 his own words!" "Why," replied Corney Fagan, 

 " what you say is parfectly thrue ; we ought to stand 

 by him — and didn't we? Sure yees remember how 

 Misther Mackie* ran up the ladder as nimble as a cat, 

 and poor Misther Martinf thought to do the same, 

 till he was kilt ! and didn't Captain Seton j owe his 

 life to his being so thin that the Frinch couldn't see 

 him under the gun ? and whin we have such a man to 

 direct us, and such officers to lade us on, why, what 

 else can we do but folly them through thick and thin." 



' Reminisciences of a Subaltern. 



LOVE AND SEA SICKNESS. 



* On the shore of Smerwick harbour one fine summer's morning, 

 just at day break, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shaughing the dudeen,*' 

 which may be translated, *•' smoking his pipe.*^ The sun was gra- 

 dually rising behind the lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting 

 green in the light, and the mists clearing away out of the valleys, 

 went rolling and curling like the smoke from the corner of Dick's 

 mouth. 



" Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking 

 the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant 

 ocean, which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. 

 " Well to be sure," continued he, after a pause, " 'tis mighty lone- 

 some to be talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have 

 another soul to answer one, nothing but the child of one's own voice, 

 the echo : I know this, that if I had the luck, or may be, the mis- 

 fortune," said he, with a melancholy smile, '* to have the woman, it 

 would not be this way with me ! — And what in the wide world is a 

 man without a wife ? He's no more surely than a bottle without a 

 drop of whiskey in it, or dancing without music, or the left leg of a 



* Lieutenant William Mackie, who led the Forlorn Hope. 



f Mr. Richard Martin, now member of parliament, though then 

 kilt. 



X Captain Seton commanded the 88th on the night of storming 

 Badajoz. 



