Chapter 8: The Siege Begins.
On the 19th of June General Eliott, accompanied by several of hisofficers, paid a visit to the Spanish lines to congratulate GeneralMendoza, who commanded there, on the promotion that he had justreceived. The visit lasted but a short time, and it was remarkedthat the Spanish officer seemed ill at ease. Scarcely had the partyreturned to Gibraltar than a Swedish frigate entered the bay,having on board Mr. Logie, H.M. Consul in Barbary, who had comeacross in her from Tangier. He reported that a Swedish brig had putin there. She reported that she had fallen in with the Frenchfleet, of twenty-eight sail of the line, off Cape Finisterre; andthat they were waiting there to be joined by the Spanish fleet,from Cadiz.
The news caused great excitement; but it was scarcely believed, forthe Spanish general had given the most amicable assurances to thegovernor. On the 21st, however, the Spaniards, at their linesacross the neutral ground, refused to permit the mail to pass; anda formal notification was sent in that intercourse betweenGibraltar and Spain would no longer be permitted. This put an endto all doubt, and discussion. War must have been declared betweenSpain and England, or such a step would never have been taken.
In fact, although the garrison did not learn it until some timelater, the Spanish ambassador in London had presented what wasvirtually a declaration of war, on the 16th. A messenger had beensent off on the same day from Madrid, ordering the cessation ofintercourse with Gibraltar and, had he not been detained byaccident on the road, he might have arrived during General Eliott'svisit to the Spanish lines; a fact of which Mendoza had beendoubtless forewarned, and which would account for his embarrassmentat the governor's call.
Captain O'Halloran brought the news home, when he returned fromparade.
"Get ready your sandbags, Carrie; examine your stock of provisions;prepare a store of lint, and plaster."
"What on earth are you talking about, Gerald?"
"It is war, Carrie. The Dons have refused to accept our mail, andhave cut off all intercourse with the mainland."
Carrie turned a little pale. She had never really thought that thetalk meant anything, or that the Spaniards could be reallyintending to declare war, without having any ground for quarrelwith England.
"And does it really mean war, Gerald?"
"There is no doubt about it. The Spaniards are going to fight and,as their army can't swim across the Bay of Biscay, I take it it ishere they mean to attack us. Faith, we are going to have somedivarshun, at last."
"Divarshun! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gerald."
"Well, my dear, what have I come into the army for? To march aboutfor four hours a day in a stiff stock, and powder and pigtail and acocked hat, and a red coat? Not a bit of it. Didn't I enter thearmy to fight? And here have I been, without a chance of smellingpowder, for the last ten years. It is the best news I have hadsince you told me that you were ready and willing to become Mrs.O'Halloran."
"And to think that we have got Bob out here with us!" his wifesaid, without taking any notice of the last words. "What will unclesay?"
"Faith, and it makes mighty little difference what he says, Carrie,seeing that he is altogether beyond shouting distance.
"As for Bob, he will be just delighted. Why, he has been workingtill his brain must all be in a muddle; and it is the best thing inthe world for him, or he would be mixing up the Spaniards and theRomans, and the x's and y's and the tangents, and all the otherthings into a regular jumble--and it is a nice business that wouldhave been. It is the best thing in the world for him, alwayssupposing that he don't get his growth stopped, for want ofvictuals."
"You don't mean, really and seriously, Gerald, that we are likelyto be short of food?"
"And that is exactly what I do mean. You may be sure that the Donsknow, mighty well, that they have no chance of taking the place onthe land side. They might just as well lay out their trenchesagainst the moon. It is just starvation that they are going to try;and when they get the eighteen French sail of the line that Mr.Logie brought news of, and a score or so of Spanish men-of-war inthe bay, you will see that it is likely you won't get your muttonand your butter and vegetables very regularly across from Tangier."
"Well, it is very serious, Gerald."
"Very serious, Carrie."
"I don't see anything to laugh at at all, Gerald."
"I didn't know that I was laughing."
"You were looking as if you wanted to laugh, which is just as bad.I suppose there is nothing to be done, Gerald?"
"Well, yes, I should go down to the town, and lay in a store ofthings that will keep. You see, if nothing comes of it we shouldnot be losers. The regiment is likely to be here three or fouryears, so we should lose nothing by laying in a big stock of wine,and so on; while, if there is a siege, you will see everything willgo up to ten times its ordinary price. That room through ours isnot used for anything, and we might turn that into a storeroom.
"I don't mean that there is any hurry about it, today; but we oughtcertainly to lay in as large a store as we can, of things that willkeep. Some things we may get cheaper, in a short time, than we cannow. A lot of the Jew and native traders will be leaving, if theysee there is really going to be a siege; for you see, the town isquite open to the guns of batteries, on the other side of theneutral ground.
"It was a mighty piece of luck we got this house. You see thatrising ground behind will shelter us from shot. They may blaze awayas much as they like, as far as we are concerned.
"Ah! There is Bob, coming out of his room with the professor."
"Well, take him out and tell him, Gerald. I want to sit down, andthink. My head feels quite in a whirl."
Bob was, of course, greatly surprised at the news; and theprofessor, himself, was a good deal excited.
Illustration: The Professor gets excited.
"We have been living here for three hundred years," he said, "myfathers and grandfathers. When the English came and took thisplace--seventy-five years ago--my grandfather became a Britishsubject, like all who remained here. My father, who was then but aboy, has told me that he remembers the great siege, and how thecannons roared night and day. It was in the year when I was bornthat the Spaniards attacked the Rock again; and a shell exploded inthe house, and nearly killed us all. I was born a British subject,and shall do my duty in what way I can, if the place is attacked.They call us Rock scorpions. Well, they shall see we can live underfire, and will do our best to sting, if they put their finger onus. Ha, ha!"
"The little man is quite excited," Captain O'Halloran said, as theprofessor turned away, and marched off at a brisk pace towards hishome. "It is rather hard on these Rock people. Of course, as hesays, they are British subjects, and were born so. Still, you see,in race and language they are still Spaniards; and their sympathiesmust be divided, at any rate at present. When the shot and shellcome whistling into the town, and knocking their houses about theirears, they will become a good deal more decided in their opinionsthan they can be, now.
"Come along, Bob, and let us get all the news. I came off as soonas I heard that our communication with Spain was cut off, andtherefore it was certain war was declared. There will be lots oforders out, soon. It is a busy time we shall have of it, for thenext month or two."
There were many officers in the anteroom when they entered.
"Any fresh news?" Captain O'Halloran asked.
"Lots of it, O'Halloran. All the Irish officers of the garrison areto be formed into an outlying force, to occupy the neutral ground.It is thought their appearance will be sufficient to terrify theSpaniards."
"Get out with you, Grant! If they were to take us at all, it wouldbe because they knew that we were the boys to do the fighting."
"And the drinking, O'Halloran," another young officer put in.
"And the talking," said another.
"Now, drop it, boys, and be serious. What is the news, really?"
"There is a council of war going on, at the governor's, O'Halloran.Boyd, of course, and De la Motte, Colone
l Green, the admiral, Mr.Logie, and two or three others. They say the governor has beengradually getting extra stores across from Tangier, ever sincethere was first a talk about this business; and of course that isthe most important question, at present. I hear that Green and theEngineers have been marking out places for new batteries, for thelast month; and I suppose fatigue work is going to be the order ofthe day. It is too bad of them choosing this time of the year tobegin, for it will be awfully hot work.
"Everyone is wondering what will become of the officers who areliving out with their families, at San Roque and the other villagesacross the Spanish lines; and besides, there are a lot of officersaway on leave, in the interior. Of course they won't take themprisoners. That would be a dirty trick. But it is likely enoughthey may ship them straight back to England, instead of lettingthem return here.
"Well, it is lucky that we have got a pretty strong garrison. Wehave just been adding up the last field state. These are thefigures--officers, noncommissioned officers, and men--artillery,485; 12th Regiment, 599; 39th, 586; 56th, 587; 58th, 605; 72nd,1046; the Hanoverian Brigade--of Hardenberg's, Reden's, and De laMotte's regiments--1352; and 122 Engineers under Colonel Green:which makes up, altogether, 5382 officers and men.
"That is strong enough for anything, but it would have been betterif there had been five hundred more artillerymen; but I supposethey will be able to lend us some sailors, to help work the heavyguns.
"They will turn you into a powder monkey, Repton."
"I don't care what they turn me into," Bob said, "so long as I cando something."
"I think it is likely," Captain O'Halloran said gravely, "that allwomen and children will be turned out of the place, before fightingbegins; except, of course, wives and children of officers."
There was a general laugh, at Bob.
"Well," he said quietly, "it will lessen the ranks of thesubalterns, for there must be a considerable number who are notmany months older than I am. I am just sixteen, and I know thereare some not older than that."
This was a fact, for commissions were--in those days--given in thearmy to mere lads, and the ensigns were often no older thanmidshipmen.
Late in the afternoon, a procession of carts was seen crossing theneutral ground, from the Spanish lines; and it was soon seen thatthese were the English officers and merchants from San Roque, andthe other villages. They had, that morning, received peremptoryorders to leave before sunset. Some were fortunate enough to beable to hire carts, to bring in their effects; but several werecompelled, from want of carriage, to leave everything behind them.
The guards had all been reinforced, at the northern batteries;pickets had been stationed across the neutral ground; the guard, atthe work known as the Devil's Tower, were warned to be specially onthe alert; and the artillery in the battery, on the rock above it,were to hold themselves in readiness to open fire upon the enemy,should they be perceived advancing towards it.
It was considered improbable, in the extreme, that the enemy wouldattack until a great force had been collected; but it was possiblethat a body of troops might have been collected secretly, somewherein the neighbourhood, and that an attempt would be made to capturethe place by surprise, before the garrison might be supposed to betaking precautions against attack.
The next morning orders were issued, and large working parties weretold off to go on with the work of strengthening the fortifications;and notice was issued that all empty hogsheads and casks in the townwould be bought, by the military authorities. These were to befilled with earth, and to take the places of fascines, for whichthere were no materials available on the Rock. Parties of menrolled or carried these up to the heights. Other parties collectedearth, and piled it to be carried up in sacks on the back ofmules--there being no earth, on the rocks where the batteries wouldbe established--a fact which added very largely to the difficultiesof the Engineers.
On the 24th the Childers, sloop of war, brought in two prizes fromthe west; one of which, an American, she had captured in the midstof the Spanish fleet. Some of the Spanish men-of-war had madethreatening demonstrations, as if to prevent the sloop frominterfering with her; but they had not fired a gun, and it wassupposed that they had not received orders to commence hostilities.Two English frigates had been watching the fleet; and it wassupposed to be on its way to join the French fleet, off CapeFinisterre.
The Spaniards were seen, now, to be at work dragging down guns fromSan Roque to arm their two forts--Saint Philip and SaintBarbara--which stood at the extremities of their lines: SaintPhilip on the bay, and Saint Barbara upon the seashore, on theeastern side of the neutral side. In time of peace, only a few gunswere mounted in these batteries.
Illustration: The Rock and Bay of Gibraltar.
Admiral Duff moved the men-of-war under his command, consisting ofthe Panther--of sixty guns--three frigates, and a sloop, from theirusual anchorage off the Water Port--where they were exposed to thefire of the enemy's forts--to the New Mole, more to the southward.
Bob would have liked to be out all day, watching the busypreparations, and listening to the talk of the natives; who weregreatly alarmed at the prospect of the siege, knowing that the gunsfrom the Spanish forts, and especially from Fort Saint Philip,could throw their shot and shell into the town. But CaptainO'Halloran agreed with his wife that it was much better he shouldcontinue his lessons with Don Diaz, of a morning; for that it wouldbe absurd for him to be standing about in the sun, the whole day.The evening lessons were, however, discontinued from the first; asDr. Burke had his hands full in superintending the preparationsmaking, at the hospitals, for the reception of large numbers ofwounded.
Bob did not so much mind this, for he had ceased to regard the timespent with the professor as lessons. After he had once mastered theconjugation of the verbs, and had learned an extensive vocabularyby heart, books had been laid aside, altogether; and the three hourswith the professor had, for the last two months, been spent simplyin conversation. They were no longer indoors, but sat in the gardenon the shady side of the house; or, when the sky happened to beclouded and the morning was cool, walked together out to Europa Point;and would sit down there, looking over the sea, but always talking.Sometimes it was history--Roman, English, or Spanish--sometimes Bob'sschooldays and life in London, sometimes general subjects. It matteredlittle what they talked about, so that the conversation was kept up.
Sometimes, when it was found that topics failed them, the professorwould give Bob a Spanish book to glance through, and its subjectwould serve as a theme for talk on, the following day; and as itwas five months since the lad had landed, he was now able to speakin Spanish almost as fluently as in English. As he had learntalmost entirely by ear, and any word mispronounced had had to begone over, again and again, until Don Diaz was perfectly satisfied,his accent was excellent; and the professor had told him, a fewdays before the breaking out of the war, that in another month ortwo he should discontinue his lessons.
"It would be well for you to have one or two mornings a week, tokeep up your accent. You can find plenty of practice talking to thepeople. I see you are good at making friends, and are ready to talkto labourers at work, to boys, to the market women, and to anyoneyou come across; but their accent is bad, and it would be well foryou to keep on with me. But you speak, at present, much betterSpanish than the people here and, if you were dressed up as a youngSpaniard, you might go about Spain without anyone suspecting you tobe English."
Indeed, by the professor's method of teaching--assisted by anatural aptitude, and three hours' daily conversation, for fivemonths--Bob had made surprising progress, especially as he hadsupplemented his lesson by continually talking Spanish with Manola,with the Spanish woman and children living below them, and witheveryone he could get to talk to.
He had seen little of Jim, since the trouble began; as leave was,for the most part, stopped--the ships of war being in readiness toproceed to sea, at a moment's notice, to engage an enemy, or toprotect merchantmen coming in from the attacks of the Sp
anish shipsand gunboats, across at Algeciras.
Bob generally got up at five o'clock, now, and went out for two orthree hours before breakfast; for the heat had become too great forexercise, during the day. He greatly missed the market, for it hadgiven him much amusement to watch the groups of peasant women--withtheir baskets of eggs, fowls, vegetables, oranges, and fruit ofvarious kinds--bargaining with the townspeople, and joking andlaughing with the soldiers. The streets were now almost deserted,and many of the little traders in vegetables and fruit had closedtheir shops. The fishermen, however, still carried on their work,and obtained a ready sale for their catch. There had, indeed, beena much greater demand than usual for fish, owing to the falling offin the fruit and vegetable supplies.
The cessation of trade was already beginning to tell upon thepoorer part of the population; but employment was found for allwilling to labour either at collecting earth for the batteries, orout on the neutral ground--where three hundred of them wereemployed by the Engineers in levelling sand hummocks, and otherinequalities in the ground, that might afford any shelter to anenemy creeping up to assault the gates by the waterside.
Dr. Burke came in with Captain O'Halloran to dinner, ten days afterthe gates had been closed.
"You are quite a stranger, Teddy," Mrs. O'Halloran said.
"I am that," he replied; "but you are going to be bothered with meagain, now; we have got everything in apple pie order, and are ready totake half the garrison under our charge. There has been lots to do. Allthe medical stores have been overhauled, and lists made out and senthome of everything that can be required--medicines and comforts, andlint and bandages, and splints and wooden legs; and goodness knowswhat, besides. We hope they will be out in the first convoy.
"There is a privateer going to sail, tomorrow; so if you want tosend letters home, or to order anything to be sent out to you, youhad better take the opportunity. Have you got everything you want,for the next two or three years?"
"Two or three years!" Carrie repeated, in tones of alarm. "You meantwo or three months."
"Indeed, and I don't. If the French and the Dons have made up theirmind to take this place, and once set to fairly to do it, they arebound to stick to it for a bit. I should say you ought to providefor three years."
"But that is downright nonsense, Teddy. Why, in three months thereought to be a fleet here that would drive all the French andSpaniards away."
"Well, if you say there ought to be, there ought," the doctor said,"but where is it to come from? I was talking to some of the navalmen, yesterday; and they all say it will be a long business, if theFrench and Spanish are in earnest. The French navy is as strong asours, and the Spaniards have got nearly as many ships as theFrench. We have got to protect our coasts and our trade, to convoythe East Indian fleets, and to be doing something all over theworld; and they doubt whether it would be possible to get togethera fleet that could hope to defeat the French and Spanish navies,combined.
"Well, have you been laying in stores, Mrs. O'Halloran?"
"Yes, we have bought two sacks of flour, and fifty pounds of sugar;ten pounds of tea, and a good many other things."
"If you will take my advice," the doctor said earnestly, "you willlay in five times as much. Say ten sacks of flour, two hundred-weightof sugar, and everything else in proportion. Those sort of thingshaven't got up in price, yet; but you will see, everything will riseas soon as the blockade begins in earnest."
"No, the prices of those things have not gone up much; but fruit isthree times the price it was, a fortnight ago, and chickens andeggs are double, and vegetables are hardly to be bought."
"That is the worst of it," the doctor said. "It's the vegetablesthat I am thinking of."
"Well, we can do without vegetables," Mrs. O'Halloran laughed, "aslong as we have plenty of bread."
"It is just that you can't do. You see, we shall be cut off fromTangier--maybe tomorrow, maybe a fortnight hence--but we shall becut off. A ship may run in sometimes, at night, but you can't countupon that; and it is salt meat that we are going to live upon and,if you live on salt meat, you have got to have vegetables or fruitto keep you in health.
"Now, I tell you what I should do, Gerald, and I am not joking withyou. In the first place, I would make an arrangement with thepeople downstairs, and I would hire their garden from them. I don'tsuppose they would want much for it, for they make no use of it,except to grow a few flowers. Then I would go down the town, and Iwould buy up all the chickens I could get. There are plenty of themto be picked up, if you look about for them, for most of the peoplewho have got a bit of ground keep a few fowls. Get a hundred ofthem, if you can, and turn them into the garden. Buy up twentysacks, if you like, of damaged biscuits. You can get them for anold song. The commissariat have been clearing out their stores, andthere are a lot of damaged biscuits to be sold, by auction,tomorrow. You would get twenty sacks for a few shillings.
"That way you will get a good supply of eggs, if the siege lastsever so long; and you can fence off a bit of the garden, and raisefowls there. That will give you a supply of fresh meat, and anyeggs and poultry you can't eat yourselves you can sell for bigprices. You could get a chicken, three weeks ago, at threepence.Never mind if you have to pay a shilling for them, now; they willbe worth five shillings, before long.
"If you can rent another bit of garden, anywhere near, I would takeit. If not, I would hire three or four men to collect earth, andbring it up here. This is a good, big place; I suppose it is thirtyfeet by sixty. Well, I would just leave a path from the door,there, up to this end; and a spare place, here, for your chairs;and I would cover the rest of it with earth, nine inches or a footdeep; and I would plant vegetables."
"Do you mane we are to grow cabbages here, Teddy?" CaptainO'Halloran asked, with a burst of laughter.
"No, I wouldn't grow cabbages. I would just grow mustard, andcress, and radishes. If you eat plenty of them, they will keep offscurvy; and all you don't want for yourselves, I will guarantee youwill be able to sell at any price you like to ask for them and, ifnobody else will buy them, the hospitals will. They would be thesaving of many a man's life."
"But they would want watering," Captain O'Halloran said, moreseriously, for he saw how much the doctor was in earnest.
"They will that. You will have no difficulty in hiring a man tobring up water, and to tend to them and to look after the fowls.Men will be glad enough to work for next to nothing.
"I tell you, Gerald, if I wasn't in the service, I should hireevery bit of land I could lay hands on, and employ as manylabourers as it required; and I should look to be a rich man,before the end of the siege. I was speaking to the chief surgeontoday about it; and he is going to put the convalescents to work,on a bit of spare ground there is at the back of the hospital, andto plant vegetables.
"I was asking down the town yesterday and I found that, at Blount'sstore, you can get as much vegetable seed as you like. You lay in astock, today, of mustard and cress and radish. Don't be afraid ofthe expense--get twenty pounds of each of them. You will be alwaysable to sell what you don't want, at ten times the price you givefor it now. If you can get a piece more garden ground, take it atany price and raise other vegetables; but keep the top of the househere for what I tell you.
"Well, I said nine inches deep of earth; that is more thannecessary. Four and a half will do for the radishes, and two isenough for the mustard and cress. That will grow on a blanket--itis really only water that it wants."
"What do you think, Carrie?" Captain O'Halloran asked.
"Well, Gerald, if you really believe the siege is going to lastlike that, I should think that it would be really worth while to dowhat Teddy Burke advises. Of course, you will be too busy to lookafter things, but Bob might do so."
"Of course I would," Bob broke in. "It will give me something todo."
"Well, we will set about it at once, then. I will speak to the mandownstairs. You know he has got two or three horses and traps downin the town, and lets them to people driv
ing out across the lines;but of course he has nothing to do, now, and I should think that hewould be glad enough to arrange to look after the fowls and thethings up here.
"The garden is a good size. I don't think anything could get outthrough that prickly pear hedge but, anyhow, any gaps there are canbe stopped up with stakes. I think it is a really good idea and, ifI can get a couple of hundred fowls, I will. I should think therewas plenty of room for them, in the garden. I will set up as apoultry merchant."
"You might do worse, Gerald. I will bet you a gallon of whisky theywill be selling at ten shillings a couple, before this business isover; and there is no reason in the world why you should not turnan honest penny--it will be a novelty to you."
"Well, I will go down the town, at once," Gerald said, "and get theseeds and the extra stores you advise, Teddy; and tomorrow I willgo to the commissariat sale, and buy a ton or two of those damagedbiscuits. We will take another room from them, downstairs, as astoreroom for that and the eggs; and I will get a carpenter to comeup and put a fence, and make some runs and a bit of a shelter forthe sitting hens, and the chickens. Bob shall do the purchasing.
"You had better get a boy with a big basket to go with you, Bob;and go round to the cottages, to buy up fowls. Mind, don't let themsell you nothing but cocks--one to every seven or eight hens isquite enough; and don't let them foist off old hens on you--theyounger they are, the better. I should say that, at first, you hadbetter take Manola with you, if Carrie can spare her; then youwon't get taken in, and you will soon learn to tell the differencebetween an old hen and a young chicken."
"When you are buying the seed, O'Halloran," said Dr. Burke, "youwould do well to get a few cucumbers, and melons, and pumpkins.They will grow on the roof, splendidly. And you can plant them nearthe parapet, where they will grow down over the sides, so theywon't take up much room; and you can pick them with a ladder. Thepumpkin is a good vegetable, and the fowls will thank you for a bitto pick, when you can spare one. They will all want manure, but youget plenty of that, from the fowl yard."
"Why, Teddy, there seems no end to your knowledge," Mrs. O'Halloransaid. "First of all, you turn out to be a schoolmaster; and now youare a gardener, and poultry raiser. And to think I never gave youcredit for knowing anything, except medicine."
"You haven't got to the bottom of it yet, Mrs. O'Halloran. My headis just stored with knowledge, only it isn't always that I have achance of making it useful. I would be just the fellow to be caston a desert island. There is no saying what I wouldn't do towardsmaking myself comfortable there.
"But I do know about scurvy, for I made a voyage in a whaler,before I got His Majesty's commission to kill and slay in the army;and I know how necessary vegetables are. I only wish we had knownwhat the Spaniards were up to, a month since. We would have got acargo of oranges and lemons. They would have been worth theirweight in silver."
"But they wouldn't have kept, Teddy."
"No, not for long; but we would have squeezed them, and put sugarinto the juice, and bottled it off. If the general had consultedme, that is what he would have been after, instead of seeing aboutsalt meat and biscuits. We shall get plenty of them, from shipsthat run in--I have no fear of that--but it is the acids will bewanting."
As soon as dinner was over, Captain O'Halloran went downstairs; andhad no difficulty in arranging, with the man below, for the entireuse of his garden. An inspection was made of the hedge, and the managreed to close up all gaps that fowls could possibly creepthrough. He was also quite willing to let off a room for storage,and his wife undertook to superintend the management of the youngbroods, and sitting hens. Having arranged this, Captain O'Halloranwent down into the town to make his purchases.
A quarter of an hour later Bob started with Manola, carrying alarge basket, and both were much amused at their errand. Goingamong the cottages scattered over the hill above the town, they hadno difficulty in obtaining chickens and fowls--the former at aboutfive pence apiece, the latter at seven pence--such prices beingmore than double the usual rates. Manola's basket was soon fulland, while she was taking her purchases back to the house, Bobhired two boys with baskets and, before evening, nearly a hundredfowls were running in the garden.
The next day Bob was considered sufficiently experienced toundertake the business alone and, in two more days, the entirenumber of two hundred had been made up. Three of the natives hadbeen engaged in collecting baskets of earth among the rocks and, ina week, the terrace was converted into a garden ready for theseeds. As yet vegetables, although very dear, had not risen tofamine prices; for although the town had depended chiefly upon theproduce of the mainland, many of the natives had grown smallpatches of vegetables in their gardens for their own use, and thesethey now disposed of at prices that were highly satisfactory tothemselves.
O'Halloran's farm--as they called it, as soon as they heard, fromhim, what he was doing--became quite a joke in the regiment; butseveral of the other married officers, who had similar facilitiesfor keeping fowls, adopted the idea to some extent, and startedwith a score or so of fowls.
"I wonder you didn't think of pigs, O'Halloran," one of thecaptains said, laughing, as they were talking over the farm in themess anteroom; "pigs and potatoes. The idea of you and Burke, bothfrom the sod, starting a farm; and not thinking, first, of the twochief national products."
"There is not room for praties, Sinclair; and as for pigs, thereare many reasons against it. In the first place, I doubt whether Icould buy any. In the second, there isn't room for them. In thethird, what should I give them to keep them alive? In the fourth,pigs are illigant bastes but, in a hot country like this, I shouldnot care for a stye of them under my drawing room window. In thefifth--"
"That will do, that will do, O'Halloran. We give way. We allow thatyou could not keep pigs, but it is a pity."
"It is that, Sinclair. There is nothing would please me better thanto see a score of nice little pigs, with a nate stye, and amagazine of food big enough to keep them, say, for a year."
"Three months, O'Halloran, would be ample."
"Well, we shall see, Sinclair. Teddy Burke says three years, but Ido hope it is not going to be as long as that."
"Begorra!" another Irish officer, Captain O'Moore, exclaimed; "ifit is three years we are going to be here, we had best be killedand buried at once. I have been all the morning in the Queen'sBattery, where my company has been slaving like haythens, with thesun coming down as if it would fry your brain in your skull pan;and if that is to go on, day after day, for three years, I shouldbe dead in a month!"
"That is nothing, O'Moore. If the siege goes on, they say theofficers will have to help at the work."
"I shall protest against it. There is not a word in the articles ofwar about officers working. I am willing enough to be shot by theSpaniards, but not to be killed by inches. No, sir, there is not anO'Moore ever did a stroke of work, since the flood; and I am notgoing to demean myself by beginning.
"What are you laughing at, young Repton?"
"I was only wondering, Captain O'Moore, how your ancestors gotthrough the flood. Unless, indeed, Noah was an O'Moore."
"There is reason to believe that he was," the captain said,seriously. "It must have been that, if he hadn't a boat of his own,or found a mountain that the water didn't cover. I have got thetree of the family at home; and an old gentleman who was learned inthese things came to the house, when I was a boy; and I rememberright well that he said to my father, after reckoning them up, thatthe first of the house must have had a place there in Irelandwell-nigh a thousand years before Adam.
"I don't think my father quite liked it but, for the life of me, Icouldn't see why. It was just what I should expect from theO'Moores. Didn't they give kings to Ireland, for generations? Andwhat should they want to be doing, out among those rivers in theEast, when there was Ireland, ready to receive them?"
Captain O'Moore spoke so seriously that Bob did not venture tolaugh, but listened with an air of gravity equal to that of theofficer.
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"You will kill me altogether, Phelim!" Captain O'Halloranexclaimed; amid a great shout of laughter, in which all the othersjoined.
The O'Moore looked round, speechless with indignation.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I shall expect satisfaction for this insult.The word of an O'Moore has never been doubted.
"Captain O'Halloran, my friend will call upon you, first."
"He may call as often as he likes, O'Moore, and I shall be happy toconverse with any friend of yours but, at present, that is all thesatisfaction you will get out of me. Duelling is strictly forbiddenon the Rock, and there is no getting across the Spanish lines tofight--unless, indeed, you can persuade the governor to send out aflag of truce with us. So we must let the matter rest, till thesiege is over; and then, if both of us are alive, and you have thesame mind, we will talk about it."
"I think, O'Moore," Dr. Burke, who had entered the room two orthree minutes before, said persuasively, "you will see that you arethe last man who ought to maintain that the first of your racelived here, as far back as Adam. You see, we are all directdescendants of Adam--I mean, all the rest of us."
"No doubt you are," Captain O'Moore said, stiffly.
"And one has just as much right as another to claim that he is theheir, in a direct line."
"I suppose so, Burke," the officer said, "though, for the life ofme, I can't see what you are driving at."
"What I mean is this. Suppose Adam and the O'Moore started at thesame time, one in Ireland and the other in Eden; and they had anequal number of children, as was likely enough. Half the people inthe world would be descendants of Adam, and the other half of theO'Moore and, you see, instead of your being the O'Moore--thegenuine descendant, in the direct line, from the first of thefamily--half the world would have an equal claim to the title."
Captain O'Moore reflected for a minute or two.
"You are right, Dr. Burke," he said. "I never saw it in that light.It is clear enough that you are right, and that the less we sayabout the O'Moores before the first Irish king of that name, thebetter. There must have been some mistake about that tree I spokeof.
"Captain O'Halloran, I apologize. I was wrong."
The two officers shook hands, and peace was restored; but CaptainO'Moore was evidently a good deal puzzled, and mortified, by theproblem the doctor had set before him and, after remaining silentfor some time, evidently in deep thought, he left the room. Some ofthe others watched him from the window, until he had entered thedoor of his own quarters; and then there was a general shout oflaughter.
"The O'Moore will be the death of me!" Teddy Burke exclaimed, as hethrew himself back in a chair, exhausted. "He is one of the bestfellows going, but you can lead him on into anything. I don'tsuppose he ever gave a thought to the O'Moores, anywhere furtherback than those kings. He had a vague idea that they must have beengoing on, simply because it must have seemed to him that a worldwithout an O'Moore in it would be necessarily imperfect. It was BobRepton's questions, as to what they were doing at the time of theflood, that brought him suddenly up; then he didn't hesitate for amoment in taking them back to Adam, or before him. Just on theancestry of the O'Moores, Phelim has got a tile a little loose; buton all other points, he is as sensible as anyone in the regiment."
"I wonder you didn't add, 'and that is not saying much,' doctor,"one of the lieutenants said.
"I may have thought it, youngster; but you see, I must have madeexceptions in favour of myself and the colonel, so I held mytongue. The fact that we are all here, under a sun hot enough tocook a beefsteak; and that for the next two or three years we aregoing to have to work like niggers, and to be shot at by theSpaniards, and to be pretty well--if not quite--starved, speaks foritself as to the amount of sense we have got between us.
"There go the drums! Now, gentlemen, you have got the pleasure of acouple of hours' drill before you, and I am due at the hospital."