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fore he was recognized to be a member of the corps of mounted yeomanry. His dress and hurry bespoke mortal terror; his belts were crossed on the wrong side, and reversing the usual mode of putting a helmet on, he had placed the peak behind, apparently to protect his rear. His own alarm had extended to the steed, which was running his best, while every bound of the horseman's scabbard urged him to increased velocity. On he came, as if determined to charge the guns, till, fortunately, when within twenty yards, an open fieldgate allowed the steed to bolt, which he did so suddenly, as to tilt the rider into a deep ditch. The fall, however, was so cleverly accomplished, that this brave auxiliary received no personal damage. "Murder! Murder!" he ejaculated as he gathered himself up, "It's a wonder they did not catch me; there's twenty thousand of them at the bottom of the brae!"

The information of the unlucky chasseur only elicited a roar of laughter; and the holy warrior-for he was a churchman-bustled to the rear as fast as his own portliness and want of wind would permit.

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At this moment another horseman crossed the ridge and rode rapidly down the road. This looks more like business," said Shortall to my father; as the vidette came on at a long trot, and announced the immediate approach of the enemy.

A dead silence was observed-five minutes passed-suddenly the bear-skin caps of the French grenadiers rose over the ridge of the hill, and the head of the column, filling the whole breadth of the road, displayed itself!

The guns had been carefully laid, and Shortall threw his eye along the right-hand piece" Fire !" he said deliberately-the gun flashed-its sullen boom was repeated by the mountain echoes, as its round-shot pitched with beautiful precision directly into the column, knocking over half a dozen files. Instantly the French fell back over the shelter of the hill to re-form. Short was the respite. The bear-skin caps crossed the ridge again, and again the roar of the gun was heard, and the same effect obliged the column to retire.

Humbert, when he was a second time repulsed, covering the French with a body of insurgents in blue uniforms, pushed them forward, under the leading of a favourite aid-decamp. The column again appeared, and a third shot falling upon the road, raised a cloud of dust, and in its ricochet, ploughed through the dense mass. This was the most fatal

VOL. I.-8.

discharge; the rebels broke, ran off tumultuously, and the French fell back to re-form.

Three rounds of a six-pounder had half defeated Humbert, and the battle was nearly won. When the French general had first seen the troops before him, he would have fallen back upon the pass, but retreat with him was ruin. Desperate as his chances were, he determined, at least, to make a movement or two before surrender, and sustain the high character he had acquired in the campaign of Italy. When he decided on making an effort, the beautiful service of the British guns astounded him; his column, arrested by the cannonade, could not even cross the heights: to move down the road, under the fire of these guns, would be hazardous in the extreme; and in close column too, if round-shot distance was destructive, what might not be dreaded when within range of grape and canister? As a last effort, he changed his intended attack altogether; withdrew his column, replaced it with a mob of rebel auxiliaries; and directing one of his staff to lead the luckless rabble on, and thus draw upon them the fire of the guns, under cover of the ditches, he made a rapid flank movement, which his extended order of attack, and the advance of the insurgent mob protected from the artillery, which he had already found so formidable.

At this moment a singular panic seized, or appeared to seize, the suspected regiments, who held the left of the position. They opened their fire at a distance when it was totally inefficient; alarm or disaffection could only cause this strange proceeding: Humbert guessed the true cause, and seized upon that only chance of victory.

Pushing on his voltigeurs at double-quick, he gained the broken ground on the left of the Longford regiment, and succeeded in outflanking it. Then the fortune of the day turned, and a scene, never, thank God! witnessed before or since ensued. The Longfords, without discharging a musket, threw down their firelocks, and went over by companies to the French. The Kerry, next on their right, followed the example, and a general panic spread through the whole line. Then it was that the wretched imbeciles in command were found wanting enough of well-affected troops remained to remedy the disorder, and redeem the day; but from actual incompetence, the generals could not rally and re-form them. A retreat was hastily commanded; and disgraceful as the order was, it was tenfold aggravated in the execution. The cavalry, who had neither drawn a sword nor discharged a

carbine, instead of retiring leisurely on the town, went off at full trot, disorganizing by their reckless haste a regiment in reserve behind them. The retreat, or, correctly speaking, the rout, became universal; and General among the foremost files of the flying horsemen.

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Meantime my father and the commandant of the artillery could scarcely believe their senses. A few muskets had been discharged, hardly a man was hit, and the army was deserting the field pellmell. Shortall had held the road against every attempt which the French or their allies had made to advance upon it, and when he noticed the flanking movement, turned his fire upon the left of the enemy; but, seeing the infantry give way, and deserted by the dragoons altogether, he had no alternative left but to retire the guns, or lose them.

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Limber-up," lads!" he said, "and be moving;" and as the drivers attached to the horses, the rebels on the hill, observing the artillery preparing to retreat, poured across the ridge in hundreds. But their tumultuary advance was as promptly interrupted. Shortall unlimbered in a second, and opened with grape upon the rabble; the shot laned the road, and the insurgents, terror-stricken, threw themselves across the ditches, or fled for shelter behind the hill. To the troops, disorganized as they were, a mob-attack might have been ruinous; but this severe check gave the rear regiment a little time, and enabled it to disengage itself.

"Pretty affair this, Blake," said he of the artillery: "no wonder my heart was heavy this morning; and yet, God knows! I little anticipated the fulness of our disgrace. Curse on all fools! give me the Highlanders and yeomanry, my own guns, a fair field, and no general, and I would suffer myself to be blown from a six-pounder, if we did not beat those few French and the horde of banditti that run after them. I hope old Cornwallis, when he does arrive, if that event ever happen, will hang up cowards and rebels indiscriminately. I know at which end he should begin it is no treason, I hope, to speak of one's superior officer after he has fairly run away."

At this moment an aid-de-camp rode up. "Pray, Captain Shortall, can you tell me where General is, or where I am most likely to fall in with him?” "As to where he is," replied Shortall dryly, "much, I imagine, depends upon the speed and endurance of his horse. Where he will be found, is a puzzler; I would recommend you to try Athlone."

"Athlone! why, it's eighty miles off."

"And yet, notwithstanding the distance," continued the captain, "I shrewedly suspect, judging from the haste with which he started, he will hardly stop short of that city."

"Well," said the aid-de-camp, "it's rather too far for a morning ride, and I shall content myself with the intelligence of his safety."

"Safe he is," said the commandant of artillery, "from all casualties, save and except those attendant on rough riding and ill-stuffed saddles. But, pray, what is to be done?—and are we to run too?-for the order of the day appears to be 'devil take the hindmost!" "

"It is a deadly shame," observed a yeoman, "to give up the town, when, with a few troops, we could defend it. Could we hold it, Captain Shortall, think you, until the generals will rally some of the runaways?"

"We should in that case, I imagine, hold it to eternity. but we have some honest fellows about us, that appear not to quite relish this new trick of running."

"Let us then," said my father, "make good the bridge, and depend on some chance shamming these refugees to return."

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Be it so," said Shortall, as he halted on the bridge, and unlimbered his cannon, while a few of the Frazer fencibles and Donnegals, with some dozen gentlemen volunteers, who remarked the beautiful service of the artillery, and stuck to it as a last hope, took post beside the guns.

"Come, Cæsar, this is our position for a while; and if the rascals come on stoutly, we'll make some of them pay toll before they cross the river."

Nearly all the troops had cleared the town before this remnant of the royalists occupied the bridge. A few stragglers still came past; but none of them, with one or two exceptions, stopped with the defenders of Castlebar. The last of the refugees ran over, as on the crest of the lofty suburb called Staball, the foremost of the rebels appeared in full pursuit; but one round of grape was sufficient to stop them. Instantly they abandoned the open streets, and endeavoured to penetrate by lanes and by-ways, which would shelter them from the artillery.

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They have not forgotten the lesson we taught them before the rout," said the commandant of the guns, as he remarked the caution of the rebel advance. "Is the river equally shallow all round the town?"

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It is fordable everywhere," replied a private yeoman. "Then our stay here will be but a short one," was the remark; and the words were indeed soon realized.

A few hussars showed for a moment on the height, and Shortall had just got a gun to bear upon them, when from either side, from yards, houses, and lanes, a close and wellsustained fusillade commenced. Two or three matrosses and Frazers dropped, and it was evident that the enemy were in full possession of the suburb. In vain the royalists returned the fire briskly, and the guns, sweeping the heights in front, prevented a Frenchman from advancing; but, under shelter of the houses, the insurgents suffered little loss, while the defenders of the bridge were falling momentarily.

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This will not last," said Shortall to his companion; "all hope of support is over: what is to be done?"

"Retreat instantly !" exclaimed the major, as he pointed to a body of rebels fording the river below and above the bridge simultaneously, while two or three dropping shots were heard directly from the street behind them. They have got through the gardens, and are already in our rear. Limberup, or the guns are lost!"

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And so it was fated. Orders were promptly issued and obeyed, and the horses were being attached, when a small party of French cavalry approached by a cross street, galloped suddenly out in front of the cannon.

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Stand fast, lads!" exclaimed my father: "give them a parting round!"

But while he spoke, a body of insurgents, who, under cover of a garden wall, had crept forward unperceived, threw open a gate beside the bridge, and mixed pellmell with the royalists. A short and bloody contest succeeded; the drivers in the melée were knocked from their saddles; and the horses, pricked with pikes and bayonets, became ungovernable, and went off at speed. The guns were lost, but Shortall endeavoured to spike them-the few royalists were forced by numbers over the bridge-and the brave commander hemmed in on every side.

My father, who till now had remained on foot, sprang on his horse, which he had secured in a gateway out of the line of fire. He saw his brave associate, with a few Frazers and artillerymen, making a fierce resistance, and resolved to try and bring him off. Dashing the spurs in his charger, and overturning one or two of the assailants, he reached him for a second; but he was already down, and received his deathwound under the cannon that he had so nobly defended,

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