two policemen, affecting to think very little of a
circumstance which, in reality, the more I reflected over, the more
serious I deemed it.

CHAPTER XXX. SCENE IN THE ROYAL BARRACKS

It would afford me little pleasure to write, and doubtless my readers
less to read, my lucubrations as I journeyed along towards Dublin. My
thoughts seldom turned from myself and my own fortunes, nor were
they cheered by the scene through which I travelled. The season was a
backward and wet one, and the fields, partly from this cause, and partly
from the people being engaged in the late struggle, lay untilled and
neglected. Groups of idle, lounging peasants stood in the villages,
or loitered on the highroads as we passed, sad, ragged-looking, and
wretched. They seemed as if they had no heart to resume their wonted
life of labour, but were waiting for some calamity to close their
miserable existence. Strongly in contrast with this were the air
and bearing of the yeomanry and militia detachments with whom we
occasionally came up. Quite forgetting how little creditable to some
of them, at least, were the events of the late campaign, they gave
themselves the most intolerable airs of heroism, and in their drunken
jollity, and reckless abandonment, threatened, I know not what--utter
ruin to France and all Frenchmen. Bonaparte was the great mark of
their sarcasms, and, from some cause or other, seemed to enjoy a most
disproportioned share of their dislike and derision.

At first it required some effort of constraint on my part to listen to
this ribaldry in silence; but prudence, and a little sense, taught me
the safer lesson of 'never minding,' and so I affected to understand
nothing that was said in a spirit of insult or offence.

On the night of the 7th of November we drew nigh to Dublin; but instead
of entering the capital, we halted at a small village outside of it,
called Ghapelizod. Here a house had been fitted up for the reception of
French prisoners, and I found myself, if not in company, at least under
the same roof, with my countrymen.

Nearer intercourse than this, however, I was not destined to enjoy, for
early on the following morning I was ordered to set out for the Royal
Barracks, to be tried before a court-martial. It was on a cold, raw
morning, with a thin, drizzly rain falling, that we drove into the
barrack-yard, and drew up at the mess-room, then used for the purposes
of a court. As yet none of the members had assem