ay was piled deep with
provisions.

One may imagine with what tears of joy the soldiers and people ate their
midnight repast that night. Not many hours before the ration to each man
of the garrison had been half a pound of tallow and three-quarters of a
pound of salted hide. Now to each was served out three pounds of flour,
two pounds of beef, and a pint of peas. There was no sleep for the
remainder of the night, either within or without the walls. The bonfires
that blazed along the whole circuit of the walls told the joy within the
town. The incessant roar of guns told the rage without it. Peals of
bells from the church-towers answered the Irish cannon; shouts of
triumph from the walls silenced the cries of anger from the batteries.
It was a conflict of joy and rage.

Three days more the batteries continued to roar. But on the night of
July 31 flames were seen to issue from the Irish camp; on the morning of
August 1 a line of scorched and smoking ruins replaced the
lately-occupied huts, and along the Foyle went a long column of pikes
and standards, marking the retreat of the besieging army.

The retreat became a rout. The men of Enniskillen charged the retreating
army of Newtown Butler, struggling through a bog to fall on double their
number, whom they drove in a panic before them. The panic spread through
the whole army. Horse and foot, they fled. Not until they had reached
Dublin, then occupied by King James, did the retreat stop, and
confidence return to the baffled besiegers of Londonderry.

Thus ended the most memorable siege in the history of the British
islands. It had lasted one hundred and five days. Of the seven thousand
men of the garrison but about three thousand were left. Of the besiegers
probably more had fallen than the whole number of the garrison.

To-day Londonderry is in large measure a monument to its great siege.
The wall has been carefully preserved, the summit of the ramparts
forming a pleasant walk, the bastions being turned into pretty little
gardens. Many of the old culverins, which threw lead-covered bricks
among the Irish ranks, have been preserved, and may still be seen among
the leaves and flowers. The cathedral is filled with relics and
trophies, and over its altar may be observed the French flag-staffs,
taken by the garrison in a desperate sally, the flags they once bore
long since reduced to dust. Two anniversaries are still kept,--that of
the day on which the gates were closed, t