hich, staring with all
his might, he gazed upon the grotesque and noiseless procession as it
filed by him. Noiseless it was; he could neither hear the jingle of
accoutrements, the tread of feet, nor the rumble of the wheels; and when
the old colonel turned his horse a little, and made as though he were
giving the word of command, and a trumpeter, with a swollen blue nose and
white feather fringe round his hat, who was walking beside him, turned
about and put his bugle to his lips, still Peter heard nothing, although
it was plain the sound had reached the soldiers, for they instantly
changed their front to three abreast.

"Botheration!" muttered Peter, "is it deaf I'm growing?"

But that could not be, for he heard the sighing of the breeze and the
rush of the neighbouring Liffey plain enough.

"Well," said he, in the same cautious key, "by the piper, this bangs
Banagher fairly! It's either the Frinch army that's in it, come to take
the town iv Chapelizod by surprise, an' makin' no noise for feard iv
wakenin' the inhabitants; or else it's--it's--what it's--somethin' else.
But, tundher-an-ouns, what's gone wid Fitzpatrick's shop across the way?"

The brown, dingy stone building at the opposite side of the street looked
newer and cleaner than he had been used to see it; the front door of it
stood open, and a sentry, in the same grotesque uniform, with shouldered
musket, was pacing noiselessly to and fro before it. At the angle of this
building, in like manner, a wide gate (of which Peter had no recollection
whatever) stood open, before which, also, a similar sentry was gliding,
and into this gateway the whole column gradually passed, and Peter
finally lost sight of it.

"I'm not asleep; I'm not dhramin'," said he, rubbing his eyes, and
stamping slightly on the pavement, to assure himself that he was wide
awake. "It is a quare business, whatever it is; an' it's not alone that,
but everything about town looks strange to me. There's Tresham's house
new painted, bedad, an' them flowers in the windies! An' Delany's house,
too, that had not a whole pane of glass in it this morning, and scarce a
slate on the roof of it! It is not possible it's what it's dhrunk I am.
Sure there's the big tree, and not a leaf of it changed since I passed,
and the stars overhead, all right. I don't think it is in my eyes it is."

And so looking about him, and every moment finding or fancying new food
for wonder, he walked along the pavement, int