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Sitting up in bed, I saw by the dim light that my father was standing half-clad by my bedside, and that it was his grasp which I felt on my night-shirt. "Get up, Jack, get up!" he was crying excitedly. "There's a great ship ashore in the bay, and the poor folk will all be drowned. Come down, my boy, and let us see what we can do."
He had boasted he would be at the head of fifty thousand Tipperary men. Instead his army consisted of a few hundred half-clad ragamuffins, which attacked a squad of police who took refuge in a farmhouse, and easily routed the rabble. Smith O'Brien proved himself an arrant coward.
For two minutes the dash of the surf and the cries of the wheeling sea fowl made the only sound in that part of the world; then from those half-clad rapscallions arose a shout of "Kirby!" a shout in which the three leaders did not join. That one who looked a gentleman rose from the sand and made me a low bow. "Well met, noble captain," he cried in those his honey tones.
The half-clad lovely were protected from the satyrs in the audience by an impalpable screen made of light and of ascending music in which strings, brass, and concussion exemplified the naïve sensuality of lyrical niggers.
Meanwhile the wind suddenly sprang up, and began to moan and sigh amongst the half-clad boughs of the trees outside making, Arthur thought to himself, a very melancholy music. Presently Philip laid his hand upon his guest's arm, and he felt that it shook like an aspen- leaf. "Tell me," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "what do you see there?"
The hot day had ended, and there was a pleasant smell of cooking along the regimental lines, where half-clad men went back and forth with leaf platters and water-goglets. The Subadar-Major, in extreme undress, sat on a chair, as befitted his rank; the Havildar-Major, his nephew, leaning respectfully against the wall.
A number of couches were ranged round the room. A crowd of half-clad, dirty children gathered round us, but no female made her appearance. We took our sights among the gaping multitude, all of whom were very civil and polite, and returned on board about 5 P.M., having seen all the outside life that was to be seen at Auzuan. The inside life was, of course, out of our reach.
Neither in this filthy structure, nor in any but one of the other half dozen did they find anyone but women and children. In each cabin there was heat in plenty, but signs of food were wholly missing. In each place the air was foul, and half-clad children made the situation pitiable. In one fortunate cabin, the children were chewing shreds of skin.
She came presently to a junction of roads near the Fleet ditch, and saw the huge coal-fire flaming with a sickly glare in the sunshine, tended by a spectral figure, half-clad and hungry-looking, to whom she gave an alms; and at this juncture of ways a great peril awaited her, for there sprang, as it were, out of the very ground, so quickly did they assemble from neighbouring courts and alleys, a throng of mendicants, who clustered round her, with filthy hands outstretched, and shrill voices imploring charity.
It is extraordinary to realise that this poor, lame, half-clad animal has lived for a whole month by himself. He had blood on his mouth when found, implying the capture of a seal, but how he managed to kill it and then get through its skin is beyond comprehension. Hunger drives hard. Wednesday, June 14. Storms are giving us little rest.
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