one?
The Committee listened as I made my report on the number of soldiers we had in the encampment. I spoke and blew on my hands alternately, edging to the fire to warm myself. Now Danny Connell rose and spread his ragged coat over the two women, who lay sleeping before the bed of coals, and old Scottsboro shook his head sadly, commenting:
A sight of men is three thousand and more, Jamie, and has any of us the head to lead them?
Cut that grumbling, said Jack Maloney.⦠How did you and Angus make out with the Guard, Jamie?
I reported that we had enlisted at least sixty more lads who pledged to stand by us; but that it was no easy work, crawling into bed with a man in the dark and persuading him with whispers. The call for the Guard was the refrain of the Yankee camp jig, to be sounded three times on the trumpet; and whenever that came, if there had been no further instruction, the men pledged to us would lead their hutments out onto the parade, with arms and bayonets fixed. But so far we had nothing to speak of among the 4th and the 2nd, and were particularly strong in the 10th and 11th.
And where is Angus?
Seeing to the guard over the Kemble House, and then to sleep, which I must have too, otherwise I will not be able to set a foot in front of the other.
I would sell me own sweet mother for a pot of steaming hot coffee right now, said Sean OâToole.
Then heed me, Jamie, Billy Bowzar nodded, marking the words with his quill, and then you can turn in for two hours but not a minute more. We have made certain decisions, the main one being that a man on a gallows trap had best get off it or prepare to dance in the air. There is no more turning back from what we decided, and no more delaying it either. So we have chosen sundown this day to expel the officers and take the Line, and the Revolution too, into our own hands. There is our commitment; either we succeed tonight, or we will pay for it tomorrow.
But it ainât humanly possible to convince all the men before this evening, I protested.
And we donât want to, said the black man, Holt. If they all know of this, they will set to pondering it, and they will coddle right and wrong until theyâre tight in it as a worm in a apple. Let them do what they feel when we hail them. They do right â and we win. They donât do right â¦
It is the only way, Jamie, insisted Dwight Carpenter. Either the men are with us or they are not with us, and there is no persuading them with words, not if we had a fortnight to plan and plot. This is the only way.
Like casting dice â¦
Ye see it wrong if you see it that way, Jamie, for the hopes and dreams of men are not dice to play with. We have been too much played with already, and if this was just a wild adventure for our own hope and glory, why then there would be somewhat in your say. But we got a simple and unclouded stake in freedom, not in wealth and property and power as the gentry do, but for the right to hold up our heads a little and taste some sweetness in living, and donât you think that every lad in the line has a similar stake?
I donât know.
You are overweary, Jamie, said Billy Bowzar, and itâs truly a miracle you wrought out there in the darkness. So turn into your straw and rest your head for a time.
This, I did. I was past thinking or caring, and the moment I had covered myself with straw, I slept.
It was that morning, during my short rest, I think â for I kept no journal then, being more concerned with remaining alive than with telling the tale someday â that I dreamed so sweetly of my lovely lass, Molly Bracken. I make note of this because I believe it helps somewhat to show the simple, ordinary nature of folk we were; which might be taken for granted, as you might take for granted that most men are wrought out of the same stuff as you yourself, were if not for the slander that every learned scholar places upon the great rising of the foreign brigades. But the
The Committee listened as I made my report on the number of soldiers we had in the encampment. I spoke and blew on my hands alternately, edging to the fire to warm myself. Now Danny Connell rose and spread his ragged coat over the two women, who lay sleeping before the bed of coals, and old Scottsboro shook his head sadly, commenting:
A sight of men is three thousand and more, Jamie, and has any of us the head to lead them?
Cut that grumbling, said Jack Maloney.⦠How did you and Angus make out with the Guard, Jamie?
I reported that we had enlisted at least sixty more lads who pledged to stand by us; but that it was no easy work, crawling into bed with a man in the dark and persuading him with whispers. The call for the Guard was the refrain of the Yankee camp jig, to be sounded three times on the trumpet; and whenever that came, if there had been no further instruction, the men pledged to us would lead their hutments out onto the parade, with arms and bayonets fixed. But so far we had nothing to speak of among the 4th and the 2nd, and were particularly strong in the 10th and 11th.
And where is Angus?
Seeing to the guard over the Kemble House, and then to sleep, which I must have too, otherwise I will not be able to set a foot in front of the other.
I would sell me own sweet mother for a pot of steaming hot coffee right now, said Sean OâToole.
Then heed me, Jamie, Billy Bowzar nodded, marking the words with his quill, and then you can turn in for two hours but not a minute more. We have made certain decisions, the main one being that a man on a gallows trap had best get off it or prepare to dance in the air. There is no more turning back from what we decided, and no more delaying it either. So we have chosen sundown this day to expel the officers and take the Line, and the Revolution too, into our own hands. There is our commitment; either we succeed tonight, or we will pay for it tomorrow.
But it ainât humanly possible to convince all the men before this evening, I protested.
And we donât want to, said the black man, Holt. If they all know of this, they will set to pondering it, and they will coddle right and wrong until theyâre tight in it as a worm in a apple. Let them do what they feel when we hail them. They do right â and we win. They donât do right â¦
It is the only way, Jamie, insisted Dwight Carpenter. Either the men are with us or they are not with us, and there is no persuading them with words, not if we had a fortnight to plan and plot. This is the only way.
Like casting dice â¦
Ye see it wrong if you see it that way, Jamie, for the hopes and dreams of men are not dice to play with. We have been too much played with already, and if this was just a wild adventure for our own hope and glory, why then there would be somewhat in your say. But we got a simple and unclouded stake in freedom, not in wealth and property and power as the gentry do, but for the right to hold up our heads a little and taste some sweetness in living, and donât you think that every lad in the line has a similar stake?
I donât know.
You are overweary, Jamie, said Billy Bowzar, and itâs truly a miracle you wrought out there in the darkness. So turn into your straw and rest your head for a time.
This, I did. I was past thinking or caring, and the moment I had covered myself with straw, I slept.
It was that morning, during my short rest, I think â for I kept no journal then, being more concerned with remaining alive than with telling the tale someday â that I dreamed so sweetly of my lovely lass, Molly Bracken. I make note of this because I believe it helps somewhat to show the simple, ordinary nature of folk we were; which might be taken for granted, as you might take for granted that most men are wrought out of the same stuff as you yourself, were if not for the slander that every learned scholar places upon the great rising of the foreign brigades. But the
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