, as if considering how he should address me, said:
"You have got a new life before you, away from friends, among all sorts
of characters,--some good, it may be, many bad or indifferent, but no
one probably on whom you may rely. You will be placed in difficult,
often in dangerous situations, when you'll have only yourself, or Him
who orders all things, to trust to. Be self-reliant; ever strive to do
your duty; and don't be after troubling yourself about the consequences.
You will be engaged in scenes of warfare and bloodshed. I have taken
part in many such, and I know their horrors. War is a stern necessity.
May you never love it for itself; but when fighting, comport yourself
like a man fearless of danger, while you avoid running your head
needlessly into it. Be courteous and polite, slow to take offence,--
especially when no offence is intended, as is the case in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred where quarrels occur. Remember that it always
takes two to make a quarrel, and that the man who never gives offence
will seldom get into one. Never grumble; be cheerful and obliging.
Never insist on your own rights when those rights are not worth
insisting on. Sacrifice your own feelings to those of others, and be
ever ready to help a companion out of a difficulty. You may be
surprised to hear me--an old soldier and an Irishman--talking in this
way; but I give you the advice, because I have seen so many act
differently, and, wrapped up in intense selfishness, become utterly
regardless of others,--reaping the consequences by being disliked and
neglected, and finally deserted by all who were their friends. There's
another point I must speak to you about, and it's a matter which weighs
greatly on my mind. Example, they say, is better than precept. Now
your father has set you a mighty bad example, and so have many others
who have come to the castle. Don't follow it. You see the effect which
his potations of rum shrub and whisky-toddy have produced on him. When
I was on duty, or going on it, I never touched liquor; and no man ever
lost his life from my carelessness, as I have seen the lives of many
poor soldiers thrown away when their officers, being drunk, have led
them into useless danger. So I say, Terence, keep clear of liquor. The
habit of drinking grows on a man, and in my time I have seen it the ruin
of many as fine young fellows as ever smelt powder."

I thanked my uncle, and promised as far as I could to