had done and thought, came back to me
as I read the letter; and when I was alone I cried over it, as I hadn't
done since the day when Nora jilted me. I took care not to show my
feelings to the regiment or my captain: but that night, when I was
to have taken tea at the Garden-house outside Brandenburg Gate, with
Fraulein Lottchen (the Tabaks Rathinn's gentlewoman of company), I
somehow had not the courage to go; but begged to be excused, and went
early to bed in barracks, out of which I went and came now almost as I
willed, and passed a long night weeping and thinking about dear Ireland.

Next day, my spirits rose again and I got a ten-guinea bill cashed,
which my mother sent in the letter, and gave a handsome treat to some of
my acquaintance. The poor soul's letter was blotted all over with tears,
full of texts, and written in the wildest incoherent way. She said
she was delighted to think I was under a Protestant prince, though she
feared he was not in the right way: that right way, she said, she had
the blessing to find, under the guidance of the Reverend Joshua Jowls,
whom she sat under. She said he was a precious chosen vessel; a sweet
ointment and precious box of spikenard; and made use of a great number
more phrases that I could not understand; but one thing was clear in the
midst of all this jargon, that the good soul loved her son still, and
thought and prayed day and night for her wild Redmond. Has it not come
across many a poor fellow, in a solitary night's watch, or in sorrow,
sickness, or captivity, that at that very minute, most likely, his
mother is praying for him? I often have had these thoughts; but they are
none of the gayest, and it's quite as well that they don't come to you
in company; for where would be a set of jolly fellows then?--as mute as
undertakers at a funeral, I promise you. I drank my mother's health that
night in a bumper, and lived like a gentleman whilst the money lasted.
She pinched herself to give it me, as she told me afterwards; and Mr.
Jowls was very wroth with her. Although the good soul's money was very
quickly spent, I was not long in getting more; for I had a hundred ways
of getting it, and became a universal favourite with the Captain and
his friends. Now, it was Madame von Dose who gave me a Frederic-d'or for
bringing her a bouquet or a letter from the Captain; now it was, on
the contrary, the old Privy Councillor who treated me with a bottle of
Rhenish, and slipped into my h