ues and talents, a reputation justly
acquired in the service of His Majesty, and an inconsolable widow to
deplore his loss. Her Ladyship, the bereaved Countess of Lyndon, was
at the Bath when the horrid intelligence reached her of her husband's
demise, and hastened to Ireland immediately in order to pay her last sad
duties to his beloved remains.'

That very night I ordered my chariot and posted to Ostend, whence I
freighted a vessel to Dover, and travelling rapidly into the West,
reached Bristol; from which port I embarked for Waterford, and found
myself, after an absence of eleven years, in my native country.

CHAPTER XIV. I RETURN TO IRELAND, AND EXHIBIT MY SPLENDOUR AND
GENEROSITY IN THAT KINGDOM

How were times changed with me now! I had left my country a poor
penniless boy--a private soldier in a miserable marching regiment.
I returned an accomplished man, with property to the amount of five
thousand guineas in my possession, with a splendid wardrobe and
jewel-case worth two thousand more; having mingled in all the scenes of
life a not undistinguished actor in them; having shared in war and in
love; having by my own genius and energy won my way from poverty and
obscurity to competence and splendour. As I looked out from my chariot
windows as it rolled along over the bleak bare roads, by the miserable
cabins of the peasantry, who came out in their rags to stare as the
splendid equipage passed, and huzza'd for his Lordship's honour as
they saw the magnificent stranger in the superb gilded vehicle, my
huge body-servant Fritz lolling behind with curling moustaches and
long queue, his green livery barred with silver lace, I could not help
thinking of myself with considerable complacency, and thanking my stars
that had endowed me with so many good qualities. But for my own merits
I should have been a raw Irish squireen such as those I saw swaggering
about the wretched towns through which my chariot passed on its road to
Dublin. I might have married Nora Brady (and though, thank Heaven, I
did not, I have never thought of that girl but with kindness, and even
remember the bitterness of losing her more clearly at this moment than
any other incident of my life); I might have been the father of ten
children by this time, or a farmer on my own account, or an agent to
a squire, or a gauger, or an attorney; and here I was one of the most
famous gentlemen of Europe! I bade my fellow get a bag of copper money
and throw i