rn now was for those we had left behind. We
heard nothing of our housekeeper all night, and were exceedingly
alarmed; but early the next morning, to our great joy, she
arrived. She told us that, after we had left her, she waited hour
after hour for the carriage; she could hear nothing of it, as
it had gone to Longford with the wounded officer. Towards evening,
a large body of rebels entered the village; she heard them at the
gate, and expected that they would have broken in the next instant;
but one, who seemed to be a leader, with a pike in his hand, set his
back against the gate, and swore that, if he was to die for it the
next minute, he would have the life of the first man who should open
that gate or set enemy's foot withinside of that place. He said the
housekeeper, who was left in it, was a good gentlewoman, and had
done him a service, though she did not know him, nor he her. He had
never seen her face, but she had, the year before, lent his wife,
when in distress, sixteen shillings, the rent of flax-ground, and he
would stand her friend now.

'He kept back the mob: they agreed to send him to the house with a
deputation of six, to know the truth, and to ask for arms. The six
men went to the back door and summoned the housekeeper; one of them
pointed his blunderbuss at her, and told her that she must fetch all
the arms in the house; she said she had none. Her champion asked her
to say if she remembered him. "No," to her knowledge she had never
seen his face. He asked if she remembered having lent a woman money
to pay her rent of flaxground the year before. "Yes," she remembered
that, and named the woman, the time, and the sum. His companions
were thus satisfied of the truth of what he had asserted. He bid her
not to be frighted, for that no harm should happen to her, nor any
belonging to her; not a soul should get leave to go into her
master's house; not a twig should be touched, nor a leaf harmed. His
companions huzzaed and went off. Afterwards, as she was told, he
mounted guard at the gate during the whole time the rebels were in
the town.

'When the carriage at last returned, it was stopped by the rebels,
who filled the street; they held their pikes to the horses and to
the coachman's breast, accusing him of being an Orangeman, because,
as they said, he wore the orange colours (our livery being yellow
and brown). A painter, a friend of ours, who had been that day at
our house, copying some old family portrai