e for it to this very day!"

"And what became of you after that?"

"The same summer I came over to Scotland with the young Prince Charles,
and was at the battle of Preston-pans afterward; and, what's worse, I
was at Culloden! Oh, that was the terrible day! We were dead bate before
we began the battle. We were on the march from one o'clock the night
before, under the most dreadful rain ever ye seen! We lost our way
twice; and, after four hours of hard marching, we found ourselves
opposite a mill-dam we crossed early that same morning; for the guides
led us all astray! Then came ordhers to wheel about face, and go back
again; and back we went, cursing the blaguards that deceived us, and
almost faintin' with hunger. Some of us had nothing to eat for two
days, and the Prince, I seen myself, had only a brown bannock to a
wooden measure of whiskey for his own breakfast. Well, it's no use
talking, we were bate, and we retreated to Inverness that night, and
next morning we surrendered and laid down our arms--that is, the
'Regiment du Tournay,' and the 'Voltigeurs de Metz,' the corps I was in
myself."

"And did you return to France?"

"No; I made my way back to Ireland, and after loiterin' about home some
time, and not liking the ways of turning to work again, I took sarvice
with one Mister Brooke, of Castle Brooke, in Fermanagh, a young man that
was just come of age, and as great a devil, God forgive me, as ever was
spawned. He was a Protestant, but he didn't care much about one side or
the other, but only wanted divarsion and his own fun out of the world;
and faix he took it, too! He had plenty of money, was a fine man to look
at, and had courage to face a lion!

"The first place we went to was Aix-la-Chapelle, for Mr. Brooke was
named something--I forget what--to Lord Sandwich, that was going there
as an embassador. It was a grand life there while it lasted. Such
liveries, such coaches, such elegant dinners every day, I never saw even
in Paris. But my master was soon sent away for a piece of wildness he
did. There was an ould Austrian there--a Count Riedensegg was his
name--and he was always plottin' and schamin' with this, that, and the
other; buyin' up the sacrets of others, and gettin' at their sacret
papers one way or the other; and at last he begins to thry the same game
with us; and as he saw that Mr. Brooke was very fond of high play, and
would bet any thing one offered him, the ould Count sends for a great
gambl