ally be boasting of his country, and exalting the Irish race
above every other on the face of the earth, yet no sooner did any of
us remark on it to him that he was an Irishman than he straightway
fell into a violent passion, as if we had laid some insult upon him.

While I lay thus ill, as I have said, I lost all thoughts of the quest
I had meant to undertake for Marian, and would not have cared if the
ship had been bound for the infernal regions. But as soon as I was
recovered sufficiently to come on deck, whither I was very kindly
assisted by the Irishman, I grew exceedingly curious as to our
destination.

"Does any one know whither we are bound when we have joined the
Admiral's fleet?" I asked of Sullivan.

"Faith, and it's that same question I'm just after putting to the
boatswain's mate," he answered, "and the sorrow a soul on board that
knows any better than myself and yourself."

He pronounced his speech with a very rich brogue, which I shall no
more attempt to imitate than Captain Wilding's affectation. For indeed
there seem to be as many ways of pronouncing English as there are
people that speak it, and even in Norfolk itself I have met with
people who were not free from something like the Suffolk twang.
Seeing, I suppose, that I was disappointed by this answer, he leant
over and whispered in my ear--

"But it's my belief that King George is tired of the peace with the
French, and that he's sending us out to sink a few of their ships and
maybe bombard a town or two, just by way of letting them know that
we're ready to begin again."

I answered him impatiently, for my sickness had made me fretful.

"I believe you are a fool, Mick! It is well known that we never go to
war with the French unless they have first provoked us."

"Well, and sure haven't they provoked us enough by all their doings in
America and the Indies, not to mention the battle of Fontenoy, which
my own cousin Dennis helped them to win, more by token; though he got
a bullet in his left arm before the fighting begun, and had to content
himself with cheering while the others were at it."

"That will do," I said crossly, for I had heard of the battle of
Fontenoy and his cousin Dennis before, and it was a sore point between
us. Nor could I understand how a man who had the privilege of being
born a British subject, though liable to the proper severities of the
penal code against Papists, could traitorously desert his allegiance
and take ser