just indeed. Will you present me to your young friend.
Very proud to make your acquaintance, sir; your uncle and I met more than
once in this kind of way. I was out with him in '92,--was it? no, I think
it was '93,--when he shot Harry Burgoyne, who, by-the-bye, was called the
crack shot of our mess; but, begad, your uncle knocked his pistol hand to
shivers, saying, in his dry way, 'He must try the left hand this morning.'
Count, a little this side, if you please."

While Considine and the captain walked a few paces apart from where I
stood, I had leisure to observe my antagonist, who stood among a group of
his friends, talking and laughing away in great spirits. As the tone they
spoke in was not of the lowest, I could catch much of their conversation at
the distance I was from them. They were discussing the last occasion that
Bodkin had visited this spot, and talking of the fatal event which happened
then.

"Poor devil," said Bodkin, "it wasn't his fault; but you see some of the
--th had been showing white feathers before that, and he was obliged to go
out. In fact, the colonel himself said, 'Fight, or leave the corps.' Well,
out he came; it was a cold morning in February, with a frost the night
before going off in a thin rain. Well, it seems he had the consumption or
something of that sort, with a great cough and spitting of blood, and this
weather made him worse; and he was very weak when he came to the ground.
Now, the moment I got a glimpse of him, I said to myself, 'He's pluck
enough, but as nervous as a lady;' for his eye wandered all about, and his
mouth was constantly twitching. 'Take off your great-coat, Ned,' said one
of his people, when they were going to put him up; 'take it off, man.' He
seemed to hesitate for an instant, when Michael Blake remarked, 'Arrah, let
him alone; it's his mother makes him wear it, for the cold he has.' They
all began to laugh at this; but I kept my eye upon him, and I saw that his
cheek grew quite livid and a kind of gray color, and his eyes filled up. 'I
have you now,' said I to myself, and I shot him through the lung."

"And this poor fellow," thought I, "was the only son of a widowed mother."
I walked from the spot to avoid hearing further, and felt, as I did so,
something like a spirit of vengeance rising within me, for the fate of one
so untimely cut off.

"Here we are, all ready," said Malowney, springing over a small fence into
the adjoining field. "Take your ground, gen