stood five feet four, but was squarely, stoutly
built, broad in the chest, and very bow-legged; his head was large, and
seemed larger from a mass of fiery red hair, of which he was immensely
vain as the true Celtic color; he wore great whiskers, a moustache, and
chin-tuft; but the flaming hue of these seemed actually tamed and toned
down beside his eyes, which resembled two flaring carbuncles. They were
the most excitable, quarrelsome, restless pair of orbs that ever beamed
in a human head. They twinkled and sparkled with an incessant mischief,
and they darted such insolent glances right and left as seemed to say,
"Is there any one present who will presume to contradict me?"

His boundless self-conceit would have been droll if it had not been so
offensive. His theory was this: all men detested him; all women adored
him. Europe had done little better than intrigue for the last quarter
of a century what country could secure his services. As for the insolent
things he had said to kings and emperors, and the soft speeches that
empresses and queens had made to himself, they would fill a volume.
Believe him, and he had been on terms of more than intimacy in every
royal palace of the Continent. Show the slightest semblance of doubt in
him, and the chances were that he 'd have had you "out" in the morning.

Amongst his self-delusions, it was one to believe that his voice and
accent were peculiarly insinuating. There was, it is true, a certain
slippery insincerity about them, but the vulgarity was the chief
characteristic; and his brogue was that of Leinster, which, even to
Irish ears, is insufferable.

Such was, in brief, the gentleman who called himself Major
M'Caskey, Knight-Commander of various Orders, and C.S. in the Pope's
household,--which, interpreted, means Cameriere Secreto,--a something
which corresponds to gentleman-in-waiting. Maitland and he had never
met. They had corresponded freely, and the letters of the Major had by
no means made a favorable impression upon Maitland, who had more than
once forwarded extracts from them to the committees in London, pettishly
asking, "if something better could not be found than the writer of this
rubbish." And yet, for the work before him, "the writer of this rubbish"
was a most competent hand. He knew his countrymen well,--knew how to
approach them by those mingled appeals to their love of adventure
and love of gain; their passion for fighting, for carelessness, for
disorder;