ending, without further
delay, to make his way home.

But his adventures for the night were not concluded. He had nearly
reached the angle of the short land that leads up to the church, when for
the first time he perceived that an officer, in the uniform he had just
seen, was walking before, only a few yards in advance of him.

The officer was walking along at an easy, swinging gait, and carried
his sword under his arm, and was looking down on the pavement with an
air of reverie.

In the very fact that he seemed unconscious of Peter's presence, and
disposed to keep his reflections to himself, there was something
reassuring. Besides, the reader must please to remember that our hero had
a quantum sufficit of good punch before his adventure commenced, and was
thus fortified against those qualms and terrors under which, in a more
reasonable state of mind, he might not impossibly have sunk.

The idea of the French invasion revived in full power in Peter's fuddled
imagination, as he pursued the nonchalant swagger of the officer.

"Be the powers iv Moll Kelly, I'll ax him what it is," said Peter, with a
sudden accession of rashness. "He may tell me or not, as he plases, but
he can't be offinded, anyhow."

With this reflection having inspired himself, Peter cleared his voice
and began--

"Captain!" said he, "I ax your pardon, captain, an' maybe you'd be so
condescindin' to my ignorance as to tell me, if it's plasin' to yer
honour, whether your honour is not a Frinchman, if it's plasin' to you."

This he asked, not thinking that, had it been as he suspected, not one
word of his question in all probability would have been intelligible to
the person he addressed. He was, however, understood, for the officer
answered him in English, at the same time slackening his pace and moving
a little to the side of the pathway, as if to invite his interrogator to
take his place beside him.

"No; I am an Irishman," he answered.

"I humbly thank your honour," said Peter, drawing nearer--for the
affability and the nativity of the officer encouraged him--"but maybe
your honour is in the _sarvice_ of the King of France?"

"I serve the same King as you do," he answered, with a sorrowful
significance which Peter did not comprehend at the time; and,
interrogating in turn, he asked, "But what calls you forth at this hour
of the day?"

"The _day,_ your honour!--the night, you mane."

"It was always our way to turn night into day, and we