hould one bother oneself, Miss O'Connor, when bothering won't
help? When the war is over, I shall buy Tim Doolan, my soldier
servant, out. He is a vile, drunken villain; but I understand him,
and he understands me, and he blubbered so, when he carried me off
the field, that I had to promise him that, if a French bullet did
not carry him off, I would send for him when the war was over.

"'You know you can't do without me, yer honour,' the scoundrel
said.

"'I can do better without you than with you, Tim,' says I. 'Ye are
always getting me into trouble, with your drunken ways. Ye would
have been flogged a dozen times, if I hadn't screened you. Take up
your musket and join your regiment. You rascal, you are smelling of
drink now, and divil a drop, except water, is there in me flask.'

"'I did it for your own good,' says he. 'Ye know that spirits
always heats your blood, and water would be the best for you, when
the fighting began; so I just sacrificed meself.

"'"For," says I to meself, "if ye get fighting a little wild, Tim,
it don't matter a bit; but the captain will have to keep cool, so
it is best that you should drink up the spirits, and fill the flask
up with water to quench his thirst."'

"'Be off, ye black villain,' I said, 'or I will strike you.'

"'You will never be able to do without me, Captain,' says he,
picking up his musket; and with that he trudged away and, for aught
I know, he never came out of the battle alive."

The others laughed.

"They were always quarrelling, Mary," Terence said. "But I agree
with Tim that his master will find it very hard to do without him,
especially about one o'clock in the morning."

"I am ashamed of you, Terence," O'Grady said, earnestly; "taking
away me character, when I have come down here as your guest."

"It is too bad, O'Grady," Major O'Connor said, "but you know
Terence was always conspicuous for his want of respect towards his
elders."

"He was that same, O'Connor. I did me best for the boy, but there
are some on whom education and example are clean thrown away."

"You are looking pale, cousin Terence," Mary said.

"Am I? My leg is hurting me a bit. Ireland is a great country, but
its by-roads are not the best in the world, and this jolting shakes
me up a bit."

"How stupid I was not to think of it!" she said and, rising in her
seat, told Cassidy to drive at a walk.

They were now only half a mile from the house.

"You will hardly know the old place