the gaps in Cutts's corps,--and for adventures to pass away the
weary time of a country life.

Our Captain Plume and Sergeant Kite (it was at this time, by the way,
that those famous recruiting-officers were playing their pranks in
Shrewsbury) were occupied very much in the same manner with Farquhar's
heroes. They roamed from Warwick to Stratford, and from Stratford to
Birmingham, persuading the swains of Warwickshire to leave the plough
for the Pike, and despatching, from time to time, small detachments
of recruits to extend Marlborough's lines, and to act as food for the
hungry cannon at Ramillies and Malplaquet.

Of those two gentlemen who are about to act a very important part in our
history, one only was probably a native of Britain,--we say probably,
because the individual in question was himself quite uncertain, and, it
must be added, entirely indifferent about his birthplace; but speaking
the English language, and having been during the course of his life
pretty generally engaged in the British service, he had a tolerably
fair claim to the majestic title of Briton. His name was Peter Brock,
otherwise Corporal Brock, of Lord Cutts's regiment of dragoons; he was
of age about fifty-seven (even that point has never been ascertained);
in height about five feet six inches; in weight, nearly thirteen stone;
with a chest that the celebrated Leitch himself might envy; an arm
that was like an opera-dancer's leg; a stomach so elastic that it would
accommodate itself to any given or stolen quantity of food; a great
aptitude for strong liquors; a considerable skill in singing chansons de
table of not the most delicate kind; he was a lover of jokes, of which
he made many, and passably bad; when pleased, simply coarse, boisterous,
and jovial; when angry, a perfect demon: bullying, cursing, storming,
fighting, as is sometimes the wont with gentlemen of his cloth and
education.

Mr. Brock was strictly, what the Marquis of Rodil styled himself in a
proclamation to his soldiers after running away, a hijo de la guerra--a
child of war. Not seven cities, but one or two regiments, might contend
for the honour of giving him birth; for his mother, whose name he took,
had acted as camp-follower to a Royalist regiment; had then obeyed the
Parliamentarians; died in Scotland when Monk was commanding in that
country; and the first appearance of Mr. Brock in a public capacity
displayed him as a fifer in the General's own regiment of Coldst