shillings in the
world, and fourpence in copper, the poor soul made me take it before
I left her--to go--whither? My mind was made up: there was a score of
recruiting-parties in the town beating up for men to join our gallant
armies in America and Germany; I knew where to find one of these, having
stood by the sergeant at a review in the Phoenix Park, where he pointed
out to me characters on the field, for which I treated him to drink.

I gave one of my shillings to Sullivan the butler of the Fitzsimonses,
and, running into the street, hastened to the little alehouse at which
my acquaintance was quartered, and before ten minutes had accepted His
Majesty's shilling. I told him frankly that I was a young gentleman in
difficulties; that I had killed an officer in a duel, and was anxious
to get out of the country. But I need not have troubled myself with any
explanations; King George was too much in want of men then to heed from
whence they came, and a fellow of my inches, the sergeant said, was
always welcome. Indeed, I could not, he said, have chosen my time
better. A transport was lying at Dunleary, waiting for a wind, and on
board that ship, to which I marched that night, I made some surprising
discoveries, which shall be told in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH BARRY TAKES A NEAR VIEW OF MILITARY GLORY

I never had a taste for anything but genteel company, and hate all
descriptions of low life. Hence my account of the society in which I
at present found myself must of necessity be short; and, indeed,
the recollection of it is profoundly disagreeable to me. Pah! the
reminiscences of the horrid black-hole of a place in which we soldiers
were confined; of the wretched creatures with whom I was now forced to
keep company; of the ploughmen, poachers, pickpockets, who had taken
refuge from poverty, or the law (as, in truth, I had done myself), is
enough to make me ashamed even now, and it calls the blush into my old
cheeks to think I was ever forced to keep such company. I should have
fallen into despair, but that, luckily, events occurred to rouse my
spirits, and in some measure to console me for my misfortunes.

The first of these consolations I had was a good quarrel, which took
place on the day after my entrance into the transport-ship, with a huge
red-haired monster of a fellow--a chairman, who had enlisted to fly from
a vixen of a wife, who, boxer as he was, had been more than a match for
him. As soon