x with those fair and
fascinating witches, and never hold yourself as heart-safe, unless you
are in love with at least two of them at once!"

Off I went; but it matters not whether the course steered was to the
east or to the west after leaving Londonderry: a letter of
introduction in my pocket naturally determined my route; and, having
hired a good stout horse, I strapped my valise behind, and set out on
a fine summer's evening in quest of adventures. Yet I was in no
respect prepared to find myself so soon in what appeared very like a
field of battle. I had not proceeded twenty miles before I came to a
village surrounded by troops, and guarded at the ends of its few
streets by loaded cannon, with lighted matches smoking by their sides.
A considerable encampment was formed on a slightly rising eminence
near the village; and on the neighbouring ground, still farther off,
might be seen large irregular groups of people, who, I learned, upon
inquiry, were chiefly Orangemen, preparing for a grand ceremonial
procession on this the 12th of July, the well-known anniversary of the
battle of the Boyne. In order to resist this proceeding on the part of
the Protestants, an immense multitude on the Roman Catholic side of
the question were likewise assembled, and all the roads converging
towards that quarter were lined with parties of men carrying sticks in
their hands, flocking to the expected scene of action. The military
had been called in to keep the peace, but the angry passions of the
respective factions were so much roused, that even the precautions
above described seemed hardly sufficient to prevent the threatened
conflict.

As a matter of curiosity, I could have no great objection to seeing
another such battle as the one I had witnessed near Corunna between
those long-established fighting-cocks, the French and English; but to
look on while honest Pat and Tim were breaking one another's heads
upon abstract political grounds, and English soldiery interposing with
grapeshot and fixed bayonets to make them friends again, was what I
had no mind for. I tried, therefore, to extricate myself forthwith
from this unhappy struggle; but my horse being tired, I was forced to
sleep in a village which, for aught I knew, might be sacked and burned
before morning; nothing occurred, however: nevertheless, I felt far
from easy till out of reach of the furious factions; the strangest
thing of all being that some quiet folks, a few miles dista