OLATE--DONJON--MY OWN HOUSE

When Christmas was over, and the new year commenced, we broke up our
quarters, and marched away to Templemore. This was a large military
station, situated in a wild and thinly inhabited country. Extensive bogs
were in the neighbourhood, connected with the huge bog of Allen, the
Palus Maeotis of Ireland. Here and there was seen a ruined castle
looming through the mists of winter; whilst, at the distance of seven
miles, rose a singular mountain, exhibiting in its brow a chasm, or
vacuum, just, for all the world, as if a piece had been bitten out; a
feat which, according to the tradition of the country, had actually been
performed by his Satanic majesty, who, after flying for some leagues with
the morsel in his mouth, becoming weary, dropped it in the vicinity of
Cashel, where it may now be seen in the shape of a bold bluff hill,
crowned with the ruins of a stately edifice, probably built by some
ancient Irish king.

We had been here only a few days, when my brother, who, as I have before
observed, had become one of his Majesty's officers, was sent on
detachment to a village at about ten miles' distance. He was not
sixteen, and, though three years older than myself, scarcely my equal in
stature, for I had become tall and large-limbed for my age; but there was
a spirit in him which would not have disgraced a general; and, nothing
daunted at the considerable responsibility which he was about to incur,
he marched sturdily out of the barrack-yard at the head of his party,
consisting of twenty light-infantry men, and a tall grenadier sergeant,
selected expressly by my father, for the soldier-like qualities which he
possessed, to accompany his son on this his first expedition. So out of
the barrack-yard, with something of an air, marched my dear brother, his
single drum and fife playing the inspiring old melody,

Marlbrouk is gone to the wars,
He'll never return no more!

I soon missed my brother, for I was now alone, with no being, at all
assimilating in age, with whom I could exchange a word. Of late years,
from being almost constantly at school, I had cast aside, in a great
degree, my unsocial habits and natural reserve, but in the desolate
region in which we now were there was no school; and I felt doubly the
loss of my brother, whom, moreover, I tenderly loved for his own sake.
Books I had none, at least such 'as I cared about'; and with respect to
the old volume, the wonders o