cheer from the crowd assailed me. I turned, and
saw the dun coming in at a floundering gallop, covered with foam, and so
dead blown that neither himself nor the rider could have got twenty yards
farther. The race was, however, won. My odds were lost to every man on
the field, and, worse than all, I was so laughed at, that I could not
venture out in the streets, without hearing allusions to my misfortune;
for a certain friend of mine, one Tom O'Flaherty--"

"Tom of the 11th light dragoons?"

"The same--you know Tom, then? Maybe you have heard him mention me
--Maurice Malone?"

"Not Mr. Malone, of Fort Peak?"

"Bad luck to him. I am as well known in connexion with Fort Peak, as the
Duke is with Waterloo. There is not a part of the globe where he has not
told that confounded story."

As my readers may not possibly be all numbered in Mr. O'Flaherty's
acquaintance, I shall venture to give the anecdote which Mr. Malone
accounted to be so widely circulated.

CHAPTER XLVI.

AN ADVENTURE IN CANADA.

Towards the close of the last war with America, a small detachment of
military occupied the little block house of Fort Peak, which, about eight
miles from the Falls of Niagara, formed the last outpost on the frontier.
The Fort, in itself inconsiderable, was only of importance as commanding
a part of the river where it was practicable to ford, and where the easy
ascent of the bank offered a safe situation for the enemy to cross over,
whenever they felt disposed to carry the war into our territory.

There having been, however, no threat of invasion in this quarter, and
the natural strength of the position being considerable, a mere handful
of men, with two subaltern officers, were allotted for this duty--such
being conceived ample to maintain it till the arrival of succour from
head-quarters, then at Little York, on the opposite side of the lake.
The officers of this party were our old acquaintance Tom O'Flaherty, and
our newly-made one Maurice Malone.

Whatever may be the merits of commanding officers, one virtue they
certainly can lay small claim to--viz. any insight into character, or at
least any regard for the knowledge. Seldom are two men sent off on
detachment duty to some remote quarter, to associate daily and hourly for
months together, that they are not, by some happy chance, the very people
who never, as the phrase is, "took to each other" in their lives. The
grey-headed, weather-beaten, disappointe