or a big disthillery."

Then, like a dream from the past, it came to me that he was talking of
that bloody fight about and in the "Secunderabogh," where, through a
breach two feet square, the men of the Ninety-third, man by man, forced
their way in the face of a thousand Sepoys, mad for blood and, with
their bayonets, piled high in gory heaps the bodies of their black foes,
crying with every thrust, in voices hoarse with rage and dust,
"Cawnpore! Cawnpore!" That tale Ould Michael would never tell till his
cups had carried him far beyond the stage of dignity and reserve.

After he had helped me to picket my ponies and pitch my tent, he led me
by a little gate through his garden to the side door of the cabin.

The garden was trim, like Ould Michael himself, set out in rectangular
beds, by gravel-walks and low-cut hedges of "old man." It was filled
with all the dear old-fashioned flowers--Sweet William and Sweet Mary,
bachelor's buttons, pansies and mignonette, old country daisies and
snapdragons and lilies of the valley and, in the centre of the beds,
great masses of peonies, while all around, peeping from under the
hedges of old man, were poppies of every hue. Beyond the garden there
was a plot of potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables and, best of all
and more beautiful than all, over the whole front of the cabin,
completely hiding the rough logs, ran a climbing rose, a mass of
fragrant bloom. Ould Michael lingered lovingly for a moment among his
flowers, and then led me into the house.

The room into which we entered was a wonder for preciseness and order.
The walls were decorated with prints, much-faded photographs, stuffed
birds, heads of deer and a quaint collection of old-fashioned guns,
pistols and bayonets, but all arranged with an exactness and taste that
would drive mad the modern artistic decorator. On one side of the window
hung a picture of Wellington: on the other, that of Sir Colin. To the
right of the clock, on a shelf, stood a stuffed mallard; to the left on
a similar shelf, stood a stuffed owl. The same balance was diligently
preserved in the arrangement of his weapons of war. A pine table stood
against one wall, flanked by a home-made chair on either side. A door
opened to the left into a bedroom, as I supposed; another, to the right,
into what Ould Michael designated "My office, sir."

"Office?" I inquired.

"Yes, sir," still preserving his manual of ceremony, "Her Majesty's mail
for Grand Bend