passed her calm modesty unchallenged. The wretched scamp
recognized the fact and felt its power, and it was with a
superstitious reverence asserting itself through his native
extravagance that he raised his grimy hand to his cap in military
salute and became respectfully rigid.

"Then the sodgers were huntin' YOU?" she said thoughtfully,
lowering her weapon.

"Thrue for you, Miss--they worr, and it's meself that was lyin'
flat in the ditch wid me faytures makin' an illigant cast in the
mud--more betoken, as ye see even now--and the sarjint and his
daytail thrampin' round me. It was thin that the mortial cold
sthruck thro' me mouth, and made me wake for the whiskey that would
resthore me."

"What did you desert fer?"

"Ah, list to that now! Fwhat did I desart fer? Shure ev there was
the ghost of an inemy round, it's meself that would be in the front
now! But it was the letthers from me ould mother, Miss, that is
sthruck wid a mortial illness--long life to her!--in County Clare,
and me sisthers in Ninth Avenue in New York, fornint the daypo,
that is brekken their harruts over me listin' in the Fourth
Infanthry to do duty in a haythen wilderness. Av it was the
cavalry--and it's me own father that was in the Innishkillen
Dthragoons, Miss--oi wouldn't moind. Wid a horse betune me legs,
it's on parade oi'd be now, Miss, and not wandhering over the bare
flure of the Marsh, stharved wid the cold, the thirst, and hunger,
wid the mud and the moire thick on me; facin' an illigant young