truth; and I wouldn't tell it to you if I could see my way to get
out of the fix I'll be in when my mother comes here this day to
see her boy in his glory, and she after thinking all the time it
was against the English I was fighting.

SIR PEARCE. Do you mean to say you told her such a monstrous
falsehood as that you were fighting in the German army?

O'FLAHERTY. I never told her one word that wasn't the truth and
nothing but the truth. I told her I was going to fight for the
French and for the Russians; and sure who ever heard of the
French or the Russians doing anything to the English but fighting
them? That was how it was, sir. And sure the poor woman kissed me
and went about the house singing in her old cracky voice that the
French was on the sea, and they'd be here without delay, and the
Orange will decay, says the Shan Van Vocht.

SIR PEARCE [sitting down again, exhausted by his feelings]. Well,
I never could have believed this. Never. What do you suppose will
happen when she finds out?

O'FLAHERTY. She mustn't find out. It's not that she'd half kill
me, as big as I am and as brave as I am. It's that I'm fond of
her, and can't bring myself to break the heart in her. You may
think it queer that a man should be fond of his mother, sir, and
she having bet him from the time he could feel to the time she
was too slow to ketch him; but I'm fond of her; and I'm not
ashamed of it. Besides, didn't she win the Cross for me?

SIR PEARCE. Your mother! How?