when agreed with.

All these, I had come to know, were traits of a soldier, yet he had many
other qualities which puzzled me, not being observable in other troopers.
He swore very rarely, he was abstemious with wines and spirits, and he
loved books better than food itself. Of not even Sir William, great
warrior and excellent scholar though he was, could all these things be
said. Mr. Stewart had often related to me, during the long winter days and
evenings spent of necessity by the fire, stories drawn from his campaigns
in the Netherlands and France and Scotland, speaking freely and most
instructively. But he had never helped me to unravel the mystery why he,
so unlike other soldiers in habits and tastes, should have chosen the
profession of arms.

A ray of light was thrown upon the question this very day by the forward
prattle of the boy Philip. In after years the full illumination came, and
I understood it all. It is as well, perhaps, to outline the story here,
although at the time I was in ignorance of it.

In Ireland, nearly eighty years before, that is to say in 1679, there had
been born a boy to whom was given the name of James Lynch. His mother was
the smooth-faced, light-hearted daughter of a broken Irish gentleman, who
loved her boy after a gusty fashion, and bore a fierce life of scorn and
sneers on his behalf. His father was--who? There were no proofs in court,
of course, but it seems never to have been doubted by any one that the
father was no other than the same worthless prince to wear whose titles
the two chief towns of my State were despoiled of their honest Dutch
names--I mean the Duke of York and Albany.

Little James Lynch, unlike so many of his luckier brothers and cousins,