It was very imprudent of me; but when I saw the splendour of his appearance, the nobleness of his manner, I felt it impossible to keep disguise with him; and when he said, ’Ah, you are a Hungarian, I see!’ I could hold no longer.

‘Sir,’ said I, ’I am an Irishman, and my name is Redmond Barry, of Ballybarry.’  As I spoke, I burst into tears; I can’t tell why; but I had seen none of my kith or kin for six years, and my heart longed for some one.

CHAPTER VIII

BARRY’S ADIEU TO MILITARY PROFESSION

You who have never been out of your country, know little what it is to hear a friendly voice in captivity; and there’s many a man that will not understand the cause of the burst of feeling which I have confessed took place on my seeing my uncle.  He never for a minute thought to question the truth of what I said.  ‘Mother of God!’ cried he, ‘it’s my brother Harry’s son.’  And I think in my heart he was as much affected as I was at thus suddenly finding one of his kindred; for he, too, was an exile from home, and a friendly voice, a look, brought the old country back to his memory again, and the old days of his boyhood.  ‘I’d give five years of my life to see them again,’ said he, after caressing me very warmly.  ‘What?’ asked I.  ‘Why,’ replied he, ’the green fields, and the river, and the old round tower, and the burying-place at Ballybarry.  ’Twas a shame for your father to part with the land, Redmond, that went so long with the name.’

He then began to ask me concerning myself, and I gave him my history at some length; at which the worthy gentleman laughed many times, saying, that I was a Barry all over.  In the middle of my story he would stop me, to make me stand back to back, and measure with him (by which I ascertained that our heights were the same, and that my uncle had a stiff knee, moreover, which made him walk in a peculiar way), and uttered, during the course of the narrative, a hundred exclamations of pity, and kindness, and sympathy.  It was ’Holy Saints!’ and ‘Mother of Heaven!’ and ‘Blessed Mary!’ continually; by which, and with justice, I concluded that he was still devotedly attached to the ancient faith of our family.

It was with some difficulty that I came to explain to him the last part of my history, viz., that I was put into his service as a watch upon his actions, of which I was to give information in a certain quarter.  When I told him (with a great deal of hesitation) of this fact, he burst out laughing, and enjoyed the joke amazingly.  ’The rascals!’ said he; ’they think to catch me, do they?  Why, Redmond, my chief conspiracy is a faro-bank.  But the King is so jealous, that he will see a spy in every person who comes to his miserable capital in the great sandy desert here.  Ah, my boy, I must show you Paris and Vienna!’

I said there was nothing I longed for more than to see any city but Berlin, and should be delighted to be free of the odious military service.  Indeed, I thought, from his splendour of appearance, the knickknacks about the room, the gilded carriage in the remise, that my uncle was a man of vast property; and that he would purchase a dozen, nay, a whole regiment of substitutes, in order to restore me to freedom.