“Well, that is something to go by, Mike.  Of course, she may have moved away long since; but if her cousin is a ship’s carpenter, it is not likely that he would have left the neighbourhood.”

“I wonder your honour never asked about the Kennedys from some of the officers who were at the siege?”

“I did not like to do so.  The colonel came to the conclusion that I must be the son of Murroch Kennedy, who came out soon after Limerick surrendered, and was killed at Breda two or three months after he joined the brigade.  The officers agreed with the colonel that this gentleman was probably my father, and of course I was contented that it should be supposed so, and therefore I asked no questions about other Kennedys.  Of late, however, I have been worried over the matter.  In the Irish regiments in Spain, as elsewhere, were a number of officers belonging to good old Irish families, and though I have got on well enough with them—­in the first place as Berwick’s aide-de-camp, and afterwards as on the staff of the generals here—­I could see that when, in answer to their question, it was evident I knew little or nothing of my family, there was a sort of coolness in their manner which I could quite understand, counting back their ancestors, as they did, pretty nearly to the flood.  At present, it does not make any difference to me personally, one way or the other, but I am convinced that if, by chance, when I get older, I should fall in love with the daughter of an officer of one of these old families, he would not for a moment listen to me, until I could give him some proofs that I had a right to the name I bear, or at any rate came of a good family.  Certainly, at present, I could not assure him on either point.  I only know that I have always been called Kennedy, and that it was under that name that I was committed to the care of Father O’Leary.  That proves nothing more than that it is the name by which John O’Carroll wished me to be called; and it is as likely as not—­indeed a good deal more likely—­that it was not the true one.”

“Well, at any rate, your honour, you have made the name of Desmond Kennedy well known and liked, both among the Irish and French officers, for it is no slight thing that an officer in an infantry regiment should be taken on the staff of the Duke of Berwick.”

“All that is very well, Mike; but it will not satisfy me more than it satisfies others.  So I am resolved to try to get to the bottom of the affair, even if I have to go direct to John O’Carroll, though I know that the chance of his telling me anything is but slight.  The only way, indeed, that seems likely to lead to anything is to call upon as many of the Kennedys as I can discover, and ask whether Murroch Kennedy, who left Ireland after the siege of Limerick, married and left a child of two years old behind him.  If so, and that child suddenly disappeared when his father left for France, there would be every reason for assuming that I was the child in question; though why he should have committed me to the charge of John O’Carroll, instead of to one of his own family, is not easily seen; unless the whole of the Kennedys were in such ill favour, with the English Government, that he thought it better to trust me to one who was in good odour with the supporters of Dutch William, and was therefore safe from disturbance in his estates.”