fire and rifled him; their shouts and curses as we came hand in hand with the Frenchmen,—­these are, in truth, not very dignified recollections, and had best be passed over briefly.  When my kind friend Fagan was shot, a brother captain, and his very good friend, turned to Lieutenant Rawson and said, ’Fagan’s down; Rawson, there’s your company.’  It was all the epitaph my brave patron got.  ’I should have left you a hundred guineas, Redmond,’ were his last words to me, ‘but for a cursed run of ill luck last night at faro.’  And he gave me a faint squeeze of the hand; then, as the word was given to advance, I left him.  When we came back to our old ground, which we presently did, he was lying there still; but he was dead.  Some of our people had already torn off his epaulets, and, no doubt, had rifled his purse.  Such knaves and ruffians do men in war become!  It is well for gentlemen to talk of the age of chivalry; but remember the starving brutes whom they lead—­men nursed in poverty, entirely ignorant, made to take a pride in deeds of blood—­men who can have no amusement but in drunkenness, debauch, and plunder.  It is with these shocking instruments that your great warriors and kings have been doing their murderous work in the world; and while, for instance, we are at the present moment admiring the ’Great Frederick,’ as we call him, and his philosophy, and his liberality, and his military genius, I, who have served him, and been, as it were, behind the scenes of which that great spectacle is composed, can only look at it with horror.  What a number of items of human crime, misery, slavery, go to form that sum-total of glory!  I can recollect a certain day about three weeks after the battle of Minden, and a farmhouse in which some of us entered; and how the old woman and her daughters served us, trembling, to wine; and how we got drunk over the wine, and the house was in a flame, presently; and woe betide the wretched fellow afterwards who came home to look for his house and his children!

CHAPTER V

BARRY FAR FROM MILITARY GLORY

After the death of my protector, Captain Fagan, I am forced to confess that I fell into the very worst of courses and company.  Being a rough soldier of fortune himself, he had never been a favourite with the officers of his regiment; who had a contempt for Irishmen, as Englishmen sometimes will have, and used to mock his brogue, and his blunt uncouth manners.  I had been insolent to one or two of them, and had only been screened from punishment by his intercession; especially his successor, Mr. Rawson, had no liking for me, and put another man into the sergeant’s place vacant in his company after the battle of Minden.  This act of injustice rendered my service very disagreeable to me; and, instead of seeking to conquer the dislike of my superiors, and win their goodwill by good behaviour, I only sought for means to make my situation easier