“It is extr’or’nary, sir; but one is never safe without in-and-in discipline.  A drill a week, and that only for an hour or two of a Saturday afternoon, captain Willoughby, may make a sort of country militia, but it will do nothing for the field.  ’Talk of enlisting men for a year, serjeant Joyce,’ said old colonel Flanker to me, one day in the last war—­’why it will take a year to teach a soldier how to eat.  Your silly fellows in the provincial assemblies fancy because a man has teeth, and a stomach, and an appetite, that he knows how to eat; but eating is an art, serjeant; and military eating above all other branches of it; and I maintain a soldier can no more learn how to eat, as a soldier, the colonel meant, your honour, than he can learn to plan a campaign by going through the manual exercise.’  For my part, captain Willoughby, I have always thought it took a man his first five years’ enlistment to learn how to obey orders.”

“I had thought that Irishman’s heart in the right place, Joyce, and counted as much on him as I did on you!”

“On me, captain Willoughby!” answered the serjeant, in a tone of mortification.  “I should think your honour would have made some difference between your old orderly—­a man who had served thirty years in your own regiment, and most of the time in your own company, and a bit of a wild Hibernian of only ten years’ acquaintance, and he a man who never saw a battalion paraded for real service!”

“I see my error now, Joyce; but Michael had so much blundering honesty about him, or seemed to have, that I have been his dupe.  It is too late, however, to repine; the fellow is gone; it only remains to ascertain the manner of his flight.  May not Joel have undone the fastenings of the door, and let him and the Indian escape together, in common with the rest of the deserters?”

“I secured that door, sir, with my own hands, in a military manner, and know that it was found as I left it.  The Rev. Mr. Woods’ bed seems to have been disturbed; perhaps that may furnish a clue.”

A clue the bed did furnish, and it solved the problem.  The bed-cord was removed, and both the sheets and one of the blankets were missing.  This directed the inquiry to the windows, one of which was not closed entirely.  A chimney stood near the side of this window, and by its aid it was not difficult to reach the ridge of the roof.  On the inner side of the roof was the staging, or walk, already mentioned; and, once on that, a person could make the circuit of the entire roof, in perfect safety.  Joyce mounted to the ridge, followed by the captain, and gained the staging with a little effort, whence they proceeded round the buildings to ascertain if the rope was not yet hanging over the exterior, as a means of descent.  It was found as expected, and withdrawn lest it might be used to introduce enemies within the house.

These discoveries put the matter of Michael’s delinquency at rest.  He had clearly gone off with his prisoner, and might next be looked for in the ranks of the besiegers.  The conviction of this truth gave the captain more than uneasiness; it caused him pain, for the county Leitrim-man had been a favourite with the whole family, and most especially with his daughter Maud.