Boy as I was, I had already seen enough to make me a rebel in feeling and in action.  I had stood a short time before the death-bed of my father, who disliked me, and who had left nearly all his property to my elder brother, who was indifferent to me.  My father had indentured me as apprentice to his lawyer, and sooner than submit to the rule of this man—­the evil genius of our family—­I had taken flight.  The companion of my wanderings was Darby M’Keown, the piper, the cleverest and cunningest of the agents of rebellion.  Then I had met De Meudon, who had turned my thoughts and ambitions into another channel.

My companion grew steadily worse.

“Take my pocket-book,” he whispered; “there is a letter you’ll give my sister Marie.  There are some five or six thousand francs—­they are yours; you must be a pupil at the Polytechnique at Paris.  If it should be your fortune to speak with General Bonaparte, say to him that when Charles de Meudon was dying—­in exile—­with but one friend left—­he held his portrait to his lips, and, with his last breath, he kissed it.”

A shivering ran through his limbs—­a sigh—­and all was still.  He was dead.

“Halloa, there!” said a voice.  The door opened, and a sergeant entered.  “I have a warrant to arrest Captain de Meudon, a French officer who is concealed here.  Where is he?”

I pointed to the bed.

“I arrest you in the king’s name!” said the sergeant, approaching.  “What——­” He started back in horror.  “He is dead!”

Then entered one I had seen before—­Major Barton, the most pitiless of the government’s agents in suppressing insurrection.

The sergeant whispered to him, and his eye ranged the little chamber till it fell on me.

“Ha!” he cried.  “You here!  Sergeant, here’s one prisoner for you, at any rate.”

Two soldiers seized me, and I was marched away towards Dublin.  About noon the party halted, and the soldiers lay down and chatted on a patch of grass, while my own thoughts turned sadly back to the friend I had known.

Suddenly I heard a song sung by a voice I knew, and afterwards a loud clapping of hands.  Darby M’Keown was there in the midst of the soldiers, and as I turned to look at him, my hand came in contact with a clasp-knife.  I managed with it to free my arms from the ropes that fastened them, but what was to be done next?

“I didn’t think much of that song of yours,” said one of the soldiers.  “Give us ‘The British Grenadiers.’”

“I never heard them play but onst, sir,” said Darby, meekly, “and they were in such a hurry I couldn’t pick up the tune.”

“What d’you mean?”

“’Twas the day but one after the French landed, and the British Grenadiers was running away.”

The party sprang to their legs, and a shower of curses fell upon the piper.

“And sure,” continued Darby, “’twasn’t my fault av they took to their heels.  Wouldn’t anyone run for his life av he had the opportunity?”