me, sewn up in a belt round my waist, where it has been ever since I got it, except when we went into battle, or on that expedition to Scotland, when, as your honour knows, I always put it in with the agent in your name, seeing that I would rather, if I was killed, know that your honour would have it, instead of its being taken by some villain searching the dead.  I told her that, if she and Mrs. Callaghan wanted to take a bigger place, I would share it with her, and that quite settled the matter, in her mind, that I was her brother.  She said, as I knew she would, that she would come and talk to you for a week, if you wanted it; and she will be here tomorrow, at nine o’clock.”

“That is very satisfactory.  I am afraid nothing will come of our talk; but still, one may get a clue to other Kennedys who were present at the siege of Limerick.”

Punctually at nine o’clock, Mike ushered his sister into Desmond’s sitting room.

“I am glad to see you, Mrs. Rooney.  Your brother has been with me for three years, and has rendered me very many services, and I regard him as a friend, rather than as a servant.  I am glad that he has found his sister, from whom he had been so long parted.”

“Mike has been telling me how good you have been to him, and that he would go through fire and water for you, and that you have had some wonderful adventures together.  He said you wanted to speak to me about the siege of Limerick.  If there is anything that I can tell you, your honour, I will do so gladly.”

“What I want to know is, what Kennedys were at the siege?”

“There was Murroch Kennedy, and Phelim, who was always called ’Red Kennedy’, on account of his colour; and James and Fergus.  I knew all those, because they were friends of my master’s.  It may be that there were many others, but they were unbeknown to me.”

“Am I like any of them?”

The woman looked at him searchingly.

“You are not, sir; but you are mighty like my master, barring, of course, that he was a man ten years older than yourself.  But the more I look at you, the more I see the likeness.”

“I did not know that you had a master, Mrs. Rooney.  I thought that you were there with your husband.”

“So I was, your honour; but when he was kilt I was left alone, saving for a child that had been born a fortnight before; and what with the bad smells of the place, and the sound of the cannon, and the fact of my grief, he pined away all at once, and died a week after me husband.  It is well-nigh starving we all were.  Even the fighting men had scarce enough food to keep their strength up, and a lone woman would have died from hunger.  So I was mighty glad, when a friend of mine told me that there was an officer’s lady who had had a baby, and, being but weak and ailing, wanted a foster mother for it; so I went at once and got the place, and was with her for a month.