‘Sir!’ said I, quite astonished that any mortal man should have formed such an opinion of me, ’I hope General Bulow is mistaken regarding my character.  I have fallen into bad company, it is true; but I have only done as other soldiers have done; and, above all, I have never had a kind friend and protector before, to whom I might show that I was worthy of better things.  The general may say I am a ruined lad, and send me to the d—–­l:  but be sure of this, I would go to the d—–­l to serve you.’  This speech I saw pleased my patron very much; and, as I was very discreet and useful in a thousand delicate ways to him, he soon came to have a sincere attachment for me.  One day, or rather night, when he was tete-a-tete with the lady of the Tabaks Rath von Dose for instance, I—­But there is no use in telling affairs which concern nobody now.

Four months after my letter to my mother, I got, under cover to the Captain, a reply, which created in my mind a yearning after home, and a melancholy which I cannot describe.  I had not seen the dear soul’s writing for five years.  All the old days, and the fresh happy sunshine of the old green fields in Ireland, and her love, and my uncle, and Phil Purcell, and everything that I had done and thought, came back to me as I read the letter; and when I was alone I cried over it, as I hadn’t done since the day when Nora jilted me.  I took care not to show my feelings to the regiment or my captain:  but that night, when I was to have taken tea at the Garden-house outside Brandenburg Gate, with Fraulein Lottchen (the Tabaks Rathinn’s gentlewoman of company), I somehow had not the courage to go; but begged to be excused, and went early to bed in barracks, out of which I went and came now almost as I willed, and passed a long night weeping and thinking about dear Ireland.

Next day, my spirits rose again and I got a ten-guinea bill cashed, which my mother sent in the letter, and gave a handsome treat to some of my acquaintance.  The poor soul’s letter was blotted all over with tears, full of texts, and written in the wildest incoherent way.  She said she was delighted to think I was under a Protestant prince, though she feared he was not in the right way:  that right way, she said, she had the blessing to find, under the guidance of the Reverend Joshua Jowls, whom she sat under.  She said he was a precious chosen vessel; a sweet ointment and precious box of spikenard; and made use of a great number more phrases that I could not understand; but one thing was clear in the midst of all this jargon, that the good soul loved her son still, and thought and prayed day and night for her wild Redmond.  Has it not come across many a poor fellow, in a solitary night’s watch, or in sorrow, sickness, or captivity, that at that very minute, most likely, his mother is praying for him?  I often have had these thoughts; but they are none of the gayest, and it’s quite as well that they don’t come to you in company; for