“Well, I say, Mr. Free, are you going to give us that ere song?” “Yes. I’ll be danged if I burnish your sabre, if you don’t sing.” “Tear an’ ages! ain’t I composing it? Av I was Tommy Moore, I couldn’t be quicker.” “Well, come along, my hearty; let’s hear it.” “Oh, murther!” said Mike, draining the pot to its last few drops, which he poured pathetically upon the grass before him; and then having emptied the ashes from his pipe, he heaved a deep sigh, as though to say life had no pleasures in store for him. A brief pause followed, after which, to the evident delight of his expectant audience, he began the following song, to the popular air of “Paddy O’Carroll”:-- BAD LUCK TO THIS MARCHING. Air,--_Paddy O’Carroll_. Bad luck to this marching, Pipe-claying, and starching, How neat one must be to be killed by the French, I’m sick of parading, Through wet and cowld wading, Or standing all night to be shot in a trench. To the tune of a fife They dispose of your life, You surrender your soul to some illigant lilt; Now, I like Garryowen, When I hear it at home, But it’s not half so sweet when you’re going to be kilt. Then, though up late and early, Our pay comes so rarely, The devil a farthing we’ve ever to spare; They say some disaster Befell the paymaster; On my conscience, I think that the money’s not there. And just think what a blunder, They won’t let us plunder, While the convents invite us to rob them, ‘tis clear; Though there isn’t a village, But cries, “Come and pillage,” Yet we leave all the mutton behind for Mounseer. Like a sailor that’s nigh land, I long for that island Where even the kisses we steal if we please; Where it is no disgrace If you don’t wash your face, And you’ve nothing to do but to stand at your ease. With no sergeant t’abuse us, We fight to amuse us; Sure, it’s better bate Christians than kick a baboon. How I’d dance like a fairy To see ould Dunleary, And think twice ere I’d leave it to be a dragoon! “There’s a sweet little bit for you,” said Mike, as he concluded; “thrown off as aisy as a game at football.” “I say, Mr. Free, the captain’s looking for you; he’s just received despatches from the camp, and wants his horses.” “In that case, gentlemen, I must take my leave of you; with the more regret, too, that I was thinking of treating you to a supper this evening. You needn’t be laughing; it’s in earnest I am. Coming, sir, coming!” shouted he, in a louder tone, answering some imaginary call, as an excuse for his exit. When he appeared before me, an air of most business-like alacrity had succeeded to his late appearance, and having taken my orders to get the horses in readiness, he left me at once, and in less than half an hour we were upon the road. CHAPTER XXVIII. MONSOON IN TROUBLE.