‘Judy is too many for ye,’ said our host; ‘she’s no friend to the sodgers any how: she lost two brave boys in the rebellion, and was a right rebel herself. I have seen the day when she would have thought no more of knocking down a man than of eating her breakfast. It’s not many years since, when we had a fair here, the boys were seemingly going to disperse without a bit of a _row_, and bad luck to me if she didn’t take off her jock, and holding it by the one sleeve, trailed it through the fair, crying out to her own party, that the blood of the O’Briens had turned into buttermilk, or they would never let the faction of the Murphies home, without a blow being struck. ‘Come, you chicken-hearted rogues?’ said she, while she brandished a stick in her hand, ‘let me see the thief’s breed of a Murphy that will dare to put his foot on my jock.’ The boys only laughed at first, but some one in the crowd, out of contempt, threw a dead rat which struck her on the face; this enraged her so, that she knocked down the man nearest her, and in a twinkling there was a fight that beat anything ever was seen, and she was there to the last. But the devil himself’s but a fool to ould Judy.’ CHAPTER II. PARTY SPIRIT. We arrived at Wexford, the station allotted for our regiment. It had been for some time the head quarters of the rebel army during the disturbances of 1798, and the scenes said to have been acted in and near it during that unfortunate period, being impressed on our minds, we entered the place with strong prejudices against the inhabitants. From a people implicated in what was termed a foul, unnatural rebellion, against a mild and equitable government, what could soldiers expect but treachery and fixed enmity? How were we deceived when we found them the most urbane, good-humoured people we had ever been amongst. This is remarkable, thought I: surely it must have been some strange infatuation, or some galling wrong that goaded these people into rebellion; and when we had been a short time there, I sought a solution of the enigma from a person with whom I had become acquainted, from being billeted in his house, when we first came into the town. ‘In the first place,’ said he, ‘I need not tell you what every body knows, that it was only the Catholics that rebelled. You wonder at them not showing their rebellious spirit: now,’ said he, ‘do you know the reason? they durstn’t. When they had the power, they showed us poor Protestants what they could do. Did you never read or hear of the burning of Scullabogue, the piking on the wooden bridge there beyond, and all the bloody cruelties they committed in every part of Ireland?’ ‘I have,’ replied I, ‘and that is the very reason I am surprised at the peaceable temper they now display.’