“Would you believe it, Mr. O’Halloran, that your name is perfectly familiar to me? 1 am a soldier of the old school, and commenced my career at thirty. My first campaign was in the Low Countries, opposed to your present commander-in-chief, the Duke of York; and, at his retreat, I was in the advanced guard of the Republican army. On both sides, supplies were scanty, and as our discipline was not then particularly strict, men wandered here and there to make out a supper, if they could. Though in years a man, I was a raw soldier in experience; and one foggy evening I straggled from the outposts, and, at last, totally missed my way. The accursed dykes of that most beastly country confused me, and the further I went, the more I got confounded. I tumbled into two or three of their dirty canals, and escaped, half smothered, between mud and water, until, after an hour’s wandering, I at last found myself within the British outposts and regularly at my wit’s end. “A light was burning from a casement; I crept on, evaded the sentry in front, and peeped through the window. Within, one man was seated, and the epaulets on his shoulder told me that he was a field officer. My case was hopeless. In a Dutch fog, within the lines of the enemy, the bridges guarded, the boors unfriendly--how, in the devil’s name, had I a chance of escape!--and, adopting a desperate resolution, I determined to trust to the generosity of an enemy. I tapped lightly on the casement, and the English officer rose, and opened it. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked. ‘A poor hungry devil that has lost his way!’ said I. He told me to proceed; and I honestly informed him that I had been four-and-twenty hours without food, and that, in seeking some. I had got out of my own lines, and into sundry canals--was half drowned, half frozen, and half starved--and, to sum the story up, regularly perplexed, and bedeviled. He laughed--told me to come in--gave me a draught of genuine Schiedam--pointed to a table, where the remnant of a capital supper was unremoved--and told me to eat heartily; [‘gad, he had no occasion to repeat the invitation;) I did so--again drank heartily from the long-necked bottle, and then modestly inquired whether I was a prisoner, or not?