"Pat Mulroony. I come from one side of Dublin, where my father has a beautiful estate, wid deer-parks such as ye never saw on the longest day’s march. And though it is meself that siz it, there was not a smarter fellow than me in the whole division, from right to left; no, not one, yer honner! If you plaze, sir, we may yet give the French—bad cess to them! the slip; and by the mortal! I’ll stand by yer honner like steel, for shure I’d do it for love if for nothin’ else; for the Scots and Irish were one man’s childer in Noah’s day. In ould ancient forren times, the blessed Saint Patrick himself was a Scotsman, until his bad-mannered countrymen, in a fit of unkindness, cut off his head, and he swam over wid it under his arm to Donaghadee, and became a good Irishman. Often I have heard ould Father O’Rafferty at Dunleary tell us of that, when I used to take him home from Mother Macnoggin’s wid a dhrop in his eye. He was the broth of a boy, that ould O’Rafferty, and a riglar devil among the girls, for all that he was a praste; and whin the craytur was in, it’s little he’d think of giving the best man in his flock a palthog on the ear. But perhaps it’s inthrudin’ on yer honner I am?" Louis, though pleased with the fellow’s humour, was not in a talking mood. "May my tongue be blisthered if I spake any more to ye, or bother ye in the midst of yer throubles!" said Pat in conclusion. Anxiety and fear for poor Virginia plunged Lisle into deep despondency, and not all the attempts of honest Mulroony could wean him from his melancholy reflections. He could scarcely be in any other than an unpleasant mood, as it was rather annoying for a newly-married man to spend the time immediately succeeding his nuptial-day in a stone turret, measuring eight feet by six. Two or three days passed away, and Louis found considerable satisfaction in the knowledge that Virginia was yet near him,—that the walls of the fortress still contained her. He had acquainted his humble friend with his story, and Paddy became more eager than before to serve him; and vowed, for his sake, to face "either man or devil, if he had only an opportunity, bad luck to it!" The place in which they were confined was an _échauguette_, or small turret, built on an acute angle of a bastion close to the gate of the fortress, and from the loop-holes Louis and his friend kept by turns a constant watch, so that it was impossible for Virginia to be carried off without their knowledge; and Lisle would probably have become frantic had he seen her departure, which he hourly expected would take place. One night Mulroony was on sentry at the loop-hole, watching the gateway, while Louis slept on the floor. The night was intensely dark,—"one on which ye couldn’t see yer nose fornenst ye," as Mulroony himself said.