Such of the party as were not disposed for sleep gathered together in a little knot on a small patch of green grass, in the middle of a beech clump, where, having arranged themselves with as much comfort as the place permitted, they began chatting away over their life and its adventures pleasantly and freely. I was glad to seek any distraction from my own gloomy thoughts in listening to them, as I lay only a few yards off; but though I endeavored with all my might to attend to and take interest in their converse, my thoughts always turned to him I had lost forever,--the first, the only friend I had ever known. All care for myself and what fortune awaited me was merged in my sorrow for him. If not indifferent to my fate, I was at least unmindful of it, and although the words of those near me fell upon my ear, I neither heard nor marked them. From this dreamy lethargy I was at last suddenly aroused by the hearty bursts of laughter that broke from the party, and a loud clapping of hands that denoted their applause of something or somebody then before them. “I say, George,” said one of the soldiers, “he's a queer 'un, too, that piper.” “Yes, he 's a droll chap,” responded the other solemnly, as he rolled forth a long curl of smoke from the angle of his mouth. “Can you play 'Rule Britannia,' then?” asked another of the men. “No, sir,” said a voice I at once knew to be no other than my friend Darby's,--“no, sir. But av the 'Fox's Lament,' or 'Mary's Dream;' wasn't uncongenial to your sentiments, it would be a felicity to me to expatiate upon the same before yez.” “Eh, Bell,” cried a rough voice, “does that beat you now?” “No,” said another, “not a bit. He means he 'll give us something Irish instead; he don't know 'Rule Britannia! '” “Not know 'Rule Britannia!' Why, where the devil were you ever bred or born, man,--eh?” “Kerry, sir, the kingdom of Kerry, was the nativity of my father; my maternal progenitrix emanated from Clare. Maybe you 've heard the adage,-- “'From Keiry his father, from Clare came his mother; He 's more rogue nor fool on one side and the other.' Not but that, in my humble individuality, I am an exceptions illustration of the proverbial catastrophe.” Another shout of rude laughter from his audience followed this speech, amid the uproar of which Darby began tuning his pipes, as if perfectly unaware that any singularity on his part had called forth the mirth. “Well, what are we to have, old fellow, after all that confounded squeaking and grunting?” said he who appeared the chief spokesman of the party. “'Tis a trifling production of my own muse, sir,--a kind of biographical, poetical, and categorical dissertation of the delights, devices, and daily doings of your obaydient servant and ever submissive slave, Darby the Blast.”