“And so poor Norah came to me; but I couldn’t throw my arms round her neck now, your honour, for the bracelets they had clapped upon my wrists; but she stooped down and got between them, and we were folded to each other’s hearts. Oh, sir, I feel it at this moment, and hope you won’t think the worse of poor Pat for the dthrop in his eye. Well, we were obliged to part; ‘Oh Paddy, (says she) niver, niver forget your country or your Norah!’--and bad luck to me, your honour, if ever I did--and she waved her apron till I saw her out of sight, and then I could have laid down and died. ‘Niver forget your country or your Norah!’ were her last words; and they have ever been engraven on my heart, by the same token that Corporal Flannagan, who had received a ’varsity edecation where he was brought up to run arrands and clane shoes, composed the beautifullest song,--oh! your honour, it would do your heart good to hear it. Faith, and it’s here I’ve got it, along with the bit of broken gold and a lock of my own darling’s hair, all black and shining,--oh! they’re a rich treasure to poor Pat. My hair was like it once, but now my head is silvered over with the snow of age; but my heart is as warm as iver, and melts with tenderness, spite of the frost of adversity that has so often nipped it. Would your honour like to rade that same? or shall I rade it to you? Oh, I can repeat it by heart, for sure it is always laying next to it. ‘Dear land of my fathers, their glory and pride, Who fought for their homes and in Freedom’s cause died; The hallow’d green turf-mound marks each sacred spot, And their spirits still cry, Let us ne’er be forgot! Forget you? Ah never, whilst Shannon’s stream flows, And Liberty’s tree on dear Erin’s land grows, To yield us shilelahs to lather our foes Will Paddy forget you,--ah never! ‘Your lovely green meadows, all sparkling with dew, Where Norah first met me, how dear to my view; Remembrance now pictures the sweet little cot, And I hear her last words, Let me ne’er be forgot! Forget you? Ah never! though now far apart, Still faithful and honest shall be this poor heart; Till life’s latest breath from my lips shall depart Can Paddy forget you?--ah never!’ “There, your honour, what do you think of that for a composition? oh sure, it’s a sublimity. ‘Can Paddy forget you? ah never!’ But to make the long of the short of it and go on with my story; I was sent on board a transport, and the next day we sailed with the rest for the West Injees, and all the passage out I was drilled morning, noon, and night, till I was as thin as a pratee dibble,--marching and countermarching between two guns on the deck, that wer’n’t more nor six feet asunder; and what with the sea-sickness, and the drilling, and the six-upon-four,[9] I was almost done up by the time we got to Jemakee, where they make niggers of the poor blacks.