"I take no small credit to myself," he said, "that Colonel Terence O'Connor is the hero of this occasion. Never was there a boy whose destiny was so marked as his, and it is many a time I predicted that it was not either by flood, or fire, or quietly in his bed that he would die. If, when the regiment was ordered abroad, I had offered him a home, I firmly believe that my prediction would be verified before now; but I closed my doors to him, and the consequence was that he expended his devilment upon the French; and it is a deal better for him that it is only a leg that he has lost, which is a much less serious matter than having his neck unduly stretched. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can say with pride that I have had no small share in this matter, and it is glad I am that, when I go, I can leave my money behind me, feeling that it won't all go to the dogs before I have been twelve months in my grave." Another old friend was present at the wedding. Bull had made a slow recovery, and had been some time before he regained his strength. When he was gazetted out of the service, he secured a step in rank, and retired as a major. In after years he made frequent visits to Terence; to whom, as he always declared, he owed it that, instead of being turned adrift on a nominal pension, he was now able to live in comfort and ease. When, four months later, Tim M'Manus was thrown out of his trap when driving home late at night, and broke his neck, it was found that he had left the whole of his property to Terence and, as the rents of his estate amounted to 600 pounds a year, no inconsiderable proportion of which had, for many years past, been accumulating, the legacy placed Terence in a leading position among the gentry of Mayo. For very many years the house was one of the most popular in the county. It had been found necessary to make additions to it, and it had now attained the dignity of a mansion. The three officers followed, with the most intense interest, the bulletins and despatches from the war and, on the day when the allies entered Paris, the services of Tim Doolan, who had been invalided home a year after the return of his master, and had been discharged as unfit for further service, were called into requisition, for the first time since his return, to assist his master back to the house. O'Grady, however, explained most earnestly to Mary O'Connor, the next day, that it was not the whisky at all, at all, but his wooden leg that had got out of order, and would not carry him straight. Dick Ryan went through the war unscathed and, after Waterloo, retired from the service with the rank of lieutenant colonel; married, and settled at Athlone; and the closest intimacy, and very frequent intercourse, were maintained between him and his comrades of the Mayo Fusiliers.