THE COLONEL'S STORY. 121 



with the mountains of Ballycroy ! I wish I were in bed ; and 

 why there to dream of everything felonious ! I may as well 

 submit with Turkish endurance it is the will of Allah. The 

 Colonel replenishes the fire, apportioning turf and bog deal 

 in such scientific proportion, that it is evident he is making 

 himself up for a wet evening ; and the cork our host is now 

 extracting, will be merely avant- courier to three flasks which I 

 see lurking in the cooper. Oh, that a deputation from the 

 Temperance Society would drop in ! But why complain ? 

 'tis useless. The Colonel has discharged a bumper to the 

 speedy demolition of Mr. Burke ! Nor has he forgotten to 

 replenish again. The man is honest a person that one might 

 safely drink with in the dark. He clears his throat, and that 

 cough preliminary is the prologue of a story. I must, in 

 common courtesy, be attentive. This long and steady pinch 

 is alarming, and we are on the brink of some desperate 

 detail ! 



CHAPTER XXI. 



The Colonel's Story The Night Attack. 



" IT is thirty-five years this very month, since I was quar- 

 tered with my regiment in ford ; I recollect the time 



particularly, for I got my Company in the thirty-seventh on 

 the same day that I received an invitation from a Mr. Morden, 

 with whom I had formed a mail-coach acquaintance, to spend 

 a week with him, and join his nephew in partridge -shooting. 

 This gentleman's house, was fourteen miles distant from the 

 town, and situated in a very retired part of the country. It 

 was a wild but beautiful residence, placed upon the extremity 

 of a peninsula which jutted into an extensive lake. To a 

 sportsman it offered all the inducements that shooting and 

 fishing could afford. But it had others besides these ; no 

 man lived better than Mr. Morden and his daughter Emily, 

 and an orphan cousin, who resided with her, were decidedly the 

 finest women who had attended the last race-ball. No wonder 

 then that I accepted the old gentleman's invitation willingly, 

 and on the appointed day put myself into a post-chaise, and 

 reached the place in time for dinner. 



