You naturally ask, what did they do?
Did they venture upon allusions to the retreat upon Ross?
Nothing of the kind.

Did they, in that vanity which wine inspires, refer by word, act, or inuendo, to the well-known order of their Colonel when reviewing his regiment in "the Phoenix," to "advance two steps backwards, and dress by the gutter." Far be it from them: though indeed either of these had been esteemed light in the balance compared with their real crime.

"Then, what was their failing--come, tell it, and burn ye ?" They actually, "horresco referens," quizzed the Major coram the whole mess!--Now, Major John Jones had only lately exchanged into the North Cork from the "Darry Ragement," as he called it.
He was a red--hot orangeman, a deputy--grand something, and vice-chairman of the "'Prentice Boys" beside.

He broke his leg when a school--boy, by a fall incurred in tying an orange handkerchief around King William's August neck in College-green, on one 12th of July, and three several times had closed the gates of Derry with his own loyal hands, on the famed anniversary; in a word, he was one, that if his church had enjoined penance as an expiation for sin, would have looked upon a trip to Jerusalem on his bare knees, as a very light punishment for the crime on his conscience, that he sat at table with two buck priests from Maynooth, and carved for them, like the rest of the company! Poor Major Jones, however, had no such solace, and the canker-worm eat daily deeper and deeper into his pining heart.

During the three or four weeks of their intimacy with his regiment, his martyrdom was awful.