In such moods of mind my thoughts strayed ever homewards, and I could not help confessing how little were all my successes in my eyes, did I not-hope for the day when I should pour forth my tale of war and battle-field to the ears of those who loved me.
I resolved to write home at once to my uncle.

I longed to tell him each incident of my career, and my heart glowed as I thought over the broken and disjointed sentences which every cotter around would whisper of my fortunes, far prouder as they would be in the humble deeds of one they knew, than in the proudest triumphs of a nation's glory.
Indeed, Mike himself gave the current to my thoughts.

After riding beside me for some time in silence, he remarked,-- "And isn't it Father Rush will be proud when he sees your honor's a captain; to think of the little boy that he used to take before him on the ould gray mare for a ride down the avenue,--to think of him being a real captain, six feet two without his boots, and galloping over the French as if they were lurchers! Peggy Mahon, that nursed you, will be the proud woman the day she hears it; and there won't be a soldier sober in his quarters that night in Portumna barracks! 'Pon my soul, there's not a thing with a red coat on it, if it was even a scarecrow to frighten the birds from the barley, that won't be treated with respect when they hear of the news." The country through which we travelled was marked at every step by the traces of a retreating army: the fields of rich corn lay flattened beneath the tramp of cavalry, or the wheels of the baggage-wagons; the roads, cut up and nearly impassable, were studded here and there with marks which indicated a bivouac.

At the same time, everything around bore a very different aspect from what we had observed in Portugal; there, the vindictive cruelty of the French soldiery had been seen in full sway: the ruined chateau, the burned villages, the desecrated altars, the murdered peasantry,--all attested the revengeful spirit of a beaten and baffled enemy.

No sooner, however, had they crossed the frontiers, than, as if by magic, their character became totally changed.