Your honour may guess what we felt, when we got back.

Thank God I had no children! We buried the wife in the garden behind the house, and then started away and joined a band of rapparees, and paid some of them back in their own coin.
Then, one day, the Enniskilleners fell on us, and most of us were killed.
Then we made our way back to the old village, and came up here and built us this hut.

It's a wonder to us how you got here; for there are bogs stretching away in all directions, and how you made your way through them bates us entirely." "Yours is a sad story, but unfortunately a common one.

And how have you managed to live here ?" "There are plenty of potatoes, for the digging of 'em," the man said, "for there are a score of ruined villages within a day's walk.

As for meat, there are cattle for the taking, wandering all over the country; some have lately strayed away; but among the hills there are herds which have run wild since the days when Cromwell made the country a desert.