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the Frenchmen?’
‘You forget the —th, my boy,’ said the little Stubble, the
wounded hero, from his bed—‘and and you won’t leave me,
will you, Mrs. O’Dowd?’
‘No, my dear fellow,’ said she, going up and kissing the
boy. ‘No harm shall come to you while I stand by. I don’t
budge till I get the word from Mick. A pretty figure I’d be,
wouldn’t I, stuck behind that chap on a pillion?’
This image caused the young patient to burst out laugh-
ing in his bed, and even made Amelia smile. ‘I don’t ask
her,’ Jos shouted out—‘I don’t ask that—that Irishwoman,
but you Amelia; once for all, will you come?’
‘Without my husband, Joseph?’ Amelia said, with a look
of wonder, and gave her hand to the Major’s wife. Jos’s pa-
tience was exhausted.
‘Good-bye, then,’ he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and
slamming the door by which he retreated. And this time he
really gave his order for march: and mounted in the court-
yard. Mrs. O’Dowd heard the clattering hoofs of the horses
as they issued from the gate; and looking on, made many
scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he rode down the street
with Isidor after him in the laced cap. The horses, which had
not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang
about the street. Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not
look to advantage in the saddle. ‘Look at him, Amelia dear,
driving into the parlour window. Such a bull in a china-shop
I never saw.’ And presently the pair of riders disappeared
at a canter down the street leading in the direction of the
Ghent road, Mrs. O’Dowd pursuing them with a fire of sar-

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