'Jerry,' says he, 'here are the rebels breaking into the house; and as I know you are a faithful fellow, take this sword and pistol, and stand by me.'
'No, but I will stand before you,' says I. So we mustered our men, five in all, and posted ourselves on the head of the stairs; when in burst the rebels into the hall, and we began a parley. 'Why then, is that Barney Delany?' says I to their captain.
'Why then, is that Jerry Sullivan?' says he to me. 'You are one of us,' says he, 'so now turn round and shoot your master,' says he.
'I will cut off both my hands first,' says I.
'Take that then,' says he; and he fires a shot, and I another, and to it we kept, till we beat them all off.
'Well, in a few months afterwards, this same Barney being made prisoner, I was bound over as witness against him. So some of the gentlemen with the long words came to me, and told me how wrong I had acted in fighting for my master, instead of for my country, and that I must make amends by giving evidence in Barney's favour.
'Well, they puzzled me so, that from then till now I never could make out whether I was right or wrong in standing by master. But somehow, I think I was right; for though patriotism (as the gentlemen call it) is a fine thing, yet, after all, there is nothing like gratitude. Why, if the devil himself did me a kind office, I believe I would make shift to do him another, and not act like the clergy, who spend their whole lives in snubbing at him, and calling him all manner of names, though they know, that, but for him, there would not be a clergyman or a fat living in the kingdom.
'Howsomever, I was persuaded to do the genteel thing by Barney Delany; so, when the day for the trial came, I drank myself pretty unintelligible; and I swore point blank, before judge and jury, that I did not know Barney good or bad, and that all I knew of him was good; and I bothered the lawyers, and they turned me from the table, and threatened to indite me for perjury. But it was the people that did praise me, and call it iligant swearing, mighty pretty evidence; and I was the great man of the day; and they took me to the fair that was hard by, where we tippled a little more, and then we sallied forth ripe for fun.
'Well, as we were running through the fair, what should I see but a man's bald head sticking out of a hole in one of the tents—to cool, I suppose,—so I just lifted up my cudgel, and just laid it down again; when, in a moment, out came a whole set of fellows from the tent, and the man asks which of us had broken his head.
'It was myself,' says I, 'but curse me if I could help it, that skull of your's looked so inviting.