“‘Rory,’ said I, ‘if I was well you wouldn’t dare to pass that slur upon me. I am as well-trained a soldier and as brave a man as ever you was.’
“‘Tut, tut, man,’ said he, ‘I meant your learning.’
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I can’t brag much of that, and I am not sorry for it. Many a better scholar nor you, and better-looking man too, has been anged afore now, for all his schoolin’.’
“Says he, ‘I’ll soon set you up, Tom. Let me see if I can find anything here that will do for a turn-and-quit.’
“Close to where I lay there, was a furrin officer who had his head nearly amputated with a sabre cut. Well, he took a beautiful gold repeater out of his fob, and a great roll of dubloons out of one pocket, and a little case of diamond rings out of the other.
“‘The thieving Italian rascal?’ said he, ‘he has robbed a jeweller’s shop before he left the town,’ and he gave the body a kick and passed on. Well, close to him was an English officer.
“‘Ah,’ said he, ‘here is something useful,’ and he undid his sash, and then feeling in his breast pocket, he hauled out a tin tobacco-case, and opening of it, says he:
“‘Tom, here’s a real god-send for you. This and the sash I will give you as a keepsake. They are mine by the fortune of war, but I will bestow them on you.’”
“Oigh! oigh!” said Peter, “she was no shentleman.”
“He warn’t then, Sir,” said Tom, not understanding him, “for he was only a sargeant like me at that time, but he is now, for he is an officer.”