Far from it.

His theme was no contemptuous disdain for danger; no patriotic enthusiasm to fight for home and country; no proud consciousness of British valor, mingled with the appropriate hatred of our mutual enemies,--on the contrary, Mike's eloquence was enlisted for the defendant.

He detailed, and in no unimpressive way either, the hardships of a soldier's life,--its dangers, its vicissitudes, its chances, its possible penalties, its inevitably small rewards; and, in fact, so completely did he work on the feelings of his hearers that I perceived more than one glance exchanged between the victims that certainly betokened anything save the resolve to fight for King George.

It was at the close of a long and most powerful appeal upon the superiority of any other line in life, petty larceny and small felony inclusive, that he concluded with the following quotation:-- "Thrue for ye, boys! 'With your red scarlet coat, You're as proud as a goat, And your long cap and feather.' But, by the piper that played before Moses! it's more whipping nor gingerbread is going on among them, av ye knew but all, and heerd the misfortune that happened to my father." "And was he a sodger ?" inquired one.
"Troth was he, more sorrow to him; and wasn't he a'most whipped one day for doing what he was bid ?" "Musha, but that was hard!" "To be sure it was hard; but faix, when my father seen that they didn't know their own minds, he thought, anyhow, he knew his, so he ran away,--and devil a bit of him they ever cotch afther.

May be ye might like to hear the story; and there's instruction in it for yez, too." A general request to this end being preferred by the company, Mike took a shrewd look at the sergeant, to be sure that he was still sleeping, settled his coat comfortably across his knees, and began:-- Well, it's a good many years ago my father 'listed in the North Cork, just to oblige Mr.Barry, the landlord there.