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I did not save her life; on the
contrary, I once very nearly killed her, as you shall hear. I did
not behold her by moonlight playing on the guitar, or rescue her
from the hands of ruffians, as Alfonso does Lindamira in the novel;
but one day, after dinner at Brady's Town, in summer, going into the
garden to pull gooseberries for my dessert, and thinking only of
gooseberries, I pledge my honour, I came upon Miss Nora and one of
her sisters, with whom she was friends at the time, who were both
engaged in the very same amusement.

'What's the Latin for gooseberry, Redmond?' says she. She was always
'poking her fun,' as the Irish phrase it.

'I know the Latin for goose,' says I.

'And what's that?' cries Miss Mysie, as pert as a peacock.

'Bo to you!' says I (for I had never a want of wit); and so we fell
to work at the gooseberry-bush, laughing and talking as happy as
might be. In the course of our diversion Nora managed to scratch her
arm, and it bled, and she screamed, and it was mighty round and
white, and I tied it up, and I believe was permitted to kiss her
hand; and though it was as big and clumsy a hand as ever you saw,
yet I thought the favour the most ravishing one that was ever
conferred upon me, and went home in a rapture.

I was much too simple a fellow to disguise any sentiment I chanced
to feel in those days; and not one of the eight Castle Brady girls
but was soon aware of my passion, and joked and complimented Nora
about her bachelor.

The torments of jealousy the cruel coquette made me endure were
horrible. Sometimes she would treat me as a child, sometimes as a
man. She would always leave me if ever there came a stranger to the
house.

'For after all, Redmond,' she would say, 'you are but fifteen, and
you haven't a guinea in the world.' At which I would swear that I
would become the greatest hero ever known out of Ireland, and vow
that before I was twenty I would have money enough to purchase an
estate six times as big as Castle Brady. All which vain promises, of
course, I did not keep; but I make no doubt they influenced me in my
very early life, and caused me to do those great actions for which I
have been celebrated, and which shall be narrated presently in
order.

I must tell one of them, just that my dear young lady readers may
know what sort of a fellow Redmond Barry was, and what a courage and
undaunted passion he had. I question whether any of the jenny-
jessamines of the present day would do half as much in the face of
danger.

About this time, it must be premised, the United Kingdom was in a
state of great excitement from the threat generally credited of a
French invasion. The Pretender was said to be in high favour at
Versailles, a descent upon Ireland was especially looked to, and the
noblemen and people of condition in that and all other parts of the
kingdom showed their loyalty by raising regiments of horse and foot
to resist the invaders. Brady's Town sent a company to join the

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