The Argosy — page 242: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

225 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. A TRUE INCIDENT OF THE [RISH IROUBLES. _ eegbineg say there is no such thing as liberality among the Scotch, truth amongst the Welsh, or loyalty amongst the Irish. Of the Scotch and Welsh I have no personal knowledge, and I cannot believe so sweeping an accusation, but I do know something as to the loyalty of the Irish. Loyalty, I mean, not to the Crown, but to their employers. One incident in my usually quiet life brings out so strongly the devotion of an Irish girl to her mistress that I cannot help thinking there will be both interest and profit in the story, even told in the simple way that I am able to relate it. In the year 1881, I, being then a slip of a girl of eighteen, living in a quiet Devonshire home, was wooed and married. My husband was a captain in a line regiment, and, shortly after our marriage, his battalion being ordered to Ireland, I, of course, went with him. No sense of danger ever troubled me, for as long as he was with me what had I to fear ? On arriving in Ireland my husband’s company was sent on detach- ment to an insignificant little village rejoicing in the name of Bally- boreen. ‘The small barrack the soldiers were quartered in afforded no accommodation for me. I did not require much room, but here there was absolutely none. ‘There wasno hotel or inn of any descrip- tion in the place above the rank of a beer-shop, so that when Hugh was told of a small house about three quarters of a mile from the barracks, which was advertised to be let furnished, we went to inspect it, and finally settled down there. Myrtle Cottage, as it was called, was a pretty, two- storied house, covered with creepers, standing on rather high ground overlooking a stream, which the natives of these parts delighted in dignifying by the name of river. Th'e cottage stood completely alone; there was no other building of any sort within half a mile of it in any direction. We lived at Myrtle Cottage with great contentment for several months. Our household consisted of two servants. An elderly woman was cook, whose name was O’Shea, and who seemed a quiet, hard-working woman. She seldom entered into conversation with me, but on the few occasions on which we had any talk together outside household matters she tried to give me an impression of the past glories of the O’Sheas, and once or twice hinted darkly that there would be a good time coming yet, when the reign of the sassenachs should be over. JI was not much interested in her, and only laughed at her fancies. As housemaid we had a young girl named Nelly Farren, an VOL. XLII. Q CoOnnicoooks (CO)