The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole

The city of Quito was brilliantly illuminated; it was the anniversary of its patron saint, and, in honour of their holy founder, the convent and church of the Ursulines presente...

|The man might have been set down a lazy wayfarer indeed who would have sojourned a second day at that pleasant hostlerie, whose sign-board displayed the spirited representation...

When I met Isidora in her mountain home, her graceful person, aided by manners particularly _naive_ and gentle, had fascinated me, and taught me, for the first time, to feel the...

I was born in a village on the coast of Sussex. My father, after five-and-twenty years’ service, had retired from the army on a pension, with a small sum of money he had saved w...

|Proverbs may be musty matters; but take them generally, and how admirably do they establish facts! “Between the cup and lip” slips are frequent and, as events turned out, Mr. M...

|I cannot describe the sensations I felt, momentary as they were, while descending from the balustrade of London Bridge; but from the instant I struck the surface of the water,...

|I have ever been romantic. At twelve I wrote poetry--for by that name my grandmother was pleased to designate my melodies--and at sixteen was regularly in love. In two years mo...

|As we proceeded, I endeavoured to lead my companion into conversation, and glean from him some information touching the place and the personage we were about to honour with a m...

“I am too late to warn you against the attempt, but in good time to apprise you of the extent of the danger you have eseaped, and implore you, as you value life, to profit by it...

I never sate out a more melancholy dinner than that with Mr. Hartley and his daughter on the last evening of my sojourn in the metropolis. Mine honoured uncle was gloomy and abs...

|A letter I had received on my return to the head-quarters of the fourth division, after my _séjour_ with the Empecinado, had apprized me that events in which my future fortunes...

|Never was a Lord Mayor’s dinner put on a table with more ceremony, than that with which our supper was served up; and yet, the whole entertainment was embodied in one tureen. W...

|It was pitch dark, and the locality as much unknown as if I had been dropped into Kamschatka. What the devil was I to do? I threw my cloak off, rolled it round my left arm, and...

|Nearly a month had passed--a month of dreary captivity. It is true there was not a prisoner within the walls of San Sebastian who had less reason to complain, but still I felt...

|The residence and domain so opportunely bequeathed to Colonel O’Halloran, formed a striking contrast to his ancient home. Like the domicile of Justice Shallow, every thing abou...

|A quarter of an hour elapsed before the confusion my sudden entrance into the drawing-room of Bromley Park occasioned the inmates, had entirely subsided. I ran briefly over the...

|It was a cold frosty evening in December, seventeen hundred and ninety-five, and the whole of the month had been unusually tempestuous. Throughout wide Britain, there are no sh...

|To the buzz of voices round me I had been fully conscious for the last five minutes; but the first words I understood distinctly, was an earnest inquiry, on the part of Lieuten...

“I’ll ne’er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick; if I be drunk, I’ll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drun...

“_Charles_. Be not afraid of danger or of death; for over us presides a destiny, which cannot be controlled. We all hasten to the fatal day: die we must, whether upon a bed of d...

“Countersign!” responded the leader of the belated wayfarers; “devil a countersign have I but one. If my ould Colonel’s above the sod, he’s spakin to me now fair and asy from th...

|I never met a man who appeared to have made his mind up to die with more dignity and determination than Lieutenant Cammaran. He had already almost undergone the bitterness of d...

|Having brought two or three letters of introduction to some veteran soldiers who served with my father in the Low Countries, the delivery of each ensured me a hospitable welcom...

|I had scarcely landed when I received the unwelcome intelligence that General ----------, to whose staff I had been appointed, had been wounded on the retreat from Burgos, and...

|For a minute the father of Isidora and I preserved a dignified silence. The stern displeasure his countenance evinced was not encouraging, and I looked the silliest young gentl...

|With pleasant and profitable reminiscences of burglary and abduction, Shemus Rhua entertained the fosterer on the road, until the worthy twain accomplished their journey in per...

|Those who have been familiarized with warfare, know well, from personal experience, how callous it renders the heart to human suffering. To me these scenes were new--and to wit...

To judge from external appearances, King George the Third, of blessed memory, never laid out money to less advantage, than when he induced private Ulic Flyn of the gallant twent...

|The fosterer and I lost no time in making a hasty toilet--and in five minutes our outer men had assumed as ruffianly an appearance as that of any _contrabandista_ in Biscay. Th...

“_My father, the deacon, wrought him his first hose. Odd, I’m thinking deacon Threeplie, the rape-spinner, will twist him his last cravat. Ay, ay, puir Robin is in a fair way o’...

Although I departed from Kilcullen at cockcrow, Mark Antony O’Toole, having borrowed some hours from the night, had taken the road before me. Apprehensive of the desperate lengt...

|The exultation of the French garrison at the reported victories which had crowned the efforts of Soult for the relief of Pampeluna was but a short-lived triumph--for an attempt...

|A few minutes’ easy riding brought us to the spot where the roads diverged, and where it had been previously arranged that we should part company. We took leave of El Manco and...

|I could not pass the still bleeding corpse of the old commander without gazing for a moment on the body, and expressing my sympathy aloud. The Empecinado directed a careless lo...

|The absolute authority exercised by the Partida leaders over the Spanish population, was apparent in the readiness with which their orders were obeyed--and of this, the indepen...

|The scene has changed; and we must request the gentle reader to accompany us into a close dark alley, with no thoroughfare connecting it to the opener streets around, save two...

|Day broke through the stained windows of the church; and the cannonade, so fierce and incessant when I was being carried from the breach, died suddenly away and not a gun was h...

As I hail no ambition to make a Turkish exit, and cause a vacancy in the Twenty-first Fusileers, to use a bull, “even before it was filled,” I submitted with Christian fortitude...

|While Mark Antony and his companion are on the road, we must leave the man to take care of himself, and returning to the master, inquire whether in the interim any particular “...

As the chimes died away, my father took a pistol from the table, placed another in his breast, and beckoned the soldier whom he had previously selected to attend him.

|Fate seemed determined that on the world’s stage mine should be a hurried _entree_; and, when I had only caught a glimpse of passing life, that my bark should be launched at on...

_Falstaff_. “Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I inven...

As I rode from Mr. Hartley’s, I could scarcely persuade myself that the transactions of the last two days were aught but a coinage of the brain, and took the liberty of respectf...

|Many a summer has passed away since the spring of manhood saw me on the Agueda--and the sear of middle age finds me recalling the brief but brilliant reminiscences of that “cro...

|In one of those half-forgotten modes of transport, a sailing packet, denominated the Eclipse, I departed from the Pigeon House, and with a fair and steady breeze landed at Holy...