Excerpt from Thady Halloran of the Irish Brigade After his father's death from a fever caught in the Low Countries, Thady had been taken from the charge of the kindly, careless troopers and set to study. The design was to enrol him in the ranks of the priesthood, that his office might enforce his powers but, though Thady took eagerly, if erratically, to his books, the old fighting blood and the principles imbibed by many a camp fire and barrack-room table over ruled the wishes of his guardians, and he cried for the sword. Child though he was, he might have ended in open disobedience but for the timely appearance of a distant relative styling himself, for want of a more accurate igna tion of their relationship, his uncle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.