So I enlisted into the
regiment of the Faith, which was made up of Spaniards, many of them
priests who had run out of Spain, and broken Germans, and foot-
foundered Irish, like myself. It was said to be a blackguard
regiment, that same regiment of the Faith; but, 'faith, I saw
nothing blackguardly going on in it, for you would hardly reckon
card-playing and dominoes, and pitch and toss blackguardly, and I
saw nothing else in it. There was one thing in it which I
disliked--the priests drawing their Spanish knives occasionally,
when they lost their money. After we had been some time at Pau,
the army of the Faith was sent across the mountains into Spain, as
the vanguard of the French; and no sooner did the Spaniards see the
Faith than they made a dash at it, and the Faith ran away, myself
along with it, and got behind the French army, which told it to
keep there, and the Faith did so, and followed the French army,
which soon scattered the Spaniards, and in the end placed the king
on his throne again. When the war was over the Faith was
disbanded; some of the foreigners, however, amongst whom I was one,
were put into a Guard regiment, and there I continued for more than
a year.
"One day, being at a place called the Escurial, I took stock, as
the tradesmen say, and found I possessed the sum of eighty dollars
won by playing at cards, for though I could not play so well with
the foreign cards as with the pack you gave me, Shorsha, I had yet
contrived to win money from the priests and soldiers of the Faith.
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