“Certainly, sir, he was. The French are but a mean-looking set of fellows, but how they can fight! And they have the best legs of any soldiers in Europe; and I am not so sure they have not the best heads. I fought ’em for twenty-five years--for I only quitted the service when I came with my Lord Fairfax to this new country--and I ought to know. My time of enlistment was up, the great duke was dead, and there had been peace for so long that I thought soldiers in Europe had forgot to fight; so when his lordship offered to bring me, I, who had neither wife nor child, nor father nor mother, nor brother nor sister, was glad to come with him. I had served in his lordship’s regiment, and he knew me because I had once--but never mind that, sir.”