It was at first
intended that he should be Scottish, and I was then filled
with fears that he might prove only the degraded shadow of my
own Alan Breck. Presently, however, it began to occur to me
it would be like my Master to curry favour with the Prince's
Irishmen; and that an Irish refugee would have a particular
reason to find himself in India with his countryman, the
unfortunate Lally. Irish, therefore, I decided he should be,
and then, all of a sudden, I was aware of a tall shadow
across my path, the shadow of Barry Lyndon. No man (in Lord
Foppington's phrase) of a nice morality could go very deep
with my Master: in the original idea of this story conceived
in Scotland, this companion had been besides intended to be
worse than the bad elder son with whom (as it was then meant)
he was to visit Scotland; if I took an Irishman, and a very
bad Irishman, in the midst of the eighteenth century, how was
I to evade Barry Lyndon? The wretch besieged me, offering
his services; he gave me excellent references; he proved that
he was highly fitted for the work I had to do; he, or my own
evil heart, suggested it was easy to disguise his ancient
livery wit a little lace and a few frogs and buttons, so that
Thackeray himself should hardly recognise him. And then of a
sudden there came to me memories of a young Irishman, with
whom I was once intimate, and had spent long nights walking
and talking with, upon a very desolate coast in a bleak
autumn: I recalled him as a youth of an extraordinary moral
simplicity - almost vacancy; plastic to any influence, the
creature of his admirations: and putting such a youth in
fancy into the career of a soldier of fortune, it occurred to
me that he would serve my turn as well as Mr.
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