Then I was shut up in Limerick; and I was not idle there, as
you may guess. When at last the surrender came, I managed to slip
away, having no fancy for going over with the regiments that were
to enter the service of France. I thought I could have gone back to
Dublin, and that no one would trouble about me; but someone put
them up to it, and I had to go without stopping to ask leave. I
landed at Bristol, and there, for a time, was nearly starving.
"I was well nigh my wits' end as to what to do for a living, and
had just spent my last shilling, when I met an English captain, who
told me that across at Gottenburg there were a good many Irish and
Scotchmen who had, like myself, been in trouble at home. He gave me
a passage across, and took me to the house of a man he knew. Of
course, it was no use my trying to doctor people, when they could
not tell me what was the matter with them, and I worked at one
thing and another, doing anything I could turn my hands to, for
four or five months. That is how I got to pick up Swedish. Then
some people told me that Russia was a place where a doctor might
get on, for that they had got no doctors for their army who knew
anything of surgery, and the czar was always ready to take on
foreigners who could teach them anything.
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