“We were in search of a little inn they had told us of, called the 'Fisherman's Home.' I conclude we have reached it at last, and you are the host, I take it?”
Barrington bowed assent.
“And these gentlemen are visitors here?” But without waiting for any reply,—difficult at all times, for he spoke with great rapidity and continual change of topic,—he now stooped down to whisper something to the sick man. “My friend thinks he'll do capitally now, and, if we leave him, that he'll soon drop asleep; so I vote we give him the chance.” Thus saying, he made a gesture for the others to leave, following them up as they went, almost like one enforcing an order.
“If I am correct in my reading, you are a soldier, sir,” said Barrington, when they reached the outer room, “and this gentleman here is a brother officer,—Major M'Cor-mick.”
“Full pay, eh?”
“No, I am an old Walcheren man.”
“Walcheren—Walcheren—why, that sounds like Malplaquet or Blenheim! Where the deuce was Walcheren? Did n't believe that there was an old tumbril of that affair to the fore still. You were all licked there, or you died of the ague, or jaundice? Oh, dummy whist, as I live! Who's the unlucky dog has got the dummy?—bad as Walcheren, by Jove! Is n't that a supper I see laid out there? Don't I smell Stilton from that room?”
“If you 'll do us the honor to join us—”
“That I will, and astonish you with an appetite too! We breakfasted at a beastly hole called Graigue, and tasted nothing since, except a few peaches I stole out of an old fellow's garden on the riverside,—'Old Dan the miser,' a country fellow called him.”
“I have the honor to have afforded you the entertainment you speak of,” said M'Cormick, smarting with anger.