“The countersign,” said the sentry, whose figure they could perceive in the dim distance of about thirty yards.
“Sure ye’ll let us pass, my good lad, and ye’ll have a friend in Father Luke the longest day ye live, and ye might have a worse in time of need; ye understand.”
Whether he did understand or not, he certainly did not heed, for his only reply was the short click of his gun-lock, that bespeaks a preparation to fire.
“There’s no help now,” said Father Luke; “I see he’s a haythen; and bad luck to the major, I say again;” and this in the fulness of his heart he uttered aloud.
“That’s not the countersign,” said the inexorable sentry, striking the butt end of the musket on the ground with a crash that smote terror into the hearts of the priests.
Mumble—mumble—“to the Pope,” said Father Luke, pronouncing the last words distinctly, after the approved practice of a Dublin watchman, on being awoke from his dreams of row and riot by the last toll of the Post-office, and not knowing whether it has struck “twelve” or “three,” sings out the word “o’clock,” in a long sonorous drawl, that wakes every sleeping citizen, and yet tells nothing how “time speeds on his flight.”
“Louder,” said the sentry, in a voice of impatience.
——“to the Pope.”
“I don’t hear the first part.”
“Oh then,” said the priest, with a sigh that might have melted the heart of anything but a sentry, “Bloody end to the Pope; and may the saints in heaven forgive me for saying it.”