“That's what I'm always saying,” said Lanty. “I'd rather have the chaytin' than the bayting of John Bull, any day! You'll humbug him out of his shirt, and faix it's the easiest way to get it after all.”
“It's a mane way, Lanty,” interposed Mary, with a look of pride; “it's a dirty, mane way, and doesn't become an Irishman?”
“Wait till the time comes, Mary M'Kelly,” said Lanty, half angrily, “and maybe I'd be as ready as another.”
“I wish it was come,” said Mary, sighing; “I wish to the Virgin it was; I'm tired heerin' of the preparations. Sorra one of me knows what more they want, if the stout heart was there. There's eight barrels of gunpowder in that rock there,” said she, in a low whisper, “behind yer back—you needn't stir, Lanty. Begorra, if a spark was in it, 'twould blow you and me, and the house that's over us, as high as Hungry mountain.”
“The angels be near us!” said Lanty, making the sign of the cross.
“Ay,” resumed Mary, “and muskets for a thousand min, and pikes for two more. There's saddles and bridles, eighteen hogsheads full.”
“True enough,” chimed in Lanty; “and I have an order for five hundred cavalry horses—the money to be paid out of the Bank of France. Musha, I wish it was some place nearer home.”
“Is it doubting them ye are, Lanty Lawler?”
“No, not a bit; but it's always time enough to get the beasts, when we see the riders. I could mount two thousand men in a fortnight, any day, if there was money to the fore; ay, and mount them well, too: not the kind of devils I give the government, that won't stand three days of hard work. Musha, Mary, but it's getting very late; that mutton will be as dry as a stick.”
“The French likes it best that way,” said Mary, with a droll glance, as though to intimate she guessed the speaker's object. “Take a look down the road, Lanty, and try if you can hear any one coming.”