From this dreamy lethargy I was at last suddenly aroused by the hearty bursts of laughter that broke from the party, and a loud clapping of hands that denoted their applause of something or somebody then before them.
“I say, George,” said one of the soldiers, “he's a queer 'un, too, that piper.”
“Yes, he 's a droll chap,” responded the other solemnly, as he rolled forth a long curl of smoke from the angle of his mouth.
“Can you play 'Rule Britannia,' then?” asked another of the men.
“No, sir,” said a voice I at once knew to be no other than my friend Darby's,—“no, sir. But av the 'Fox's Lament,' or 'Mary's Dream;' wasn't uncongenial to your sentiments, it would be a felicity to me to expatiate upon the same before yez.”
“Eh, Bell,” cried a rough voice, “does that beat you now?”
“No,” said another, “not a bit. He means he 'll give us something Irish instead; he don't know 'Rule Britannia! '”
“Not know 'Rule Britannia!' Why, where the devil were you ever bred or born, man,—eh?”
“Kerry, sir, the kingdom of Kerry, was the nativity of my father; my maternal progenitrix emanated from Clare. Maybe you 've heard the adage,—
“'From Keiry his father, from Clare came his mother;
He 's more rogue nor fool on one side and the other.'