JAMBOREE
"Let's get along," said Jack uncomfortably, in Tom's ear.
"Get! Not for mine! We're in luck's way, if ever we were."
"There's no fun under the circumstances."
"Oh, Lord my, ain't there! What's wrong? They're all packing into the buggy. Father Prendy's putting his watch back a few more minutes. He'll have 'em married before you can betcher life. It's a wedding, this is, boy!"
The people now came crowding, nudging, whispering, giggling, stumbling out of the church. The gentleman in the carpet slippers rakishly adjusted his grey bell-topper over his left brow, and came swaggering forward.
"Major Brownlee—Mr. Jack Grant," Tom introduced them.
"Retired and happy in the country," the Major explained, and he continued garrulously to explain his circumstances, his history and his family history. This continued all the way to the inn: a good half-hour, for the Major walked insecurely on his tender feet.
When they arrived at Paddy's white, trellised house, all was in festivity. Paddy had thrown open the doors, disclosing the banquet spread in the bar parlour. Large joints of baked meat, ham, tongue, fowls, cakes and bottles and bunches of grapes and piles of apples: these Jack saw in splendid confusion.
"Come along in, come along in!" cried Paddy, as the Major and his young companions hesitated under the vine-trellis. "I guess ye're the last. Come along in—all welcome!—an' wet the baby's eye. Sure, she's a clever girl to get a baby an' a man the same fine afternoon. A fine child, let me tell you. Father Prendy named him for me, Paddy O'Burk Tracy, on the spot, the minute the wedding was tied up. So yer can please yerselves whether it's a christening ye're coming to, or a wedding. I offer ye the choice. Come in."