What a revulsion the sound of that voice created! The cheery brogue, of a humorous Irishman established a feeling of brotherhood on the moment.
“Teddy O’Donnell, as certain as I’m alive,” exclaimed Napyank, as he assisted him on board.
The next moment a great, huge, strapping Irishman came floundering over the gunwale, like a prodigious porpoise that had just been hooked.
“The top of the morning to yees, barrin it isn’t morning but night,” said he. “I graats yees with plisure.”
“You are welcome, very welcome,” said McGowan. “We are glad of a friend at any time. But you are very wet. Would it not be best to change your clothes.”
“Yas,” drawled the Irishman, with irresistible comicality, “there’s only a slight objection to these same. This is the ownly suit I possesses, and therefore if I should attimpt to change it, me costhume would be rather too airy for the obsarvers.”
There was such a dry humor in all that the man uttered, that he soon had his listeners on a broad grin. The Irishman seemed totally unimpressed by the gloom and threatening stillness of the woods, and could joke even over his own descomfiture. The manner of his meeting with the hunter showed that both were friends, though none of the others recollected ever having seen him. Five minutes after his advent upon the deck, all were as well acquainted, as if they had known each other for a lifetime.
“I did not exactly mean that,” said McGowan, alluding to his last remark. “We are well provided with clothes, and if you will go below with Smith here, he will see that you are speedily adjusted in a comfortable rig.”
“Your obedient sarvant,” said Teddy, tipping his hat to young Smith, with all the gallantry of a cavalier, and descending with him into the cabin.
“He is what I call an original genius,” remarked McGowan to Napyank, when Teddy had departed.