“What my father is, a royal soldier.”
“Oh, ye are going then to the detachment at ---; by my shoul, I have a good mind to be spoiling your journey.”
“You are doing that already,” said I, “keeping me here talking about dogs and fairies; you had better go home and get some salve to cure that place over your eye; it’s catching cold you’ll be, in so much snow.”
On one side of the man’s forehead there was a raw and staring wound, as if from a recent and terrible blow.
“Faith, then I’ll be going, but it’s taking you wid me I will be.”
“And where will you take me?”
“Why, then, to Ryan’s Castle, little Sas.”
“You do not speak the language very correctly,” said I; “it is not Sas you should call me—’tis Sassanach,” and forthwith I accompanied the word with a speech full of flowers of Irish rhetoric.
The man looked upon me for a moment, fixedly, then, bending his head towards his breast, he appeared to be undergoing a kind of convulsion, which was accompanied by a sound something resembling laughter; presently he looked at me, and there was a broad grin on his features.
“By my shoul, it’s a thing of peace I’m thinking ye.”