“Oh, Lord, yes! We can put you up, Mr. Mallow,” said the old man. “You shall have as good a bed as you can find outside the Viceregal Lodge—a fourposter, wide and long. It’s been slept in by many a man of place and power. But, Mr. Mallow, you haven’t said you’ve had no dinner, and you’ll not be going to bed in this house without your food. Did you shoot anything to-day, Dyck?” he asked his son.
“I didn’t bring home a feather. There were no birds to-day, but there are the ducks I shot yesterday, and the quail.”
“Oh, yes,” said his father, “and there’s the little roast pig, too. This is a day when we celebrate the anniversary of Irish power and life.”
“What’s that?” asked Mallow.
“That’s the battle of the Boyne,” answered his host with a little ostentation.
“Oh, you’re one of the Peep-o’-Day Boys, then,” remarked Mallow.
“I’m not saying that,” answered the old man. “I’m not an Ulsterman, but I celebrate the coming of William to the Boyne. Things were done that day that’ll be remembered when Ireland is whisked away into the Kingdom of Heaven. So you’ll not go to bed till you’ve had dinner, Mr. Mallow! By me soul, I think I smell the little porker now. Dinner at five, to bed at eight, up before daylight, and off to Dublin when the light breaks. That’s the course!” He turned to Captain Ivy. “I’m sorry, captain, but there’s naught else to do, and you were going to-morrow at noon, anyhow, so it won’t make much difference to you.”
“No difference whatever,” replied the sailorman. “I have to go to Dublin, too, and from there to Queenstown to join my ship, and from Queenstown to the coast of France to do some fighting.”
“Please God!” remarked Miles Calhoun. “So be it!” declared Mallow.
“Amen!” said Dyck.