"'Tis only the ill-mannered owl that makes game of me—if—"
"Sh! Come on. Bend low. Do as I do—if you can see me. If not, keep touch on my arm."
"As the wolf said to the lamb when he bid him take a walk in the wather."
They had now emerged on the reedy margin of the dark pool discovered by Dick and Jones later. All was silent. The sky was full of stars—so full that, even in the absence of the moon, there was a transparent clarity in the air that enabled Jack to take definite bearings.
"This must be an outlet of the York River, the stream we saw this afternoon. If it be, then we are not far from our own outposts. The troopers we heard just now may be Union soldiers. We must wait patiently to let them discover themselves. Keep abreast of me, and don't, as you value your life, speak above a whisper—better not to speak at all."
"That's what the priest said to Randy Maloney's third wife when she complained that he bate her."
"Barney, I'll throttle you if you don't keep that mill you call your tongue still."
"Ah, I'll hold it in me fist, as Mag Gleason held her jaw, for fear her tooth would lep out to get more room to ache."
Jack laughed. "If we're caught it will be through your jokes, for bad as they are I must laugh at some of them."
"Dear, oh dear no; you may save the laugh till a convenient time, as Hugh McGowen kept his penances, until his head was clear, and there was no whisky in the jar."