“What can she mean, Archibald?” asked Lawton. “The animal looks as if it meant more than it says!”
“’Tis probably a wandering of the reasoning powers, created by the frequency of intoxicating drafts,” observed the surgeon, as he deliberately threw his left leg over the pommel of the saddle, and slid down on the right side of his horse.
“Faith, my dear jewel of a doctor, but it was this side I was expicting you; the whole corps come down on this side but yeerself,” said Betty, winking at the trooper; “but I’ve been feeding the wounded, in yeer absence, with the fat of the land.”
“Barbarous stupidity!” cried the panic-stricken physician, “to feed men laboring under the excitement of fever with powerful nutriment. Woman, woman, you are enough to defeat the skill of Hippocrates!”
“Pooh!” said Betty, with infinite composure, “what a botheration ye make about a little whisky; there was but a gallon betwixt a good dozen of them, and I gave it to the boys to make them sleep asy; sure, jist as slumbering drops.”
Lawton and his companion now entered the building, and the first objects which met their eyes explained the hidden meaning of Betty’s comfortable declaration. A long table, made of boards torn from the side of an outbuilding, was stretched through the middle of the largest apartment, or the barroom, and on it was a very scanty display of crockery ware. The steams of cookery arose from an adjoining kitchen, but the principal attraction was in a demijohn of fair proportions, which had been ostentatiously placed on high by Betty as the object most worthy of notice. Lawton soon learned that it was teeming with the real amber-colored juice of the grape, and had been sent from the Locusts, as an offering to Major Dunwoodie, from his friend Captain Wharton of the royal army.
“And a royal gift it is,” said the grinning subaltern, who made the explanation. “The major gives us an entertainment in honor of our victory, and you see the principal expense is borne as it should be, by the enemy. Zounds! I am thinking that after we have primed with such stuff, we could charge through Sir Henry’s headquarters, and carry off the knight himself.”
The captain of dragoons was in no manner displeased at the prospect of terminating so pleasantly a day that had been so agreeably commenced. He was soon surrounded by his comrades, who made many eager inquiries concerning his adventures, while the surgeon proceeded, with certain quakings of the heart, to examine into the state of his wounded. Enormous fires were snapping in the chimneys of the house, superseding the necessity of candles, by the bright light which was thrown from the blazing piles. The group within were all young men and tried soldiers; in number they were rather more than a dozen, and their manners and conversation were a strange mixture of the bluntness of the partisan with the manners of gentlemen. Their dresses were neat, though plain; and a never-failing topic amongst them was the performance and quality of their horses. Some were endeavoring to sleep on the benches which lined the walls, some were walking the apartments, and others were seated in earnest discussion on subjects connected with the business of their lives. Occasionally, as the door of the kitchen opened, the hissing sounds of the frying pans and the inviting savor of the food created a stagnation in all other employments; even the sleepers, at such moments, would open their eyes, and raise their heads, to reconnoiter the state of the preparations. All this time Dunwoodie sat by himself, gazing at the fire, and lost in reflections which none of his officers presumed to disturb. He had made earnest inquiries of Sitgreaves after the condition of Singleton, during which a profound and respectful silence was maintained in the room; but as soon as he had ended, and resumed his seat, the usual ease and freedom prevailed.
The arrangement of the table was a matter of but little concern to Mrs. Flanagan; and Caesar would have been sadly scandalized at witnessing the informality with which various dishes, each bearing a wonderful resemblance to the others, were placed before so many gentlemen of consideration. In taking their places at the board, the strictest attention was paid to precedency; for, notwithstanding the freedom of manners which prevailed in the corps, the points of military etiquette were at all times observed, with something approaching to religious veneration. Most of the guests had been fasting too long to be in any degree fastidious in their appetites; but the case was different with Captain Lawton; he felt an unaccountable loathing at the exhibition of Betty’s food, and could not refrain from making a few passing comments on the condition of the knives, and the clouded aspect of the plates. The good nature and the personal affection of Betty for the offender, restrained her, for some time, from answering his innuendoes, until Lawton, having ventured to admit a piece of the black meat into his mouth, inquired, with the affectation of a spoiled child,—
“What kind of animal might this have been when living, Mrs. Flanagan?”