"I rather think, your honour," said Joyce, smiling, "we'll put O'Hearn's name in its old place on the roster, and make no mark against him at pay-day."
"I think it will turn out so, Joyce. We must have patience, too, and let Mike tell his story in his own way."
"Is it tell a story, will I? Ah!--Nick's the cr'ature for that same! See, he has given me foor bits of sticks, every one of which is to tell a story, in its own way. This is the first; and it manes let the captain into the sacret of your retrait; and how you got out of the windie, and how you comes near to breaking yer neck by a fall becaase of the fut's slipping; and how ye wint down the roof by a rope, the divil a bit fastening it to yer neck, but houlding it in yer hand with sich a grip as if 'twere the fait' of the church itself; and how Nick led ye to the hole out of which ye hot' wint, as if ye had been two cats going t'rough a door!"
Mike stopped to grin and look wise, as he recounted the manner of the escape, the outlines of which, however, were sufficiently well known to his auditors before he, began.
"Throw away that stick, now, and let us know where this hole is, and what you mean by it."
"No"--answered Mike, looking at the stick, in a doubting manner--"I'll not t'row it away, wid yer honour's l'ave, 'till I've told ye how we got into the brook, forenent the forest, and waded up to the woods, where we was all the same as if we had been two bits of clover tops hid in a haymow. That Nick is a cr'ature at consailment!"
"Go on," said the captain, patiently, knowing that there was no use in hurrying one of Mike's peculiar mode of communicating his thoughts. "What came next?"
"That will I; and the r'ason comes next, as is seen by this oder stick. And, so, Nick and meself was in the chaplain's room all alone, and n'ither of us had any mind to dhrink; Nick becaase he was a prisoner and felt crass, and full of dignity like; and meself becaase I was a sentinel; and sarjeant Joyce, there, had tould me, the Lord knows how often, that if I did my duty well, I might come to be a corporal, which was next in rank to himself; barring, too, that I was a sentinel, and a drunken sentinel is a disgrace to a man, sowl and body, and musket."
"And so neither of you drank?"--put in the captain, by way of a reminder.
"For that same r'ason, and one betther still, as we had nothin' to dhrink. Well, says Nick--'Mike,' says he--'you like cap'in, and Missus, and Miss Beuly, and Miss Maud, and the babby?' Divil burn ye, Nick,' says I, 'why do ye ask so foolish a question? Is it likes ye would know? Well--then just ask yerself if you likes yer own kith and kin, and ye've got yer answer.'"