"It maun be something the lads and all the rest o' us ken weel, Squire. What think ye o' Cricket and Golf?" asked Mr. Errol.
"I am afraid that Ben Toner might not know these words," put in the dominie.
"What?" cried Mr. Perrowne, "do you really mean to say that this—ah—Towner needs to be towld what cricket is?"
"I fear so," Wilkinson answered; with the effect that no heathen could have fallen lower in the parson's estimation than did Ben.
"I say good, ship-shape words are Starbud and Port," growled the Captain.
"In Sout Ameriky it was Constituthion and Libertad," suggested Mr. Terry.
"Pork and Beans 'll no' do; nor Burdock and Blood Bitters; nor Powder and Shot," said the Squire, ruminating; "for the one ca's up the tither ower nayteral like. What say ye, Maister Wilkinson?"
Wilkinson was taken aback by the suddenness of the question, and blurted out what had been only too much in his thoughts; "Idiot and Boy."
"Capital!" "Well said!" "The very thing!" "Jest suits Sylvanus!" the various voices responded; and the Squire went out to the sentries to make the desired change. The lawyer chuckled when he received the new words, and all the other sentinels repeated to themselves the poetic terms "Eejut and Boy."
It was just on the stroke of midnight, time to relieve the guards, when the distant sound of pistol shots in rapid succession fell simultaneously on the ears of Coristine, Ben and Sylvanus. The lawyer, stepping hastily to the house, called out the armed inmates, and in another minute or so Nash came galloping up. "Stay where you are, Squire, with your sentries; and, you other men, look to your loading and come on with me. I've been fired at by a waggon load of them." The five unposted men hastened out into the road and away after the detective to the left. After going a short distance, the adjutant called a halt, and told the veteran to advance in military order. "Now, min," said Mr. Terry quietly, "extind about tin paces from aich another to the lift, an' Oi'll be the lifthand man. Thin kape wan eye on me an' the other before yeez, and advance whin Oi advance undher cover av the stumps and finces and things. Riddy now—extind!" The movement was well executed, and, as the veteran was eager for the fray, he led them more rapidly than it could be thought the old man had the power to run, until they reached the spot where the waggon had halted. It was gone, without a sign; so the gallant skirmishers re-formed in the road and marched back to quarters. When they arrived at the gate, Coristine could not resist the temptation of a challenge, unnecessary as it was. The dominie was leading, and him he hailed: "Who goes there?" With momentary hesitation, Wilkinson answered in the same undertone:—