“Ah, sure, it would make no matter what I’d say to her. It would be all the same, faith. She’d up with the broom and drive me away from the door for a vagabond.”
“But——” said Ben, and again he was interrupted.
“Wherever you do be going,” said Paddy Burk, “let me go with you; and when we come to a place where there’s a bit of comfort to be had, sure, then, you can speak for me yourself.”
Seeing that the lad was fixed in his belief that no one would receive him if his plea were unsupported, Ben’s mind was instantly made up.
“Come, then,” said he, arising, “and make yourself ready for a little adventure.”
“Ah,” said Paddy Burk, and he passed his hand lovingly over the length of his stout club, “that would be another name for a ‘ruction,’ I’m thinking. Well, by this and by that, when there’s such to the fore, no one ever saw Paddy Burk stand back and look on.”
Ben laughed.
“Perhaps, Paddy,” said he, “you’ll get your fill of ‘ructions,’ as you call them; for there is something ahead which promises well in that direction.”
In a few moments they had put out the fire and were trudging away under the trees, the wind whirling the snow about their faces and into their eyes. Ben kept his bearings and never allowed himself to get far from the road; indeed, he skirted it very closely, his companion trudging along at his side.
Suddenly the latter said: