“I’m both,” Hugh told him. “Where’s your warrant?”
“Me warrent is it? It’s no warrent uv moin, my boy, ‘sor’ I’m after mainin’. It’s a dirthy scrap uv paiper, an’ that’s what it is, fut to spat at the Imperur uv the Hoons—cursed bey the doiy they giv’ it myself.”
“Where are we going?” Hugh asked.
“To Hell wid going! you’re stayin’.”
“That’ll mean shooting, if not hanging, for both of us, Kinsella.”
“Mother of God! is it axin’ me to bey toiking ye that ye are? Me, that ye carried on yer back and fed from yer cup fer all this woirld’s uf Oi’d been yer baby an’ you the own mither uv me! We’ve starved and we’ve shivered togither. We’ve stuck in the mud to our necks, glued there loike flies in th’ amber, we’ve shared our rum tot and our billy, we’ve gone over the top shoulder to shoulder—we’ve stood so close Oi’ve heard your heart bate, and you’ve heard moine, whin we’ve been waitin’ for the wurd to come to dash into the curtain uv fire uv the barrage, and togither we’ve watched the flammin’ ruins uv Europe—and our pals dropping and writhing under the very feet uv us as if they’d been lice and Wilheim their Moses—Me arrest you! Oi’d sooner bey stealin’ the shillin’s off the eyelids uv a dead baby!” His own Irish eyes were brimful, and there was almost a sob in the lilt of the brogue on the tip of his tongue.
Hugh Pryde marched up to him with a laugh and pushed him down into a chair, then he swung himself onto a table and leaned over Kinsella, one hand gripped on his arm.
“Listen to reason,” he said. “We are soldiers——”
“Begorra thin Oi’m a man though, an’ whin Oi can’t bey the both, it’s man Oi’m choosin’ to bey, an’ not spalpeen.”
“We are soldiers,” Hugh said sternly; “you are here to arrest me, and you are going to do it.”