“Except you, Denis,” said his master kindly, “and if I fall, all my effects are yours—and—” he paused an instant and then laughed recklessly, “and you can tell the widow.”
“She’s a foine lady, me lord,” said Denis artfully, “’tis a pity to throw away yer life now.”
“She’s a woman to die for, Denis,” exclaimed his lord, a sudden glow passing over his face; “but I shall not die—faith, I’ve fought too many duels to die in one.”
“There’s always loike to be wan too many, yer honor,” said Denis gravely, “and wan thrust of th’ sword and th’ house of Macarthy loses its head.”
The young man laughed recklessly.
“And a beggarly exile dies,” he said bitterly. “I fear you are not a man of courage, Denis; I think I’ve heard of you in the retreat from Boyne,” he added, with a laughing glance at the dark-faced, sturdy Irishman.
“Ah, sir, that was the fault of me shoes, an’ I blush for it,” Denis replied.
“Your shoes,” repeated his master, “and wherefore your shoes?”
“’Twas afther this fashion, me lord,” said Denis gravely; “there was a scamp of a shoemaker in Dublin that was accused, an’ rightly as I b’lave, of being allied with the Powers of Darkness, and he was afther making me shoes. About that time money was scarce, sir, as ye know, in spite of King James’s brass pieces, and it was glad I was to get the shoes at all, without bein’ over an’ above particular about the maker. So whin Danny O’Toole says to me that he’ll make me a blooming pair of boots an’ thrust me fer the money, niver a thought had I av the divilish plot he was afther laying aginst me honor. ‘Make ’em aisy,’ says I, ‘for me feet are sore with the chasing of the English an’ the Dutch.’ ‘Don’t ye worry,’ says he with a wink, ‘I’ll make ’em so aisy they’ll walk off without ye,’—and faith, so he did! They were the beautifullest shoes, me lord, and they fitted me loike the skin on a potaty, and as fer walking in ’em, they niver touched the ground unless they stuck fast in a bog, and that wasn’t often. I niver had such a pair of shoes, nor such comfort, and all wint along as smooth as lying—until that cursed day of the battle of Boyne.”
“A day when a good many Irishmen had no shoes, Denis,” remarked his master, “or lost them in running—to our eternal shame!”