“Wal, it do seem a little kewrious; but it’ll do right slick, and the Kearney part soun’s well. I’ve hern speak o’ Kate Kearney; thar’s a song ’bout the gurl. Mout ye be any connexshun o’ hern?”
“No, Mr Rock; not that I’m aware of. She was a Killarney woman. I was born a little further north on the green island.”
“Wal, no matter what part o’ it, yur are welkim to Texas, I reck’n, or the States eyther. Kearney—I like the name. It hev a good ring, an’ it’ll soun’ all the better wi’ ‘Capting’ for a handle to ’t—the which it shall hev afore ten o’clock this night, if Cris Rock ain’t astray in his reck’nin’. But see as ye kum early to the rendyvoo, so as to hev time for a talk wi’ the boys. Thar’s a somethin’ in that; an’ if ye’ve got a ten dollar bill to spare, spend it on drinks all round. Thar’s a good deal in that too.”
So saying, the Texan strode off, leaving Florence Kearney to reflect upon the counsel so opportunely extended.
Chapter Two.
A Lady in the Case.
Who Florence Kearney was, and what his motive for becoming a “filibuster,” the reader shall be told without much tediousness of detail.
Some six months before the encounter described, he had landed from a Liverpool cotton ship on the Levee of New Orleans. A gentleman by birth and a soldier-scholar by education, he had gone to the New World with the design to complete his boyhood’s training by a course of travel, and prepare himself for the enacting the métier of a man. That this travel should be westward, over fresh untrodden fields, instead of along the hackneyed highways of the European tourist, was partly due to the counsels of a tutor—who had himself visited the New World—and partly to his own natural inclinations.