“Let me see it, Willie,” said Miles, who was also one of the disconsolate non-receivers, disconsolate because he had fully expected a reply to the penitent letter which he had written to his mother.
“First-rate, that’s Emmy to a tee. A splendid likeness!” exclaimed Miles, holding the photograph to the light.
“Arrah! then, it’s dead he must be!”
The extreme perplexity displayed in Flynn’s face as he said this and scratched his head produced a hearty laugh.
“It’s no laughin’ matter, boys,” cried the corporal, looking up with an expression so solemn that his comrades almost believed it to be genuine. “There’s my owld uncle Macgrath gone to his long home, an’ he was the support o’ me grandmother. Och! what’ll she do now wid him gone an’ me away at the wars?”
“Won’t some other relation look after her, Flynn?” suggested Moses.
“Other relation!” exclaimed the corporal; “I’ve got no other relations, an’ them that I have are as poor as rats. No, uncle Macgrath was the only wan wid a kind heart an’ a big purse. You see, boys, he was rich—for an Irishman. He had a grand farm, an’ a beautiful bit o’ bog. Och! it’ll go hard wid—”
“Read on, Flynn, and hold your tongue,” cried one of his comrades; “p–r–aps he’s left the old woman a legacy.”
The corporal did read on, and during the perusal of the letter the change in his visage was marvellous, exhibiting as it did an almost magical transition from profound woe, through abrupt gradations of surprise, to intense joy.
“Hooray!” he shouted, leaping up and bestowing a vigorous slap on his thigh. “He’s gone an’ left the whole farm an’ the beautiful bog to me!”