In this there is almost a suggestion that, like Captain Cuttle, he was taken at a disadvantage, but one can scarcely credit it. It seems impossible that he would not have extricated himself with the inspired dexterity of a Sherlock Holmes, or the happy resource of a Stanley Weyman hero, from whatever dilemma.
“As I was sayin’,” he resumed, “Did ever ye hear tell o’ the battle o’ Scarva?”
Of course I had heard of it. Who has not heard of the Oberammergau of the North? There, in a gentleman’s prettily wooded park, on a large open meadow sloping down to a clear running brook, is yearly enacted a veritable Passion Play of the Battle of the Boyne.
“I suppose you have often seen it, Thomas.”
“I have that; many and many’s a time. But there was wan battle that bate all—do ye know what I’m goin’ te tell ye? I would give a hundred pounds te see thon agin—so I wud. Boys, oh! it was gran’. There was me own aunt’s nephew was King William, and him on the top of the beautifullest white horse ever ye seen, with the mane o’ him tied with wee loops o’ braid, or’nge and bleue. Himself had an or’nge scarfe on him and bleue feathers te his hat, just like one o’ them for’n Princes, and his Field-marshal and Ginerals just the same, only not so gran’. And King James, they had a fine young horse for him that Dan Cooke bought off the Reverend Captain Jack in Moy Fair. But he set his ears back, and let a squeal out o’ him, and got on with quare maneuvers whenever Andy Wilson came near him, and Andy—that was King James—he says:
“‘I am no used with horse exercise, and I misdoubt thon baste.’
“‘But,’ says Dan Cooke, ‘up with ye sonny, and no more about it.’
“Well, with that Andy turned about, and, says he, ‘I’ll ride no blooded horse out of Moy. I’d sooner travel. I’ll ride none, without I have me own mare that drawed me and hersel’ and the childer out of Poyntzpass—so I won’t.’