She rose, went to the little basin, and dipping her hands in the cooling water, bathed her burning temples, and washed away the traces of her tears. Marc Antony in silence lifted the bundle, and the youthful travellers once more gained the high road, when two persons, wayfaring like themselves, approached them.
CHAPTER XII. A GENERAL DISCOVERY.
“I was ta’en for him, and he for me,
And thereupon these errors are arose.”
Shakspere.
While Mark Antony and his companion are on the road, we must leave the man to take care of himself, and returning to the master, inquire whether in the interim any particular “ups and downs” had occurred in the fortunes of myself, Mr. Hector O’Halloran. I was left in bed—and where could a safer place be found wherein to deposit a light-headed young gentleman? But every body knows that general rules are not without exceptions—and, the circumstances considered, by which I had obtained possession of the quaker’s dormitory, I feel assured that the gentle reader will wish me a safe deliverance from the same.
I will not enter into minute details of how the false positions of myself and Samuel Pryme were finally detected; but in the parlance of Tony Lumpkin’s respectable friend, who never danced a bear to unfashionable music, will sum them up in “a concatenation accordingly,” namely, the sleepy soliloquy of the chief butler of the worthy quaker.
Jack Costigan was one of those gifted individuals who sleep at pleasure. He had a light conscience and a heavy head; and it there was one mortal annoyance that he abominated above the rest, it was to have any portion of “nature’s sweet restorative” abridged. Twice had his slumbers been invaded. He had let in one master dead drunk, and admitted the other, who had been belated. These were grievous visitations; but, like other misfortunes, they were over; and determined to make up, if possible, for broken sleep, Mr. Costigan once more sought his pillow, and for a season had been buried in “dreamless slumberings.” Alas! this Elysian state of sweet forgetfulness was presently dispelled. In successive vollies, sand struck the casement sharply; and “every pause between,” a sotto voice appeal fell sluggishly upon the sleeper’s ear, requiring admission to the garrison.