“Hallo!—who have we here? Talking of love, they seem to be a couple of Cupid’s own. Egad, a nice girl,—and if I could but list her companion! Lord, what shoulders he has for a pair of wings!”
In another minute the travellers were alongside the fosterer and his friend. A civil greeting passed; and with that easy confidence with which natives of the Emerald Isle hold communication with each other, it was speedily ascertained that the route of the united party was the same, until it reached a road-side inn, where the strangers announced it to be their intention of halting for the night.
The dress and personal appearance of the wayfarers was remarkable: one wore the uniform of a militia-man; another the dark clothing of a student; but from the costume of the third, it was impossible to form any opinion of what his calling might be.
He was a tall and stout-made personage, apparently of middle age, with sandy hair and whiskers, partially intersprinkled with grey. His countenance was particularly good-humoured—and in his light blue eyes there was an expression of drollery and acuteness. He wore a hare-skin cap, a dark-coloured shooting-jacket, short tights, and leather gaiters. He was provided with a goat-skin knapsack—two wiry terriors followed closely at his heels, and a dhudeene and oak-stick completed his appointments. The style also by which his comrades addressed him added to the mystery of his profession: the soldier addressing him as “ta Copteeine,” * and the student merely calling him Shemus Rhua. **
* The Captain.
** Red James.
If in the captain’s sobriquets and outer man there was anything embarrassing, there was nothing about the soldier-like concealment. The chevrons on his arm told his rank, and the pack upon his shoulder his regiment. After announcing that he was on the route to embark with a draught of volunteers for the Peninsula, he thus noticed his companions.
“This,” he said, pointing to the student, “is the making of a priest; but if I can persuade him, he’ll not give them any trouble in Maynooth. What a sin it would be to spoil a fellow cut out for a flanker; and on a shoulder intended to carry a grenade, to hang a surplice. Leave your breviary to your old uncle, and take brown bess in place of it. Spain’s the place, Tom. Egad, how the old priest will stare when he finds out that I have whisked away his nephew.”
“Faith,” replied the student, “the only wonder is you did not whisk away his niece.”
“No, no—Ellen and I must leave matters as they are until we return. Then, I’ll marry your pretty cousin, Tom, and we’ll share Father Dominick’s purse honestly between us. What say ye, captain?”
“Why that you must put the old man under the turf first. He would not part with a dollar to make a colonel of ye.”