“Stand! who goes there?” was demanded from the loop-hole.
“A friend,” replied a voice, redolent of the richness of the Shannon.
“Advance, friend, and give the countersign,” returned my father, whose phraseology, from military habitude, still retained the parlance of the camp.
“Countersign!” responded the leader of the belated wayfarers; “devil a countersign have I but one. If my ould Colonel’s above the sod, he’s spakin to me now fair and asy from the windy.”
“Who are you?” demanded my father.
“Oh! by Jakers, you’ll hardly mind me, Colonel;—Private Phil Brady of ‘number eight’ when you had the regiment; but now, glory be to God and good conduct, lance-sergeant in ‘number five.’”
“What is your party, Brady?”
“Upon my conscience, Colonel, a quare one, enough; tin invalids, a dyin woman, ami a fine man-child.”
“Unclose the door, Father Dominie!”
The priest lifted a heavy key from the side-board, and proceeded to give admission to the travellers, when Hackett, who had been hitherto an anxious listener, ventured a remonstrance. “Why not,” said he, “give them meat and whisky before the door? Every room was already crowded with idle people, whom nobody would have harmed, had they remained where they ought,—at home. If the house was to be turned into an hospital for sick trampers and their trulls, why every servant would quit a place liker a jail than a gentleman’s.”