Chapter 23 - Page 2

there would be thinking of travelling. Maybe
'twas as far as from my plate here to yon door; maybe not quite so far.
They 're a dhirty set, and I wish to go no nearer."

"What dey look like, in 'e dark?" inquired Little Smash--"Awful as by
daylight?"

"It's not meself that stopped to admire 'em. Nick and I had our
business forenent us, and when a man is hurried, it isn't r'asonable to
suppose he can kape turning his head about to see sights."

"What dey do wid Misser Woods?--What sabbage want wid dominie?"

"Sure enough, little one; and the question is of yer own asking. A
praist, even though he should be only a heretic, can have no great call
for his sarvices, in _sich_ a congregation. And, I don't think the
fellows are blackguards enough to scalp a parson."

Then followed a flood of incoherent questions that were put by all the
blacks in a body, accompanied by divers looks ominous of the most
serious disasters, blended with bursts of laughter that broke out of
their risible natures in a way to render the medley of sensations as
ludicrous as it was strange. Mike soon found answering a task too
difficult to be attempted, and he philosophically came to a
determination to confine his efforts to masticating.

Notwithstanding the terror that actually prevailed among the blacks, it
was not altogether unmixed with a resolution to die with arms in their
hands, in preference to yielding to savage clemency. Hatred, in a
measure, supplied the place of courage, though both sexes had
insensibly imbibed some of that resolution which is the result of
habit, and of which a border life is certain to instil more or less
into its subjects, in a form suited to border emergencies. Nor was this
feeling confined to the men; the two Smashes, in particular, being
women capable of achieving acts that would be thought heroic under
circumstances likely to arouse their feelings.

"Now, Smashes," said Mike, when, by his own calculation, he had about
three minutes to the termination of his breakfast before him, "ye'll do
what I tells ye, and no questions asked. Ye'll find the laddies,
Missus, and Miss Beuly, and Miss Maud, and ye'll give my humble
respects to 'em all--divil the bit, now, will ye be overlooking either
of the t'ree, but ye'll do yer errand genteely and like a laddy
yerself--and ye'll give my jewty and respects to 'em _all_, I
tells ye, and say that Michael O'Hearn asks the honour of being allowed
to wish 'em good morning."

Little Smash screamed at this message; yet she went, forthwith, and
delivered it, making reasonably free with Michael's manner and
gallantry in so doing.

"O'Hearn has something