Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/465

Rh stick with a sharp ring on the floor beside him, and the tears springing to his eyes, he stretched out his hand, and for a few moments he seemed to me the most eloquent speaker I had ever heard: “Ah, yer Honor, listen to me. If yer Honor only knew the races I have had after these rascally Pandies, in rain, and hunger, and mud, and how many noble comrades have fallen by this side,” (striking his thigh,) “and on this!” (repeating the action there.) Here his feelings seemed to overcome him. He paused, and then added, “Yer Honor, the spirit was up in me a little this mornin' and I thought I'd just come out and have a little bit of a fight on my own private account; but, yer Honor, I could not get a single one of the spalpeens to face me, and what was I to do, yer Honor?” His Honor's calm rejoinder was, “You were to let them alone.” But the poor fellow could not see it. A happy thought seemed then to strike him, and the spirit of fun was once more in full possession of him. Stretching out his stick toward Mr. Wood, he exclaimed, “Now, yer Honor, what's the use of talkin'; just do you say the word, and I'll lick out every mother sowl of them for you in five minutes!” By this time he was in an attitude, and looked the fighting Irishman all over.

Mr. Wood, I suppose, made about the best effort of his life to keep his countenance and seem serious; he could not afford to give way before his Court. How he ever did it I cannot imagine. Being under no such restriction, I shook with laughing till I nearly fell off the chair, and all the more, when I saw the effect of the attitude and the stick on the great fat Nawab on the other side of the table. With his hands on his knees, and evidently alarmed, he watched every movement of the soldier, and not knowing a word of English, he seemed to realize the fellow's antics boded no good to him personally, and looked as if he was ready to bolt. It was useless for Mr. Wood to rejoin, as he did, that he “did not want them licked out,” for the Irishman proceeded, quite in a confidential way, blandly to assure him, “Yer Honor, you wont have the least trouble; you will only just have to say the word, and I'll do the business for you!”