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But, do what I would, to me the delay was dreadful, and every day, in the fever of my anxiety to get away as soon as the ice permitted, I climbed the slopes of old Erebus with O'Sullivan, to look through powerful glasses for what the good chap called the "open wather."
"I should wather think Aunt Jane isn't to know," replied Diana, beginning to skip in her rapture. "I don't like aunts; I always said so. I like uncles; they isn't half bad. You isn't bad, for an old man. You is awfu' old, isn't you?" "Not so very old, Diana. I'm not forty yet." "Forty! What a ter'ble age!" said Diana.
The thought occurred to all three almost at the same instant of time; though Terence was the first to give speech to it. "By Saint Patrick!" he exclaimed, "let's take to the wather! Them breakers 'll give us a good hiding-place. I've hid before now in that same way, when taking a moonlight bath on the coast of owld Galway. I did it to scare my schoolfellows, by making believe I was drowned.
'But, sure, if it always freezes up tight agin every evenin', that little taste of meltin' won't do much good, observed Andy. 'Throth, I'm fairly longin' to see that lake turn into wather, instead ov bein' as hard as iron. Sure the fish must all be smothered long ago, the crathurs, in prison down there. 'Well, Andy, I hope they'll be liberated next month.
Then turning round to the old woman, and perceiving that her lips looked dry and parched, she ran to the pitcher, and lifting it to her mouth with much softness and compassion, exclaimed, "Poor Nanny, you look dhry, an' here's some wather. Take a little sup, an' it 'ill revive you! Oh; if I wor here a little bit sooner."
"There's nothing new or wonderful in that," replied the other; "it has been my own practice during life." "What? to eat your own words!" exclaimed O'Connor, purposely mistaking him; "very windy feeding, faith. Upon my honor and conscience, in that case, your complaint must be nothing else but the colic, and not love at all. Try peppermint wather, Mr. Woodward."
Biddy had less self-command than the others, and she was heard saying aloud, "Och! and did n't I dhrame of the blessed springs and wells of Ireland the night, and haven't I dhrunk at 'em all? but now it's over, and I am awake, no good has't done me, and I'm ready to die for one dhrap of wather." That drop soon came, however, and with it the blessed relief which such a boon bestows.
"It's that same I would if I could," replied the bewildered Irishman, "but I can't walk on wather, and this ice-slush isn't much betther." "Unless you answer, I'll fire," shouted the sentry, to whom Mickey's maunderings, half drowned by the crashing ice and gusty wind, were unintelligible.
Her eyes were full of tears at Father Miles's tone and earnestness, but she could not have made clear to herself what he had said. "Will I put a dhrap more of wather in it, your riverence?" she suggested, but the priest shook his head gently, and, taking a handful of parish papers out of his pocket, proceeded to hold conference with the master of the house.
To see old schoolmeasther wi'out his hat, skimming along oop to his knees in mud and wather, tumbling over fences, and rowling into ditches, and bawling oot like mad, wi' his one eye looking sharp out for the lad, and his coat-tails flying out behind, and him spattered wi' mud all ower, face and all! I tho't I should ha' dropped doon, and killed myself wi' laughing.
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