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"Bedad, he bates Bannagher!" said Tim Rooney, who had returned aft and joined Mr Mackay and I under the break of the poop, where we were sheltered more from the force of the gale. "I niver did say sich a chap for carryin' on, fair weather an' foul, loike `Ould Jock Sayins an' Mayins. Sure, he wants to be there afore himsilf!"
"Begorrah!" he whispered to me. "Sure, it bates Bannagher, an's a'most as good as what Oi've heerd tell of Donnybrook Fair, in the ould toimes, from me fayther!"
I invented a machine for thet, an' run 'em through in less'n no time. When they kim out at t'other eend o' the machine, I kednt meself a told 'em from oats!" "Och! now I comprehend. Arrah! an' wasn't it a quare thrick? Be my sowl, it bates Bannagher all to paces! Ha, ha, haw!"
"Where is the captain, then?" was my next query, without stopping to think. "By the powers, ye bates Bannagher for axin' quistions, Misther Gray- ham!" cried Tim, amused at my cross-examination of him just as if he were in a court of justice, as he afterwards said when he brought up the matter one day. "Sure, how can I till where he or any other mother's son is that I can't say before my eyes?
What do you call yourself?" "Mr. McKay, of the Royal Picts: deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general at headquarters." "Save us alive! This bangs Bannagher. Wait, honey wait till I call an officer." Presently, when the wounds had been rudely but effectively bound up, a captain of the 38th came up, and to him McKay made himself known. "This is no time or place to ask how you came here.
I dundthered at his doore till he opened it, thin I towld him I'd seen th' Banshee! "'That bates Bannagher! says he. "'It bates th' divil, says I. 'But whose fur above th' night is what I'd like t' know. "'Oul Misther Chaine, says he, 'as sure as gun's iron!" The narrative stopped abruptly, stopped at McShane's door. "Did oul Misther Chaine die that night?" Anna asked.
Whin th' sthrike comity waited on us we'd hoist our feet on th' kitchen table, light a seegar, polish our bone collar button with th' sleeve iv our flannel shirt an' till thim to go to Bannagher. "We'd say: 'Ye'er demands are onraisonable an' we will not submit. F'r years we have run th' shop almost at a loss. There are plenty iv men to take ye'er places.
"By this time the dog had gone into a great fit of laughing at Jack's sharpness about the money. 'The money that's in it, Jack! says he; and he took the pipe out of his mouth, and laughed till he brought on a hard fit of coughing. 'O, by this and by that says he, 'but that bates Bannagher!
"By the powers, it bates Bannagher," cried Mick, who was watching the fight alongside of me on the upper deck, springing up on to the hammock nettings in his excitement to see the finish, unthinking of the breach of discipline he was committing. "Go it, ye cripples. Sure, Tom, the little wun'll win what d'ye call him?" "He's a thrasher," I replied, jumping up, too, on the top of the nettings.
"Begorrah!" exclaimed Mick, none the worse for the fray, beyond a slight cut on his port cheek, which had been caused by the scrape of the mulatto's long nails and not by his fist, as he burst into a roar of laughter on the darkeys bringing out this impromptu musical account of the recent fight in which all hands joined, making most of the passers- by we met on our route to one of the hotels recommended by Mr Jones, who had been to Bridgetown before, look round to see what was the matter "it bates Bannagher an' Donnybrook Fair all rowled into one, sure!"
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