The change that came over the man was comical.  In a lightning flash he had fastened the few buttons in his blouse that it had taken his fumbling fingers several moments to unloose, and dropping one hand to his side, he held it there rigid as he saluted with two fingers at the brim of an imaginary hat; while his roving eye quickly took in the various motley articles of furniture of our camp,—­a small kitchen table with oil-stove and tea outfit of plain white ware, some plates and bowls, a few saucepans, half a dozen chairs, no two alike, and the two cots huddled in the shadows,—­his voice, that had been pitched in a confidential key, arose to a wail:—­

“The Saints luv yer honor, but do they be afther havin’ bad landlords in Meriky too, that evicted yer honor from yer house, sor?  I thought here nigh every poor body owned their own bit, ground and roof, sor, let alone a foine man loike yerself that shows the breedin’ down to his tin toes, sor.  Oi feel fer yer honor, fer there wuz I meself set out wid pig and cow both, sor (for thim bein’ given Kathy by her aunt fer her fortin could not be took), six years ago Patrick’s tide, sor, and hadn’t she married Mulqueen that same week, sor (he bein’ gardener a long time to his Riverence over in England, sor, and meetin’ Kathy only at his mother’s wakin’), I’d maybe been lodged in a barn meself, sor!  Sure, hev ye the cow below ud let me down a drap o’ milk?”

Then did Bart laugh long and heartily, for this new point of view in regard to our doings amused him immensely.  Of all the local motives attributed to our garden vacation, none had been quite so naive and unexpected as this!

“But we haven’t been evicted,” said Bart, unconsciously beginning to apologize to an unknown straggler.  “I own this place and my home is yonder; we are camping here for our health and pleasure.  Come, it’s time you gave an account of yourself, as you are trespassing.”  That the situation suddenly began to annoy Bart was plain.

Ignoring the tail of the speech, Larry saluted anew:  “Sure, sor, I knew ye at first fer gintleman and leddy, which this same last proves; a rale gintleman and his leddy can cut about doin’ the loikes of which poor folks ud be damned fer!  I mind well how Lord Kilmartin’s youngest—­she wid the wild red hair an’ eyes that wud shame a doe—­used to go barefoot through the dew down to Biddie Macks’s cabin to drink fresh buttermilk, whin they turned gallons o’ it from their own dairy.  Some said, underbreath, she was touched, and some wild loike, but none spoke loud but to wish her speed, fer that’s what it is to be a leddy!

“Meself, is it?  Och, it’s soon told.  Six years lived I there wid Kathy and Mulqueen, workin’ in the garden, he keepin’ before me, until one day his Riverence come face agin me thruble.  Oh, yis, sor, that same, that bit sup that’s too much for the stomick, sor, and so gets into the toes and tongue, sor!  Four times a year the spell’s put on me, sor, and gin I shlape it over, I’m a good man in between, sor, but that one time, sor, Mulqueen was sint to Lunnon, sor, and I missed me shlape fer mischief.