"I s'pose this news comes by the major?" asked Joel.
"You may well suppose that, Strides. My son is here, and we have no other means of getting it."
"Will yer honour be wishful that we shoulther our fire-arms, and go out and fight one of them sides, or t'other?" demanded Mike.
"I wish nothing of the sort, O'Hearn. It will be time enough for us to take a decided part, when we get better ideas of what is really going on."
"Doesn't the captain, then, think matters have got far enough towards a head, for the Americans to make up their minds conclusively, as it might be?" put in Joel, in his very worst manner.
"I think it will be wiser for us all to remain where we are, and _as_ we are. Civil war is a serious matter, Strides, And no man should rush blindly into its dangers and difficulties."
Joel looked at the miller, and the miller looked at Joel. Neither said anything, however, at the time. Jamie Allen had been _out_ in the 'forty-five,' when thirty years younger than he was that day; and though he had his predilections and antipathies, circumstances had taught him prudence.
"Will the parliament, think ye, no be bidding the soldiery to wark their will on the puir unairmed folk, up and down the country, and they not provided with the means to resist them?"
"Och, Jamie!" interrupted Mike, who did not appear to deem it necessary to treat this matter with even decent respect--"where will be yer valour and stomach, to ask sich a question as _that_! A man is always reathy, when he has his ar-r-ms and legs free to act accorthing to natur'. What would a rigiment of throops do ag'in the likes of sich a place as this? I'm sure it's tin years I've been _in_ it, and I've niver been able to find my way _out_ of it. Set a souldier to rowing on the lake forenent the rising sun, with orders to get to the other ind, and a pretty job he 'd make of marching on that same! I knows it, for I've thried it, and it is not a new beginner that will make much of _sich_ oare; barring he knows nothin' about them."
This was not very intelligible to anybody but Joel, and _he_ had ceased to laugh at Mike's voyage, now, some six or seven years; divers other disasters, all having their origin in a similar confusion of ideas, having, in the interval, supplanted that calamity, as it might be, _seriatim_. Still it was an indication that Mike might be set down as a belligerent, who was disposed to follow his leader into the battle, without troubling him with many questions concerning the merits of the quarrel. Nevertheless, the county Leitrim-man acknowledged particular principles, all of which had a certain influence on his conduct, whenever he could get at them, to render them available. First and foremost, he cordially disliked a Yankee; and he hated an Englishman, both as an oppressor and a heretic; yet he loved his master and all that belonged to him. These were contradictory feelings, certainly; but Mike was all contradiction, both in theory and in practice.