At the period that the soldier entered the premises, there were some half dozen persons seated in the bar; each discussing his favorite beverage or enjoying his peculiar “weed.” Among these there was one individual, however, whose appearance was singularly striking, and who was taking part in the general conversation with an easy flippancy and keenness of observation that showed he was a person of no ordinary information or experience. There was something about him, nevertheless, that, notwithstanding all his efforts to be attractive, was strangely repellent. His small, grey eyes, thin, blue lips and hooked nose, gave an expression to his countenance which was far from prepossessing; while his soft, low, purring chuckle of a laugh, whenever he made a point in his favor through some facile observation that interfered with the deductions of those around him, evoked the idea, that he was some huge, human mouser that was congratulating himself on having disposed of some unfortunate and unsuspecting canary. He was, withal, shapely, and had an air of refinement about him, the most decided, and, quite beyond the ordinary run of saloon habitues. His complexion though somewhat dark and out of keeping with the color of his eyes, was yet pure; while his teeth were remarkably white and brilliant, and apparently as sharp as lancets. In height he was about five feet ten inches; and in age, somewhere in the vicinity of thirty. He was dressed in plain gray clothes; and, from all one might gather from his external appearance, was a person in comfortable circumstances. He was unknown not only to “mine host,” but to every one present; having, as he informed them in the ordinary flow of conversation, but just arrived in town, where he had business to transact which might detain him for a few days, or possibly longer. This information had been volunteered before the arrival of the soldier; so that when the latter had taken his seat, he was literally a greater stranger as to the name or intentions of the hook-nosed gentleman than any one present—the former having been communicated to the landlord as Philip Greaves, and the latter, as already intimated, quite freely disclosed during the natural flow of the conversation in which he had taken and still took part.
Perhaps there were no two beings on earth so dissimilar in every relation, as were he and the red coat who now ensconsed himself in one of the chairs, and accepted the invitation to take a friendly glass with the stranger. He, humble as the rank he bore in the service, was a young man of most prepossessing appearance and excellent address. His figure, although slight, was beautifully symmetrical and finely knit. In stature he was about five feet eleven inches, and was apparently as agile as a leopard. The whole volume of his heart was laid open in his broad, manly brow and clear dark eyes; and his laughter rang out now and then, at the brilliant wit or searching sarcasm of his neighbor, in such pure and joyous tones, as to be infectious even amongst those who were paying but little attention to what had provoked it. He could not have numbered more than twenty-five or twenty-six summers; and it was almost painful, in the presence of such manly beauty and so light a heart, to dwell on the fact, that the possessor of both, was in absolute slavery, how carelessly soever he wore his shackles. While both these individuals differed the one from the other to the extent already mentioned, the proprietor of the saloon, in turn, presented an appearance as dissimilar to that of either of his customers as did that of the one to the other. He was a man of herculean proportions, and blessed with as commonplace features as you could find in a day’s walk. Every fibre of his frame bespoke the most gigantic strength, while his full, round face glowed with the most refreshing health, and presented at the same time as stolid an expression as could well be imagined in connection with his vocation. Still, there was something in his keen, gray eye and about his mouth, that bid you beware of taking the book by the cover; while an odd word of the conversation that now and then reached his ear, called up a strange expression of intelligence which swept across his features with the speed of light, and then left them as quiescent and apparently unintellectual as before. This individual whom we shall name Thomas O’Brien, or Big Tom, as his friends were wont to call him, although never regarded as being over brilliant, there were those who averred that he not only possessed a fund of good, common sense, but who stated further, that he was a man of great influence not only among the soldiers in the fort, but among many of his countrymen both in town and out of it. Tom spoke very slowly and always in an oracular manner; nor were his movements behind his bar of a very demonstrative character; as no press of custom, whatever, seemed to possess the power of accelerating his motions or inducing him to exceed the steady formula that he appeared to have adopted in relation to serving his customers; still he possessed the jewel of honesty and urbanity as an offset to all this; and, like most large men, was, on the whole, of a kind and excellent temper. When seen standing by the river or in any elevated position, he conveyed the idea of a sort of human lighthouse, or a chimney on fire, so fiercely red was the tremendous shock of hair that covered his towering head. He was still a young man, and, like the soldier, unmarried; although the heart of the latter had gone forth and was in the safe keeping of a charming young cousin of “mine host,” who had emigrated to America some time previously, and who now resided with her friends in the city of Buffalo. Tom had preceded his relatives by some years, and had sojourned, up to the period of their landing, in the United States also; but taking a sudden notion, as it would seem, he pulled up his stakes, and, like other adventurers, settled down, apparently haphazard, in the town in which he now lived; and where he had already been upwards of two years; having bought out the “Sign of the Harp,” as we shall call it, with all its appointments, from another Son of the Sod, who had made up his mind to go West.
Before the soldier, whom we shall name Nicholas, or Nick Barry, had finished his glass, Greaves entered into conversation with him in relation to the strength of the fort, and the nationality of the regiment that garrisoned it; observing, at the same time, that, of course, as usual, a fair sprinkling from the Emerald Isle was to be found among them.
“Yes,” said Barry, “go where you may throughout the empire, and whenever you meet a red coat you will be right in four cases out of six in putting it down as belonging to an Irishman; that is, provided its precise color and texture are like mine; but you would not be so safe in applying the same rule wherever you chanced to encounter the clear, bright flash of the genuine scarlet.”
“And why?” returned Greaves, with an inquiring air which seemed to be quite at sea upon the subject; although up to that moment, his conversation was such as to lead one to infer that he could scarcely be in the dark upon a subject so generally understood.
“Because,” said Nick, “the Irish are only fit to do the fighting; and that’s always done, you know, by the rank and file.”
This reply, although not over satisfactory to the interrogator, seemed to afford infinite amusement to Big Tom, who, with a perfect sledge hammer of a laugh, exclaimed when Barry had finished:
“Well done Nick, and the divil a betther could it be said if I said it myself.”
This unusual and lively demonstration on the part of O’Brien, seemed to attract the notice of Greaves, who, with the utmost good humor, observed, while glancing in the direction of the bar:
“From Ireland, too, I’ll bet my head!”
“Seven miles out of it,” returned Tom with a slight twinkle of his eye, “and, of coorse, a gintleman so larned as you will be able to tell where that is.”
“Well, for the life of me,” observed Greaves, “I cannot divine what you are at, with your ‘seven miles out,’ but as I’m an Englishman, I suppose that accounts for it.”
“He means by what he has said,” interrupted Barry, “that he is from Connaught, which, for some reason or other, is regarded as seven miles out of Ireland.”
“For some raison or other did