Flanagan?"
"Sure, captain, and wasn't it the ould cow?" replied the sutler, with a
warmth that proceeded partly from dissatisfaction at the complaints of
her favorite, and partly from grief at the loss of the deceased.
"What!" roared the trooper, stopping short as he was about to swallow
his morsel, "ancient Jenny!"
"The devil!" cried another, dropping his knife and fork, "she who made
the campaign of the Jerseys with us?"
"The very same," replied the mistress of the hotel, with a piteous
aspect of woe; "a gentle baste, and one that could and did live on less
than air, at need. Sure, gentlemen, 'tis awful to have to eat sitch an
ould friend."
"And has she sunk to this?" said Lawton, pointing with his knife, to the
remnants on the table.
"Nay, captain," said Betty, with spirit, "I sould two of her quarters to
some of your troop; but divil the word did I tell the boys what an ould
frind it was they had bought, for fear it might damage their appetites."
"Fury!" cried the trooper, with affected anger, "I shall have my fellows
as limber as supple-jacks on such fare; afraid of an Englishman as a
Virginian negro is of his driver."
"Well," said Lieutenant Mason, dropping his knife and fork in a kind of
despair, "my jaws have more sympathy than many men's hearts.
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