t is, unless he should happen
to be on duty. If he doesn't come to-morrow, however, I'll start the day
after for Dublin."

"Well, now, Mr. Roberts," said Dunphy, "if you have no objection, I
didn't care if I turned into bed; I'm not accustomed to travelin',
and I'm a thrifle fatigued; only tomorrow morning, plaise God, I have
something to say to you about that boy that may surprise you."

"Not a syllable, Dunphy, nothing about him that could surprise me."

"Well," replied the hesitating and cautious old man, "maybe I will
surprise you for all that."

This he said whilst Mrs. Roberts and Molly Byrne were preparing his bed
in one of the neat sleeping rooms which stood off the pleasant kitchen
where they sat; "and listen, Mr. Roberts, before I tell it, you must
pledge your honor as a soldier, that until I give you lave, you'll never
breathe a syllable of what I have to mention to any one, not even to
Mrs. Roberts."

"What's that? Keep a secret from Beck? Come, Dunphy, that's what I never
did, unless the word and countersign when on duty, and, by fife and
drum, I never will keep your secret then; I don't want it, for as sure
as I hear it, so shall she. And is it afraid of old Beck you are? By
fife and drum, sir, old Beck has more honor than either of us, and would
as soon take a fancy to a coward as betray a secret. You don't know her,
old Dunphy, you don't know her, or you wouldn't spake as if you feared
that she's not truth and honesty to the backbone."

"I believe it, Mr. Roberts, but they say, afther all, that once a woman
gets a secret, she thinks herself in a sartin way, until she's delivered
of it'."

Sam, who liked a joke very well, laughed heartily at this, bad as it
was, or rather he laughed at the shrewd, ludicrous, but satirical grin
with which old Dunphy's face was puckered whilst he uttered it.

"But, sir," said he, resuming his gravity, "Beck, I'd have you to know,
is not like other women, by which I mean that no other woman could be
compared to her. Beck's the queen of women, upon my soul she is; and all
I have to say is, that if you tell me the secret, in half an hour's time
she'll be as well acquainted with it as either of us. I have no notion,
Dunphy, at this time of life, to separate my mind from Beck's; my
conscience, sir, is my store-room; she has a key for it, and, by fife
and drum, I'm not going to take it from her now. Do you think Beck would
treat old Sam so? No. And my rule is, and ever h