" cried the major in a half-angry
tone; "that morning nip is the bane of too many of us. Go and do as I
bid you."

I was about entering the house to perform the duty I had undertaken,
when I caught sight of my foster-brother, Larry Harrigan, galloping up
the avenue, mounted on the bare back of a shaggy little pony, its mane
and tail streaming in the breeze.

"Hurrah! hurrah! yer honour; I've got it," he cried, as he waved a
letter above his carroty and hatless pate. "I wouldn't have been after
getting it at all, at all, for the spalpeen of a postboy wanted tinpence
before he would give it me, but sorra a copper had I in my pocket, and I
should have had to come away without it, if Mr McCarthy, the bailiff,
hadn't been riding by, and paid the money for me."

I took the letter; and telling Larry, after he had turned the pony into
the yard, to bring up the warm water and the cup of hot coffee, I
hurried, with the official-looking document in my hand, up to my uncle's
room. He met me at the door, dressed in his trousers and shirt, his
shirt-sleeves tucked up in order to perform his ablutions, exhibiting
his brawny arms, scarred with many a wound,--his grizzled hair uncombed,
his tall figure looking even more gaunt than usual without the military
coat in which I was accustomed to see him. He eagerly took the letter.

"Come in, my boy, and sit down on the foot of the bed while I see what
my friend Macnamara writes in answer to my request," he said, as he
broke the seal, and with a deliberation which didn't suit my eagerness,
opened a large sheet of foolscap paper, which he held up to the light
that he might read it more easily.

While he was thus engaged, Larry brought up the warm water and the cup
of steaming coffee, and, with a look at the major's back which betokened
anything but respect, because it was not a glass of whisky, placed the
jug and cup on the table. Larry was, I must own, as odd-looking an
individual as ever played the part of valet. His shock head of hair was
unacquainted with comb or brush; his grey coat reached to his calves;
his breeches were open at the knees; his green waistcoat, too short to
reach the latter garment, was buttoned awry; huge brogues encased his
feet, and a red handkerchief, big enough to serve as the royal of a
frigate, was tied loosely round his neck. He stood waiting for further
orders, when the major, turning round to take a sip of coffee, by a sign
bade him begone, and he