om the one end of it to the other."

Hycy nodded and laughed, and Ted, cracking his whip, proceeded up the
town to sell his turf.

Hycy now sauntered about through the market, chatting here and there
among acquaintances, with the air of a man to whom neither life nor
anything connected with it could occasion any earthly trouble. Indeed,
it mattered little what he felt, his easiness of manner was such that
not one of his acquaintances could for a moment impute to him the
possibility of ever being weighed down by trouble or care of any kind;
and lest his natural elasticity of spirits might fail to sustain this
perpetual buoyancy, he by no means neglected to fortify himself with
artificial support. Meet him when or where you might, be it at six
in the morning or twelve at night, you were certain to catch from his
breath the smell of liquor, either in its naked simplicity or disguised
and modified in some shape.

His ride home, though a rapid, was by no means a pleasing one. M'Mahon
had not only refused to lend him the money he stood in need of, but
actually quarrelled with him, as far as he could judge, for no other
purpose but that he might make the quarrel a plea for refusing him. This
disappointment, to a person of Hycy's disposition, was, we have seen,
bitterly vexatious, and it may be presumed that he reached home in
anything but an agreeable humor. Having dismounted, he was about to
enter the hall-door, when his attention was directed towards that of the
kitchen by a rather loud hammering, and on turning his eyes to the
spot he found two or three tinkers very busily engaged in soldering,
clasping, and otherwise repairing certain vessels belonging to that warm
and spacious establishment. The leader of these vagrants was a man named
Philip Hogan, a fellow of surprising strength and desperate character,
whose feats of hardihood and daring had given him a fearful notoriety
over a large district of the country. Hogan was a man whom almost every
one feared, being, from confidence, we presume, in his great strength,
as well as by nature, both insolent, overbearing, and ruffianly in the
extreme. His inseparable and appropriate companion was a fierce and
powerful bull-dog of the old Irish breed, which he had so admirably
trained that it was only necessary to give him a sign, and he would
seize by the throat either man or beast, merely in compliance with the
will of his master. On this occasion he was accompanied by two of h