ving finished his after-dinner pipe and his daily tumbler
both together, went out to his men; and Hycy, with whom he had left the
drinking materials, after having taken a tumbler or two, put on a strong
pair of boots, and changed the rest of his dress for a coarser 'suit,
bade his mother a polite good-bye, and informed her, that as he intended
to be present at M'Bride's wake he would most probably not return until
near morning.

CHAPTER IV.--A Poteen Still-House at Midnight--Its Inmates.

About three miles in a south-western direction from Burke's residence,
the country was bounded by a range of high hills and mountains of a very
rugged and wild, but picturesque description. Although a portion of
the same landscape, yet nothing could be more strikingly distinct in
character than the position of the brown wild hills, as contrasted with
that of the mountains from which they abutted. The latter ran in long
and lofty ranges that were marked by a majestic and sublime simplicity,
whilst the hills were of all shapes and sizes, and seemed as if cast
about at random. As a matter of course the glens and valleys that
divided them ran in every possible direction, sometimes crossing and
intersecting each other at right angles, and sometimes running parallel,
or twisting away in opposite directions. In one of those glens that lay
nearest the mountains, or rather indeed among them, was a spot which
from its peculiar position would appear to have been designed from the
very beginning as a perfect paradise for the illicit distiller. It was a
kind of back chamber in the mountains, that might, in fact, have escaped
observation altogether, as it often did. The approach to it was by a
long precipitous glen, that could be entered only at its lower end, and
seemed to terminate against the abrupt side of the mountain, like a
cul de sac. At the very extremity, however, of this termination, and a
little on the right-hand side, there was a steep, narrow pass leading
into a recess which was completely encompassed by precipices. From this
there was only one means of escape independently of the gut through
which it was entered. The moors on the side most approachable were
level, and on a line to the eye with that portion of the mountains which
bounded it on the opposite side, so that as one looked forward the space
appeared to be perfectly continuous, and consequently no person could
suspect that there lay so deep and precipitous a glen betwee