his family, and Murray looked as if he had a son
about to be hanged. The whole cause of this was simply that a finer
season, nor one giving ampler promise of abundance, had not come within
the memory of man.

"Ah!" said Murray, with a sigh, "look, Cooney, at the distressin' growth
of grass that's there--a foot high if it's an inch! If God hasn't sed
it, there will be the largest and heaviest crops that ever was seen in
the country; heigho!"

"Well, but one can't have good luck always," replied Cooney; "only it's
the wondherful forwardness of the whate that's distressin' me."

"An' do you think that I'm sufferin' nothin' on that account?" asked
his companion; "only you haven't three big stacks of hay waitin' for a
failure, as I have."

"That's bekase I have no meadow on my farm," replied Cooney; "otherwise
I would be in the hay trade as well as yourself."

"Well, God help us, Cooney! every one has their misfortunes as well as
you and I; sure enough, it's a bitther business to see how every thing's
thrivin'--hay, oats, and whate! why they'll be for a song: may I never
get a bad shillin', but the poor 'ill be paid for takin' them! that's
the bitther pass things will come to; maurone ok! but it's a black
lookout!"

"An' this rain, too," said Cooney, "so soft, and even, and small, and
warm, that it's playin' the very devil. Nothin' could stand it. Why it
ud make a rotten twig grow if it was put into the ground."

"Divil a one o' me would like to make the third," said Murray, "for
'fraid I might have the misfortune to succeed. Death alive! Only think
of my four arks, of meal, an' my three stacks of hay, an' divil a pile
to come out of them for another twelve months!"

"It's bad, too bad, I allow," said the other; "still let us not despair,
man alive; who knows but the saison may change for the worse yet.
Whish!" he exclaimed, slapping the side of his thigh, "hould up your
head, Jemmy, I have thought of it; I have thought of it."

"You have thought of what, Cooney?"

"Why, death alive, man, sure there's plenty of time, God be praised for
it, for the--murdher, why didn't we think of it before? ha, ha, ha!"

"For the what, man? don't keep us longin' for it."

"Why for the pratie crops to fail still; sure it's only the beginning
o' May now, and who knows but we might have the happiness to see a right
good general failure of the praties still? Eh? ha, ha, ha!"

"Upon my sounds, Cooney, you have taken a good deal of