ones so black, that my cousin Darcy Mahon
called it Newgate; and not a bad name either--and the devil another
it ever went by. And even that same had its advantages; for when the
creditors used to read that at the top of my letters, they'd say, "Poor
devil! he has enough on his hands: there's no use troubling him any
more." Well, big as Newgate looked from without, it had not much
accommodation when you got inside. There was, 'tis true, a fine hall,
all flagged; and, out of it, you entered what ought to have been the
dinner-room, thirty-eight feet by seven-and-twenty, but which was used
for herding sheep in winter. On the right hand, there was a cosy little
breakfast-room, just about the size of this we are in. At the back of
the hall, but concealed by a pair of folding-doors, there was a grand
staircase of old Irish oak, that ought to have led up to a great suite
of bedrooms, but it only conducted to one--a little crib I had for
myself. The remainder were never plastered nor floored; and, indeed, in
one of them, that was over the big drawing-room, the joists were never
laid--which was all the better, for it was there we used to keep our hay
and straw. Now, at the time I mention, the harvest was not brought in,
and instead of its being full, as it used to be, it was mighty low; so
that, when you opened the door above the stairs, instead of finding the
hay up beside you, it was about fourteen feet down beneath you.

'I can't help boring you with all these details; first, because they
are essential to my story; and next, because, being a young man, and a
foreigner to boot, it may lead you to a little better understanding of
some of our national customs. Of all the partialities we Irish have,
after lush and the ladies, I believe our ruling passion is to build a
big house, spend every shilling we have, or that we have not, as the
case may be, in getting it half finished, and then live in a corner of
it, "just for grandeur," as a body may say. It's a droll notion,
after all; but show me the county in Ireland that hasn't at least six
specimens of what I mention.

'Newgate was a beautiful one; and although the she lived in the parlour,
and the cows were kept in the blue drawing-room, Darby Whaley slept
in the boudoir, and two bull-dogs and a buck goat kept house in the
library--'faith, upon the outside it looked very imposing; and not one
that saw it, from the highroad to Ennis--and you could see it for twelve
miles in every