direction--didn't say, "That Mahon must be a snug fellow:
look what a beautiful place he has of it there!" Little they knew that
it was safer to go up the "Reeks" than my grand staircase, and it was
like rope-dancing to pass from one room to the other.

'Well, it was about four o'clock in the afternoon of a dark lowering day
in December that I was treading homewards in no very good-humour; for
except a brace and a half of snipe, and a grey plover, I had met with
nothing the whole day. The night was falling fast; so I began to hurry
on as quickly as I could, when I heard a loud shout behind me, and a
voice called out--

'"It's Bob Mahon, boys! By the Hill of Scariff, we are in luck!"

'I turned about, and what should I see but a parcel of fellows in red
coats--they were the Blazers. There was Dan Lambert, Tom Burke, Harry
Eyre, Joe M'Mahon, and the rest of them--fourteen souls in all. They had
come down to draw a cover of Stephen Blake's about ten miles from me;
but, in the strange mountain country, they lost the dogs, they lost
their way and their temper; in truth, to all appearance, they lost
everything but their appetites. Their horses were dead beat too, and
they looked as miserable a crew as ever you set eyes on.

'"Isn't it lucky, Bob, that we found you at home?" said Lambert.

'"They told us you were away," says Burke.

'"Some said that you were grown so pious that you never went out except
on Sundays," added old Harry, with a grin.

'"Begad," said I, "as to the luck, I won't say much for it; for here's
all I can give you for your dinner"; and so I pulled out the four birds
and shook them at them; "and as to the piety, troth, maybe you'd like to
keep a fast with as devoted a son of the Church as myself."

'"But isn't that Newgate up there?" said one.

'"That same."

'"And you don't mean to say that such a house as that hasn't a good
larder and a fine cellar?"

'"You're right," said I; "and they're both full at this very moment--the
one with seed-potatoes, and the other with Whitehaven coals."

'"Have you got any bacon?" said M'Mahon.

'"Oh yes!" said I, "there's bacon."

'"And eggs?" said another.

'"For the matter of that, you might swim in batter."

'"Come, come," said Dan Lambert, "we 're not so badly off after all."

'"Is there whisky?" cried Eyre.

'"Sixty-three gallons, that never paid the king sixpence!"

'As I said this, they gave three cheers you'd have heard a mile off.

'After ab