own words to it,--and devil a
harm in that same when one 's not in earnest. See, now, I believe it 's
a natural pleasure for an Irishman to be humbugging somebody; and faix,
when there 's nobody by he 'd rather be taking a rise out of himself
than doing nothing. It 's the way that 's in us, God help us! Sure it 's
that same makes us sich favorites with the ladies, and gives us a kind
of native janius for coortin':

"''T is the look of his eye,
And a way he can sigh,
Makes Paddy a darlin' wherever he goes;
With a sugary brogue.
Ye 'd hear the rogue
Cheat the girls before their nose.'

And why not? Don't they like to be chated, when they 're sure to win
after all,--to win a warm heart and a stout arm to fight for them?"

This species of logic I give as a specimen of Mister M'Keown's power of,
if not explaining away a difficulty, at least getting out of all reach
of it,--an attribute almost as Irish as the cause it was 'employed to
defend.

As we journeyed along, Darby maintained a strict reserve as to the event
which had required his presence in Athlone; nor did he allude to the
mayor but passingly, observing that he did n't know how it happened that
a Dublin magistrate should have come up to these parts,--"though, to be
sure, he 's a great friend of the Right Honorable."

"And who is he?" asked I.

"The Right Honorable! Don't you know, then? Why, I did n't think there
was a child in the county could n't tell that. Sure, it 's Denis Browne
himself."

The name seemed at once to suggest a whole flood of recollections; and
Darby expatiated for hours long on the terrible power of a man by whose
hands life and death were distributed, without any aid from judge or
jury,--thus opening to me another chapter of the lawless tyranny to
which he was directing my attention, and by which he already saw my mind
was greatly influenced.

About an hour after daybreak we arrived at a small cabin; which served
as a lockhouse on the canal side. It needed not the cold, murky sky,
nor the ceaseless pattering of the rain, to make this place look more
comfortless and miserable than anything I had ever beheld. Around, for
miles in extent, the country was one unbroken flat, without any trace
of wood, or even a single thorn hedge, to relieve the eye. Low,
marshy meadows, where the rank flaggers and reedy grass grew tall and
luxuriant, with here and there some stray patches of tilla