'Maybe I 'm wrong,'says he, 'but I doubt
That you 'll be as gay to-morrow.
For loud as you cry, and high as you ride,
And little you feel my sorrow,
I'll be free on the mountain-side,
While you 'll lie low to-morrow.
Oh, Moddideroo, aroo, aroo!'"

"Ay, just so; they 'll run to earth in the cold churchyard.
Whisht!--hark there! Soho, soho! That's Badger I hear."

I turned away with a bursting heart, and felt my way up the broad oak
stair, which was left in complete darkness. As I reached the corridor,
off which the bedrooms lay, I heard voices talking together in a low
tone; they came from my father's room, the door of which lay ajar. I
approached noiselessly and peeped in: by the fire, which was the only
light now in the apartment, sat two persons at a set table, one of
whom I at once recognized as the tall, solemn-looking figure of Doctor
Finnerty; the other I detected, by the sharp tones of his voice, to be
Mr. Anthony Basset, my father's confidential attorney.

On the table before them lay a mass of papers, parchments, leases,
deeds, together with glasses and a black bottle, whose accompaniments of
hot water and sugar left no doubt as to its contents. The chimney-piece
was crowded with a range of vials and medicine bottles, some of them
empty, some of them half finished.

[Illustration: Law and Physic in the Chamber of Death 008]

From the bed in the corner of the room came the heavy sound of snoring
respiration, which either betokened deep sleep or insensibility. If
I enjoyed but little favor in my father's house, I owed much of the
coldness shown to me to the evil influence of the very two persons who
sat before me in conclave. Of the precise source of the doctor's dislike
I was not quite clear, except, perhaps, that I recovered from the
measles when he predicted my certain death; the attorney's was, however,
no mystery.

About three years before, he had stopped to breakfast at our house on
his way to Ballinasloe fair. As his pony was led round to the stable, it
caught my eye. It was a most tempting bit of horseflesh, full of spirit
and in top condition, for he was going to sell it. I followed him round,
and appeared just as the servant was about to unsaddle him. The attorney
was no favorite in the house, and I had little difficulty in persuading
the man, instead of taking off the saddle, merely to shorten the
stirrups to the utmost limit. The