stick.

"There 's them here does not care for agreeable intercoorse," said
Darby, assuming a grand air.

"Come, Daxby; I 'd like to hear the story," said I.

After a few preparatory scruples, in which modesty, offended dignity,
and conscious merit struggled, Mr. M'Keown began by informing us that
he had once a most ardent attachment to a certain Biddy Finn, of
Ballyclough,--a lady of considerable personal attractions, to whom for a
long time he had been constant, and at last, through the intervention of
Father Curtin, agreed to marry. Darby's consent to the arrangements was
not altogether the result of his reverence's eloquence, nor indeed the
justice of the case; nor was it quite owing to Biddy's black eyes and
pretty lips; but rather to the soul-persuading powers of some fourteen
tumblers of strong punch which he swallowed at a _seance_ in Biddy's
father's house one cold evening in November, after which he betook
himself to the road homewards, where--But we must give his story in his
own words:

"Whether it was the prospect of happiness before me, or the potteen,"
quoth Darby, "but so it was,--I never felt a step of the road home that
night, though it was every foot of five mile. When I came to a stile, I
used to give a whoop, and over it; then I'd run for a hundred yards
or two, flourish my stick, cry out, 'Who 'll say a word against Biddy
Finn?' and then over another fence, flying. Well, I reached home at
last, and wet enough I was; but I did n't care for that. I opened the
door and struck a light; there was the least taste of kindling on the
hearth, and I put some dry sticks into it and some turf, and knelt down
and began blowing it up.

"'Troth,' says I to myself, 'if I wor married, it isn't this way I'd
be,--on my knees like a nagur; but when I 'd come home, there 'ud be
a fine fire blazin' fornint me, and a clean table out before it, and
a beautiful cup of tay waiting for me, and somebody I won't mintion,
sitting there, looking at me, smilin'.'

"'Don't be making a fool of yourself, Darby M'Keown,' said a gruff voice
near the chimley.

"I jumped at him, and cried out, 'Who 's that?' But there was no answer;
and at last, after going round the kitchen, I began to think it was only
my own voice I heard; so I knelt down again, and set to blowing away at
the fire.

"'And it's yerself, Biddy,' says I, 'that would be an ornament to a
dacent cabin; and a purtier leg and foot--'

"'Be the light that shines, y