of sitting on a large stone, before the roaring fire in the
huge open chimney, and entertaining certain of the Protestant young
gentlemen of my own age, seated on similar stones, with extraordinary
accounts of my own adventures and those of the corps, with an occasional
anecdote extracted from the story-books of Hickathrift and Wight Wallace,
pretending to be conning the lesson all the while.

And there I made acquaintance, notwithstanding the hint of the landlord,
with the Papist "gasoons," as they were called, the farmers' sons from
the country; and of these gasoons, of which there were three, two might
be reckoned as nothing at all; in the third, however, I soon discovered
that there was something extraordinary.

He was about sixteen years old, and above six feet high, dressed in a
gray suit; the coat, from its size, appeared to have been made for him
some ten years before. He was remarkably narrow-chested and
round-shouldered, owing, perhaps, as much to the tightness of his garment
as to the hand of nature. His face was long, and his complexion swarthy
relieved, however, by certain freckles, with which the skin was
plentifully studded. He had strange wandering eyes, gray, and somewhat
unequal in size; they seldom rested on the book, but were generally
wandering about the room from one object to another. Sometimes he would
fix them intently on the wall; and then suddenly starting, as if from a
reverie, he would commence making certain mysterious movements with his
thumbs and forefingers, as if he were shuffling something from him.

One morning, as he sat by himself on a bench, engaged in this manner, I
went up to him and said, "Good day, Murtagh; you do not seem to have much
to do."

"Faith, you may say that, Shorsha dear! it is seldom much to do that I
have."

"And what are you doing with your hands?"

"Faith, then, if I must tell you, I was e'en dealing with the cards."

"Do you play much at cards?"

"Sorra a game, Shorsha, have I played with the cards since my uncle
Phelim, the thief, stole away the ould pack, when he went to settle in
the county Waterford!"

"But you have other things to do?"

"Sorra anything else has Murtagh to do that he cares about; and that
makes me dread so going home at nights."

"I should like to know all about you; where do you live, joy?"

"Faith, then, ye shall know all about me, and where I live. It is at a
place called the Wilderness that I live, and they call it so