seen in
progress down away at Glasgannon, where Joe Quigley had taken service
with a strong farmer; these disturbances being in reality nothing more
than a muster of the county militia.

"But I can tell you how she thravelled a good step of the way home," Ody
now continued, "for she tould me herself. The Tinkers gave her a lift in
their ould cart. Somewheres beyant Rosbride she met wid them; glory be
to goodness 'twasn't any nearer here they were, the ould thieves of sin.
Howane'er, _Mrs. M'Gurk_ belike 'ud be wishful to see thim comin' along.
Fine company they'd be for anybody begorrah. Troth, it's the quare ugly
boghoule she'd find the aquil of thim at the bottom of."

Mrs. M'Gurk, however, said protestingly, "Och, wirrasthrew, man, don't
be talkin' of the Tinkers. They'd a right to not be let set fut widin
tin mile of any dacint place. Thim or the likes of any such rogues."

And Mrs. Kilfoyle said, "I'd liefer than a great deal they kep' out of
it. Ne'er a one of the lot of them I ever beheld but had the eyes
rowlin' in his head wid villiny. And the childer, goodness help them, do
be worse than the grown people."

And Ody Rafferty's aunt said, "Bad cess to the whole of them."

For in Lisconnel nobody has a good word to say of the Tinkers.

The tribe and their many delinquencies have even supplied us with a bit
of the proverbial philosophy in which not a little of our local history
is epitomised. The saying, "As pat as thievin' to a tinker" is probably
quoted among us as frequently as any other, except, perhaps, one which
refers to Jerry Dunne's basket. This latter had its origin in a certain
event, not like the former in the long-accumulating observation of
habits and propensities, and to explain it therefore is to write a
chapter of our chronicles. Moreover, the event in question is otherwise
not unimportant from a sociological point of view, because it is very
likely to have been the first morning call ever made at Lisconnel.

CHAPTER II

JERRY DUNNE'S BASKET

So it is worth while to tell the reason why people at Lisconnel
sometimes respond with irony to a question: "What have I got? Sure, all
that Jerry Dunne had in his basket." The saying is of respectable
antiquity, for it originated while Bessy Joyce, who died a year or so
back, at "a great ould age entirely," was still but a slip of a girl. In
those days her mother used often to say regretfully that she didn't know
when she was well off, like