anyone laughin' at the accident, he'd lay the horsewhip across their
shouldhers.

'An' Terence grew fonder an' fonder iv the gandher every day, until at
last he died in a wondherful old age, lavin' the gandher afther him an'
a large family iv childher.

'An' to this day the farm is rinted by one iv Terence Mooney's lenial
and legitimate postariors.'

BILLY MALOWNEY'S TASTE OF LOVE AND GLORY.

Let the reader fancy a soft summer evening, the fresh dews falling on
bush and flower. The sun has just gone down, and the thrilling vespers
of thrushes and blackbirds ring with a wild joy through the saddened
air; the west is piled with fantastic clouds, and clothed in tints of
crimson and amber, melting away into a wan green, and so eastward into
the deepest blue, through which soon the stars will begin to peep.

Let him fancy himself seated upon the low mossy wall of an ancient
churchyard, where hundreds of grey stones rise above the sward,
under the fantastic branches of two or three half-withered ash-trees,
spreading their arms in everlasting love and sorrow over the dead.

The narrow road upon which I and my companion await the tax-cart that
is to carry me and my basket, with its rich fruitage of speckled trout,
away, lies at his feet, and far below spreads an undulating plain,
rising westward again into soft hills, and traversed (every here and
there visibly) by a winding stream which, even through the mists of
evening, catches and returns the funereal glories of the skies.

As the eye traces its wayward wanderings, it loses them for a moment
in the heaving verdure of white-thorns and ash, from among which floats
from some dozen rude chimneys, mostly unseen, the transparent blue film
of turf smoke. There we know, although we cannot see it, the steep old
bridge of Carrickadrum spans the river; and stretching away far to the
right the valley of Lisnamoe: its steeps and hollows, its straggling
hedges, its fair-green, its tall scattered trees, and old grey tower,
are disappearing fast among the discoloured tints and haze of evening.

Those landmarks, as we sit listlessly expecting the arrival of our
modest conveyance, suggest to our companion--a bare-legged Celtic
brother of the gentle craft, somewhat at the wrong side of forty, with
a turf-coloured caubeen, patched frieze, a clear brown complexion,
dark-grey eyes, and a right pleasant dash of roguery in his
features--the tale, which, if the reader pleases, he is