rra, for a dozen.

It's stronger than the say, for it'll carry you round the world an'
never let you sink, in sunshine or storm; an', begorra, it's stronger
than Death himself, for it is not afeard iv him, bedad, but dares him in
every shape.

But lovers has quarrels sometimes, and, begorra, when they do, you'd
a'most imagine they hated one another like man and wife. An' so, signs
an', Billy Malowney and Molly Donovan fell out one evening at ould Tom
Dundon's wake; an' whatever came betune them, she made no more about
it but just draws her cloak round her, and away wid herself and the
sarvant-girl home again, as if there was not a corpse, or a fiddle, or a
taste of divarsion in it.

Well, Bill Malowney follied her down the boreen, to try could he
deludher her back again; but, if she was bitther before, she gave it
to him in airnest when she got him alone to herself, and to that degree
that he wished her safe home, short and sulky enough, an' walked back
again, as mad as the devil himself, to the wake, to pay a respect to
poor Tom Dundon.

Well, my dear, it was aisy seen there was something wrong avid Billy
Malowney, for he paid no attintion the rest of the evening to any soart
of divarsion but the whisky alone; an' every glass he'd drink it's what
he'd be wishing the divil had the women, an' the worst iv bad luck to
all soarts iv courting, until, at last, wid the goodness iv the sperits,
an' the badness iv his temper, an' the constant flusthration iv cursin',
he grew all as one as you might say almost, saving your presince,
bastely drunk!

Well, who should he fall in wid, in that childish condition, as he was
deploying along the road almost as straight as the letter S, an' cursin'
the girls, an' roarin' for more whisky, but the recruiting-sargent iv
the Welsh Confusileers.

So, cute enough, the sargent begins to convarse him, an' it was not long
until he had him sitting in Murphy's public-house, wid an elegant dandy
iv punch before him, an' the king's money safe an' snug in the lowest
wrinkle of his breeches-pocket.

So away wid him, and the dhrums and fifes playing, an' a dozen more
unforthunate bliggards just listed along with him, an' he shakin' hands
wid the sargent, and swearin' agin the women every minute, until, be the
time he kem to himself, begorra, he was a good ten miles on the road to
Dublin, an' Molly and all behind him.

It id be no good tellin' you iv the letters he wrote to her from the
barrac