a disagreeable sensation
arising from the soaked state of his boots; and calculating that it still
wanted three or four hours of daybreak, he resolved to have us dry and
comfortable for his morning's adventure. With this intention he drew us
off, and placed us on the hearth before the fire, and threw himself on the
bed--not to sleep--he would sooner have committed suicide--but to meditate
upon the charms of Miss Biddy and her thousand pounds.

But our strongest resolutions are overthrown by circumstances--the ducking,
the dancing, and the _potteen_, had so exhausted Terence, that he
unconsciously shut, first, one eye, then the other, and, finally, he fell
fast asleep, and dreamed of running away with the heiress on his back,
through a shaking bog, in which he sank up to the middle at every step. His
vision was, however, suddenly dispelled by a smart rattle against his
window. A moment was sufficient to recall him to his senses--he knew it was
Miss Biddy's signal, and, jumping from the bed, drew back the cotton
window-curtains and peered earnestly out: but though the day had begun to
break, it was still too dark to enable him to distinguish any person on the
lawn. In a violent hurry he seized on your humble servant, and endeavoured
to draw me on; but, alas! the heat of the fire had so shrank me from my
natural dimensions, that he might as well have attempted to introduce his
leg and foot into an eel-skin. Flinging me in a rage to the further corner
of the room, he essayed to thrust his foot into my companion, which had
been reduced to the same shrunken state as myself. In vain he tugged,
swore, and strained; first with one, and then with another, until the
stitches in our sides grinned with perfect torture; the perspiration rolled
down his forehead--his eyes were staring, his teeth set, and every nerve in
his body was quivering with his exertions--but still he could not force us
on.

"What's to be done!" he ejaculated in despairing accents. A bright thought
struck him suddenly, that he might find a pair of boots belonging to some
of the other visitors, with which he might make free on so pressing an
emergency. It was but sending them back, with an apology for the mistake,
on the following day. With this idea he sallied from his room, and groped
his way down stairs to find the scullery, where he knew the boots were
deposited by the servant at night. This scullery was detached from the main
building, and to reach it it wa