be peculiarly
interesting to the present company. I abolished all arrears--made a new
line of road through an impassable bog, and over an inaccessible
mountain--and conducted water to a mill, which (I learned in the morning)
was always worked by wind. The decanter had scarcely completed its third
circuit of the board, when I bid fair to be most popular specimen of the
peerage that ever visited the "far west." In the midst of my career of
universal benevolence, I was interrupted by Father Malachi, whom I found
on his legs, pronouncing a glowing eulogium on his cousin's late
regiment, the famous North Cork.

"That was the corps!" said he. "Bid them do a thing, and they'd never
leave off; and so, when they got orders to retire from Wexford, it's
little they cared for the comforts of baggage, like many another
regiment, for they threw away every thing but their canteens, and never
stopped till they ran to Ross, fifteen miles farther than the enemy
followed them. And when they were all in bed the same night, fatigued
and tired with their exertions, as ye may suppose, a drummer's boy called
out in his sleep--'here they are--they're coming'--they all jumped up and
set off in their shirts, and got two miles out of town before they
discovered it was a false alarm."

Peal after peal of laughter followed the priest's encomium on the
doctor's regiment; and, indeed, he himself joined most heartily in the
mirth, as he might well afford to do, seeing that a braver or better
corps than the North Cork, Ireland did not possess.

"Well," said Fin, "it's easy to see ye never can forget what they did at
Maynooth."

Father Malachi disclaimed all personal feeling on the subject; and I was
at last gratified by the following narrative, which I regret deeply I am
not enabled to give in the doctor's own verbiage; but writing as I do
from memory, (in most instances,) I can only convey the substance:

It was towards the latter end of the year '98--the year of the troubles
--that the North Cork was ordered, "for their sins" I believe, to march
from their snug quarters in Fermoy, and take up a position in the town of
Maynooth--a very considerable reverse of fortune to a set of gentlemen
extremely addicted to dining out, and living at large upon a very
pleasant neighbourhood. Fermoy abounded in gentry; Maynooth at that,
time had few, if any, excepting his Grace of Leinster, and he lived very
privately, and saw no company. Maynooth was stup