way;" and here he leaned over as interceding with me for him, but in
reality to whisper into my ear, "the greatest miser from this to
Castlebar."

"Who's that put down the half guinea in goold?" (And this time he spoke
truth.) "Who's that, I say?"

"Tim Kennedy, your reverence," said Tim, stroking his hair down with one
hand, and looking proud and modest at the same moment.

"Tim, ye're a credit to us any day, and I always said so. It's a gauger
he'd like to be, my lord," said he, turning to me, in a kind of stage
whisper. I nodded and muttered something, when he thanked me most
profoundly as if his suit had prospered.

"Mickey Oulahan--the lord's looking at ye, Mickey." This was said
piannisime across the table, and had the effect of increasing Mr.
Oulahan's donation from five shillings to seven--the last two being
pitched in very much in the style o a gambler making his final coup, and
crying "va banque." "The Oulahans were always dacent people--dacent
people, my lord."

"Be gorra, the Oulahans was niver dacenter nor the Molowneys, any how,"
said a tall athletic young fellow, as he threw down three crown pieces,
with an energy that made every coin leap from the plate.

"They'll do now," said Father Brennan; "I'll leave them to themselves;"
and truly the eagerness to get the plate and put down the subscription,
fully equalled the rapacious anxiety I have witnessed in an old maid at
loo, to get possession of a thirty-shilling pool, be the same more or
less, which lingered on its way to her, in the hands of many a fair
competitor.

"Mr. M'Neesh"--Curzon had hitherto escaped all notice--"Mr. M'Neesh, to
your good health," cried Father Brennan. "It's many a secret they'll be
getting out o'ye down there about the Scotch husbandry."

Whatever poor Curzon knew of "drills," certainly did not extend to them
when occupied by turnips. This allusion of the priest's being caught up
by the party at the foot of the table, they commenced a series of
inquiries into different Scotch plans of tillage--his brief and
unsatisfactory answers to which, they felt sure, were given in order to
evade imparting information. By degrees, as they continued to press him
with questions, his replies grew more short, and a general feeling of
dislike on both sides was not very long in following.

The father saw this, and determining with his usual tact to repress it,
called on the adjutant for a song. Now, whether he had but one in t