nd his daughter, with a household
of many servants, had replaced Hemsworth and his few domestics. At every
stage of the recital, Flahault stopped the narrative, to give him
time to laugh. To him the adventure was full of drollery. Even the
recollection of his wounded comrade little damped his enjoyment of a
scene, which might have been attended by the saddest results; and he
chuckled a hundred times over what he suspected the Englishman must
feel, on this, his first visit to Ireland. "I could rob the mail
to-morrow, for the mere fun of reading his letters to his friends," said
he. "_Mort bleu!_ what a description of Irish rapparrees, five hundred
in number, armed with pikes."

"I wish ye'd gave him the cause to do it," said Mary, bitterly--"what
brings them here? who wants them? or looks for them?"

"You are right, Mary," said Talbot, mildly. "Ireland for the Irish!"

"Ay, Ireland for the Irish!" repeated Mary and Lanty; and the sentiment
was drank with all the honours of a favoured toast.

For some time the party continued to discuss Flahault's story, and
calculate on every possible turn the affair might give rise to. All
agreeing, finally, on one point, that Sir Marmaduke would scarcely
venture to protract his stay in a country, where his visit had been
signalized by such a reception. The tone of the conversation seemed
little to accord with Captain Jacques' humour, whose convivial
temperament found slight pleasure in protracted or argumentative
discussions of any kind.

"_Que le diable l'importe_," cried he, at last. "This confounded talk
has stopped the bottle this half-hour. Come, Talbot, let's have a song,
my lad; never shake your head, _mon enfant,_---- Well, then, here goes."

Thus saying, Flahault pushed back his chair a little from the table, and
in a rich deep bass voice, which rung through the high rafters of the
cabin, chanted out the following rude verses, to a French vaudeville
air--giving the final _e_ of the French words, at the end of each
line, that peculiar accentuation of _a_--which made the word sound
_contrabanda!_

Though this information as to Captain Jacques' performance seems of
little moment, yet such was the fact, that any spirit the doggerel
possessed could only be attributed to the manner of the singer, and the
effect produced by the intonation we have mentioned.

LA CONTRABANDE.

A bumper, "mes enfans," to swallow your care,
A full bumper, we pledge,