le parish. She, however, made him a good
wife and careful manager, until the events of my sthory.

"One day, late in the fall, Matthew harnessed his horses in a
hay-riggin', and drove off to the bog, five miles away, to haul in his
winter's firin'. He wrought all day, getting the dried turfs into a
pile, and had just half loaded his team, when a stranger, decently
dressed, came up to him, and asked if his name was Matthew Collins.

"'That, indeed, is the name that's on me,' said Matthew; 'and what might
you be wantin' of me?'

"'I've sorrowful news for you, Mat,' said the stranger. 'Your sister
Rose, that married my poor cousin Tim Mulloy, beyant the mountains, is
dead, and I'm sint to bid ye to the berryin' to-morrow.'

"For a few moments Matthew gave way to a natural feeling of grief at the
loss of his sister; but he soon bethought himself that he was five miles
from home, and that a circuitous road of at least twenty miles lay
between his house and the parish of his sister's husband.

"'I can never do it, that's certain,' said he to the stranger. 'It's
five miles home, and there's changin' my clothes, and a twenty-mile
drive over a road that it's timptin' Providence to attimpt in the dark.'

"'It's a great bother, intirely," said the stranger, reflectively.
'Musha! I have it. Take my clothes, and take the short cut across the
Devil's Nose. In three hours you'll be at the wake, and I'll dhrive the
team home and tell the good woman, and be round with a saddle-horse
before mornin'.'

"'Faith it's yourself that's the dacent thing, any how; and I'm sorry
that I can't be at home to thrate you with a bottle of the rale poteen.
Never mind; tell Nancy it's in the thatch above the dure; and you're
welcome to it all the same as if I were there myself.'

"'We won't part without a glass, any how,' said the stranger,
laughingly. 'I've a pint bottle of the rale stuff, and some boiled eggs,
and we'll soon have a couple of the shells emptied, in the shake of a
lamb's tail, and thin we'll change clothes and dhrink to your safe
journey.'

"Accordingly the two exchanged clothes, and sat for half an hour, while
the stranger described the last illness of the deceased, and the respect
shown her memory by the people of her parish.

"'Divil a whole head will be left in the parish, if they dhrink all the
whiskey; and there's stacks of pipes, and lashin's of tobacky, with tay
and cakes, and the house in a blaze with mould candles. I