'For you see, if I had,
It's I'd be the lad
That would show all my people such larning;
And when they'd do wrong,
Why, instead of a song,
I'd give them a lump of a sarmin.'

"'Billy,' says my father-in-law, 'why don't you make a hearty dinner,
man alive? go back to your sate and finish your male--you're aiting
nothing to signify.' 'Me!' says Billy--'why, I'd scorn to ate a hearty
dinner; and, I'd have you to know, Matt Finigan, that it wasn't for
the sake of your dinner I came here, but in regard to your family, and
bekase I wished him well that's sitting beside your daughter: and it ill
becomes your father's son to cast up your dinner in my face, or any one
of my family; but a blessed minute longer I'll not stay among you. Give
me your hand, Shane Fadh, and you, Mary--may goodness grant you pace
and happiness every night and day you both rise out of your beds. I made
that coat your husband has on his back beside you--and a, betther fit
was never made; but I didn't think it would come to my turn to have my
dinner cast up this a-way, as if I was aiting it for charity.'

"'Hut, Billy,' says I, 'sure it was all out of kindness; he didn't mane
to offind you.'

"'It's no matter,' says Billy, beginning to cry, 'he did offend me; and
it's, low days with me to bear an affront from him, or the likes of
him; but by the powdhers-o'-war,' says he, getting into a great rage,
'I won't bear it,--only as you're an old man yourself, I'll not rise
my hand to you; but, let any man now that has the heart to take up your
quarrel, come out and stand before me on the sod here.'

"Well, by this time, you'd tie all that were present with three straws,
to see Billy stripping himself, and his two wrists not thicker than
drumsticks. While the tailor was raging, for he was pretty well up with
what he had taken, another person made his appearance at the far end of
the boreen* that led to the green where we sot. He was mounted upon the
top of a sack that was upon the top of a sober-looking baste enough--God
knows; he jogging along at his ase, his legs dangling down from the sack
on each side, and the long skirts of his coat hanging down behind him.
Billy was now getting pacified, bekase they gave way to him a little;
so the fun went round, and they sang, roared, danced, and coorted, right
and left.

* A small pathway or bridle road leading to a farm-house.

"When the stranger came as far as the skirt of the