LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE.

The succeeding evening found them all assembled about Ned's fireside in
the usual manner; where M'Roarkin, after a wheezy fit of coughing and
a draught of Nancy's Porter, commenced to give them an account of
Larry M'Farland's Wake. We have observed before, that M'Roarkin was
desperately asthmatic, a circumstance which he felt to be rather an
unpleasant impediment to the indulgence either of his mirth or sorrow.
Every chuckle at his own jokes ended in a disastrous fit of coughing;
and when he became pathetic, his sorrow was most ungraciously dissipated
by the same cause; two facts which were highly relished by his audience.

"Lakry M'Fakland, when a young man, was considered the best laborer
within a great ways of him; and no servant-man in the parish got within
five shillings a quarter of his wages. Often and often, when his time
would be near out, he'd have offers from the rich farmers and gintlemen
about him, of higher terms; so that he was seldom with one masther more
nor a year at the very most. He could handle a flail with e'er a man
that ever stepped in black leather; and at spade-work there wasn't his
aquil. Indeed, he had a brain for everything: he could thatch better nor
many that arned their bread by it; could make a slide-car, straddle, or
any other rough carpenter work, that it would surprise you to think of
it; could work a kish or side creel beautifully; mow as much as any two
men, and go down a ridge of corn almost as fast as you could walk; was
a great hand at ditching, or draining meadows and bogs; but above all
things he was famous for building hay-ricks and corn-stacks; and when
Squire Farmer used to enter for the prize at the yearly plowing-match,
he was sure to borrow the loan of Larry from whatever master he happened
to be working with. And well he might, for the year out of four that
he hadn't Larry he lost the prize: and every one knew that if Larry had
been at the tail of his plough, they would have had a tighter job of it
in beating him.

"Larry was a light, airy young man, that knew his own value; and was
proud enough, God knows, of what he could do. He was, indeed, two much
up to sport and divarsion, and never knew his own mind for a week. It
was against him that he never stayed long in one place; for when he
got a house of his own afterwards, he had no one that cared anything in
particular about him. Whenever any man would hire him, he'd take care
to have Easter