, every year, out of the farm.--The farm itself was all run to
waste by this time, and had a miserable look about it--sometimes you
might see a piece of a field that had been ploughed, all overgrown with
grass, because it had never been sowed or set with anything. The slaps
were all broken down, or had only a piece of an ould beam, a thorn bush,
or crazy car lying acrass, to keep the cattle out of them. His bit of
corn was all eat away and cropped here and there by the cows, and his
potatoes rooted up by the pigs.--The garden, indeed, had a few cabbages,
and a ridge of early potatoes, but these were so choked with burtlocks
and nettles, that you could hardly see them.

"I tould you before that they led the divil's life, and that was nothing
but God's truth; and according as they got into greater poverty it
was worse. A day couldn't pass without a fight; if they'd be at their
breakfust, maybe he'd make a potato hop off her skull, and she'd give
him the contents of her noggin of buttermilk about the eyes; then he'd
flake her, and the childher would be in an uproar, crying out, 'Oh,
daddy, daddy, don't kill my mammy!' When this would be over, he'd go
off with himself to do something for the Squire, and would sing and
laugh so pleasant, that you'd think he was the best-tempered man alive;
and so he was, until neglecting his business, and minding dances, and
fairs, and drink, destroyed him.

"It's the maxim of the world, that when a man is down, down with him;
but when a man goes down through his own fault, he finds very little
mercy from any one. Larry might go to fifty fairs before he'd meet
any one now to thrate him; instead of that, when he'd make up to them,
they'd turn away, or give him the cowld shoulder. But that wouldn't
satisfy him: for if he went to buy a slip of a pig, or a pair of
brogues, and met an ould acquaintance that had got well to do in the
world, he should bring him in, and give him a dram, merely to let the
other see that he was still _able_ to do it; then, when they'd sit down,
one dram would bring on another from Larry, till the price of the pig or
the brogues would be spint, and he'd go home again as he came, sure to
have another battle with Sally.

"In this way things went on, when one day that Larry was preparing to
sell some oats a son of Nicholas Roe Sheridan's of the Broad bog came
in to him. 'Good-morrow,' says he. 'Good-morrow, kindly, Art,' says
Larry--'how are you, ma bou-chal?'

"'Why