was the pleasant ould man, and could
tell a story with any one that ever got up.

"In another corner there was a different set, bent on some piece of
divilment of their own. The boys would be sure to get beside their
sweethearts, any how; and if there was a purty girl, as you may set it
down there was, it's there the _skroodging_, (* pressure of the crowd)
and the pushing, and the shoving, and, sometimes, the knocking down
itself, would be, about seeing who'd get her. There's ould Katty Duffy,
that's now as crooked as the hind leg of a dog, and it's herself was
then as straight as a rush, and as blooming as a rose--Lord bless
us, what an alteration time makes upon the strongest and fairest of
us!--it's she that was the purty girl that night, and it's myself that
gave Frank M'Shane, that's still alive to acknowledge it, the broad of
his back upon the flure, when he thought to pull her off my knee. The
very gorsoons and girshas were sporting away among themselves, and
learning one another to smoke in the dark corners. But all this, Mr.
Morrow, took place in the corpse-house, before ten or eleven o'clock at
night; after that time the house got too thronged entirely, and couldn't
huld the half of them; so by jing, off we set, maning all the youngsters
of us, both boys and girls, out to Tom's barn, that was _red up_ (*
Cleared up for us--set in order), there to commence the plays. When we
were gone, the ould people had more room, and they moved about on the
sates we had left them. In the mane time, lashings of tobacco and snuff,
cut in platefuls, and piles of fresh new pipes, were laid on the table
for any one that wished to use them.

"When we got to the barn, it's then we _took our pumps off_ (* Threw
aside all restraint) in airnest--by the hokey, such sport you never saw.
The first play we began was _Hot-loof_; and maybe there wasn't skelping
then. It was the two parishes of Errigle-Keeran and Errigle-Truagh
against one another. There was the Slip from Althadhawan, for
Errigle-Truagh, against Pat M'Ardle, that had married Lanty Gorman's
daughter of Cargach, for Errigle-Keeran. The way they play it, Mr.
Morrow, is this--two young men out of each parish go out upon the
flure--one of them stands up, then bends himself, sir, at a half bend,
placing his left hand behind on the back part of his ham, keeping it
there to receive what it's to get. Well, there he stands, and the other
coming behind him, places his left foot out be