, and each of them
stoops in tarn. They are, then, compelled to command the person that
owns that forfeit to sing a song--to kiss such and such a girl--or to
carry some ould man, with his legs about their neck, three times round
the house, and this last is always great fun. Or, maybe, a young,
upsetting fellow, will be sent to kiss some toothless, slavering, ould
woman, just to punish him; or if a young woman is any way saucy, she'll
have to kiss some ould, withered fellow, his tongue hanging with age
half way down his chin, and the tobacco water trickling from each comer
of his mouth.

"By jingo, many a time, when the friends of the corpse would be breaking
their very hearts with grief and affliction, I have seen them obligated
to laugh out, in spite of themselves, at the drollery of the priest,
with, his ould black coat and wig upon him; and when the laughing fit
would be over, to see them rocking themselves again with the sorrow--so
sad. The best man for managing such sports in this neighborhood, for
many a year, was Roger M'Cann, that lives up as you go to the mountains.
You wouldn't begrudge to go ten miles the cowldest winter night that
ever blew, to see and hear Roger.

"There's another play that they call the _Priest of the Parish_, which,
is remarkably pleasant. One of the boys gets a wig upon himself as
before--goes out on the flure, places the boys in a row, calls one _his
man Jack_ and says to each 'What will you be?' One answers 'I'll be
black cap;' another--red cap;' and so on. He then says, 'The priest of
the parish has lost his considhering cap some says this, and some says
that, but I say my man Jack!' Man Jack, then, to put it off himself,
says, Is it me, sir?' 'Yes, sir!' 'You lie, sir!' 'Who then, sir?'
'Black cap!' If Black cap, then, doesn't say 'Is it me, sir?' before the
priest has time to call him, he must put his hand on his ham, and get a
pelt of the brogue. A body must be supple with the tongue in it.

"After this comes one they call _Horns, or the Painter_. A droll fellow
gets a lump of soot or lamp black, and after fixing a ring of the boys
and girls about him, he lays his two fore-fingers on his knees, and
says. 'Horns, horns, cow horns!' and then raises his finders by a jerk
up above his head; the boys and girls in the ring then do the same
thing, for the meaning of the play is this:--the man with the black'ning
always raises his fingers every time he names an animal; but if he names
a