good life,
and conducted themselves dacently and honestly, the young people of the
neighborhood show their respect by going through their little plays and
divarsions quieter and with less noise, lest they may give any offence;
but, as I said, whenever the person didn't live as they ought to do,
there's no stop to their noise and rollikin.

"When it drew near morning, every one of us took his sweetheart, and,
after convoying her home, we went to our own houses to get a little
sleep--so that was the end of poor Larry, M'Farland, and his wife, Sally
Lowry.

"Success, Tom!" said Bill M'Kinnly "take a pull of the malt now, afther
the story, your soul!--But what was the funeral like?"

"Why, then, a poor berrin it was," said Tom; "a miserable sight, God
knows--just a few of the neighbors; for those that used to take his
thrate, and while he had a shilling in his pocket blarney him up, not
one of the skulking thieves showed their faces at it--a good warning
to foolish men that throw their money down throats that haven't hearts
anundher them.--But boys, desarve another thrate, I think, afther my
story!" This, we need scarcely add, he was supplied with, and after
some further desultory chat, they again separated, with the intention of
reassembling at Ned's on the following night.

THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS.

Accordingly, the next evening found them all present, when it was
determined unanimously that Pat Frayne, the hedge schoolmaster, should
furnish them with the intellectual portion of the entertainment for that
night, their object being each to tell a story in his turn.

"Very well," said Pat, "I am quite simultaneous to the wishes of the
company; but you will plaise to observe, that there is clay which is
moist, and clay which is not moist. Now, under certain circumstances,
the clay which is not moist, ought to be made moist, and one of those
circumstances that in which any larned person becomes loquacious,
and indulges in narrative. The philosophical raison, is decided on by
Socrates, and the great Phelim M'Poteen, two of the most celebrated
liquorary characters that ever graced the sunny side of a plantation,
is, that when a man commences a narration with his clay not moist,
the said narration is found, by all lamed experience, to be a very dry
one--ehem!"

"Very right, Mr. Frayne," replied Andy Morrow; "so in ordher to avoid
a dhry narrative, Nancy, give the masther a jug of your stoutest to wet
his whi