ople on both sides, and dangerous to make or meddle with, not
saying that ever there was the likes of the same two for dacency and
peaceableness among either of the factions.'

"'Didn't I tell yez?' cried Katty; 'look at him now staling afther her;
and it'll be the same thing going home again; and, if Rose is not much
belied, it's not a bit displasing to her.'

"'Between ourselves, observed Peggy, it would be no wondher the darling
young crathur would fall in love with him; for you might thravel the
country afore you'd meet with his fellow for face and figure.'

"'There's Father Ned,' remarked Katty; 'we had betther get into the
chapel before the _scroodgin_ comes an, or your bonnet and gown, Rose,
won't be the betther for it.'

"They now proceeded to the chapel, and those who had been amusing
themselves after the same mode, followed their exemplar. In a short time
the hedges and ditches adjoining the chapel were quite in solitude, with
the exception of a few persons from the extreme parts of the parish, who
might be seen running with all possible velocity 'to overtake mass,' as
the phrase on that point expresses itself.

"The chapel of Knockimdowny was situated at the foot of a range of lofty
mountains; a by-road went past the very door, which had under subjection
a beautiful extent of cultivated country, diversificated by hill and
dale, or rather by hill and hollow; for, as far as my own geographical
knowledge goes, I have uniformly found them inseparable. It was also
ornamented with the waving verdure of rich corn-fields and meadows, not
pretermitting phatie-fields in full blossom--a part of rural landscape
which, to my utter astonishment, has escaped the pen of poet, and the
brush of painter; although I will risk my reputation as a man of pure
and categorical taste, if a finer ingredient in the composition of a
landscape could be found than a field of Cork-fed phaties or Moroky
_blacks_ in full bloom, allowing a man to judge by the pleasure they
confer upon the eye, and therefore to the heart. About a mile up from
the chapel, towards the south, a mountain-stream, not the one already
intimated--over which there was no bridge, crossed the road. But in lieu
of a bridge, there was a long double plank laid over it, from bank to
bank; and as the river was broad, and not sufficiently incarcerated
within its channel, the neighbors were necessitated to throw these
planks across the narrowest part they could find in the c