ha'pence a-pound afther I bought them."

"Ha! ha! ha!--by my sannies, Nancy, as to market-making, they may
all throw their caps at you, you thief o' the world; you can do them
nately!"

"Ha! ha! ha! Stop, Ned; don't drink that water--it's not from the
garden-well. I'll jist mix a sup of this last stuff we got from the
mountains, till you taste it: I think it's not worse nor the last--for
Hugh Traynor's * an ould hand at making it."

* Hugh, who, by the way, is still living, and, I am glad to
hear, in improved circumstances, was formerly in the habit
of making a drop of the right sort.

This was all Ned wanted: his point was now carried; but with respect to
the rising of the tobacco, the less that is said about it the bettor for
his veracity.

Having thus given the reader a slight sketch of Ned and Nancy, and of
the beautiful valley in which this worthy speculator had his residence,
I shall next proceed to introduce him to the village circle, which,
during the long winter nights, might be found in front of Ned's
kitchen-fire of blazing turf, whose light was given back in ruddy
reflection from the bright pewter plates, that were ranged upon the
white and well-scoured dresser in just and gradual order, from the small
egg-plate to the large and capacious dish, whereon, at Christmas and
Easter, the substantial round of corned beef used to rear itself so
proudly over the more ignoble joints at the lower end of the table.

Seated in this clear-obscure of domestic light--which, after all, gives
the heart a finer and more touching notion of enjoyment than the glitter
of the theatre or the blaze of the saloon--might be found first, Andy
Morrow,* the juryman of the quarter-sessions, sage and important in the
consciousness of legal knowledge, and somewhat dictatorial withal in its
application to such knotty points as arose out of the subjects of
their nocturnal debates. Secondly, Bob Gott, who filled the foreign and
military departments, and related the wonderful history of the ghost
which appeared to him on the night after the battle of Bunker's-hill. To
him succeeded Tom M'Roarkin, the little asthmatic anecdotarian of half
the country,--remarkable for chuckling at his own stories. Then came old
M'Kinny, poacher and horse-jockey; little, squeaking, thin-faced Alick
M'Kinley, a facetious farmer of substance; and Shane Fadh, who handed
down, traditions and fairy tales. Enthroned on one hob sat Pat Frayne,
the s