but no matter,' says he, 'your head's worth more
nor a pair o' brogues to me any day, and by the Piper of Blessintown,
you're money in my pocket this minit,' says he: and with that, the
fingers was in his mouth agin, and he was goin' to whistle, whin, what
would you think, but up sets the fox on his hunkers, and puts his two
fore-paws into his mouth, makin' game o' the ranger--(bad luck to the
lie I tell you.)

"'Well, the ranger, and no wondher, although in a rage as he was,
couldn't help laughin' at the thought o' the fox mockin' him, and, by
dad, he tuk sitch a fit o' laughin' that he couldn't whistle--and that
was the 'cuteness o' the fox to gain time; but whin his first laugh
was over, the ranger recovered himself, and gev another whistle; and
so says the fox, 'By my soul,' says he, 'I think it wouldn't be good
for my health to stay here much longer, and I mustn't be triflin'
with that blackguard ranger any more,' says he, 'and I must make
him sensible that it is time to let me go, and though he hasn't
understandin' to be sorry for his brogues, I'll go bail I'll make him
lave that,' says he, 'before he'd say _sparables_'--and with that what
do you think the fox done? By all that's good--and the ranger himself
told me out iv his own mouth, and said he would never have b'lieved
it, ownly he seen it--the fox tuk a lighted piece iv a log out o' the
blazin' fire, and run over wid it to the ranger's bed, and was goin'
to throw it into the sthraw, and burn him out of house and home; so
when the ranger seen that he gev a shout out iv him--

"'Hillo! hillo! you murtherin' villain,' says he, 'you're worse nor
Captain Rock; is it goin' to burn me out you are, you red rogue iv
a Ribbonman?" and he made a dart betune him and the bed, to save
the house from bein' burnt,--but, my jew'l, that was all the fox
wanted--and as soon as the ranger quitted the hole in the door that
he was standin' foreninst, the fox let go the blazin' faggit, and made
one jump through the door and escaped.

"But before he wint, the ranger gev me his oath that the fox turned
round and gev him the most contemptible look he ever got in his life,
and showed every tooth in his head with laughin', and at last he put
out his tongue at him, as much as to say--'You've missed me like your
mammy's blessin',' and off wid him, like a flash o' lightnin'."

TO MY MOTHER.

FORRESTER.

[It is hardly necessary to say that too much tenderness cannot