feet be too larned, if
you plase."

"Silence!--_taceto!_ you reptile. Now, Phadrick, here, on this side o'
you, lies Barny Branagan's field; an' there, on that side, lies a field
of Parra Ghastha's; you're the ditch o' mud betuxt them."

"The ditch o' mud! Faix that's dacent!"

"Now here, on Barny Branagan's side, feeds Parra Ghastha's mare; an'
there, on Parra Ghastha's side, feed Barny Branagan's goats. Do you
comprehend? Do you insinuate?"

"I do--I do. Death alive! there's no use in punchin' my sides wid your
feet that way."

"Well, get up now an' set your ears."

"Now listen to him, Phadrick!"

"It was one night in winter, when all nature shone in the nocturnal
beauty of tenebrosity: the sun had set about three hours before; an',
accordin' to the best logicians, there was a dearth of light. It's the
general opinion of philosophers--that is, of the soundest o' them--that
when the sun is down the moon an' stars are usually up; an' so they were
on the night that I'm narratin' about. The moon was, wid great respect
to her character, night-walkin' in the sky; and the stars vegetated in
celestial genuflexion around her. Nature, Phadrick, was in great state;
the earth was undher our feet, an' the sky above us. The frost, too,
was hard, Phadrick, the air keen, an' the grass tendher. All things
were enrobed wid verisimilitude an' scrupulosity. In this manner was the
terraqueous part of our system, when Parra Ghastha's mare, after havin'
taken a cowld collation on Barny Branagan's grass, was returnin' to her
master's side o' the merin; an' Barny Branagan's goats, havin' tasted
the sweets of Parra Ghastha's cabbages, were on their way acrass the
said merin to their own side. Now it so happened that they met exactly
at a narrow gap in the ditch behind Rosha Halpin's house. The goats,
bein' coupled together, got one on each side of the rift, wid the rope
that coupled them extended acrass it. The mare stood in the middle of
it, so that the goats were in the way of the mare, an' the mare in the
way of the goats. In the meantime they surveyed one another wid great
composure, but had neither of them the politeness to stir, until Rosha
Halpin came suddenly out, an' emptied a vessel of untransparent wather
into the ditch. The mare, who must have been an animal endowed wid great
sensibility of soul, stooped her head suddenly at the noise; an' the
goats, who were equally sentimental, gave a start from nervishness. The
mare, on