1832.] The Fresh Water Whale. 509 



" Faith, then, now I think of it," interrupted Luckie, " all four o 1 

 them are mine, allowing you your full rights as king o' the township. At 

 the worst, they are but cattle strayed." 



" That's it. Luckie ; and a bad worst for you, it is. They come under 

 the word < straies,' that stands in my charter. And, maybe, was I to give 

 you the pigs and the calf" 



" If I don't go at once, I see you'll argue me out o' them again. So 

 God be with you, Blundus, until I see you again, which won't be often, 

 unless you're sick, or send for me." 



So saying, Luckie mounted her little nag, and cantered away in quest 

 of Thady Purcell, to whom, on coming up with him, she gave back his 

 money, telling him never to part with it on so slippery a security as bog- 

 land again. In ten minutes more, with little or no help, she had got her 

 two pigs, and her calf, and taken possession of that slip of township 

 which Blundus had agreed she should have; where for the present we 

 will leave her. 



The first steps which O'Rindan took, on entering into possession of his 

 whale, was to secure it against a reaction, or future attack from that 

 element which had borne it to the township. On this point he was so 

 anxious, that he did nothing for a year but peg it down by means of long 

 poles, inserted at short intervals, to the hard and barren ground beneath 

 it. Meantime, the crops went to ruin ; the sties, the stalls, and the 

 poultry yard, lost the whole of their tenants ; and in the course of three 

 years, Blundus found himself alone on the farm, which had become 

 almost as desolate as the township of Fidlimid was, prior to the stranding 

 of its predicted whale. At length, being over head and ears in debt, and 

 without a moveable left for which he could get the value of a glass of 

 whiskey, after a fierce struggle with his pride, he offered to sell the whole 

 of his domain, with the exception of the broken-down castle, and his 

 rights of custom and poundage, wrecks, flatsome and jetsome, waifs, 

 straies, tithe-fish, and so forth. But no one would become a purchaser; 

 some doubting the validity of his title as to Luckie O'Carrol's land ; and 

 others fearing, in spite of his vehement protestations about having safely 

 pegged it to the township, that one day or other it might perform an act 

 of retributive justice, and swim away back to its place in the bog, carrying 

 a slice of his indisputable property tacked to its tail. 



From bad came worse ; and by-and-by two men were seen walking 

 down to the township, who did not come back as they went, for betwixt 

 them was Blundus. He had shewed them his charter, and convinced 

 them by the clearest arguments in the world, that they had no right to 

 capture him for debt, as they wished to do, or any thing short of mis- 

 prision of treason, within the boundaries of his own territory. The 

 two men, however, were so irrational as to carry him off to prison, where 

 he lay for more than a month, with the worst of companions, namely his 

 own bad and bitter thoughts. At last a friend came to see him ; you will 

 guess it was Luckie O'Carrol. All this time she had been toiling and 

 doing well, on the slip of ground Blundus had lent her ; it was now green 

 as a leek, and fat living things had long been seen on it in plenty. When 

 she entered the cell, her cheek was not pale, nor her eye dull, nor her 

 look woe-begone, but rather the reverse : Blundus, however, dim as the 

 light was, saw that sorrow, or something else, had wrought a fearful 

 change in her. She was evidently flushed with strong excitement. Blun- 



