133 



MY UNCLE AND THE SHERIFFS OFFICER. 



My Uncle Charley More was one of those old-fashioned, hard- 

 headed, roystering Irish gentlemen, that flourished ahout the latter 

 part of the eighteenth century, fond of love-making, whiskey-drink- 

 ing, fighting, flirtation, and other little peculiarities which at that 

 time were not looked upon with the same cold calculating eye that 

 they are at the present ; in fact, it was then considered that those 

 qualifications should always helong to one of the old stock. Now 

 my Uncle Charley possessed all these, and more ; it was therefore 

 considered a great honour to be one of his acknowledged friends. 

 Ceitainly he had a queer circle of acquaintance, and used to lead a 

 jolly sort of life at the period of which I am speaking. My Uncle 

 had come up to Dublin from Wicklow, intending to spend a short 

 time in the gay city, but, unfortunately, on his arriving, he forgot to 

 call on his tailors, boot-makers, &c., &c., of the last season, and just 

 settle " their small accounts." 



Well, he had only been a short time in Dublin when the fact 

 hecame known, and immediately there was a writ taken out by one of 

 his creditors, and placed in the hands of the sheriflf^s oflScer, with 

 orders to attach his body, a process which the sheriflTs officer was 

 very much attached to. 



Now my Uncle heard of this, and so prepared accordingly. He 

 then resided at a small house, in what was at that time the suburbs of 

 Dublin, on the road to Enniskell ; consequently he was compelled 

 to fasten himself up in the house, and receive his parties of pleasure 

 in at the window, by the basket load. By this time the whole 

 neighbourhood was in an uproar ; the sheriff^s officers had taken their 

 post night and day in the garden, at the front of the house, and used 

 to sit quite unconcerned, with a small table before them, drinking rum 

 and water, and smoking their short pipes — in fact they seemed deter- 

 mined to have him, but he was equally so, they should not. Now, on 

 a party night, which was nearly every night, the scene, as my Uncle 

 used to say, was pleasing and agieeable in the extreme. He would 



