54 Walks in Ireland. [July, 



not without some gruff murmurs, the siege was broken up, and the party 

 retired. 



When I tliought they were out of ear-shot, I was about to speak, but 

 the instant I articulated a sound, my companion laid her hand on my 

 mouth, and with a fierce gesture motioned me to be silent. Scarcely 

 had she done so, when a low whisper of " Molly — Molly," close to the 

 door, told me that her caution was not without reason. " Well, what is 

 it?" replied she, sinking her own voice to the same key with that of the 

 whisperer. " The boys are gone on to Biddy's, as I bid thim, an' I 

 sto])ped to ax ye iv ye wouldn't like a dhrop ov whisky to comfort ye 

 in the coidd an' the grief, ye poor crathur." — "An there's nobody widye, 

 an' ye wont Avant to cross the door, Micky ?" inquired my hostess. 

 " The never a sowl wid me, an' I wouldn't go in iv ye axed me till the 

 wake," replied he, in an offended tone, as if hurt at his politeness being 

 called in question. While imbarring the door with one hand, with the 

 other she drew me behind it, so as to put me completely out of view, and 

 holding it ajar, took from the hand of her condoling visitor a bottle. 

 " Did he go asy .''" said he, in a voice intended to be very sympathetic, 

 but which resembled the subdued growling of a mastiff over a bone. 

 " He Avas in grate pain, ravin' an' dhramin' about the bloody bill-hook 

 last night, — he died as hard as ever man died," said she, " an' struggled 

 the way you'll struggle on the gallows, Micky ; bud away wid ye, an' 

 send Biddy down afore he gets stiff;" and, without further ceremony, she 

 shut the door in his face. 



From a dark nook she produced two horn goblets and a pitcher of 

 water, and knocking off the neck of the bottle she had received from her 

 last visiter, invited me by Iier example to taste its contents ; and let bons 

 vivants say wliat they please about Clos de Vougert, La Pitte or SiUery, 

 there never was a draught so much to my mind after the fatigue, the 

 deluge, and the excitation of that night, as the copious libation of whisky 

 and water with which I forthwith refreshed my inward man. " Ye 

 want to know who I am, and where ye are," said my singular hostess 

 when I had finished my draught ; " I see it in ye're eye, an' so ye shall : 

 ye're in the house ov a man that might have been a dacent labourer, and 

 the father ov a lively, healthy family, and the husband of an honest 

 wife," and liere her voice faltered for an instant, " but he had a bad 

 dhrop in his heart that wouldn't let him come to good. I listened to 

 him, an' he made me a fool an' a disgrace to my people ; an' he listened 

 to the devil, an' spilt his masther's blood for the lucre ov gain ; but the 

 judgment's come at last. I was a dacent, innocent girl, when first I met 

 him that's there — look at me now, an' see what he's made me — but that's 

 not what I want to talk about. It's now eleven years, last Michaelmas, 

 sence him an' I were livin' in the sarvice ov Mr. Daly, a farmer, and a 

 kind masther he was ; an' there come a girl out ov the County IMathe 

 into the same sarvice, an' she wasn't in it two days, when she come in 

 the morning in a thrimble ov fright to Miss Daly, and tould her that she 

 dhramed that the masther an' misthress were murthered in bed by a man 

 that she knew the face ov well, and that the dhrame was too sharp a 

 dhrame, not to come for a warning. ]\Iiss Daly was walkin' out ov her 

 room an' goin' on to the kitchen all the time, never mindin' a word the 

 girl was sayin', for she had a bould heart an' didn't mind dhrames no 

 more nor if she was a Jew. In the kitchen were the labourin' men all at 

 breakfast, an' him," pointing to the corpse, " along wid the rest ; an' as 



