LIFE IN IRELAND 199 



could be taken for his liberation, or the arrangement 

 of his affairs. 



I mean, said vSiR Shawn, to dine at your mess, 

 Brian, and see what sort of an appetite is derived from 

 prison air and little exercise. There were about twenty 

 sat down to the mess table, with Mrs. Crofton at the 

 head. The dinner was excellent, and the wines pretty 

 fair, though punch was the favourite beverage. Mrs. 

 Crofton was a pretty woman, but had contracted 

 such a habit of looking sour, that she gave the horrors 

 to all near her person ; besides, she assumed a con- 

 sequence from her station, quite ridiculous in a woman 

 whose husband had been guard to a mail coach, and 

 thrown into prison by his creditors : he, or rather she, 

 had the good fortune to get the Tap, where they were 

 making a rapid fortune, and to ensure which he refused 

 to go out of prison, or the act would long since have 

 liberated him. — Crofton was a devilish cunning soul, 

 with a long tongue tipt with blarney ; he could be 

 polite and civil where it was his interest to be so ; but 

 to those who owed him a single tenpenny, he was a 

 very brute. 



There was a Captain Blake at table, who was from 

 Gal way, and an old acquaintance of Brian Boru, they 

 were both glad and sorry to meet each other in such a 

 place. 



Blake had been in the army, but sold out upon 

 coming to a large estate, which he had embarrassed 



from horse-racing and w . He had been in quod 



more than two years, and was far from being reconciled 

 to incarceration : he however had paid off many 

 inciifudrances, and amongst them his wife. — Blake knew 



