LIFE IN IRELAND 217 



nanimity, to acknowledge and sport with outwardly 

 what imvardly must give him considerable pain. 



Here's your brother's health, said Brian to Swan — 

 not a word about the death of Lord Fitzgerald, said 

 Swan ; my brother's a good fellow ' with a hook,' but 

 I must be silent, by Jasus ; if government knew me 

 better than they do him, I should be in his place 

 before to-morrow morning; so I should, and so I 

 ought to be, if the Devil and the King had their due. 



The jug was replenished several times : Blake grew 

 boisterous in his own praise—he fought 



Rebellion's battle o'er again ; 

 And thrice he ran from Tara Hill, 

 And thrice ran back again. 



Blake, to do him justice, had been a gallant fellow 

 in his day, and the sums of money he expended in 

 raising and equipping a troop of flesh butchers in the 

 north, had so injured his fortune, that he found the 

 Sheriff's Prison in Dublin a more convenient place of 

 abode than Thereingo House, on the banks of the 

 Shaimon : in fact, he used to say, that as the rebels 

 had burnt down his house when he was out fighting 

 for the Country, the King had provided him a house 

 in toivn ; and to give him all due honour, the High 

 Sheriffs of Dublin were ordered to see that he was 

 comfortably situated, and pay their respects to him 

 once a week at least. 



A long residence in prison had made it agreeable to 

 the Captain ; use is second nature, and happy for man- 

 kind it is so in many cases, or what a set of miserable 

 wretches would there be in this world, particularly 

 amongst married people. 



