AULD LANG SYNE. 209 



could bring a stag to the ground, and scramble up Carrig- 

 a-binniogh as stoutly as the best of them, but that day's 

 gone : we have changed for the worse, and so has everything. 

 Andrew, in our youth it was a merry world. But who suc- 

 ceeded old Markham ? He was as honest a divine as ever 

 finished a magnum. They talked for virtue has always its 

 enemies of his smuggling a little, and having a private still 

 in the stable ; but it was all hospitality. Andrew, the poteen 

 is sweet, but weak help it man, for these glasses scarcely 

 hold a thimbleful! at our age water- drinking won't do. 

 Not a drop of brandy, you say, inside the Mullet ?"* 



" Not an anker in the barony!" returned his companion 

 with a heavy sigh. " There was a time when my poor cabin 

 could not be taken short for Nantz and Hollands ; but if I 

 can keep a bottle of the native now, it is the most. Would you 

 believe it, Colonel ? the revenue people searched my house a 

 month ago." 



The Colonel looked indignant. " Search your house ? 

 profane a priest's own dwelling? why, after a while, they'll 

 look into the Lodge. Did you curse the scoundrels from 

 the altar?" 



" Not I," said the churchman. "They are all northmenf 

 and foreigners, who would not care a brass button whether I 

 banned or blessed them for a twelvemonth. There is a 

 ruffian of the flockj that acts as a spy and guide, and I 

 suspect he sent them." 



" Excommunicate him !" exclaimed the commander, with 

 drunken solemnity. 



* The grand boundary of the wild peninsula of Erris, separating it 

 from the interior counties. It is used in a general sense to describe the 

 district as " within or without the Mullet." 



t Northmen is a phrase not only applied to recent settlers from the 

 north of Ireland, but even to families who have been located here for 

 centuries. In point of fact, few of the tribes here are purely aboriginal ; 

 for Ennis and Connemara being the Ultima Thule of the land, every 

 wanderer for private and political offences fled to these havens of refuge, 

 and in course of time amalgamated with the native proprietors of the soil. 

 Hence to this day, their descendants are not unfrequently taunted with 

 being novi homines; and when a delinquency is committed by one of 

 these unhappy hybrids, an aboriginal will probably observe, " Sure, after 

 all, what could be expected from him, considering that his great great- 

 grandfather vf&sfrom the North!" 



t The flock a Roman Catholic congregation is so termed in 



r 



