MEMOIR OF A GENTLEMAN. 265 



taxed with my false delicacy, and the usual wind-up, c It will 

 never do for Galway !' 



" Shy from my cradle, and accustomed to city formality, 

 I was not likely to become at once inhabited to Irish manners. 

 But in Connaught there was a laxity of form a free-and-easy 

 system of society, that exceeded all belief, and to a distant 

 person like me was intolerable. People on a half-hour's 

 acquaintance called you by your Christian name ; and men 

 whom you had never even heard of, rode to your door, and told 

 you coolly they f would stay a fortnight.' Introductions in 

 Connemara, I believe, are reckoned among the works of su- 

 pererogation. If I took a quiet ride, expecting upon my 

 return to meet none at dinner but my wife and the eternal 

 Marc Antony, I probably found half a score already seated at 

 the table, and might learn the appellatives of perhaps a couple 

 of the gang, by the announcement of ( Mr. Dawkins, Tom the 

 De-vil,' ( Mr. Dawkins, Smashall Sweeney.' 



"I remember upon the day on which I was so fortunate 

 as to make the acquaintance of the above gentlemen, in the 

 course of the evening they differed about the colour of a race- 

 horse, and, after bandying mutual civilities, concluded by 

 interchanging the lie direct and a full decanter. The latter 

 having grazed my head, induced me to abscond immediately ; 

 and when I recorded to my loving helpmate the narrow escape 

 from demolition I had just experienced, instead of tender 

 alarm and connubial sympathy, her countenance betrayed 

 irrepressible disappointment and surprise. c And have you, 

 Mr. Dawkins, really deserted your company, and that too at a 

 period when two gentlemen had disagreed ? Do return imme- 

 diately. Such inhospitality, I assure you, will never do for 

 Galway. 9 I did return ; but I had my revenge, and dearly it 

 cost me, though neither of the rascals were shot upon my 

 lawn. Smashall rode off my lady's favourite mare in mistake, 

 and sent her back next morning with a pair of broken knees 

 and Tom the Devil set fire to his bed-curtains the same 

 night, and nothing but a miracle saved the house. Every 

 thing in the apartment, however, was consumed or rendered 

 unserviceable. 



(e As I became more intimate with my wife's relatives, I 

 found that nothing but the lamp of Aladdin would meet their 

 multifarious demands. Castle Toole, like the cave of Adul- 

 lam, was the certain refuge of all gentlemen who happened to 



