SEVENTH EMPTYING. 121 



there kem down the Shannon a thundering, tattering, tearing 

 flood, and it got into the churchyard and tore up all the 

 new-made graves, and the eels got in wid it, and they got 

 at Mikj Cknsey in his coffin and rooted him out and carried 

 him off 6?' *>,ly. And when the flood fell some days after, 

 my father was on the river with his gun in a boat, and he 

 sees something on the top of the water lathering and 

 splashing about ; and he took his gun and let fly, and be the 

 powers, sor ! if it wasn't a thundering big eel that weighed 

 about 100 pounds, and he couldn't get down from the top 

 of the water because he had got Mike Clansey's cork leg 

 in his belly." 



& & 



"Mr. Brown, how much are these trout a pound?'* 

 " One-and-four,sir." "Then I will take five pounds, and please 

 throw them to me as I stand here." " Throw them, sir ?" 

 " Yes, throw them, I would not tell my wife a lie on any 

 account, so throw them one by one, and I can honestly say 

 I caught them, don't you know ?" 



I once heard a man, called on suddenly to make an after 

 dinner speech, excuse himself because, although he had much 

 to say, he could not think of any of it. And that reminded 

 me of a certain privileged keeper who, one night after the 

 nightcaps and the bacca had for some time been all agog, 

 thus arrested our attention ; " I tell you what," said he, 

 " there were an idea cum into my head the other night at if 

 it could be carried out would be one o't grandest things 'at 

 ever happened for t' working man. It would make him 

 happier and richer, and freer, and it would improve his health ; 

 it was t' finest idea 'at ever I even read of. It would 

 . . . ." he continued for some time dilating on the 

 advantages of his great idea when one of the company broke 

 in with, " Yes, yes, that is all very well, Jackson, but we 



