GHOSTS AND FAIRIES. 221 



' apples for gentlemen,"* with another suitor. Nay, 

 more, the quondam lover, as was reported, had actually 

 cecisbeo'd Miss Biddy Currigan across the bogs ; and dark 

 and dangerous innuendoes arose from this imprudent 

 escort. Andy Bawn was unhappily a man " who 

 doubts, but dotes ; suspects, yet fondly loves." Alas ! 

 what was to be done ? Could Miss Currigan become 

 Mrs. Donahoo, after suffering a regular blast, as they 

 call it in the kingdom of Connaught ? Impossible ! 

 her character must be cleared, and Andy satisfied. 



The magistrate was proposed well, that was good 

 enough, if it were the identity of a strayed sheep, or 

 the murder of a man ; but in a nice case, like Miss 

 Currigan's, it was totally inefficient. " The vestment 

 would be taken," still better ; but the world was 

 censorious : and, after all, Biddy Currigan was a giddy 

 girl to cross a couple of miles of moorland, after midnight, 

 with a declared lover, and him hearty ;f and so thought 

 Andy Bawn. At last the suspected virgin volunteered 

 to " take the skull," dispel the fears of her liege lord, 

 and put calumny to the blush for ever. Andy Bawn 

 " breathed again ; " and the otter-killer was directed 

 to provide the necessary articles for the ceremony. 



A skull was accordingly procured from a neighbouring 

 bury ing-ground ; and Andy's mother, anxious for the 

 honour of the family, threw into the relic a bunch of 

 keys for iron, they say, adds desperately to the solemnity 

 of the obligation. The apparatus being paraded, 

 Antony explained in the mother tongue that the sins 

 of the lady or gentleman to whom the skull had once 



* A favourite contre danse at the above assemblies, 

 ^Anglice, half drunk, 



