ANDY COTTER. 15 



the supernatural whiff of sulphur in their 

 powder is supposed to be a matter of course. 

 Andy Cotter can bring you through Murphy' 

 Bog without the water at any time coming 

 much higher than your breeches pockets. 

 Andy invites you to jump with him from tuft 

 to tuft, and flies like an acrobat from one 

 mound of quaking, grumbling moss to an- 

 other, which wobbles with your weight, and 

 appears to roar under you. Shooting under 

 the circumstances is not so easy. To be sure, 

 the snipe are plenty ; but it puzzles a good 

 dog to get them when hit, and they are oftener 

 missed than otherwise as you are canting and 

 balancing yourself over a possible peat-grave 

 in Murphy's Bog. Andy is content to show 

 you the birds ; hitting or missing is your own 

 affair ; but he is certain at the close of the day 

 to remind you of all you saw, and how little 

 comparatively you are possessed of. The 

 rascal is villanously honest and remorselessly 

 candid. " That's the second hare wud a white 

 scut we missed to-day, Sir," he calls out 

 after the repetition of well, an accident, in 

 Murphy's Bog. And he gazes with an aggra- 



