68 AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 



us we jump to our feet, when the whole flock 

 suddenly falls into rank, and sheers off like 

 lightning in a sort of close column. Bang, 

 bang, bang, bang! a whole cloud of feathers 

 and a goodly number of the delicious fowl (I 

 prefer them to any of our wild-fowl, save teal, 

 for the table) are tumbled over, while odd 

 cripples are dropping out of the scurrying but 

 silent army that now plunges nervously over 

 the tops of the heather, anon tosses itself as 

 though with the single impulse far up into the 

 air. Five brace altogether, Jack Sullivan 

 gathers, and opines from our commencement 

 that we'll have what he calls " a good day av 

 it." Approaching the residence of Mr. 

 Callaghan, farmer and tailor. Mr. Callaghan 

 lives in a mud edifice pleasantly placed in a 

 bog. This is literally true, although it is a 

 poetic quotation. There is a pretty green cess- 

 pool before the hall-door, on the sill of which 

 a pig is talking to himself. A few ducks are 

 studying the contents of a pile of rubbish 

 which ornaments the south bank of the mere 

 aforesaid. A ramshackle cowhouse, and out- 

 side it the boreen (lane), over the stone wall of 



