A sportsman's dinner. 243 



of it are gone already. But, hush ! let us hear the 

 conversation. I think if there be strength in poteen 

 the Colonel has reached the moralising point." 



" Andrew," said the commander. (" The Colonel," 

 said my kinsman, aside, " is generally hard screwed when 

 he calls the Priest Andrew.") 



" Andrew, fill the glass : the boys are ruminating 

 beside the river ; their young blood is hotter than ours, 

 so we'll stick to the ingle-side and the tumbler. There 

 was a day when we could bring a stag to the ground, 

 and scramble up Carrig-a-binniogh as stoutly as the 

 best of them, — but that day s gone : we have changed 

 for the worse, and so has everything. Andrew, in our 

 youth it was a merry world. But who succeeded old 

 Markham ? He was as honest a divine as ever finished 

 a magnum. They talked — for virtue has always its 

 enemies — of his smuggling a little, and having a private 

 still in the stable ; but it was all hospitality. Andrew, 

 the poteen is sweet, but weak — ^help it, man, for these 

 glasses scarcely hold a thimbleful 1 — at our age water- 

 drinking won't do. — Not a drop of brandy, you say 

 inside the Mullet ? "* 



" Not an anker in the barony I " returned his com- 

 panion, with a heavy sigh. " There was a time when my 

 poor cabin could not be taken short for Nantz and 

 Hollands ; but if I can keep a bottle of the native now, 

 it is the most. Would you believe it, Colonel ? the 

 revenue people searched my house a month ago." 



The Colonel looked indignant. *' Search your house ? 

 profane a Priest's own dwelling ? Why, after a while 



* The grand boundary of the wild peninsula of Erris, separating 

 it from the interior counties. It is used in a general sense to describe 

 the district — as " within or without the Mullet." 



