was to rise late, there was a great coholaune [company] at my house, waiting for the apples. So off we sets with six sheets that the girls made into bags, and a wallet for the night itself, because the bags warn't to be touched till November eve. Every one of us had a fine stick, and we took a spade and shovel and a big gwaul [bundle] of hay. There was at that time a great brake of furze over Dan Morarty's ground, and in the middle of it within, I suppose 'twas the Good People, as they call 'em [Fairies: Crohoore was much too proud to give this title in a tone of any thing but contempt,] made it for their pattherns, as fine and smooth and round a green field as you'd desire to see. We left the other things here until we'd come back with the apples and bury them, and then up the hill with us. Thigue had his fuhurruch [cabin] in the middle of the orchard, but all our design was on the farmers, [a kind of apple,] you know, Simon, near the west ditch."-" Is't me? Often I robbed it.""So we got in near that. I was first: the clouds were running across the sky like two factions at a fair, crying five pounds for each other's head; but the night, after all, was not very dark. Well, there was a path, you know, from the tree, and always was, up to the cabin and over to Hugh Folvey's ground; so I stole over under the shadow of the trees to the cabin, and I looked down the chimney. Sure enough, the cabin was almost full of people, playing cards, and laughing, only the wind did not let me hear 'em. Tim himself, (and sure, Larry, wasn't he a fine player? That I mightn't stir out of this seat if he wasn't a match for the White Piper!)"

"Oych, the villain of the world! if he didn't colour the cards there isn't a cottner in Cork. We played for my great-coat, before ever I thought of going sodgering. There was thirty games for it; and, bad luck to me! if I had more than five won, when he shouldered it off with him. Before you could bite a cartridge, 'twas gone. By the same token 'twas Corney Clifford, from Listhry, made it; and I bate him the same evening, because it was not full enough in the skirts. But, right shoulders forward, Crohoore: you were in the militia yourself."

of

Well, may be he did; but, any how, he had the bonnuv [the ace hearts, which in the usual Irish game always ranks as the third trump] that night in his hand, and he was in great glee. I knew, too, that his partner opposite me, Ignatius Sullivan, had something good, from bis face. Well, says I, they wont be in a hurry to look at the orchard, and I went back to the boys and told them how matters was. So I put Jack on the path between the farmers and the cabin, to watch; and if any one was coming, to whistle to us; and we were to whistle to him when the bags was full. Jack knelt down in the path on one knee, and put his chin this way in his hand, and looked over to the cabin. He had a black thorn stick across his thigh that would be fit for King George himself." Larry, I suppose the King has a great faction," said Jack Connell; "have they all bagnets (bayonets ?)"

"God help your head. Do you know the reeds below in the lake? he has more cannons than is there of 'um, and every one of 'um like a chained shot that would may-be kill all the sodgers in Ross castle at once. "Thonom an dhiaoul, Larry, what's that you say?" said Jack in the utmost astonishment. "Would he bate the Counshellaire then?"

The Counshellaire is the familiar and affectionate title by which Mr O'Connell is known among the country people. A short time before this conversation occurred, the Association had been established in Dublin, and was already exciting great attention among the peasantry

in the remotest districts, and beginning to exercise over their opinions and conduct, that influence which soon became unbounded. Some streaks of more correct information, the forerunners of that broad day of political knowledge diffused by its own proceedings, speeches, publications, and discussions, and by those that resulted from it in every part of Ireland,―might be already discerned. Like Crohoore, many as yet thought the Association was Captain Rock's headquarters: but the notion of its real character was spreading with great speed, and lawless outrage was even now struck with a palsy. Burnings and murders became less frequent, then soon ceased altogether; and law, which it was formerly a disgrace to resort to, was at length regarded as the most effectual and cherished instrument of redress. But to return. The possibility implied in Jack's question gave mortal offence. "Whisht," interrupted Darby Shea, indignantly; "what's that you say? The Counshellaire would make two of him."

"'Pon my soul he wouldn't. I tell you when I seen the King, 'tis a big man would be as great as him, let alone make two of him. Tom Scanlan, after eating the fifteen pound salmon, when they were obliged to tie the boat chain about him for fear he'd burst, wouldn't make two of him."

Larry," says Dhonulh Oghe, "I wouldn't give a button for that. The Counsellor himself says there's to be no fighting now, that he'll do it all by the Rint and the Parliament House they'll be in Dublin. That's what I want to know; you read the newspapers!"

"That's true Larry," says Crohoore: "what's that going on in Dublin? I'm tould there's something great there. Thau chree na Catholiki bwoelha laudhir anish. Oych uss foddha vec u skeeah chorikh er lhaur.”

Why then now, Crohoore, though I'm a sodger, I gives in to every word the Counsellor says."

"He's right, Dhonulh: there's to be no fighting nor Whiteboys, nor any thing of that. It must be all by law."

"By law? how's that, Larry?"

Why, Crohoore, he, and another little man that's with him, (bad luck to his name, where is it gone?) they'll make the king ashamed before the whole world out; and they'll swear informations against Lord Wellesley, and against every Orangeman that does any thing out of the way; and all the bad laws they'll change 'um."

"And they'll do that by law? Beech morshin, [be it so!] Oh! if I could see him on a black stallion, that you'd see yourself in her skin, and a sword like a flash of lightning in his hand, and he for ould Ireland, dar Dhia! I'd throw away those crutches, and I'd be as young again

as ever."

"By the vestment, you're right, Crohoore," said Jack Connell; and the glistening looks of the girls showed how much they too admired the wish. "What are thim Sassenachs good for? Did not Jack Cronin, with a little kippin, make twenty of the Down and Caunall† run away? Sure they're good at nothing but the fist, and who ever saw a raal man fight but with a stick?"

Crohoore," said Larry, not deigning to notice Jack Connell at all, "where are the arms? tell me that; tell me, what did ye ever gain by

*The heart of the Catholics is beating strong now; oych, their shield of battle was long laid low!

The Devon and Cornwall Militia.

Captain Right, [this had been Crohoore's title among the Whiteboys,] or Levtenant Starlight, or Giniral Bouldface, eh, Dhonulh? what made the Police but the Whiteboys? Who pays 'um, as the Counsellor says, but ourselves? Who made Captain Blake below there but ourselves? Crohoore, tell me what did my mother's sister's son gain that was hanged only for shooting Parson Herbert's proctor? See fwy, how many are hanged and transported, as the paper says, by the Special Commis sion; though, I declare to Goodness, why they call 'umselves that way, I don't know, when there isn't a giniral or even a lance-corporal in it? What did Arthur Leary and the rest of 'um that were hanged for Brereton gain, when there wasn't a mother's son of 'um present to the fore? What d'ye say to that, ye foolish girls?"

Larry, you're right, and, from my soul, I'll pay the rint."

"Eh, Dan'l, amn't I? A man does not go to foreign parts for nothing and fight the Frinch. Doesn't the Counsellor himself say the same? And what did Father Fitzmaurice say last Sunday from the altar?"

Faith, I believe you are in the right intirely," said Simon; and nearly all present gave in their adhesion to Larry, at the same time. "Eh, Simon, was I short there, Simon?" said Larry, going over to the wall, with a look of great wisdom, and tapping it with his knuckles, "I'm as deep as that wall."

The tide was now fairly turned in his favour, but Crohoore was not convinced, and he resumed the story.

"Where was I?"-" With Jack Crinin in the path," exclaimed one of the children, who was most impatient for the issue of the apples. "Oh that's true. Well, Owen and I went to the farmers, and though there was enough on the ground for a porcupine to tumble in,* Owen should go up on the tree and shake it. At last the bags and the wallet were filled, and we carried them over to the top of the ditch. "Call Jack,' says I; Owen, and he had a very fine whistle, let a whistle out of him, but 'twas no good; and another and another, but the wind was too high; so Owen went over, and tipped Jack on the shoulders. Jack leaps up, turns west, and hits him a lubbher of a blow that raised a welt like a cow's tail upon his cheek; thinking, to be sure, it was the orchard-man. Thonom an dhiaoul, what's that for ;' says Owen, and he pleeasks Jack. So there they tackled to one another, down on the path. I wondered myself what was keeping 'em, and I goes over, and finds 'em blacking away for the bare life, and a terrible noise out of the sticks. 'D'ye want to be heard at the cabin?' says I ; bring away the apples first, and then satisfy yeer hearts, whatever 'tis for.' Well, at last, so they did. The moon was just rising, and we carried down the three bags; and came back, (I believe they were all still in the cabin,) and carried away the other three and the wallet. Jack and Owen then dug the hole, and covered the apples in the hay very snug; and the divil a word they says to each other all the time, but they were in a terrible hurry with the hole, and I knew 'twas in their hearts for one another; so, when the apples were buried comfortably, (the moon was shining beautiful,) I sat down on their coats; Well,' says I, 'in the name of Goodness, satisfy yeerselves of each other.' So to it they fell."

"And which of 'em got the day, irroo, Crohoore?" asked one of the

children.

It is firmly believed by the peasantry that hedgehogs, or, as they call them, por cupines, roll themselves in the heaps of apples, and carry off an apple on each thorn.

66

Faith, I don't know, but they had each of 'em four or five good cuts in their heads. At last, when they were well tired, Come,' says I, 'take up the wallet, we're delaying them below, ye can wash yeerselves in the sthrame, make haste.' So we found the boys and girls all there, and there never was such racketing till daybreak."

"Well, but Crohoore, where's Jack M'Carthy's boar ?"

"

Sure, that's what I'm coming to just now. We were to have a great let out, as I told ye, Snap-apple night. All the parish, you'd think, was to be there, and blind Joe was to come from Twoeh, and Daniel Leary, to be sure, should be there with his bags, [bagpipe,] and some of the Sheeffree na Twochah* were to come; oych, why, there was to be as fine a set of hearty boys and handsome girls, Nell, as ever danced at a patthern, or played at goal on an eensha.t Them war the times when you'd see the fine trihulhs, and when the workman would get his 'nough of meat and of ale, that if you left the can on the table, 'twould stick to it like glue, 'twas so strong. Well, but as I was saying, about a week before the night, I was sitting this way on the floor and looking out, and I wondered, my dear life, at the great recoorse of pigs up by the doore. There was like a flock of 'em going to Cork passed up, and amongst 'em, trotting and grunting, the big boar. Hero was sitting with me, and when he sees him he looked at me; Down, sir,' says I, for I tell you this boar used to go about the country on his tantrums, and when he was rooting in a potato garden, 'twas only a good mastiff could make any hand at all of him, Mick Casey's dog now daren't sneeze at him, and when he was in a passion, see, his back was like the mane of a cropped horse. Well, the next morning I got up very early, and, my dear life, I sees the big boar again, like a fugleman or a giniral, out before all the pigs of the parish, you'd think, and he making the devil's own noise, with his tail curled up in a ring, for all the world like an officer with a cocked hat on his head. I wondered very much, but at last I goes away to work. The next morning at the first light Í was up, and, sure enough, I sees the boar going up the hill, grunting and groaning like a woman in the ordher, the thief of the world, with his spy-glass, to be sure, in his tail, and swarm of pigs and bonnuvs, of coorse, after him. I was in a dhrame all the day, and at last I couldn't tell what was the matther with me. Well, I shakes myself, takes the stick, and up the hill with me to go to the bog, as I thought. But when I was walking up the path through the brake, I sees a one side in the grass a piece of an apple. If 'twas a ghost it couldn't give me such a start. I runn'd up like lightning; and when I came to the little green field, what should I see,--but Jack M'Carthy's boar on his hands and feet, down in the apples, rooting away for the bare life, and the earth like the wall of a fuhurruch out before him. But the show of pigs that was there! That I mightn't lave this, if there wasn't as many as from this to Knock-na-mook aluch. Thonom an dhiaoul, us dhu phutthogah an ansun a theentu,' [Your soul and your guts to the devil, is it there you are?] says I. Was it for this you were inso early in the morning? and was this the maning of all

dusthering

a

The fairies of Twuch; a name given to the inhabitants of a particular parish, to express their spirit and activity. They were distinguished as hurdlers.

A smooth green sweep of land by the side of a river; a favourite place for golling.

A religious order. Crohoore, who is a mortal enemy to cant, means one of those old votheens (devotees) who pretend by groans and contortions to superior piety.

your aggravations going up the hill ?' I runs over, and I gives him a blow in the butt of the ear that would knock down John O'Connell's mwale* bull. I only staggerred him, but well it become him to give him his due; he raised himself up on his hind-legs, and makes a bite at me like a Christian ; by J——, sir, he took away that much of the coat, and waistcoat, and breeches, in his mouth. Well, to it we fell, and such a fight for two hours you never seen. At last I got the betther of him in the soft place, though I wasn't well for a fortnight after myself, and then such a trouncing as I gave him; ah! I promise you he wouldn't say strapstick to the child on the floor there. But see, Larry, I'd rather fight a fair than go through it again. One time I slipped, and the thief made a jump at me, thinking, to be sure, I was down; but nee down, fose e dhar Dhia, † says I, as Jack Crimin said, when the Fincibles were throwing with him, ‡ and, in spite of all he could say or do, I got up again."

+

"When were the Fincibles at Jack Crimin?" " Och, long ago." "When did he say that, Crohoore? before you were born?" "When the Whiteboys were going on. The Fincibles was there above Laune Bridge, and they had papers § against Jack. Well, when Jack comes to the bridge, they tells him to surrenur himself gondouth, but he whacks the sthaggheen [little horse] he had, and away they begins to fire at him. The little sthaggheen, in the fright he was in, stumbled. He's down the rascal,' says one of the officers, Dhar Dhia, nee down, fose eh,' says Jack, and he jumps up and over the wall with him. But I drives my boar down the hill, and he groaning in earnest. By J,' says Jack M'Carthy, when he heard him, that's my pig's talk,' and out he runs out of his own house, and he asks me, for a rascal, what I dun with his boar. Irrah, is it his part you'd take?' says I. To be sure 'tis,' says he, and he brings out a ferl stick in a minute, and makes a pleask at me. I defended myself, and hits him just there over the ear. There was a pool of water out before the house, and Jack was taken off the ground and stretched like a salmon in it; so the women went and pulled him out."

f

"You didn't take him out, Crohoore?"

"Faith I didn't; he might be thootheeth (wallowing) there at his ease till morning, before I'd go in for him. But his wife made him put papers on me, and the apples become known to all the world, for the boar didn't lave one of them, so Thigue Gaounchouch puts papers on us all, and we war carried back to Beauforth before the Archdeacon." "Archdeacon Day! ma chragh; much chance they had there." "Thrue for you. To make a long story short, I'll engage he puts his hand in his pocket and pays the price of the boar and the apples afore he'd sign the papers or the bonds against us."

"Good they were the Days!"

"Oych! sure they war the soul of goodness. "Twas they had the fine vein; was there one of 'um that hadn't a Thubburrh Vaichaurah|| of generosity in his heart within? and he that's above in Dublin there; sure 'tis he too has the chree mwoer, [the large heart,] God bless him!” "Amen!" responded several voices.

Hornless. Such bulls are thought to be very strong. + "Tisn't down yet with him; he's not down yet. A chohuvh lesh (throwing with him,) firing at him.

ally.

Crohoore translates liter

Informations; a warrant for Whiteboyism, doubtless.
McCarthy More's well, a celebrated and beautiful spring-well.