And at the spring assizes’ ball, The junior bar would one and all For all her fav’rite dances call, And Harry Dean would caper; Lord Clare would then forget his lore; King’s Counsel, voting law a bore, Were proud to figure on the floor, For love of Mary Draper. The parson, priest, sub-sheriff too, Were all her slaves, and so would you, If you had only but one view, Of such a face and shape, or Her pretty ankles--But, ohone, It’s only west of old Athlone Such girls were found--and now they’re gone-- So here’s to Mary Draper! “So here’s to Mary Draper!” sang out every voice, in such efforts to catch the tune as pleased the taste of the motley assembly. “For Mary Draper and Co., I thank you,” said Maurice. “Quill drinks to Dennis,” added he, in a grave tone, as he nodded to O’Shaughnessy. “Yes, Shaugh, few men better than ourselves know these matters; and few have had more experience of the three perils of Irishmen,--love, liquor, and the law of arrest.” “It’s little the latter has ever troubled my father’s son,” replied O’Shaughnessy. “Our family have been writ proof for centuries, and he’d have been a bold man who would have ventured with an original or a true copy within the precincts of Killinahoula.” “Your father had a touch of Larry M’Hale in him,” said I, “apparently.” “Exactly so,” replied Dennis; “not but they caught him at last, and a scurvy trick it was and well worthy of him who did it! Yes,” said he, with a sigh, “it is only another among the many instances where the better features of our nationality have been used by our enemies as instruments for our destruction; and should we seek for the causes of unhappiness in our wretched country, we should find them rather in our virtues than in our vices, and in the bright rather than in the darker phases of our character.” “Metaphysics, by Jove!” cried Quill; “but all true at the same time. There was a mess-mate of mine in the ‘Roscommon’ who never paid car-hire in his life. ‘Head or harp, Paddy!’ he would cry. ‘Two tenpennies or nothing.’ ‘Harp, for the honor of ould Ireland!’ was the invariable response, and my friend was equally sure to make head come uppermost; and, upon my soul, they seem to know the trick at the Home Office.” “That must have been the same fellow that took my father,” cried O’Shaughnessy, with energy. “Let us hear the story, Dennis,” said I. “Yes,” said Maurice, “for the benefit of self and fellows, let us hear the stratagem!”