The passages open overhead, by which the cats pass continually into the cellar, and eat the victuals, for which one was tried, condemned, and executed by the sword. The large table in a very tottering condition. But one chair in the house fit for sitting on, and that in a very ill state of health. The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages. Not a bit of mutton to be had in the country. Want of beds, and a mutiny thereupon among the servants, until supplied from Kells. An egregious want of all the most common necessary utensils. Not a bit of turf in this cold weather; and Mrs. Johnson and the Dean in person, with all their servants, forced to assist at the bog, in gathering up the wet bottoms of old clumps. The grate in the ladies' bedchamber broke, and forced to be removed, by which they were compelled to be without fire, the chimney smoking intolerably; and the Dean's great-coat was employed to stop the wind from coming down the chimney, without which expedient they must have been starved to death. A messenger sent a mile to borrow an old broken tun-dish. Bottles stopped with bits of wood and tow, instead of corks. Not one utensil for a fire, except an old pair of tongs, which travels through the house, and is likewise employed to take the meat out of the pot, for want of a flesh-fork. Every servant an arrant thief as to victuals and drink, and every comer and goer as arrant a thief of everything he or she can lay their hands on. The spit blunted with poking into bogs for timber, and tears the meat to pieces. _Bellum atque fæminam_; or a kitchen war between nurse and a nasty crew of both sexes; she to preserve order and cleanliness, they to destroy both; and they generally are conquerors. _April 28._ This morning the great fore-door quite open, dancing backward and forward with all its weight upon the lower hinge, which must have been broken if the Dean had not accidentally come and relieved it. A great hole in the floor of the ladies' chamber, every hour hazarding a broken leg. Two iron spikes erect on the Dean's bedstead, by which he is in danger of a broken shin at rising and going to bed. The ladies' and Dean's servants growing fast into the manners and thieveries of the natives; the ladies themselves very much corrupted; the Dean perpetually storming, and in danger of either losing all his flesh, or sinking into barbarity for the sake of peace. Mrs. Dingley full of cares for herself, and blunders and negligence for her friends. Mrs. Johnson sick and helpless. The Dean deaf and fretting; the lady's maid awkward and clumsy; Robert lazy and forgetful; William a pragmatical, ignorant, and conceited puppy; Robin and nurse the two great and only supports of the family.