Cattle-driving was going on merrily beyond Shepherd’s Cross, and all the police were clumped in that district as busy as bees; the one constable at Tullagh was down with the influenza. These facts were remembered and quoted with a certain glee. “So Paddy is nailed at last!” cried Mr Mullins, the cobbler, to Mr Mahony across the road. “So I b’lave,” said Mr Mahony. “They’ve got him at the Big House, shut up in the cowl-cellar I hear,” said Mr Mullins. “Faith, if they don’t relase him it won’t be a cowl-cellar long,” replied the sweep. “It was Con who let him in, they say.” “Faith, then, it’ll be the worse for Con, I’m thinking, when they let him out.” “Begob, yes,” said Mr Mullins. Mr Stone, the “cow-doctor” (he doctored horses too, and sheep, but cows were his speciality), riding by on an animal that recalled nothing so much as Wallenstein’s[2] horse, drew up. “So Paddy’s took,” said Mr Stone. “So we was sayin’,” replied Mr Mullins. “What’ll he get, at all?” asked Mr Stone, of no one in particular. “Seven year, if he gets an hour,” replied the sweep. “Ohone!” cried Mrs Mahony, who was standing in the doorway behind her lord and master with the inevitable baby in her arms. “Sure, it’s crool to think of it, a fine figure of a man like him.” She was voicing the general opinion of the female population, for, though Paddy was short, he was well built, and his deeds had given him at least two extra inches of stature. “When the drink was in him, he wasn’t to hold or bind,” said Mr Stone reflectively. “But he always kept his legs,” said Mr Mullins. “Ay, he always kept his legs,” said Mr Stone. Footnote 2: “The head, neck, legs, and part of the body have been repaired; all the rest is the real horse.”—“Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson.” “O’Farrell’s hounds are meetin’ on the lawn of the Big House,” went on the cow-doctor after a pause. “Tin o’clock,” said Bob Mahony. “Are yiz goin’?” asked the cobbler. “Maybe and not,” replied the sweep, who, since the affair of Mr Boxall, had risen still further in the estimation of the people. He had floored a Member of Parliament. The deed was accidental, but, still, he was only the man in the county, or the country either, who had done such a thing. “Here comes Billy the Buck,” said Mr Stone; “maybe he’ll have news. Any news, Billy?” Billy, amongst his other avocations, served as a sort of living newspaper. His grandfather had been a gabberlunzy man, and the news-bearing property was in him, just as the art of pointing is in a pointer or retrieving in a spaniel. That his news was mostly lies only showed that he was an artist in his profession. (_Item._—He never told lies about foxes.) “There’s a fox an a vixin in the siven acres,” replied Billy, drawing up like a horse. A roar of laughter greeted this information. Billy, for once, was out of it. “What the divil are yiz brayin’ about?” asked Billy. “Where’s your ears?” asked Mr Mahony.