“Ay, sure, does there: the Noonans, plase your honour,” replied a man on the road. Noonans! I recollected the name to be that of the pugilist, who had died in consequence of the combat at which I had been present in London; who had, with his dying breath, besought me to convey his only half-guinea and his silk handkerchief to his poor father and sister. I alighted from my horse, asking the man, at the same time, if the son of this Noonan had not died in England. “He had, sir, a son in England, Mick Noonan, who used to send him odd guineas, _I mind_, and was a _good lad to his father_, though wild; and there’s been no account of him at-all-at-all this long while: but the old man has another boy, a sober lad, who’s abroad with the army in the East Indies; and it’s he that is the hope of the family. And there’s the father--and old as he is, and poor, and a cripple, I’d engage there is not a happier man in the three counties at this very time speaking: for it is just now I seen young Jemmy Riley, the daughter’s _bachelor_, go by with a letter. What news? says I. ‘Great news!’ says he: ‘a letter from Tom Noonan to his father; and I’m going in to read it for him.’” By the time my voluble informant had come to this period, I had reached the cabin door. Who could have expected to see smiles and hear exclamations of joy under such a roof? I saw the father, with his hands clasped in ecstasy, and looking up to heaven, with the strong expression of delight in his aged countenance. I saw every line of his face; for the light of the candle was full upon it. The daughter, a beautiful girl, kneeling beside him, held the light for the young man, who was reading her brother’s letter. I was sorry to interrupt them. “Your honour’s kindly welcome,” said the old man, making an attempt to rise. “Pray, don’t let me disturb you.” “It was only a letter from a boy of mine that’s over the seas, we was reading,” said the old man. “A better boy to an ould father, that’s good for nothing now in this world, never was, plase your honour. See what he has sent me: a draft here for ten guineas out of the little pay he has. God for ever bless him!--as he surely will.” After a few minutes’ conversation, the old man’s heart was so much opened towards me, that he talked as freely as if he had known me for years. I led to the subject of his other son Michael, who was mentioned in the letter as a wild chap. “Ah! your honour, that’s what lies heaviest on my heart, and will, to my dying day, that Mick, before he died, which they say he did surely a twelvemonth ago, over there in England, never so much as sent me one line, good or bad, or his sister a token to remember him by even!” “Had he but sent us the least bit of a word, or the least token in life, I had been content,” said the sister, wiping her eyes: “we don’t so much as know how he died.”