The exciseman set out again immediately, in an opposite direction to that which the man who carried the still had taken. Lord Colambre now perceived that the pretended informer had been running off to conceal a still of his own. “The gauger, plase your honour,” said Larry, looking back at Lord Colambre; “the gauger is a _still-hunting_!” “And you put him on a wrong scent!” said Lord Colambre. “Sure, I told him no lie: I only said, ‘If you’ll take my advice.’ And why was he such a fool as to take my advice, when I wouldn’t take his fee?” “So this is the way, Larry, you give a lift to the laws!” “If the laws would give a lift to me, plase your honour, may be I’d do as much by them. But it’s only these revenue laws I mean; for I never, to my knowledge, broke another commandment: but it’s what no honest poor man among his neighbours would scruple to take--a glass of _potsheen_.” “A glass of what, in the name of Heaven?” said Lord Colambre. “_Potsheen_, plase your honour;--beca-ase it’s the little whiskey that’s made in the private still or pot; and _sheen_, because it’s a fond word for whatsoever we’d like, and for what we have little of, and would make much of: after taking the glass of it, no man could go and inform to ruin the _cratures_; for they all shelter on that estate under favour of them that go shares, and make rent of ‘em--but I’d never inform again’ ‘em. And, after all, if the truth was known, and my Lord Clonbrony should be informed against, and presented, for it’s his neglect is the bottom of the nuisance--” “I find all the blame is thrown upon this poor Lord Clonbrony,” said Lord Colambre. “Because he is absent,” said Larry: “it would not be so was he _prisint_. But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour’s a stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would I mind the laws about whiskey, more than the quality, or the _jidge_ on the bench?” “What do you mean?” “Why! was not I _prisint_ in the court-house myself, when the _jidge_ was on the bench judging a still, and across the court came in one with a sly jug of _potsheen_ for the _jidge_ himself, who _prefarred_ it, when the right thing, to claret; and when I _seen_ that, by the laws! a man might talk himself dumb to me after again’ potsheen, or in favour of the revenue, or revenue officers. And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their watching officers, and their coursing officers, setting ‘em one after another, or one over the head of another, or what way they will--we can baffle and laugh at ‘em. Didn’t I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten _watching officers_ set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And the gauging rod, even! who fears it? They may spare that rod, for it will never mend the child.”