Michael Blake was a native of Skibbereen, a well-known barony in the "ould country." His parents lived in a hut, "quite handy" to the road, in the midst of a bit of turf-ground where they managed to rear their annual crops of potatoes and their sprouts of children with as little trouble to themselves as possible. Michael, as he said himself, was the youngest of four, but there were five younger than he. As soon as he could walk, his mother clothed him in an old coat of his father's, the tails of which swept the ground far behind him, as he trotted over the cabin-floor with a stick in his hand to wallop his favourite companion, the long-legged and long-snouted sow, as she lay dreaming in the door-way. His father was an upright man, and dealt equal justice among his children, whom he 'lathered' daily with the strictest impartiality. This was all the education they had any reason to expect, as the priest was always in a hurry when he called at their door, and had not time to dismount from his pony, from whose back he bestowed his blessing upon the tattered crowd of children as they pressed around, and gazed upon his Reverence with their wild grey eyes and open mouths. And their parents could not be expected to give any other education than they had themselves received. Michael grew up, therefore, as might be expected, a hungry, dirty-faced, unbreeched, long-coated urchin. Although his parents had done no more for him than to usher him into a life of mud and misery, Nature had been more compassionate. She had bestowed upon him a restless imagination, apparently for the purpose of removing him from this scene of trouble as quickly as possible. It led him, at an early age, to explore the passes of a neighbouring bog, where he fell into a deep hole filled with water, and was just on the point of escaping from the cares of the world, when his eldest brother unfortunately came by, and fished him out. Their father seized the opportunity, and lathered them both.