“Dead! to be sure he is,” replied the captain. “He quarrelled with Savey Blake, at the winter fair of Athlone; and, as the morning was wet, they fought in the inn yard. What did the stupid fool his second do, but stick Dick into a corner! The rain was in his face; and at the first fire, Savey Blake, shot him like a woodcock. I was with him till he died. Indeed, I never knew him have luck but once.” “Indeed; and what was that?” “When he did marry, his wife ran away from him within a quarter.” “But your English expedition, Shemus. Arrah, man, there’s where the shoe pinches; and I would like to know how ye got on.” “Got on!” exclaimed the ratcatcher. “Be gogstay! from the very moment we left home, every thing went wrong with us. But, stop--isn’t there a well that none but a sinful man would pass? Sit down, _avourneeine_--there’s a drop in the cruiskeein still, and when I take a cobweb out of my throat, I’ll tell ye all the particulars of, THE MATRIMONIAL ADVENTURES OF DICK MACNAMARA It was the summer after the great election--and that was in the year ninety-one--and a fine evening it was. At that time, care was far from my Heart, and I was taking a dance in the barn with Mary Regan, my lady’s maid, when out comes Sir Thomas’s own man to say that I was wanted in the parlour. “Run, bad luck to ye,” says he, “and I’ll finish the jig for ye! Arrah, make haste, man! Some etarnal villin has slipt a paper under the gate, and the ould master’s fit to be tied. I never saw him so mad since he was chased home from Galway.” Away I goes; and when I got into the parlour, there I found Sir Thomas, God rest his soul! Father Pat Butler, the parish priest--and the driver, Izzy Blake. Sir Thomas was sittin’ in the big armed chair he always sate in. He wasn’t to say much the worse for liker; but it was asy to persave that he had been lookin’ at somebody that was drinkin’. The priest, och! what a head he had! was cool as a cowcumber, and only Izzy’s nose was a deeper purple than when he sate down, you wouldn’t know he had a drop in. It was quite plain the party were in trouble; for, to smother grief, the ould master had slipped a second glass of poteeine into his tumbler just as I came in. “Asy, Sir Thomas!--Drink asy!” said the priest. “The whisky’s killin’ ye by inches!” “Arrah, balderdash! Pat Butler, won’t ye let me take the colour of death off the water, man, and me threatened with the gout? It’s the law that’s fairly murderin’ me. Bad luck attend all consarned with the same! At the blast of the mail horn my heart bates like a bird; for within the last two years I have got as many lattitats by post, as would paper the drawin’-room. Shemus Rhua,” says he, turning to me,--“did ye see a black-lookin’ thief about the place, when ye were hunting the young setters on the moor?” “Arrah, Sir Thomas, if I did, don’t ye think I would have been after askin’ him what he was doin’ there?”