’Why! was not I PRISINT in the court-house myself, when the JIDGE 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.’

How much longer Larry’s dissertation on the distillery laws would have continued, had not his ideas been interrupted, we cannot guess; but he saw he was coming to a town, and he gathered up the reins, and plied the whip, ambitious to make a figure in the eyes of its inhabitants.

This town consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as if there had just been an earthquake—­all the roofs sunk in various places—­thatch off, or overgrown with grass—­no chimneys, the smoke making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the top of the open door—­dunghills before the doors, and green standing puddles—­squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at the carriage.

‘Nugent’s town,’ said the postillion, ’once a snug place, when my Lady Clonbrony was at home to whitewash it, and the like.’

As they drove by, some men and women put their heads through the smoke out of the cabins; pale women with long, black, or yellow locks—­men with countenances and figures bereft of hope and energy.

‘Wretched, wretched people!’ said Lord Colambre.

‘Then it’s not their fault neither,’ said Larry; ’for my own uncle’s one of them, and as thriving and hard a working man as could be in all Ireland, he was, afore he was tramped under foot, and his heart broke.  I was at his funeral, this time last year; and for it, may the agent’s own heart, if he has any, burn—­’

Lord Colambre interrupted this denunciation by touching Larry’s shoulder, and asking some question, which, as Larry did not distinctly comprehend, he pulled up the reins, and the various noises of the vehicle stopped suddenly.

I did not hear well, plase your honour.’