“Aisy with you, lads.  Cousin Harry, take first ride on St. Patrick (the name of the ass)—­here’s a leg up.  The two Dicks can have Scrub and Rasper.  Jack and Billy, boys, catch a hold of the bridles, or devil a ha’p’worth of ride and tie there’ll be in at all, if them Dicks get the start—­Shanks’ mare will take you to Kells.  Don’t be galloping off in that manner, but shoot aisy!  Remember, the ass has got to keep up with you, and I’ve got to keep up with the ass.  That’s the thing—­steady she goes!  It’s an elegant day, and no hurry in life.  Spider! come here, boy—­that’s right.  Down, sir! down, you devil, or wipe your paws.  Bad manners to you—­look at them breeches!  Never mind, there’s a power of rats at Tony Carroll’s barn—­it’s mighty little out o’ the way, and may be we’ll get a hunt.  What say you?”

“A hunt, a hunt, by all manes! there’s the fun of it!  Come on, lads—­here’s the place!—­turn off, and go to work!  Wait, wait! get a stick a-piece, and break the necks of ’em!  Hurrah!—­in Spider!—­find ’em boy!  Good lad!  Tare an ouns, you may well squeak!  Good dog! good dog! that’s a grandfather!—­we’ll have more yet; the family always come to the ould one’s berrin’.  I’ve seen ’em often, and mighty dacent they behave.  Damn Kells and the barber, up with the boords and go to work!—­this is something like sport!  Houly Paul, there’s one up my breeches—­here’s the tail of him—­he caught a hould of my leather-garter.  Come out of that, Spider!  Spider, here he is—­that’s it—­give him another shake for his impudence—­serve him out!  Hurrah!”

“Fast and furious” grew our incessant urging on of the willing Spider, for his continued efforts at extermination.  At the end of two hours, the metamorphosed barn was nearly stripped of its flooring—­nine huge rats lay dead, as trophies of our own achievements—­the panting Spider, “by turns caressing, and by turns caressed,” licking alternately the hands and faces of all, as we sat on the low ledge of the doorway, wagging his close-cut stump of tail, as if he were resolved, by his unceasing exertions, to get entirely rid of that excited dorsal ornament.

“This is the rael thing,” said Bob.

“So it is,” said Dick; “but”—­

“But what?”

“Why, devil a ha’p’orth of Kells or hair-cutting there’s in it.”

“Not a taste,” chimed in Jack.

“Nothing like it,” echoed Will.

“What will we do?” said all at once.  There was a short pause—­after which the matter was resumed by Dick, who was intended for a parson, and therefore rather given to moralising.

“Life,” quoth Dick—­“life’s uncertain.”

“You may say that,” rejoined Bob; “look at them rats.”

“Tony Dowlan’s a hard-drinking man, and his mother had fits.”

“Of the same sort,” said Bob.

“Well, then,” continued Dick, “there’s no knowing—­he may be dead—­if so, how could he cut our hair?”

Here Dick, like Brutus, paused for a reply.  Bob produced one.