The features of the elder person exhibited a comic contrast between nature and habit—­between an expression of good humor, broad and legible, which no one could mistake for a moment, and an affectation of consequence, self-importance, and mock heroic dignity that were irresistible.  He was a pedagogue.

The woman who accompanied them we need not describe, having already made the reader acquainted with her in the person of the female fortune-teller, who held the mysterious dialogue with Sir Thomas Gourlay on his way to Lord Cullamore’s.

“This liquor,” said the schoolmaster, “would be nothing the worse of a little daicent mellowness and flavor; but, at the same time, we must admit that, though sadly deficient in a spirit of exhilaration, it bears a harmonious reference to the beautiful beef and cabbage which we got for dinner.  The whole of them are what I designate as sorry specimens of metropolitan luxury.  May I never translate a classic, but I fear I shall soon wax aegrotat—­I feel something like a telegraphic despatch commencing between my head and my stomach; and how the communication may terminate, whether peaceably or otherwise, would require, O divine Jacinta! your tripodial powers or prophecy to predict.  The whiskey, in whatever shape or under whatever disguise you take it, is richly worthy of all condemnation.”

“I will drink no more of it, uncle,” replied the other man; “it would soon sicken me, too.  This shan’t pass; it’s gross imposition—­and that is a bad thing to practise in this world.  Ginty, touch the bell, will you?—­we will make them get us better.”

A smile of a peculiar nature passed over the woman’s ghastly features as she looked with significant caution at her brother, for such he was.

“Yes, do get better whiskey,” she said; “it’s too bad that we should make my uncle sick from mere kindness.”

“I cannot exactly say that I am much out of order as yet,” replied the schoolmaster, “but, as they say, if the weather has not broken, the sky is getting troubled; I hope it is only a false, alarm, and may pass away without infliction.  If there is any of the minor miseries of life more trying than another, it is to drink liquor that fires the blood, splits the head, but basely declines to elevate and rejoice the heart.  O, divine poteen! immortal essence of the hordeum beatum!—­which is translated holy barley—­what drink, liquor, or refreshment can be placed, without the commission of something like small sacrilege, in parallel with thee!  When I think of thy soothing and gradually exhilarating influence, of the genial spirit of love and friendship which, owing to thee, warms the heart of man, and not unfrequently of the softer sex also; when I reflect upon the cheerful light which thou diffusest by gentle degrees throughout the soul, filling it with generosity, kindness, and courage, enabling it to forget care and calamity, and all the various ills that flesh is heir to; when I remember too that