“Barney, troth you ought to have more sinse, avick, than to be quarrellin’ wid poor Jemmy about gettin’ an you.  Don’t you know he’s but a child, an’ must of coorse get his little things an before you, espishially as this is the first Sunday of the crathur’s new jacket an’ throwsers.  Blood alive, Barney, be manly, and don’t make comparishment wid a pasitah (child).  I hope you’ve got off your lesson in the catechiz this mornin’, and that you wont have to hang down your head wid the blush of shame among the bouchaleens (little boys) in the chapel to-day.  Go ‘way, avick, and rehearse it, an’ whin your mother finishes him, and Dick, and little Mary, she’ll have yourself as clane as a new sixpence.”

Then came the moment when the neat and well-dressed groups issued out of their happy homes, and sought in cheerful companionship with those of different creeds, their respective places of worship; for, gentle reader, the inhabitants of Ballydhas were, in point of religion, some Protestant, some Roman Catholic, and others Presbyterian.  Many a time have we seen them proceed together in peace and friendship along the same road, until they separated either to church, to meeting, or to chapel; and again return on their way home, in a spirit equally cordial and kind.  The demon of political discord and religious rancor had not come among them.  Each class in the parish worshipped God after its own manner.  All were happy, and industrious, and independent, for they had not then been taught that they were slaves and natural enemies groaning under the penal yoke of oppression.

Their fairs and markets were equally peaceful.  Neither faction-fight nor party-fight ever stained the streets with blood.  The whoop of strife was never raised by neighbor against neighbor, nor the coat trailed, or the caubeen thrown up into the air to challenge an opposite faction.  There was, in truth, none of all this.  The people were moral and educated.  Religion they attended with that decorous sense of decency which always results from a sincere perception of its obligations and influence.

Yet were they not without their sports and rustic amusements.  Where the bitterness of malignity is absent, cheerfulness has full play, and candor, ever open and benevolent, is the exponent of mirth and good will.  Though their fairs and markets were undisturbed by the savage violence of mutual conflict, yet were they enlivened by the harmless pastimes which throw the charm of uncorrupted life over the human heart and the innocent scenes from which it draws in its amusements.  Life is harsh enough, and we are no friends to those who would freeze its genial current by the gloomy chill of ascetic severity.