“Then, the more’s the pity, Father Con.  Here, Denis, let yourself and Mat go home wid Father Philemy.”

“Good-night, Katty,” said Father Con—­“Good-night:  and may our blessing sanctify you all.”

“Good-night, Father Con, ahagur,” replied Katty; “and for goodness’ sake see that they take care of Father Philemy, for it’s himself that’s the blessed and holy crathur, and the pleasant gintleman out and out.”

“Good-night, Katty,” again repeated Father Con, as the cavalcade proceeded in a body—­“Good-night!” And so ended the Station.

THE PARTY FIGHT AND FUNERAL.

We ought, perhaps, to inform our readers that the connection between a party fight and funeral is sufficiently strong to justify the author in classing them under the title which is prefixed to this story.  The one being usually the natural result of the other, is made to proceed from it, as is, unhappily, too often the custom in real life among the Irish.

It has been long laid down as a universal principle, that self-preservation is the first law of nature.  An Irishman, however, has nothing to do with this; he disposes of it as he does with the other laws, and washes his hands out of it altogether.  But commend him to a fair, dance, funeral, or wedding, or to any other sport where there is a likelihood of getting his head or his bones broken, and if he survive, he will remember you with a kindness peculiar to himself to the last day of his life—­will drub you from head to heel if he finds that any misfortune has kept you out of a row beyond the usual period of three months—­will render the same service to any of your friends that stand in need of it; or, in short, will go to the world’s end, or fifty miles farther, as he himself would say, to serve you, provided you can procure him a bit of decent fighting.  Now, in truth and soberness, it is difficult to account for this propensity; especially when the task of ascertaining it is assigned to those of another country, or even to those Irishmen whose rank in life places them too far from the customs, prejudices, and domestic opinions of their native peasantry, none of which can be properly known without mingling with them.  To my own knowledge, however, it proceeds in a great measure from education.  And here I would beg leave to point out an omission of which the several boards of education have been guilty, and which, I believe, no one but myself has yet been sufficiently acute and philosophical to ascertain, as forming a sine qua non in the national instruction of the lower orders of Irishmen.