“But he couldn’t expose it on you; Jack,” observed Connell; “you’re too ould a hand about the pot for that.  Warn’t you in the mountains last week?”

“Ay:  but the curse of Cromwell upon the thief of a gauger, Simpson—­himself and a pack o’ redcoats surrounded us when we war beginnin’ to double, and the purtiest runnin’ that ever you seen was lost; for you see, before you could cross yourself, we had the bottoms knocked clane out of the vessels; so that the villains didn’t get a hole in our coats, as they thought they would.”

“I tell you,” observed O’Neil, “there’s a bad pill* somewhere about us.”

     * This means a treacherous person who cannot depended
     upon.

“Ay, is there, Owen,” replied Traynor; “and what is more, I don’t think he’s a hundhre miles from the place where we’re sittin’ in.”

“Faith, maybe so Jack,” returned the other.

“I’d never give into that,” said Murphy. “’Tis Barny Brady that would never turn informer—­the same thing isn’t in him, nor in any of his breed; there’s not a man in the parish I’d thrust sooner.”

“I’d jist thrust him,” replied Traynor, “as far as I could throw a cow by the tail.  Arrah, what’s the rason that the gauger never looks next or near his place, an’ it’s well known that he sells poteen widout a license, though he goes past his door wanst a week?”

“What the h——­ is keepin’ him at all?” inquired one of Dolan’s sons.

“Look at him,” said Traynor, “comin’ in out of the garden; how much afeard he is! keepin’ the whiskey in a phatie ridge—­an’ I’d kiss the book that he brought that bottle out in his pocket, instead of diggin’ it up out o’ the garden.”

Whatever Brady’s usual habits of christening his poteen might have been, that which he now placed before them was good.  He laid the bottle on a little deal table with cross legs, and along with it a small drinking glass fixed in a bit of flat circular wood, as a substitute for the original bottom, which had been broken.  They now entered upon the point, in question, without further delay.

“Come, Tim,” said Coogan, “you’re the ouldest man, and must spake first.”

“Troth, man,” replied Dolan, “beggin’ your pardon, I’ll dhrink first—­healths apiece, your sowl; success boys—­glory to ourselves, and confusion to the Scanlon boys, any way.”

“And maybe,” observed Connell, “’tis we that didn’t lick them well in the last fair—­they’re not able to meet the Findramore birds even on their own walk.”

“Well, boys,” said Delany, “about the masther?  Our childre will grow up like bullockeens (* little bullocks) widout knowing a ha’porth; and larning, you see, is a burdyen that’s asy carried.”

“Ay,” observed O’Neil, “as Solvester Maguire, the poet, used to say—­

     ’Labor for larnin, before you grow ould,
     For larnin’ is better nor riches nor gould;
     Riches an’ gould they may vanquish away,
     But larnin’ alone it will never decay.’”