“Poor Pether will break his heart, any way.  Oh, man, but she was the good wife.  I’m livin’ wid them going an seven year, an’ never hard a cross word from the one to the other.  It’s she that had the sweet tongue all out, an’ did manage him; but, afther all, he was worth the full o’ the Royal George of her.  Many a time, when some poor craythur ’ud come to ax whiskey on score to put over* some o’ their friends, or for a weddin’, or a christenin’, maybe, an’ when the wife ’ud refuse it, Pether ‘ud send what whiskey they wanted afther them, widout lettin’ her know anything about it.  An’, indeed, he never lost anything by that; for if they wor to sell their cow, he should be ped, in regard of the kindly way he gave it to them.”

     * To put over—­the corpse of a friend, to be drunk at
     the wake and funeral.

“Well, we’ll see how they’ll manage now that she’s gone; but Pether an’ the youngest daughter, Mary, is to be pitied.”

“The sarra much; barrin’ that they’ll miss her at first from about the place.  You see she has left them above the world, an’ full of it.  Wealth and substance enough may they thank her for; and that’s very good comfort for sorrow, Risthard.”

“Faith, sure enough, Larry.  There’s no lie in that, any way!”

“Awouh!  Lie!  I have you about it.”

Such was the view which had been taken of their respective characters through life.  Yet, notwithstanding that the hearts of their acquaintances never warmed to her—­to use a significant expression current among the peasantry—­as they did to Peter, still she was respected almost involuntarily for the indefatigable perseverance with which she pushed forward her own interests through life.  Her funeral was accordingly a large one; and the conversation which took place at it, turning, as it necessarily did, upon her extraordinary talents and industry, was highly to the credit of her memory and virtues.  Indeed, the attendance of many respectable persons of all creeds and opinions, gave ample proof that the qualities she possessed had secured for her general respect and admiration.

Poor Peter, who was an object of great compassion, felt himself completely crushed by the death of his faithful partner.  The reader knows that he had hitherto been a sober, and, owing to Ellish’s prudent control, an industrious man.  To thought or reflection he was not, however, accustomed; he had, besides, never received any education; if his morals were correct, it was because a life of active employment had kept him engaged in pursuits which repressed immorality, and separated him from those whose society and influence might have been prejudicial to him.  He had scarcely known calamity, and when it occurred he was prepared for it neither by experience nor a correct view of moral duty.  On the morning of his wife’s funeral, such was his utter prostration both of mind and body, that even his own sons, in order to resist the singular state of collapse into which