he had sunk, urged him to take some spirits.  He was completely passive in their hands, and complied.  This had the desired effect, and he found himself able to attend the funeral.  When the friends of Ellish assembled, after the interment, as is usual, to drink and talk together, Peter, who could scarcely join in the conversation, swallowed glass after glass of punch with great rapidity.  In the mean time, the talk became louder and more animated; the punch, of course, began to work, and as they sat long, it was curious to observe the singular blending of mirth and sorrow, singing and weeping, laughter and tears, which characterized this remarkable scene.  Peter, after about two hours’ hard drinking, was not an exception to the influence of this trait of national manners.  His heart having been deeply agitated, was the more easily brought under the effects of contending emotions.  He was naturally mirthful, and when intoxication had stimulated the current of his wonted humor, the influence of this and his recent sorrow produced such an anomalous commixture of fun and grief as could seldom, out of Ireland, be found checkering the mind of one individual.

It was in the midst of this extraordinary din that his voice was heard commanding silence in its loudest and best-humored key: 

“Hould yer tongues,” said he; “bad win to yees, don’t you hear me wantin’ to sing!  Whist wid yees.  Hem—­och—­’Eise up’—­Why, thin, Phil Callaghan, you might thrate me wid more dacency, if you had gumption in you; I’m sure no one has a betther right to sing first in this company nor myself; an’ what’s more, I will sing first.  Hould your tongues!  Hem!”

He accordingly commenced a popular song, the air of which, though simple, was touchingly mournful.

     “Och, rise up, Willy Reilly, an’ come wid me,
     I’m goin’ for to go wid you, and lave this counteree;
     I’m goin’ to lave my father, his castles and freelands—­
     An’ away what Willy Reilly, an’ his own Colleen Bawn.

     “Och, they wint o’er hills an’ mountains, and valleys that was
          fair,
     An’ fled before her father as you may shortly hear;
     Her father followed afther wid a well-chosen armed band,
     Och, an’ taken was poor Reilly, an’ his own Colleen Bawn.”

The simple pathos of the tune, the affection implied by the words, and probably the misfortune of Willy Reilly, all overcame him, He finished the second verse with difficulty, and on attempting to commence a third he burst into tears.

“Colleen bawn! (fair, or fair-haired girl)—­Colleen bawn!” he exclaimed; “she’s lyin’ low that was my colleen bawn!  Oh, will ye hould your tongues, an’ let me think of what has happened me?  She’s gone:  Mary, avourneen, isn’t she gone from us?  I’m alone, an’ I’ll be always lonely.  Who have I now to comfort me?  I know I have good childhre, neighbors; but none o’ them, all of them, if they wor ten times as many, isn’t