aqual to her that’s in the grave.  Her hands won’t be about me—­there was tindherness in their very touch.  An’, of a Sunday mornin’, how she’d tie an my handkerchy, for I never could rightly tie it an myself, the knot was ever an’ always too many for me; but, och, och, she’d tie it an so snug an’ purty wid her own hands, that I didn’t look the same man!  The same song was her favorite, Here’s your healths; an’ sure it’s the first time ever we wor together that she wasn’t wid us:  but now, avillish, your voice is gone—­you’re silent and lonely in the grave; an’ why shouldn’t I be sarry for the wife o’ my heart that never angered me?  Why shouldn’t I?  Ay, Mary, asthore, machree, good right you have to cry afther her; she was the kind mother to you; her heart was fixed in you; there’s her fatures on your face; her very eyes, an’ fair hair, too, an’ I’ll love you, achora, ten times more nor ever, for her sake.  Another favorite song of hers, God rest her, was ‘Brian O’Lynn.’  Troth an’ I’ll sing it, so I will, for if she was livin’ she’d like it.

     ‘Och, Brian O’Lynn, he had milk an’ male,
     A two-lugged porringer wanfcin’ a tail.’

Oh, my head’s through other!  The sarra one o’ me I bleeve, but’s out o’ the words, or, as they say, there’s a hole in the ballad.  Send round the punch will ye?  By the hole o’ my coat, Parra Gastha, I’ll whale you wid-in an inch of your life, if you don’t Shrink.  Send round the punch, Dan; an’ give us a song, Parra Gastha.  Arrah, Paddy, do you remimber—­ha, ha, ha—­upon my credit, I’ll never forget it, the fun we had catchin’ Father Soolaghan’s horse, the day he gave his shirt to the sick man in the ditch.  The Lord rest his sowl in glory—­ha, ha, ha—­I’ll never forget it.  Paddy, the song, you thief?”

“No, but tell them about that, Misther Connell.”

“Throth, an’ I will; but don’t be Mitherin me.  Faith, this is The height o’ good punch.  You see—­ha, ha, ha!  You see, it was one hard summer afore I was married to Ellish—­mavourneen, that you wor, asthore!  Och, och, are we parted at last?  Upon my sowl, my heart’s breakin’—­breakin’, (weeps) an’ no wondher!  But as I was sayin’—­all your healths! faith, it is tip-top punch that—­the poor man fell sick of a faver, an’ sure enough, when it was known what ailed him, the neighbors built a little shed on the roadside for him, in regard that every one was afeard to let him into their place.  Howsomever—­ha, ha, ha—­Father Soolaghan was one day ridin’ past upon his horse, an’ seein’ the crathur lyin’ undher the shed, on a whisp o’ straw, he pulls bridle, an’ puts the spake on the poor sthranger.  So, begad, it came out, that the neighbors were very kind to him, an’ used to hand over whatsomever they thought best for him from the back o’ the ditch, as well as they could.

“‘My poor fellow,’ said the priest, ‘you’re badly off for linen.’

“‘Thrue for you, sir,’ said the sick man, ’I never longed for anything so much in my life, as I do for a clane shirt an’ a glass o’ whiskey.’