“‘The devil a glass o’ whiskey I have about me, but you shall have the clane shirt, you poor compassionate crathur,’ said the priest, stretchin’ his neck up an’ down to make sure there was no one comin’ on the road—­ha, ha, ha!

“Well an’ good—­’I have three shirts,’ says his Reverence, ’but I have only one o’ them an me, an’ that you shall have.’

“So the priest peels himself on the spot, an’ lays his black coat and waistcoat afore him acrass the saddle, thin takin’ off his shirt, he threw it acrass the ditch to the sick man.  Whether it was the white shirt, or the black coat danglin’ about the horse’s neck, the divil a one o’ myself can say, but any way, the baste tuck fright, an’ made off wid Father Soolaghan, in the state I’m tellin’ yez, upon his back—­ha, ha, ha!

“Parra Gastha, here, an’ I war goin’ up at the time to do a little in the distillin’ way for Tom Duggan of Aidinasamlagh, an’ seen what was goin’ an.  So off we set, an we splittin’ our sides laughin’—­ha, ha, ha—­at the figure the priest cut.  However, we could do no good, an’ he never could pull up the horse, till he came full flight to his own house, opposite the pound there below, and the whole town in convulsions when they seen him.  We gother up his clothes, an’ brought them home to him, an’ a good piece o’ fun-we had wid him, for he loved the joke as well as any man.  Well, he was the good an’ charitable man, the same Father Soolaghan; but so simple that he got himself into fifty scrapes, God rest him!  Och, och, she’s lyin’ low that often laughed at that, an’ I’m here—­ay, I have no one, no one that ’ud show me sich a warm heart as she would. (Weeps.) However, God’s will be done.  I’ll sing yez a song she liked:—­

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

Musha, I’m out agin—­ha, ha, ha!  Why, I b’lieve there’s pishthrogues an me, or I’d remember it.  Bud-an-age, dhrink of all ye.  Lie in to the liquor, I say; don’t spare it.  Here, Mike, send us up another gallon, Faith, we’ll make a night of it.

     ‘Och, three maidens a milkin’ did go
     An’ three maidens a milkin’ did go;
     An’ the winds they blew high
     An’ the winds they blew low,
     An’ they dashed their milkin’ pails to an’ fro.’

All your healths, childhre!  Neighbors, all your healths! don’t spare what’s before ye.  It’s long since I tuck a jorum myself an—­come, I say, plase God, we’ll often meet ins’ way, so we will.  Faith, I’ll take a sup from this forrid, with a blessin’.  Dhrink, I say, dhrink!”

By the time he had arrived at this patch, he was able to engross no great portion either of the conversation or attention.  Almost every one present had his songs, his sorrows, his laughter, or his anecdotes, as well as himself.  Every voice was loud; and every tongue busy.  Intricate and entangled was the talk, which, on the present occasion, presented a union of all the extremes which the lights and shadows of the Irish character alone could exhibit under such a calamity as that which brought the friends of the deceased together.