and melancholy.  The season brought with it none of that relief to the peasantry which usually makes autumn so welcome.  On the contrary, the failure of the potato crop, especially in its quality, as well as that in the grain generally, was not only the cause of hunger and distress, but also of the sickness which prevailed.  The poor were forced, as they too often are, to dig their potatoes before they were fit for food; and the consequences were disastrous to themselves in every sense.  Sickness soon began to appear; but then it was supposed that as soon as the new grain came in, relief would follow.  In this expectation, however, they were, alas! most wofully disappointed.  The wetness of the summer and autumn had soured and fermented the grain so lamentably, that the use of it transformed the sickness occasioned by the unripe and bad potatoes into a terrible and desolating epidemic.  At the period we are treating of, this awful scourge had just set in, and was beginning to carry death and misery in all their horrors throughout the country.  It was no wonder, then, that, at the dance we are describing, there was an almost complete absence of that cheerful and light-hearted enjoyment which is, or at least which was, to be found at such meetings.  It was, besides, owing to the severity of the evening, but thinly attended.  Such a family had two or three members of it sick; another had buried a fine young woman; a third, an only son; a fourth, had lost the father, and the fifth, the mother of a large family.  In fact, the conversation on this occasion was rather a catalogue of calamity and death, than that hearty ebullition of animal spirits which throws its laughing and festive spirits into such assemblies.  Two there were, however, who, despite of the gloom which darkened both the dance and the day, contrived to sustain our national reputation for gayety and mirth.  One of these was our friend, Sarah, or, as she was better known, Sally M’Gowan, and the other a young fellow named Charley Hanlon, who acted as a kind of gardener and steward to Dick o’ the Grange.  This young fellow possessed great cheerfulness, and such an everlasting fund of mirth and jocularity, as made him the life and soul of every dance, wake, and merry-meeting in the parish.  He was quite a Lothario in his sphere—­a lady-killer—­and so general an admirer of the sex, that he invariably made I love to every pretty girl he met, or could lure into conversation.  The usual consequences followed.  Nobody was such a favorite with the sex in general, who were ready to tear each other’s caps about him, as they sometimes actually did; and indeed this is not at all to be wondered at.  The fellow was one of the most open, hardy liars that ever lived.  Of shame he had heard; but of what it meant, no earthly eloquence could give him the slightest perception; and we need scarcely add, that his assurance was boundless, as were his powers of flattery.  It is unnecessary to say, then, that a man so admirably calculated to