“However,” he concluded, “she’d be a sharp one if she’d do me altogether.  We’re not married yet; an’ I’ve a consate of my own, that she’s done for the ten guineas, any how!”

A family council was immediately held upon Phelim’s matrimonial prospects.  On coming close to the speculation of Miss Patterson, it was somehow voted, notwithstanding Phelim’s powers of attraction, to be rather a discouraging one.  Gracey Dalton was also given up.  The matter was now serious, the time short, and Phelim’s bounces touching his own fascinations with the sex in general, were considerably abated.  It was therefore resolved that he ought to avail himself of Sam Appleton’s clothes, until his own could be made.  Sam, he said, would not press him for them immediately, inasmuch as he was under obligations to Phelim’s silence upon some midnight excursions that he had made.

“Not,” added Phelim, “but I’m as much, an’ maybe more in his power, than he is in mine.”

When breakfast was over, Phelim and the father, after having determined to “drink a bottle” that night in the family of an humble young woman, named Donovan, who, they all agreed, would make an excellent wife for him, rested upon their oars until evening.  In the meantime, Phelim sauntered about the village, as he was in the habit of doing, whilst the father kept the day as a holiday.  We have never told our readers that Phelim was in love, because in fact we know not whether he was or not.  Be this as it may, we simply inform them, that in a little shed in the lower end of the village, lived a person with whom Phelim was very intimate, called Foodie Flattery.  He was, indeed, a man after Phelim’s own heart, and Phelim was a boy after his.  He maintained himself by riding country races; by handing, breeding, and feeding cocks; by fishing, poaching, and serving processes; and finally, by his knowledge as a cow-doctor and farrier—­into the two last of which he had given Phelim some insight.  We say the two last, for in most of the other accomplishments Phelim was fully his equal.  Phelim frequently envied him his life.  It was an idle, amusing, vagabond kind of existence, just such a one as he felt a relish for.  This man had a daughter, rather well-looking; and it so happened, that he and Phelim had frequently spent whole nights out together, no one knew on what employment.  Into Flattery’s house did Phelim saunter with something like an inclination to lay the events of the day before him, and to ask his advice upon his future prospects.  On entering the cabin he was much surprised to find the daughter in a very melancholy mood; a circumstance which puzzled him not a little, as he knew that they lived very harmoniously together.  Sally had been very useful to her father; and, if fame did not belie her, was sometimes worthy Foodie’s assistant in his nocturnal exploits.  She was certainly reputed to be “light-handed;” an imputation which caused the young men of her acquaintance to avoid, in their casual conversations with her, any allusion to matrimony.