oak table—­which, by the way, was frequently the only one of the company that kept its legs upon these occasions of Hibernian hospitality.  I think I behold him now, with his open, benevolent brow, thinly covered with grey hair, his full blue eye and florid cheek, which glowed like the sunny side of a golden-pippin that the winter’s frost had ripened without shrivelling.  But as he has finished the admixture of his punch, I will leave him to speak for himself.

“You know, Jack,” said he, after gulping down nearly half the newly-mixed tumbler, by way of sample, “you know that our family can lay no claim to antiquity; in fact, our pedigree ascends no higher, according to the most authentic records, than Shawn Duffy, my grandfather, who rented a small patch of ground on the sea-coast, which was such a barren, unprofitable spot, that it was then, and is to this day, called ‘The Devil’s Half-acre.’  And well it merited the name, for if poor Shawn was to break his heart at it, he never could get a better crop than thistles or ragweed off it.  But though the curse of sterility seemed to have fallen on the land, Fortune, in order to recompense Shawn for Nature’s niggardliness, made the caverns and creeks of that portion of the coast which bounded his farm towards the sea the favourite resort of smugglers.  Shawn, in the true spirit of Christian benevolence, was reputed to have favoured those enterprising traders in their industry, by assisting to convey their cargoes into the interior of the country.  It was on one of those expeditions, about five o’clock on a summer’s morning, that a gauger unluckily met my grandfather carrying a bale of tobacco on his back.”

Here my uncle paused in his recital, and leaning across the table till his mouth was close to my ear, said, in a confidential whisper—­

“Jack, do you consider killing a gauger—­murder?”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“You do?” he replied, nodding his head significantly.  “Then heaven forgive my poor grandfather.  However, it can’t be helped now.  The gauger was found dead, with an ugly fracture in his skull, the next day; and, what was rather remarkable, Shawn Duffy began to thrive in the world from that time forward.  He was soon able to take an extensive farm, and, in a little time, began to increase in wealth and importance.  But it is not so easy as some people imagine to shake off the remembrance of what we have been, and it is still more difficult to make our friends oblivious on that point, particularly if we have ascended in the scale of respectability.  Thus it was, that in spite of my grandfather’s weighty purse, he could not succeed in prefixing Mister to his name; find he continued for a long time to be known as plain ‘Shawn Duffy, of the Devil’s Half-acre.’  It was undoubtedly a most diabolic address; but Shawn was a man of considerable strength of mind, as well as of muscle, and he resolved to become a juntleman, despite this damning reminiscence.  Vulgarity,