of common, on which seven or eight huts, similar in appearance to my poor friends' dwelling, were congregated. The lord of the one mansion imported his own mutton into England; and the master of the other assured his London friends, that his agent assured him, that the peasantry in the neighbourhood of his park were “the finest and happiest peasantry on the face of the earth." But neither the one nor the other bad any thing to do with my poor cotter and his wife, for it was many years since they had visited their estates. Had it been otherwise, Timothy and Moyna must have thought more wisely, and acted more discreetly.

Timothy Brady differed in nothing from the generality of his countrymen, except that he was "better larned," for he could read and write, and, when a lad, was in great esteem as a "mass server," and noted as being "remarkable handsome at the altar." I had not seen him for some time, and was struck with the painful change which a few years had made in his fine athletic form. Moyna had ever been a careless, affectionate "slob of a girl," who would “go from Bantry to Boyne to sarve me on her bare knees," but had little idea of serving herself. Such a character is not improved by age; but there was a time when I had hoped a better fate for Timothy. His sunken eye became bright and animated when he saw one who had rendered him some service, and he

pulled up his stockings over his bare legs, with that striking regard to propriety which an Irish peasant never forgets in the presence of a female.* After the usual civilities had passed, Moyna commenced

"The lady's at me agin about the luck; and now, may be, she'll have the goodness to say what she said awhile ago."

"I told your wife that Predestination is what she calls Luck, and that she would agree very well with the Turks."

"The Turks!" repeated Moyna, throwing up her hands and eyes in horror. 66 Oh, ma'am, honey-I never thought you'd even the Turks to one of your own country! Oh, Tim, Tim! was I like a Turk when I sat by your bed, night and day, while ye had the typhus fever? Was I like a Turk when I took Mary Clooney's child from off the dead breast of its mother, and she kilt at the same time by that very

* I may mention, by the way, a striking instance of this characteristic Some friends of mine were on a boating excursion, a few years ago, in Bantry Bay and a lady was filling to each of the boatmen a glass of whiskey. Observing that one of them was looking in an opposite direction, she slyly dipped the glass into the water, and handed it to him in lieu of the more agreeable beverage. The man took it, bowed, and-while the eyes of the whole party were upon him, expecting a "splutter," or perhaps an oath-drank it off, returned the glass, with a "thank ye kindly, ma'am," and without the slightest change of countenance. "Why, Pat," exclaimed the lady, in astonishment; "do you like salt-water?" "No, ma'am, I do not like salt-water, but if you had given me a glass of poison I would have drank it."

Was I like a Turk

fever, that kilt her husband? when I took the bed, that was no bed, only a lock o' straw, from under me, that blind Barry might die decent and easy, in consideration of the high family that owned him? Was I like a Turk when❞—

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'Moyna, will ye whisth, woman dear!--you have no understanding; the lady only meant that you and the Turks had different names for the same thing. Wasn't that it ?"

I bowed and smiled.

"Was that it?

different names.

Och, bother!-to be sure we have

I ax ye'r pardon, but I think ye said

I'd agree with the Turks ?"

"Yes, good Moyna, in one thing; you believe in 'luck,' and so do they."

Moyna was appeased, and Timothy took up the matter.

"There's no denying luck, nor no going against it, lady dear, that's the short and the long of it. It's my luck never to make as much by any thing as another. Why the bonneen we reared from the size o' my hand, that Dorney Cobb offered me any money for at Candlemas, caught could and died at Eastersorrow a man on the common had the luck to lose a pig but myself!”

"How did it catch cold?"

"Out of nothing in the world but my luck; it was used, poor thing, to sleep in the cabin with ourselves,

as the sty had no roof: but a neighbour's child was sick, and my woman axed some of the family in, and the pig was forced, out of manners, to give up his bed, and sleep in the sty, which, as it had no roof, let in the rain. And it was mournful to hear the wheezing he had in the morning; and to see him turn his back on the pick of the mealy potatoes just before he died."

"Well, Timothy, I should call that mismanagement; I do not see either good or bad luck in the case; for it is clear that, if the sty had been roofed, the pig would not have been accustomed to cottage warmth; and, consequently, could not have caught cold."

"Well, lady; listen-it was my luck entirely that hindered my roofing the sty. I'll tell ye all about it. Did ye know Tom Dooly?-sorra a hand's-turn he'd do from Monday morning till Saturday night-barring the hoight of mischief. Ye didn't know Tom?—well, ma'am, I'm sure ye mind his brother Micky- Oneeyed Mick,' he was called, because he as good as lost the other in a bit of a spree at the fair of Rathmullin, and could get no justice for it."

"No justice for the spree, do you mean, Timothy?" "No, ma'am, I mean no justice for his eye; clearly proving there's no law for the poor-God help them! The boy he fought with was as good as thirty years older than himself, a tough ould fellow, with a crack

stick skull that nothing could harm.

So Mick

know'd that, and he never offered at the head, but the shins-which he broke as compleat as any thing you And so the magistrate set the ould boy's shins against Mickey's eye, and bid them make it up. Ah! there's no law for the poor, at all, at all!"

ever saw.

"But, Timothy, let us get back to where we set out the pig-sty."

"Troth, yes," returned Tim, "though I'm sorry to take a lady to a dirty subject; Tom Dooly says to me, says he, Tim, ye're in want of a lock of straw to keep the heavens out of the piggery.' 'I am,' says I. Well,' says he, 'come over to me, I've a lot of as fine barley straw as ever danced under a flail, and ye shall have it, just for thank ye.' 'God bless ye, and good luck to you and your's, Mister Tom,' says I, "good luck to you and your's for ever and ever, amen!'

And when 'ill you look over for it?' says he. 'Tomorrow, for certain,' says I. Very good-to-morrow by all means,' says he, and make my respects to the woman that owns ye.' Now, ma'am dear, mind the luck; something or other hindered Moyna from taking my brogues to be mended to the broguemaker's that night. So I couldn't go the next day, and that very night a great splinter ran into my foot out of the spade-handle."

"Stop, my good friend, if the 'spade-handle was splintered, why did you not mend it?"