* The peasantry of a great portion of Ireland use this word
     as applicable to both sexes.

“Thank you, Alick; you think I swallow that; but as for Ned, the never a fear of him; except that an increasing stomach is a sign of something; or what’s the best chance of all, Alick, for you and me, that he should meet Larry’s fate in some of his drunken fits.”

“Now, Nancy,” says Ned, “there’s no use in talking that way; it’s only last Thursday, Mr. Morrow, that, in presence of her own brother, Jemmy Connolly, the breeches-maker, and Billy M’Kinny, there, that I put my two five fingers acrass, and swore solemnly by them five crosses, that, except my mind changed, I’d never drink more nor one-half pint of spirits and three pints of porther in a day.”

“Oh, hould your tongue, Ned—­hould your tongue, and don’t make me spake,” said Nancy; “God help you! many a time you’ve put the same fingers acrass, and many a time your mind has changed; but I’ll say no more now—­wait till we see how you’ll keep it.”

“Healths a-piece, your sowls,” said Ned, winking at the company.

“Well, Tom,” said Andy Morrow, “about the wake?”

“Och, och! that was the merry wake, Mr. Morrow.  From that day to this I remarked, that, living or dead, them that won’t respect themselves, or take care of their families, won’t be respected:  and sure enough, I saw full proof of that same at poor Larry’s wake.  Many a time afterwards I pitied the childher, for if they had seen better, they wouldn’t turn out as they did—­all but the two youngest, that their uncle took to himself, and reared afterwards; but they had no one to look afther them, and how could it be expected from what they seen, that good could come of them?  Squire Dickson gave Tom the other seven acres, although he could have got a higher rint from others; but he was an industrious man that desarved encouragement, and he got it.”

“I suppose Tom was at the expense of Larry’s berrin, as well as of his marriage,” said Alick.

“In troth and he was,” said Tom, “although he didn’t desarve it from him when he was alive;* seeing he neglected many a good advice that Tom and his dacent woman of a wife often gave him; for all that, blood is thicker than wather—­and it’s he that waked and berried him dacently; by the same token that there was both full and plenty of the best over him:  and everything, as far as Tom was consarned, dacint and creditable about the place.”

* The genuine blunders of the Irish—­not those studied for them by men ignorant of their modes of expression and habits of life—­are always significant, clear, and full of strong sense and moral truth.

“He did it for his own sake, of coorse,” said Nancy, “bekase one wouldn’t wish, if—­they had it at all, to see any one belonging to them worse off than another at their wake or berrin.”

“Thrue for you, Nancy,” said M’Roarkin, “and, indeed, Tom was well spoken of by the neighbors for his kindness to his brother after his death; and luck and grace attended him for it, and the world flowed upon him before it came to his own turn.”