“Well, as I was telling you, there was great sport going on.  In one corner, you might see a knot of ould men sitting together, talking over ould times—­ghost stores, fairy tales, or the great rebellion of ’41, and the strange story of Lamh Dearg, or the bloody hand—­that, maybe, I’ll tell you all some other night, plase God:  there they’d sit smoking—­their faces quite plased with the pleasure of the pipe—­amusing themselves and a crowd of people, that would be listening to them with open mouth.  Or, it’s odd, but there would be some droll young fellow among them, taking a rise out of them; and, positively, he’d often find, them able enough for him, particularly ould Ned Magin, that wanted at the time only four years of a hundred.  The Lord be good to him, and rest his sowl in glory, it’s he that was the pleasant ould man, and could tell a story with any one that ever got up.

“In another corner there was a different set, bent on some piece of divilment of their own.  The boys would be sure to get beside their sweethearts, any how; and if there was a purty girl, as you may set it down there was, it’s there the skroodging, (* pressure of the crowd) and the pushing, and the shoving, and, sometimes, the knocking down itself, would be, about seeing who’d get her.  There’s ould Katty Duffy, that’s now as crooked as the hind leg of a dog, and it’s herself was then as straight as a rush, and as blooming as a rose—­Lord bless us, what an alteration time makes upon the strongest and fairest of us!—­it’s she that was the purty girl that night, and it’s myself that gave Frank M’Shane, that’s still alive to acknowledge it, the broad of his back upon the flure, when he thought to pull her off my knee.  The very gorsoons and girshas were sporting away among themselves, and learning one another to smoke in the dark corners.  But all this, Mr. Morrow, took place in the corpse-house, before ten or eleven o’clock at night; after that time the house got too thronged entirely, and couldn’t huld the half of them; so by jing, off we set, maning all the youngsters of us, both boys and girls, out to Tom’s barn, that was red up (* Cleared up for us—­set in order), there to commence the plays.  When we were gone, the ould people had more room, and they moved about on the sates we had left them.  In the mane time, lashings of tobacco and snuff, cut in platefuls, and piles of fresh new pipes, were laid on the table for any one that wished to use them.

“When we got to the barn, it’s then we took our pumps off (* Threw aside all restraint) in airnest—­by the hokey, such sport you never saw.  The first play we began was Hot-loof; and maybe there wasn’t skelping then.  It was the two parishes of Errigle-Keeran and Errigle-Truagh against one another.  There was the Slip from Althadhawan, for Errigle-Truagh, against Pat M’Ardle, that had married Lanty Gorman’s daughter of Cargach, for Errigle-Keeran.  The way they play it, Mr.