“Never heed the filly,” Ned would reply, “I’ll get Charley Lawdher (* A blacksmith, and an honest man) to dock her—­but it’s not her I’m thinking of:  did you hear the news about the tobacky?”

“No; but I hope we won’t be long go.”

“Well, any how, we wor in luck to buy in them three last rowls.”

“Eh?—­in luck? death-alive, how, Ned?”

“Sure there was three ships of it lost last week, on their way from the kingdom of Swuzerland, in the Aist Indians, where it grows:  we can rise it thruppence a-pound now.”

“No, Ned! you’re not in airnest?”

“Faith, Nancy, you may say I am; and as soon as Tom Loan comes home from Dublin, he’ll tell us all about it; and for that matther, maybe it may rise sixpence a-pound; any how we’ll gain a lob by it, I’m thinking.”

“May I never stir, but that’s luck!  Well, Ned, you may thank me for that, any way, or sorra rowl we’d have in the four corners of the house; and you wanted to persuade me against buying them; but I knew betther—­for the tobacky’s always sure to get a bit of a hitch at this time o’ the year.”

“Bedad, you can do it, Nancy:  I’ll say that for you—­that is, and give you your own way.”

“Eh!—­can’t I, Ned?  And, what waa betther, I bate down Pether M’Entee three-ha’pence a-pound afther I bought them.”

“Ha! ha! ha!—­by my sannies, Nancy, as to market-making, they may all throw their caps at you, you thief o’ the world; you can do them nately!”

“Ha! ha! ha!  Stop, Ned; don’t drink that water—­it’s not from the garden-well.  I’ll jist mix a sup of this last stuff we got from the mountains, till you taste it:  I think it’s not worse nor the last—­for Hugh Traynor’s * an ould hand at making it.”

     * Hugh, who, by the way, is still living, and, I am glad to
     hear, in improved circumstances, was formerly in the habit
     of making a drop of the right sort.

This was all Ned wanted:  his point was now carried; but with respect to the rising of the tobacco, the less that is said about it the bettor for his veracity.

Having thus given the reader a slight sketch of Ned and Nancy, and of the beautiful valley in which this worthy speculator had his residence, I shall next proceed to introduce him to the village circle, which, during the long winter nights, might be found in front of Ned’s kitchen-fire of blazing turf, whose light was given back in ruddy reflection from the bright pewter plates, that were ranged upon the white and well-scoured dresser in just and gradual order, from the small egg-plate to the large and capacious dish, whereon, at Christmas and Easter, the substantial round of corned beef used to rear itself so proudly over the more ignoble joints at the lower end of the table.