About nine o’clock the town of Ballykeerin was crowded with a multitude such as had never certainly met in it before.  All, from the rustic middle classes down, were there.  The crowd was, indeed, immense, yet, notwithstanding their numbers, one could easily mark the peculiar class for whose sake principally the meeting had been called together.

There was the red-faced farmer of substance, whose sunburnt cheeks, and red side-neck, were scorched into a color that disputed its healthy hue with the deeper purple tint of strong and abundant drink.

“Such a man,” an acute observer would say, “eats well, and drinks well, but is very likely to pop off some day, without a minute’s warning, or saying good-by to his friends.”

Again, there was the pale and emaciated drunkard, whose feeble and tottering gait, and trembling hands, were sufficiently indicative of his broken-down constitution, and probably of his anxiety to be enabled to make some compensation to the world, or some provision on the part of his own soul, to balance the consequences of an ill-spent life, during which morals were laughed at, and health destroyed.

There was also the healthy-looking drunkard of small means, who, had he been in circumstances to do so, would have gone to bed drunk every night in the year.  He is not able, from the narrowness of his circumstances, to drink himself into apoplexy on the one hand, or debility on the other; but he is able, notwithstanding, to drink the clothes off his back, and the consequence is, that he stands before you as ragged, able-bodied, and thumping a specimen of ebriety as you could wish to see during a week’s journey.  There were, in fact, the vestiges of drunkenness in all their repulsive features, and unhealthy variety.

There stood the grog-drinker with his blotched face in full flower, his eye glazed in his head, and his protuberant paunch projecting over his shrunk and diminished limbs.

The tippling tradesman too was there, pale and sickly-looking, his thin and over-worn garments evidently insufficient to keep out the chill of morning, and prevent him from shivering every now and then, as if he were afflicted with the ague.

In another direction might be seen the servant out of place, known by the natty knot of his white cravat, as well as by the smartness with which he wears his dress, buttoned up as it is, and coaxed about him with all the ingenuity which experience and necessity bring to the aid of vanity.  His napeless hat is severely brushed in order to give the subsoil an appearance of the nap which is gone, but it won’t do; every one sees that his intention is excellent, were it possible for address and industry to work it out.  This is not the case, however, and the hat is consequently a clear exponent of his principles and position, taste and skill while he was sober—­vain pride and trying poverty now in his drunkenness.

The reckless-looking sailor was also there (but with a serious air now), who, having been discharged for drunkenness, and refused employment everywhere else, for the same reason, was obliged to return home, and remain a burden upon his friends.  He, too, has caught this healthy epidemic, and the consequence is, that he will once more gain employment, for the production of his medal will be accepted as a welcome proof of his reformation.