rises
An' it sits at the fire beside you black and cowld.

'"At prayers, at dances, or at wake or hurling;
At fair, or funeral, or where you may;
At your going out, and at your returning,
'Tis I'll be with you to your dying day."'

'Is there much more o' that?' demanded Irons, rather savagely.

The thirsty gentleman in the red plush waistcoat was once more, as he
termed it, 'wetting his whistle;' but one of his comrades responded
tartly enough--

'I'd like there was--an' if you mislike it, neighbour, there's the
door.'

If he expected a quarrel, however, it did not come; and he saw by
Irons's wandering eye, fierce as it looked, that his thoughts for the
moment were elsewhere. And just then the songster, having wiped his
mouth in his coat-sleeve, started afresh in these terms--

'"You'll walk the world with a dreadful knowledge,
And a heavy heart and a frowning brow;
And thinking deeper than a man in college,
Your eye will deaden, and your back will bow.

'"And when the pariod iv your life is over,
The frightful hour of judgment then will be;
And, Shamus Hanlon, heavy on your shoulder,
I'll lay my cowld hand, and you'll go wid me."'

This awful ditty died away in the prolonged drone which still finds
favour in the ears of our Irish rustic musicians, and the company now
began to talk of congenial themes, murders, ghosts, and retributions,
and the horrid tune went dismally booming on in Mr. Irons's ear.

Trifling, and apparently wholly accidental, as was this occurrence, the
musical and moral treat had a very permanent effect upon the fortunes of
Irons, and those of other persons who figure in our story. Mr. Irons had
another and another glass of punch. They made him only more malign and
saturnine. He sat in his corner by the fire, silent and dismal; and no
one cared what was passing in the brain behind that black and scowling
mask. He paid sternly and furiously, like a villain who has lost at
play; and without a 'good-night,' or any other leave taking, glided
ominously from the room; and the gentlemen who carried on the discourse
and convivialities of the Salmon House, followed him with a gibe or two,
and felt the pleasanter for the removal of that ungracious presence.

A few minutes later, Mr. Lowe stood on the hall-door step, and calling
to his man, gave him a little note and some silver, and a message--very
impressively repeated--and the groom touched his hat, and b