the
complainant, or Mistress Wheelwright, or whether other females of the
party did not talk as loud and as fast as either. Mistress Pettit gave
an account of their neighborhood concerns for some time previous.

"Fait, your worship," says she, "we was always afther being kind to
them, when they had not a faggot to warm them, or a paratoe to ate; and
then she'd come to me sometime, and bring the childer, says she, for
she'd two of them at that same time--bad luck to her--and this, your
honor, is one of them," (for the eldest of Wheelwright's children had
been brought up in the medley;) "and says I to Mistress Wheelwright,
says I, plase your worship, you may come with your childer and warm ye,
and here's a drop of the crathur that Tim Martin brought to me. And
then whin she wint off a-begging as no dacent woman would, bekase I
pitied the childer, I tould Mrs. Wheelwright, says I, that they might
stay with me till ye come back yourself--and may-be ye'll come the
sooner, Mrs. Wheelwright, says I. And come she wouldn't by no manes,
but was out all night sometimes."

"Och deevil burn ye," interrupted Mistress Wheelwright, "if ye go on
at that rate, I'll tell his honor of the pig ye stole,--you and Tim
Martin, ye did."

"Och Murther," cried Mistress Pettit, "that a dacent woman like I
should be charged with staling along with such a spalpeen as Tim
Martin, your honor."

Whereupon up started Tim Martin, exclaiming--

"Botheration, and that's what I get for kindness," says he, "there's
grathitude your worship!--And fait, I'll tell his honor of the money
ye stole in the strong box that I left," says Tim Martin, says he.

"Yes," interposed Mistress Wheelwright, "when word com'd that she'd
gone off with a man that she had, and left her own childer for me to
care for, bad luck to her."

"Och!" Mistress Wheelwright, says Mistress Pettit, says she; "and you
and Tim Martin's lies will be the death of me, and he's selling whiskey
without a license, yer honor, that's Tim Martin, he is!"

But it is impossible to follow these precious parties through the
particulars of their examination disclosing the miseries of their
neighborhood, and in their own words, when they all talked together. I
must therefore content myself by informing the reader, that the
magistrate interposed as soon as he could, by stating that he did not
sit there to hear about their squabbles with each other and Tim Martin,
but to hear what they had to say agains