be informed against, and presented, for it's his neglect is the
bottom of the nuisance--'

'I find all the blame is thrown upon this poor Lord Clonbrony,' said
Lord Colambre.

'Becaase he is absent,' said Larry. 'It would not be so was he PRISINT.
But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour's a
stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would
I mind the laws about whisky, more than the quality, or the judge on the
bench?'

'What do you mean?'

'Why! was not I PRISINT in the court-house myself, when the JIDGE on the
bench judging a still, and across the court came in one with a sly jug
of POTSHEEN for the JIDGE himself, who prefarred it, when the right
thing, to claret; and when I SEEN that, by the laws! a man might talk
himself dumb to me after again' potsheen, or in favour of the revenue,
or revenue-officers. And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and
their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their WATCHING-OFFICERS, and
their coursing-officers, setting 'em one after another, or one over the
head of another, or what way they will--we can baffle and laugh at 'em.
Didn't I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten WATCHING-OFFICERS
set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will
always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not
all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And the gauging
rod even! who fears it? They may spare that rod, for it will never mend
the child.'

How much longer Larry's dissertation on the distillery laws would have
continued, had not his ideas been interrupted, we cannot guess; but he
saw he was coming to a town, and he gathered up the reins, and plied the
whip, ambitious to make a figure in the eyes of its inhabitants.

This TOWN consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side
of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them
opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as
if there had just been an earthquake--all the roofs sunk in various
places--thatch off, or overgrown with grass--no chimneys, the smoke
making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the
top of the open door--dunghills before the doors, and green standing
puddles--squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at
the carriage.

'Nugent's town,' said the postillion, 'once a snug place, when my Lady
Clonbrony was at home to whitewa