r, and rush into the house and shout:
"Tare an' houns! Flesh and blood can't stand this! Don't shpake a word,
'uman! Don't shpake a word! but get me soap, and hot wather, and a
towel, while you'd be saying thrapsticks!"

[Illustration: "Come down to Mrs. Haley's--there isn't a better dhrop
betune this and Dublin." (p. 452.)]

[Illustration: "Come on, you ruffian!"]

Bess did as she was directed; and then paused anxiously in the kitchen
to conjecture what new form her husband's insanity was taking.
Occasionally a muttered growl came from the recesses of the bedroom; and
in about a quarter of an hour out came Jem, so transformed that Bess
began to doubt her own sanity, and could only say, through her tears:--

"For the love of God, Jem, is 't yourself or your ghost?"

It certainly was not a ghost, but a fine, handsome man, over six feet
high, his hair curled, and his whiskers shining with Trotter Oil, and
his long pilot coat with the velvet collar, which he had got from Father
Laverty, and on which the merciful night, now falling, concealed the
abrasions of time. Bess looked at him with all a wife's admiration; and
then, half crying, half laughing, said:--

"And what new divilmint are ye up to now?"

Jem answered not a word. He was on the war-path. He only said
sarcastically:--

"Ye needn't expect me home to tay, Mrs. Deady. I'm taking tay with
shupparior company to-night."

An hour later there were three gentlemen in Father Letheby's parlor, who
appeared to have known each other in antenatal times, so affectionate
and confidential were they. The gentleman in the middle was sympathizing
with his brethren in the legal profession--for he had introduced himself
as the local bailiff--on their being sent down from the metropolis and
its gayeties, from their wives and children, into this remote and
forsaken village called Kilronan.

"It ain't too bad," said one, with a strong Northern accent. "A' have
bun in wuss diggins thon thus!"

[Illustration: "For the love of God, Jem, is 't yourself or your
ghost?"]

Then the conversation drifted to possible dangers. And it appeared there
was not, in Her Majesty's dominions, a more lawless and fiendish set of
ruffians than those who lurked in Kilronan. Why, what did they do in the
days of the Lague? Didn't they take his predecessor, as honest a man as
ever lived, and strip him, and nail him by the ears to his door, where
his neighbors found him in the morning? But "the pol