ed rushes and sombre sedge, and all other marish growths,
until the re-annexation was complete, and they once more were
homogeneous part and parcel of the conquering bog. Old Michael used to
trudge heavily round his dwindling territories, which were haunted by
memories of better days. There had been a time when they had actually
"kep' a pair of plough-horses." I believe that he would have fretted his
heart out much sooner than he did if it had not been for Ody, his only
remaining son, "whose aquils," his aunt Moggy sometimes remarked rather
bitterly, "he consaited you wouldn't find plintier in the world than an
apple sittin' on a sloe-bush." As the boy grew up the old man's pride
and pleasure in him were tempered by apprehensions lest he should "take
off wid himself like the other lads." However, Ody never did this nor
anything worse than wax somewhat over-confident and self-opiniated; and
a year or so before his father's death he became associated with Felix
O'Beirne in the management of an illicit still off away in the bog,
which gave him an object in life, and had a sobering and settling effect
upon him.

He was not more than twenty when his father suddenly died one early
spring morning, and he found himself left responsible for a few acres
well cropped with weeds, and sundry arrears of rent to be extracted from
their produce. Whereupon he resolved to abandon the struggle, and set up
on a less ambitious footing in one of the cabins at Lisconnel. So he got
ready for the move by selling off his little bit of live stock, all
except Rory, the old black pony, who had a very large head and a white
face like a grotesque mask, and with whom he would not have parted on
the most tempting terms. As for his great-aunt Moggy, when she heard of
this arrangement, she resigned herself to her fate, which was obviously
the Union away at Moynalone. What else should become of her, since she
was past field-work, and nobody could expect Ody now to be bothered with
keeping her idle, and he with scarce a penny to his name after settling
with Mr. Nugent. "Ody," she reflected, "didn't mind a thraneen what way
he had things in the house, and didn't care to be keepin' fowls, so what
good 'ud he get out of her at all?" Moggy was a dull and rather
cross-tempered old person, who had grown up in souring shade, and never
had a life of her own to live, nor yet a faculty for slipping smoothly
into other people's. Her slight intercourse with Ody had hit