rwards--he was
met, he said, by a gentleman dressed in rusty black, mounted upon a
strong, coarse horse; and who, after looking at him with a good deal of
surprise, said--"What is your name, my fine fellow?" and on hearing
it he asked him where he was going. The child, who had been trained to
nothing but truth; mentioned at once the object of his message; upon
which the gentleman in question, after having heard it, thrust his hands
into his smallclothes pocket, and then drew them out with an air of
impatience, exclaiming--"Bad luck to it for poverty--it's the curse
o' the counthry." Now this worthy priest, for such he was, had not been
many weeks in the parish at the period of his meeting with the little
boy; and it so happened, that his residence was within about a quarter
of a mile of the glebe house. He was, besides, one of the few who had
given, upon more than one occasion, rather unequivocal manifestations of
violent opposition to the whole system of tithes. As a matter of course,
he was the last individual from whom anything like sympathy for those
who suffered in such a cause might be expected. Much of the same
character was M'Mahon, to whom the distressed parson had applied for the
humble loan of food. He assailed, in fact, the whole Establishment, and
took both an active and conspicuous part in the excitement which then
agitated the country. He joined the crowds, vociferated and shouted
among them at the top of his lungs, and took the liberty of laying down
the law on the subject, as he termed it: that is to say, of swearing
that one stick or stone of their dirty Establishment should not be
left upon another, but that the whole bobbery of it must be sent to
blazes--where it would all go yet, plaise God. Of course his neighbor,
the parson, was by no means cognizant of this violence on the part of
M'Mahon, or he would never have thought of applying to him, even under
the severest pressure of absolute destitution.

Having premised thus much concerning these two individuals, we request
our readers to accompany us to the house of the Rev. Anthony Casey,
and to suppose that it is a little after the hour of eleven o'clock at
night. The worthy gentleman and his curate had just seated themselves
in his snug, but humble little parlor, where a pleasant turf fire was
beginning to get somewhat dim, when the following dialogue occurred
between them:

"Pettier," said Father Anthony to his curate, who had just returned from