decidedly contrary to the nature of
that which most aspirants would be inclined to relish. A severe stun,
however, was the most serious injury he received on his own part, and
several round oaths, with a good drubbing, fell to the servant; but
unluckily he left the furze bush behind him in the highest and narrowest
part of the chimney; and were it not that an active fellow succeeded
in dragging it up from the outside of the roof, the chimney ran
considerable risk, as Katy said, of being choked.

But along with the lustration which every fixture within the house was
obliged to undergo, it was necessary that all the youngsters should get
new clothes; and for this purpose, Jemmy Lynch, the tailor, with his two
journeymen and three apprentices, were sent for in all haste, that he
might fit Phaddhy and each of his six sons, in suits, from a piece of
home-made frieze, which Katty did not intend to break up till "towards
Christmas."

A station is no common event, and accordingly the web was cut up, and
the tailor left a wedding-suit, half-made, belonging to Edy Dolan, a
thin old bachelor, who took it into his head to try his hand at becoming
a husband ere he'd die. As soon as Jemmy and his train arrived, a door
was taken off the hinges, and laid on the floor, for himself to sit
upon, and a new drugget quilt was spread beside it, for his journeymen
and apprentices. With nimble fingers they plied the needle and thread,
and when night came, a turf was got, into which was stuck a piece of
rod, pointed at one end and split at the other; the "the white candle,"
slipped into a shaving of the fringe that was placed in the cleft end
of the stick, was then lit, whilst many a pleasant story, told by Jemmy,
who had been once in Dublin for six weeks, delighted the circle of
lookers-on that sat around them.

At length the day previous to the important one arrived. Hitherto, all
hands had contributed to make every thing in and about the house look
"dacent"--scouring, washing, sweeping, pairing, and repairing, had
been all disposed of. The boys got their hair cut to the quick with the
tailor's scissors; and such of the girls as were not full grown, not
only that which grew on the upper part of the head taken off, by a cut
somewhat resembling the clerical tonsure, so that they looked extremely
wild and unsettled with their straight locks projecting over their ears;
every thing, therefore, of the less important arrangements had been gone
thr