y call our true
Catholic King, as long as there's life in his body, or a drop of
whisky left in ould Ireland to drink his health wid.--Talking about
Father O'Toole puts me in mind that the bishop has not yet decided our
little bit of dispute, saying that he must take time to think about
it. Now considering that it's just three years since the row took
place, the old gentleman must be a very slow thinker, not to have
found out by this time that I was in the right, and that Father
O'Toole, the baste, is not good enough to be hanged.

"Your two married sisters are steady and diligent young women, having
each made three children since you last saw them. Fine boys, every
mother's son of them, with elegant spacious features, and famous
mouths for taking in whole potatoes. By the powers, but the effects
of the tree of the O'Briens begin to make a noise in the land, anyhow,
as you would say if you only heard them roaring for their bit of
suppers.

"And now, my dear son Terence, to the real purport of this letter,
which is just to put to your soul's conscience, as a dutiful son,
whether you ought not to send me a small matter of money to save your
poor father's soul from pain and anguish--for it's no joke that being
in purgatory, I can tell you; and you wouldn't care how soon you were
tripped out of it yourself. I only wish you had but your little toe
in it, and then you'd burn with impatience to have it out again. But
you're a dutiful son, so I'll say no more about it--a nod's as good as
a wink to a blind horse.

"When your mother goes, which, with the blessing of God, will be in a
very little while, seeing that she has only to follow her senses,
which are gone already, I'll take upon myself to sell everything, as
worldly goods and chattels are of no use to dead people: and I have no
doubt but that what, with the furniture, and the two cows, and the
pigs, and the crops in the ground, there will be enough to save her
soul from the flames, and bury her dacently into the bargain.
However, as you are the heir-at-law, seeing that the property is all
your own, I'll keep a debtor and creditor account of the whole; and
should there be any over, I'll use it all out in masses, so as to send
her up to heaven by express and if there's not sufficient, she must
remain where she is till you come back and make up the deficiency. In
the meanwhile I am your loving