an's good frinds as ever."

"Bedad, that bates cock-fightin'," said Body, as he went to bring in the
gun.

In the mean time, Prank, with the cards in his hand, went to the eave
of the barn, I thrust them up under the thatch, and took out of the same
nook a flask of whiskey.

"We'll want this," said he, putting it to his lips, and gulping down
a portion. "Come Mike, be tastin'; and aftherwards i put this in your
pocket."

Mike followed his example, and was corking the flask when Rody returned
with the gun.

"She's charged," said Frank; "but we'd betther put in fresh primin' for
'fraid of her hangin' fire."

He then primed the gun, and handed it to Reillaghan. "Do you keep the
gun, Mike," he added, "an' I'll keep the cocksticks. Rody, I'll bet you
a shillin' I kill more wid! the cockstick, nor he will wid the gun, will
you take me up?"

"I know a safer thrick," replied Rody; "you're a dead aim wid the
cockstick, sure enough, an' a deader with the gun, too; catch me at it."

"You show some sinse, for a wondher," observed Frank, as he and his
companion left the barn, and turned towards the mountains, which rose
frowning behind the house. Rody stood looking after them until they
wound up slowly out of sight among the hills; he then shook his head two
or three times, and exclaimed, "By dad, there's somethin' in this, if
one could make out: what it is. I know Frank."

Christmas-day passed among the peasantry, as it usually passes in
Ireland. Friends met before dinner in their own, in their neighbors',
in shebeen or in public houses, where they drank, sang, or fought,
according to their natural dispositions, or the quantity of liquor they
had taken. The festivity of the day might be known by the unusual reek
of smoke that danced from each chimney, by the number of persons who
crowded the roads, by their bran-new dresses,--for if a young man
or country girl can afford a dress at all, they provide it for
Christmas,--and by the striking appearance of those who, having drunk a
little too much, were staggering home in the purest happiness, singing,
stopping their friends, shaking hands with them, or kissing them,
without any regard to sex. Many a time might be seen two Irishmen,' who
had got drunk together, leaving a fair or market, their arms about each
other's necks, from whence they only removed them to kiss and hug one
another more lovingly. Notwithstanding this, there is nothing more
probable than that these identic