regarded as one of the
family; had a horse at my command, visited in friendly intimacy the
neighbouring gentry; and, above all, enjoyed the eccentricities of the
lower Irish; most particularly so when before his honour, detailing, to
his great annoyance, a story of an hour long about a tester (sixpence),
and if he grew impatient, attributing it to some secret prejudice which
he entertained against them.{1}

1 Their method is to get a story completely by heart, and to
tell it, as they call it, out of the face, that is, from the
beginning to the end without interruption.

"Well, my good friend, I have seen you lounging about these
three hours in the yard, what is your business?"

"Plase your honour, it is what I want to speak one word to
your honour."

"Speak then, but be quick. What is the matter?"

"The matter, plase your honour, is nothing at all at all,
only just about the grazing of a horse, plase your honour,
that this man here sold me at the fair of Gurtishannon last
Shrove fair, which lay down three times with myself, plase
your honour, and kilt me; not to be telling your honour of
how, no later back than yesterday night, he lay down in the
house there within, and all the children standing round, and
it was God's mercy he did not fall a-top of them, or into
the fire to burn himself. So, plase your honour, to-day I
took him back to this man, which owned him, and after a
great deal to do I got the mare again I swopped (exchanged)
him for; but he won't pay the grazing of the horse for the
time I had him, though he promised to pay the grazing in
case the horse didn't answer; and he never did a day's work,
good or bad, plase your honour, all the time he was with me,
and I had the doctor to him five times, any how. And so,
plase your honour, it is what I expect your honour will
stand my friend, for I'd sooner come to your honour for
justice than to any other in all Ireland. And so I brought
him here before your honour, and expect your honour will
make him pay me the grazing, or tell me, can I process him
for it at the next assizes, plase your honour?"

The defendant now, turning a quid of tobacco with his
tongue into some secret cavern in his mouth, begins his
defence with

"Plase your honour, under favour, and saving your honour's