e this lot is better than the last." "And,
your honour," was the reply, "the last was but the name of whisky.
Begorra, it's the Duchess's meal as makes mighty poor potheen." This
was said quite seriously and with an injured air. For there is no
merriment in Kerry. The old dances at the cross roads are danced no
more. The pipe of the piper is played out.

XVII.

"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE.

KILFINANE, CO. LIMERICK, _Christmas Eve._

The fox-terrier sits blinking on the hearth-rug in the pretty
drawing-room as nightfall approaches, and a servant appears with a
message that a woman has come with a big cake from Mrs. O'Blank, a
sympathising neighbour. There is no mistake about the size and
condition of the cake; it is a yard and a quarter in circumference; it
has a shining holiday face, like that of the fabled pigs who ran about
ready roasted, covered with delicately-browned "crackling," perfumed
with sage and onions, and carrying huge bowls of apple-sauce in their
mouths. As the pigs cried, "Come and eat me," so does the cake appeal,
but in more subtle manner, to the instincts and nostrils of all
present. It has that pleasant scent with it peculiar to newly-baked
plumcake. Huge plums, which have worked their way perseveringly to the
surface, wink invitingly, and, above all, the cake is hot, gloriously
hot, besides having with it a delicate zest of contraband acquired by
being smuggled on to the premises under Biddy M'Carthy's shawl.

Biddy has watched the moment when the "boys" on the watch--scowling
ruffians by the same token--had gone in quest of tea or more potent
refreshment, and has slipped from the avenue which runs past the house
instead of up to it, by the lodge gate and up to the door in that
spirit-like fashion peculiar to this part of Ireland. When they wish
to do so, the people appear to spring out of the ground. Two minutes
before the monotony of existence is broken by a fight there will not
be a soul to be seen, but no sooner is it discovered that some unlucky
wight is in present receipt of a "big bating" than hundreds appear on
the spot, and struggle for a "vacancy," like the lame piper who howled
for the same at the "murthering" of a bailiff.

This ghost-like faculty, however, has served us right well, for I need
not speculate upon what would have happened to Mrs. M'Carthy (whose
real name is not given for obvious reasons) if she had been discovered
carrying a huge cake to a house under ban