uld put a very creditable meal
before him, and Father Donovan was always one that relished his meals,
and he enjoyed his drink too, although he was set against too much of
it. He used to say, "It's a wise drinker that knows when geniality
ends and hostility begins, and it's just as well to stop before you
come to the line."

With this walking to and fro the day was near done with when I got
back to the "Pig and Turnip" and remembered that neither a bit of pig
nor a bit of turnip had I had all that long day, and now I was
ravenous. I never knew anything make me forget my appetite before; but
here had I missed my noonday meal, and not in all my life could I
overtake it again. Sure there was many an experience crowded together
in that beautiful Sunday, so, as I passed through the entrance to the
inn I said to the obsequious landlord:

"For the love of Heaven, get placed on my table all you have in the
house that's fit to eat, and a trifle of a bottle or two, to wash it
down with."

So saying, I passed up the creaking old oaken stair and came to my
room, where I instantly remembered there was something else I had
forgotten. As I opened the door there came a dismal groan from Paddy,
and something that sounded like a wicked oath from Jem Bottles. Poor
lads! that had taken such a beating that day, such a cudgelling for my
sake; and here I stood at my own door in a wonder of amazement, and
something of fright, thinking I had heard a banshee wail. The two
misused lads had slipped out of my memory as completely as the devil
slipped off Macgillicuddy Reeks into the pond beneath when Saint
Patrick had sent the holy words after him.

"Paddy," said I, "are you hurted? Where is it you're sore?"

"Is it sore?" he groaned. "Except the soles of my feet, which they
couldn't hit with me kickin' them, there isn't an inch of me that
doesn't think it's worse hurted than the rest."

"It's sorry I am to hear that," I replied, quite truthfully, "and you,
Jem, how did you come off?"

"Well, I gave a better account of myself than Paddy here, for I made
most of them keep their distance from me; but him they got on the turf
before you could say Watch me eye, and the whole boiling of them was
on top of him in the twinkling of the same."

"The whole boiling of them?" said I, as if I knew nothing of the
occurrence, "then there was more than Strammers to receive you?"

"More!" shouted Jem Bottles, "there was forty if there was one."

Paddy