and a great deal of blarney, however, produced their usual effects; the ice appeared to be thawing; Tim was melting into a state of compliance. The gentleman-keeper deposited the jewel in its ancient resting-place, quietly folded his arms, and seated himself upon the huge old chest, and we as quietly followed his example. It was evident something was coming, and expectation was on tiptoe. Tim's tongue, we had perceived from the first, was hung upon the perpetual motion principle; once set going, it stopped not until worn out; and its powers being now directed to an elucidation of the mysteries of the tail, we had nothing to do but to act the part of respectable listeners. It is certainly a matter of regret that Tim's rich and racy brogue, his genuine Hibernicisms cannot be transferred literally to our pages; to make amends for this, it is our intention next time we visit Ballyhaugh to induce Tim to write his own history of the tail; and if this is not well received by a discerning public, we shall certainly say that taste is defunct, and at once set about writing its epitaph.

"Arrah!" said Tim, commencing his narrative, "but this precious jewel is the thing itself! there is nothin' in the whole wide arth to compare wid it! Och! darlin' tail, wasn't Ballyhaugh a different sort of a place before ye walked into it? Pretty divils were the boys thena-day, and hard work was it for his riverence, the praste, to get them safe through purgatory, and some were so atarnally bad that the blessed bishop himself couldn't put them into the right road. Och! murther! but they were divils unborn, and the biggest divil among them all was one Mike Leary, a spalpeen, whose name shouldn't be mentioned in dacent society, but that we can't help it. Be dad! it was strange that sich an everlasting ragamuffin should have been the manes of givin' us sich a gift, a gift which all the Kings of the arth, if they put all their gold, and all their jewels together, couldn't buy, nor get another like it, for this plain reason, that there isn't another to be had. The animal this wagged behind was what the larned called a rara avis ; and, his riverince has often told me, had but one tail.

"This Mike Leary, as I told yer honours before, was a broth of a boy, as unsanctified a sinner as the land could produce. Divil a bit o' mischief was there going on but Mike had his hand in it. He lived all alone, and by himself, and his cot was rarely seen by any eye but the crow's as it flew over the mountain; the boldest ventured not to visit him where he dwelt, for awful tales were told of the doings thereabout. And yet, withall, the lad was not unsocial; he was always foremost in the fun at fights, and at fairs, at wakes, and at weddings. No one ever knew him to work, or to win, to buy, or to sell, and yet his turf-stack was always high; he never was widout praties on his floor, or pork in his sty: but how did he get 'em? That's the question I should like to have answered.

"May be thay came naturally, as manners do to monkeys, or pitchfork tongues to women, or may be"- and here Tim crept close to us, and spoke low,-"evil sperits supplied him, and 'tis said infarnal cr'atures were sometimes seen dragging swine, already fatted and shaved, up the hill, while the poor bastes were so frightened that they said not a word, but went like lambs to the slaughter. And, as to praties and turf, they positively walked up of their own accord, and niver interfered with a shoul, if they met one, but just said 'Good night,' and passed on. There was strange doings in those far-off days. If a child caught the masels, the muther vowed it was all owin' to Mike;

if a cow slipped into a ditch, or a donkey grew melancholy, he was certain to have a hand in it. Not a thing happened, good, bad, or indifferent, for miles around, that Mike's powers were not call'd into question. Mike sartinly was a frind to some, particularly to his kith and kin. As an instance of this, though he required no land himself, as he niver laboured, he took care to provide all his relations with the best the neighbourhood could bestow; if the owners hesitated, Mike dispatched his compliments, and assured them that it was perfectly necessary for their own good, and the pace of society, that they should comply with his frinds' request, and let them have the acres. They seldom needed a second admonition. If any of his own fancied a wife, and the parent, or the maiden, was bold enough to say no, Mike hinted softly to them that he should feel obliged by their so far honouring his family; and if they still hesitated, he would condescend to pay them a personal visit, not as the lily-livered spalpeens do now-a-days, in the dark night, but in broad day, and gintaly strapping the damsel on his horse, carry her off to the narest praste. Mike in his own sole person was the parliment of his parish, and faix, he was judge and jury too, and further, whiniver occasion required, he niver failed to execute his own decrees. No one for a moment dreamt of opposing him; he was universally belaved to have on his side a power which nothin' human could withstand. In those days we hadn't the Sassenachs, neither their laws, nor their red-coats; and, supposing they had been here, what then? No laws can bind, and soldiers niver were and niver will be able to fight against divils, and these most assuredly Mike had at his fingers' ends."

Here, although Tim made no pause, we could not avoid asking ourselves what on earth all this had to do with the tail. It did not appear that Mike had, however likely a subject for a long voyage, travelled in strange lands, and certainly it stood confessed that such a tail was not of home-growth. Did he associate with, keep, feed, and cherish, some strange beast in his out-of-the-way den on the mountain, and had he in a moment of anger, spleen, disappointment, or forgetfulness, mutilated its fair proportions? The generosity, kindness, and amiability of the Irish character at once negatived this assumption. Had it been a head instead of a tail, we should at once have assigned it to some hydra, some joint-stock monster, a creature whose loss of heads is of such frequent occurrence as to be scarcely entitled to notice.

Could it be a disjointed member, which, worn out with continual agitation, had spontaneously dropped? Unfortunately for this solution of the enigma, Mike flourished in a golden age, in an era when College Green retained its verdure and its sprouts, warranted of native rearing, amidst which the Hibernian bucks revelled, strangers to decay, or any other mortal ill.

This was a poser; speculation was completely floored; conjecture dead-beaten. Nothing remained but to turn again to our 66 oracle and guide."

"It would take a long day," continued Tim, "to mintion all Mishter Mike's doings; but I must jist tell ye that he cared not a snap o' the finger for the praste himself; whinever he crossed his riverince's path he would be after cocking his eye, or putting his tief of a finger to his nose, and yet his holiness strived hard to convart the sinner :

"Blood an' oons!' he would say, 'what do ye think will become o'

ye, Mike Leary, unless ye be afhter mendin' yer ways? There's a very dark gintleman looking close after ye, Mike Leary, and if once ye git into his claws, let me tell ye, all the saints couldn't git ye out agin. Come to mass, Mike, and pay yer praste his honest dues, and ye shall have absolution on raysonable tarms.'

"But all this kindness was thrown away; his riverince might as well have whistled jigs to red-herrings. Mike cared not a rap for praste or purgatory, and some assert that he stole his riverince's cabbages, bad luck to him!

Matters went on in this way for many a year; Mike grew worse and worse every day of his life, and not a cat could say a mouse was its own in Ballyhaugh.

"In all likelihood yer honours have heard of that terribly stormy night, when the round tower on the hill of Howth was thrown down, and the beautiful city of Killarney was overflowed by the lake. It was on that very night, while Mishter Mike was sitting by his arth, draming of divilry for the morrer, and larfing at the tunder and the lightnin', and watchin' the praties bile in the pot for his supper, and, basides, he was singing a song, which I'll repate to yer honours; 'tis called Mike Leary's song of the praties.'

"Dear praties, or murphies, or whatever name
The l'arned may call ye, I love ye the same;

Ye're the roundest, the swatest, the best of all fruit,
And I'll sing till I'm tired in praise of the root.

'Just schrape them gintaly when put in the pot,
And take them up smoking, and ate them quite hot;
And while on their beauties my shoul is regalin',

I'll loudly proclaim they require no repalin'.

Wid buttermilk shure for a prince they're a faste ;
There's nothin' like praties, west, north, south, or east.
Swate fruit! while adown my pleased throat as ye roll,
Be assured that Mike Leary will ne'er charge ye toll.

The gintles may talk of their fruit from afar,
Of the grape, and the pach, the apple, and pear;
But the pratie so maly, the pratie is mine;

May the pratie and shamrock for ever intwine!'

"Whether Mike had finished his song or not, 'tisn't asy to say, but 'tis sartin that a gintle and purlite tap at the door silenced him intirely. "Murther! and who is it there? Come in, an plase ye, as ye ginerally do, through the kayhole, or down the chimbly. But the invitation was declined, and the tapping continued. After some delay, Mike went to the door, and opened it, and to be sure a very dacentlooking gintleman stood on the threshold. He didn't stop to be asked, but walked in, as if he had been steppin' into his own house.

666 Quite at home, sir!' said Mike.

“To be sure, Mishter Mike; and arn't ye glad to see me?' said the stranger.

"Seein' as how I hav'n't yer honour's acquaintance, I carn't very well say whither I'm glad or sorry to see ye, but if yer honour will be pleased to tell where ye larnt my name, perhaps I shall be able to

answer.