Sketched by Lady Chatterton

THE TOWN of ENNIS CORTHY and VINEGAR HILL. Co: of WEXFORD. Published by Saunders & Otley, Conduit St. 1841.

fortunes? Mustn't we all suffer for ourselves, and so where's the use of anything?" continued Mick, with a melancholy look.

"Oh! but do tell us about what happened in the old place,” said I; "and if it won't do the good it ought, perhaps we may derive some amusement from the story.'

"Well then, does yer honour see that little heap o' stones on the side of the hill just near where the stream rushes over the rock with a noise that if ye were up there, would sound for all the world like Be warned, poor Dick, be warned, poor Dick.' Well, there was once two cabins there, and in one of 'em lived a hardworking industrious man called Dick Hennesey. He had a daughter who was the comeliest girl in all Munster, and many suitors had she,—and the young O'Keefe, who was the eldest son of the squire that lived in the fine place out yonder called Mount Falcon Park, paid his court to her. But she loved no one but poor Jerry, who lived next door, and had nothing in the world but his two hands, and an honest tongue in his head, to say nothing of his being a handsome chap.

"Well, but her father was ambitious like, and thought as she was the prettiest girl in Ireland, there was no reason why she should not marry the best of the land; and he had his heart full of notions of equality, and the rights o' man and these ideas, and he thought himself as good as the squire in the big house; and so faix and perhaps he was, for the old gentleman was a sad ne'er-do-well, and drunken spendthrift: but then had'nt he had his own way from a child, and a long minority, and a power of riches, and nobody to say, Don't do this or that, or speak a word of reason to him? Well, Dick didn't think o' this, or make any excuses for anybody but himself.

"One day the old squire O'Keefe was coming home intoxicated, as he often was before sunset, and he meets his son going down from Dick's cottage. Now, somebody had whispered to him that young O'Keefe was looking after Rachel Hennesey, so he swears a great oath at his son, and said, 'I'll go and see the girl.'

"Up he comes to the cottage, and found poor Rachel alone, and all in a fluster, from the

young squire's visit; and yet he was a civilspoken young gentleman, and not like his father, and when he found Rachel didn't really like him, he went away. But the old squire was different, and the moment he saw how beautiful Rachel was, he determined she should be his; so being, as I said, intoxicated, he went up and gave her a kiss, without so much as saying, 'by your lave.'

"Rachel cried out, and her father happened to be coming up the hill, and heard her cries. Now he had been to the Sheebeen-house, and moreover talking with some bad chaps about the rights o' man, and that; and though he wasn't yet quite one of their party, yet there was a flame in him ready to blaze up at the first hint. So when he came into his cottage, and saw the old squire's arms round his daughter's neck, he struck him a tremendious blow with his shilalah. Squire O'Keefe was a powerful man, and though rather bewildered with the bating, he plucked up soon, and struck Dick right in the face, and called him all manner of ugly names, and said he'd burn the cabin over his head, and take