porate, while with her right hand she drew a drinking horn from her pocket and proceeded

to fill it.

"To tell you the truth, Norry," quoth the landlord, “your last batch seemed to me little better than Irish aqua-vita, lowered with water and flavoured with burnt sugar."

"Bad manners to ye, honey dear, and brimstone blisters upon the tongue that says it! Is it myself doesn't know Irish usquebaugh from right Nantz? us that had a bit still of our own, up in the hill by Ballinderry, (God's blessing on every blade of its grass!) and where we might be getting an honest livelihood this same day, but that we shot Carroll O'Driscoll one morning; and Dermod Mahoney paiched, (blue blazes to him!) and so we were obliged to show the light heel, and my boy Mick has no other house than our brave cutter, the Greyhound; and myself is obliged to tramp the shore and the seacoast for a mere mouthful. But Erin go brach! those that don't like it have another of Carroll O'Driscoll's pills to swallow! Taste

and

may

it, honey; 'twill do your heart good;-taste it, for you never tossed the like of it over your tongue."

First smelling the liquor, then rincing his mouth with it, and spirting it out again with the true distasteful and depreciating look of an intended buyer, the landlord handed over the horr to his companion, who swallowed what was left with apparent satisfaction, smacked his lips, and ejaculated, "Not bad, Norry,—not bad; but if it's the same price as the last, it's too dear by half. Zooks! you have no conscience."

Whether it was the uninvited fluency with which he had dispatched the remainder of her sample, the boiling over of an old grudge against a spoiler of her trade, or the just indignation of one of the murderers of Carroll O'Driscoll at any imputation upon her conscience, certain it is, that the vials of Norry Molloy's wrath were suddenly poured out upon the offender with a volubility which might well be termed the eloquence of passion, and which was sustained with such unbroken vehemence,

that the whole ebullition appeared to be but one period, and to be uttered in a single breath. "Then may the next drop choke ye, for a lying land lubber," she exclaimed with a malignant scowl; "and God send ye may shortly be put to bed under the green grass, and myself may live to ait a goose that has been fattened upon the grave of ye! Is it for such skulkers as ye to be saying it's dear! ye that are sitting in the sunshine, with a warm house at your lazy back, and the owld steady earth under yeer feet ?"--Here she stamped violently upon the ground to show the importance of having such a trust-worthy element to depend upon.-"Have ye ever stole out of the Dutch ports in a low lugger, on the long cold dark nights of winter, as I have done, to be brought, perhaps, by the suck of the sea in the midst of Russell's blockading squadron, think the divil himself couldn't see

and where

ye

the foam of your cut-water, nor hear the wind

snoring in your lugsail? ye shall see a flash at a distance, and a shot strikes light in the black waves a yard or two a head of ye, and the roar of the cannon runs forenent ye into the dark

ness, and ye're right glad to run after it, gunnel under, for fear another bullet should come dancing to the same tune?"

"Nay, but Norry," said the fish-vender, "I never meant-"

"Dear!" interrupted the Irishwoman, whose breath seemed to fan the flames of her own wrath," dear, ye sneaking shingle-roamer, ye think a great deal, I warrant, when ye're snoozing in your truckle on the stormy nights, about the poor sowls that are tossing on the big black waves, when even the moon and the stars are afraid to come out, and the sea and sky are all the same colour, and the wind howls in your ear like a brute baist that is waiting to tear ye to pieces, and every wave seems rushing to swallow ye up alive. Many a better man than ye, or any of the snivelling likes of ye, has felt his boat sink under him, and though he wished to be the gull over his head, or the porpus beneath him, has scorned to cry for help where it was no use, but has gone down with a silent tongue and a stout heart, and none but the whistling wind to know where he

last held up his hand in the wild and lonesome

sea."

"Zooks! woman, will you but listen ?" interposed the fish-vender.

"Dear!" bawled Norry Molloy, again overwhelming his voice with an increased vehemence. "What! ye think our business is all over when we see the white cliffs of England, or run upon the sands, when perhaps we're capsized in the breakers; or just as we get our cargo ashore the 'cisemen come down upon us, and after our toilsome night's battle with the waves, we are among the barkers and slashers, and have the whistling of bullets, and the clash of cutlashes for our morning's music. Dear! ye cowardly land pirate, ye cliff-loitering, kegstealing wreck-watcher! why I'm selling ye the last breath, perhaps, of them that were suck`d down to the bottom, whiles ye were snoring; of brave men that are now being gnaw'd by the fishes, while such earth-treading cowards as ye are safely tippling your ale. The curse of Saint Patrick be upon the whole gang of ye !" Norry Molloy had not been so wholly en