the incongruous mixture of the guests, who with every variety of eatable that chance or inclination provided, were thus thrown into close contact, having only this in common, the success of the cause they were engaged in. Here was the old Galway squire, with an ancestry that reached to Noah, sitting side by side with the poor cottier, whose whole earthly possession was what, in Irish phrase, is called a “potato garden,” meaning the exactly smallest possible patch of ground out of which a very india-rubber conscience could presume to vote. Here sat the old simple-minded farmer-like man, in close conversation with a little white-foreheaded, keen-eyed personage, in a black coat and eyeglass—a flash attorney from Dublin, learned in flaws of the registry, and deep in the subtleties of election law. There was an Athlone horse-dealer, whose daily habitual practices in imposing the halt, the lame, and the blind, upon the unsuspecting, for beasts of blood and mettle, well qualified him for the trickery of a county contest. Then there were scores of squireen gentry, easily recognised on common occasions by a green coat with brass buttons, dirty cords, and dirtier top-boots, a lash-whip, and a half-bred foxhound; but now, fresh washed for the day, they presented something of the appearance of a swell mob, adjusted to the meridian of Galway. A mass of frieze-coated, brown-faced, bullet-headed peasantry filling up the large spaces, dotted here and there with a sleek, roguish-eyed priest, or some low electioneering agent, detailing, for the amusement of the country, some of those cunning practices of former times, which, if known to the proper authorities, would, in all likelihood, cause the talented narrator to he improving the soil of Sydney, or fishing on the banks of the Swan River, while at the head and foot of each table sat some personal friend of my uncle, whose ready tongue, and still readier pistol, made him a person of some consequence, not more to his own people than to the enemy. While of such material were the company, the fare before them was no less varied: here some rubicund squire was deep in amalgamating the contents of a venison pasty with some of Sneyd’s oldest claret; his neighbour, less ambitious and less erudite in such matters, was devouring rashers of bacon, with liberal potions of poteen; some pale-cheeked scion of the law, with all the dust of the Four Courts in his throat, was sipping his humble beverage of black tea, beside four sturdy cattle-dealers, from Ballinasloe, who were discussing hot whisky-punch and spoleaion (boiled beef) at the very primitive hour of eight in the morning. Amid the clank of decanters, the crash of knives and plates, the jingling of glasses, the laughter and voices of the guests were audibly increasing, and the various modes of “running a buck” (anglicè, substituting a vote), or hunting a badger, were talked over on all sides, while the price of a veal (a calf) or a voter was disputed with all the energy of debate.
Refusing many an offered place, I went through the different rooms in search of Considine, to whom circumstances of late had somehow greatly attached me.
“Here, Charley,” cried a voice I was very familiar with; “here’s a place I’ve been keeping for you.”
“Ah, Sir Harry, how do you do? Any of that grouse-pie to spare?”
