talents as God has given me, to the promotion of her general interests,
and the happiness of her whole people.

Dublin, December 24, 1844.




CHAPTER I.--An Irish Pair and Spoileen Tent

--A Marriage Proposal--An Under Agent--An Old Irish Squire and Union
Lord.


The town of Castle Cumber it is not our intention to describe at
more length than simply to say, that it consists of two long streets,
intersecting each other, and two or three lanes of cabins--many of them
mud ones--that stretch out of it on each side at right angles. This
street, and these straggling appendages, together with a Church, a
Prison, a Court-house, a Catholic chapel, a few shops, and half a
dozen public houses, present to the spectator all the features that are
generally necessary for the description of that class of remote country
towns of which we write. Indeed, with the exception of an ancient Stone
Cross, that stands in the middle of the street, and a Fair green, as
it is termed, or common, where its two half-yearly fairs are held, and
which lies at the west end of it, there is little or nothing else to be
added. The fair I particularly mention, because on the day on which the
circumstances I am about to describe occurred, a fair was held in the
town, and upon the green in question. The month was December--the day
stormy and unpropitious. There had been a deep snow and hard frost