and could sthreck a good blow! Is it jokin' you are?' says I. 'Don't you feel it yourself?' says he. 'Throth, I can hardly feel it at all,' says I. 'Sure, that's the beauty of it,' says he. Think o' the ignorant vagabone! To call a stick a beauty that was as light a'most as a bulrush! And so you can hardly feel it!' says he, grinnin'. 'Yis, indeed,' says I; ‘and, what's worse, I don't think I could make any one else feel it either.' 'Oh! you want a stick to bate people with!' says he. To be sure,' says I; 'sure, that's the use of a stick.' 'To knock the sinsis out o' people!' says he, grinnin' again. 'Sartinly,' says I, 'if they're saucy,' lookin' hard at him at the same time. 'Well, these is only walkin'sticks,' says he. Throth, you may say runnin'-sticks,' says I,' for you daren't stand before any one with sich a thraneen as that in your fist.' 'Well, pick out the heaviest o' them you plaze,' says he; 'take your choice.' So I went pokin' and rummagin' among them, and, if you believe me, there wasn't a stick in their whole shop worth a kick in the shinsdivil a one!"

"But why did you require such a heavy stick for the priest?"

"Bekase there is not a man in the parish wants it more," says Rory.

"Is he so quarrelsome, then?" said the traveller. "No, but the greatest o' pacemakers," says Rory. "Then what does he want the heavy stick for?"

"For wollopin' his flock, to be sure," said Rory.

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Walloping?" said the traveller, choking with laughter.

“Oh, you may laugh," said Rory, "but 'pon my sowl, you wouldn't laugh if you were undher his hand, for he has a

brave heavy one, bless him and spare him to us!"

"And what is all this walloping for?"

"Why, sir, whin we have a bit of a fight, for fun, or the regular faction one, at the fair, his riverence sometimes hears of it, and comes, av coorse."

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"Good heaven!" said the traveller, in real astonishment, does the priest join the battle?"

'No, no, no, sir! I see you're quite a stranger in the counthry. The priest join it! Oh! by no manes! But he comes and stops it! And, av coorse, the only way he can stop it is to ride into thim, and wallop thim all round before him, and disparse thim-scatter thim like chaff before the wind; and it's the best o' sticks he requires for that same." "But might he not use his heavy stick for that purpose, and make use of a lighter one on other occasions?"

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As for that matther, sir," said Rory, "there's no knowin' the minit he might want it, for he is often necessiated to have recoorse to it. It might be, going through the village, the public-house is too full, and in he goes and dhrives thim out. Oh! it would delight your heart to see the style he clears a public-house in, in no time!"

"But wouldn't his speaking to them answer the purpose as well?"

"Oh, no! he doesn't like to throw away his discoorse on thim; and why should he? He keeps that for the blessed althar on Sunday, which is a fitter place for it; besides, he does not like to be sevare on us."

'Severe!" said the traveller, in surprise; "why, haven't you said that he thrashes you round on all occasions?"

"Yis, sir; but what o' that? Sure that's nothin' to his tongue-his words is like swoords or razhors, I may say. We're used to a lick of a stick every day, but not to sich language as his riverence sometimes murthers us with whin we displaze him. Oh! it's terrible, so it is, to have the weight

of his tongue on you! Throth, I'd rather let him bate me from this till to-morrow, than have one angry word with him."

"I see, then, he must have a heavy stick," said the traveller.

"To be sure he must, sir, at all times; and that was the raison I was so particular in the shop."-" Rory O'More."

The King and the Bishop

THE boatman told me that "there was a mighty quare story" about the last king that ruled Clonmacnoise. I, having expressed an eager desire to hear the quare story, he seemed quite happy at being called on to fulfil the office of chronicler; and pulling his oar with an easier sweep, lest he might disturb the quiet hearing of his legend by the rude splash of the water, he prepared to tell his tale, and I, to "devour up his discourse."

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'Well, sir, they say there was a king wanst lived in the palace beyant and a sportin' fellow he was, and Cead mile failte was the word in the palace, for no one kem but was welkim; and I go bail no one left it without the parting cup. Well, to be sure, the king av coorse had the best of eatin' and drinkin', and there was bed and boord for the stranger, let alone the welkim for the neighbour-and a good neighbour he was, by all accounts, until, as bad luck would have it, a crass ould bishop-the saints forgi' me for saying the word-kem to rule over the churches. Now, you must know, the king was a likely man, and, as I said already, he was a sportin' fellow, and by coorse a great favourite with the

women; he had a smile and a wink for the crathurs at every hand's turn, and the soft word, and the-the short and the long of it is, he was the divil among the girls.

“Well, sir, it was all mighty well, untell the ould bishop I mentioned arrived at the churches; but whin he kem, he tuck great scandal at the goings-an of the king, and he detarmined to cut him short in his coorses all at wanst, so with that whin the king wint to his duty, the bishop ups and he tells him that he must mend his manners and all to that; and when the king said that the likes o' that was never tould him afore by the best priest o' them all, 'More shame for them that wor before me,' says the bishop.

"But to make a long story short, the king looked mighty black at the bishop, and the bishop looked twice blacker at him again, and so on, from bad to worse, till they parted the bittherest of inimies; and the king, that was the best o' friends to the churches afore, swore be this and be that, he'd vex them for it, and that he'd be even with the bishop afore long.

"Now, sir, the bishop might jist as well have kept never mindin' the king's little kimneens with the girls, for the story goes that he had a little failin' of his own in regard of a dhrop, and that he knew the differ betune wine and wather, for, poor ignorant crathurs, it's little they knew about whisky in them days. Well, the king used often to send lashins o' wine to the churches, by the way, as he said, that they should have plinty of it for celebrating the mass -although he knew well that it was a little of it went far that-a-way, and that their riverinces was fond of a hearty glass as well as himself. And why not, sir?—if they'd let him alone; for, says the king, as many a one said afore, and will again, I'll make a child's bargain with you, says

he: do you let me alone, and I'll let you alone; manin' by that, sir, that if they'd say nothin' about the girls, he would give them plinty of wine.

"And so it fell out a little before he had the scrimmage with the bishop, the king promised them a fine store of wine that was comin' up the Shannon in boats, sir, and big boats they wor, I'll go bail-not all as one as the little wren of a thing we're in now, but nigh-hand as big as a ship; and there was three of these fine boats-full comin'-two for himself and one for the churches; and so says the king to himself, 'The divil receave the dhrop of that wine they shall get,' says he, 'the dirty beggarly neygars; bad cess to the dhrop,' says he, 'my big-bellied bishop, to nourish your jolly red nose. said I'd be even with you,' says he, and so I will; and if you spoil my divarshin, I'll spoil yours, and turn about is fair play, as the divil said to the smoke-jack.' So with that, sir, the king goes and he gives ordhers to his sarvants how it wid be when the boats kem up the river with the wine-and more especial to one in partic'lar they called Corny, his own man, by raison he was mighty stout, and didn't love priests much more nor himself.

"Now Corny, sir, let alone bein' stout, was mighty dark, and if he wanst said the word, you might as well sthrive to move the rock of Dunamaise as Corny, though without a big word at all at all, but as quite as a child. Well, in good time, up kem the boats and down runs the monks, all as one as a flock o' crows over a corn-field to pick up whatever they could for themselves; but troth the king was afore them, for all his men was there with Corny at their head.

"Dominus vobiscum'-which manes, God save you, sirsays one of the monks to Corny, 'we kem down to save you