“Aunt Judy’s revenue was something like eighty pounds a year; but in Tralee she was not measured by the rule of the ‘income tax.’ ‘Wasn’t she own sister to Peter O’Kelly of the Castle; didn’t Brien O’Kelly call at the house when he was canvassing for the member, and leave his card;’ and wasn’t the card displayed on the little mahogany table every evening, and wiped and put by, every morning, for fifteen years; and sure the O’Kellys had their own burial ground, the ‘O’Kelly’s pound,’ as it was called, being a square spot inclosed within a wall and employed for all ‘trespassers’ of the family, within death’s domain. Here was gentility enough in all conscience, even had the reputation of her evening parties not been the talk of the town. These were certainly exclusive enough, and consisted as I have told you.
“Aunt Judy loved her rubber, and so did her friends; and eight o’clock every evening saw the little party assembled at a game of ‘longs,’ for penny points. It was no small compliment to the eyesight of the players, that they could distinguish the cards; for with long use they had become dimmed and indistinct. The queens, had contracted a very tatterdemalion look, and the knaves, had got a most vagabond expression for want of their noses, not to speak of other difficulties in dealing, which certainly required an expert hand, all the corners having long disappeared, leaving the operation something like playing at quoits.
“The discipline of such an establishment, I need scarcely say, was very distasteful to me. I was seldom suffered to go beyond the door, more rarely still, alone: my whole amusement consisted in hearing about the ancient grandeur of the O’Kellys, and listening to a very prosy history, of certain martyrs, not one of whom I didn’t envy in my heart; while in the evening I slept beneath the whist-table, being too much afraid of ghosts to venture up stairs to bed.
“It was on one of those evenings, when the party were assembled as usual; some freak of mine—I fear I was a rebellious subject—was being discussed between the deals, it chanced that by some accident I was awake, and heard the colloquy.
“‘’Tis truth I’m telling you, ma’am,’ quoth my aunt, ‘you’d think he was mild as milk, and there isn’t a name for the wickedness in him.’
“‘When I was in the Buffs there was a fellow of the name of Clancy——’
“‘Play a spade, captain,’ said the priest, who had no common horror of the story, he had heard every evening for twenty years.
“‘And did he really put the kitten into the oven?’ inquired Mrs. Brown.
“‘Worse than that—he brought in Healy’s buck goat yesterday, and set him opposite the looking-glass, and the beast, thinking he saw another, opposite him, bolted straightforward, and, my dear, he stuck his horns through the middle of it. There isn’t a piece as big as the ace of diamonds.’”
“‘When I was in the Buffs——