But they are no
more, Jack. I lost the venerated relics just one week after your poor dear
aunt departed this life."
My uncle drew out his bandanna handkerchief and applied it to his eyes; but
I cannot be positive to which of the family relics this tribute of
affectionate recollection was paid.
"Peace be with their _soles_!" said I, solemnly. "By what fatal chance did
our old friends slip off the peg?"
"Alas!" replied my uncle, "it was a melancholy accident; and as I perceive
you take an interest in their fate, I will relate it to you. But first fill
your glass, Jack; you need not be afraid of this stuff; it never saw the
face of a gauger. Come, no skylights; 'tis as mild as new milk; there's not
a head-ache in a hogshead of it."
To encourage me by his example, my uncle grasped the huge black case-bottle
which stood before him, and began to manufacture a tumbler of punch
according to Father Tom's popular receipt.
Whilst he is engaged in this pleasing task, I will give my readers a
pen-and-ink sketch of my respected relative. Fancy a man declining from his
fiftieth year, but fresh, vigorous, and with a greenness in his age that
might put to the blush some of our modern hotbed-reared youths, with the
best of whom he could cross a country on the back of his favourite hunter,
_Cruiskeen_, and when the day's sport was over, could put a score of them
under the aforementioned oak table--which, by the way, was frequently the
only one of the company that kept its legs upon these occasions of
Hibernian hospitality.
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