I think I behold him now, with his open, benevolent
brow, thinly covered with grey hair, his full blue eye and florid cheek,
which glowed like the sunny side of a golden-pippin that the winter's frost
had ripened without shrivelling. But as he has finished the admixture of
his punch, I will leave him to speak for himself.
"You know, Jack," said he, after gulping down nearly half the newly-mixed
tumbler, by way of sample, "you know that our family can lay no claim to
antiquity; in fact, our pedigree ascends no higher, according to the most
authentic records, than Shawn Duffy, my grandfather, who rented a small
patch of ground on the sea-coast, which was such a barren, unprofitable
spot, that it was then, and is to this day, called 'The Devil's Half-acre.'
And well it merited the name, for if poor Shawn was to break his heart at
it, he never could get a better crop than thistles or ragweed off it. But
though the curse of sterility seemed to have fallen on the land, Fortune,
in order to recompense Shawn for Nature's niggardliness, made the caverns
and creeks of that portion of the coast which bounded his farm towards the
sea the favourite resort of smugglers.
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