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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 4 by Unknown
page 27 of 711 (03%)
hearth and await one's own to-morrow for the voyage of the greater sea.


THE PUBLICAN'S DREAM

From 'The Bit o' Writin' and Other Tales'

The fair-day had passed over in a little straggling town in the
southeast of Ireland, and was succeeded by a languor proportioned to the
wild excitement it never failed to create. But of all in the village,
its publicans suffered most under the reaction of great bustle. Few of
their houses appeared open at broad noon; and some--the envy of their
competitors--continued closed even after that late hour. Of these
latter, many were of the very humblest kind; little cabins, in fact,
skirting the outlets of the village, or standing alone on the roadside a
good distance beyond it.

About two o'clock upon the day in question, a house of "Entertainment
for Man and Horse," the very last of the description noticed to be found
between the village and the wild tract of mountain country adjacent to
it, was opened by the proprietress, who had that moment arisen from bed.

The cabin consisted of only two apartments, and scarce more than
nominally even of two; for the half-plastered wicker and straw
partition, which professed to cut off a sleeping-nook from the whole
area inclosed by the clay walls, was little higher than a tall man, and
moreover chinky and porous in many places. Let the assumed distinction
be here allowed to stand, however, while the reader casts his eyes
around what was sometimes called the kitchen, sometimes the tap-room,
sometimes the "dancing-flure." Forms which had run by the walls, and
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