the room, and taking Katty herself first, the door was closed upon them,
and he gave her absolution; and thus he continued to confess and absolve
them, one by one, until breakfast.

Whenever a station occurs in Ireland, a crowd of mendicants and other
strolling impostors seldom fail to attend it; on this occasion, at
least, they did not. The day, though frosty, was fine; and the door was
surrounded by a train of this description, including both sexes, some
sitting on stones, some on stools, with their blankets rolled up under
them; and others, more ostensibly devout, on their knees, hard at
prayer; which, lest their piety might escape notice, our readers may be
assured, they did not offer up in silence. On one side you might observe
a sturdy fellow, with a pair of tattered urchins secured to his back
by a sheet or blanket pinned across his breast with a long iron skewer,
their heads just visible at his shoulders, munching a thick piece of
wheaten bread, and the father on his knees, with a a huge wooden cross
in hand, repeating _padareens_, and occasionally throwing a jolly eye
towards the door, or through the; window, opposite which he knelt,
into the kitchen, as often as any peculiar stir or commotion led him to
suppose that breakfast, the loadstar of his devotion, was about to be
produced.

Scattered about the door were knots of these, men and women,
occasionally chatting together; and when the subject of their
conversation happened to be exhausted, resuming their beads, until some
new topic would occur, and so on alternately.

The interior of the kitchen where the neighbors were assembled,
presented an appearance somewhat more decorous. Andy Lalor, the
mass-server, in whom the priest had the greatest confidence, stood in