and its romantic caves, or to the gigantic cliffs and sea-girt shores of
Moher--or with more steady pace and becoming gravity had borne along the
"going judge of assize,"--was now become a lying-in hospital for fowl,
and a nursery for chickens. Fallen as I was myself from my high estate,
it afforded me a species of malicious satisfaction to contemplate these
sad reverses of fortune; and I verily believe--for on such slight
foundation our greatest resolves are built--that if the rain had
continued a week longer, I should have become a misanthropist for life.
I made many inquiries from my landlady as to the society of the place,
but the answers I received only led to greater despondence. My
predecessor here, it seemed, had been an officer of a veteran battalion,
with a wife, and that amount of children which is algebraically expressed
by an X (meaning an unknown quantity). He, good man, in his two years'
sojourn here, had been much more solicitous about his own affairs, than
making acquaintance with his neighbours; and at last, the few persons who
had been in the habit of calling on "the officer," gave up the practice;
and as there were no young ladies to refresh Pa's memory on the matter,
they soon forgot completely that such a person existed--and to this happy
oblivion I, Harry Lorrequer, succeeded, and was thus left without benefit
of clergy to the tender mercies of Mrs. Healy of the Burton arms.

As during the inundation which deluged the whole country around I was
unable to stir from the house, I enjoyed abundant opportunity of
cultivating the acquaintance of my hostess, and it is but fair that my
reader, who has journeyed so far with me, should have an introduction.

Mrs. Healy, the sole proprietor of the "Burton Arms," was of some five
and fifty--"or by'r lady," three score years, of a rubicund and hale
complexion; and though her short neck and corpulent figure might have set
her down as "doubly hazardous," she looked a good life for many years to