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THE SEVEN SHANTIES.

"Your honour asks how we are getting on—O beautifully, your honour, and all work with good heart, with a pleasant thought of your praise in the fall. I am glad your honour mistakes about Lazy Jemmy—Lazy Jemmy no longer, for he's here before any one, and brings his little boy with him, and because there's never a spade small enough for so young a boy, he's bought him one, your honour. I'm thinking Jemmy will hold out, and his little girrel, I'm tould, is crying to come with the daddy to help too; and why should she not? for here's Bonny Betty's little Jenny, now quite cured, God bless your honour for ever and ever, she weeds and helps her mother at every chance. So I bid Jemmy bring the little girrel with him.

"Larry laughs and works, and runs over to one garden to help the boys a bit, though they bid him keep off, and then he digs among the potatoes for Bonny Betty; but he's broke off that, your honour, for as soon as she found it out she went to his garding and dug just as many rows as he did. I'm thinking it will be hard to tell which of the men's gardings will get the premium, for they're jealous like, and they all put in the same things and work in the same way as near as possible, but they scorn the flowers, your honour.

"David Conolly still drinks, but for very shame's sake he works morning and evening, and he would get behind hand only that that fine boy, his son, just steps over now and then and keeps the garding up to the others. His wife tould me t'other day that for certain David does not drink so much, and she's certain he will leave off in time, for now on Sundays he takes up a book or lies in bed after chapel hours, and this she thinks is a good sign. Pat, the boy, is another crater, your honour; his master at the factory is well pleased with the change in him, and agrees to his only coming half a day,