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Barney-had hired the dock, and demanded “his damages" before he would allow "the stuff" to leave. Here was a predicament-my house landed, all the transportation of the village ready to remove it, and an obstinate Irishman named Barney barring the way. He was immovable, however, insisting upon "his damages;" so the carts, and wagons, and trucks drove away, and the Irish character came under a lively discussion. The inhabitants of the Emerald Isle are certainly a magnificent race, especially when their biographer does not happen to own a house which has strayed on their land, and does want to run for alderman; and if they did not lie, steal, cheat, rob, murder, get drunk, perjure themselves, quarrel, fight, and insist upon damages unreasonably, they would be almost as good as other nations. Barney was evidently a superior Irishman, and, as no one had ever landed a load of house at his dock before, and probably never would again, he felt that the dignity of tenants was at stake, and must be sustained.

When these facts were reported to me I took down my law-books, and prepared a rod for Mr. Barney. There was the clear right to land at a public dock; there was the clear wrong of detaining property belonging to another. Damages began to loom up be

fore my eyes, and a very pretty case as introduction to a lucrative legal practice in the place of my newly-intended residence. Vistas of writs, and suits, and appeals, and new trials, rose in my mind in graceful array, and I thanked Barney, who was reported to be not only "ugly," but responsible, with all my heart. There were two difficulties in the way of legal action-first, that until the suit was terminated the residence could not be built; secondly, that Sille, who would have to be plaintiff, had disappeared from the sight of man. Now the house might be delayed, as the damages would thus be increased; but a suit without a plaintiff was beyond ordinary legal remedies, and was not provided for even by the new Code of Procedure. So Barney, Irishman-like, in spite of law, justice, sense, or hospitality, kept my house, or rather intended house, by "force and arms," and the cellar and foundation were completed alone.

A cellar is a delightful part of a house, it is so cool in summer and warm in winter; it is such a nice place to store "things," as the housewiyes call them; but to have all cellar and no house is carrying the point too far. It is a pleasant place when surmounted by the proper amount of beams and mortar, but alone is like an alligator's countenance, altogether too open. I am not particular, and could

have made out during the summer months, probably, if the cellar had only been upside down.

The foundation was built, the mason was out of work, and myself out of humor, when we were both again raised to the pinnacle of happiness by the arrival of another vessel, which fortunately selected another dock, and landed another house. On inquiry, it appeared that this was my house. Lest the reader may suppose that Nantucket was so overflowing with houses that they floated down the Sound and drifted ashore any where, it must be explained that the first house was merely the workshop. So the carts and trucks reappeared, and this time carried away the débris of what was once the house of some bluff seafaring man-timbers that were shivered, as he had no doubt often requested they should be, doors, windows, shingles, pieces of roof, floor-boards, posts, moulding, and a thousand other odds, ends, bits, and pieces, in the most admired confusion-and deposited them upon my entire five acres, scattered hither and thither, as though they were component parts of five houses instead of one.

As Mr. Sille had not come with the house, but was to arrive the next day-for it appeared he had been storm-bound in some of the numerous "bights," as the Yankees call them, of Nantucket or Martha's

Vineyard-he sent a watchman who was to sleep among the "stuff," and prevent Mr. Barney's compatriots from converting it into firewood.

Mr. Sille was to arrive the next day. Week after week went by, but he did not appear. The house lay on the ground as though a hundred-pound rebel shell had dropped into the cellar and scattered it to the four winds of heaven; the watchman waited, watched, and prayed, doubtless, for relief, till his money was spent, and his shoes worn out, and his coat threadbare; I alternated between imbecility and fury; Barney even was overcome, and sent word begging to have the workshop, which had been placed on top of a pile of his hay, removed; and Flushing made it the regular fashionable evening drive to visit my five acres to see how the house was-not getting on.

In about a month, when the mason had almost become crazy, myself frantic, and Barney idiotic, Sille reappeared from Nantucket or some other remote spot, looking like the ghost of his former self, and announced that he had been at the point of death. Not taking into consideration for a moment my losses and sufferings, he absolutely wanted sympathy; in the first place, he must nearly drown himself, and now he must catch the erysipelas, and expect me to feel for any one but myself. I asked him sternly

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whether this was his habit with every house that he moved, and explained that it must not happen again; that I had been sick too-very sick of the whole affair; that the watchman had become demoralized and run away; that it was nearly midsummer, and that all Flushing was laughing at us.

The watchman lived in a little place not larger than a good-sized dog-kennel that he constructed from pieces of roof, and the boys of the neighbor

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