e bog--besides I see that your weight is sinking
the stone.'

"It was true enough, as he said, for I found the stone every minute
going from under me. I had no choice; so, thinks I to myself, faint
heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance. 'I thank your
honour,' says I, 'for the loan of your civility; and I'll take your kind
offer.' I therefore mounted on the back of the eagle, and held him tight
enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I
knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up, up, up--God knows how far
he flew. 'Why, then,' said I to him--thinking he did not know the right
road home--very civilly, because why? I was in his power entirely;
'sir,' says I, 'please your honour's glory, and with humble submission
to your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over
my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your
worship.'

"'_Arrah_, Dan,' says he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next
field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word, it would be no
joke to shoot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up
off a _could_ stone in a bog.' 'Bother you,' says I to myself, but I
did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept flying,
flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use.
'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to him. 'Hold your
tongue, Dan,' says he, 'and mind your own business, and don't be
interfering with the business of other people.' 'Faith, this is my
business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan!' says he: so I said no more.

"At last, where should we come to but to the moon itself. Now, you can't
see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reaping-hook
sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure thus
on the ground with the end of his stick).

"'Dan,' says the eagle, 'I'm tired with this long fly; I had no notion
'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' says I, 'who in the world _axed_ you
to fly so far--was it I? Did not I beg and pray and beseech you to stop
half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,' said he; 'I'm tired
bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest
myself.' 'Is it sit down on the moon?' said I; 'is it upon that little
round thing, then? Why, then, sure, I'd fall off in a minute, and be
_kilt_ and spilt, and smashed all to bits; you are a vile deceiver--so
you are.' 'Not at a