as soon as I can.'

'My dear father, I am at your disposal I believe we can do no more for
poor Joe; and as to Mr. Burke--and, by-the-bye, how is he?'

'Getting better, they say. But I believe you've spoiled a very lucrative
source of his income. He was the best jumper in the west of Ireland;
and they tell me you've lamed him for life. He is down at Milltown, or
Kilkee, or somewhere on the coast; but sure well have time enough to
talk of these things as we go along. I'll be with you by seven o'clock.
We must start early, and get to Portumna before night.'

Having promised implicit obedience to the worthy priest's directions,
be they what they might, I pledged myself to make up my luggage in
the smallest possible space, and have breakfast ready for him before
starting. After a few other observations and some suggestions as to the
kind of equipment he deemed suitable to the road, he took his leave, and
I sat down alone to a little quiet reckoning with myself as to the past,
the present, and the future.

From my short experience of Ireland, the only thing approaching to an
abstract principle I could attain to was the utter vanity, the perfect
impossibility, of any man's determining on a given line of action or the
steady pursuit of any one enterprise. No; the inevitable course of fate
seems to have chosen this happy island to exhibit its phenomena.
Whether your days be passed in love or war, or your evenings in drink or
devotion, not yours be the glory; for there would seem to be a kind of
headlong influence at work, impelling you ever forward. Acquaintances
grow up, ripen, and even bear fruit before in other lands their roots
would have caught the earth; by them your tastes are regulated, your
habits controlled, your actions fashioned. You may not, it is true, lisp
in the _patois_ of blarney; you may weed your phraseology of its tropes
and figures; but trust me, that if you live in Ireland, if you like the
people (and who does not?), and if you are liked by them (and who would
not be?), then do I say you will find yourself, without knowing or
perceiving it, going the pace with the natives--courtship, fun, frolic,
and devilment filling up every hour of your day, and no inconsiderable
portion of your night also. One grand feature of the country seemed to
me, that, no matter what particular extravagance you were addicted
to, no matter what strange or absurd passion to do or seem something
remarkable, you were certain of a