lways finding some one to sympathise
with if not actually to follow you. Nothing is too strange, nothing too
ridiculous, nothing too convivial, nothing too daring for Paddy. With
one intuitive bound he springs into your confidence and enters into your
plans. Only be open with him, conceal nothing, and he's yours heart and
hand; ready to endorse your bill, to carry off a young lady, or carry
a message; to burn a house for a joke, or jeopardy his neck for mere
pastime; to go to the world's end to serve you, and on his return shoot
you afterwards out of downright good-nature.

As for myself, I might have lived in England to the age of Methuselah,
and yet never have seen as much of life as in the few months spent in
Ireland. Society in other lands seems a kind of free-masonry, where
for lack of every real or important secret men substitute signs and
passwords, as if to throw the charm of mystery where, after all, nothing
lies concealed; but in Ireland, where national character runs in a deep
or hidden channel, with cross currents and backwater ever turning and
winding--where all the incongruous and discordant elements of what is
best and worst seem blended together--there, social intercourse is free,
cordial, warm, and benevolent. Men come together disposed to like one
another; and what an Irishman is disposed to, he usually has a way of
effecting. My brief career had not been without its troubles; but who
would not have incurred such, or as many more, to have evoked such
kind interest and such warm friendship? From Phil O'Grady, my first, to
Father Tom, my last friend, I had met with nothing but almost brotherly
affection; and yet I could not help acknowledging to myself, that, but
six short months before, I would have recoiled from the friendship of
the one and the acquaintance of the other, as something to lower and
degrade me. Not only would the outward observances of their manner have
deterred me, but in their very warm and earnest proffers of good-nature,
I would have seen cause for suspecting and avoiding them. Thank Heaven!
I now knew better, and felt deeper. How this revolution became effected
in me I am not myself aware. Perhaps--I only say perhaps--Miss Bellew
had a share in effecting it.

Such were some of my thoughts as I betook myself to bed, and soon after
to sleep.

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE PRIEST'S GIG

I am by no means certain that the prejudices of my English education
were sufficiently overcome to p