he corner of which, on a high pole, was swinging an iron sign
of three horse-shoes, set in a crooked frame, and at the window hung an
empty bottle, proclaiming whisky within.

'Well, I don't care if I do,' said Larry; 'for I've no other comfort
left me in life now. I beg your honour's pardon, sir, for a minute,'
added he, throwing the reins into the carriage to Lord Colambre, as he
leaped down. All remonstrance and power of lungs to reclaim him vain!
He darted into the whisky-house with the carman--reappeared before Lord
Colambre could accomplish getting out, remounted his seat, and, taking
the reins, 'I thank your honour,' said he; 'and I'll bring you into
Clonbrony before it's pitch-dark yet, though it's nightfall, and that's
four good miles, but "a spur in the head is worth two in the heel."'

Larry, to demonstrate the truth of his favourite axiom, drove off at
such a furious rate over great stones left in the middle of the road
by carmen, who had been driving in the gudgeons of their axle-trees to
hinder them from lacing, [Opening; perhaps from LACHER, to loosen.] that
Lord Colambre thought life and limb in imminent danger; and feeling
that at all events the jolting and bumping was past endurance, he had
recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to
go slower, but in vain; at last the wheel struck full against a heap
of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linch-pin came off, and
the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to
escape without fractured bones.

'I beg your honour's pardon,' said Larry, completely sobered; 'I'm as
glad as the best pair of boots ever I see, to see your honour nothing
the worse for it. It was the linch-pin, and them barrows of loose
stones, that ought to be fined anyway, if there was any justice in the
country.'

'The pole is broke; how are we to get on?' said Lord Colambre.

'Murder! murder!--and no smith nearer than Clonbrony; nor rope even.
It's a folly to talk, we can't get to Clonbrony, nor stir a step
backward or forward the night.'

'What, then, do you mean to leave me all night in the middle of the
road?' cried Lord Colambre, quite exasperated.

'Is it me! please your honour? I would not use any jantleman so ill,
BARRING I could do no other,' replied the postillion, coolly; then,
leaping across the ditch, or, as he called it, the GRIPE of the ditch,
he scrambled up, and while he was scrambling, said, 'If your honour wi