some day folk would be
able to say the same of his son Barry.

It was a long, desolate drive over stony hills and roads whose ruts
swallowed half my wheels, with now and then a waste of bog to cross, and
now and then a stream to ford. For hours I met not a soul nor saw a
sign of life except the cattle huddling on the hillside, or the smoke of
some far-away cabin.

My mare was a patient, leisurely beast, with no notion of reaching the
city before her time, and no willingness to exchange her sedate jog for
all the whipping or "shooing" in Ireland.

Presently, as it came to the afternoon, I left the mountain road and
came on to the country road from Fahan to Derry. Here I met more
company; but no one heeded me much, especially when it was seen that my
turnips were a poor sort, and that he who had charge of them was but a
slip of a boy, with not a word to say to any one.

"Are you for Derry?" one woman asked as she overtook me on the road.

"So you may say," said I, hoping that would be the end of her.

But she carried a bundle, and was not to be put aside so easily.

"I'll just take a lift with you," said she.

But I jogged on without a word.

"Arrah, will you stop till I get up? Is it deaf ye are?" said she.

"'Deed I am," said I, whipping my beast.

It went to my heart to play the churl to a woman, but I durst not let
her up on the turnips, where perhaps a chance kick of her feet might
betray the ugly guns beneath.

I was sorry afterwards I did not yield to my better instincts, for the
woman was known in these parts, and with her perched beside me no one
would have looked twice at me or my cart.

As it was, when I had shaken her off, and left her rating me loudly till
I was out of sight, I passed one or two folk who, but that it was
growing dusk, might have caused me trouble. One was a clergyman, who
hailed me and asked did not I think my beast would be the better of a
rest, and that, for turnips, my load seemed a heavy one, and so forth.

To ease him, I was forced to halt at the next village, to give the poor
beast a feed and a rest. Here two soldiers came up and demanded where I
came from.

"From Fahan," said I, naming the town I had lately passed.

"Whose turnips are these?"

"Mister Gallagher's," said I.

They seemed inclined to be more curious; but as good luck would have it,
the clergyman came up just then and spoke to me in a friendly way as he
passed, for he was glad to see me merciful