t for refreshment; but as I was in some
measure identified with my fellow-travelers, I could not with a good
grace give them up. I had not at the time the least experience of the
world, was incapable of that discrimination which guides some people, as
it were by instinct, in choosing their society, and had altogether but
a poor notion of the more refined decorum of life. When we got in, the
equivocal lady began to exercise some portion of authority. "Come," said
she, "here's a clargyman, and you had betther lose no time in gettin'
his Reverence his breakfast;" then, said, the civil creature to the
mistress, in the same kind of half audible tone--

"Avourneen, if you have anything comfortable, get it for him; he is
generous, an' will pay you well for it; a blessed crathur he is too, as
ever brought good luck under your roof; Lord love you, if ye hard him
discoursin' uz along the road, as if he was one of ourselves, so mild
and sweet! I'm sure I'll always have a good opinion of myself for
puttin' on the jacket this bout, at any rate, as I was able to spare his
Reverence the cloak, a-haygur! the mild crathur!"

While my fellow traveller was thus talking, I had time to observe that
the woman of the house was a cleanly-looking creature, with something of
a sickly appearance. An old gray-headed man sat in something between a
chair and a stool, formed of one solid piece of ash, supported by three
legs sloping outwards; the seat of it was quite smooth by long use, and
a circular row of rungs, capped by a piece of semicircular wood, shaped
to receive the reclining body of whoever might occupy it, rose from the
seat in presumptuous imitation of an arm-chair. There were two other
chairs besides this, but the remainder of the seats were all stools. The
room was square, with a bed in each of the corners adjoining the fire,
covered with blue drugget quilts, stoutly quilted; there was another
room in which the travellers slept. Opposite me on the wall was the
appropriate picture of St. Patrick himself, with his crosier in hand,
driving all kinds of venomous reptiles out of the kingdom. The Hermit
of Killamey was on his right, and the Yarmouth Tragedy, or the dolorious
history of Jemmy and Nancy, two unfortunate lovers, on his left. Such is
the rigorous economy of a pilgrimage, and such is the circumstances of
the greater part of those who undertake it, that it is to houses of this
description the generality of them resort. These "dry