an of Howly Scripture;
and as to the blind mare there, the more I larrup her the more she hangs
back out ov the collar."

"Gammon!--nonsense!" cried the young man: "you can catch them if you
like."

"Shure, sor, I'd catch 'em if it was me. The spirit of me's been close
alongside this last quarter of an hour; but the bastes here 'ave got
skins like a rhinosros."

"Half a guinea if you catch them and go by in the next two miles,"
shouted the traveller.

"An why didn't ye spake sooner, sor? It's meself's the boy to get it
out of the bastes if it's to be done at all;" and the effect of the
golden spur was soon visible in the way in which the mire of the
cross-country road flew up from the whirling wheels.

For a couple of hours now, with the present and the preceding post-boy,
had this chase been carried on,--now one chaise, now the other, being to
the fore; the explanation of this being of the simplest character.

Lieutenant Brace Norton, of H.M.S. "Icarus," had just arrived in port,
and was, as he put it, homeward bound after his first voyage with the
rank of lieutenant. In fact, he took so much pride in his epaulette,
won after no end of midshipman's adventures, that, until better sense
prevailed, he had had some thought of wearing it home. He had travelled
as far as the county town by rail, and now, having a rather large idea
of his own importance, was finishing his journey in one of the
post-chaises--scarce things then--left upon the road. At the railway
station he had twice encountered a fair young face, small, dark, oval,
and with a pair of sad-looking, lustrous eyes, their owner leaning upon
the arm of a tall, grey-haired gentleman; and after making his way to
the hotel and ordering his conveyance, spending the time consumed in
getting it ready by smoking a cigar, he was startled, upon going to the
door to lounge about the steps, by seeing the same travellers take their
places in a chaise which had been prepared before his own.

"Do you know who that gentleman is?" he had said to the landlord, who
had bowed his visitors to the door.

"Can't say, sir, I'm sure," was the reply. "Please excuse me, sir--I'm
wanted."

"Here waiter, my chaise; look sharp!" exclaimed the young lieutenant,
slipping a shilling into the man's hand, on seeing the direction the
first chaise had taken. "Hurry them on, there's a good fellow, and tell
them to put in the best pair of horses."

"Best pair's gone, sir, with number