ristling with horror and consternation.

"Ayn't I?" replied he; "may be you've guessed it though."

"And have you the malady on you at present?" said I, trembling for the
answer.

"This is the ninth day since I took to biting," said he gravely,
perfectly unconscious as it appeared of the terror such information was
calculated to convey.

"Any with such a propensity, sir, do you think yourself warranted in
travelling in a public coach, exposing others--"

"You'd better not raise your voice, that way," quietly responded he, "if
I'm roused, it 'll be worse for ye, that's all."

"Well but," said I, moderating my zeal, "is it exactly prudent, in your
present delicate state, to undertake a journey?"

"Ah," said he, with a sigh, "I've been longing to see the fox hounds
throw off, near Kilkenny; these three weeks I've been thinking of nothing
else; but I'm not sure how my nerves will stand the cry; I might be
throublesome."

"Upon my soul," thought I, "I shall not select that morning for my debut
in the field."

"I hope, sir, there's no river, or watercourse on this road--any thing
else, I can, I hope, control myself against; but water--running water
particularly--makes me throublesome."

Well knowing what he meant by the latter phrase, I felt the cold
perspiration settling on my forehead, as I remembered that we must be
within about ten or twelve miles of Leighlin-bridge, where we should have
to pass a very wide river. I strictly concealed this fact from him,
however, and gave him to understand that there was not a well, brook, or
rivulet, for forty miles on either side of us. He now sunk into a kind
of moody silence, broken occasionally by a low muttering noise, as if
speaking to himself--what this might portend, I knew not--but thought it
better, under all circumstances, not to disturb him. How comfortable my
present condition was, I need scarcely remark--sitting vis a vis to a
lunatic, with a pair of pistols in his possession--who had already avowed
his consciousness of his tendency to do mischief, and his inability to
master it; all this in the dark, and in the narrow limits of a
mail-coach, where there was scarcely room for defence, and no
possibility of escape--how heartily I wished myself back in the
Coffee-room at Morrisson's, with my poor friend Tom--the infernal
chaise, that I cursed a hundred times, would have been an "exchange,"
better than into the Life Guards--ay, even the outside of the coach, if