t," said the latter.

"It'll not run away from Michael, I'll engage," said that
personage with a capable air, pulling up first his trowsers
band and then the wheelbarrow handles, to be ready for a
start. "Which way, then, sir, will I turn?"

Winthrop silently motioned him on, for in spite of weakness of
body and weariness of spirit he felt too nervously inclined to
laugh, to trust his mouth with any demonstrations. Michael and
the wheelbarrow went on ahead and he followed, both taking the
middle of the street where the ice was somewhat broken up, for
on the sidewalk there was no safety for anybody. Indeed safety
anywhere needed to be cared for. And every now and then some
involuntary movement of Michael and the barrow, together with
some equally unlooked-for exclamation of the former, by way of
comment or explanation, startled Winthrop's eye and ear, and
kept up the odd contrast of the light with the heavy in his
mind's musings. It had ceased to rain, but the sky was as
leaden grey as ever, and still left its own dull look on all
below it. Winthrop's walk along the streets was a poor emblem
of his mind's travelling at the time; -- a painful picking the
way among difficulties, a struggle to secure a footing where
foothold there was not; the uncertain touch and feeling of a
cold and slippery world. All true, -- not more literally than
figuratively. And upon this would come, with a momentary stop
and push forward of the wheelbarrow, --

"'Faith, it's asier going backwards nor for'ards! -- Which way
_will_ I turn, yer honour? is it up or down?"

"Straight ahead."

"Och, but I'd rather the heaviest wheeling that ever was
invinted, sooner nor this little slide of a place. -- Here we
go! -- Och, stop us! -- Och, but the little carriage has taken
me to itself intirely. It was all I could do to run ahint and
keep up wid the same. Would there be much more of the hills to
go down, yer honour, the way we're going?"

"I don't know. Keep in the middle of the street."

"Sure I'm blessed if I can keep any place!" said Michael,
whose movements were truly so erratic and uncertain that
Winthrop's mood of thoughtfulness was more than once run down
by them. -- "The trunk's too weighty for me, yer honour, -- it
will have its own way and me after it -- here we go! -- Och, it
wouldn't turn out if it was for an angel itself. Maybe yer
honour wouldn't go ahead and stop it?"

"No chance, I'm afraid," said Winthrop, whose mouth was
t