roceeding with great strain
to one's horse for half a mile through an artificial quagmire of
slush up to the wheelbox, is harassing to the customary traveller;
and men at that crisis did not bethink themselves quite so frequently
as they should have done, that a people perishing from famine is more
harassing.

But Herbert was not on wheels, and was proceeding through the slush
and across the chasm, regardless of it all, when he was stopped
by some of the men. All the land thereabouts was Castle Richmond
property; and it was not probable that the young master of it all
would be allowed to pass through some two score of his own tenantry
without greetings, and petitions, and blessings, and complaints.

"Faix, yer honer, thin, Mr. Herbert," said one man, standing at the
bottom of the hill, with the half-filled wheelbarrow still hanging
in his hands--an Englishman would have put down the barrow while
he was speaking, making some inner calculation about the waste of
his muscles; but an Irishman would despise himself for such low
economy--"Faix, thin, yer honer, Mr. Herbert; an' it's yourself is a
sight good for sore eyes. May the heavens be your bed, for it's you
is the frind to a poor man."

"How are you, Pat?" said Herbert, without intending to stop. "How are
you, Mooney? I hope the work suits you all." And then he would at
once have passed on, with his hat pressed down low over his brow.

But this could be by no means allowed. In the first place, the
excitement arising from the young master's presence was too valuable
to be lost so suddenly; and then, when might again occur so excellent
a time for some mention of their heavy grievances? Men whose whole
amount of worldly good consists in a bare allowance of nauseous food,
just sufficient to keep body and soul together, must be excused if
they wish to utter their complaints to ears that can hear them.

"Arrah, yer honer, thin, we're none on us very well; and how could
we, with the male at a penny a pound?" said Pat.

"Sorrow to it for male," said Mooney. "It's the worst vittles iver a
man tooked into the inside of him. Saving yer honer's presence it's
as much as I can do to raise the bare arm of me since the day I first
began with the yally male."

"It's as wake as cats we all is," said another, who from the weary
way in which he dragged his limbs about certainly did not himself
seem to be gifted with much animal strength.

"And the childer is worse, yer honer," sa