of beasts always seems
certain death; to remain seated diminishes, I believe, the number of
one's days of life to an appreciable extent. Francesca chose the first
course, and, standing still in the middle of the street, called upon
everybody within hearing to save her, and that right speedily. A crowd
of 'jibbing' heifers encircled her on all sides, while a fat porker,
'who (his driver said) might be a prize pig by his impidence,' and a
donkey that was feelin' blue-mouldy for want of a batin', tried to
poke their noses into the group. Salemina's only weapon was her scarlet
parasol, and, standing on the step of her side-car, she brandished this
with such terrible effect that the only bull in the cavalcade put up
his head and roared. "Have conduct, woman dear!" cried his owner to
Salemina. "Sure if you kape on moidherin' him wid that ombrelly, you'll
have him ugly on me immajently, and the divil a bit o' me can stop him."
"Don't be cryin' that way, asthore," he went on, going to Francesca's
side, and piloting her tenderly to the hedge. "Sure I'll nourish him wid
the whip whin I get him to a more remoted place."

We had no more adventures, but Francesca was so unhinged by her
unfortunate exit from Ballycastle that, after a few miles, she announced
her intention of putting her machine and herself on the car; whereupon
Benella proclaimed herself a competent cyclist, and climbed down
blithely to mount the discarded wheel. Her ideas of propriety were by
this time so developed that she rode ten or twelve feet behind me, where
she looked quaint enough, in her black dress and little black bonnet
with its white lawn strings.

"Sure it's a quare footman ye have, me lady," said a genial and friendly
person who was sitting by the roadside smoking his old dudeen. An
Irishman, somehow, is always going to his work 'jist,' or coming from
it, or thinking how it shall presently be done, or meditating on the
next step in the process, or resting a bit before taking it up again, or
reflecting whether the weather is on the whole favourable to its proper
performance; but however poor and needy he may be, it is somewhat
difficult to catch him at the precise working moment. Mr. Alfred Austin
says of the Irish peasants that idleness and poverty seem natural to
them. "Life to the Scotsman or Englishman is a business to conduct, to
extend, to render profitable. To the Irishman it is a dream, a little
bit of passing consciousness on a rather hard pi