tunate friend
of his youth, and two orphans, and it was in no sense an extraordinary
season.

To return to notes of travel, our method of progression, since we
deserted the high-road and the public car, has been strangely varied. I
think there is no manner of steed or vehicle which has not been used by
us, at one time or another, even to the arch donkey and the low-backed
car with its truss of hay, like that of the immortal Peggy. I thought at
first that 'arch' was an unusual adjective to apply to a donkey, but
I find after all that it is abundantly expressive. Benella, who
disapproves entirely of this casual sort of travelling, far from
'answerable roads' and in 'backwards places' (Irish for 'behind the
times'), is yet wonderfully successful in discovering equipages of some
sort in unlikely spots.

In towns of any size or pretensions, we find by the town cross or near
the inn a motley collection of things on wheels, with drivers sometimes
as sober as Father Mathew, sometimes not. Yesterday we had a mare which
the driver confessed he bought without 'overcircumspectin' it,' and
although you couldn't, as he said, 'extinguish her at first sight from a
grand throtter, she hadn't rightly the speed you could wish.'

"It's not so powerful young she is, melady!" he confessed. "You'd be
afther lookin' at a chicken a long time and niver be reminded of her;
but sure ye might thry her, for belike ye wouldn't fancy a horse that
would be leppin' stone walls wid ye, like Dan Ryan's there! My little
baste'll get ye to Rossan before night, and she won't hurt man nor
mortial in doin' it."

"Begorra, you're right, nor herself nayther," said Dan Ryan; "and if
it's leppin' ye mane, sure she couldn't lep a sod o' turf, that
mare couldn't! God pardon ye, melady, for thrustin' yerself to that
paiceable, brindly-coloured ould hin, whin ye might be gettin' a dacint,
high-steppin' horse for a shillin' or two more; an' belike I might
contint meself to take less, for I wouldn't be extortin' ye like Barney
O'Mara there!"

Our chosen driver replied to this by saying that he wouldn't be caught
dead at a pig fair with Dan Ryan's horse, but in the midst of all the
distracting discussions and arguments that followed we held to
our original bargain; for we did not like the look of Dan Ryan's
high-stepper, who was a 'thrifle mounTAIny,' as they say in these parts,
and had a wild eye to boot. We started, and in a half-hour we could
still see the chap