Bible.' Well, next day when he went, they'd
been given to somebody else, so what does Brady
do but come back again to the ould faith, though
divil of a haporth of credit he is to that same.
Look there, your honour, at that field where the
potatoes are lying out in clean rows. What
young children for work, and how charming that
handsome girl with the bare legs shows them
how to use the long spade. That land was all
bog four years ago, and all that torrent fir, too.
It belongs to a Scotch farmer, who turns out his
children to work directly the corn begins to
thrive, from six years old to sixteen, all the same.
That gurl is the beauty of the place. Now if he
had been Irish she would have been working at
her piany, and had her big lump of a novel, and
have been looking out of the window for the
purty young man."

"Yes," thought I, and fell into a reverie,
"the Scotch are conquering Ireland. The old
hard drinking, open house days are gone by for
ever; witness the Martins, who ruled half Connemara
and had the lands of a prince; witness——
and——and all the old clans."

Before I could finish my apostrophe on the
Middleman question, the Orange and Green
question, the Absentee question, the Tithe question,
the Popery question, and some others, I
was interrupted by our stopping to take up one
of the county constabulary, a force which few
armies of Europe could match. The smart
young fellow, in his light rifle green, flat cap,
and side bayonet, leaped up with a soldierly-like
nod to the driver, bound for some session
then sitting.

As he alighted, a mile further on, Mike said,
"Good luck go with him, it's some poor widdy's
heart he'll make ache to-night, sorra guide
him!"

"Have you been long in Bianconi's service,
Mike?"

"Ten years last Rogation."

"Have you ever seen him?"

"Have I ever seen him! Often and often, your
honour. He's a little, smart man, with a quick
eye, and have heard him tell his own story how
he was shipwrecked, when he was quite a boy,
on his way from Rome, and left with only three
shillings in his pocket on a desert island. With
these he bought some pictures that he saw in a
window in Dublin, and selling these got more,
and so on, till he started a car, and then another,
till now he employs ever so many hundred drivers,
and the divil knows how many horses, and lives
in a grand place near Clonmel. They say if he
gets a halfpenny a day from every horse it
pays him."

"I suppose that B on the harness stands for
his name," said I.

"An' be sure it does," said Mike. "Every
horse has its own name and its own harness.
He's mighty sharp. He has travellers to
look after us who come about on the road and
are taken up as regular fares, and who note
down the time they get on and off to compare it
with our bills at the station. Now in London,
they tell me, they do it by getting into an omnibus
with a right-hand pocket full of marbles.
For every one that gets in, they move a
marble into the left-hand pocket: isn't that cute?"

"Very," said I; "but is he kind to the
poor?'

"He is," said Mike, "and to his old drivers,
if they do their duty, but if they ruin a horse
he is out with them in a jiffy. His way of rewarding
is by taking you off a wild, scanty
road, and putting you on a good one; or by
changing you from night to day duty. He tried
me once, but I bet him. I had to take some
horses for him down into Tipperary, and when I
got near his house my money ran short, and I
went up to his house, told him my case, and
borrowed five shillings. 'Be sure you pay it
again, my man,' says he, 'next time we meet.'
I thanked him, drove off, and six months after
this he met me somewhere about here, and got
on my car to go as far as Clifden. Now I knew
he had my five shillings down in his red pocket-book,
and remembered it, so I went up to him
and said, 'Here's the five shillings, Mr. Bianconi,
that I borrowed at Clonmel, and thanks
to you.' ' Keep it, my good man,' said he, with
a pretty smile that did me good. 'I like to see
my drivers remember their debts.' I'd as soon
put my head into a menagerie of wild bastes as
see him again if I hadn't."

Our next passengers were two decent country-
women, with their gowns tucked up and their
shawls drawn over their heads.

It was getting cold, and as it grew cold we
grew silent, only now and then blurting out a
sentence when we got down sullenly, with heads
butting at the bullying wind, to walk slowly up
a hill beside the car. But it was every moment
with Mike some kind, encouraging, cheery
words.

"Well, girls, how are you by this time?" cried
Mike.

A chorus of women replied, "Och! dead
entirely with the chill."

"And if I sat like that," said Mike, reprovingly,
"All the time in the car wouldn't I
be as dead as the fur that was under me?" then
added, under breath, "There's no worse driving
than the women, 'cause they never get out to
spare the horse, poor craytur."

With the exception of a dark avenue just as
we entered Galway, which was rendered dangerous
by the rush of cars coming home
from the fair, filled with reckless, exhilarated
country people, we had no risks to encounter on
our way to the semi-Spanish city where judge
Lynch hung his own son.

We had traversed that day a wonderful panorama
of Irish scenery, bog, coast town, arms of
the sea, lakes, and mountains—country wild as
Siberia, ending in civilised city, with rich suburbs,
packet station, and commerce. In the morning,
a stone-built whisky-shop; in the evening, a
civilised hotel, with conventional waiter, and all
other sophistications. This morning, untrod
mountains, miles of snipe track, and wild duck
country; to-night, paved streets, neat shops.