I chanced upon kind and good-hearted folk,
who nursed me with care, and watched me with
interest; but my illness was a severe one, and it
was only in the sixth week that I could be about
again, a poor, weak, emaciated creature, with
failing limbs and shattered nerves. There is an
indescribable sense of weariness in the mind
after fever, just as if the brain had been
enormously over-taxed and exerted, and that in the
pursuit of all the wild and fleeting fancies of
delirium it had travelled over miles and miles of
space To the depressing influence of this sensation
is added the difficulty of disentangling
the capricious illusions of the sick-bed from the
actual facts of life; and in this maze of confusion
my first days of convalescence were passed.
Blondel was my great puzzle. Was he a reality,
or a mere creature of imagination? Had I
really ridden him as a horse, or only as an idea?
Was he a quadruped with mane and tail, or an
allegory invented to typify destiny? I cannot
say what hours of painful brain labour this
inquiry cost me, and what intense research into
myself. Strange enough, too, though I came
out of the investigation convinced of his equine
existence, I arrived at the conclusion that he
was a " horse and something more." Not that
I am able to explain myself more fully on that
head, though, if I were writing this portion of
my memoirs in German, I suspect I could convey
enough of my meaning to give a bad headache
to any one indulgent enough to follow me.

I set out once more upon my pilgrimage on a
fine day of June, my steps directed to the
village of Inistioge, where Father Dyke
resided. I was too weak for much exertion, and
it was only after five days of the road I reached
at nightfall the little glen in which the village
stood. The moon was up, streaking the wide
market-places with long lines of yellow light
between the rows of tall elm-trees, and tipping
with silvery sheen the bright eddies of the
beautiful river that rolled beside it. Over the
granite cliffs that margined the stream, laurel,
and arbutus, and wild holly clustered in wild
luxuriance, backed higher up again by tall pine-trees,
whose leafy summits stood out against
the sky; and lastly, deep within a waving
meadow, stood an old ruined abbey, whose
traceried window was now softly touched by the
moonlight. All was still and silent, except the
rush of the rapid river, as I sat down upon a
stone bench to enjoy the scene and luxuriate
in its tranquil serenity. I had not believed
Ireland contained such a spot, for there was all
the trim neatness and careful propriety of an
English village, with that luxuriance of verdure
and wild beauty so eminently Irish. How was
it that I had never heard of it before? Were
others aware of it, or was the discovery strictly
my own? Or can it possibly be that all this
picturesque loveliness is but the effect of a
mellow moon? While I thus questioned myself,
I heard the sound of a quick footstep rapidly
approaching, and soon afterwards the pleasant
tone of a rich voice humming an opera air. I
arose and saw a tall, athletic- looking figure,
with rod and fishing-basket, approaching me.

"May I ask you, sir," said I, addressing
him, "if this village contains an inn?"

"There is, or rather there was, a sort of inn
here," said he, removing his cigar as he spoke;
"but the place is so little visited, that I fancy
the landlord found it would not answer, and so
it is closed at this moment."

"But do visitors—tourists—never pass this
way?"

"Yes; and a few salmon- fishers, like myself,
come occasionally in the season; but then
we dispose ourselves in little lodgings, here and
there, some of us with the farmers, one or two
of us with the priest."

"Father Dyke?" broke I in.

"Yes; you know him, perhaps?"

"I have heard of him, and met him, indeed,"
added I, after a pause. " Where may his house
be?"

"The prettiest spot in the whole glen. If
you'd like to see it in this picturesque moonlight,
come along with me."

I accepted the invitation at once,  and we
walked on together. The easy, half-careless tone
of the stranger, the loose, lounging stride of his
walk, and a certain something in his mellow
voice, seemed to indicate one of those natures
which, so to say, take the world well— temperaments
that reveal themselves almost immediately.
He talked away about fishing, as he went, and
appeared to take a deep interest in the sport,
not heeding much the ignorance I betrayed on
the subject, nor my ignoble confession that I
had never adventured upon anything higher than
a worm and a quill.

"I'm sure," said he, laughingly, "Tom Dyke
never encouraged you in such sporting tackle,
glorious fly-fisher as he is."

"You forget, perhaps," replied I, "that I
scarcely have any acquaintance with him. We
met once only, at a dinner party."

"He's a pleasant fellow," resumed he; " devilish
wide awake, one must say; up to most things
in this same world of ours."

"That much, my own brief experience of him
can confirm," said I, dryly, for the remark rather
jarred upon my feelings.

"Yes," said he, as though following out his
own train of thought. " Old Tom is not a bird
to be snared with coarse lines. The man must
be an early riser that catches him napping."

I cannot describe how all this irritated me.
It sounded like so much direct sarcasm upon
my weakness and want of acuteness.

"There's the ' Rosary;' that's his cottage,"
said he, taking my arm, while he pointed
upward to a little jutting promontory of rock over
the river, surmounted by a little thatched cottage
almost embowered in roses and honeysuckles.
So completely did it occupy the narrow limits of
ground, that the windows projected actually over
the stream, and the creeping plants that twined
through the little balconies hung in tangled
masses over the water. " Search where you will
through the Scottish and Cumberland scenery,