"God speed you, neighbour," and whistled his favourite air of " Planxty Connor."

As soon, however, as our student desisted from studying the beautiful and turned to the picturesque, Jerry began to seek materials for his jokes, as well for his own entertainment as that of his company; and the first thing which hit his fancy was a lean and sorry cow, driven along the road by an old man, whose appearance in a more fastidious country than poor old Ireland would have excited some surprise. He was an old man, and tall, with a spare, healthy-looking face, which bore manifest indication of having encountered every variety of weather; his loose uncombed grey hair escaped from beneath a head piece of felt, with half a rim, which had, perhaps some twenty years before, been a black hat, but was now of undefinable shape and colour. His body was enveloped in a long loose threadbare brown great-coat, or jock, secured round his waist by a small hay rope; his breeches were open at the knees, and the old grey worsted stockings, of which the foot parts were utterly worn away, were wrinkled down, leaving the upper part of his legs bare; and on his feet were old, but still unbroken brogues, which were partly filled with bay, to serve the office of the stocking feet, which had melted away. Thus dressed, the figure moved along, with a strong blackthorn stick in his hand, in a slow swinging trot, something between a walk and a lazy run, and occasionally talked to his cow, in a language which, doubtless, the quadruped and himself understood very well, but which, not being a written language, we cannot present to our readers.

"God save you, Pat," shouted the coachman, with a strength of voice which shewed that his lungs had not suffered from his life of hardship on the road." God save you kindly," rejoined the Cow-compeller.

"Where did you stale (steal) that cow?" said Jerry. "Divil a use in tellin' you," said the man; "for such a born rogue as you are, wouldn't be let within a mile of the place."

"Faith, an iv it was goin' to stale a baste I was," said Jerry, with a good

humoured grin, "it's not the likes of that I'd be afther takin'. How much would you ax for her skin? an' be me sowl! you might sell the rest of her for ould bones.'

Maybe," rejoined the man, “if I was bred up to thievin' an' stalein, like you, I'd have been 'cute enough to take the best; but it's well to get any thing these hard times."

"Well, Pat," said Jerry, "you're always a hearty ould fellow, at any rate. How is the woman that owns you?"*

This last question was one of mere politeness, for before there was time to answer it, Jerry whipped on his horses, which he had suffered to walk while he held his colloquy with the man of the cow.

There sat behind O'Neill, upon the top of the coach, a stout Englishman, with a greasy face, who was taking down some patterns of Sheffield ware to make sales in Wexford, and this being his first journey in Ireland, he listened with surprise and apparent horror to the conversation we have just recited. "Is not this a dreadful country, sir?" said he, turning to a man who sat beside him, with the lower part of his face sunk within his ample neckcloth-" Is not this a dreadful country, where such a conversation as that which we have just heard passes as nothing extraordinary?" The man whom he addressed happened to be fast asleep, and therefore made no reply; but giving a somnolent nod at the time, which buried his nose yet deeper within his neckcloth, and caused a simultaneous snort, the Englishman received this as a sign of concurrence of opinion, and proceeded.— "That the man was a thief, any one would have suspected from merely looking at him; but to have the effrontery to admit, or, at all events, not to deny, that he had stolen the animal, shews such a contempt of all law and propriety, as, bad as the country is, I could not have expected. I should really like to give information to some magistrate, but I suppose if I did, some of this fellow's companions would shoot me from behind a hedge." -"It's true for you," said the speaker, suddenly awaking with a jerk of the coach, and perceiving that his compa

nion had been addressing him, but without having the least notion of what he had been saying.

The coachman turned round to the Englishman, with a look in which contempt and humour were curiously blended, and then addressed O'Neill in a low voice-" Be my sowl, sir, there's the best joke of all; the English gentleman behind us thinks it's in earnest we wor. I wish your honour 'id help me to take a proper rise out of him."

"I would be a bad assistant, Jerry," said O'Neill; "I must leave him entirely in your hands; and if any one can make fun of him, you will.”— "To be sure, your honour, I love a bit of sport as well as another," said Jerry ; "but sure, sir, you could just say Yes, or No, as if it was talking to you I was."-" Well, well," replied our student, whose failing was that he did not know how to refuse, "I'll assist so far, if that will do." Nothing could delight Jerry more than an opportunity to shew his dexterity in taking a rise," as he called it, out of the serious Englishman, and he lost no time in carrying his plan into execution.

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"Your honour didn't hear," he continued, raising his voice, so that those behind could distinctly hear him," of what happened to the two English gintleinen that came down this way last week?"-"No," said O'Neill, "but taking up his subordinate part, I suppose you mean to tell me." thin, it won't take long to tell," resumed Jerry. "It was takin' a bit of a walk they wor, outside the town of Wexford, and some one axed them, would they go and look at a private still; an' fools they wor, to be sure, to go; but whin they did, and they got thim down below where the still was, they brought a tub of whisky behind, and steeped the skirts of the gintlemen's coats in it, while they were lookin' on; an' thin, what did they do but set fire to them, an', be me. sowl, a purty pair they made of them. Before the coats was off, their backs was as brown an' as crisp as the outside of a piece of roast pork."

"Monstrous savages!" muttered the Englishman to himself, half in

wrath, and half in fear; while Jerry fidgeted in his seat in ecstasy to perceive that his story had not failed of the intended effect.

"And what was the consequence?" said O'Neill, smiling at the tale the man had invented in a moment.

"Faith, sir, the Englishmen couldn't percaive the joke, but thought it was in earnest they wor; so they wint an' complained to a justice, an' Jem Sullivan's still was tuk (taken), an' they wor goin' to take himself, only he escaped. The wickedest divil in all the country the same Jem Sullivan is ; an' he swears if he ketches an Englishman comin' into this country agin, he'll surely take revinge on him.’

Here the coach stopped to change horses; and Jerry, as he drank his glass of whisky inside the window of the public-house where they stopped, almost shook himself to pieces with laughter when he saw the Englishman quietly unstrap his portmanteau, which was on the top of the coach, and taking therefrom a small pair of pistols, deposit them in the pockets of his great-coat.

"Why, Jerry," said O'Neill, as he entered the room where the coachman was, your story will frighten that poor man out of his wits; I should not be surprised if he were to turn about and go home, without transacting his business. You had better tell him it was all a humbug."

"Is it me, sir?" said Jerry. "O no faith; an' if I did, it's himself that would'nt b'lieve me, but think I wanted to decaive him into some harm. If he does go back sure, the devil set his fut after him! some one that is'nt so great a fool 'ill come after him an' get his custom. Christ Jasus, sir! only think of him travellin' wid pistols, on the top of a coach in the open daylight."

"Perhaps," rejoined O'Neill," you are not the first who has amused himself with taking a rise' out of the man, and if he takes all jokes as much in earnest as he takes yours, it is no wonder that he should feel alarmed."

"I would'nt be an Englishman for the world, sir," said Jerry, as he laid down his glass; "divil a word they spake, but it's as exact as if they wor readin' it out of a book, an' as sarious

as if they wor afore the priest. I'd die in a month, sir, if I was'nt to have a bit of fun sometimes."

"Ay," said O'Neill," we have the advantage of them in mirth, but they have the advantage of us in steadiness -And now the horses are out, Jerry, we had better mount again. I see they've got a troublesome leader there, that will give you something else to do for the next stage than invent comical lies;-but was that all a lie, from beginning to end, that you told about the private still?"

"Half and half, sir," said Jerry, "like sailor's grog. There was a private still found, sure enough, an' a bit of a row; an' Jem Sullivan gave the informer a tip of his shillelagh over the_head, that bothered him a little, so Jem was obleeged to cut an' run." "Did he hurt the man seriously?" asked O'Neill.

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By my sowl," said Jerry, "you may take your cath, sir, he made him feel that 'twasn't ticklin' him wid a feather he was-but he was only kilt, as many a better man was before ;he'll be well enough come Donnybrook fair."

They now mounted the box again, while the Englishman sharply expressed his anger at the delay, and the unnecessary time they had wasted in changing horses.

"Never mind, sir," said the coachman, "there's a leader will bring us in, in good time, whether we will or no, barrin' she upsets the coach, the wicked divil, bad luck to her!"

"No danger of that, I hope?" said the Englishman, with an alarmed look.

"Plaze God," rejoined Jerry, drily; "but we can't tell always what's before us, sir, as the blind man said when he walked over his mother."

They now drove rapidly and silently along for some time, Jerry's attention being sufficiently engaged by his troublesome horse, in the management of which he shewed no small profes. sional skill. As they reached the corner of a private road leading off to the right, on the man of the deep cravat, laying his hand upon Jerry's shoulder, but without speaking a word, the horses were drawn up, and the man descended from the coach. He nodded his head to the coachman, indicating by the gesture the direction in which he was about to proceed, and

was replied to by a "God speed you" from Jerry; and then the man, who had till now appeared a heavy, stupid, sleepy person, seemed suddenly to ac quire a wonderful activity. A fivebarred gate was placed across the little road into which he turned; laying one hand upon the upper rail of this, he vaulted over it without the least apparent difficulty, and proceeded rapidly towards the acclivity of a mountain path which lay before him.

"Do you know who that man is ?” said O'Neill. "I thought till now he was some lazy Wexford shopkeeper, who had been up in Dublin making purchases; but he seems to have recovered his activity very suddenly." Jerry evaded a direct reply, and said he supposed he was some of the "mountain people."-"I rather think," said O'Neil, "that it was his object to keep himself concealed as we came along, for he contrived to keep his face so buried in his cravat, that I did not see the whole of it during our journey, and I doubt whether I should know him again, were I to meet him with his face uncovered."

Maybe he's in some trouble," said Jerry, significantly.

They travelled along without further remark, until they reached the inn where the coach halted for breakfast, and the travellers found a board set out with those substantial comforts which a morning's drive makes so agreeable. Not that an Irish breakfast can boast of the variety of a Scotch one, or the niceness of arrangement of an English one; but there was a cold round of beef, of formidable dimensions, and there would be mustard, when it was made. Eggs there were innumerable, and abundance of milk, and the promise of tea when the kettle boiled. "It's just bilin', sir," said the waiter, the plain English of which phrase is, that there are some grounds for the expectation that it will boil within the next quarter of an hour. The Englishman awaited the advent of the boiling water in sullen silence, making all the while deliberate assaults upon the symmetry of the beef, while the rest of the company talked, laughed, swore, and took revenge upon the eggs. Tea was, however, provided, and breakfast, like all other things, came to an end. Purses were now put in requisition, and the Englishman, after paying his coin, and

placing his hand upon his side-pocket as if to ascertain that something he expected to find there was all safe, grew suddenly pale, and ran out of the room with more alacrity than he had hitherto displayed. He soon returned in a state of agitation which it was impossible to behold without being deeply affected. The alarm and distress which make an Irishman stamp, and rave, and exhaust himself in physical exertion, do not perhaps awaken sympathy so much, because they are not really so dangerous to the individual, as the deep and silent struggles of a calmer temperament. The face of the Englishman, when he returned to the parlour of the inn, was colourless as the visage of a dead man, a cold perspiration trickled from his forehead, and a slight tremor shook his frame from head to foot. He stated, however, distinctly and intelligibly, that he had been robbed of his pocket-book, containing a large sum of money.

"Robbed!" said O'Neill, "how do you mean ?"

"My pocket-book has been taken from me," said the man, "and," added he, in a faltering tone, which shewed how distressful was the struggle

between his alarm and habitual firmness, "it contained a thousand pounds in Bank of England post-bills. Good God!" he continued, "what had I best do ?"

"Tell me what are the circumstances," said O'Neill, partaking of the agitation which a natural sympa thy excites on such occasions; "I am astonished at what you say, and do not understand you.'

"I had large accounts to collect in Dublin," said the man, my business was not finished yesterday evening until it was too late for the post, and I put the bills in my pocket-book, with the intention of dispatching them from Wexford or Waterford, where I am going, to one of our partners who is at Bristol. My pocket-book I put in my portmanteau, which was strapped up on the coach almost under my own arm, but overhearing a conversation between you and the coachman, from which I inferred there was personal danger to be apprehended by an Englishman travelling in this part of the country, I opened my portmanteau at the last stage, and took out my pistols, and I think my pocket-book also. I

know I intended to do so, but being a little alarmed at the time, I cannot positively recollect whether I did or not. But it is gone-I have it notit is not in the portmanteau. Good God!" he exclaimed again, violently striking his pale forehead, "what ought I to do? The property is not my own, sir, but that of my employers," he continued, " of which it was my duty to have taken better care-I can never repay it, and—I have a wife and children. I and they are utterly ruined!"

It seemed as if the man's brain would have burst from the intensity of his emotion, but the mention of his children saved him; the tears spouted from his eyes, and he became calm. O'Neill now bitterly repented him of even the slight share which he had had in the fiction which had alarmed this poor Englishman, and thrown him off his guard. His heart smote him as he recollected, that, if instead of joining in and enjoying the joke played off upon the man, he had given him some rational information about the country in which he was travelling, his portmanteau would in all probability not have been opened, and all this loss and misery would not have occurred. Anxious, however, to do every thing possible, to repair a misfortune in which he could not help accusing himself of having had some share, he carefully enquired into the circumstances of the disappearance of the pocket-book, respecting which the poor man who had lost it still gave the same account, and still persisted in his belief that it was stolen.

"Are you quite certain you brought it from Dublin?" said O'Neill.

"Quite certain," replied the man ; "and that it was the first thing I saw in my portmanteau when I opened it at the last stage."

"Could it then have been taken from your portmanteau while you were at breakfast?"

"No," he replied; "I am every thing but quite certain, that I took it out of my portmanteau and put it into my pocket. If I had not been under that impression, I would have brought my portmanteau with me into the room. As it was, the coach was drawn up before the windows, opposite to which I sat at breakfast, and I would have seen if any one had opened the portmanteau then.”