so much as have pricked up her ears, whisked her tail, or lifted
a hoof. But the pibroch was more than horse-flesh and blood could
endure--and off we two went like a whirlwind. Where we went--that is
to say, what were the names of the few first streets along which
we were borne, is a question which, as a man of veracity, we must
positively decline answering. For some short space of time, lines of
houses reeled by without a single face at the windows--and these,
we have since conjectured, might be North and South Hanover street,
and Queen-street. By and by we surely were in something like a
square--could it be Charlotte-square?--and round and round it we
flew--three, four, five, or six times, as horsemen do at the
Caledonian amphitheatre--for the animal had got blind with terror, and
kept viciously reasoning in a circle. What a show of faces at all the
windows then! A shriek still accompanied us as we clattered, and
thundered, and lightened along; and, unless our ears lied, there were
occasional fits of stifled laughter, and once or twice a guffaw; for
there was now a ringing of lost stirrups--and much holding of the
mane. One complete round was executed by us, first on the shoulder
beyond the pommel; secondly, on the neck; thirdly, between the ears;
fourthly, between the forelegs, in a place called the counter, with
our arms round the jugular veins of the flying phenomenon, and our
toes in the air. That was, indeed, the crisis of our fever, but we
made a wonderful recovery back into the saddle--righting like a boat
capsized in a sudden squall at sea--and once more, with accelerated
speed, away past the pillared front of St. George's church!

The castle and all its rocks, in peristrephic panorama, then floated
cloud-like by--and we saw the whole mile-length of Prince's-street
stretched before us, studded with innumerable coaches, chaises,
chariots, carts, wagons, drays, gigs, shandrydans, and wheel-barrows,