A young Irish gentleman of the numerous clan O'Donnells, and a Patrick,
hardly a distinction of him until we know him, had bound himself, by
purchase of a railway-ticket, to travel direct to the borders of North
Wales, on a visit to a notable landowner of those marches, the Squire
Adister, whose family-seat was where the hills begin to lift and spy into
the heart of black mountains. Examining his ticket with an apparent
curiosity, the son of a greener island debated whether it would not be
better for him to follow his inclinations, now that he had gone so far as
to pay for the journey, and stay. But his inclinations were also subject
to question, upon his considering that he had expended pounds English for
the privilege of making the journey in this very train. He asked himself
earnestly what was the nature of the power which forced him to do it--a
bad genius or a good: and it seemed to him a sort of answer, inasmuch as
it silenced the contending parties, that he had been the victim of an
impetus. True; still his present position involved a certain outlay of
money simply, not at all his bondage to the instrument it had procured
for him, and that was true; nevertheless, to buy a ticket to shy it away
is an incident so uncommon, that if we can but pause to dwell on the
singularity of the act, we are unlikely to abjure our fellowship with
them who would not be guilty of it; and therefore, by the aid of his
reflections and a remainder of the impetus, Mr. Patrick O'Donnell stepped
into a carriage of the train like any ordinary English traveller, between
whom and his destination there is an agreement to meet if they can.

It is an experience of hesitating minds, be they Saxon or others, that
when we have submitted our persons to the charge of public companies,
immediately, as if the renouncing of our independence into their hands
had given us a taste of a will of our own, we are eager for the
performance of their contract to do what we are only half inclined to;