clever gentleman! As for Nora and Castle Brady, between to-day and
yesterday there seemed to be a gap as of half-a-score of years. I
vowed I would never re-enter the place but as a great man; and I
kept my vow too, as you shall hear in due time.

There was much more liveliness and bustle on the king's highroad in
those times, than in these days of stage-coaches, which carry you
from one end of the kingdom to another in a few score hours. The
gentry rode their own horses or drove in their own coaches, and
spent three days on a journey which now occupies ten hours; so that
there was no lack of company for a person travelling towards Dublin.
I made part of the journey from Carlow towards Naas with a well-
armed gentleman from Kilkenny, dressed in green and a gold cord,
with a patch on his eye, and riding a powerful mare. He asked me the
question of the day, and whither I was bound, and whether my mother
was not afraid on account of the highwaymen to let one so young as
myself to travel? But I said, pulling out one of them from a
holster, that I had a pair of good pistols that had already done
execution, and were ready to do it again; and here, a pock-marked
man coming up, he put spurs into his bay mare and left me. She was a
much more powerful animal than mine; and, besides, I did not wish to
fatigue my horse, wishing to enter Dublin that night, and in
reputable condition.

As I rode towards Kilcullen, I saw a crowd of the peasant-people
assembled round a one-horse chair, and my friend in green, as I
thought, making off half a mile up the hill. A footman was howling
'Stop thief!' at the top of his voice; but the country fellows were
only laughing at his distress, and making all sorts of jokes at the
adventure which had just befallen.