So powerfully did these sensations possess me, that I sat motionless for some time, uncertain whether to proceed; forgetting that I was the bearer of important information, I only remembered that by my own desire I was there; my reason but half convinced me that the part I had adopted was right and honorable, and more than once my resolution to proceed hung in the balance. It was just at this critical moment of my doubts that Mike, who had been hitherto behind, came up. “Is it the upper road, sir?” said he, pointing to a steep and rugged path which led by a zigzag ascent towards the crest of the mountain. I nodded in reply, when he added:-- “Doesn’t this remind your honor of Sleibh More, above the Shannon, where we used to be grouse shooting? And there’s the keeper’s house in the valley; and that might be your uncle, the master himself, waving his hat to you.” Had he known the state of my conflicting feelings at the moment, he could not more readily have decided this doubt. I turned abruptly away, put spurs to my horse, and dashed up the steep pass at a pace which evidently surprised, and as evidently displeased, my follower. How natural it is ever to experience a reaction of depression and lowness after the first burst of unexpected joy! The moment of happiness is scarce experienced ere come the doubts of its reality, the fears for its continuance; the higher the state of pleasurable excitement, the more painful and the more pressing the anxieties that await on it; the tension of delighted feelings cannot last, and our overwrought faculties seek repose in regrets. Happy he who can so temper his enjoyments as to view them in their shadows as in their sunshine; he may not, it is true, behold the landscape in the blaze of its noonday brightness, but he need not fear the thunder-cloud nor the hurricane. The calm autumn of _his_ bliss, if it dazzle not in its brilliancy, will not any more be shrouded in darkness and in gloom.