A whole battery of kicks upon the front panel drowned the rest of his speech; but before I could obey his injunction, he was pitched upon the road, the chaise rolled over and the pole snapped short in the middle, while the two horses belabored the carriage and each other with all their might. Managing, as well as I was able, to extricate myself, I leaped out upon the road, and by the aid of a knife, and at the cost of some bruises, succeeded in freeing the horses from their tackle. The postboy, who had escaped without any serious injury, labored manfully to aid me, blubbering the whole time upon the consequences his misfortune would bring down upon his head. “Bad luck to ye!” cried he, apostrophizing the off-horse, a tall, raw-boned beast, with a Roman nose, a dipped back, and a tail ragged and jagged like a hand-saw,--“bad luck to ye! there never was a good one of your color!” This, for the information of the “unjockeyed,” I may add, was a species of brindled gray. “How did it happen, Patsey; how did it happen, my lad?” “It was the heap o’ stones they left in the road since last autumn; and though I riz him at it fairly, he dragged the ould mare over it and broke the pole. Oh, wirra, wirra!” cried he, wringing his hands in an agony of grief, “sure there’s neither luck nor grace to be had with ye since the day ye drew the judge down to the last assizes!” “Well, what’s to be done?” “Sorra a bit o’ me knows; the shay’s ruined intirely, and the ould divil there knows he’s conquered us. Look at him there, listening to every word we’re saying! You eternal thief, may be its ploughing you’d like better!” “Come, come,” said I, “this will never get us forward. What part of the country are we in?” “We left Banagher about four miles behind us; that’s Killimur you see with the smoke there in the hollow.” Now, although I did not see Killimur (for the gray mist of the morning prevented me recognizing any object a few hundred yards distant), yet from the direction in which he pointed, and from the course of the Shannon, which I could trace indistinctly, I obtained a pretty accurate notion of where we were. “Then we are not very far from Portumna?” “Just a pleasant walk before your breakfast.” “And is there not a short cut to O’Malley Castle over that mountain?” “Faix, and so there is; and ye can be no stranger to these parts if ye know that.” “I have travelled it before now. Just tell me, is the wooden bridge standing over the little stream? It used to be carried away every winter in my time.” “It’s just the same now. You’ll have to pass by the upper ford; but it comes to the same, for that will bring you to the back gate of the demesne, and one way is just as short as the other.” “I know it, I know it; so now, do you follow me with my luggage to the castle, and I’ll set out on foot.”