"Take the turnips to Joe Callan's, in Derry, on the Ship Quay. Wait till dark before you go into the city. Tell him there's more where these came from." "Is it guns you mane?" said I. "Hold your tongue, you limb of darkness," growled my father. "It's turnips. If any one asks you, mind you know nothing, and never heard of his honour in your life." By which I understood this was a very secret errand, and like enough to land me in Derry Jail before all was done. Had I not been impatient to see my father and his honour away to Fanad, I think I should have made excuses. But I durst not say another word, and with a heavy heart clambered to the top of the turnips and started on my long journey. Before I had passed the hill I could see the white sail of our little boat dancing through the broken water of the lough, and knew that my father and Mr Gorman were on their way to set my mother's mind at rest. In the midst of my trouble and ill-humour I smiled to think what a poor figure his honour would have cut trying to make Fanad in that wind. My father could sail in the teeth of anything, and some day folk would be able to say the same of his son Barry. It was a long, desolate drive over stony hills and roads whose ruts swallowed half my wheels, with now and then a waste of bog to cross, and now and then a stream to ford. For hours I met not a soul nor saw a sign of life except the cattle huddling on the hillside, or the smoke of some far-away cabin. My mare was a patient, leisurely beast, with no notion of reaching the city before her time, and no willingness to exchange her sedate jog for all the whipping or "shooing" in Ireland. Presently, as it came to the afternoon, I left the mountain road and came on to the country road from Fahan to Derry. Here I met more company; but no one heeded me much, especially when it was seen that my turnips were a poor sort, and that he who had charge of them was but a slip of a boy, with not a word to say to any one. "Are you for Derry?" one woman asked as she overtook me on the road. "So you may say," said I, hoping that would be the end of her. But she carried a bundle, and was not to be put aside so easily. "I'll just take a lift with you," said she. But I jogged on without a word. "Arrah, will you stop till I get up? Is it deaf ye are?" said she. "'Deed I am," said I, whipping my beast. It went to my heart to play the churl to a woman, but I durst not let her up on the turnips, where perhaps a chance kick of her feet might betray the ugly guns beneath. I was sorry afterwards I did not yield to my better instincts, for the woman was known in these parts, and with her perched beside me no one would have looked twice at me or my cart.