‘God help us,’ he would say, ‘I suppose we’ll be chewing our food by steam one of these days, and filling our stomachs by hydraulic pressure. But for my own part, I like something to work for me that I can swear at when it goes wrong. There’s little use in cursing a cylinder.’ To have heard him amongst his labourers that morning, it was plain to see that they were not in the category of machinery. On one pretext or another, however, they had slunk away one by one, so that at last he found himself storming alone in a stubble-field, with no other companion than one of Kate’s terriers. The sharp barking of this dog aroused him in the midst of his imprecations, and looking over the dry-stone wall that inclosed the field, he saw a horseman coming along at a sharp canter, and taking the fences as they came like a man in a hunting-field. He rode well, and was mounted upon a strong wiry hackney--a cross-bred horse, and of little money value, but one of those active cats of horseflesh that a knowing hand can appreciate. Now, little as Kearney liked the liberty of a man riding over his ditches and his turnips when out of hunting season, his old love of good horsemanship made him watch the rider with interest and even pleasure. ‘May I never!’ muttered he to himself, ‘if he’s not coming at this wall.’ And as the inclosure in question was built of large jagged stones, without mortar, and fully four feet in height, the upper course being formed of a sort of coping in which the stones stood edgewise, the attempt did look somewhat rash. Not taking the wall where it was slightly breached, and where some loose stones had fallen, the rider rode boldly at one of the highest portions, but where the ground was good on either side. ‘He knows what he’s at!’ muttered Kearney, as the horse came bounding over and alighted in perfect safety in the field. ‘Well done! whoever you are,’ cried Kearney, delighted, as the rider removed his hat and turned round to salute him. ‘And don’t you know me, sir?’ asked he. ‘’Faith, I do not,’ replied Kearney; ‘but somehow I think I know the chestnut. To be sure I do. There’s the old mark on her knee, how ever she found the man who could throw her down. Isn’t she Miss O’Shea’s Kattoo?’ ‘That she is, sir, and I’m her nephew.’ ‘Are you?’ said Kearney dryly. The young fellow was so terribly pulled up by the unexpected repulse--more marked even by the look than the words of the other--that he sat unable to utter a syllable. ‘I had hoped, sir,’ said he at last, ‘that I had not outgrown your recollection, as I can promise none of your former kindness to me has outgrown mine.’ ‘But it took you three weeks to recall it, all the same,’ said Kearney.