But Gerald heard without being amused, and, although he felt thankful for the intention, was distressed that his abstraction should be the subject of notice, and his despondency the object of care. To avoid this he frequently suffered Jackson to take the lead, and, following some distance in the rear with his arms folded and the reins loose upon the horse's neck, often ran the risk of having his own neck broken by the frequent stumbling of the unsure-footed beast. But the Captain as often returned to the charge, for, in addition to a sincere desire to rally his companion, he began at length to find it exceedingly irksome to travel with one who neither spoke himself, nor appeared to enjoy speech in another; and when he had amused himself with whistling, singing, hallooing, and cutting a thousand antics with his arms, until he was heartily tired of each of these several diversions, he would rein in his horse to suffer Gerald to come up, and, after a conciliating offer of his rum flask, accompanied by a slice of hung beef that lined the wallet depending from his shoulder, enter upon some new and strange exploit, of which he was as usual the hero. Enforced in a degree to make some return for the bribe offered to his patience, Gerald would lend--all he could--his ear to the tale; but long before the completion he would give such evidence of his distraction, as utterly to disconcert the narrator, and cause him finally to have recourse to one of the interludes above described. In this manner they had journeyed some days, when the rains suddenly commenced with a violence and continued with a pertinacity, that might have worn out the cheerfulness of much less impatient spirits than those of our travellers, who without any other protection than what was afforded by the blanket tightly girt around the loins, and fastened over the shoulders in front of the chest, presented an appearance quite as wild as the waste they traversed. It was in vain that, in order to promote a more rapid circulation, they essayed to urge their jaded beasts out of the jog-trot in which they had set out. Accustomed to this from the time when they first emerged from colthood into horsehood, the aged steeds, like many aged senators of their day, were determined enemies to anything like innovation on the long established customs of their caste; and, although, unlike the said senators, they were made to bear all the burdens of the state, still did they not suffer themselves to be driven out of the sluggish habits in which sluggish animals of every description seem to feel themselves privileged to indulge. Whip and spur, therefore, were alike applied in vain, as to any accelerated motion in themselves; but with this advantage at least to their riders, that while the latter toiled vigorously for an increase of vital warmth through the instrumentality of their non-complying hacks they found it where they least seemed to look for it--in the mingled anger and