“Ah,” said he, with a sigh, “I’ve been longing to see the fox hounds throw off, near Kilkenny; these three weeks I’ve been thinking of nothing else; but I’m not sure how my nerves will stand the cry; I might be throublesome.” “Upon my soul,” thought I, “I shall not select that morning for my debut in the field.” “I hope, sir, there’s no river, or watercourse on this road—any thing else, I can, I hope, control myself against; but water—running water particularly—makes me throublesome.” Well knowing what he meant by the latter phrase, I felt the cold perspiration settling on my forehead, as I remembered that we must be within about ten or twelve miles of Leighlin-bridge, where we should have to pass a very wide river. I strictly concealed this fact from him, however, and gave him to understand that there was not a well, brook, or rivulet, for forty miles on either side of us. He now sunk into a kind of moody silence, broken occasionally by a low muttering noise, as if speaking to himself—what this might portend, I knew not—but thought it better, under all circumstances, not to disturb him. How comfortable my present condition was, I need scarcely remark—sitting vis a vis to a lunatic, with a pair of pistols in his possession—who had already avowed his consciousness of his tendency to do mischief, and his inability to master it; all this in the dark, and in the narrow limits of a mail-coach, where there was scarcely room for defence, and no possibility of escape—how heartily I wished myself back in the Coffee-room at Morrisson’s, with my poor friend Tom—the infernal chaise, that I cursed a hundred times, would have been an “exchange,” better than into the Life Guards—ay, even the outside of the coach, if I could only reach it, would, under present circumstances, be a glorious alternative to my existing misfortune. What were rain and storm, thunder and lightning, compared with the chances that awaited me here?—wet through I should inevitably be, but then I had not yet contracted the horror of moisture my friend opposite laboured under. “Ha! what is that? is it possible he can be asleep; is it really a snore?—Heaven grant that little snort be not what the medical people call a premonitory symptom—if so, he’ll be in upon me now in no time. Ah, there it is again; he must be asleep surely; now then is my time or never.” With these words, muttered to myself, and a heart throbbing almost audibly at the risk of his awakening, I slowly let down the window of the coach, and stretching forth my hand, turned the handle cautiously and slowly; I next disengaged my legs, and by a long continuous effort of creeping—which I had learned perfectly once, when practising to go as a boa constrictor to a fancy ball—I withdrew myself from the seat and reached the step, when I muttered something very like a thanksgiving to Providence for my rescue. With little difficulty I now climbed up beside the guard, whose astonishment at my appearance