“Lord Glencore's dangerously ill, and needs a doctor,” said the Corporal, bursting out with a piece of most uncommon communicativeness. “Is there none of you will give his horse for such an errand?” “Arrah, musha!--it's a pity!” and such-like expressions of compassionate import, were muttered on all sides; but no more active movement seemed to flow from the condolence, while in a lower tone were added such expressions as, “Sorra mend him--if he wasn't a naygar, wouldn't he have a horse of his own? It's a droll lord he is, to be begging the loan of a baste!” Something like a malediction arose to the Corporal's lips; but restraining it, and with a voice thick from passion, he said,-- “I 'm ready to pay you--to pay you ten times over the worth of your--” “You need n't curse the horse, anyhow,” interposed Rabbitskin, while with a significant glance at his friends around him, he slyly intimated that it would be as well to adjourn the debate,--a motion as quickly obeyed as it was mooted; for in less than five minutes Craggs was standing beside the quay, with no other companion than a blind beggar-woman, who, perfectly regardless of his distress, continued energetically to draw attention to her own. “A little fivepenny bit, my lord--the last trifle your honor's glory has in the corner of your pocket, that you 'll never miss, and that 'll sweeten ould Molly's tay to-night? There, acushla, have pity on 'the dark,' and that you may see glory--” But Craggs did not wait for the remainder, but, deep in his own thoughts, sauntered down towards the village. Already had the others retreated within their homes; and now all was dark and cheerless along the little straggling street. “And this is a Christian country!--this a land that people tell you abounds in kindness and good-nature!” said he, in an accent of sarcastic bitterness. “And who'll say the reverse?” answered a voice from behind, and, turning, he beheld the little hunchbacked fellow who carried the mail on foot from Oughterard, a distance of sixteen miles, over a mountain, and who was popularly known as “Billy the Bag,” from the little leather sack which seemed to form part of his attire. “Who 'll stand up and tell me it's not a fine country in every sense,--for natural beauties, for antiquities, for elegant men and lovely females, for quarries of marble and mines of gould?” Craggs looked contemptuously at the figure who thus declaimed of Ireland's wealth and grandeur, and, in a sneering tone, said,-- “And with such riches on every side, why do you go barefoot--why are you in rags, my old fellow?” “Is n't there poor everywhere? If the world was all gould and silver, what would be the precious metals--tell me that? Is it because there's a little cripple like myself here, that them mountains yonder is n't of copper and iron and cobalt? Come over with me after I lave the bags at the office, and I 'll show you bits of every one I speak of.”