The whole of that night, and all the following day, the violence of the storm was unabated; uprooted trees and wrecked villages met his eye as he passed, while, in the larger towns, the houses were strongly barred and shuttered, and scarcely one living thing to be seen through the streets. Nothing short of the united influence of bribery and intimidation could procure horses in such a season, and had any messenger of less sturdy pretensions than honest Sandy been despatched to order them, they would have been flatly refused. Bagenal Daly and his man were, however, too well known in that part of Ireland to make such a course advisable, and though postboys and ostlers condoled together, the signal of Daly's appearance silenced every thought of opposition, and the words, “I 'm ready!” were an order to dash forward none dared to disobey. So had it continued until he reached Moate, where he found a message from Sandy, informing him that no horses could be procured, and that he must bring on those from Athlone the entire way to Kilbeggan. “You hear me,” cried Daly to the astonished postboy, who for the last two miles had spared neither whip nor spur, in the glad anticipation of a speedy shelter,--“you hear me. To Kilbeggan.” “Oh, begorra! that's impossible, yer honor. If it was the month of May, and the road was a bowling-green, the bastes couldn't do it.” “Go on!” cried Daly, shutting up the glass, and throwing himself back in the chaise. [Illustration: 185] But the postboy only buttoned up the collar of his coat around his face, thrust his whip into his boot, and, drawing his sleeves over his hands, sat a perfect picture of fatalism. “I say, go on!” shouted Daly, as he lowered the front window of the chaise. A low muttering from the driver, still impassive as before, was all the reply, and at the same instant a sharp report was heard, and a pistol bullet whizzed beside his hat. “Will you go _now?_” cried Bagenal Daly, as he levelled another weapon on the window; but no second entreaty was necessary, and, with his bead bent down almost to the mane, and with a mingled cry for mercy and imprecation together, he drove the spurs into his jaded beast, and whipped with all his might through the almost deserted town. With the despairing energy of one who felt his life was in peril, the wretched postboy hurried madly forward, urging the tired animals up the hills, and caring neither for rut nor hollow on his onward course, till at length, blown and exhausted, the animals came to a dead stand, and, with heaving flanks and outstretched forelegs, refused to budge a step farther. “There!” cried the postboy, as, dropping from the saddle, he fell on his knees upon the road, “shoot, and be d------d to you; I can do no more.” The terrified expression of the fellow's face as the lamp of the chaise threw its light upon him, seemed to change the current of Daly's thoughts, for he laughed loud and heartily as he looked upon him.