“Still less on a longer acquaintance,” broke in Helen. “I 'll not quarrel with the caution and reserve of the Scotchman,--the very mists of his native mountains may teach him doubt and uncertainty of purpose; but here at home, what have such frames of mind and thought in common with our less calculating natures?” “It were far better had they met oftener,” said the Knight, thoughtfully; “impulse is only noble when well directed; the passionate pilots are more frequently the cause of shipwreck than of safety.” “Nothing so wearisome as the trade-winds,” said Helen, with a saucy toss of the head; “eh, Lionel, you are of my mind?” “They do push one's temper very hard now and then,” said Daly, with a stern frown; “that impassive habit they have of taking everything as in the common order of events is, I own, somewhat difficult to bear with. I remember being run away with on a blood mare from a little village called Ballintray. The beast was in high condition, and I turned her, without knowing the country, at the first hill I could see; she breasted it boldly, and, though full a quarter of a mile in length, never shortened stride to the very summit. What was my surprise, when I gained the top, to see that we were exactly over the sea. It was a cliff which, projecting for some distance out, was fissured by an immense chasm, through which the waves passed; not very wide, but deep enough to make it a very awful leap. Over it she went, and then, when I expected her to dash onwards, and was already preparing to fling myself from the saddle, she stood stock still, trembling all over, and snorting with fear at the danger around her. At the same instant, a hard-featured old fellow popped his head up from amid the tall fern which he had been cutting for thatch for his cabin, and looked at me, not the slightest sign of astonishment in his cold, rigid countenance. “'Ye 'll no get back so easy, my bonnie mon,' said he, with the slightest possible approach to a smile. “'Get back! no, faith, I 'll not try it,' said I, looking at the yawning gulf, through which the wild waves boiled, and the opposite bank several feet higher than the ground I stood upon. “'I thought sae,' was the rejoinder; when, rising slowly, he leisurely walked round the mare, as she stood riveted by fear to the one spot. 'I 'll gie ye sax shilling for the hide o' her forbye the shoes,' added he, with a voice as imperturbable as though he were pricing the commonest commodity of a market. “I confess it was fortunate that the ludicrous was stronger in me at the moment than indignation, for if I had not laughed at him I might have done worse.” “I could not endure such a peasantry,” said Helen, as soon as the mirth the anecdote called forth had subsided. “It's quite true,” said Daly, “they have burlesqued Scotch prudence in the same way that the Anglo-Hibernian has travestied the Irish temperament. It is the danger of all imitators, they always transgress the limits of their model.”