When we had finished our journey for the day, I was glad to find a tolerable bed; and never did man enjoy such a luxury of sweet sleep as I did that night. My old companion, too, evinced an attention to me seldom experienced in an accidental traveller. She made them get down water and bathe my feet, and asked me at what hour I would set out in the morning, telling me that she would see my clothes brushed, and everything done herself--so minute was the honest creature in her little attentions. I told her I would certainly take a nap in the morning, as I had slept so little for the last three nights, and was besides so fatigued. “Musha to be sure, and why not, agra! afther the hard bout you had in that blessed Island! betoken that you're tinder and too soft rared to bear it like them that the work hardens; sleep!--to be sure you'll sleep your fill--you want it, in coorse; and now go to bed, and you'll appear quite another man in the mornin', plaise God!” I did not awake the next morning till ten o'clock, when I found the sun shining full into the room. I accordingly dressed myself partially, and I say partially--for I was rather surprised to find an unexpected chasm in my wardrobe; neither my hat, coat, nor waistcoat being forthcoming. But I immediately made myself easy, by supposing that my kind companion had brought them to be brushed. Yet I relapsed into something more than surprise when I saw my fellow-traveler's redoubtable jacket lying on the seat of a chair, and her hare's-skin cap on the top of it. My misgivings now were anything but weak; nor was I at all improved, either in my religion or philosophy, when, on calling up the landlady I heard that my two companions had set out that morning at four o'clock. I then inquired about my clothes, but all to no purpose; the poor landlady knew nothing about them: which, in fact, was the case; but she told me that the old one brushed them before she went away, saying that they were ready for me to put on whenever I wanted them. “Well,” said I, “she has made another man of me.” The landlady desired me to try if I had my purse; and I found that the kind creature had certainly spared my purse, but showed no mercy at all to what it contained, which was one pound in paper, and a few shillings in silver, the latter, however, she left me. I had now no alternative but to don the jacket and the hare's-skin cap, which when I had done, with as bad a grace and as mortified a visage as ever man dressed himself with, I found I had not the slightest encouragement to throw my eye over the uniform gravity of my appearance, as I used to do in the black, for, alas! that which I was proudest of, viz. the clerical cut which it bestowed upon me was fairly gone--I had now more the appearance of a poacher than a priest. [Illustration: PAGE 818-- In this trim did I return to my friends]