n my
own family I went by the name of the 'Bold Dragoon,' much to the
miscontentment of my father, who tried hard to bring me to a more
feminine habit of Body and frame of mind, both by affectionate
expostulation, and by assiduous larruping with a stirrup leather. But
'twas all of no use. At sixteen I was the greatest Tearcoat of the
Country side; and Father Macanasser, the village priest, gave it as his
opinion that I must either be married, or sent to Dublin into decent
service, or go to Ruination.

"It chanced that one fine summer day, I was gammocking in a hayfield
with another lass, a friend of mine, whom I had made almost as bold as
myself. We had a cudgel apiece, and were playing at single-stick, in our
mad-cap fashion, laughing and screaming like Bedlamites, meanwhile. Only
a hedge separated us from the high-road to Dublin, which ran up hill,
and by and by came toiling up the hill, sticking every other minute in a
rut, or jolting into a hole--for the roads were in infamous condition
about here, as, indeed, all over the kingdom of Ireland--a grand coach,
all over painting and gilding, drawn by six grey horses, with flowing
manes and tails. The two leading pair had postilions in liveries of blue
and silver, and great badges of coats-of-arms, and the equipage was
further attended by a couple of outriders or yeomen-prickers in the same
rich livery, but with cutlasses at their sides, petronels in their
holsters, and blunderbusses on their hips, to guard against Tories and
Rapparees, who then infested the land, and cared little whether it was
Daylight or Moonlight--whether it was in the Green tree or the Dry that
they went about their thievish business. The personage to whom this
grand coach belonged was a stout, Majestic old Gentleman with a
monstrous black periwig, a bright star on his breast, and a broad blue
ribbon crossing his plum-coloured velvet doublet. He had dismounted from
his heavy coach, while the horses were fagging up hill, and by the help
of a great crutch-staff of ebony, ornamented with silver, was toiling
after them. Hearing our prattling and laughing, he looked over the hedge
and saw us in the very thick of our mimic Combat. This seemed to divert
him exceedingly; and although we, seeing so grand a gentleman looking at
us, were for suspending our Tomfoolery, and stood, to say the truth,
rather shamefaced than otherwise among the haycocks, he bade us with
cheery and encouraging words to proceed, and l