t without reluctance that the youth consented to this forlorn
hope, but he yielded at last; and so, with a bridle fastened round me
like a scarf, I was hoisted on the roof by Andy, and, under a volley of
encouraging expressions, exhorted to "go in and win."

"There! there, a cushla!" cried Andy, as he saw me performing the first
act of the piece with a vigor he had never calculated on; "'tis n't a
coach and six ye want to drive through. Tear and ages! ye'll take the
whole roof off." The truth was, I worked away with a malicious pleasure
in the destruction of the old miser's roof; nor is it quite certain
how far my zeal might have carried me, when suddenly one of the
rafters--mere light poles of ash--gave way, and down I went, at first
slowly, and then quicker, into a kind of funnel formed by the smashed
timbers and the earthen sods. The crash, the din, and the dust appeared
to have terrified the wicked beast below, for she stood trembling in one
corner of the stable, and never moved a limb as I walked boldly up and
passed the bridle over her head. This done, I had barely time to spring
on her back, when the door was forced open by the young gentleman, whose
fears for my fate had absorbed every other thought.

"Are you safe, my boy, quite safe?" he cried, making his way over the
fallen rubbish.

"Oh! the devil fear him," cried Andy, in a perfect rage of
passion; "I wish it was his bones was smashed, instead of the
roof-sticks--see!--Och, murther, only look at this." And Andy stood amid
the ruins, a most comical picture of affliction, in part real and in
part assumed. Meanwhile the youth had advanced to my side, and, with
many a kind and encouraging word, more than repaid me for all my danger.

"'T is n't five pound will pay the damage," cried Andy, running up on
his fingers a sum of imaginary arithmetic.

"Where's the saddle, you old--" What the young man was about to add, I
know not; but at a look from me he stopped short.

"Is it abusin' me you're for now, afther wrecking my house and
destroying my premises?" cried Andy, whose temper was far from sweetened
by the late catastrophe. "Sure what marcy my poor beast would get from
the likes of ye! sorry step she 'll go in yer company; pay the damages
ye done, and be off."

Here was a new turn of affairs, and, judging from the irascibility
of both parties, a most disastrous one; it demanded, indeed, all my
skill,--all the practised dexterity of a mind trained, as mine