as our
fathers--better gentlemen, as he called them, and more hospitable fellows
than any of us--had got on without steam-mowing and threshing, and
bone-crushing, he thought we might farm our properties without being either
blacksmiths or stokers.

'God help us,' he would say, 'I suppose we'll be chewing our food by steam
one of these days, and filling our stomachs by hydraulic pressure. But for
my own part, I like something to work for me that I can swear at when it
goes wrong. There's little use in cursing a cylinder.'

To have heard him amongst his labourers that morning, it was plain to see
that they were not in the category of machinery. On one pretext or another,
however, they had slunk away one by one, so that at last he found himself
storming alone in a stubble-field, with no other companion than one of
Kate's terriers. The sharp barking of this dog aroused him in the midst of
his imprecations, and looking over the dry-stone wall that inclosed the
field, he saw a horseman coming along at a sharp canter, and taking the
fences as they came like a man in a hunting-field. He rode well, and was
mounted upon a strong wiry hackney--a cross-bred horse, and of little money
value, but one of those active cats of horseflesh that a knowing hand can
appreciate. Now, little as Kearney liked the liberty of a man riding over
his ditches and his turnips when out of hunting season, his old love of
good horsemanship made him watch the rider with interest and even pleasure.
'May I never!' muttered he to himself, 'if he's not coming at this wall.'
And as the inclosure in question was built of large jagged stones, without
mortar, and fully four feet in height, the upper course being formed of a
sort of coping in which the stones stood edgewise, the attempt did look
somewhat rash. Not taking the wall where it was slightly breached, and
where some loose stones had fallen, the rider rode boldly at one of the
highest portions, but where the ground was good on either side.

'He knows what he's at!' muttered Kearney, as the horse came bounding over
and alighted in perfect safety in the field.

'Well done! whoever you are,' cried Kearney, delighted, as the rider
removed his hat and turned round to salute him.

'And don't you know me, sir?' asked he.

''Faith, I do not,' replied Kearney; 'but somehow I think I know the
chestnut. To be sure I do. There's the old mark on her knee, how ever she
found the man who could throw her down. Isn't