of your--"

"You need n't curse the horse, anyhow," interposed Rabbitskin, while
with a significant glance at his friends around him, he slyly intimated
that it would be as well to adjourn the debate,--a motion as quickly
obeyed as it was mooted; for in less than five minutes Craggs was
standing beside the quay, with no other companion than a blind
beggar-woman, who, perfectly regardless of his distress, continued
energetically to draw attention to her own.

"A little fivepenny bit, my lord--the last trifle your honor's glory
has in the corner of your pocket, that you 'll never miss, and that 'll
sweeten ould Molly's tay to-night? There, acushla, have pity on 'the
dark,' and that you may see glory--"

But Craggs did not wait for the remainder, but, deep in his own
thoughts, sauntered down towards the village. Already had the others
retreated within their homes; and now all was dark and cheerless along
the little straggling street.

"And this is a Christian country!--this a land that people tell you
abounds in kindness and good-nature!" said he, in an accent of sarcastic
bitterness.

"And who'll say the reverse?" answered a voice from behind, and,
turning, he beheld the little hunchbacked fellow who carried the mail on
foot from Oughterard, a distance of sixteen miles, over a mountain, and
who was popularly known as "Billy the Bag," from the little leather sack
which seemed to form part of his attire. "Who 'll stand up and tell
me it's not a fine country in every sense,--for natural beauties, for
antiquities, for elegant men and lovely females, for quarries of marble
and mines of gould?"

Craggs looked contemptuously at the figure who thus declaimed of
Ireland's wealth and grandeur, and, in a sneering tone, said,--

"And with such riches on every side, why do you go barefoot--why are you
in rags, my old fellow?"

"Is n't there poor everywhere? If the world was all gould and silver,
what would be the precious metals--tell me that? Is it because there's
a little cripple like myself here, that them mountains yonder is n't of
copper and iron and cobalt? Come over with me after I lave the bags at
the office, and I 'll show you bits of every one I speak of."

"I'd rather you'd show me a doctor, my worthy fellow," said Craggs,
sighing.

"I'm the nearest thing to that same going," replied Billy. "I can
breathe a vein against any man in the barony. I can't say, that for
any articular congestion of the aortic valves,