d with extreme surprise--

"Well, if it ain't a post-chaise!"

"Oh! that's nothing extraordinary," said Dick; "common enough here."

"How do you mean?"

"We've a custom here of running steeple-chases in post-chaises."

"Oh, thank you," said Furlong. "Come, that's _too_ good."

"You don't believe it, I see," said Dick. "But you did not believe the
salmon-fishing till you saw it."

"Oh, come now! How the deuce could you leap a ditch in a post-chaise?"

"I never said we leaped ditches; I only said we rode steeple-chases. The
system is this:--You go for a given point, taking high road, by-road,
plain, or lane, as the case may be, making the best of your way how you
can. Now our horses in this country are celebrated for being good
swimmers, so it's a favourite plan to shirk a bridge sometimes by
swimming a river."

"But no post-chaise will float," said Furlong, regularly arguing against
Dick's mendacious absurdity.

"Oh! we are prepared for that here. The chaises are made light, have
cork bottoms, and all the solid work is made hollow; the doors are made
water tight, and, if the stream runs strong, the passenger jumps out and
swims."

"But that's not fair," said Furlong; "it alters the weight."

"Oh! it's allowed on both sides," said Dick, "so it's all the same.
It's as good for the goose as the gander."

"I wather imagine it is much fitter for geese and ganders than human
beings. I know I should wather be a goose on the occasion."

All this time they were nearing the party on shore, and as the
post-chaise became more developed, so did the personages on the bank of
the river: and amongst these Dick Dawson saw Handy Andy in the custody
of two men, and Squire O'Grady shaking his fist in his face and storming
at him. How all this party came there, it is necessary to explain. When
Handy Andy had deposited Furlong at Merryvale, he drove back to pick up
the fallen postilion and his brother on the road; but before he reached
them, he had to pass a public-house--I say _had_ to pass--but he didn't.
Andy stopped, as every honourable postilion is bound to do, to drink the
health of the gentleman who gives him the last half-crown: and he was so
intent on "doing that same," as they say in Ireland, that Andy's driving
became very equivocal afterwards. In short, he drove the post-chaise
into the river; the horses got disentangled by kicking the traces (which
were very willing to break) into pieces; and Andy, by sticking to