el spire of the little village we had just left. It
was for once a beautiful day, but we felt that we must reach a railway
station some time or other, in order to find a place to sleep.

"Can't you make her go a bit faster? Do you want to keep us on the road
all night?" inquired Francesca.

"I do not, your ladyship's honour, ma'am."

"Is she tired, or doesn't she ever go any better?" urged Salemina.

"She does; it's God's truth I'm tellin' ye, melady, she's that flippant
sometimes that I scarcely can hould her, and the car jumps undher her
like a spring bed."

"Then what on earth IS the matter with her?" I inquired, with some fire
in my eye.

"Sure I believe she's takin' time to think of the iligant load she's
carryin', melady, and small blame to her!" said Mr. Barney O'Mara; and
after that we let him drive as best he could, although it did take us
four hours to do nine Irish miles. He came, did Mr. Barney, from County
Armagh, and he beguiled the way with interesting tales from that
section of Ireland, one of which, 'the Old Crow and the Young Crow,'
particularly took our fancies.

"An old crow was teaching a young crow one day, and says to him, 'Now,
my son,' says he, 'listen to the advice I'm going to give you,' says he.
'If you see a person coming near you and stooping, mind yourself, and be
on your keeping; he's stooping for a stone to throw at you,' says he.

"'But tell me,' says the young crow, 'what should I do if he had a stone
already down in his pocket?' says he.

"'Musha, go 'long out of that,' says the old crow, 'you've learned
enough; the divil another learning I'm able to give you.'"

He was a perfect honey-pot of useless and unreliable information, was
Barney O'Mara, and most learned in fairy lore; but for that matter, all
the people walking along the road, the drivers, the boatman and guides,
the men and women in the cottages where we stop in a shower or to
inquire the way, relate stories of phookas, leprehauns, and sprites,
banshees and all the various classes of elves and fays, as simply and
seriously as they would speak of any other occurrences. Barney told
us gravely of the old woman who was in the habit of laying pishogues
(charms) to break the legs of his neighbour's cattle, because of an
ancient grudge she bore him; and also how necessary it is to put a bit
of burning turf under the churn to prevent the phookas, or mischievous
fairies, from abstracting the butter or spoiling the churnin