vSV. Kildafrom Without. 93 



pulled up for fresh horses in the courtyard of a 

 change-house, standing between lake and forest. 

 The day's work was over. There was a noisy 

 gathering of men and women and children in the 

 yard, and the competition for the honour of driving 

 us the next stage was keen. 



A hulking fellow, in a sheepskin coat, in the 

 quarrelsome stage of drunkenness, took possession of 

 the box-seat of our carriage, and, refusing to give 

 way, was seized by two or three others and violently 

 ejected. As he rolled on the ground swearing, a boy, 

 laughing and singing at the top of his voice, jumped 

 up and slashed the ponies. The picture which we 

 looked back upon, as we started at a gallop, followed 

 by the baggage-cart, driven by a girl, is as fresh in 

 the memory now as the day it was painted. 



The sun had just set. Wreaths of mist were 

 creeping up from the lake to the fir-trees which were 

 massed in purple against a sky of transparent green 

 and orange. In the middle of the inn-yard raged 

 our friend, driving all before him as he hit right and 

 left with a big salmon, snatched dripping from a 

 pickling-tub, gripped with both hands by the tail. 



Formidable enough as is a salmon as a club, it is 

 nothing to a sturgeon, with its chains of diamond- 

 shaped pyramids of outside bone the last survivor, 

 in European waters, of the mail-clad ganoids which 

 struggled for existence among the crocodiles and 

 flying monsters of a primitive world, and no wonder 

 Muiream's poor husband, when carried into his master's 

 presence to tell his story, was more dead than alive. 



But he had not to wait long for his revenge. 



The same night the lady crossed alone in a boat to 

 Ireland, and, surprising the camp, killed the king's 

 son and a hundred of his warriors, before her passion 



