216 A YEAR OF liberty; oe, 



there is the best brook of its size in the kingdom to be found at 

 Tyrena. 



Except my landlord, a more melancholy gentleman than myself 

 that night never laid his head on the pillow ; nevertheless, worn out 

 with a long and rather laborious day, I soon fell asleep. After a 

 while Queen Mab drove her dreamy chariot through my brain. I 

 was in an auction mart, and constrained by some mysterious 

 influence to bid frantically for every lot. Nine gorgeous parrot 

 cages were knocked down to me. A tenement in Bow Street next 

 became mine, under a penalty of lOOZ. per annum if I failed to 

 reside therein seven months in each year. Then I was made the 

 happy possessor of a cradle and four children's cots. How wretched 

 I felt. Parrots were my aversion ; an enforced residence in Bow 

 Street was an abomination ; and what had I to do with babies ? I 

 could not have held, far less have nursed, one to save my life. 

 But another lot is up. Hark at that remorseless " Going, going, 

 gone!" "With that light rap the nightmare agony reached its 

 climax, and I awoke. What can that noise be ? There was a sound 

 as if twenty thousand hammers were beating the uncomplaining 

 earth. Intelligence slowly returned. Can it be ? Yes ; now I 

 recognise the well-known sound. It is it is a perfect deluge of 

 rain. Eagerly I struck a light ; only three ff.m. How the torrent 

 poured and poured. There was not an air ; nothing but one dull 

 and incessant thud thud thud. If I lit one match in the next 

 hour and a half, I lit ten. At last the long hand stood at six, and 

 the short hand midway between four and five ; and then, springing 

 out of bed, I dressed at full speed, hurried down stairs, and so out 

 into the dawn and the rain. Not a soul was stirring ; the ducks 

 and I had the whole of the steep street to ourselves. The Beltra, 

 so pellucid last evening, was now dark and turbid, and two rival 

 torrents were leaping and foaming down either side of the street. 

 But rain is a fisherman's fine weather ; trusty boots and an oiled 

 coat formed garments of proof ; and I was as much at ease under 

 the pitiless pelting as my web-footed companions. No Irish village 

 wants either horse or car, yet now I looked in vain for an announce- 



