BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 147 



driven with what cheer they might, after a day or 

 so spent in saiHng from Kingstown to Holyhead. 

 Many an Irish member thrilled here with inward 

 rehearsal of the peroration that should shake 

 Westminster ; many a grudging rebel eye looked 

 for the first time at the roadside life of a country 

 whose beauty would put Ireland on her mettle to 

 excel, whose careful tending showed national pride 

 in a form which probably had not before presented 

 itself to the rebel mind. Patriot or undergrad- 

 uate, genius or duellist, the best that Ireland 

 had to give swung along this road towards Lon- 

 don to the tune of sixteen hoofs ; the people 

 of no account stayed at home in those days, 

 and when genius travels nowadays, third class in 

 the North Wall train, it could wish that they still 

 did so. 



The spell of that older time hung unbroken on 

 the broad road, with the river soliloquising, deep- 

 throated, in the ravine ; the time when wind and 

 limb did the work in a primitive way, and every 

 stage saw the perfected relation of man and horse. 



