MARTIN RATTLER. 267

excitement of the moment he shouted in a stentorian
voice, “Clap on all sail! dye hear? Stun-sails and
sky-scrapers! Kape her steady! Hooray!”

It was well for Barney that he had seized the
saddle. Even as it was he received a tremendous
blow from the horse’s head as it took the leap and
was thrown back on its haunches when it cleared the
ditch, which it did nobly.

“Hallo, old boy! not hurt, I hope,” said Martin,
suppressing his laughter as his comrade scrambled on
to the saddle. “ You travel about on the back of
your horse at full gallop like a circus rider.”

“Whist, darlint, I do belave he has damaged my
faygur-head. What a nose I’ve got! Sure I can see
it mesilf without squintin’.”

“So you have, Barney. It’s a little swelled, but
never mind. We must all learn by experience, you
know. So come along.”

“ Hould on, ye spalpeen, till I git my wind!”

But Martin was off again at full speed, and Barney’s
horse, scorning to be left behind, took the bit again
in its teeth and went—as he himself expressed it—
“sereamin’ before the wind.” A new sensation is not
always and necessarily an agreeable thing. Martin
and Barney found it so on the evening of that same

day, as they reclined (they could not sit) by the side