"Is it the down mail ?" Not understanding the technical, I answered, "Of course not the Down--the Kilkenny and Cork mail." "From Dublin, sir ?" "Yes, from Dublin." "Not arrived yet, sir, nor will it for three quarters of an hour; they never leave Dublin till a quarter past seven; that is, in fact, half past, and their time here is twenty minutes to eleven." "Why, you stupid son of a boot-top, we have been posting on all night like the devil, and all this time the coach has been ten miles behind us." "Well, we've cotch them any how," said the urchin, as he disengaged himself from his wet saddle, and stood upon the ground; "and it is not my fault that the coach is not before us." With a satisfactory anathema upon all innkeepers, waiters, hostlers, and post-boys, with a codicil including coach-proprietors, I followed the smirking landlord into a well-lighted room, with a blazing fire, when having ordered supper, I soon regained my equanimity.
My rasher and poached eggs, all Naas could afford me, were speedily despatched, and as my last glass, from my one pint of sherry, was poured out, the long expected coach drew up.

A minute after the coachman entered to take his dram, followed by the guard; a more lamentable spectacle of condensed moisture cannot be conceived; the rain fell from the entire circumference of his broad-brimmed hat, like the ever-flowing drop from the edge of an antique fountain; his drab-coat had become a deep orange hue, while his huge figure loomed still larger, as he stood amid a nebula of damp, that would have made an atmosphere for the Georgium Sidus.
"Going on to-night, sir ?" said he, addressing me; "severe weather, and no chance of its clearing, but of course you're inside." "Why, there is very little doubt of that," said I.

"Are you nearly full inside ?" "Only one, sir; but he seems a real queer chap; made fifty inquiries at the office if he could not have the whole inside to himself, and when he heard that one place had been taken--your's, I believe, sir--he seemed like a scalded bear." "You don't know his name then ?" "No, sir, he never gave a name at the office, and his only luggage is two brown paper parcels, without any ticket, and he has them inside; indeed he never lets them from him even for a second." Here the guard's horn, announcing all ready, interrupted our colloquy, and prevented my learning any thing further of my fellow-traveller, whom, however, I at once set down in my own mind for some confounded old churl that made himself comfortable every where, without ever thinking of any one else's convenience.
As I passed from the inn door to the coach, I once more congratulated myself that I was about to be housed from the terrific storm of wind and rain that railed about.
"Here's the step, sir," said the guard, "get in, sir, two minutes late already." "I beg your pardon, sir," said I, as I half fell over the legs of my unseen companion.

"May I request leave to pass you ?" While he made way for me for this purpose, I perceived that he stooped down towards the guard, and said something, who from his answer had evidently been questioned as to who I was.

"And how did he get here, if he took his place in Dublin ?" asked the unknown.
"Came half an hour since, sir, in a chaise and four," said the guard, as he banged the door behind him, and closed the interview.
Whatever might have been the reasons for my fellow-traveller's anxiety about my name and occupation, I knew not, yet could not help feeling gratified at thinking that as I had not given my name at the coach office, I was a great a puzzle to him as he to me.
"A severe night, sir," said I, endeavouring to break ground in conversation.
"Mighty severe," briefly and half crustily replied the unknown, with a richness of brogue, that might have stood for a certificate of baptism in Cork or its vicinity.
"And a bad road too, sir," said I, remembering my lately accomplished stage.
"That's the reason I always go armed," said the unknown, clinking at the same moment something like the barrel of a pistol.
Wondering somewhat at his readiness to mistake my meaning, I felt disposed to drop any further effort to draw him out, and was about to address myself to sleep, as comfortably as I could.
"I'll jist trouble ye to lean aff that little parcel there, sir," said he, as he displaced from its position beneath my elbow, one of the paper packages the guard had already alluded to.
In complying with this rather gruff demand, one of my pocket pistols, which I carried in my breast pocket, fell out upon his knee, upon which he immediately started, and asked hurriedly--"and are you armed too ?" "Why, yes," said I, laughingly; "men of my trade seldom go without something of this kind." "Be gorra, I was just thinking that same," said the traveller, with a half sigh to himself.
Why he should or should not have thought so, I never troubled myself to canvass, and was once more settling myself in my corner, when I was startled by a very melancholy groan, which seemed to come from the bottom of my companion's heart.
"Are you ill, sir ?" said I, in a voice of some anxiety.
"You might say that," replied he--"if you knew who you were talking to -- although maybe you've heard enough of me, though you never saw me till now." "Without having that pleasure even yet," said I, "it would grieve me to think you should be ill in the coach." "May be it might," briefly replied the unknown, with a species of meaning in his words I could not then understand.