This, however, is generally the case when a man combines in his own person the united qualities of activity and strength.

Even at the period we are describing, when this once celebrated character was forty years of age, it was well known that in fleetness of foot there was no man in the province able to compete with him.

In athletic exercises that required strength and skill he never had a rival, but one--with whom the reader will soon be made acquainted.

He was wrapped loosely in a gray frieze big-coat, or _cothamore_, as it is called in Irish--wore a hat of two colors, and so pliant in texture that he could at any time turn it inside out.

His coat was--as indeed were all his clothes--made upon the time principle, so that when hard pressed by the authorities he could in a minute or two transmute himself into the appearance of a nun very different from the individual described to them.