His hair was black, as were a pair of large whiskers, that covered the greater portion of his face, and nearly met at his chin.

His arms and limbs were powerfully made, and what is not always the case in muscular men, they betokened great activity as well as unusual strength.

Nobody, for instance, would look without astonishment at the ease with which he swung a pack, that was weighty enough to load an ass, over his shoulder, or the lightness and agility with which he trotted on under it from morning till night, and this during the very severest heat of summer.
M'Carthy, on reaching O'Driscol's the night before, had come to the conclusion of not making any allusion whatsoever to the incident which had just occurred to him.

O'Driscol, who was only a newly-fledged magistrate, would, he knew, have made it the ground-work of a fresh communication to government, or to his friend the Castle, as he called it, especially as he had many other circumstances of less importance since his elevation to the magistracy.

One indeed would imagine that the peace and welfare of that portion of the country had been altogether left to his sole and individual management, and that nothing at all of any consequence could get on properly in it without his co-operation or interference in some way.