"After breakfast I shall start for Bangor," said I.
"Do you propose to reach Bangor to-night, signore?"
"Yes," said I.
"Walking, signore?"
"Yes," said I; "I always walk in Wales."
"Then you will have rather a long walk, signore; for Bangor is
thirty-four miles from here."
I asked him if he was married.
"No, signore; but my brother in Liverpool is."
"To an Italian?"
"No, signore; to a Welsh girl."
"And I suppose," said I, "you will follow his example by marrying
one; perhaps that good-looking girl the landlady's daughter we were
seated with last night?"
"No, signore; I shall not follow my brother's example. If ever I
take a wife she shall be of my own village, in Como, whither I hope
to return, as soon as I have picked up a few more pounds."
"Whether the Austrians are driven away or not?" said I.
"Whether the Austrians are driven away or not - for to my mind
there is no country like Como, signore."
I ordered breakfast; whilst taking it in the room above I saw
through the open window the Italian trudging forth on his journey,
a huge box on his back, and a weather-glass in his hand - looking
the exact image of one of those men, his country people, whom forty
years before I had known at N-. I thought of the course of time,
sighed and felt a tear gather in my eye.
My breakfast concluded, I paid my bill, and after inquiring the way
to Bangor, and bidding adieu to the kind landlady and her daughter,
set out from Cerrig y Drudion. My course lay west, across a flat
country, bounded in the far distance by the mighty hills I had seen
on the preceding evening. After walking about a mile I overtook a
man with a game leg, that is a leg which, either by nature or
accident not being so long as its brother leg, had a patten
attached to it, about five inches high, to enable it to do duty
with the other - he was a fellow with red shock hair and very red
features, and was dressed in ragged coat and breeches and a hat
which had lost part of its crown, and all its rim, so that even
without a game leg he would have looked rather a queer figure. In
his hand he carried a fiddle.
"Good morning to you," said I.
"A good morning to your hanner, a merry afternoon and a roaring,
joyous evening - that is the worst luck I wish to ye."
"Are you a native of these parts?" said I.
"Not exactly, your hanner - I am a native of the city of Dublin,
or, what's all the same thing, of the village of Donnybrook, which
is close by it."
"A celebrated place," said I.
"Your hanner may say that; all the world has heard of Donnybrook,
owing to the humours of its fair.
