“That must have been a melancholy evening for him, for he sent for old Rogers, the attorney, and after he was measured for breeches and boots, he made his will and disposed of his effects, 'For there's no knowing,' said he, 'what 176 may do for me.' Rogers did his best to persuade him off the excursion,—
“'Dress up one of Dycer's fellows like you; let him go by the Lord-Lieutenant prancing and rearing, and then you yourself can appear on the ground, all splashed and spurred, half an hour after.'
“'No,' says my grandfather, 'I 'll go myself.'
“For so it is, there 's no denying, when a man has got ambition in his heart it puts pluck there. Well, eleven o'clock came, and the whole of Abbey Street was on foot to see my grandfather; there was n't a window had n't five or six faces in it, and every blackguard in the town was there to see him go off, just as if it was a show.
“'Bad luck to them,' says my grandfather; 'I wish they had brought the horse round to the stable-yard, and let me get up in peace.'
“And he was right there,—for the stirrup, when my grandfather stood beside the horse, was exactly even with his chin; but somehow, with the help of the two clerks and the book-keeper and the office stool, he got up on his back with as merry a cheer as ever rung out to welcome him, while a dirty blackguard, with two old pocket-handkerchiefs for a pair of breeches, shouted out, 'Old Dempsey's going to get an appetite for the oysters!'
“Considering everything, 176 behaved very well; he did n't plunge, and he did n't kick, and my grandfather said, 'Providence was kind enough not to let him rear!' but somehow he wouldn't go straight but sideways, and kept lashing his long tail on my grandfather's legs and sometimes round his body, in a way that terrified him greatly, till he became used to it.
“'Well, if riding be a pleasure,' says my grandfather, 'people must be made different from me.'
“For, saving your favor, ma'am, he was as raw as a griskin, and there was n't a bit of him the size of a half-crown he could sit on without a cry-out; and no other pace would the beast go but this little jig-jig, from side to side, while he was tossing his head and flinging his mane about, just as if to say, 'Could n't I pitch you sky-high if I liked? Could n't I make a Congreve-rocket of you, Dodd and Dempsey?'
“When he got on the 'Fifteen Acres,' it was only the position he found himself in that destroyed the grandeur of the scene; for there were fifty thousand people assembled at least, and there was a line of infantry of two miles long, and the artillery was drawn up at one end, and the cavalry stood beyond them, stretching away towards Knockmaroon.