To an Irish person bred and born there is no more delightful mode of locomotion than this same jaunting car, but people fresh to the Emerald Isle sometimes fail to appreciate its merits.
The jaunting car requires an easy and yet an assured seat. No clutching at the rails, no faint suspicion on the countenance of its occupant that there is the least chance of being knocked off at the next abrupt turn of the road, or the next violent jolt of the equipage. You must sit on the jaunting car as you would on your horse's back, as if you belonged to it, as the saying goes.
Now, strangers to Ireland have not this assured seat, and although Janet was too clever and too well bred to show a great deal of the nervousness she really felt, she could not help clinging frantically to the rail at the end of her side, and her small face was somewhat pale, and her lips tightly set. She had maneuvered hard for this invitation, she had won her cause, all had gone well with her; but this awful, bumping, skittish rollicking car might after all prove her destruction. What a wild horse drew this terrible car! What a reckless looking coachman aided and abetted all his efforts at rushing and flying over the ground! Oh, why did they dash down that steep hill? why did they whisk round this sudden corner? She must grasp the rail of her seat still tighter. She would not fall off, if nerve and courage could possibly keep her on; but would they do so?
Janet had plenty of real pluck, but poor Sophy was naturally a coward. They had not gone a mile on the road before she began to scream most piteously.
"I won't stay on this awful, barbarous thing another minute," she shrieked. "I shall be dashed to pieces, my brains will be knocked out. Janet, Janet, I say, Janet, if you don't get the driver to stop at once I'll jump off."
"Oh, there aint the least soight of fear," said Larry, whisking his head back in Sophy's direction with a contemptuous and yet good-humored twinkle in his eyes.
"I can't stay on; you must pull the horse up," shrieked the frightened girl. "I can't keep my seat; I am slipping off, I tell you I am slipping off. I'll be on the road in another minute."
"Here then, Pat, you stay quiet, you baste," said Larry.
He pulled the spirited little horse up, until he nearly stood on his haunches, then, jumping down himself, came up to Sophy's side.
"What's the matter, miss?" he said; "why, this is the very safest little kyar in the county. You just sit aisy, miss, and don't hould on, and you will soon take foine to the motion."