So it is with most car horses,—let alone they would stand quietly; grabbed at by the driver they plunge and shy. As far as our car is concerned it always comes at once to a dead halt if there is the smallest evidence of trouble. We did so, as I have stated, in this case, yet I have no doubt damage or blackmail will have to be paid. If this were not done and B. ever wanted to hunt over this country he would come to dire disaster, as our names and addresses were taken down by the policeman, and will never be forgotten but stored away to be remembered either in blessing or malediction according as we pay or not.
This being a rented car the owners assume all such risks, and on reaching Dublin we learn that a claim for twenty-five pounds has already been presented, the value of the beast having increased by leaps and bounds, and I doubt not before the year is out will have passed that of the winner of the Derby.
I should like to have been at the trial if it came to that, if only to count the witnesses that would have sprung up by the dozens, undoubtedly proving in the end that the old man was driving two horses to that jaunting-car and that our appearance killed them both.
The day after that occurrence the driver of a cow deliberately placed her in our pathway in hopes that we would kill her, but he reckoned without our brakes, which stopped the car not a foot from the cow. Her owner laughed in a stupid, leering fashion as we rolled away.
After the death of the poor old horse, which no one could have regretted more than we did, nothing occurred during the ride to Dublin.
As we approach the city, the highways are of greater width and in better condition, though most of the Irish roads are good. There are motor-cars flying in all directions now and ours catching the disease skims along like a bird, and quite as noiselessly, until the pavements and narrower streets of the city force a reduction of speed, and even then the rate is more rapid than I like.
Photo by W. Leonard