"There's no fear o' you, sir," said Micky, "it's a friend o' my own."
Mr. Furlong was not quite satisfied that he was therefore the safer.
"And what is it at all, Andy?" continued Mick.
"I tell you there's a man lying dead in the road here, and sure you'll kill him, if you dhrive over him."
"How could I kill him any more than he is kilt," says Mick, "if he's dead already?"
"Well, no matther for that," says Andy. "'Light off your horse, will you, and help me to rise him?"
Mick dismounted, and assisted Andy in lifting the prostrate man from the centre of the road to the slope of turf which bordered its side. They judged he was not dead, however, from the warmth of the body; but that he should still sleep seemed astonishing, considering the quantity of shaking and kicking they gave him.
"I b'lieve it's drunk he is," said Mick.
"He gave a grunt that time," said Andy; "shake him again, and he'll spake."
To a fresh shaking the drunken man at last gave some tokens of returning consciousness, by making several winding blows at his benefactors, and uttering some half-intelligent maledictions.