As I sprang to my feet in the gig, the driver slid down to the mat, and lay there in a heap, moaning. 'Are you hurt?' I asked, as I strove to get the reins out of his palsied hands.
'I'm kilt, kilt intirely!' he moaned.
'Aisy now, aisy there, your honour!' cried a voice from behind the hedge just as I had gained the reins. 'It's all a mistake, your honour, all a mistake!'
'Give the mare the whip! give the mare the whip!' cried the driver, as he strove to crawl under the seat; 'we'll all be murthered!'
Instead of taking his advice, however, I held the mare steady, while a man pressed through the thin hedge and stood before us, a yet smoking gun on his shoulder.
'What's the meaning of this?' I asked coolly, for the new-comer's coolness affected me. 'Did you want to murder a person you never saw before?'
'I'm raale downright sorry, your honour,' replied the man in just such a tone as he might have used had he trod upon my toe by accident; 'but ye see you're in Wolff O'Neil's gig, an' I took ye for him.—Where's that fellow Michael?'
As he said this, the man prodded the driver with the end of his gun, while I—I actually laughed outright at the strangeness of the affair.
'Go away with ye, go away!' moaned the driver. 'Murther! thaves! murther!'