“This is a very lonely spot, your honor,” said his servant, whose name was Andrew, or, as he was more familiarly called, Andy Cummiskey.

“Yes, but it’s the safer, Andy,” replied his master.  “There is not a human habitation within miles of us.”

“It doesn’t follow, sir, that this place, above all others in the neighborhood, is not, especially at this hour, without some persons about it.  You know I’m no coward, sir.”

“What, you scoundrel! and do you mean to hint that I’m one?”

“Not at all, sir; but you see the truth is, that, this being the very hour for duck and wild-fowl shootin’, it’s hard to say where or when a fellow might start up, and mistake me for a wild duck, and your honor for a curlew or a bittern.”

He had no sooner spoken than the breeze started, as it were, into more vigorous life, and ere the space of many minutes a dark impenetrable mist or fog was borne over from the solitary hills across the dreary level of country through which they passed, and they felt themselves suddenly chilled, whilst a darkness, almost palpable, nearly concealed them from each other.  Now the roads which we have described, being almost without exception in remote and unfrequented parts of the country, are for the most part covered over with a thick sole of close grass, unless where a narrow strip in the centre shows that a pathway is kept worn, and distinctly marked by the tread of foot-passengers.  Under all these circumstances, then, our readers need not feel surprised that, owing at once to the impenetrable obscurity around them, and the noiseless nature of the antique and grass-covered pavement over which they went, scarcely a distance of two hundred yards had been gained when they found, to their dismay,’ that they had lost their path, and were in one of the wild and heathy stretches of unbounded moor by which they were surrounded.

“We have lost our way, Andy,” observed his master.  “We’ve got off that damned old path; what’s to be done? where are you?”

“I’m here, sir,” replied his man; “but as for what’s to be done, it would take Mayo Mullen, that sees the fairies and tells fortunes, to tell us that.  For heaven’s sake, stay where you are, sir, till I get up to you, for if we part from one another, we’re both lost.  Where are you, sir?”

“Curse you, sirra,” replied his master angrily, “is this either a time or place to jest in?  A man that would make a jest in such a situation as this would dance on his father’s tombstone.”

“By my soul, sir, and I’d give a five-pound note, if I had it, that you and I were dancing ‘Jig Polthogue’ on it this minute.  But, in the mane time, the devil a one o’ me sees the joke your honor speaks of.”

“Why, then, do you ask me where I am, when you know I’m astray, that we’re both astray, you snivelling old whelp?  By the great and good King William, I’ll be lost, Andy!”

“Well, and even if you are, sir,” replied Andy, who, guided by his voice, had now approached and joined him; “even if you are, sir, I trust you’ll bear it like a Christian and a Trojan.”