As for the stranger, he took little notice of those whom they met, be their rank of position in life what it might; his eye was seldom off the country on each side of him as they went along.  It is true, when they passed a village or small market-town, he glanced into the houses as if anxious to ascertain the habits and comforts of the humbler classes.  Sometimes he could catch a glimpse of them sitting around a basket of potatoes and salt, their miserable-looking faces lit by the dim light of a rush-candle into the ghastly paleness of spectres.  Again, he could catch glimpses of greater happiness; and if, on the one hand, the symptoms of poverty and distress were visible, on the other there was the jovial comfort of the wealthy farmer’s house, with the loud laughter of its contented inmates.  Nor must we omit the songs which streamed across the fields, in the calm stillness of the hour, intimating that they who sang them were in possession, at all events, of light, if not of happy hearts.

As the night advanced, however, all these sounds began gradually to die away.  Nature and labor required the refreshment of rest, and, as the coach proceeded at its steady pace, the varied evidences of waking life became few and far between.  One after another the lights, both near and at a distance, disappeared.  The roads became silent and solitary, and the villages, as they passed through them, were sunk in repose, unless, perhaps, where some sorrowing family were kept awake by the watchings that were necessary at the bed of sickness or death, as was evident by the melancholy steadiness of the lights, or the slow, cautious motion by which they glided from one apartment to another.

The moon had now been for some time up, and the coach had just crossed a bridge that was known to be exactly sixteen miles from the town of which the stranger had made inquiries.

“I think,” said the latter, addressing the guard, “we are about sixteen miles from Ballytrain.”

“You appear to know the neighborhood, sir,” replied the guard.

“I have asked you a question, sir,” replied the other, somewhat sternly, “and, instead of answering it, you ask me another.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied the guard, smiling, “it’s the custom of the country.  Yes, sir, we’re exactly sixteen miles from Ballytrain—­that bridge is the mark.  It’s a fine country, sir, from this to that—­”

“Now, my good fellow,” replied the stranger, “I ask it as a particular favor that you will not open your lips to me until we reach the town, unless I ask you a question.  On that condition I will give you a half-a-crown when we get there.”

The fellow put his hand to his lips, to hint that he was mute, and nodded, but spoke not a word, and the coach proceeded in silence.