Winthrop silently motioned him on, for in spite of weakness of body and weariness of spirit he felt too nervously inclined to laugh, to trust his mouth with any demonstrations.  Michael and the wheelbarrow went on ahead and he followed, both taking the middle of the street where the ice was somewhat broken up, for on the sidewalk there was no safety for anybody.  Indeed safety anywhere needed to be cared for.  And every now and then some involuntary movement of Michael and the barrow, together with some equally unlooked-for exclamation of the former, by way of comment or explanation, startled Winthrop’s eye and ear, and kept up the odd contrast of the light with the heavy in his mind’s musings.  It had ceased to rain, but the sky was as leaden grey as ever, and still left its own dull look on all below it.  Winthrop’s walk along the streets was a poor emblem of his mind’s travelling at the time; —­ a painful picking the way among difficulties, a struggle to secure a footing where foothold there was not; the uncertain touch and feeling of a cold and slippery world.  All true, —­ not more literally than figuratively.  And upon this would come, with a momentary stop and push forward of the wheelbarrow, —­

“’Faith, it’s asier going backwards nor for’ards! —­ Which way will I turn, yer honour? is it up or down?”

“Straight ahead.”

“Och, but I’d rather the heaviest wheeling that ever was invinted, sooner nor this little slide of a place. —­ Here we go! —­ Och, stop us! —­ Och, but the little carriage has taken me to itself intirely.  It was all I could do to run ahint and keep up wid the same.  Would there be much more of the hills to go down, yer honour, the way we’re going?”

“I don’t know.  Keep in the middle of the street.”

“Sure I’m blessed if I can keep any place!” said Michael, whose movements were truly so erratic and uncertain that Winthrop’s mood of thoughtfulness was more than once run down by them. —­ “The trunk’s too weighty for me, yer honour, —­ it will have its own way and me after it —­ here we go! —­ Och, it wouldn’t turn out if it was for an angel itself.  Maybe yer honour wouldn’t go ahead and stop it?”

“No chance, I’m afraid,” said Winthrop, whose mouth was twitching at the trot of the Irishman’s feet after the wheelbarrow.

“Och, but we’ll never get down there!” he said as he paused at the top of a long slope.  “Then I never knew before what a hard time the carriage has to go after the horses!  We’ll never get down there, yer honour?”

“Never’s a great word, Michael.”

“It is, sir!”

“I think you can get down there if you try.”

“Very well, sir! —­ I suppose I will.”

But he muttered Irish blessings or cursings to himself as he took up his trowsers and wheelbarrow handles again.

“Yer honour, do ye think we’ll ever keep on our feet till the bottom?”

“If you don’t come down the wheelbarrow won’t, I think, Michael.”