“Then I suppose we’ll both be to come,” said the man resignedly.  “Yer honour’ll consider the bad way, I expict.”

‘His honour’ had reason to remember it.  They were going down Bank St., where the fall of ground was rather rapid, and the travel of the morning had not yet been enough to break up the smooth glare of the frozen sleet.  The Irishman and the barrow got upon a run, the former crying out, “Och, it will go, yer honour!” —­ and as it would go, it chose its own course, which was to run full tilt against a cart which stood quietly by the sidewalk.  Neither Michael’s gravity nor that of the wheelbarrow could stand the shock.  Both went over, and the unlucky trunk was tumbled out into the middle of the street.  But the days when the old trunk could have stood such usage were long past.  The hasp and hinge gave way, the cover sprang, and many a thing they should have guarded from public eyes flew or rolled from its hiding place out upon the open street.

Winthrop from higher ground had beheld the overthrow, and knew what he must find when he got to the bottom.  Two or three pair of the socks little Winnie had knitted for him had bounced out and scattered themselves far and wide, one even reaching the gutter.  Some sheets of manuscript lay ingloriously upon the wheelbarrow or were getting wet on the ice.  One nicely “done up” shirt was hopelessly done for; and an old coat had unfolded itself upon the pavement, and was fearlessly telling its own and its master’s condition to all the passersby.  Two or three books and several clean pockethandkerchiefs lay about indifferently, and were getting no good; an old shoe on the contrary seemed to be at home.  A paper of gingercakes, giving way to the suggestions of the brother shoe, had bestowed a quarter of its contents all abroad; and the open face of the trunk offered a variety of other matters to the curiosity of whom it might concern; the broken cover giving but very partial hindrance.

The Irishman had gathered himself, and himself only, out of the fallen condition in which all things were.

“Bad luck to the ould thing, then!” —­ was his sense of the matter.

“You needn’t wish that,” said Winthrop.

“Then, yer honour, I wouldn’t wish anything better to meself, if I could ha’ helped it.  If meself had been in the box, I couldn’t ha’ taken it more tinder, till we began to go, and then, plase yer honour, I hadn’t no hoult of anything at all at all.”

“Take hold now, then,” said Winthrop, “and set this up straight; and then see if you can get a sixpenny worth of rope anywhere.”

The man went off, and Winthrop gathered up his stray possessions from the street and the gutter and with some difficulty got them in their places again; and then stood mounting guard over the wheelbarrow and baggage until the coming of the rope; thinking perhaps how little he had to take care of and how strange it was there should be any difficulty in his doing it.