If ever I take a wife she shall be of my own village, in Como, whither I hope to return, as soon as I have picked up a few more pounds." "Whether the Austrians are driven away or not ?" said I.
"Whether the Austrians are driven away or not--for to my mind there is no country like Como, signore." I ordered breakfast; whilst taking it in the room above I saw through the open window the Italian trudging forth on his journey, a huge box on his back, and a weather-glass in his hand--looking the exact image of one of those men, his country people, whom forty years before I had known at N---.

I thought of the course of time, sighed and felt a tear gather in my eye.
My breakfast concluded, I paid my bill, and after inquiring the way to Bangor, and bidding adieu to the kind landlady and her daughter, set out from Cerrig y Drudion.

My course lay west, across a flat country, bounded in the far distance by the mighty hills I had seen on the preceding evening.

After walking about a mile I overtook a man with a game leg, that is a leg which, either by nature or accident not being so long as its brother leg, had a patten attached to it, about five inches high, to enable it to do duty with the other--he was a fellow with red shock hair and very red features, and was dressed in ragged coat and breeches and a hat which had lost part of its crown, and all its rim, so that even without a game leg he would have looked rather a queer figure.
In his hand he carried a fiddle.
"Good morning to you," said I.
"A good morning to your hanner, a merry afternoon and a roaring, joyous evening--that is the worst luck I wish to ye." "Are you a native of these parts ?" said I.
"Not exactly, your hanner--I am a native of the city of Dublin, or, what's all the same thing, of the village of Donnybrook, which is close by it." "A celebrated place," said I.
"Your hanner may say that; all the world has heard of Donnybrook, owing to the humours of its fair.

Many is the merry tune I have played to the boys at that fair." "You are a professor of music, I suppose ?" "And not a very bad one, as your hanner will say, if you allow me to play you a tune." "Can you play Croppies Lie Down ?" "I cannot, your hanner, my fingers never learnt to play such a blackguard tune; but if you wish to hear Croppies Get Up I can oblige ye." "You are a Roman Catholic, I suppose ?" "I am not, your hanner--I am a Catholic to the back-bone, just like my father before me.