Willy Reilly

active judge a little before the close of the last century.

W. Carleton.

Dublin, December, 1856.

CHAPTER I.

--An Adventure and an Escape.

Spirit of George Prince Regent James, Esq., forgive me this commencement! *

* I mean no offence whatsoever to this distinguished and multitudinous writer; but the commencement of this novel really resembled that of so many of his that I was anxious to avoid the charge of imitating him.

It was one evening at the close of a September month and a September day that two equestrians might be observed passing along one of those old and lonely Irish roads that seemed, from the nature of its construction, to have been paved by a society of antiquarians, if a person could judge from its obsolete character, and the difficulty, without risk of neck or limb, of riding a horse or driving a carriage along it. Ireland, as our English readers ought to know, has always been a count