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On the next evening they set out for Cool-a-vin, Costello riding a tolerable horse and carrying a sword, the others upon rough-haired garrons, and with their stout cudgels under their arms.
These animals belonged to a relation of the "Protector," who called them his own, and wished as a civility to sell the garrons at the highest possible price to his client. The caravan marched down a tortuous and difficult road, descending about four miles. It unloaded as evening drew near, and the travellers found at Gambagahh a good dormitory, a cave which kept out the rain.
'Here's out of it, sez I. 'Onnathural, sez he, musha cock him up, and himself shoein' ould garrons all the days of his life. Hi along, Rory, jewel!" But Hugh said, meditatively, and more than half to himself, which was rather a habit of his: "Well, now, for the matter of the fairin', it's just the best len'th of ribbon I can get thim to give me for a shillin'. Yella it's to be.
"The party saw nothing of the team or its owner until the dangerous road led into a narrow but deep ravine, at whose bottom an ill-made causeway led across a dangerous slough. "'Holy Virgin, boys, but he's been upset! There's the cart across the road, and one of the bastes in the wather; but where's the masther at all? Come on, b'ys; we'll thry and save the garrons any way.
He passed through the fierce and friendly peasant faces, and came where his good horse and the rough- haired garrons were tied to bushes; and mounted and bade his ungainly bodyguard mount also and ride into the narrow boreen.
He is a lucky man who never meets his match, Dirk. I shall give your love to the Enchanted Prince, my faithful serving-man, whom they call Martin Lightfoot." Dirk cursed the day he was born. Instead of the mare and colt, he had got the two wretched garrons which the stranger had left, and a face which made him so tender of his own teeth, that he never again offered to try a buffet with a stranger.
And equal to them superior even, if we recollect that they preserved their country's freedom for centuries against the superior force of England were those troops of Scots who, century after century, swept across the border on their little garrons, their bag of oatmeal hanging by the saddle, with the iron griddle whereon to bake it; careless of weather and of danger; men too swift to be exterminated, too independent to be enslaved.
The chatelain was away. What should he do? Hereward looked at the party, and saw, to his surprise, that they were Englishwomen, and two of them women of rank, to judge from the rich materials of their travel-stained and tattered garments. The ladies rode on sorry country garrons, plainly hired from the peasants who drove them.
So unsafe was the route across the Grampians, that persons who had occasion to travel it usually made their wills before setting out. Garrons, or little Highland ponies, were then used by the gentry as well as the peasantry.
And, thou, Goddess of the Silver Bow chaste Diana deign to become the leading star of our lucubrations; come perch upon our grey goose quill; shout in our ear the maddening Tally-ho! and ever and anon give a salutary "refresher" to our memory with thy heaven-wrought spurs those spurs old Vulcan forged when in his maddest mood whilst we relate such feats of town-born youths and city squires, as shall "harrow up the souls" of milk-sop Melton's choicest sons, and "fright their grass-galloping garrons from their propriety."
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